In today's society the modern consumer has more debt than income. A great way to help ease the pain of owing money is to cut out any unnecessary expenses from your budget. One of these expenses is credit card late fees. The average credit card late fee is approximately $35.00. Added up monthly, that comes to around $420.00 a year. That money can easily be spent wiser. Lets see how we can avoid these late fees. Here are 7 great ways to avoid credit card late fees.

• Use Prepaid Credit Cards:
  By using prepaid credit cards you are eliminating any kind of billing all together. However, most prepaid cards require a monthly fee. This fee although, which is usually under $10, is normally alot lower than the price of a normal unsecured card late fee. Plus, using a prepaid card encourages living within your means and helps eliminate unexpected debt.

• Pay Your Bill More Often:
  

  With grace periods shrinking, scheduling two bill-paying sessions every month can help you stay ahead of the game. So if you can it would be wise to pay your bills two times a month. Also, request a due date that is easy to remember and that will work well with when you get paid. Also try to pick a date that takes into consideration the due dates of other bills and expenses.

• Automate Your Payments:
  Automating payments eliminates the need to remember due dates at all. It also allows you to not have to worry about mailing anything or getting to the post-office. When you automate your bill payments the credit card company automatically deducts the funds via EFT from your checking account. It usually only takes about 24 hours to process payments this way.

• Pay by Phone:
  Paying by phone helps you avoid late fees in alot of the same ways automating your payments does. One of the advantages of this method though is that you get to pick the exact day to pay every month. You can pay your bill when you know the funds are available in your checking account instead of worrying about getting the funds into the bank before the automatic dedection is made by your credit card company. This method is also extremely fast. Payments are posted to your account within 24 hours of your payment by phone.

• Talk to Your Credit-Card Company
  You always want to maintain a good talking relationship with your credit card company. By continually talking with them you will understand all of your requirements when it come to the terms of your agreement. Also, if you maintain good standing with your credit card company and normally pay your bill on-time, when the time comes you will probably be able to talk to them and avoid the late fee you are supposed to be charged.

• Read the Fine Print
  Remember to always read the fine print on any document that you sign. When you sign something, whether you know what the document says or not, you are signing a legally binding contract. If you do not read the fine print on that contract you might not have a full understanding of the requirements you have to do in order to fulfill the contract. By understand all the terms of your agreement you will know when and why the credit card company will impose its fees upon you.

• Add Up the Cost and Resolve to Be Debt-Free
  One of the biggest mistakes made by todays consumer is living outside of their means. The majority of people today aquire all the credit that there income will allow.In the end they are so far in debt and barely able to make the minimum monthly payments. Then when that comes to be they tend to re-finance there homes to pay off credit card debt. Which I guess is ok if you feel like starting over on paying that 30 year mortgage. You always want to take your current situations into consideration when applying for new credit. You also want to take into consideration the fact that always applying for credit can adversly affect your credit score in the long run. This situation is also a good reason to consider using prepaid credit cards, that way you will be able to only spend the money that you already have.

In conclusion, remember that your credit is a very important aspect of who you are. You will have to deal with the decisions you make regarding your credit for quite some time. I hope thes couple of tips will help you reduce the amount of fees your paying to your credit card companies and help you move in a positive direction toward being debt free.