Free From Broke

A Personal Finance Blog for Regular Folks

Credit Card Use and Reviews

Credit cards can be a gateway to debt but can also be a powerful personal finance tool. See articles that will teach you about credit cards,keep you up to date on credit card rules, show you the best credit cards, as well as show you reviews.

Balance Transfer Credit Cards – When Does It Make Sense to Use Them?

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Dave Ramsey and other popular financial pundits are fond of saying things like “You can’t borrow your way out of debt!”

The advice is to those that would like to open up a new credit card for a balance transfer, or get a new home equity loan or home equity line of credit in order to pay off their current debts.

And generally speaking, borrowing money to pay off borrowed money is a losing game.

Their advice is for those that can’t handle the financial responsibility of paying off the debt and spending less than they earn at the same time.

If you continually spend more than you earn, no amount of balance transfers or new lines of credit will save you.

Since many people calling into the financial shows can’t handle that responsibility (they are up to their eyeballs in debt currently, right?) the advice points against this strategy.

However, that doesn’t mean transferring a balance from one credit card to a new one is always a bad idea.

If you are smart about how you handle the balance transfer it can actually save you thousands of dollars in interest and result in you being debt-free a lot earlier than you would have been otherwise.

How Does a Balance Transfer Credit Card Work?

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Blue Cash Preferred ® Card from American Express Review – More Cash Back and Free Amazon Prime

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Does it seem like you spend a ton on groceries and gas these days?

Yeah….me, too.  Here’s a card that helps ease the pain of that spending with some great cash back rewards on gas, department stores, and the best we’ve seen on groceries.

It’s the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express credit card, another card in the “Blue” family of American Express cards.

They’re offering a decent Welcome Bonus right now, too – if you charge $1,000 to the card in the first three months, you get 100 in Reward Dollars.  AND you can also get a free year of Amazon Prime if you satisfy the bonus requirement.  Nice!

Now Let’s Dig Deeper Into the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express

[Read more…] about Blue Cash Preferred ® Card from American Express Review – More Cash Back and Free Amazon Prime

What Is A Secured Credit Card?

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Just like bank loans, where there is secured and unsecured borrowing by businesses, credit cards as a form of consumer debt can also be either secured or unsecured.

Credit cards, as most of us know and use, are unsecured.

The money is lent to card users without any collateral against it and it is up to consumers to pay back the account balance later and if not, the card issuer loses (well, they will go after you but there is no guarantee they get their money back).

When the possibility of not paying back by a credit card holder becomes a serious concern, either because of the applicant’s bad credit in the past or no established credit at all, a card issuer would require certain amount of funds to be deposited as collateral before a credit line can be issued.
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Blue Cash Everyday ® Card from American Express – Review, Now With Amazon Prime and a $50 Bonus

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American Express has a great card in it’s “Blue” family – the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express.

This is a nice no-nonsense cash back card that’s easy for people to understand.  These days that’s getting harder to find as credit card companies make their rewards harder to get or increase the annual fee to make up for the benefits of the card.

Let’s take a look at what the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express has to offer. [Read more…] about Blue Cash Everyday ® Card from American Express – Review, Now With Amazon Prime and a $50 Bonus

Citi ThankYou Preferred Card – $200 in Gift Cards | Review

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How would you like a credit card that offers rewards as well as a nice 0% introductory APR on purchases and balance transfers?  Add to that a $150 gift card bonus?

Sounds interesting, right?

This is what the Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card is offering.  Join me as we walk through what the card offers…

The Citi ThankYou Preferred Card

Sign-Up Bonus

When you make $1,500 in purchases within 3 months of opening your account you will earn 20,000 bonus ThankYou Points.  That right there is good to redeem for $200 in gift cards or other rewards they offer.

ThankYou Point Rewards

The rewards program with the Citi ThankYou Preferred Card is the …wait for it… ThankYou Points program.

You earn 1 ThankYou Point for every $1 you spend on purchases.  No categories or signing up to get your points required.  Just a simple 1 for 1.  You can earn unlimited points and your ThankYou Points don’t expire.

You can earn 2x points when you use your card for entertainment and dining.

You can redeem your ThankYou Points for merchandise, travel, gift cards, statement credits/cash, event tickets, and more.  When redeeming your points pay attention to what the point redemption is.  You may find that you get better value with say gift cards than you do with merchandise.

If you shop through the ThankYou® Bonus Center you’ll have opportunities to earn bonus points.  There are over 600+ retailers represented there.

0% Intro APR

Stack of MoneyHere’s a sweet incentive for those with a balance to transfer from another card or if you’re planning on making a big purchase – you get a 0% Introductory APR for 12 months on both purchases and balance transfers.

If you have a balance elsewhere then transferring to a 0% intro APR can help you pay that balance down faster since you get to put more money towards the balance rather than towards interest.  I’ve done this in the past to help pay off credit card balances.

After the introductory APR expires your rate will be a variable APR from 12.99%-22.99% based on your creditworthiness.

Be aware there is a balance transfer fee of 3% for each transfer with a minimum of $5.  This is pretty much standard for most cards.

Foreign Travel

Your Citi ThankYou Preferred card will have Chip technology in it making foreign travel purchases easier and safer when you shop at merchants that accept payments with chip terminals.  Be aware there is a 3% foreign transaction fee when you use your card abroad.

Annual Fee

There is no annual fee for this card.

Finally

The Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card is a nice all-around rewards card.  There’s no annual fee, you get a bonus point offer to start, and you have a 0% intro APR that applies to purchases and balance transfers.  The rewards are easy to understand as it’s one point for every one dollar spent.

There are cards out there that offer richer points programs or longer intro APR periods, as well as cards that offer no foreign transactions fees.  That said, the Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card has a little bit of everything, touching base on a lot of credit card perks.

This card is similar in rewards to the Blue Cash Everyday® Card from American Express or the Discover it® Card.  Both of the other cards offer up some higher rewards bonuses but you need to see which of the three cards has categories you will actually use more often.

*Always make sure you understand the terms of a credit card before you sign up. See the online credit card application for details about terms and conditions. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. However all credit card information is presented without warranty. When you click on the “Apply Now” button, you can review the credit card terms and conditions on the issuer’s website. Citi is a paid advertiser of this site.