220: The Credit Card Habit That Helps Create Financial Clarity

A credit card can make two different financial pictures appear true at the same time: your bank account can show that you have money available, while your credit card shows that some of that money has already been spent. Linzy describes this as the spell of “magic free money”: the purchase is real, but because the cash remains visible, the spending can feel less immediate than it is.

In this solo episode, Linzy shares a simple practice she has used for years in her business and personal finances: paying her credit card every week. The habit began as a natural extension of her Profit First disbursements. When she moves money into her operating expense account, she also pays the charges that have already been placed on the card.

At the center of this practice is an important distinction. A credit card payment is not a new business expense. The expense happened when the card was used to purchase training, order an item, pay for lunch, or cover another cost. As Linzy says, the money is already gone. Paying the card simply moves money that was previously committed. Waiting several weeks to make that payment can create the impression that the money is still available because it remains visible in the bank account.

Weekly payments shorten the time between the spending decision and its effect on your cash. Linzy explains that if an operating expense account contains $12,000 while the credit card has a $7,000 balance, the business effectively has $5,000 available for future operating expenses. Paying the card makes that position immediately visible instead of requiring you to mentally subtract the balance every time you look at the account.

Linzy integrates this step into her weekly Profit First routine, but the idea does not depend on Profit First. It can become part of any regular money practice. Each time you review your accounts, you can look at what was charged, pay what your current cash position safely allows, and use the remaining balance to guide your next decisions.

The episode also addresses what this practice can look like when you carry historical credit card debt. Linzy emphasizes that debt is not a moral failure and that paying it down is not more important than paying yourself or maintaining enough cash to run your life and business. If the goal is to prevent new spending from being added to the historical balance, one starting point is to pay the amount of the new charges during each money session. You can then add a small, planned amount toward the older debt.

Small payments can create a more sustainable pattern than periodically putting every available dollar toward the card. A steady weekly amount lets you see progress without creating a cycle in which an aggressive payment leaves you short of cash and dependent on the card again. Linzy describes that cycle as “winning big and losing big.” Her alternative is stability: small, repeated actions that support financial progress without creating another cash crisis.

If you want a clearer picture of your available cash, fewer surprises when the credit card bill arrives, or a steadier way to reduce existing debt, paying attention to the card during every money session can help. The exact schedule can be weekly, biweekly, or monthly — whichever works best for you. The important shift is to bring credit card care into your regular financial routine so that spending, cash, and repayment remain part of the same picture.

Timestamps for this episode:

01:32 – Starting Season 16 with a Practical Money Habit

03:10 – Who the Weekly Credit Card Payment Strategy Can Help

05:17 – Why a Credit Card Payment Is Not a New Expense

07:07 – How Credit Card Statements Can Blur Your Financial Picture

09:01 – Integrating Credit Card Payments into Profit First Disbursements or Money Time

10:54 – Why Debt Repayment Should Not Create Financial Precarity

11:13 – How to Keep New Charges from Adding to Existing Debt

12:18 – Paying Historical Debt Down Slowly and Sustainably

13:18 – Using Small Weekly Habits to Create Consistent Progress

15:08 – Adapting the Practice to Your Money Schedule

Key Takeaways:

The expense happens when you use the card

Paying a credit card is not a separate expense. The spending decision happened when the charge was made. Recognizing that timing helps you understand which part of your bank balance is already committed.

Weekly payments show how much cash is actually available

Paying current charges removes money that has already been spent from the account where it is still visible. The remaining bank balance gives you a clearer starting point for future financial decisions.

Credit card payments can become part of regular money time

Linzy combines credit card payments with weekly Profit First disbursements. The same step can be added to any weekly, biweekly, or monthly money routine.

Carrying debt does not mean this practice can’t be implemented

If you cannot pay the full balance, you can start by paying for new charges so that current spending remains separate from the older balance you are working to reduce.

Debt repayment needs to protect your cash position

Putting every available dollar toward a credit card can leave you without enough cash and push you back toward using the card. A sustainable plan accounts for paying yourself, operating the business, and meeting personal needs.

Small, repeated payments can create steady progress

A planned amount paid each week can reduce historical debt without relying on dramatic repayment efforts. Consistency can make progress easier to maintain and easier to see.

