What's in your wallet?
Seriously?
Take a look. How many cards do you have in there?
Okay, so we have one. After a lot of hard work we have it down to $0, which is great because the interest is ridiculous-19.99%.
Which got me thinking about why we have this type of card to begin with, with the interest being so high...
Ah yes, rewards. Specifically travel rewards.
Okay, so there are some people out there that are great at using rewards. They live places where they can shop and use their cards and points to their full advantage. They also know how to 'work the system'.
We are not those people. At all.
Part of it just being lazy (I'm totally fine with admitting that) but a huge part is the fact that we really don't shop much if we can help it, and our town only has one grocery store (not a lot of options here).
So we have this card. We are paying $110+ annual fees for keeping this card, with the purpose of using it for travel rewards...only...we have NEVER, EVER, used it for travel since we've had it.
Actually we have never cashed in on any points. Despite years of using it, we only have about $300.00 towards travel.
Yeah, we bought into the hype of "Oh, the places you'll go".
Sound familiar?
If you, like us, are carrying a credit card with high interest + an annual fee and aren't using the point system-stop.
Why are you paying MORE money to have 'special' credit that you are also going to pay interest on when you aren't even using the points to make it worth it?
Don't allow yourself to fall into the 'points trap'. Take a look at the fine print, find out what your points are costing you. Find out what you have to spend to make it worth it. If the numbers don't add up-you know what to do.
I plan on making a call first thing Tuesday morning (being that Monday is a holiday) to get us into a no or low annual fee with low interest...after I use up the few points we have managed to rack up of course.
Update: Made an apointment for May 31st with Scotia-will let you know how it went.
Update: Just got back from our apointment. Cashed in our points for 2X $100 Gas gift cards and then switched to a No-fee Moneyback Card. This was a great choice for us...the interest is 3% less than our rewards card, no annual fee, and cash back on a certain % of our purchases annually. Thanks Scotia!
Seriously?
Take a look. How many cards do you have in there?
Okay, so we have one. After a lot of hard work we have it down to $0, which is great because the interest is ridiculous-19.99%.
Which got me thinking about why we have this type of card to begin with, with the interest being so high...
Ah yes, rewards. Specifically travel rewards.
Okay, so there are some people out there that are great at using rewards. They live places where they can shop and use their cards and points to their full advantage. They also know how to 'work the system'.
We are not those people. At all.
Part of it just being lazy (I'm totally fine with admitting that) but a huge part is the fact that we really don't shop much if we can help it, and our town only has one grocery store (not a lot of options here).
So we have this card. We are paying $110+ annual fees for keeping this card, with the purpose of using it for travel rewards...only...we have NEVER, EVER, used it for travel since we've had it.
Actually we have never cashed in on any points. Despite years of using it, we only have about $300.00 towards travel.
Yeah, we bought into the hype of "Oh, the places you'll go".
Sound familiar?
If you, like us, are carrying a credit card with high interest + an annual fee and aren't using the point system-stop.
Why are you paying MORE money to have 'special' credit that you are also going to pay interest on when you aren't even using the points to make it worth it?
Don't allow yourself to fall into the 'points trap'. Take a look at the fine print, find out what your points are costing you. Find out what you have to spend to make it worth it. If the numbers don't add up-you know what to do.
I plan on making a call first thing Tuesday morning (being that Monday is a holiday) to get us into a no or low annual fee with low interest...after I use up the few points we have managed to rack up of course.
Update: Made an apointment for May 31st with Scotia-will let you know how it went.
Update: Just got back from our apointment. Cashed in our points for 2X $100 Gas gift cards and then switched to a No-fee Moneyback Card. This was a great choice for us...the interest is 3% less than our rewards card, no annual fee, and cash back on a certain % of our purchases annually. Thanks Scotia!
Let me know!
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