Reader Discovers It’s Difficult to Pay the Balance to the Penny

Credit card companies use the average-daily-balance method to compute interest, which makes it nearly impossible to pay a credit card balance off to the penny, says Mary Hunt. jason cox/Shutterstock

Dear Cheapskate: This is petty perhaps, but how does one ever completely pay off a credit card account?

We paid off a credit card recently (Hallelujah!) by sending a check for the exact amount of the balance due taken from the monthly statement. The following month we received a bill for $1.91—all of it a finance charge! Sure, it isn’t much, but that was discouraging. Any suggestions? —Alan