About Linzy Bonham: 

Linzy Bonham is a therapist turned money coach who helps private practice owners and health professionals feel calm, confident, and in control of their finances through her podcast, workshops and comprehensive programs: Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners. 

It all started when she saw her extremely skilled colleagues struggle with the money side of business, with some leaving private practice, or avoiding starting one, because managing finances was simply too stressful.

Linzy set out to support helpers and healers with developing peace of mind about their money. Since so many were never taught money skills, she focuses on the “how” of making the business side of private practice doable — and even super satisfying. 

You can learn more about Linzy and her work at moneyskillsfortherapists.com/about-us

And you can follow along on social media here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linzybonham/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moneyskillsfortherapists/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moneynutsandbolts

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Click here to explore upcoming workshops and save your spot or register to get the replay.

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Episode Transcript

Linzy Bonham 00:00
I’ve noticed that for many of us, paying credit cards is something that we think about as a separate expense. It’s like, “Oh, throughout the month, you know, like my rent comes out directly, and I have these couple of things that I pay out of my bank account, and then I pay my credit card.” Right? We think about credit card money as separate money that we pay later.

Linzy Bonham 00:15
But the reality is every time we put a charge on our credit card, that money is spent. The money is gone.

Linzy Bonham 00:23
Welcome to Money Skills for Therapists, the podcast that helps therapists and health practitioners in private practice go from money confusion and shame to calm, clarity, and confidence with their finances. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by numbers or avoided looking at your business money, you’re in the right place.

Linzy Bonham 00:43
I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapists. Before we jump in, I want to remind you of something really important. Most of us highly skilled and competent therapists and health practitioners were never taught about money, not in grad school, not in supervision, not anywhere.

Linzy Bonham 01:00
And yet, here we are running businesses that need to take care of us while we’re busy taking care of others. It is a lot of pressure. So if part of you feels anxious about money, avoidant, or like a bit of a hot mess financially, I want you to know that you are not alone, and I am here to help. Through my free live workshops each month, I teach practical financial skills to help you feel more grounded, calm, and confident with your private practice money.

Linzy Bonham 01:24
You can see what’s coming up and save your spot to join live or register for the replay at moneyskillsfortherapists.com/workshops. Let’s get started.

Linzy Bonham 01:32
Hello, and welcome back to season 16 of the podcast. I’m so excited to be starting this season, and also s- 16 just sounds like a ridiculous number. Um, it helps when your seasons are generally only 12 full-length episodes long. We’ve also had some seasons where we’ve done our Feelings and Finances shorter episodes in the mix as well.

Linzy Bonham 01:53
But, uh, yeah, season 16, here we go. We are starting off the season with a solo episode that is more practical in nature. So let’s, let’s start practical. We’ve had a lot of conversations lately on the podcast that are far-reaching, philosophical, emotional, strategic. But today, I wanna talk about a very practical tip that I have and something that I’ve been using in my own business and mostly personal finances for a long time now, which is paying off credit cards weekly, and why this is something that I strongly suggest that you consider doing in your own business and personal life, if possible.

Linzy Bonham 02:33
This is something that I started doing in my own business a long, long time ago. Um, I noticed that when I made Profit First disbursements, it just seemed natural that when I was moving money from my income account into my operating expense account, I should also just put money on the credit card, which is where I’m actually spending my operating expenses out of.

Linzy Bonham 02:50
And when I mentioned this to Julie Harris, author of Profit First for Therapists, a few years ago, she also really liked this idea and picked it up, and she actually included it in her Profit First for Therapists workbook, which was really, really sweet of her. Because although it’s a very simple thing, it is a very powerful way to manage your credit cards, and I’m gonna talk about why that is.

Linzy Bonham 03:10
So paying off your credit card weekly is something that works if you are already intending to pay your credit card down. If you’re not able to pay your credit card all the way down ’cause you’re carrying ongoing debt, I’m gonna talk about that at the end. So don’t turn off the episode. We’ll talk about that situation at the end.

Linzy Bonham 03:26
But this strategy applies very clearly and directly to the situation where you’re planning to pay down your credit card at the end of the month, but gives you way, way, way more clarity on what’s actually happening with your business finances when you pay off your credit card every week rather than waiting until you get your credit card bill.

