Morning!
So right as I went to hit “publish” on this post, I got hit with a 2nd great credit card tip so you’re gonna get a two-for-one special today ;) Neither of which, btw, I’d ever heard of before in my 15 years doing this so of course I had to share!
The first comes from my friend, and fellow blog reader, Win (real name!), in response to my $500 subscription mistake I shared recently, and as he stated this would have most definitely prevented it!
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“I ask my credit card company for a new card with a new number every year. That cancels any services that I pay for automatically. The service contacts me and I decide if I want to give them the new credit card number.”
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HAH! Brilliant!
I asked him to explain more as I was intrigued as hell by this (was it really just to cut down on subscriptions?? Or was it more of a security hack?) and here’s what he wrote back:
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“Did I tell you the story about my daughter losing my credit card? I let her use it for shopping. She called and said “I lost your card! I’m so sorry!!” She didn’t understand that I’m not liable if someone finds my credit card and uses it. (<– True Fact!)
The next day, I called the credit card company and canceled it. They sent me a new card in the mail. It took 7 to 10 days. I think the pony express was faster than that. :)
Disadvantages? If you have any online payments like cellphone, Verizon will send you an email saying your credit card didn’t work. You have to contact them to give them your new number. I’ve been doing it for a few years. No problems, but I don’t make many online payments from my credit card. I pay electric, natural gas, etc from my bank account.
I do think it’s a good security idea. There’s a big biz in stolen credit card numbers, so changing your number every year should help.”
(UPDATE: So it looks like some card companies already do this automatically! Per a reader: “I just had something decline for my apple subscription and it turns out that my wife’s apple card automatically changes their number every 6 months!”)
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Ok so yeah – definitely good for security, but what a great way to force yourself TO REVIEW all your subscriptions each year too. And it’s not like it’s just a calendar item that pops up and you can brush it off – with this route you literally have to take action *right then and there* or the service you’re signed up for will be canceled!
Such a great idea, and for a few solid minutes I actually considered it… Until I realized I have over 25 places my card is connected to (10’ish bills + 15’ish charitable donations) and there’s no way I’d want to deal with that every year 🙃🙃 Def. works best if you only have a few accounts linked up and/or the patience of Mother Teresa.
Now onto the second hack…
This one comes from my personal proofreader, and blog fan, Lenny Bron, whose trick is a little more invasive but doesn’t require any major changes like that first idea:
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I have a new trick I’ve started ever since my C/C was electronically stolen a few months back (Chase is great at catching that stuff, btw).
I set my phone to get alerts every time the credit card is used at all. So now I know if something weird gets charged (even if it’s a subscription I no longer need) and I can cancel whatever it is right away or at least call the bank to stop the transaction.
So far, the system has been working well! And plus I can monitor if any of those pesky hackers are using my credit cards again!
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Another great tip at least in theory! It forces you to review all your charges EVERY DAY which is even better in the “paying attention” department! Of course, that can get annoying fast if you’re a big swiper, so it would be interesting to see if Lenny’s still doing this a year or two from now ;) Perfect for those who rarely use their cards though, or even better: those who only keep cards for *emergencies*! You’d know there’s something concerning going on fast in this case!
(UPDATE: A follow up from Lenny: “You can definitely set limits on the amounts you get notifications about. So if you’re not worried about anything spent under $100, then you can have the system ignore those. Also, you can choose what kind of notifications you get. If it’s something I want to see right away I let it notify me on my phone, but you can also just set it to notify you by email so you can pick and choose how you get notified (definitely will be less intrusive if you don’t want your phone going off all the time). ” Good to know!)
And btw, on the topic of Lenny, I gotta promote his side hustle here as a proofreader as he’s super fun to work with and great at catching all those pesky misstypings of mine (or even made up words, like misstypings!! Don’t you edit this one, Lenny!!). He reviews all my posts for me, and as you can imagine has a lot of patience ;) If you run a blog or small business and can use an extra set of eyes on things, be sure to reach out to him: TheBlogProofreader.com
So there you have it! Two great tips to consider!
Let me know if any of these ideas resonate with you and/or if you’re already doing them… And feel free to pass over any other creative hacks you have incorporated into your financial life as well! They’re all super helpful and you never know how much of an impact they’ll have on others!
Big thanks to Win and Lenny for letting me share their ideas here, and huge thanks to all of YOU for always reading. Will see ya back here again soon 🙏
FYI: Lenny proofreads my posts *after* I publish them, so if you come across any errors today that would be why! I’m too lazy to send them to him first to proofread ;)
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Goodmorning J$$!!
