how many CREDIT CARDS do you have?
youngEINSTEIN
2,443 Posts
youngEINSTEIN Said:4.peace, stein. . . 
youngEINSTEIN
2,443 Posts
Comments
Lightweight son!
I hope you use them to maximize your pilfering of the credit card companies.
What's good? I've been out of the new CC game for daze. Anyone happy with theirs?
I'd hang on to it if you can for that very reason.
Your best card is probably going to fit your situation as opposed to being from a particular company. If you don't carry a balance I'd shop rewards programs - it's an easy way to make a little bit of extra money. Companies have been slashing a lot of their perks but there are still some ok ones floating around. Chase is a big one to do the 1% on everything 2-3% cash back on certain categories. GM had (I guess they still do) a sweet deal where a full 5% of what you spend (up to several g's a year) with the card is applied if you buy a new GM, Literally I had clients who would get $5,000 or more off their car purchases with this. Of course, this assumes you would buy a GM car.
Discover is one that sounds good but they play math games. They claim 5% cash back but they bury that they only pay .25-.50% on the first few thousand. So to really come out ahead you have to spend a lot with it.
Companywise, CapitalOne is the only other co I know of (aside from BofA) that has been really aggressive with unprovoked tinkering with people's terms (i.e. jacking up rates, slashing limits, etc.)
Thanks! For no reason at all, they changed my card number to a new style account. I complained to get the old one back, but they said this is how it is. I didn't know if that would still qualify credit-wise for the same account.
Issue-wise, BofA signed me up for a second credit card and activated it without my consent. When I called to complain and cancel the card, they didn't do it. I went in to a branch to deal with a person and the finally canceled it. But, they signed me up for fraud protection (a paid service) without my consent.
On two occasions, they canceled my monthly auto-payment, and started charging me monthly finance charges without my consent.
One time they sent me a renewal card that was only valid May 30th, 2006 to May 31st, 2006. One day. There's been numerous other issues over the years. I just wanted to switch it up. Maybe I'll keep the account, and just change all my charges over to a different card.
I'll peep some rewards-dillies.
They may have canceled the program.
Kind of weird. If you dealt with a banker or sales rep at some point I wouldn't be surprised if they pitched it to you. Many will "assume" that a non-"no" answer (i.e. eh, i'll think about it, i don't know, maybe, etc) = "yes".
Out of the major co's I haven't had any problems with Chase. I also like USBank's option to let you set it to automatically pay minimums (or a specified amt, whatever) so you're never late if you forget.
Any recommendations on SkyMiles
Wish I could, but I don't fly often (so I don't use) and it wasn't a program I dealt with in my formerly employed life.
Although in general if you fly there (used to be, may still be) are several really great programs for free flights/miles.
Generically speaking all I can say is check up front for black out dates, fees, and other such nonsense. I know I had a few clients that had really good rewards programs on their cards with no black out dates, fees, and generous miles-per-dollar rewards.
Sorry I can't be of more help on that end.
There are a lot of great forums that keep track of all sorts of shit like CC rewards, like www.fatwallet.com (amongst many others).
I deals with cash.
F*ck personal credit right now. When I start a business, that will be a different story. Gotta use it.
Not to sound all old and bitter, but there's going to come a time when you want to purchase something on credit (i.e. a house) and it's going to blow because you have the credit history of a 16 year old.
I am in no way a champion of credit card companies, but you're really doing yourself a favor to have one or two and buy a pack of gum with it (and pay it off) every now and then. Then you have credit history.
Rael talk.
So do you just deal in cash?
That's cool if you can swing it like that, but (again not trying to go all old man here) what are you gonna do when you have to retire (or can't work)? None of the above means you also have no retirement account or funds.
The problem with that theory is that if you're starting a business from scratch you'll most likely have to personally cosign with your business as your business will have no credit history. And then, neither will you, so you're either not going to be able to get credit period or you're not going to get very good terms as your credit is either bad, rusty, or both.
Again I reference having a couple cards, buying a few packs of gum occasionally, paying it off, and repeating the cycle. Then when you're ready to be a big baller shot caller you credit is already primed and ready to go.
Yeah, I know. I have a student loan that looks nice with a long, solid, payment period. I hope that helps.
I'm unemployed, dealing with cash to pay my bills, I don't know if right now is a good time to pick up a few petty cash credit cards. You're right tho.
