@KJinNC wrote:It probably works on more people than you'd guess. Example: my brother has a great career and great credit, and he puts everything on his Barclay card, like $6K spend per month. It is basically a 1% card, though the points are 2% if redeemed for travel, which he doesn't do that much of. He thought it was a great card until I told him about some other options he could easily get. A year later, he is STILL running $6K spend/month through that card. I think we forget sometimes how different MyFICOers see these things than even the relatively credit-savvy part of the general public.
Well, he should do better than a 1% card, but I do understand not wanting to do the credit card shuffle. I won't do it either, but I will get all the great unlimited cards where you don't have to select a category or are assigned categories. My time is worth a lot to me and I won't spend time doing all the work some do here. Plus the more cards you use the higher the chance something gets messed up which then can hurt credit and all extra gains are wiped out overnight. I know it is just my opinion but lots of people would agree with me. Not so many here though, lol
@Crowhelm wrote:
@KJinNC wrote:It probably works on more people than you'd guess. Example: my brother has a great career and great credit, and he puts everything on his Barclay card, like $6K spend per month. It is basically a 1% card, though the points are 2% if redeemed for travel, which he doesn't do that much of. He thought it was a great card until I told him about some other options he could easily get. A year later, he is STILL running $6K spend/month through that card. I think we forget sometimes how different MyFICOers see these things than even the relatively credit-savvy part of the general public.
Well, he should do better than a 1% card, but I do understand not wanting to do the credit card shuffle. I won't do it either, but I will get all the great unlimited cards where you don't have to select a category or are assigned categories. My time is worth a lot to me and I won't spend time doing all the work some do here. Plus the more cards you use the higher the chance something gets messed up which then can hurt credit and all extra gains are wiped out overnight. I know it is just my opinion but lots of people would agree with me. Not so many here though, lol
To each their own, but the selectable category cards takes a few seconds to do and the rotating category cards (Like Disco or Freedom Flex) takes one click to select. I make my wife a monthly cheat sheet to keep up with which 4 cards to use. You could say 5 cards, but our Max Cash Preferred cards are locked to utilities, cell phone, cable/internet, and retail stores)
I don't spend nearly this much time in reality, but let's say I spend 15 minutes per month figuring out, selecting, and making DW a cheat sheet. That's 180 minutes or 3 hours per year. We spent right over $50K on our cards last year (and will spend quite a bit more this year because of DDs college related expenses).
If I had a used a 2% card for last year, I would have pocketed $1000 in cash back.
With SUBs and doing the shuffle, I pocketed $2422.66 in total cash back, which is 4.8% cash back.
For 3 hours extra per year, I made $807.55 per hour doing the shuffle. None of this is groundbreaking money, but spending a little extra time per month is very worthwhile to me. My personal CL is a little over $180K now, so if I need to purchase something $5k or even $10K, I can throw that on a 0% card for 12 - 15 mos without wrecking my utilization and never pay a dime in interest.
That allows to keep my cash in accounts that are earning interest, so I kinda get paid again, albeit is not all that much money. Getting even a great rate on personal loan would be at best what - 3.99%? They would be $400 paid to borrow $10K, where I can do it on my card for nothing.
Again, I'm not knocking anyone else's strategy - it's just that doing what a lot of people are doing here is more beneficial than just earning a few extra percent.
@JNA1 wrote:
@Crowhelm wrote:
@KJinNC wrote:It probably works on more people than you'd guess. Example: my brother has a great career and great credit, and he puts everything on his Barclay card, like $6K spend per month. It is basically a 1% card, though the points are 2% if redeemed for travel, which he doesn't do that much of. He thought it was a great card until I told him about some other options he could easily get. A year later, he is STILL running $6K spend/month through that card. I think we forget sometimes how different MyFICOers see these things than even the relatively credit-savvy part of the general public.
Well, he should do better than a 1% card, but I do understand not wanting to do the credit card shuffle. I won't do it either, but I will get all the great unlimited cards where you don't have to select a category or are assigned categories. My time is worth a lot to me and I won't spend time doing all the work some do here. Plus the more cards you use the higher the chance something gets messed up which then can hurt credit and all extra gains are wiped out overnight. I know it is just my opinion but lots of people would agree with me. Not so many here though, lol
To each their own, but the selectable category cards takes a few seconds to do and the rotating category cards (Like Disco or Freedom Flex) takes one click to select. I make my a monthly cheat sheet to keep up with which 4 cards to use. You could say 5 cards, but our Max Cash Preferred cards are locked to utilities, cell phone, cable/internet, and retail stores)
I don't spend nearly this much time in reality, but let's say I spend 15 minutes per month figuring out, selecting, and making DW a cheat sheet. That's 180 minutes or 3 hours per year. We spent right over $50K on our cards last year (and will spend quite a bit more this year because of DDs college related expenses).
If I had a used a 2% card for last year, I would have pocketed $1000 in cash back.
With SUBs and doing the shuffle, I pocketed $2422.66 in total cash back, which is 4.8% cash back.For 3 hours extra per year, I made $807.55 per hour doing the shuffle. None of this groundbreaking money, but spending a little extra time per month is very worthwhile to me. My personal CL is a little over $180K now, so if I need to purchase something $5k or even $10K, I can throw that on a 0% card for 12 - 15 mos without wrecking my utilization and never pay a dime in interest.