I had to chuckle at the second tip cuz I did set up my card (wife and I on same account), and lets just say my wife tends to swipe the card more than I and it got really annoying getting a text for each purchase. Also, she wasn’t down with it because it felt like I was keeping tabs on her. So now I just get emails on any big purchases and just review bill regularly…..happy wife happy life :-)
Have a great one!
HAH!! Didn’t even consider that! 😂
Great post – appreciate different perspectives! I too have been impressed with Chase and their ability to ID fraud.
glad you liked it!
Maybe times have changed but the first scenario has not happened before on cards when I get a new number. I actually spoke a bank rep about this, wondering if I would have to update the merchants with new credit card number and they told me that those recurring charges would still go through with the old account number. This was 10ish years ago, and I think American Express, so maybe things have changed since then…
I should do the second hack, as I’ve been caught by a year-long subscription I didn’t want automatically renewing, ouch!
yeah those yearly ones are much trickier than the monthly ones! luckily most will offer a refund if you catch it close enough though and ask nicely 👍
Great idea, I am going to try this with both my cards.
Let us know what you think in a few months please :)
My hack for most subscriptions: I sign up for whatever it is, and then I immediately cancel it/set it not to renew – so basically I’m turning it from a subscription into a one time payment. When the period I’ve paid for runs out, I can sign up again (and sometimes will get a discount offer for cancelled subscribers) if I still want it. This avoids 99.% of accidental/unwanted recurring subscription fees.
love it!! wouldn’t work for those monthly subscriptions as much I don’t feel like (too quick?) but def. see the benefit of it for yearly or quarterly ones/etc… Thx for chiming in!
Thank you so much for including me in this J!
And to follow up on my “hack,” you can definitely set limits on the amounts you get notifications about. So if you’re not worried about anything spent under $100, then you can have the system ignore those. Also, you can choose what kind of notifications you get. If it’s something I want to see right away I let it notify me on my phone, but you can also just set it to notify you by email so you can pick and choose how you get notified (definitely will be less intrusive if you don’t want your phone going off all the time). Again, I mostly use Chase for my credit cards, but I have a feeling most credit card companies are able to offer this as well.
Ahhhh yes, didn’t realize you could set limits up like that – very smart.
I recently had to get a new card number because of a fraudulent charge that appeared, and it really was a hassle setting everything back up again. But I use my card for a decent number of regular purchases so I can get those travel points! That being said, I do agree that it was helpful for getting rid of some subscriptions I no longer needed. I had set up some charitable donations a few years ago and was struggling to cancel one of them that I no longer wanted to support. The new number solved that problem!
Not really a hack, but I’ve gotten in the habit of going through my card statement weekly when I balance my budget, which has helped a lot on both of these fronts. My card does a pretty good job of alerting me to fraud, but I do still like to manually go through it myself just to make sure nothing looks fishy. But weekly has been good enough for me – I think I’d go insane if I got regular alerts on my phone, and would probably just default to ignoring them before too long.
Weekly is pretty impressive! I do it monthly and haaaaaaaaaaaaaate it haha… so many transaction to review in one sitting and so boring!! And plus by the end of the month you forget about half the purchases anyways and have to research to make sure they’re legit 🙃
I like the idea of changing one’s card every year, but then the pain of changing all the things you have to or DO want to pay for lol. Thankfully I don’t have many subscriptions at all, and monitoring one’s transactions are important. Every transaction though, that is dedication!
I review it all at the end of the month but doing in smaller daily chunks would make it easier and less annoying :) You’d catch stuff faster too that way!
I’ve been doing #2 for years. I get a notification for any charge (I have it set at $1). Doesn’t bother me at all. Also means I don’t need to do #1 since I’m fully aware of all my auto charges too.
You’re right on that – it does solve #1 problem!
I do tip #2 but it’s to prevent fraud. What’s funny is that the day after setting it up, I got two transaction notifications that were fraud (someone getting gas) but have yet to see one since (I set it up maybe 8 or so years ago).
The first hack sometimes doesn’t work. Credit card companies are smart now and they transfer subscriptions to the new card.
Wow – they are smart!! haha.. whatever it takes to get that money!!!
Too weird on the fraud stuff… I bet it felt great to catch it though and solidified your reasoning for setting it up 😎