Some people are just bad at managing finances. I had a loved one who racked up $10k in credit card debt because autopay was set to pay the minimum payment. The

Some people are just bad at managing finances. I had a loved one who racked up $10k in credit card debt because autopay was set to pay the minimum payment. The payments were low enough that they thought they had more money than they did, and adjusted their spending accordingly. Eventually the interest caught up with their monthly expenses, and they came to me confused and overwhelmed. I helped them consolidate the debt and changed the setting to "full statement balance" - it's now been over a year with no issue. (We talk finances monthly to confirm that everything's still going smoothly.) Manually paying would have caught the issue before it snowballed. Setting up autopay for the full statement balance in the first place would have entirely prevented the issue, as the extra money went entirely to luxuries that they thought they could afford.