Entries Tagged 'Credit' ↓

Are you looking for the best gas credit card now that we have $4 gas? Fortunately we have personal finance blogs to cut through the fluff and tell you straight which is the best card. Right now, the best gas credit card appears to be the American Express SimplyCash® card. It offers 5% cash back on gas and they credit it directly to your account. No shenanigans about requesting a check over $50, depositing a check, waiting, sometimes forgetting to request it, etc. Credit directly to your account FTW!

The only concern is that it’s a business card, which means you have to have a business right? Nope. You can apply as a sole proprietorship, use your social security number as your EIN, and you’re in luck. This is entirely legitimate and there are no tax implications of doing so.

The other cards mentioned, the Discover Open Road and the American Express Costco TrueEarnings cards are less desirable. The Discover Open Road limits your cashback to $20 a month (first $100 in purchases) and the TrueEarnings card has an annual fee unless you’re a Costco member (and is only 3% cashback, 5% for the business card version). You are better offer with the SimplyCash card.

Building and maintaining a strong credit history is a must these days. In the past, only lenders cared about your credit score and your credit history. Now, everyone from landlords to employers are checking your credit history and using it as a proxy for reliability and trustworthiness. They believe that someone with a low credit score and a weak history is less trustworthy, which may or may not be true, so it’s important for you to build and maintain a strong credit score and history. This is best accomplished when you’re a student because you’re finally on your own.

The first step is to try to apply for a student credit card such as the Citi mtvU credit card. The Citi mtvU card isn’t just the non-student card with higher interest rates and more fees, it’s actually a tailored card with features a student would like like 5% cashback at bookstores, points for good grades and on-time payment. It also means that students are more likely to be accepted. If you try to get a regular consumer credit card, the rules are going to be more stringent.

If you don’t qualify for that card, consider getting a credit card from a store you shop at in the mall. These cards often have low limits and zero benefits (make sure you get a card with no annual fee!) but you’re looking to build credit, not get access to easy debt. If you can get the mtvU card, or some other student card, don’t bother with getting a store card.

Don’t sign up for a credit card at some random table at school. 95% of these tables are legitimate, but you always run the risk of giving out all that sensitive data to a complete stranger that you shouldn’t trust. That person could use that information to steal your identity. Not worth it.

Good luck!

Discover is running a new Discover Business card promotion where they’re offering $100 bonus cashback after your first $1000 in purchases. You’ll earn cashback on your $1000 spending so that $100 is bonus money.

Remember, anyone can apply for a business card using their social security number as a sole proprietorship without any additional paperwork or tax implications.

Quick and easy 100 ThankYou Network points:

• Log into your Citi ThankYou Network account
• Enter promotion code CITICCI508IN for 100 points

From May 1st until June 30th, American Express is running a promotion where they will send you a $25 American Express Spring Fling card for every pair of $25 American Express gift cards you purchase. The American Express Spring Fling promotion, as it’s called, allows for two offers per households, for a total of 2 Spring Fling cards available (4 of the $25 cards = 2 of the $25 Spring Fling cards). The only downside is that there is a $3.95 activation fee per gift card so you have to pay that four times for a total of $15.80 - thus reducing your $50 Spring Fling card down to $34.20. You can use the Spring Fling card as a bunch of retailers including Best Buy, Fandango, Borders, and SpaFinder.

Whether or not this deal is worth it to you is up to you, but it’s available. Here is the Spring Fling Rebate and the Spring Fling promotional page.

Have you seen a hot offer from a credit card but stopped yourself from applying because it was for a business? Let me let you in on a little secret… anyone can apply for a business credit card. The reason anyone can apply is because anyone can be a business without filing any additional paperwork. To apply, simply put in your social security number as your tax identification number and put your name as your business name and you’re all set. The business entity type is called a sole proprietorship and it requires no paperwork to establish. There are no tax implications for saying you’re a business so you don’t have to worry about the IRS coming after you just because you applied for a business credit card.

Why would you want to apply for a business card? There are a lot of hot offers for businesses right now such as Discover Business Card’s 0% on purchases for 12 months and Blue from American Express’s 0% on purchases for 15 months. Here is a list of 0% APR on purchases cards, many of which aren’t business cards.

If you do have a business, the best business card to get has to be the Discover Business card, my full analysis is in the link.

I’m not sure how many people use the myFICO credit monitoring service (or any number of credit related services that they offer) but they recently released a new discount promotion code 25offFICO where you get 25% off their services, coupon expires at the end of the week, Feb 22nd.

100% Risk-Free 30-Day FREE Trial

• Monitors important changes to your FICO® score and Equifax Credit Report™
• Provides timely alerts when important changes are detected
• Easy-to-read view of how lenders see you and items affecting your score
• Alerts you when you might qualify for better interest rates on loans

A week before your 30-day trial expires, we will contact you by email to confirm that you wish to convert your trial to an annual subscription. If you do not cancel prior to the end of the 30-day trial, you will be billed at the annual subscription rate of $89.95 when the 30-day trial expires.

Enjoy!

No, FreeCreditReport.com is not a scam in that they are stealing identifying information or otherwise deceiving you. That being said, FreeCreditReport offers you a copy of your credit report and your credit score but it also enrolls you into a free 30-day trial of Experian’s Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring program. The Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring costs $14.95 a month but your first month is free, so in a sense the credit report you request is absolutely free. You must remember to cancel if you don’t want to be rolled in Triple Advantage Credit Monitoring.

This website is not the official website setup by the government that gives you a copy of your credit report from Transunion, Experian, and Equifax. That website is AnnualCreditReport.com but that website will not provide you with a credit score. So, if you want your score, sign up for FreeCreditReport.com and remember to cancel the trial membership.

Do you get tons and tons of junk mail from all sorts of companies? Do you want to help save the Earth and end the flow of junk mail to your home? The government set up a anti-mailing list of sorts at OptOutPrescreen that tells junk mail companies that you do not want their solicitations and that the companies will be penalized if they send mail to you.

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Consumer Credit Reporting Companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you (”Firm Offers”). The FCRA also provides you the right to “Opt-Out”, which prevents Consumer Credit Reporting Companies from providing your credit file information for Firm Offers.

So, take advantage of this great way of ending a lot of your junk mail. I signed up a year ago and the amount of mail I’ve received has dropped tremendously.

So you spent a little more than you should’ve this past year and your credit card dinged you for a few bucks, no big deal right? What about a payment you sent in that was a day late? Little fees like that are probably not a big deal to you but they result in a ton of extra money each year for banks and credit card companies, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Those fees, in many cases, are like icing on a big fat cake for those companies and in that regard you can often get them removed just by asking.

If you ever get dinged for a fee, first take steps to make sure you don’t let it happen again. You won’t be able to use your ‘get out of jail free’ card every single month so you want to prevent the offending action in the first place. Plus, you can only use the ignorance excuse so many times before they realize it and deny your claims.

When calling, be polite to the person on the other end of the phone. They have a lot of latitude in removing small little < $25 fines and fees in order to keep you as a customer, they also have to deal with a lot of attitude so they may not feel like saving you a few dollars. Be cordial and tell them that you made a miscalculation, you really like the card, and would like the fee removed. If they don’t, you’ll have to escalate it by asking they remove it or you cancel the card. Usually that will work because the fees they earn by processing credit card transactions is so massive compared to a dinky over-the-limit fee that they will nix the fee to keep you spending.

This works for basically any business with these types of fines from credit cards to banks to anything. Your long term business is worth more than a $25 fee.