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Need a New Credit Card? Let the 3 P's be your Guide
You've decided you need a credit card but......
Are you buried under an avalanche of unsolicited postal application forms? Are you blinded by the bewildering array of advertisements in print media and on TV screens? Are you puzzled by the...
Personal Credit Report
Your personal credit report is an electronic record of your
credit activities. These activities include borrowing money to
buy a car, applying for a loan or credit card and your payment
history of the loans you have taken. Every time you...
The 7 Rules of Credit Card Balance Transfer
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The 7 Rules of Credit Card Balance Transfer
Credit card balance
transfer is a great way of consolidating your credit card debt, and also
finding a way of avoiding the terrible burden that debt can bring. Transfer...
tips on how to get higher credit card limit
All credit card holders are aspiring for a higher credit card
limit. This is because a higher credit card limit will enable
them to make otherwise unaffordable purchases. Credit card
holders need to remember that to get a higher credit card...
Understanding Credit Files to Repair Credit
If you are in debt and nagged daily by creditors you might want to understand your credit files to repair your credit. If you are delinquent in payments your credit score is affected, and often you can't get a loan.
There are exceptions but if...
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Maximum Return On Your Credit Cards
There has been an explosion of credit cards that specialize in
certain benefits over the last five years; reward points, cash
back, 0% transfers, credit monitoring, discount gasoline,
money-market savings, etc. So how do you get the most return
from your card, particularly when their plans change?
(Presuming you never, ever carry a credit card balance -
interest charges and potential fees will more than consume any
side benefit that a card can offer.)
In the old days, the big benefit was airline miles. Let's see
how well that works out. The average airfare for a ticket that
was paid for with credit card airline miles is about $400. And
the average program requires 25,000 to 35,000 miles to be
credited a free ticket. Since miles are normally accrued
dollar-for-dollar, the average benefit is between 1 to 1.5% of
what you spend. More reference material for this article is
available at http://investing.real-solution-center.com.
Now we are starting to have something to compare. If you get an
offer for a 1% cash back credit card, you'd be slightly better
off getting the airline miles. But in my opinion, the many cards
offering up to 5% cash back are the best deal, as long the fine
print lines up. First, there are normally limitations on the
shops where the 5% applies. You want a card that applies the 5%
to where you spend the most of your monthly income. The credit
card industry calls these 'everyday purchases', such as
groceries, drug stores, and gasoline, but exclude warehouse
clubs. You should get a card with the widest number of retailers
where you commonly spend money. Or, get a specific-store card
for those large one-time purchases.
For example, if you are
buying new kitchen appliances from Sears, apply and use their
card for the purchase and you normally get 10% off. You can
cancel it later when it has a zero balance.
The next 5% cash back problem is an annual limit. Citi Dividend
credit card limits your annual earning to only $300. If you have
some big purchases, you may have spent $5,000 on your credit
card in the first month, and you've hit your cash back limit
already. So guess what, you are going to stop using that card
and start using a different 5% cash back card until you've used
up that limit as well. Use them up and move on. American Express
currently has a card called Blue Cash for bigger spenders. It
offers only 1% cash back until you spend $6,500, and then it
pays 5% cash back until you've spent $50,000. But there aren't
nearly as many AmEx merchants as Visa/Mastercard merchants.
(Again, AmEx and others may have exclusions like purchases at
warehouse clubs). You can compare dozens of credit cards from
directory websites like www.allstarcreditcards.com.
Getting the most from your card is like going into battle: you
can have a great plan in the beginning, but once cardholders
start exploiting loopholes and creating unintended consequences,
the card companies change their policies, it goes back and forth
continually. So read all the fine print before applying, and
squeeze some extra money from your credit card purchases this
year.
About the author:
Francis Kier has an MBA in finance and shares his two decades of
experience with investing and personal finance. More of his
articles are available at
http://investing.real-solution-center.com
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| Credit Reports - Credit Cards - Car Loans - Home Loans - Credit.com |
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| The FTC's web site on Credit |
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| Federal Trade Commission - Consumer Credit Center |
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| AnnualCreditReport |
| Site set up by the big three credit reporting agencies in the United States, to furnish free annual credit reports, as required by federal law. |
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| Springboard - Non-Profit Consumer Credit Management |
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| Credit referencing and consumer targeting for the USA and other countries. |
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| National Credit Union Administration - Home Page |
| An independent federal agency that supervises and insures 7152 federal credit unions and insures 4240 state-chartered credit unions. |
| www.ncua.gov |
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| Credit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Debits and Credits, a type of bookkeeping entry; Credit (creative arts), acknowledging the ideas or ... Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit" ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Credit (finance) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Any movement of financial capital is normally quite dependent on credit, ... Sometimes if a person has financial instability or difficulty, credit is not ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| The National Foundation for Credit Counseling |
| DebtAdvice.org is a service provided by the Members of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), most of them known as Consumer Credit ... |
| www.nfcc.org |
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| FreeCreditReport.com | Free Credit Report and Credit Score Online ... |
| FreeCreditReport.com: Free credit reports and credit scores from Experian. Get your free credit report and credit score now. It's free, fast, and easy! |
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| The Credit Card Prank |
| In my lifetime, I have made nearly 15000 credit card transactions. ... Credit card signatures are a useless mechanism designed to make you feel safe, ... |
| www.zug.com |
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| Credit magazine, corporate bonds, derivatives, structured credit ... |
| Credit magazine provides information on the international credit markets for credit investors, issuers and market professionals. |
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| CUNA: The Credit Union National Association |
| News and resource directory about credit unions. |
| www.cuna.org |
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| Credit/Debt Management - Tools and Advice for Managing Credit and Debt |
| Drowning in debt? Trying to improve your credit score? This is the place for you. Get real world information and tips, as well as the legal low down, ... |
| credit.about.com |
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