Linzy Bonham 03:43
Credit card companies make money from us carrying a balance with them, and there’s a couple, couple things that they do that make it hard for us to have clarity with what’s happening on our credit cards. Now, as I’ve talked about earlier in the podcast, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with carrying a balance on your credit card.

Linzy Bonham 04:01
That’s not a morally wrong thing to do. That’s not a stupid thing to do. It doesn’t say anything negative about you. But what credit card companies do on purpose is they make our credit cards feel really easy to spend money on, and they also make it a little confusing to be able to tell how much money is actually on your credit card.

Linzy Bonham 04:23
And they benefit from those things because they make money by us owing them money. They don’t make money from us if we’re paying down our balance every month because there’s no interest, right? If you’re paying down your credit card balance each month, your credit card is basically free. Uh, there’s no interest.

Linzy Bonham 04:40
But they start to make money when we’ve put more on our credit card than we intended to, and we can’t pay down all that balance, and the balance starts to build up a little bit, and then it starts to build up a little bit more, and then it builds up a little bit more, and you go to pay your credit card and you’re like, “Oh shit, my credit card bill is $10,000, and I only have $8,000, so I couldn’t even pay down the whole thing if I wanted to.”

Linzy Bonham 04:59
This is where credit cards start to make money from us not having clarity about the money that we have spent. I’ve noticed how successful credit card companies have been at this tactic of theirs by working with therapists inside Money Skills for Therapists and Money Skills for Group Practice Owners.

Linzy Bonham 05:17
I’ve noticed that for many of us, paying credit cards is something that we think about as a separate expense. It’s like, “Oh, throughout the month, you know, like my rent comes out directly, and I have these couple of things that I pay out of my bank account, and then I pay my credit card.” Right? We think about credit card money as separate money that we pay later.

Linzy Bonham 05:33
But the reality is every time we put a charge on our credit card, that money is spent. The money is gone. Now, credit card companies are like, “You can pay us that money later.” This is credit, right? So they want you to spend that money on your credit card and kind of forget about it. It’s like, almost feels like Monopoly money, credit cards.

Linzy Bonham 05:54
It’s like you spent the money, but you still have all this money in your bank account, so it’s like, was it even real, or did I get this thing for free? They want you to forget that that money is gone so that you’re spending more and more money. So again, when it comes to pay your balance, you have to hold the balance, you have to pay them interest.

Linzy Bonham 06:07
That’s when they start making money off of you. When we think about our credit card payments as a separate business expense to manage, then we are not actually being clear on the fact that that balance that you’re paying now is money that you spent three weeks ago or four weeks ago. You made the decision to spend that money when you actually had that charge go through on your credit card.

Linzy Bonham 06:25
When we start to pay it off each week, we start to be very clear and sober about what we’ve actually put on the credit card. So this is the first idea that I want to really put across, is payments to your credit card, that is not actually an expense. The expense happens when you make the charge on your credit card, and that’s when we need to be in touch with the fact that we made a decision to spend money, which is fine.

Linzy Bonham 06:46
Money is there to be spent, right? But the money that you spent to buy that training or buy that thing on Amazon or have a great lunch with your colleague, that money was spent the moment you put it on your credit card, not later when you pay the credit card. That money is already gone, right? We need to start to really be in touch with the fact that when we put the money on the card, the money was gone in that moment, not later.

Linzy Bonham 07:07
Because when we start to be in, really in touch with that and really clear about that, then we start to break the kind of spell that credit cards have over us, which is the, the spell of magic free money. The second thing that credit cards companies do, which helps them to kind of, like, mm, put us into a bit of a fog to pay interest, is that credit card statements are confusing.

Linzy Bonham 07:27
When you look at your credit card statement, you will see something very different than your typical bank statement, and that is that credit card statements, at least all the credit card statements I’ve ever seen, do not show you your running balance of how much money is on a card at a certain point of time.

Linzy Bonham 07:41
They just show you money, transactions that happened, never lined up to the actual month, always, like, within a certain period, and then they show you the minimum amount that’s due, but it’s laid out in a way that doesn’t actually let you see, “Okay, on this day, I made this decision on my credit card, and then my balance became $5,000.”

