Coming up with a long term plan...

Anonymous · ‎01-21-2015

Now that I have myself on an upward trajectory I am looking at cards to make up my long term plan. My spend is relatively low, but will be increasing as I am in the process of buying a home. Gas rewards are of limited value, Groceries are high value (I have people over for dinner 4 or 5 times a month and during holidays I make some side money smoking turkeys and prime rib for some of my customers). My plan is less than 6 cards, 1 of them will be something that offers a lowish rate for if I choose to spread out furniture and the like over a couple extra months. One of my CUs can probably cover that.

Currently have discover, Boa cash rewards, us bank harley secured, cap 1 plat.

Cap 1 is going away, I never want to talk to their customer service ever ever ever again. House will be accomplished by may or june and my last paid collection will be off all reports (not on EQ now) by july. Inquiries after july will show less than 1 year TU 3 EQ 1 EX 2. Current ficos are TU 682 EQ 738 EX 688. Once that collection falls off in july I would guess they would all be similar as the reports are identical other than that.

My plan is to keep discover and BOA, add a low interest card from my CU.

Sallie Mae seems an obvious choice for groceries.

A relationship with amex would be great, but none of their cards really do me much good in conjunction with what i have/am targeting. Based on the constraints I have what 1 to 2 other cards would you target? Citi DC? Chase Freedom? There are no companies Ive burned so everything is relatively open. My total spend non gas groceries is 1k per month. I generally sit on rewards til I can do something bigish with them so 25 dollar minimum redemptions dont matter much.

kdm31091 · ‎01-21-2015

Freedom is unnessecary with Discover IMO. Double cash or quicksilver for general spend. But be careful. Your spend isn't high. Spreading over multiple/too many cards will have you ending up with 5 bucks of rewards on each card unless you wait a very long time.

Chris679 · ‎01-21-2015

@kdm31091 wrote:
Freedom is unnessecary with Discover IMO. Double cash or quicksilver for general spend. But be careful. Your spend isn't high. Spreading over multiple/too many cards will have you ending up with 5 bucks of rewards on each card unless you wait a very long time.

Agree with all of these points. I would PC the Cap One to Quicksilver and apply for Sallie Mae or Amex BCP for the groceries.

Anonymous · ‎01-21-2015

@Chris679 wrote:
@kdm31091 wrote:
Freedom is unnessecary with Discover IMO. Double cash or quicksilver for general spend. But be careful. Your spend isn't high. Spreading over multiple/too many cards will have you ending up with 5 bucks of rewards on each card unless you wait a very long time.
Agree with all of these points. I would PC the Cap One to Quicksilver and apply for Sallie Mae or Amex BCP for the groceries.

Cap 1 won't be in my wallet. Period. I've had to call them twice, and I would rather go to have a kidney stone removed from a root canal than ever have to do that again. Like I said rewards sitting doesn't bother me. My discover has almost 200 bucks sitting on it now and a balance of 34 bucks And yes I realize I could be earning interest on that, but I know I will have some larger purchases coming up and it is kind of my automatic 15 percent off sale when I buy a refridgerator or something like that. And I know at least short term after the house purchase my spend will increase significantly.

takeshi74 · ‎01-22-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
Gas rewards are of limited value, Groceries are high value (I have people over for dinner 4 or 5 times a month and during holidays I make some side money smoking turkeys and prime rib for some of my customers).

Approach it this way -- what are you major spend categories and what sort of volume are you running through them?

@Anonymous wrote:
Sallie Mae seems an obvious choice for groceries.

Depends on spend. It's the best choice for certain spend levels. Definitely run the numbers. Other cards may be better suited for other spend levels. If you don't want to do the math there were some charts floating about that you can refer to.

@Anonymous wrote:
A relationship with amex would be great, but none of their cards really do me much good in conjunction with what i have/am targeting.

BCP, EDP or the old Blue Cash if it is still being offered could be a good fit if your spend fits. I would suggest establishing MSD if it works out for you as it can be beneficial to leverage backdating in future.

@Anonymous wrote:
Based on the constraints I have what 1 to 2 other cards would you target? Citi DC? Chase Freedom?

DC's a good candidate for non-category spend. Do you want another card with rotating categories? Have you looked at the Freedom's calendar and compared it to the Discover it? It's not just a matter of your constraints but your specific preferences. priorities, goals, etc as well.

@Anonymous wrote:
My total spend non gas groceries is 1k per month.

As others have said that's not much spend so take that into consideration as to how much to sweat over this (and how much you want to spread it across other cards). Using the DC as an example, 2% of that spend is only $20.