Multiple credit cards

Four cards, four billing cycles, one very confident feeling.

The available limit is not your money and the minimum due is not the bill. NetWorth+ tracks each card as a liability with its own cycle, so you can see what you owe, when it is due, and what carrying it is costing.

Statement and due datesBalance as a liabilityNo bank login

One card, honestly

What is actually true

  • Statement balanceThe number that matters
  • Minimum duePay only this and interest starts
  • Spend after the statementNot on this bill. On the next one
  • Effect on net worthNegative, in full, from the moment you swipe

In short

NetWorth+ is a free Android app that tracks credit cards as liabilities rather than as spending accounts. Each card is held with its own statement date, due date, minimum due and outstanding balance, and the full balance is subtracted from your net worth from the moment a purchase is made rather than when the bill is paid. It can read card transaction alerts from your bank's SMS on the device, with your permission, so purchases appear for approval without typing. It works with UAE, Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Omani and Indian card alert formats, and it never requires a bank login.

Cards

No limit on how many

Cycles

Statement and due dates per card

Net worth

Balance counted in full

Bank login

Never required

The problem

A credit card is a loan that feels like a wallet

The interface is designed to feel like spending. The accounting is borrowing. Most people track the first and are surprised by the second.

Two things make multiple cards genuinely hard to hold in your head. The first is the cycle: a purchase on the 3rd and a purchase on the 27th can land on statements a month apart, so the bill arriving today describes a version of your life from several weeks ago.

The second is the minimum due, which is presented as though it were the obligation. Paying it keeps the account in order and leaves the rest of the balance to accrue interest — in the Gulf and in India, at rates that are usually quoted per month, which makes the annual figure less obvious than it should be.

What to keep in view

  • The statement balance on each card, and the date it must be cleared by
  • Which purchases have fallen into the current cycle and which have not
  • The total of all cards, as one liability, against your actual position
  • What a revolving balance is costing per month, in currency rather than percentage

How it handles it

Each card, on its own terms

Cycles kept per card

Statement date, due date and minimum due are held against each card rather than averaged into a vague monthly reminder. Four cards means four cycles, and they are shown as four cycles.

Counted as debt immediately

The balance reduces your net worth from the moment the purchase is made. There is no window in which spending on credit looks free, because there is no such window in reality.

Swipes arrive by themselves

Card alert messages from your bank can be read on the device and appear in the Financial Inbox with the amount, merchant and date. You approve them, so nothing is recorded that you did not confirm.

Payments you schedule

Set the payment as a scheduled item on the cycle you actually pay it, so it appears in the forecast rather than arriving as a surprise on a Thursday.

In practice

Getting four cards under control

1

Add each card as a liability

Current balance, credit limit, statement date, due date. Ten minutes for the lot, and it is the last time you will have to gather this information.

2

Turn on alert capture

From then on, purchases arrive as they happen instead of being reconstructed from a statement PDF at the end of the month.

3

Schedule the payment, not the minimum

Schedule what you intend to pay. If that is the full statement balance, the forecast will tell you whether it is affordable before the date rather than after it.

4

Watch the total, not the cards

Four balances is four numbers you can rationalise individually. One total is harder to argue with, and it is the one that appears in your net worth.

Reference

What the card app is telling you

Figure on your statementWhat it meansHow NetWorth+ treats it
Available limitWhat the bank will still lend youNot counted as your money
Current balanceWhat you owe right nowA liability, in full
Statement balanceWhat must be cleared to avoid interestThe figure the due date is attached to
Minimum dueThe least that keeps the account currentShown, and clearly not the bill
Unbilled transactionsSpend after the statement dateSits against the next cycle
Cash advanceBorrowing that usually charges from day oneA liability, recorded separately

Interest rates, fees and grace periods differ by bank and by country, and this is a description of how the app organises the figures — not advice about your card, your rate or whether to carry a balance. Read your own card agreement, which is the only document that governs your account.

What this does not do

NetWorth+ does not pay your card, does not connect to the issuer, cannot fetch your statement and does not know your interest rate unless you enter it. It does not offer balance transfers, does not recommend cards and earns nothing from any bank. It records what you owe so the number is in front of you.

Where this applies

Across the Gulf, and beyond it

Card penetration is high across the Gulf and the alert formats differ by bank and by country. NetWorth+ reads the common formats used in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman as well as India, including the three-decimal dinars, and leaves anything ambiguous in the Financial Inbox for you rather than guessing.

NetWorth+ also covers India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Kingdom and the United States. Currency handling is not limited to the list above — three-decimal dinars and zero-decimal currencies are treated correctly rather than being forced into two decimal places.

Questions

Good to know

Does it connect to my card issuer?
No. NetWorth+ never connects to a bank or a card issuer and never asks for a card number, PIN, CVV or online banking password. It works from what you enter and, optionally, from the alert messages your bank already sends to your phone.
How does it know a purchase happened?
Either you enter it, or you allow it to read bank sender SMS on the device. Card alerts usually carry the amount, the merchant and the last four digits, which is enough to route it to the right card. Nothing is recorded until you approve it.
Can it track a card in one currency while I think in another?
Yes. A card held in dirhams while you think in rupees, or a foreign-currency purchase on a local card, is recorded with the rate on the day of the transaction rather than being restated later.
Does it calculate the interest I am paying?
It records the interest and fees charged to the card when they appear, so you can see the real annual cost in currency. It does not model or predict interest for you, because the rules that decide it vary by issuer and by how you pay.
What about a card I only use for a subscription?
Add it, set the scheduled payment, and it stays visible. Cards that go quiet are exactly the ones that accumulate an annual fee nobody noticed.
I have cards in two countries. Does that work?
Yes. Each card is held in its own currency and all of them roll into one liability total, converted for display without rewriting the history of individual transactions.

Keep reading

Where else this fits

See the balance, not the limit

Four cards, four cycles, one total — and no card issuer needs to know you are counting.

Android. No bank login. No ads. Message reading is optional and off until you switch it on.