My wife and I try to charge as many of our expenses as possible to our cash back reward credit cards. Not only do we get cash back, but charging expenses to our credit cards helps with our cash flow situation. Of course, we make sure we pay the credit cards off each month so that we don’t incur interest charges.
We each have our own cash back credit card that we use for business expenses as well as a joint cash back credit card that we use for household expenses. We earned a total of $646.36 in cash back rewards from these credit cards in 2009. That works out to an average of $53.86/month. This is truly free money since we pay off the credit cards each month. I love it!
It’s not totally free. Those rewards cards companies charge the businesses extra fees each time the card is used. In turn the retailers have to raise their prices in general to make up for the fees.
See my recent post at gettingputtogether.wordpress.com on this subject.
I do the same, it’s a sweet way to go. Well, actually only 1 of the 2 cards that I use provides cash back. The other one only provides gift certificates, but that works out well for us too.
Not using a credit card and spending cash, you would end up pay a premium…
I have cash back with my chase credit card. I’m $8 in rewards currency from getting my $250 credit =]
@twoyoung
I’m going to have to look at what chase offers as far as reward credit cards! I’ve noticed a few bloggers use them…
Schwab also has a cash back card, it give you 2% on any purchase.
Anonymous-
You bring up a good point and one I hadn’t considered. I enjoyed reading your post and the NY Times article. When I stated it is “truly free money”, I guess I was wrong, but, until everyone quits using rewards credit cards, we’ll keep maximizing our rewards
Don-
I didn’t mention it in my post, but we have an AMEX card that provides gift certificates. We only use it for Costco, so it takes awhile to receive a reward.
twoyoung-
My wife and I have a few different cash back cards for personal and business use: Chase Freedom, Chase Professional, Citi Dividend Platinum, and HSBC Platinum.
Don-
A great resource for comparing various cash back credit cards can be found at creditcards.com.