One of the simplest ways to make managing your money easier is to consolidate the way you spend your money. We have so many ways to pay now, it can be easy to lose control of where and how you’re spending your money. Most people have cash, checks, debit cards and multiple credit cards. Not only that, most people have cards with different banks and companies, which can make it even harder to organize and keep track of. There are a lot of differing opinions out there, and ultimately you need to do what works for your personality, but the easier you can make managing money the more successful you will be with it.
A while back I decided to do all my spending with my main credit card only. I have a credit card with my primary bank that has a good credit limit and low interest rate, so it makes it easy to manage and link up with my deposit accounts. Obviously you shouldn’t have any existing credit card debt, as this method could just add to your debt if not managed with discipline. The point is to use the flexibility and ease of a credit card, but pay no finance charges. In order to do that you have to pay off your balance every month. If you don’t have the discipline to make that payment every month, try a different method. The goal is to help you simplify your money management, not to put you into more debt.
To take it one step further, I decided to set up all the bills I could on automatic payment to that same primary credit card. Now, I don’t need to worry about making the 10 to 15 fifteen monthly bill payments for all of my various living expenses. I get to consolidate those down to one payment every month, and that’s to my credit card. It’s ridiculous how easy it has made my monthly finances. You won’t be able to put everything on your credit card (like your mortgage for example), but you should be able to make substantial gains in reducing the amount of bills you have to manage per month.
There are some additional benefits to paying all your bills and doing all your normal spending with your credit card. First of all, if you are signed up for some type of reward program, you can build up a lot of rewards in a short period of time since all of your expenses are showing up as new purchases every month. Also, if your credit card institution has a spending report tool, it can greatly help you to analyze where your money is going every month. That additional knowledge makes it easy to see where you can make improvements and how much impact they will have on your monthly cash flow.
Whatever makes it easier for you to get your finances in order, do it. Using a credit card as your primary source of paying your bills and making purchases can greatly reduce the amount of things you have manage on a monthly basis. You have to have the discipline to make it work, but if you do it can be a nice way to simplify your spending.
