Comments on: Caution! Credit Card Crossing!

By: Dividends4life

Dividends4life — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:31:15 +0000

Good read, thanks for sharing! This is tough time of the year for a lot of people who are normally good at staying on budget.

Best Wishes,
D4L

By: Tina

Tina — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 01:57:32 +0000

Both of the above comments are EXCELLENT! Whether you spend cash or use credit, keep track. Don’t wait for the bill to come in the mail.

Also, even shopping for Christmas, being wise is a good thing. Are you buying it because the person could really use it, or will it be just another thing to get lost in the back of a closet somewhere?

By: kitty

kitty — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 04:59:29 +0000

“How do you keep track of your credit spending, especially during the holiday?”
I try to avoid stores during the holidays alltogether. I get gifts in advance. I hate crowds, and there’ll be even more sales in January, so why waste time? As to the decorations – I already have enough, so I don’t feel the need to buy more.

In terms of credit spending in general, I simply never make a decision of “buy” or “not to buy” based on how I pay for it. I always think if I need whatever I want to buy or if I want it badly enough to spend the money. With clothing and jewelry I also think – “where am I going to wear it? is it really better than what I already have or is it just another nice shirt/blouse/dress?”, “is it worth the price?”. Additionally, I always have an idea how much I am willing to pay for an item even before I see the price.

As a result I don’t make that many purchases, so I keep the ballpark figure of how much I spent in my head. I’d imagine it would be more difficult if I had kids. But I do keep all of the receipts, so I think if there had been any danger for my spending more than I can comfortably pay in full without tapping into savings, I’d probably be adding up the receipts after each purchase and calculating how much money I have left.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:31:39 +0000

Everyday I take my receipts from my Credit Card purchases and manually enter them into my clearcheckbook.com account. I find that manually entering the data, rather than letting some place like mint.com retrieve it for me, makes me face exactly how much I’m spending, and I tend to have a better handle on my purchases.