We all made some choices during the depths of 2020. Some decided that baking sourdough bread was worth obsessing over. Some made Zoom dates with people they hadn’t talked to in decades. Some watched The Office over and over again.
I got into credit cards.
Not using credit cards to buy stuff, at least no more than usual. Actually quite a bit less, since I was mostly in my house baking sourdough bread and watching The Office.
No, what I got into was researching credit card rewards. This is not something I had given a whole lot of thought of before. I had a couple of credit cards, and they both offered some little kickback for using them that I didn’t make much of. They were kind of like the packaged mints at the end of a meal out: nice enough, but forgotten as soon you were back home.
But then I was dream-researching a post-Covid trip to Hawaii when I fell for an ad or a link or something about using points to fly to Hawaii. Some American Express or Chase re-targeting pixel-demon got me and got me good and suddenly I was reading about how easy it was to fly non-stop in business class with your whole family using miles or points or other synthetic currency doled out by credit card companies. I then began spending more hours than I am comfortable counting figuring out which was the right one (it became more than one of course) that though just spending on pizza and toilet paper could have my family reclining our way across the Pacific.
And I tried it for a while, getting sign-up bonuses and trying to use exactly the right card for every single purchase all the time and stocked up a good amount of Chase Express Ultimate Venture Points ™. And then found them really hard to use, at least for a family of four that wants to go the kinds of places everyone wants to go (London, New York, the Caribbean) when everyone wants to go there (Thanksgiving, Spring Break, any time between June 1 and September 1). Which, and maybe you knew this already, is the deal.
But it did get me to look at how I used my credit cards and pick a couple of new cards that really did get me a little more than I was getting and in the form that is easiest to use: cash. No more points for me, show me the (very small percent back) money.
This is the place where I say the thing you know but I need to say anyway. Credit cards can get you and get you good. Easy to spend, hard to pay. I learned an early hard lesson in college about getting over your skis with unearned spending power and, while it was painful, it wasn’t a huge sum, and ever since I pay our credit cards in full every month. If you can’t or don’t do that, anything bonus you might get in the form of cashback will be dwarfed by the interest you will pay on your balances. Seriously. Paying 28% annualized interest on your balance so that you can get 1.5% back on your spending is right where MasterVisa wants you. Don’t oblige them.
Having said that, if you are careful, you can get a little something out of your grocery shopping, utility bills, late-night taco runs, and yes….book buying. And depending on what kind of book buyer you are, there are some cards you might consider..and some you absolutely should not. Let’s go through a few. Before we continue though, a moment of truth.
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