Comments on: making money with a credit card

By: elilani

elilani — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:22:19 +0000

its very good

By: gecengece

gecengece — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:53:40 +0000

i know Credit cards are evil. i take it

By: gecengece

gecengece — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:52:48 +0000

credit cards are definitely the way to go.
Just don't let your spending get out of hand.

By: video klipler

video klipler — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:49:54 +0000

The point system exists to get people like you to play it and talk about it.

By: keşan

keşan — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:15:11 +0000

thanks for the info. i know Credit cards are evil. i take it

By: Sonny

Sonny — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:58:00 +0000

Wow Steve, Sorry for being late but I just read your post (and the comments). Thanks for this post as I agree with you 100%. To me credit cards have added simplicity and rewards to my life in exchange for buying stuff I would normally buy (food, gas, etc). To me this works well.

By: davis

davis — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:04:46 +0000

But keep in mind, we're ALREADY charged that extra 2.5% cause its been done so often…. so in today's market, even with cash, that 2.5% was already built in.

Lets not forget this, however — even if we pay ZERO in interest and get cash back, the credit cards still win. They sell our purchasing history and demographics to companies out there… they're not losing money. They're collecting very valuable consumer demographics that other companies simply could not ever with as much accuracy… (Granted, their not *making* money either… but the credit card company isn't getting hurt)

By: Steve @ bripblap

Steve @ bripblap — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:54:53 +0000

That's a valid point, Matthew, but the alternative is what – pay for online purchases with PayPal? And I'd argue that you're still paying that 2.5% markup whether or not you use a credit card. Merchants obviously aren't marking up credit card purchases differently than cash purchases, so even if everyone stopped using credit cards except a few people, the markup would remain built in.

By: Kare

Kare — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:29:04 +0000

Matthew,

Great insight…so totally true!!!

By: No Debt Plan

No Debt Plan — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:51:20 +0000

While theoretically true, in practice this proves to be false.

Let me explain.

Yes they do charge merchants 2.5-3% to accept the card. But there was a great discussion over on my blog (not trying to plug my site or anything, but you can see the info here http://www.nodebtplan.net/2009/03/08/reader-com...).

Plus you ignore the added benefit to businesses from accepting cards: higher number of transactions (more customers), and if the "surveys" are to be deemed true, then each transaction is larger on average than it would be otherwise. This would be good for the merchant.

Imagine if the companies dropped all of their fees and saved the businesses 2-3%. Do you think we would see a price drop? No, they would absorb the profit... just like us reward card members are happy to do.

By: No Debt Plan

No Debt Plan — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:44:39 +0000

This is an epic post... as you can tell by the comments.

Some can control their spending, others cannot. Debit, credit, cash, it doesn't matter.

Some say studies show you spend more with plastic. That's odd... I have a budget. How many of those people were living on a budget?

Being stupid is not an excuse for you to burn any company at the stake.

The soda company comparison is fantastic -- inspiring me to write something about it for tomorrow.

By: Bubelah

Bubelah — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:59:58 +0000

So you never shop online? I love shopping online for convenience, buying bulk items like formula, paper towels and such… I know that you can pay with PayPal but some sites don't offer that and they sure don't give you cash-back.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:03:14 +0000

You also push up the prices on products because the store must pay 2.5% or more of the sales prices to Visa, Mastercard, or American Express. American Express, in fact, charges merchants the highest fees of the three. Why should we continue to let there be another middleman taking 2.5% from every purchase? Sure, it's nice to get back a few percent in the short term but in reality we are wasting our money by using the cards. Credit cards can be useful in certain situations because they can increase short-term liquidity and provide additional protections on purchases. When everyone purchases everything on them though, it's like we're all paying 2.5% on all of our purchases so that we don't have to pay them for 30 days.

By: Mr. ToughMoneyLove

Mr. ToughMoneyLove — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:21:46 +0000

Four Pillars: If you read the studies (as I have done) you will learn why many people spend more with plastic than they do with cash. I commented on the Rewards cards because so many people claim to make money using the rewards without considering that they might actually be better off not using a card at all. If you sell a payday loan in your footer, that's a choice you make. If you write a post promoting payday loans, that is a different choice. I choose not to do either but I understand that others make different choices. But that difference gives us something to talk about, does it not?

By: Four Pillars

Four Pillars — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:50:27 +0000

TML - you are comparing apples and oranges. I'm not surprised that people who use credit cards spend more but I'm not so sure about the reasons.

Is it possible that some of the people who pay cash can't get credit or are maxed out? Is it not also possible that people who use cards a lot are in a completely different demographic than people who use cash and that explains the difference?

And as for the apples and oranges comment - where does the rewards fit into your statement? Do people who use rewards cards spend more than those who use cards without rewards (assuming all other variables are equal).

As far as pimping goes - I agree with Steve - Adsense is the worst thing going for shitty ads - check out the ads on some of your stimulus posts and you'll see what I mean. Of course everyone excuses themselves since bloggers "don't have any control over what shows up on Adsense". But, if I sell sell one little payday loan ad in my footer then I guess I'm a pimp (or whatever).