Linzy Bonham 07:57
And then the next day when I made this decision, then my balance was $5,500. Bank statements are very clear that way. We can see exactly when decisions in point in time affected our overall financial picture. Credit cards are not. And I have found this when I’ve been working with therapists in Money Skills for Therapists specifically, I’m thinking about that course, where we’ve looked at somebody’s credit card and been like, “Okay, wait.”

Linzy Bonham 08:17
If we put this on your tracking sheet, how do we make sure that the transactions that we have on your tracking sheet match what’s on the credit card? And it’s actually very hard to do. And it shouldn’t be hard, but credit cards companies benefit from it being hard because they want you to feel like you should just pay that minimum balance and worry about it later, right?

Linzy Bonham 08:37
Again, this is their business model. This is how they make money. What we want to do is take back the clarity of being able to see, we spent that money. That money is gone. This is how much money I actually have now. We wanna get out of this delayed relationship, delaying the pain. Paying your credit cards later delays the pain, but in delaying the pain, we also delay the reality that we just made a decision, and that money is gone.

Linzy Bonham 09:01
We don’t actually have it anymore. So I wanna talk now about the flow of paying your credit card weekly. For me, this flow is integrated into my Profit First disbursements because I use Profit First. So my personal flow of this looks like every Friday when I sit down to do my Profit First disbursements, I look at what is in my income account.

Linzy Bonham 09:23
Let’s say that it’s like $12,000 that arrived. Then I put it into my calculator, my Profit First calculator. I send the money off to all my other accounts based on the percentages that I set a long, long time ago that makes sense for my big picture financial situation. And then when I put the money into Op Ex, the next thing that I do is I pay the current credit card.

Linzy Bonham 09:45
This keeps me super sober about how much money I actually have, because when we don’t do this, we can have $12,000 sitting in Op Ex, which makes you look at the bank account and see, oh, I have $12,000 in Op Ex, but actually there’s $7,000 on the credit card, which means you actually only have $5,000. When you take that extra step of paying the credit card right away after you make your disbursement, you can actually see, oh, I have $5,000 for Op Ex, not 12, right?

Linzy Bonham 10:13
And I do this every single week. So every week when I do my disbursements, I pay that credit card, and then the amount that I see in Op Ex is the amount of money I actually have. If you’re not doing Profit First disbursements, I would still suggest every time you sit down to work on your money, when you do money time, just pay your credit card.

Linzy Bonham 10:32
You might notice that you can’t, right? Then we’re into some other strategic questions of how you wanna manage this. But if you can, then you’re going to be keeping yourself very clear and sober about how much money you actually have to work with. So again, this applies if you’re already in a position where you are able to pay off your credit card every week without putting yourself into financial precarity.

Linzy Bonham 10:54
‘Cause as we’ve talked about on this podcast before, paying down your debt is actually not more important than paying yourself. So let’s move into the second scenario. If you’re listening and you’re like, “Linzy, that sounds so great for you. Congratulations,” but that is not my situation. I am carrying debt on my credit card, which is m- many, many, many, many of us, many of you listening have debt on your credit card.

Linzy Bonham 11:13
So if that is the case, you can still be strategic about how you manage your relationship with your credit card. My first suggestion is if you are planning to not have your credit card grow, if your plan is to be paying down this credit card, the first thing that you could do is whenever you disburse your money, pay off your credit card for any new expenses you put on it that week. This is still keeping you sober.

Linzy Bonham 11:38
It’s like, okay, you know, this week I put $500 on the credit card, so when I sit down to take care of my money, I’m gonna pay $500 of cash onto that credit card. Now again, I’m clear and sober. I’m not putting new debt on the credit card that I can’t pay. I’m at the very least keeping it at a stable position where I’m not accumulating debt without having, like, a clear plan to do so, right?

Linzy Bonham 12:01
So that’s the first thing, is just pay down those new expenses. Now again, you’re keeping your- yourself really sober and clear about your cash position. You’re like, “Okay, you know, I had $8,000, but I put $500 on the credit card. Put that down. Okay, I have $7,500.” Now you are really in touch with what’s happening with your money right now.

Linzy Bonham 12:18
The second piece is that as you’re getting clear and clear about your credit cards and you’re making a plan to pay them down, you can pay down some of the historical debt that’s on your credit card each week when you manage your money. Again, this does not mean putting all the money you possibly can on the credit card.

