Originally Posted by
notquiteaff
I pay every card manually (utilities get auto-paid). But I still have auto-pay set up to pay the minimum amount on the day the payment is due, as a safety net. One of the downsides of optimizing credit card use and reads is that I have a dozen cards. Not all will have a charge every month, but on average six or seven will have a balance due every month. I review the charges on a regular basis and manually schedule payments when the statement closes (I have a spreadsheet to track this). The safety net of auto-pay is for the case where I am unable to manually pay, e.g., if I get hit by a bus and end up in a coma for a month. I don’t want my wife to have to deal with my credit card scheme, especially not in that circumstance, so it’s auto-pilot time to “keep the plane in the air” while I am recovering. At a cost, of course, because minimum payment means interest, but I accept that risk.
The scenario the OP encountered seems fairly unusual (I rarely return something and very rarely have a credit balance). And it seems like a Chase bug they should be willing to fix.
That is WHY I suggest setting up PAYMENT DUE ALERTS which would definitely NOT let you mess up even with a doz cards to tend to at any given month...
Besides, with MONEY software, you do NOT need that spreadsheet. It is a tremendous tool to help people manage their financial transactions of ANY KIND. The mere fact that Microsoft discontinued the product 10 years ago yet there is still a VERY ACTIVE USER FORUM on this product speaks for the product's functionality and usefulness. Personally the ONLY thing on my computer that I diligently back up every 7 to 10 days is MONEY. Everything else I can easily afford to lose should the computer crash, but I definitely would be in pain if I lost MONEY without a back up copy within current 30 days. It keeps track of every single financial transaction in our household - from banking to brokerage to lowly retailer gift card balances etc, at any given time, provided I keep my update entries on a timely basis. It works N times better than a spreadsheet, much better than its peer offerings (such as Quicken and Mint) at the time and still now.