Dont Pay Credit Card Membership Fees

A few years ago I realized that I was paying several hundreds of dollars in annual membership fees for several of my credit cards.

I read an article somewhere that said that most of us do not need more than one bank card, one department store card, and maybe one gasoline company gas card. It went further to explain that it is insane to pay an annual memebrship fee for the card either.

I was sick and tired also of having a dozen credit card bills being delivered to my home each month needing to be opened, paid, and mailed.

I took out all of my credit cards and layed them out into two initial piles: one for cards that I have used in the past year and the other for cards that I have not used in a year. I found a couple of cards that I paid an annual fee in the pile of cards that I haven't used for a while and called the 800 numbers and cancelled them. Then I cut up each card that I did not use for about a year and threw them away. I was lucky there was no balance that I owed on these cards.

Then I seperated the remaining cards into bank cards including American Express cards, department store cards, and gas cards. The first card that I got rid of was the American Express green card. I did not even ask for them to ignore the annual $50 fee. The deal with that card was that I had to pay the bill in full each month. I just told them to cancel it and dropped it like a hot potato.

I decided to keep one out of many bank credit cards. I called the 800 number of the card I used the most and asked for them to not charge me the annual membeship fee and they agreed. I cancelled and cut up the rest of the bank credit cards. VISA, MASTERCARD, and DISCOVER are accepted internationally. You can check with your travel agent how you can pay different expenses on your trip.

I looked at the department store cards and realized that they all accepted the bank credit card so I cut them up too and kept the bank credit card.

I looked at the gas cards and realized they were all from premium gasoline companies that charged more per gallon than most of the discount brands. I cut up all of the gas credit cards. Most of the discount gas companies accept the bank credit card, but I am glad I do my best to pay cash especially with todays high prices. I think paying in cash makes me realize I should not drive excessively or else I will be going to the atm many more times each week to pay for gas. I feel bad for others using credit cards to pay for gasoline at the pump knowing they will face big bills in the mail when it came time to pay for the gasoline.

I dont pay any annual fees for my credit cards. I get fewer bills in the mail from the credit card companies taking me much less time to pay the bills than when I had many additional cards. I save postage. I get an annual statement from my one bank card making it easier to prepare my income taxes than if I had to put together information from many annual reports or monthly statements.

You can consolidate your credit cards and save on annual membership fees. You will be glad you did.

Now I wish I could get a handle on my phone-internet-cable-tv bills and my family health bills. Do you have any suggestions?