Taking charge...

In the past few days I've been working to deal with the things I can control. Found out that most creditors will wipe out a late payment fee at least once, when the payment is made.

I've also made myself an Excel spreadsheet of all of my accounts. I put down all the relevant information, such as balance, amount due, amount past due, late/over limit fees assessed and the day of the month the payments are due. Then I color-coded each line: green=current, and under the limit, yellow=past due or over limit, red=seriously past due, over limit and in danger of damaging my credit rating.

After figuring out what I could send, I have four green, five yellow and two red (although two are yellow because they are a combined $12 over their respective limits).

The reds are my only major concern, as I'm getting a $58 fee from each (over limit and past due) and they were not willing to work with me on these fees.

But anyway, it's fun to look at all of my debt outlined with such pretty colors. I also might design an application for Lotus Notes which will allow me to track the debts...

 

Thanks for the tip.

What I'm hearing across the board so far is that late fees will usually be waived, but that not much can be done for the OL fees. Are you saying that once I'm back under the limit, they're likely to remove some of those as well?

 

I may share the Lotus Notes version as public domain, when I complete it. Anyone here use Notes?

 

Another question arose while working on my spreadsheet. Providian is the creditor of one of my accounts which is "in the red". I found them to be very uncooperative and rather rude. However, two of my other cards (in the "green") are managed by Providian also....thus, I intend to not use these. If I request that these accounts be closed, can this work against me in the future? Can they declare the entire balance immediately due and payable?

Also, won't they make the connection between these accounts?