Had a long talk with myself about my credit card use

mathjak107 said:
we charge every bill we can on our cards ..we get thousands of dollars in points and pay our cards off monthly ..have not paid interest in decades ….

it is amazing how many thousands of dollars you can get from reward points and deals if you are responsible with credit cards .
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Guess ya gotta $pend to get

Heh, I don't

Haven't paid interest in decades either

No 'points'

But saved thousands of dollars
 
Ken N Tx said:
Agree....Same here...
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recently i downgraded my chase sapphire reserve card to the chase sapphire preferred …

i then sent my wife a link to get one too …i got 20,000 points for referring her and she got a whopping 100,000 points .

she had to spend 4k in 3 months …since we had to book a vacation to florida where we have a wedding. it was a piece of cake to do .

now both our points are multiplied by 25% when used through the chase travel portal or through pay yourself back .

we took advantage of an offer from citi bank where we get 5% back on all our groceries we buy and they gave us 300 dollars .

i mean including the bonus points and points we earned we got thousands this year in free money back.

since prices on goods and services usually reflect the credit card fees vendors pay whether you pay cash or not i want to thank all those who pay cash and get nothing in return for making this so profitable for those who do take advantage
 
since we eat , pay utilities like phones , electric and cable and or go out to eat we have no problem racking up all kinds of daily expenses even without travel .

with six grand kids and our kids and spouses there are always gifts to buy .
we typically end up with thousands a year in daily life expenses and get as much as we can put on our cards …

things like getting 5% back on all our groceries here in new york city is a big number
 
we easily max out the 5% level on the ciiti cash card which is 500 a month max at 5% on groceries and then use our chase sapphire preferred for the reest of our groceries and eating out and bringing in which we like to do a fair amount of .

we have about 2k in points we can use for all sorts of things accumulated just over the last few months with my wife doing the christmas shopping
 
Proper credit card, and checking use, should be taught in high school, but you will never see it, as all are legislators are beholding to BIG money. The same reason you never see any meaningful changes in education.The last thing they want is an educated electorate. I always pay off my card in full. I have used multiple cards with zero % for a year plus to pay down construction loans (up to 80k) when I was still running a bussiness, but only when I new I would have the cash to repay when they came due. Nothing feels better than using credit card Co's the they USE many folks, but the amount people like myself make off of them is chump change compared to what they make off the masses, and why they keep making these offers. Best wishes on getting it under control. Mike
 
Like others that pay off whatever the balance is our use of a cash back credit card works to our advantage. Taking advantage of sales then getting cash back on top of the sales works for us. We have two but only use one most of the time. The one we use most, my wife is the primary. <---- Part of the long term planning. I don't keep track of how much cash back we get, whatever there is my wife applies it towards purchases on Amazon.
 
Since Covid when everything is bought on a card, I don’t even carry cash except an emergency $20. It’s a good record of what I’m spending. The balance is paid automatically at the end of the month. Following the variety of bonuses isn’t worth it for me. Cash back is easiest.
 
During the last couple of years I had acquired 7 cash/rewards cards, monitoring them consumed more of my time. I'm now down to 3 (soon to be 2) cards, I did make some money with bonuses and cash back. But, with the isolation mentality, I don't fly nor go out to eat much. I was always looking for an edge.

I was able to charge my property taxes, auto expenses,,,etc to the cards and was somewhat profitable. Then the powers that be decided they were losing income so most started charging fees. 3% here 5% there, our medical center gives us a 5% discount if we pay cash. I found that paying cash was simpler and saved me more, gas became $.10 a gal cheaper if I made the effort to pay cash est. $3.50 - $.10 works out to a 2.38% discount better than the 2% I had been earning.

The big downside of the cards manifested itself in more and more unnecessary purchases, Amazon in particular had made their goods more costly, negating any rewards (also, that brown van was making many more visits to my house). I had to remove my card info, trying to make it more bothersome to buy on a whim.

Some people swear by them, but I find myself better off if I forego the cash back and simply ask for a cash discount. Cash is real, credit is fleeting and costly.
 
