I thought that was lettuce for a second

Ah ok! This was something I had been thinking of doing once I hit 3 months in the emergency fund. (Holiday spending might have set me back a bit but I should be to that point by the end of February or so)

This is my first job out of college and I was basically broke once I took it after paying for associated moving expenses so savings has been a little slow.

Hm i wonder if that’s a symptom of how I have my finances organized. I’m in the process of turning my 1 month buffer I currently have into a healthy 3-6 month emergency fund. It’s a little juvenile but it keeps all the bills paid on time, a consistent amount going into savings, kitchen stocked, etc. but does keep me perhaps overly wary of larger purchases like new (and needed) furniture.

Right! I just meant I want to make sure I’m keeping the card active every month rather than treating it as a “last option” and ending up with holes and dry spells in my credit history

I think I chose bad wording, rather I’m looking at how credit should impact the logistics of how the budget is paid/distributed, what things it makes sense to move from one checking account onto a credit card to be paid at the end of the month rather than immediately.

By “wanting to build credit” I just mean having consistent payments and balances month to month rather than say saving the card in case of emergencies or large purchases that would leave dry spells or holes in my credit history.

I do think your explanation though lines up with more of what I meant to say, if I should stop using the checking account for immediate purchases but rather defer them to the credit card and treat the checking account as the “credit card balance budget” that I use to pay off the balance every month

Ok I think I understand, I thought the wisdom was to keep the balance to what you can pay by the end of the month. I’m not suggesting I increase my budget for x BECAUSE of credit but rather suggesting if it would be a wise choice to “replace” my usage of the “variable” debit card with the credit card so that by the end of the month I have a full pay check stashed away to use to pay off the credit card amount RATHER than the current system when I have half a paycheck every 2 weeks, with the first “2 weeks” having a fair portion going immediately to bills. Obviously there are ways to budget around this so it doesn’t feel like I have significantly more money in the second half of the month than I do in the first half but I wonder if it would be easier to think and plan around those expenses using a credit card — although perhaps just moving all my utilities into the card all together would be easier? And then just using the $200 or so saved on the “static” account to go towards the credit balance EOM ?

I haven’t used the card for much yet but would like to build credit. I’d also like to pay things off in a fair amount of time so I can cover both smaller expenses but also larger expenses by freeing up credit easily

Aldi is worth it, there is also one in Fairmount that I find somewhat easier to get to but I have a twice weekly commute into center city where I just take broad street line. Like it’s right next to the Fairmount exit.

Aldi is roughly 1/3 the price of Acme and you can easily stock up for the month for only $60 or so. I go about twice a month and spend about $30 per trip if I don’t get anything like a $12 bottle of tide or like a $20 coat rack or stuff like that