2. Beware of fees. The easiest fee to control — and get rid of — is a late fee. It’s your responsibility to know when the billing cycle ends and to pay on time. If you have trouble remembering the due date, set up autopay, whereby payments are automatically deducted from your bank account.
If you do incur a late fee but have been paying on time for years, call your credit-card issuer and ask for a “good faith adjustment,” said Ken Lin, founder and CEO of CreditKarma.com, a website that researches and recommends credit cards, loans and insurance based on a user’s credit profile.
“If you are constantly incurring fees for overdraft protection, then it’s time to rethink how you use the card, and possibly switch to another.”