Linzy Bonham 12:34
That’s not sustainable, right? That’s just gonna put you into the position where you, like, feel great ’cause you put a bunch on the card, and then you had to use the card because you didn’t have cash, and now you’re, like, backsliding, right? Nobody, nobody benefits from, like, feeling like they’re winning big and losing big.

Linzy Bonham 12:47
We do much better when we make a sustainable plan and we follow it little by little. If you look at your credit card, you look at your numbers, you zoom out, and you’re like, “Okay, my goal is I wanna put down $500 towards historical debt on the credit card each month. That means I’m gonna pay off my credit card in two years or a year, and that’s fine.”

Linzy Bonham 13:05
But I’m gonna put $500 more than I’ve spent on the card each month. Then if you spread that out into the weekly timing, if you’re managing your money weekly, it’s like $125 a week that you’re just gonna put on the credit card.

Linzy Bonham 13:18
It’s a small amount. We actually do much better as humans with micro habits, with doing things in small, regular ways, with, like, going for a 10-minute walk every day rather than trying to go to the gym for one hour every week. We actually do much better in sustaining small, regular habits. So put down 100 bucks extra on your card each week, right?

Linzy Bonham 13:41
Look at the new money that you spent on the card, pay that down, and then put an extra 100 bucks. Right now we know each month your credit card balance is going down $400 a month, but you are only experiencing doing that kind of, like, that extra $125 or 100 bucks at a time. Right now you’ve created a sustainable behavior that you can do every week that’s just part of taking care of your money, that has your debt going down, but doesn’t have you experiencing the pain of, like, “Blah, I just made another $1,500 payment on my credit card.”

Linzy Bonham 14:11
Now I have no money. I feel good ’cause I did this thing, but it was also restrictive and not sustainable, and then I’m gonna see myself fall off the wagon next week. Slow and steady wins the race, right? For most of us as therapists, that’s what our nervous system needs. We benefit more from stability, right?

Linzy Bonham 14:27
From regulation, not highs and lows. And also just in terms of humans, we do better by doing small, positive things on a regular basis. So that is how even if you are carrying historical debt on your credit card, you can still apply this weekly approach to taking care of your credit card. You can still see yourself making progress.

Linzy Bonham 14:48
You can still be sober and clear about how much money you actually have on hand to work with, how much cash do you actually have, which allows you to manage your money on your schedule, giving you clarity, giving you intention, rather than letting credit card companies confuse us and fog us, and basically trick us into paying them interest ’cause we accidentally overspent on our credit card.

Linzy Bonham 15:08
So as you’re thinking about your own situation, I encourage you to think about how you can integrate this kind of idea into a way that you manage your money at the pace that you manage your money. If you don’t manage your money weekly, if you manage it monthly, if you manage it bi-weekly, how could integrating taking care of your credit card into taking care of your money help to give you more clarity, help you understand more about what your actual cash position is now, and also help you see yourself making progress on paying down credit card debt, if that’s part of your financial picture?

Linzy Bonham 15:41
Thank you so much for joining me today. If you wanna feel more calm and confident about your money, I would love to have you join me at one of my free online workshops. I’m covering everything in those workshops from money mindset, to avoidance, to technical sides of managing business finances. You can explore the upcoming workshops and save your spot or register to get the replay at moneyskillsfortherapists.com/workshops.

Linzy Bonham 16:04
The other thing that I wanna make sure is definitely on your radar is we have a brand new WhatsApp community. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but we’re having a lot of fun. We’re figuring it out. You can join that private community by emailing us at hello@moneynutsandbolts.com. We are creating spaces in there for private practice and group practice so folks can ask questions, share resources.

Linzy Bonham 16:26
We’ve had special guests in there answering questions related to podcast episodes. We post the podcast episode in there every week for you to chat about and nerd out about and talk to me about. So if you’re interested in being part of that private community, email us at hello@moneynutsandbolts.com for an invite.

Linzy Bonham 16:41
Thanks so much for being with me today.

Picture of Hi, I'm Linzy

Hi, I'm Linzy

I’m a private practice therapist turned money coach, and the creator of Money Skills for Therapists. I help therapists and health practitioners in private practice feel calm and in control of their finances.

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