I used to to think that credit cards were a bad a idea for anyone, at least anyone who doesn’t needed the money. I never used a credit card for anything up until recently. And the reason I didn’t use a credit card in the past was because of a simple reason, I never had the need to borrow money to buy my stuff. And credit cards would be the last place I would go to borrow money, just because all credit cards have very high interest rates. So I usually had enough money in my checking account that I never had to used credit, I used to pay everything with a debit card, which automatically deducts the money from my checking account so I never owed anything to anybody as long as I had enough money to pay for my purchases in my checking account.
A few months ago I found out that my debit card bank gives me 0.25 % back for every dollar I spend using the debit card, and in deed I had about $35 in rewards for all the money that I spent using the debit card. So I cashed in the rewards and started thinking, about all those credit cards that give that gives you back more percentage for the purchased you made on the credit cards.
After researching several credit car companies, I went online to www.chase.com and they have plenty of credit cards to choose from, I wanted to go with one that will give me the most cash back and that would be easy to pay online. After browsing a few I decided to go with Chase Freedom, this credit card gives me 3% cash back for every dollar spend on eligible grocery stores, gas stations and quick service restaurants (That is 11 times more of what my regular debit card was giving me) and any other purchases anywhere else would give me a 1% cash back.
After selecting the card and filling some information, I was surprise to find out I was approved right there on the spot and didn’t need to send any mail to the credit card company, I just hit the submit button and got back an immediate response saying that my application was approved and my credit card will arrive in 2 weeks.
Sure enough 2 weeks later I got my Chase Freedom credit card, I called the number on the credit car and activated the credit car, then went online with the credit card number to open an online account where I could manage my credit card balances and payments etc. the process was super easy, and i am very satisfied.
2 Important things to Remember when getting The Chase Credit Card
- The chase freedom credit card allows you to choose your rewards mechanism as cash back or points that you can redeem for gifts at any point in time. I choose cash back because I would rather have the cash than any other gift since cash is more convenient.
- The chase freedom credit card came with this “Payment Protector plan” which is an optional amendment to the credit card agreement. Basically if your get into a situation that qualifies as financial hardship (such as involuntarily unemployed, hospitalized, or disable, Military reserve etc), then you will not be required to make the minimum monthly payment up to 2 years and it will not affect your credit rating. And this optional plan has a fee cost of 89 cents per $100 of your ending monthly statement balance which will be billed to you credit card, when there is no balance there is no charge. You have 30 days to cancel this optional amendment to get full refund of any fees paid, if you cancel this after 30 days, any fees that you paid for the plan will not be refunded.
- Credit card companies are in the business to make money not to loose money, they use the concept of cash back, so that everytime you buy something with the credit card, you get to think of how much cash back you will get as opposed to how much you are spending, if you get into this habbit, you will overlook the value of the purchase and then you will get in to the Credit Card Trap.
I got the credit card just to get 1% and 3% cash back from my purchases, that otherwise I would buy using my debit car and would have gotten only 1/4% cash back. I fully intent to pay my credit card balance in full every month so i get charge effectively zero interest and get the cash back of my purchases.
With this credit card the worst I can do is 1% cash back which means that for every $100 Dollars I spend using the credit card, the credit card company will give me 1% of the $100 dollars back or $1 dollar. Now the way i am using the credit card is to get money back and nothing else, since I don’t need to borrow the money because i have spending money in my checking account. So if you are using the credit card just for the same purpose, I recommend you to do what I did, after you receive your credit card in the mail call the phone number in the card immediately and make sure you cancel the payment protector plan. I know i am not going to need this protector plan and besides if you don’t cancel this “protector plan”, they will charge you 89 cents per every $100 dollars and thus reducing your cash back rate from $1 dollar to 11 cents per $100 of spending.
It hasn’t been a month yet, and I’ve already spend over $600 using my new credit card, and I’ve only spend on things I need and use like gasoline, restaurants and groceries, nothing fancy here, and so far the I have accumulated $9.9 dollars from the cash back of my purchases. So lets say my usual spending per months is about the same every month and I get get $10 every month cash back, that’s $120 per year, it might not seem much but its $120 dollars that I can use for something else and put them to work. The cool thing is that I would had not been able to save this money using a regular debit card.
According to Chase, once my dollars cash back gets to be $50 or greater i can request a Check for the dollar amount, and if the cash back gets to be $200 they will cut me a check for $250. I haven’t receive any money yet but once i get my first check I’ll let you guys know.
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