Credit Cards
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Should I get new Visa cards?
I have had several credit cards over the past 10+ years. They have come and gone, some quickly because I needed the 0% balance transfer and/or 0% on purchases. These often would last between 12-18 months. Then I would cancel and start the process over again. This was not great for my credit score, but it saved me hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
Now I own a home and a car, so I do not need to be concerned about my credit score. Is now the time to get new Visa cards, or let sleeping dogs lie?
What do you think?
Written by Nagel on June 13th, 2007 with no comments.
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Today it seems everyone wants to get a credit card deal. Reward credit cards seem to be one way to get the best credit card deals. Another method, outside of credit card points, that can be effective for consumers looking for the best credit card deals.
Details on some of the best credit cards coming from stores:
- Circuit City Credit Card
- Free membership
- Points automatically expire 36 months from the month in which they were earned
- Memberships are not transferable and are only valid for use by the authorized cardholder.
- 5 points for every $1 you spend on nearly all purchases you make using your Circuit City Rewards credit card, plus if you have a Circuit City Rewards Visa®, you’ll also earn 1% Rewards
- Purchases made with promotional financing do not count towards rewards
- Points can be redeemed 35 days from the date they were earned
- Occasionally, Circuit City offers special promotions for signing up
- Redeemable online
- Toys R Us Credit Card
- Earn 4 Points per $1 spent
- Earn 1 point per $1 spent on everyday purchases
- Get a 10% Savings Reward Certificate when you earn 1000 points.
- 0% intro APR up to 6 months
- No annual fee
- Sears Credit Card
- Sears Premier card status=Spending $600 on their Sears card in the past 12 months become Premier members
- Advance notice of special products or sales
- Exclusive money-saving offers at Sears
- Invitations to special Premier events
- Sears Choice Rewards Program is its lower tier rewards program. It offers a myriad of gifts redeemable via Sears points accrued. Click here to see.
- Also Identity theft solutions
- Pay bills with your Sears card
- Use at Kmart
- Life and Health Insurance options available
- No annual fee
- 12 monthly exclusive cardmember offers
- Fraud protection with zero liability
- Can pay at JC Penny’s stores
- JC Penny Privilege Program
- 2 savings certificates per year
- Birthday certificate
- Special financing opportunities
- Free JC Penny Catalog
- Best Buy Credit Card
- FREE membership
- Get 1 point for nearly every $1 spent
- Earn 250 points and get a $5 reward certificate
- Exclusive members-only deals, sweepstakes, memorabilia offers, and access to special store sales events
Written by Nagel on April 28th, 2007 with no comments.
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What are the warning signs that your credit-card debt is something to worry about. Your debt-to-income ratio, not including mortgage, should not be over 20%. Therefore, you should not commit over 1/5 of your net monthly income to paying off credit cards and other nonmortgage debt. Here are some signs:
· Using credit cards to pay for things when you know you cannot afford them.
· Worrying that loved ones will discover how deep in debt you really are.
· Only being able to make the minimum payments on your debt.
· Maxing out several or all of your credit cards.
· Charging items with the intention of paying them off at the end of the month, but then not paying off that debt.
· Using credit cards for everyday purchases like groceries because you have to.
Written by Nagel on April 18th, 2007 with no comments.
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A tribute credit card s designed for those who simply require the basic functions of a credit card, but would like to have their account reported to the credit bureaus, typically because they want to build up a good credit score. By building your credit score you can release yourself from high APRs, and that is the goal because you want to get better APRs on all credit purchases.
The tribute card offers high interest rates, and all of the variable interest rates have minimum caps. No matter how low the prime rate drops, the interest rates on the account will not go below the stated minimum caps. In addition, the APRs for all transactions are tied to the highest Prime Rate during a 90-day period. Because of this setup the APRs may never reach the lowest possible interest rates.
Often there is an annual fee applied to your tribute credit card. Moreover, there is also an account opening fee and monthly maintenance fee of $6.50. These fees definitely hurt as does the high APR, but that is the price to pay in order to restore your poor credit. This card reports to the credit bureaus, which may be worth the additional fees and that can be your saving grace.
Therefore, those who can afford to pay in full each month (to avoid high finance charges), do not mind paying the various fees associated with the card, and have a limited credit history will benefit most from the Tribute Credit Card.
Written by Nagel on April 15th, 2007 with 3 comments.
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I was really impressed reading about the beta version of Paypal Virtual Debit Card. With this you can use PayPal Virtual Debit Card when making any online purchases as long as they accept Mastercard. It generates a virtual card number each time you make a transaction online so you won’t be using your personal debit or credit card number–so no one can then steal those numbers! It also protects your sensitive financial information every time you shop online. Paypal’s Virtual Debit Card pre-populates your information in shipping in billing forms at checkout. More features:
- Protects you from fake eBay and PayPal websites
- Offers zero liability on unauthorized purchases made from your account
- It’s free
When making an online purchase a notifier appears asking if you’d like to pay with PayPal Virtual Debit Card. You can click on the notifier to use PayPal Virtual Debit Card or there are other icons you can click to access their service. Each time you make a purchase on a website, a new number is generated, so their is no unique account number that is attached to you and your financial information. To start, you just link it up to your bank account.
Once this is out of beta this will be huge for Paypal and Mastercard, becausethere is growing concern about ID theft and online secure payment and this will go a long way to alieving many fears.
Written by Nagel on April 14th, 2007 with no comments.
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We all know how expensive personal finance software can be. For those of us on a budget, open source personal finance software is a viable option that you should examine. Some popular options available are GnuCash, Grisbi and KMyMoney.
