Paying Your Council Tax or Other Utility Bills With Credit Cards

This is the bad side to credit cards. People who are not budgeting their household expenses properly are now paying utility bills and tax with credit cards. It is a growing problem and is helping to grow the credit card debt in the UK. The thing is if you are paying this month’s bills on your card, when does it stop? Will you be able to pay next months bills? Where are you going to find the money for that?

Here is the answer put all your bills on the card. Why not? It’s easy, frees up the rest of your funds to have fun with, eat out and buy nice clothes. The thing is it’s a bad problem. Eventually you are going to have to pay the credit card back. Your minimum payments will just get bigger and bigger. Eventually you may decide to get another card to help with the monthly expenses of council tax and electric bills, but this is not a long term solution. Eventually this will catch up with you and then where will you be. In financial disaster, that’s where.

Avoid this by making a household budget. Draw up a list of all your expenses. Work out how much you need to pay out each month. How much is your income after income tax. Then work out how much you have as an expendable income. This chapter on UK Financial Options is not the place to go into huge detail here but look on the net for advice on drawing up a household budget or check out our extensive financial guide on this site. Whatever you do find an alternative to paying bills with credit cards.