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Geezer Garage said:
Proper credit card, and checking use, should be taught in high school, but you will never see it, as all are legislators are beholding to BIG money.
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By my observation, the bigger predictor of financial solvency comes from the environment in which we are raised. People tend to mirror those patterns or they find them so distasteful that they address finances in the opposite way. Either way, it's a response to their family's financial management.
mathjak107 said:
since prices on goods and services usually reflect the credit card fees vendors pay whether you pay cash or not i want to thank all those who pay cash and get nothing in return for making this so profitable for those who do take advantage
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Credit card companies offer premiums to entice and retain customers. They are hugely profitable, legally charging interest rates no mobster would dare to quote.
As of today:
CCs charge 15% - 25% on unpaid balances
Prime rate is at 3.25%
US Federal Funds Rate is .25%,
1 year LIBOR rate is .50%

US retailers (including me) upped their prices by approx 4% when customers demand required us to offer CC payment options. We never did accept the very expensive (to retailers) American Express.

To me, cash was always king of payment remittances. No upcharges, no concern about a bouncing check.

Unless there are a lot of cash register shortages when tallying up in the evening or a great chance of being robbed, I can't imagine why a business wouldn't gladly accept cash.
 
I like just using a credit card, but now that I am close to retirement and needing to budget carefully, I am a bit frustrated with how to know how much I have charged. When I look on the CC website, I can't tell how much is the balance that is already finished for last month versus the new charges that will be on the next statement. I assume the info is there though and I just need to learn to find it. I would like to have the CC regularly text me the updated current balance (but without the amount that is on the last month that hasn't pulled money from the bank yet).
OTOH I have found the annual summary that the CC website provides very useful, it categorized everything nicely, and last year I realized from the summary that the automatic monthly charity donations were more than I could sustain in retirement, and the CC statement had almost all the contact info for the charities and made fixing them easy.
I also like the way the CC texts me when a purchase is above my alert limit. And I love the fraud detection, when my daughter graduated last summer she got my permission to use my credit card number to buy food for a party for her fellow graduates, then in the middle of the night a few nights later I got a fraud alert from my CC, somehow it just knew I was unlikely to be spending $114 at Subway in the middle of the night, ha ha! Would have been inconvenient if I had already been asleep tho, because I had to respond to the alert to allow the transaction and had to text my daughter that she would need to have Subway retry the card.
 
I noticed some mention about using debit cards over credit cards. Some not all retail, gov & utility companies are starting to charge a small fee if you use a debit card or at least have factored in a bump for items or services.

My ISP charges a flat 3.5% if you use credit or debit. I have used that point with my request for a cash discount, the discount is hard for some to figure out so I ask for a reduced price, if none given then remember to use my rewards card next time.
 
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JustinCase said:
I noticed some mention about using debit cards over credit cards. Some not all retail, gov & utility companies are starting to charge a small fee if you use a debit card or at least have fractured in a bump for items or services.
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I just have monthly utilities, and such do the auto withdrawal from our bank acct.
and......since we bought our place last Sept, we are now on annual monthly average (no surprises)
My lady makes scrumptious meals on a dime.
We just pot around town, no big trips

I love a tight budget

Whenever we wanna splurge, we do
But
We don't really care to

We're our very own entertainment source

I so love retirement
 
JustinCase said:
I noticed some mention about using debit cards over credit cards. Some not all retail, gov & utility companies are starting to charge a small fee if you use a debit card or at least have fractured in a bump for items or services.

My ISP charges a flat 3.5% if you use credit or debit. I have used that point with my request for a cash discount, the discount is hard for some to figure out so I ask for a reduced price, if none given then remember to use my rewards card next time.
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Not here.. and I also just learned today that in the USA you don't have contactless chip and pin Debit cards ( that's cards where you just tap your card on the machine, no pin number or signing receipts) ... is that true ?...
 
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hollydolly said:
Not here.. and I also just learned today that in the USA you don't have contactless chip and pin Debit cards ( that's cards where you just tap your card on the machine, no pin number bo signing receipts) ... is that true ?...
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Not sure since I never use my cards like other shoppers. I usually go to my bank use the ATM to withdraw the needed cash. I've watched others using their card like you mentioned. My main use is online, only paying my bills, cash is my main method of payment for day to day expenses. I distrust modern technology when it comes to messing with my finances, that is why I went to the extreme with Amazon. Do I make any sense or am I rambling?

I adhere to the KISS approach.
 
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hollydolly said:
Not here.. and I also just learned today that in the USA you don't have contactless chip and pin Debit cards ( that's cards where you just tap your card on the machine, no pin number bo signing receipts) ... is that true ?...
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I use my credit card for everything, including supermarket shopping. I just tap the machine and it's done - no pin - it's called 'tap and go' - so convenient. Have no need for cash anymore as all bills are paid online, but still keep some at home for emergency.
 

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