How Being Too Busy Can Hurt Your Credit

These days it seems like busy is the new black, but your inability to say no can come with side effects beyond being tired and stressed. Leading a busy life can have a negative impact to your credit in ways you never realized.

You forget to pay your credit card bills on time. When you’re too busy, deadlines continually come and go. If you’re a busy person, you’ve undoubtedly missed a payment or two because of your busyness. It takes extreme diligence – or a personal assistant – to help keep up with all the billing due dates. Late fees, higher interest rates, and damaged credit are all very good reasons to reduce your commitments and free some up some.

You don’t monitor your checking account balance. While smartphones and internet have made it much easier to check your account balance before spending, even that convenience may not compensate for an extremely busy schedule. If you’re too busy to keep track of your account balances, you risk overdrafting your checking account. While an overdraft doesn’t directly affect your credit, a returned payment for your credit card can hurt your credit.

You make impulse purchases. Busy people don’t have time to stop and think about ordinary purchases. They also do not have time to consult their budgets to figure out whether they can afford a purchase before making it. So, unfortunately, busier people may have a tendency toward impulse purchases which can run up big credit card balances that are too expensive to repay.

You don’t manage your credit limit. Because you’re too to check your credit limit, you mindlessly swipe your credit card. The risk is maxing out your credit card, spiking your credit utilization (the ratio of your credit card balance to the credit limit), and hurting your credit score. Your credit card issuer may offer a smartphone app you can use to monitor your balance or even sign up for balance alerts to warn you when you’re approaching your credit limit.

You don’t notice fraudulent purchases. Data breaches have been on the rise in the past few years, leaving millions of credit card numbers exposed to hackers. You can’t always count on your credit card issuer to catch or warn you of fraudulent credit card charges. But, being too busy can keep you from paying close enough attention to your credit card transactions to catch fraud. As a result, you could end up paying for charges you didn’t make or suffering more damage credit.

It’s much easier to maintain a good credit score than do rebuild a damaged credit score. Dedicate at least an hour each week to reviewing and managing your credit and bank accounts.