Comments on: The Frugalwoods Guide to a Simple, Yet Rewarding, Credit Card Experience

By: Debbie M

Debbie M — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 22:35:49 +0000

I used to have multiple cards: The Chase Freedom with 5% off some things, a Home Depot one with 3% off Home Depot purchases (until it turned into another Chase Freedom card) and a Capitol One card with a 1.5% reward on everything. I also had a couple of LL Bean cards, but they get canceled when you don’t use them enough. (And most of my clothes come from thrift stores.) And I had a low-interest credit card from my local credit union in case I needed to go into debt for some reason–fortunately, this is no longer a concern for me (knock wood).

Then I decided to get away from big banks, fully expecting to get worse rewards. But no, the Alliant Credit Union has 2% cash back on everything. So I switched to using only that.

Then a friend of mine said she has one card for automatic deductions and another card for out in the world. So whenever something bad happens and the out-in-the-world card has to be canceled and re-issued, the automatic deductions card keeps working, and you don’t need to update anyone. So I added the Fidelity card. I do prefer paying only one credit card bill a month, so I may end up going back to only one card.

By: Debbie M

Debbie M — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 22:32:56 +0000

In reply to Mrs. Gardener.

Yes, research has shown that people buy more when using credit cards than when using cash or even having to keep a checking account balanced.

But that’s an average. Some people don’t buy more.

Sadly, a lot of people who think they don’t buy more actually do. And of course I’m one of those people who are convinced I don’t buy more. I really think I’m right because I’m not living paycheck to paycheck, so I don’t worry about every penny anymore, and that would be true whether I were using checks/debit/cash or credit cards. Probably. 🙂

By: Debbie M

Debbie M — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 22:26:42 +0000

In reply to Amanda. One advantage of debit cards is that they don't charge stores as much. So, you'd be helping to support your favorite stores by switching to a debit card.

By: Deborah Bryan

Deborah Bryan — Thu, 09 Jan 2020 17:06:57 +0000

Wow, thanks for the thorough and thoughtful post. That was all great information. I use B of A’s travel card, no fee, but the points are not as high as the cards you mentioned. The benefit is that I’m already on their website regularly for checking & savings accounts, so it’s easy for me to use. It’s tempting to switch to Fidelity. I also get to see my credit score with my B of A account and my USAA account which is soooo nice because my score is 850!!!!

By: Vickey

Vickey — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 17:05:58 +0000

In reply to Dicey. Is there not an option to have it deposited to one’s bank account? I ask because we’re 2 hrs away from the nearest COSTCO.

By: Luisa

Luisa — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 23:25:45 +0000

If you don’t use amazon prime card, the additional benefit of the regular amazon card (3/2/1 %s) is that there is no foreign exchange fee. We use this card for international travel or purchases to avoid the normal 3% exchange fee. Even if you don’t have an amazon prime or other amazon credit card, if you are a prime member and shop at Whole Foods and have downloaded the prime app to your phone (i.e. you do need to be a prime member) and you don’t need to carry an amazon card to get that 3% back. So this quarter, my Chase card gives 5% back (instead of 1%) for grocery shopping and so I use my prime app and get 8% back! (3% prime, 5% chase)- best of both worlds. Most of the time we use our Citi double cash card (2%) principally because we don’t have to think about what to use when AND more importantly Citi offers virtual credit card #s which are a fraud prevention (each unique VN can only be used with one seller, so it someone gets that # they can’t use it anywhere else!). The only problem is when you sign up for travel insurance at the same point as paying for your airline ticket, the travel insurance will not go through because it is a different company. However you can always buy it separately which then you get to see terms and chose among policies which makes better sense.

By: Paula

Paula — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 21:19:19 +0000

We have credit cards for dealing with merchants who won’t accept a check, or online ordering from merchants who don’t accept PayPal. (I much prefer to pay from the checking account via PayPal, over and done.) I pay in full as soon as any credit card bill comes. It wouldn’t be worth it to me to do a bunch of unnecessary charging and bill paying to get rewards. My favorite reward is not owing any money and not getting bills in the mail.

By: Mrs. Frugalwoods

Mrs. Frugalwoods — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 12:57:47 +0000

In reply to Tripplefiguy. That's a really good point about monthly subscriptions! It's very true that putting things on autopay shouldn't be a license to forget about them.

By: Tripplefiguy

Tripplefiguy — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 09:02:51 +0000

I agree that credit cards can bring real value to the table. On the contrary, I would also say that they there is a couple of important points not mentioned in the article.

Credit cards delay the pain of paying and we psychologically cannot process as well the loss when we spend money when it’s put on the card versus physically pulling out cash and seeing it leave our possession. That triggers pain and therefore less spending.

Also, sometimes people put auto payments of things they don’t really need monthly subscriptions for and keep getting ripped off every month but it gets lumped into all others purchases on the card so they just pay the bill at the end of the month. I’ve seen this happen more with senior citizens.

If they didn’t have a credit card then they wouldn’t be getting taken to the cleaners for that $100 a month “watch of the month club” membership.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 13:16:45 +0000

I’ve been churning credit cards for several years. My husband and I each have gotten the airlines ones, where you have the bonus period and earn enough for two free tickets. The first time this was about $632. That was a few years ago. We recently got another one and have approximately the same amount waiting for us to “purchase” the tickets. I figure we have probably earned about $4500 in the last few years. We live in one of the lowest income states and are low income people compared to many, so to be able to go on free or cheaper vacations is a great blessing to us. We are debt free including our house. We pay off our credit cards every month and have probably only paid about $20 in interest in 30 years – because I forgot to mail a bill or something. Most times when they charge us, I will call and they cancel the fee. Some of these do have annual fees but they have been worth it for us.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 04:55:56 +0000

I pay everything on credit cards. $200 cash can last me six months. I just reworked my automatic payments so that all home fixed expenses go one card and variable expenses (groceries, meals out, purchases, etc) go on another card. In addition to using Personal Capital, I can easily see how my much my spend is fluctuating.

I recommend reviewing your auto payments once in a while. I just discovered that my insurance company now allows payment via credit card versus previously only accepting electronic check.

By: Little Seeds of Wealth

Little Seeds of Wealth — Sun, 24 Mar 2019 16:04:29 +0000

I combine Chase Freedom and Discover it cash back cards. So I’m getting 5% back for two categories per month. You have to keep track of the reward categories but in my opinion, it’s worth it.