I call that smart and creative purchasing. Like I said, if you know how to use credit cards, they are a wonderful thing. If you "take advantage" of all their bonuses, without paying any fees or interests, you did good! If there is no added fee to buy big tag items, I love putting them on my credit card, earning the points and then just paying it off before any interest is accrued.
Damn, brother! We're peas in a pod!!!
Amy and I put every purchase and expense we possibly can on plastic, and between us we pay thousands in credit card bills every month (because she owns 3 LLCs, and we use credit cards for business expenses).
But we never pay a penny in interest. Every single statement balance is paid in full when due. She's a genius at finding the best rewards.
She's disabled, so I do all the shopping outside the house, and I carry all our cards in my wallet. I have to use a thick rubber band around my wallet to keep the cards from falling out... somewhere between 15 and 20, for both of our personal cards, all of our joint cards, and all of her businesses' cards. She has 4-6 banks and credit unions, I have 3-4. And we have worthwhile benefits from each of those institutions.
She constantly updates her list - "for gas, use best Buy card, all grocery purchases are Langley credit union, everything else is Ford Bronco card etc." It's a nightmare to keep up with (because I am always trying to find ways to make things more simple), but she's piled up huge numbers of frequent flyer miles, Amtrak miles, hotel credits, cash bonuses, gift cards, etc. We'll almost certainly never use all of them, but right now we could easily take a European vacation or a cross-country Amtrak trip.
Trouble is, she so badly disabled we're unlikely to ever be able to use them, but you never know. One scenario is that a day will come when we find she only has a limited time to live, and then out plan is just to spend miles - travel, see every part of the world together that we can, and if and when that day comes, we have that "bucket list" option in our back pocket.
Now if I go into a Mom and Pop store, I always pay cash, I don't want them having to pay that damn CC fee for me doing business with them.
Again, same here. I always carry several hundred bucks in cash for emergencies and to pay (as you say, mom and pop folks), and when I make a purchase at a locally owned franchise, I whip it out. There's a small, privately owned family pharmacy in a town 10 miles from us, and I drive there to pay cash to Blake rather than use Visa or Amex at a chain pharmacy a half mile from our house. I like Blake, and admire his courage in trying to start a small business in a competitive niche at the start of Covid. Amy and I both want to help him.
Plus, there's a Kentucky country boy who married a Thai woman and they run a Thai food truck on the way back from that pharmacy. So I can get a fantastic meal out of the trip, as well.
I can't tell you how many bank accounts I have opened up to take advantage of their "We will give you $200-500 if you bank with us" promotions. Now some of them require that you pay a few of your bills through them, at a fee, which I won't do.
This is the part where I chortled and slapped my knee. You sure we're not separated at birth? Because I've never met anyone as into that as I am (or rather, as Amy is, because that's the reality).
As a retired banker, Heyjoe's just going to hate us both, but we've been doing this for 10 years or more. We actually have a pool of several thousand dollars set aside that are dedicated solely to this gambit - opening accounts, transferring money back and forth, and reaping the bonuses. With her LLCs, we can direct deposit money into new accounts (thus meeting the requirements of many of these offers), pay bills, whatever we need to do, and we make thousands of dollars per year - apiece.
There's no denying it adds up. It's not like we'd be broke without it, but there is a certain satisfaction to beating the banking industry at their own game while operating strictly within the rules that they have created.
Not me, I keep the account idle and open as long as I have to and then just close it out.
Personally, I usually find ways and reasons to use the accounts in some fashion over a period of time, so that they can at least make a little money off of me. Amy? Not so much; sweet as she is, she's cut-throat when it comes to finances, whereas my business philosophy is to always leave at least something on the table so that the other party has gotten something out of it too. I wish she were not the way she is, but it is what it is.
Way I figure it, they target me because my FICO is way, way above 800, so they they think I spend a lot of money on plastic - so they can make money off of me on transaction fees.
And that's fine. I have no problem with that. Glad to do business with BoA on those terms.
But at least some part of that calculation is also the possibility that I may someday overextend and need to start paying interest on my credit accounts instead of paying them off each month. Part of their projection is that sometimes I am likely to carry a balance, and with my volume of spending, they're going to make a profit off of that.
That ain't ever gonna happen, because we always have cash reserves sufficient to cover any emergency shortfalls if they should occur. We can always move assets around to avoid interest, fees, and penalties. But they're hoping that at some point, we/I can
not, and if that day ever comes, they'll make money off of me/us.
I don't feel the least bit guilty about beating them at their own game.
