Autopay Is Making Us Worse at Managing Credit-Card Bills

Re:Autopay Is Making Us Worse at Managing Credit-Card Bills by lazide on Monday October 09, 2023 @01:26PM (#37822855)

It’s invisible in the sense that it requires no action on one’s part for funds to be transferred. Which enables (in many ways) nickel and dimeism, as it disconnects the original spending (nickels and dimes, often) from the actual withdrawal of funds from accounts.

You’d just see the overall bill slowly creep up with no clear cause. Frog boiling.

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Re:Autopay Is Making Us Worse at Managing Credit-Card Bills by WendyTheWillow on Monday October 09, 2023 @06:11PM (#37826105)

I disagree. Because you're not spending literal cash (it's already disconnecting the spending from the withdrawal of funds), a credit card sits somewhere along that spectrum. Once it's digital bits, the dissociative effect has occurred, credit or debt.

The only "pure" argument here would be to pay with cash, but the logistical cost heavily outweighs the psychological value if you go down that path, in my opinion.

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Re:Autopay Is Making Us Worse at Managing Credit-Card Bills by lazide on Monday October 09, 2023 @07:24PM (#37826734)

Or it’s a grey area. And at least some direct interaction on relatively short timescales (the same week) without it being easy to ignore (like a repetitive individual alert) is better than none?

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