Every time I put a charge on the card, I immediately enter the amount both in my credit card ledger and in my checking account ledger as an addition to the “to be paid” entry for that card at the scheduled payment date if it has gone beyond my monthly estimate for that card. I use an old version of Quicken and estimate all my expected expenses (including total credit card charges), having Quicken enter them 30 days ahead and adjusting as time goes on. I’m a freelancer and generally have to think 30-60 days ahead anyway, since most of my clients are 30 days net payers at best. I keep as much of my monthly expense money as possible in a high-interest online savings account, and transfer it over to the checking account before making the monthly payment — making more money from the savings account.

Even if you are in debt, instead of not charging more on the cards carrying a balance, you can often save lots on interest by paying ahead on your card for expenses in addition to your monthly paydown payment. Even if the pay-ahead amount is cancelled out by charges two weeks later – that’s two weeks less interest. Stretch the time between pay-ahead and charge as much as possible. I used to do this on my designated paydown card (the one I was putting most of my debt repayments into, to clear it first, generally the one with highest interest). I didn’t put my money into a savings account while in debt, but rather saved much more money by simply paying ahead for card charges like this in addition to my monthly payment on the prior balance. Extra payments can also be made each month for this purpose if you don’t have enough money to do it just once a month.

This works only if there are no lower-interest promotional balances (e.g., for balance transfers) on the card, since the bank applies payments to the lower-interest balance first. If I do special balance transfers for emergency reasons and carry a balance at such reduced interest rates, I do them on a clear card and stash the card away in an envelope, not charging any purchases on it until the balance transfers are paid off.

I also discovered that clearing off one card at a time helped because the bankers would miss my interest payments so much – they would make me offers for life-of-the-loan balance transfers that I couldn’t refuse. I got out of a large debt much faster with much less interest payments as a result. The last year while I was clearing a large debt, I wasn’t paying anything in interest (0%/no fee balance transfer deals). They hope you will mess up and end up paying big bucks to them, but if you’re careful – you can win rather than lose. I keep close track of all income and expenses and tax setaside in a spreadsheet (I set aside expected taxes from every payment I receive from clients in a savings acct) and especially interest on credit card loans, so it was great seeing that interest payment going down so fast.

0% on purchases deals are also great – just pay the minimum but stash the rest of the money for charges each month in a high-interest savings account, then pay off the card just before the deal ends. Again, the bankers are hoping you mess up, so be careful.

As long as your spending habits don’t change, i.e., you stay frugal, credit cards can be a wonderful money-saver and money-maker. Most credit card debt in the USA is not due to shopaholic behavior, by the way, but rather good reasons such as keeping afloat during an illness, paying medical expenses not paid by insurance, etc. Only a tiny amount (maybe 10%) is due to people buying junk they don’t need.

Also look into shopping portals that give you rebates for things that you need to buy online – if you’re careful and also take advantage of every free shipping offer available, it can help a lot.

How long does it take to produce 6 kids is dependent upon several factors. Prevalence of multiple births on either/both sides, adoption, etc.
Gestation is about 9 months.
But if there are multiples, they typically come early. Our twin girls were born 30 days early … coincidentally, that is how early I was born even though I was the only one being born to my mother that day. :)