This will be rather lengthy since is was a post by someone I respect in one of the internet forums. I think this could actually be useful to some people, so I will submit it for what it is worth...
-never, Ever charge anything on your credit card unless you know for a fact that you will be able to pay it at the end of the month. It sounds harsh but it is a fact that credit cards could be used as a convenient shopping tool. You pay your bill in time and what you get is a 30-45 day interest-free loan. You don't pay your bill in full and you may be paying 20% or more in "after tax" annual interest for the balace and that's not good.
--always use credit cards that "give" you something for your agreeing to use them and not someone else's. Why would you use any card that gives you nothing but grief when you could use one that pays you to use it? The "miles" cards seem to be very popular but I found them to be inadequate. The "mile" you get for the $1 you charge is rarely worth more than $.002 and it's not easy to cash it in. By comparison, my Amazon.com card is giving me $.01 for every dollar I charge anywhere and $.03 for anything I buy at Amazon. This is real money because I can use it to purchase just about anything that Amazon carries and their prices are competitive, not to mention that their stuff is sales tax free and there are no shipping charges on any bundle that's worth more than $25. It is cheaper than Walmart. And oh yeah, Amazon will further discount everything you buy from them another 1.7% if you have their A9 (it's really Google) bar active on your desktop. So I get $25-$50 every month from Amazon just for using a credit card.
*to be continued*
-never, Ever charge anything on your credit card unless you know for a fact that you will be able to pay it at the end of the month. It sounds harsh but it is a fact that credit cards could be used as a convenient shopping tool. You pay your bill in time and what you get is a 30-45 day interest-free loan. You don't pay your bill in full and you may be paying 20% or more in "after tax" annual interest for the balace and that's not good.
--always use credit cards that "give" you something for your agreeing to use them and not someone else's. Why would you use any card that gives you nothing but grief when you could use one that pays you to use it? The "miles" cards seem to be very popular but I found them to be inadequate. The "mile" you get for the $1 you charge is rarely worth more than $.002 and it's not easy to cash it in. By comparison, my Amazon.com card is giving me $.01 for every dollar I charge anywhere and $.03 for anything I buy at Amazon. This is real money because I can use it to purchase just about anything that Amazon carries and their prices are competitive, not to mention that their stuff is sales tax free and there are no shipping charges on any bundle that's worth more than $25. It is cheaper than Walmart. And oh yeah, Amazon will further discount everything you buy from them another 1.7% if you have their A9 (it's really Google) bar active on your desktop. So I get $25-$50 every month from Amazon just for using a credit card.
*to be continued*