I've actually been helping my girls credit, not mine. My car loan, which is paid off, was on her credit. Computers, anything, pretty much goes through her. She has the cleanest history anybody has ever seen. It's quite impressive.
This is some real f*cking talk. Your credit score is a big factor in home purchases, etc, aka the real big important stuff in life.
Yeah, paid student loans are definitely good. One thing I'm fuzzy on is how much of an assistance it is to have varied credit types in your history, like revolving/unsecured (credit cards) vs. secured (car loans, mortgages).
When you get a chance I'd pick up a credit card or two anyway. I understand the unemployed thing right now - they're going to want to see some sort of income. Of course if they ask for household income you can always put whoever is in your household (i.e. girlfriend)'s income too.
Up to you, but I'd still do it when you feel up to it, just to have that variance.
I sympathize with the unemployment shit. I'm there myself.
At my house we don't have anything credit that is in both names which is a double edged sword. On one hand, we pay everything on time but since it's all individual we don't get to share in the whole package together (credit-wise). On the other hand, if things really go to shit at some point, in theory one person could take the fall and we'd still have one other person who still has good credit.
I haven't yet decided if foregoing sharing of good credit is worth the potential shielding if we ever get in a bind since we are generally pretty conscientious about our finances.
The only money that i know is cash.
And that's right, I don't have any sort of retirement account nor do I have any funds. I just have records...
Given how fucked the german retirement system will be by the time I would reach the age most people retire, I'm sure I'll be able to get more money by liquidating my records. Doesn't really matter because I don't have a job that I could retire from nor did I have any reported income within the past 15 years that would have allowed me to pay into a retirement fund. In germany, you actually have to pay a certain percentage of your income into the governments retirement system, one of the reasons why I don't have an income. Ther retirement system pays the retirement money for those who are retired today and it will be nonfunctional when I'm that age. If you mean by "retirement" to quit your dayjob and begin to strictly do whatever you want to do, then I've been retired since the age of 26 and have lived a full and happy life that would allow me to end it tomorrow without having any regrets. This society's system of labor, taxation and the final reward of retirement is nothing else but modern slavery.
Interesting stuff.
Yeah I don't know how shit is in Germany, but most people (who are concerned about it, that is) in the US don't base their retirement on Social Security (US's federal retirement) and instead opt for self-funded retirement accounts that have tax benefits attached, like 401(k)s or IRAs. That's mainly because Soc Sec is minimal and, like yours mentioned above, and probably won't hold out for people my age.
And the labor-taxation-retirement commment... can't argue with you there.
You sound young. You don't need credit to rent, that is up to the landlord.
There are landlords that don't require credit checks.
You gotta wonder about that. No credit, no bank accounts, nothing...
If you think about it... you couldn't rent a car, fly on an airplane, get a (normal) hotel room, rent a backhoe, prepay for gas... the list goes on.
since I got married, rent is being paid through my wife's account. The 5 years before getting married, I entertained a bank account for the sole purpose of paying rent. Every month, I deposited just enough money so rent and utilities could get paid. This was only because I had to find a place within a few days after moving to Berlin and the place was nice enough to go through the hassle of setting up a bank account solely for this purpose. Before that I had another period of 6 years without a bank account while living in Berlin and NYC in altogether 5 different places, all of them very nice apartments, privately owned where I paid rent and utilities in cash to the landlord. Electricity was paid for with money orders. Worked fine. No landlord worries about your source of income or your credit if you pay a couple of months rent in advance in cash. One landlord even continued asking me for rent months in advance and gave me a nice discount in exchange. If you have a few weeks time, it's possible to rent a nice, privately owned place for cash anywhere you want. All it takes is good social skills to convince your landlord to be that you're neither a deadbeat nor a drug dealer and if he's smart, he might even see the benefit of having his rent paid in cash which is the possibility of reporting only a fraction of it as income. A classic win-win situation.
Wrong!
Small private car rental services will rent you cars without a credit card all it takes is a security deposit in cash. You can also buy plane tickets at travel agencies and pay cash. Never had a problem at any hotel paying in cash. Where do you get all this from? Astonishing how well adapted to the system you all are... You'd be surprised how many businesses will give you a nice discount if you pay in cash. Not paying sales tax is pretty much standart
I would prefer not to, obviously, but so much shit revolves around it. Buying property, starting a business, etc. You can make do without but its also going to limit you financially (you won't be able to leverage yourself - positively) in the long run.