GnuCash is a well-known open source personal finance/accounting package. It can track everything with your personal or business finances: bank accounts, income, expenses, and stocks. It is a very sophisticated personal finance software package with features that will provide real benefits for you. KMyMoney is easy to use for all users.
It is similar to MS-Money and Quicken including a lot of bells-and-whistles that can enhance your detail and efficiency of use. Grisbi is another open source personal finance software package that runs on Linux as well as MS Windows. It possess many of the functionality of other personal finance software options.
Why pay when you can access excellent options for free!
Written by Nagel on April 6th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Banking and Budgeting and Credit Cards and Household and Investing.
I know a lot of people these days put themselves in a big credit card debt hole and it is almost impossible to get out of. This debt for me started about 10 years ago when I decided to go for a PhD. I did not have regular work at the time while attending and after a semester I decided it was the wrong decision. This put me in credit card debt because I was charging most expenses because I had little money coming in.
This one choice lead to years of credit card debt because of many factors, but it is all gone as of March 31, 2007. Fortunately, I never paid any interest on this debt because my credit is very good (I received 0% credit card balance transfers and purchases several times). I am also fortunate because it did not lead to other credit prblems as it does with many people. I am grateful to finally be out of debt and come out relatively unscathed.
At the same time (about one month ago) I finished paying off my student loan. That was a relief as well. A lot of money will be freed up, but new expenses have come up since all this good news has happened.
It is possible to get out of credit card debt. It does take patience and disipline.
Written by Nagel on March 28th, 2007 with no comments.
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Many of us are bombarded with credit card offers in the mail. Typically they go straight to the trash, and often they should be. There is the option of an opt out of credit card offers in the mail.
However, if you are shopping for a credit card you might want to keep some of those credit card offers. Websites like cardratings.com offer up a slew of excellent information on what the best credit cards available. You can dig out some of those offers in the mail or even apply online.
Some of us do not have the best credit score and are concerns about traditional credit cards. These credit card companies are not kind to those with poor credit scores. this translates into much worse terms for the lower-tier credit score applicants. Higher APRs, higher fees, higher rate of refusal, etc. However, help is on the way . . .
Greendotonline.com has become a popular option ofr many that need to build up their credit score. What is greendotonline.com? It is a leader in pre-paid credit cards. These are extremely similar to typical credit cards, and sometimes even better.
- No credit checks
- No bank account required
- Use your Debit MasterCard Card at millions of locations worldwide. Or use your Debit Visa Card everywhere that Visa debit cards are accepted.
- Use for signature and PIN-based purchases
- Use at over 900,000 ATMs in 120 countries
- Make daily purchases without carrying cash
- Your money is protected if your Card is ever lost or stolen
- Buy a Green Dot MoneyPak™ Universal Reload for $4.95 at thousands of locations nationwide, including Rite Aid, CVS, Eckerd, Radio Shack, The Pantry and others.
- Get FREE Direct Deposit and load any amount of your paycheck directly to your Card
- Easy way to track your spending and stay within budget
- No debt or monthly bills to worry about
- Customized for Spanish-speaking consumers, Uso Diario has all the benefits of the Everyday card and provides easy access to ATMs throughout the world.
Written by Nagel on March 12th, 2007 with 1 comment.
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Many people want to learn more on personal finance and investing, but do not know where to start. Websites like this one and other personal finance sites are great tools. I also wanted to let you know of other resources available to get you up-to-speed on a wide variety of financial topics.
I would recommend watching Mad Money for investing. He is one of the few who will go step-by-step to help you invest smarter. This can buttress a general investing education you can get from doing some homework. Obviously, there are loads of investing books so look around and see what others have to say about it.
These are from from the only options available. You can easily go to Kiplinger, Money, Smartmoney, Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance, etc. These are all informative and can hold your hand until you get the hang of certain topics you might not have mastered yet.
These are great personal finance education websites to start. Ask around and get people’s opinions on what sources to use. I would recommend using as many reliable sources as possible. It is not easy, but we all want to do better with our money.
Written by Nagel on March 4th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Banking and Budgeting and Credit Cards and Healthcare and Household and How To and Insurance and Investing and Real Estate and Retirement and Stock Market and Stocks and Taxes.
Rebate deals and low interest credit cards are increasingly important. Rebates seem to be dwindling and the low-interest credit cards are not as prevelant as there were in the near past. Below is an acculation of some pertainent information if you are shopping for a credit offering rebates and/or a low-interest rate.
According to Kiplingers these are the best rebate deals on credit cards and credit cards with low rates:
Premium Credit Cards
Issuer Rate Cash Advance Annual Fee Late/Rate/Fee Grace Period Over Limit
Capital One
Platinum Prestige 6.81% 19.71%/3% $0/25 days $35/$29
Simmons First
National Bank 7.25 11.25/3 $0/25 days 29/29
Pulaski Bank & Trust 7.99 7.99/0 $50/25 days 29/29
Wells Fargo Bank 8.25 23.49/4 19/20 days 35/35
Sun Trust Bank 8.99 19.99/3 0/25 days 39/39
Rebate Credit Cards
Discover Platinum 10.99 20.99/3 $0 Annual Fee Rebate up to 5%
American Express
Blue Cash 13.24 23.24/3 $0 up to 5%
Capital One
No Hassel 13.81 19.71/3 $0 up to 2%
National City
Everyday Elite Visa 14.24 24.24/3 $0 up to 4%
Chase Freedom Visa 14.24 24.24/3 $0 up to 3%
Written by Nagel on February 3rd, 2007 with no comments.
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