Life has become much easier through credit cards, but with a tendency of impulsive purchase in most of us, things can go wrong with a long list of credit card bills to pay. To weed out this tendency of overspending, here are the five ways which we can look at tackling the use of credit cards.
Take income into consideration, not your credit limit
If you tend to sort out all your previously managed transactions and have a good credit score, chances are that the credit card companies will extend your credit limit. But that doesn’t imply exhausting all your credit simply because you have been granted for that. Always keep in mind, having a credit limit doesn’t mean having the same bank balance. Try to balance your overspending limits subject to your income. If you can’t have a check on it, you may seek the help of a credit card issuer to lower down your limit.
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Do monthly budget planning
Track down your overspending activities every month, now is the time for you to start setting a monthly budget. Identify your earnings every month and your expenses on your needs such as rent, food, milk, entertainment, and savings. Budgeting in this manner will help you set aside your ‘wants’ on which you sporadically splurge. Jot down your spend which will help you re-think over your buying decisions and avoid you from making the next impulsive purchase.
Set your credit card onto auto payments mode
Accept it or not, not paying your credit card dues on time leave you in distress. Setting auto-payment options ensure that the dues get cleared off in time. This permits you to reflect upon the remaining of your bank balance and helps you ascertain your spendable income, which results in curbing down overspend to a level.
Regulate using your credit cards
This process is easier to follow, you may find yourself spending considerably less with your credit cards just keeping it out of sight. Some ways to be adopted can include giving it to someone you trust for safekeeping, locking your credit cards and going in the extreme as freezing your credit cards. Try deleting your credit card details from virtual stores, which will prevent you from impulsive buying at the click of a button. These basic measures can help you gradually wean off this habit.
Move onto cash
Being the cashless economy, still going back to cash can have more benefits than have been possibly thought. Moreover, researches have shown that using your credit cards instead of cash can lead to higher spend, resulting in an impulsive purchase. The reason is simple psychologically – swiping your credit card is far much easier than to pay lots of cash.
Nowadays many of the stores promote the use of credit card and offer lucrative miles, reward points, and cashback on credit card purchases. But the enticement of easy money is too much to handle than just switching to cash. You’ll find it more tedious to be away from cash than to swipe with instant consequences.