Just Call Me Haha: To-Do Checklist after Receiving a New Card

A common question I get asked is how to keep it all straight. A lot of people hate the idea of having to manage multiple credit cards and get stressed about updating billing across multiple accounts on autopay. In this post, I'll share which expenses I update (and why), when we get a new card, in order to achieve the minimum spend quicker to earn that sign up bonus (hint: I don't update everything)

This is REALLY going to vary from household to household, depending what card you opened, what the minimum spend on the card is and how it aligns with your spending habits. My goal of this post is that it:

Helps break down the mental load and documents it so that it's not as overwhelming.
Helps you consider your own budget, expenses, and consider how much of your time you actually need to put into updating autopayments in order to hit your next minimum spend.

So far this year I have opened one large (to us) minimum spend card and my P2 just opened the next large (to us) minimum spend card, where I really needed to be conscious about our spend strategy to hit the minimum spend in the time alloted. If you refer back to my last beginner post, I talk about knowing your budget and spending habits. From the list provided there, these are some of our common/reoccurring expenses as well as upcoming one-time costs:

Common Monthly Expenses: Childcare (including after-school care), groceries, internet, gas/electric utility, car insurance, dining out, sports/activities, beer/alcohol, prescriptions, cell phone streaming services (Spotify, Netflix, Disney, etc), Nuuly rental, coffee subscription, gas (for driving), therapy, etc

One-time/Less Frequent Expenses: These are costs you don't necessarily have every month, but are worth considering when looking ahead the next few months prior to opening a credit card, that may help you hit a minimum spend easier or quicker. Some of my households considerations are items like: Summer camp, taxes, car repair, home repair, large item purchase, medical/dental costs, car down payment, HOA, ski passes, travel, concert/sports tickets, birthdays, holidays, etc

To-Do Checklist after Receiving a New Card

When one of us opens a new card, this is the general list of accounts I update payment information on (ie add the new card to the account and set as default form of payment) to ensure we are putting our expenses on the relevant credit card that we are trying to hit the minimum spend on to earn a sign up bonus.

Re-occurring Costs:

Apple Pay: I rarely carry a wallet anymore and typically use Tap to Pay on my phone
Google Pay: I used to NEVER store my credit card info; however in the past year I've realized how convenient this is and how much easier it makes using the "right" card, so I've converted)
Grocery Account: We primarily do online pick-up through Kroger for groceries; so I make sure I add the card as default since groceries are a common spend item that add up!
Instacart: We use Instacart for Costco delivery; which typically is just once a month, but is another expense that adds up
Amazon: I REALLY try to limit how much money we "give" to Amazon, but inevitably there are enough purchases in a months' time that this adds up also
Childcare: Enough said - school or summer; these costs occur year-round and generally are a heavy hit.
Xcel: Our electrical/gas utility (Typically I do NOT put this on autopay because we usually get a new card every few months so I manually pay. However, our current card we are working on the sign up bonus for is the new Sapphire Reserve Business card, which allows 6 months to hit the minimum spend. In this case, I added the card and set up autopay)
Auto Insurance: Similar to above, I generally do not put auto insurance on autopay - I simply do manual pay monthly to remember to utilize whatever card we're working on a sign up bonus for. However, with our current card having a high spend but six months to achieve, I enrolled in autopay with that card.
Nuuly (clothing rental subscription): Usually I leave this on autopay with one of my Chase business cards to have reoccurring charges and keep in good standing; however with our current card having a high spend but six months to achieve, I enrolled in autopay with that card.

Upcoming One-Time Costs:

Epic Ski account: we signed up to renew our ski passes in April, but only paid $49 down at the time because I wanted to put the price of the pass (close to $2K for our family. Ouch! but so worth it.) on a new credit card to work towards a sign up bonus. This charge will hit in August, with whatever card is saved on file. Updating the account billing as soon as I received the new card makes it so I don't have to think about when the charge hits, if it's on the "right" card.
HOA: our HOA isn't terribly expensive, but it's paid once a year, so the timing was right to charge it to the new card we're working on the minimum spend for.

There ya have it! Above are some of our families major re-occurring and one-time expenses for the next 6 months. Of course, there's also a lot of beer purchased, Target runs, and dining out/carry-out that happen too. Those costs are all directly charged to whatever card we are working on the sign up bonus for (yep, I no longer use my 5% back Target debit card. In the long run, Target purchases spent towards a credit card's minimum spend to earn a sign up bonus are much more valuable to me than 5% cash back). When one of us gets a new credit card, I literally pull ALL of the other cards out of my husband's wallet to ensure he uses that card we need him to ;)

There are other reoccurring costs we have that I don't update the billing for; generally because the spend is smaller, we don't "need" those costs in order to meet a minimum spend, and I don't want to put in extra effort for a small return.

For example Spotify charges monthly to a Chase Ink Cash card for extra points, as does our internet. Disney+ is charged to my American Express Platinum to take advantage of the $20 monthly streaming credit. Etc. You can find a list of Common Charges and Benefits on my Points Tracker Spreadsheet on the "Card Benefits and Cards" tab, as well as a simple spreadsheet method for tracking monthly benefits (like $10/mo Uber/UberEats credit for Amex Gold Personal card).