41% of credit card debt starts with a surprise expense — 3 ways to stay ahead

It starts with an emergency: surprise medical bills, new car tires, a home repair that couldn't wait. Before long, what felt like a temporary fix turns into ballooning debt. According to a recent Bankrate survey, 41% of credit card debtors say their debt came primarily from emergency/unexpected expenses, and 61% of them have been carrying that balance for at least a year.

To avoid this debt altogether, it's crucial to have a cushion for when the next unplanned expense hits. Here are three ways to stay ahead.

Creating some friction between your checking and savings accounts can actually be a good thing, especially when you're trying to build up a cash cushion for a rainy day.

Since high-yield savings accounts are typically offered by online banks that aren't tied to your checking account, transferring money between them and your main bank account isn't always instant, which can work in your favor in this instance. HYSAs also earn much better returns than your standard checking account, so it pays off to not hoard all your money in a single checking account. Once you open a HYSA of your liking, set up an automatic transfer on payday so you're growing your balance without thinking about it.

Both the Western Alliance Bank High-Yield Savings and the EverBank Performance Savings offer some of the strongest APYs on the market currently and low (or no) minimum deposit or balance requirements. Neither have monthly fees, either.

To streamline your finances in preparation for an unexpected expense, an expense tracker app can help you see where every dollar goes.

PocketGuard will even notify you when you're near or over your limit for a spending category and lets you set custom rules to monitor specific merchants or accounts. It also links to over 18,000 institutions, so everything from your checking account to your credit cards can be observed in one place.

Monarch syncs with more than 13,000 financial institutions and lets you customize your dashboard so the stuff that matters most to you is always front and center. (Users rave about the dashboard.) Find the subscriptions you forgot about, the categories where you're consistently overspending and redirect even a little of that toward savings.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Where you bank altogether can make a difference in handling an emergency expense. Credit unions are member-owned nonprofits, which means they are more likely to work with you when things get hard. You may be able to access a personal loan or an emergency bridge loan at a much more manageable rate than what a credit card would charge you. The key is getting in and having a relationship with your credit union.

The best credit unions are those that anyone can apply to.

Alliant Credit Union offers a no-fee checking account with monthly $20 ATM fee reimbursement and early payday. It also has a high-yield savings account, a balance transfer and cash-back credit card, all sorts of loans, plus retirement accounts. Becoming a member is easy: you just have to join through the Alliant Foundation for $5, which Alliant will donate on your behalf.

Consumers Credit Union (CCU) offers a fee-free checking account as well as a rewards checking offering a high APY. There are plenty of other financial offerings such as savings accounts, loans and credit cards, too. There's a two-step process to become a member: pay $5 to the Consumers Cooperative Association and deposit/maintain a minimum $5 in your CCU savings account.

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