Have a credit card from my bank. Use it only for emergencies. I get free rewards points program for my credit card and check card purchases, so I occasionally get some cash back that way.
I vastly prefer using my check card against my checking account. Much easier to plan that way.
If you trust your own ability to pay them off at the end of every month, a credit card gives you:
-Rewards program, typically to the tune of 1-1.5% of your purchases.
-Chargebacks. Businesses hate dealing with credit card companies, and if they try to screw with you then you can pull this shit on them. Even the threat of doing this often will help you get your way.
-No overdraft fees, since you can’t overdraft.
To some people this may not be worth much, but it isn’t like a credit card doesn’t have some benefits over debit cards.
Also credit cards help you establish credit, which is useful when it comes time for buying homes or cars. Unless you’re buying your house with straight cashola, in which case i just envy you.
I’ve got a Chase card, solely for the “Subaru Bucks” And I’ve got like 500 of those suckers right now. I pay off balance each month.
Got into a little CC debt a few years back, but have dug my way out, and do my best to not carry a balance month to month. Now I only use my card when I know I can pay it off, or for big purchases over the internet. Its easier to dispute charges with your Credit Card than with your Debit Card.
I also have an AmEx, an HSBC MC card, an MBNA card, and my banks Visa Check Card. I also used to have a Discover card, but I just recently canceled it.
Can’t say which one is my favorite, because in my mind, a credit card is a necessary evil, and they all suck, for the most part.
Discover.
QUESTION!
I have a Chase MasterCard credit card right now, a pretty regular one. Every time I miss my payment by a few days those fuckers charge me a $40 late fee. Of course my Chase bank account always has enough money every month to pay off everything in full.
There is of course no way as far as I know to just say “Every month 1 day before the billing date, pay off my entire statement in full”, there is just stupid options that let you pay $X every month (yeah and what if I spend less/more than $X? useless).
So are there any credit cards out there or some way for my existing credit card to do exactly that? I want to have it automatically deduct from my bank account the full statement and only charge me a late fee if I don’t have enough money in my bank account.
Or at least are there any credit cards which don’t charge you 40 fucking dollars for being a few days late?
BTW Chase is a piece of shit. I went under balance in checking once and they charged me $100.
I actually have 2 mentioned above. When the wife wasn’t working for a couple years and then when she had the kids, it was charge groceries and various other bills or starve. Once I quit my job and went back to school, same thing. Each have around a $25K limit. I transfer back and forth and am paying down the balance at whatever low rate the one has when the one year transfer rate expires on the other. Currently, the big balance is at 1.9% for a year.
qft.
I also have a Best Buy Rewards card. Same deal as the Amazon card, they send you coupon for 5% (or whatever) of your quarterly purchases. Pretty sweet when combined with the Amazon card.
Igor:
Also, Clear from American Express has absolutely no fees (late fees, overlimit, etc) but you need amazing credit to get it.
You sir are awesome! That just made my day. No more bullshit $40 fees, I’m so glad this option was there…
By the way, I couldn’t find “Setup automatic payments” on the “Payments and Tranfers” because it seems to be under the “Card Payments” for me. So maybe they are moving it around to try to dick people into paying the late fees…
Now I must go and check if the American Express site has the same automatic payment option.
I don’t get it. How can they make money on the Clear card?
You do realize merchants pay a % of all sales bought via AmEx cards to AmEx?
Ah yeah, I forgot about that.
And there is still that interest thing too, if you don’t pay off your balance in full each month.
After crawling the American Express site I am quite perplexed and am not at all sure if its possible to set it up to automatically deduct the full balance from my bank account on the due date.
If anyone knows anything about whether that’s possible/not possible, people would like to know!
I have a captial One Visa and an American Express Blue. Both have tried to ripped me off a few times in the past. I got my captial one card down pretty well but my blue card is another matter, and interest starts up on it in 3 days.
I’m trying to rack up cards to have enough credit available to get an Amazon Visa. When I applied for it before, I was declined for not having enough available credit (I’m just a student). How many cards is too much in terms of my credit score being lowered? I’ve never made a late payment ever, so that’d piss me off.
I also have a Best Buy Rewards card. Same deal as the Amazon card, they send you coupon for 5% (or whatever) of your quarterly purchases. Pretty sweet when combined with the Amazon card.
Yes and no. I’d be willing to bet that you purchase more than 5% above what you would normally purchase if you had to pay with cash. Creditors/retailers don’t do anything that won’t statistically make them more money.
I’m trying to rack up cards to have enough credit available to get an Amazon Visa. When I applied for it before, I was declined for not having enough available credit (I’m just a student). How many cards is too much in terms of my credit score being lowered?
WTF? You’re collecting credit cards so that you’ll be deemed eligible to have a better credit card?
I’ve never heard (until now) of anyone being rejected for having too little available credit. More likely, you were declined for having too much available credit for your income, or you don’t have enough of a credit history yet.
Well, yes.
I don’t know; the only reason given was not enough available credit. Of course, that’s a symptom of having a student’s income, so maybe they only want homeowners or people who make over 30k or some BS.