That allows to keep my cash in accounts that are earning interest, so I kinda get paid again, albeit is not all that much money. Getting even a great rate on personal loan would be at best what - 3.99%? They would be $400 paid to borrow $10K, where I can do it on my card for nothing.Again, I'm not knocking anyone else's strategy - it's just that doing what a lot of people are doing here is more beneficial than just earning a few extra percent.
I think it is fantastic that you are willing to do that and apparently have been doing it without a hitch. My wife and I went through hell and back and even though we both have excellent credit now, the scares are still there. We know we can trust our credit union, any mistake they will correct and apologize profusely. Getting the Amazon card with Chase is a scary step for us because it was banks who caused the housing crash in 2008 and it was a bank (not Chase of course) who had no desire to work with us and rather foreclose on our house, our home. No consideration that the crash was responsible for my long-term job (which was 65% of our income) loss since I work in the construction/manufacturing field and we did nothing (no equity loans or anything like that) to add to our bad situation and of course no way to just sell because our 360K home was all of a sudden only worth 180K. In time, the trust might return but for now, we will be very careful getting in too deep with banks or worse, relying on them. Overall I like what you are doing because it is more or less turning the tables which I would like very much. But $1400 is not worth giving up feeling safe and relaxed even though it would be more for us since we made $1600 cashback just on a 1.5% cashback card over 18 months. The other factor is my lovely wife, she would never keep things straight, just not her strength.
@Crowhelm wrote:
@JNA1 wrote:
@Crowhelm wrote:
@KJinNC wrote:It probably works on more people than you'd guess. Example: my brother has a great career and great credit, and he puts everything on his Barclay card, like $6K spend per month. It is basically a 1% card, though the points are 2% if redeemed for travel, which he doesn't do that much of. He thought it was a great card until I told him about some other options he could easily get. A year later, he is STILL running $6K spend/month through that card. I think we forget sometimes how different MyFICOers see these things than even the relatively credit-savvy part of the general public.
Well, he should do better than a 1% card, but I do understand not wanting to do the credit card shuffle. I won't do it either, but I will get all the great unlimited cards where you don't have to select a category or are assigned categories. My time is worth a lot to me and I won't spend time doing all the work some do here. Plus the more cards you use the higher the chance something gets messed up which then can hurt credit and all extra gains are wiped out overnight. I know it is just my opinion but lots of people would agree with me. Not so many here though, lol
To each their own, but the selectable category cards takes a few seconds to do and the rotating category cards (Like Disco or Freedom Flex) takes one click to select. I make my a monthly cheat sheet to keep up with which 4 cards to use. You could say 5 cards, but our Max Cash Preferred cards are locked to utilities, cell phone, cable/internet, and retail stores)
I don't spend nearly this much time in reality, but let's say I spend 15 minutes per month figuring out, selecting, and making DW a cheat sheet. That's 180 minutes or 3 hours per year. We spent right over $50K on our cards last year (and will spend quite a bit more this year because of DDs college related expenses).
If I had a used a 2% card for last year, I would have pocketed $1000 in cash back.
With SUBs and doing the shuffle, I pocketed $2422.66 in total cash back, which is 4.8% cash back.For 3 hours extra per year, I made $807.55 per hour doing the shuffle. None of this groundbreaking money, but spending a little extra time per month is very worthwhile to me. My personal CL is a little over $180K now, so if I need to purchase something $5k or even $10K, I can throw that on a 0% card for 12 - 15 mos without wrecking my utilization and never pay a dime in interest.
That allows to keep my cash in accounts that are earning interest, so I kinda get paid again, albeit is not all that much money. Getting even a great rate on personal loan would be at best what - 3.99%? They would be $400 paid to borrow $10K, where I can do it on my card for nothing.Again, I'm not knocking anyone else's strategy - it's just that doing what a lot of people are doing here is more beneficial than just earning a few extra percent.
I think it is fantastic that you are willing to do that and apparently have been doing it without a hitch. My wife and I went through hell and back and even though we both have excellent credit now, the scares are still there. We know we can trust our credit union, any mistake they will correct and apologize profusely. Getting the Amazon card with Chase is a scary step for us because it was banks who caused the housing crash in 2008 and it was a bank (not Chase of course) who had no desire to work with us and rather foreclose on our house, our home. No consideration that the crash was responsible for my long-term job (which was 65% of our income) loss since I work in the construction/manufacturing field and we did nothing (no equity loans or anything like that) to add to our bad situation and of course no way to just sell because our 360K home was all of a sudden only worth 180K. In time, the trust might return but for now, we will be very careful getting in too deep with banks or worse, relying on them. Overall I like what you are doing because it is more or less turning the tables which I would like very much. But $1400 is not worth giving up feeling safe and relaxed even though it would be more for us since we made $1600 cashback just on a 1.5% cashback card over 18 months. The other factor is my lovely wife, she would never keep things straight, just not her strength.
I can understand that. You are talking to a guy that considered credit cards "Da Debbil" until 2018! 😂 Here I was a guy over 40 that was proud that I paid for everything with cash. I bought a new truck in 2017, and realized how much not having enough credit was hurting my credit score a lot.
To say I'm come a long way is an understatement! You just need to continue to do what you're comfortable with, but be mindful of what is out there that might benefit you down the road.
Please and thank you...