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Avoid Late Fees With Prepaid Credit Cards
By: Joshua Riddle
In today’s society the modern consumer has more debt than income. A great way to
help ease the pain of owing money is to cut out any unnecessary expenses from
your budget. One of these expenses is credit card late fees. The average credit
card late fee is approximately $35.00. Added up monthly, that comes to around
$420.00 a year. That money can easily be spent wiser. Lets see ow we can avoid
these late fees. Here are 7 great ways to avoid credit card late fees.
Use Prepaid Credit Cards:
By using prepaid credit cards you are eliminating any kind of blling all
together. However, most prepaid cards require a monthly fee. This fee although,
which is usually under $10, is normally alot lower than the price of a normal
unsecured card late fee. Plus, using a prepaid card encourages living within
your means and helps eliminate unexpected debt.
Pay Your Bill More Often:
With grace periods shrinking, scheduling two bill-paying sessions every month
can help you stay ahead of the game. So if you can it would be wise to pay your
bills two times a month. Also, request a due date that is easy to remember and
that will work well with when you get paid. Also try to pick a date that takes
into consideration the due dates of other bills and expenses.
Automate Your Payments:
Automating payments eliminates the need to remember due dates at all. It also
allows you to not have to worry about mailing anything or getting to the
post-office. When you automate your bill payments the credit card company
automatically deducts the funds via EFT from your checking account. If for some
reason you are un able to obtain a checking account a prepaid credit card works
much the same way, but without the paper checks. It usually only takes about 24
hours to process payments this way.
Pay by Phone:
Paying by phone helps you avoid late fees in alot of the same ways automating
your payments does. One of the advantages of this method though is that you get
to pick the exact day to pay every month. You can pay your bill when you know
the funds are available in your checking account or prepaid credit card instead
of worrying about getting the funds into the bank before the automatic dedection
is made by your credit card company. This method is also extremely fast.
Payments are posted to your account within 24 hours of your payment by phone.
Talk to Your Credit-Card Company:
You always want to maintain a good talking relationship with your credit card
company. By continually talking with them you will understand all of your
requirements when it come to the terms of your agreement. Also, if you maintain
good standing with your credit card company and normally pay your bill on-time,
when the time comes you will probably be able to talk to them and avoid the late
fee you are supposed to be charged.
Read the Fine Print:
Remember to always read the fine print on any document that you sign. When you
sign something, whether you know what the document says or not, you are signing
a legally binding contract. If you do not read the fine print on that contract
you might not have a full understanding of the requirements you have to do in
order to fulfill the contract. By understand all the terms of your agreement you
will know when and why the credit card company will impose its fees upon you.
Add Up the Cost and Resolve to Be Debt-Free:
One of the biggest mistakes made by todays consumer is living outside of their
means. The majority of people today aquire all the credit that there income will
allow.In the end they are so far in debt and barely able to make the minimum
monthly payments. Then when that comes to be they tend to re-finance there homes
to pay off credit card debt. Which I guess is ok if you feel like starting over
on paying that 30 year mortgage. You always want to take your current situations
into consideration when applying for new credit. You also want to take into
consideration the fact that always applying for credit can adversly affect your
credit score in the long run. This situation is also a good reason to consider
using prepaid credit cards, that way you will be able to only spend the money
that you already have.
In conclusion, remember that your credit is a very important aspect of who you
are. You will have to deal with the decisions you make regarding your credit for
quite some time. I hope thes couple of tips will help you reduce the amount of
fees your paying to your credit card companies and help you move in a positive
direction toward being debt free.
About the Author:
Joshua Riddle is the head editor at http://MyPrepaidCredit.Com. He has gained his experience in the areas of credit cards, credit repair, and credit maintainence through his own personal life experiences. For more great articles of this nature check out http://MyPrepaidCredit.Com
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