somebody wrote:

> 
> Why is it so difficult to pay off your balance each month, especially in
> this day and age of electronic banking? It takes less effort than trying to
> maintain a positive balance.

Similar effort, I agree.  It's completely irrational I'll admit, but I 
find it easier, psychologically, to refresh a sort of pool or buffer 
against future charges than to react to charges after the fact.  I know 
I'm being a baby but I also know how to lookout for my flaws after being 
tripped up by them over the years.  Maybe it allows, if you will, a 
little more asynchronicity, or decoupling, and somehow that helps?  It's 
not a big deal, but then also why is it such a big deal for the bank if 
I want to keep a +ve balance?



> 
> That's why there's a delay and a grace period. Even if you forget a payment,
> calling within a reasonable time and saying you got the bill late in mail or
> some other lame excuse, they will rollback the charge - remember, they want
> your business.
> 
I'll admit to being ill-informed and unsophisticated in these matters.



> 
>>Unbelievable.  So I am forced so play a sort of Russian roulette trying to
>>keep the balance equal to my charges and I am allowed a $50 buffer to
>>work with.  I dunno.  I feel conspired against.
> 
> 
> I am not sure you have a grasp of how credit cards work. There's no russian
> roulette, you get a bill, you pay it. It's no different than phone, gas,
> electricity, water, taxes, insurance... etc. Do you also maintain a positive
> balance on all of those?
> 


Yes on phone and taxes.  Wife pays the others. Well, I'd forget the 
quarter tax payments if not for my wife reminding me. I do fall behind 
on the cable payments but seem to muddle my way through that somehow. 
They just keep adding to the charge.  (I should check if there's a 
penalty.) I am inconsistent, I agree.  It worries me that the bank 
charges a penalty but not so much the Cable guy.

In part, I think I got surprised by this just after listening to a radio 
show where a guy just wrote a book about the abuses of the credit card 
industry.  So I was primed to react.

I realize I was a little over-dramatic with the Russian roulette line. 
In my defense I developed the positive balance idea back when I 
experimented with using the card for buying gas while driving taxi.  I 
would buy gas when 'bargain' opportunities arose as I drove to different 
parts of the city.  But the charges would come in from the different gas 
companies very erratic and out of sequence and I always got nervous 
around the due date.  I didn't want to spend time every day transferring 
money onto the card so I hit on the +ve balance idea.  I think my 
tripping their automatic refund thing must be related to amount as well 
as time.  I don't remember this happening then but it involved lower 
amounts of money.  But you have to understand, my mind is my clearer now 
than it was even as little as two years ago.

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