On a local scale...

I read A LOT of personal finance blogs, and several of them recommend putting bills and such on credit cards to reap the rewards offered. So, I thought I would try it with my American Express card. I mean, I get 1%, 2% or 3% of my purchase back, right?

Well, 30 days into this experiment, these are the numbers:

Previous Balance: $618.99 (from last month -- and was paid off)
Payments: $-1,268.99
New Charges/Adjustments: $2,243.49
Outstanding Balance: $1,593.49 (after paying $650.00)

The amount of money in my checking account: $831.00. $150 of that will go into various savings account (can you hear the sounds of pain? This saving thing is really, really hard). So, I'm taking $800 from a 0% credit card and applying it to my American Express card. Now, before you say, "Oh, yeah, well why did you spend $2200 in a month?" remember that $1200 is daycare. Yes, daycare. We had to pay the first month, plus $300 registration, $30 for key fobs, etc. etc. So, it all went on the card, primarily because sexy husband works for a university and didn't get paid for 10 days over the holiday. So let's see how the numbers stack up, reward-wise:

$2243.49 x .01 = $22.43

The cost of not being able to pay it off the end of the month, in interest:

$1593.49 compounded daily at 17.21% (.0472 daily interest rate) = $26.14 a month. So, if I can't come up with the rest of the money the end of this month, I will lose 3.71. If I can come up with the money, I will have cost myself a lot of stress for...$22.43. Is it really worth it?