Credit Card Deals (U.S.)

Why Commenting Is Off

Quick housekeeping item. You may have noticed that comments have been off for a while -- well, "moderated," so that new posts are not added unless individually approved from our end.

This is because a team of dedicated spammers had descended on the site and were leaving nearly incoherent posts, chock full of keywords, designed to get traffic to their stupid credit card affiliate sites.

We hope to lift the moderation rule and go back to immediate auto-approval of comments once I've hired a social media editor who can regulate these... a lot of the time I am away from the computer, and hand-approving each comment from my iPhone is a bit tricky.

Also, a word about comment quality. We like long, substantive comments that bring something new to the table. "You're wrong, Chase sucks," does not qualify as long or substantive.

We certainly don't mind critiquing financial companies, whenever warranted, but avoid huge generalizations or villainizing if at all possible.

Breaking Up With A Bad Credit Card

A bad credit card is easy to spot:

- It has a high regular purchase interest rate

- It has low rewards or cash back, typically 0.5% or lower

- The company's customer support is difficult to deal with, or nearly non-existent

- It lacks useful features such as free text or e-mail balance alerts, decent mobile access, etc.

You don't need a card like that in your wallet. Run a magnet over the magnetic stripe to scramble it, then chop it up with a pair of scissors and toss it into a trash bin.

You can keep the account open even after you have destroyed the physical card. If a credit card account has no annual fee, there is almost no reason to close the actual account. I only close the account if: a) I am doing so to "make a statement" because the card company did not offer me something I asked for and b) I am certain it will not have an adverse affect on my credit score.

Closing out accounts can temporarily lower your score since you are potentially boosting your debt utilization ratio. Example: you have two credit cards, each one has a $10,000 credit line. You have a $5,000 outstanding balance on one of the cards. So your total debt is $5,000 out of an available combined credit line of $20,000. This is a 25% debt utilization ratio, which is safely under the 30% threshold many personal finance gurus recommend. 

But when you close out one of those cards, you are now at $5,000 outstanding balance out of an available credit line of $10,000; 50% debt utilization ratio.

Something to consider.

(Of course, if you always pay your balance off in full each month and never get yourself into the debt sand pit, this is not even an issue. And if you have plenty of money in the bank, your credit score is NOT the most important thing in the world. Sure, a high score can save you money on a car loan or mortgage. But if you have the money, you could buy the car or apartment outright if necessary and avoid paying a single dollar of interest.)

Be The "Cause" of Your Financial Success

Eben Pagan hosts a business conference/seminar where he charges $10,000 a seat... and it sounds like he has no trouble packing auditoriums. (Ed.: For those who don't know, he built his company from scratch into a $10 million+ successful Web business.)

Now I personally have not gone to any of his stuff, but I watched a few of his "Get Altitude" videos back in December when I was launching this very site and some of his ideas gave me a lot of insight into my own situation.

Check out the clip below, where he talks about cause vs. effect. This concept applies very well to the personal finance game.

"Cause" people: See themselves as the cause of their own financial success or failure. If they don't have as much money or acclaim as they want, cause people take specific actions to earn more, develop new forms of income and generate recognition in their chosen fields or markets.

"Effect" people: See themselves as boxed in by external financial conditions... the recession, the job market, high credit card interest rates, bad real estate market, etc. Effect people act as victims all the time, looking to "escape" their problems rather than grow existing income or invest aggressively. 

I definitely used to be an effect person. But lately I have been a cause person, and it has paid off. The last few months I've made more money than I ever have at any other point in my life. I was making a lot less when the economy was "doing well" before the recession hit.

It probably would not be good for society if we all became cause people, overnight. But if one more person takes initiative and casts aside "effect reasoning," I see no harm in that.

Video:

The Power of Money

I quit a full-time job recently. It paid well, but the hours were very long and it no longer felt like the position was in alignment with where I want to be a year from now, or two years from now. I felt as if I had hit a "ceiling" at the company.

Now, plenty of people are forced to stay in jobs they dislike, because they have mortgages to pay and kids to feed. And I certainly empathize with that.

But I have been frugal for the past year, and smart with my money (I used to be an idiot who racked up massive credit card debt at one time), and I have enough money to say NO to an 8 to 6 job that no longer gets me excited about waking up in the morning.

So I put in my 2 weeks' notice. They asked if I was leaving for a better position. When I said, "No, I'm just leaving," this surprised them.

In our society it is unusual to leave a job unless you are given an obviously better offer somewhere else: more pay, better role, less hours.

But to just leave is a bit odd, isn't it?

I can afford to pay myself for a while until I find something I truly love. Without a micro-managing boss or crazy hours.

Or I may never take another 8 to 6 job in the city. I may be done with that forever. This site is growing rather fast, so I can afford to focus on this.

I have plenty of money saved and some solid investments.

Sometimes, personal finance strategy can feel like a bit of an intellectual exercise, but in reality it impacts your daily life. It is important. 

Having some zeros in the bank means I can say "no" to some of life's annoyances. And it means that when I do something -- write an article, launch a new business, go on a vacation -- it is because I truly WANT to do that thing, and not because I need to do it "in order to get by." Or in order to "please the boss."

Save your money and someday you will be the boss. It's that simple.

Wall Street 2 Film Delayed

Wall Street 2 with Shia LaBeouf and Michael Douglas has reportedly been delayed... it was originally supposed to come out April 23, but is now slated for release in September. SEPTEMBER, as in months away from now, and yet the film has already blown its load on a massive PR push that includes a cool interview with Michael Douglas in Maxim and an equally interesting interview with Shia in GQ.

Why did they delay the film? As The Daily Beast writes, "The movie’s original release date was April 23, but Fox thinks the film has a good chance of being included in the Cannes Film Festival, which begins May 12."

The interview with Shia is pretty good. