Keeping track of manufactured spend
 

I used to keep track of how much I spend on mint.com. After I started manufactured spend, I don't quite know with certainty where my money is going: it's one big loop with some friction in between. Now my cards have real and manufactured spend. It's scary because it's easy to misplace a reload card (if you were not able to load it right away due to limits). It's also quite complicated to keep track of balances in various accounts (bluebird is on mint but a lot of others are not supported). I'm using pen/paper+Excel to kepe track of various transactions but it's a lot of work. I'm sure a lot of you are in the same boat. Any tips/tricks?

I found an iphone app called balance that is useful to keep track of cash. I tried a bunch of others that were for expense tracking and nothing has clicked so far.

i follow a simple rule, that keeps stuff in line.
load as soon as you buy -> bp as soon as loaded :D
no float

I use Google Docs, and then an excel spread sheet....that way I can update via phone, work comp, home or through someones comp. Generally I put in the purchase that day, latest next day.

I also keep the spends limited to a handful of cards so I'm not managing a bunch of different cards.

Yeah that's possible when you are doing cpl thousands not when going upwards of 30K 40K....
I can totally understand OPs dilemma as I myself sometimes go crazy with the numbers lol. Especially with the cards that I have AU users :) lol

That's my method. In and out on the same date or as close as possible. I load whatever the daily maximum is.

I have a list of accounts written and when the cards are bought and loaded I write the date next to each account. When the number of dates equals the monthly maximum I pause activity on that account until the next cycle.

the few ones i use dont bother me with monthly limits :D

I used to believe that float would keep our accounts afloat longer but account now has proved otherwise. I do float with BB/GB but I don't know if that helps.

I sometimes go on buying spree when I travel for work and I can hit multiple stores. Or just after my statements have closed.

Anyway the old scholl method of a small diary iwth a page for each card seems simplest right now.

I'll have to look into google docs app on iphone.

I work in the finance field, so wasnt hard to make a spreadsheet to track everything. I use Mint.com, extract data every Monday, run a macro that i made and ensure everything reconciles. Then pay all the CCs off.

awesome timing on this thread.

I was really fed up with how I was organizing my time for manufactured spend. What you don't realize is - a loop actually takes 3 hops (most of the time):
Hop #1. go to B&M store to guy GC
Hop #2. convert GC to BB/GB or MO
Hop #3. physically deposit MO to checking at bank branch or virtually deposit BB/GB to credit card or somewhere else.

Some methods require GCs/MOs floating between the hops, which is scary. I do not want to store 5k worth of MOs or GCs in my car.

So, I sat down and listed all the requirements:
1. each card, how much to put per month
2. how many GCs, where to buy - office supply, grocery, pharmacy, etc
3. Hop #2 is always WMT, so that is simple.
4. Hop #3 sometimes requires bank branch to be open (deposit to CC at bank branch)
5. Spending on the same card must be spread out to different times of the month
6. Minimize holding GCs/MO. Finish the loop the same day

oh BTW, I only want to do these activities on the weekend.

So, crunched it and basically came up with a PLAYBOOK that lists the set of "physical activities" for each weekend day - first/second/third/fourth Saturday/sunday of each month.

It goes something like:
Day Gift cards to buy WMT activites Bank branch/ATM activities
SAT1 Card1 -> 0.8k @ODP 0.8k -> GB @WMT
SAT1 Card2 -> 1k @GRO 1k -> BB @WMT
SAT1 Card3 -> 1k @GRO 1k -> MO @WMT 1kMO -> CHECKING @BANK1
SAT1 Card4 -> 1k @GRO 1k -> MO @WMT 1kMO -> CHECKING @BANK2

SUN1
SAT2
SUN2
...

(ODP - office depot, GRO - grocery)

So, now I have a plan for the whole month, take a print out and just strike out the acivities that are done. Also, saturday/sunday morning, I know exactly what I need to do, which cards I need to take, which stores I need to hit so that I can calcuate shortest route and so on..
I just came up with this yesterday. I will know how it goes next month.

I just separate my GC/VR/MP/etc into a separate wallet until they are loaded. Once they are loaded I put it in a cardboard box after I write what method I loaded it on to and the date. From there I use it to pay off whatever the next few credit cards that are closing and pay the full balance, anything after that or when I have a $0 balance gets paid from my checking account.

It's probably minor, but I don't like doing something like charging $2,500 to a Chase card and then paying off exactly $2500 to that same card in one payment.

This probably won't work for manufacturing $30-40k in a month (at which point some might say is excessive or even greedy), but it's been fine for when I'm manufacturing ~$10k in some months.

if most of your manufacturing occurs with the card issuers offering the best sign-up bonuses or you're trying to leverage 0% BT offers on some cards while manufacturing spend on others, your overall, card-level, and issuer-level utilization as reported on statements and to credit bureaus might be something to keep tabs on.

specifically, the timing of transactions posting, payments posting, payments restoring your available credit, payments being due, statements closing, and issuers reporting your utilization to credit bureaus is something i track pretty closely.

i'm sure most of us here pay off our balances before the due date, but timing can get tricky for those of us who are also aiming to keep all but a few cards from reporting any balance in the first place.

Timing is everything. I usually try to manufacture mostly at the beginning of a statement period, if at all possible, to give me up to 2 months to worry about it.

Keeping the reported balance low is becoming hard for me. I had family, health and finance issues beyond my control (got some money tied up I wasn't expecting to have issues with), so until that is resolved I'm just going to wait until things die down and I have less cards to worry about. For now, I'm waiting for a balance to be posted, immediately pay the balance off within a few days, and once I'm down from ~6 cards with a balance (from Manufactured Spend) to 2 with regular usage and 1 with very light usage, I'll be better able to handle it.

I created a new account in Quicken called 'Prepaids'. When I purchase a VR or GC with one of my credit cards, I set it up as a transfer to the 'Prepaid' account. Within the prepaid account it will show a deposit of say, 1011.90, and I'll write in a charge of 11.90 for the activation fee. I use the category 'Rewards' to track all my CC rewards, so I categorize the activation fees that way too, so I can easily see my net gains.

If I use the prepaids to load BB, it's a transfer to my BB account. For MO, it's a transfer to the bank account I deposit into + transaction fee. I can easily see how much unused value I have left by looking at the credit balance in the 'Prepaid' account.

I also like that by accounting for it this way, my total net worth isn't bouncing around insanely, since the CC charge is linked to Prepaid credit, and only the activation fees deduct from net worth.

Watch the crazy credit line utilization spin ups, especially on the AMEX's. BTDT with double that volume daily.

In your spreadsheets track % credit line utilization by card account, institution and all credit lines. Try to keep it under 50% in all 3 categories.:cool:

although I try my best to prevent balances being reported it happens. The dates can be different month to month and sometimes they don't credit payments when you expect. I've also noticed that even if your statement balance is 0, the bank will still report the amount of payment. Now if issuers start using that data they could figure out that you are spending huge amounts with other banks.. if their analytics departments is any good, I'm sure they have a way of figuring out what you are upto. They probably don't care if as you have paid it off.

I'm keeping a track of activity across all issuers and don't wanna hit more than 50% of my annual income with any issuer.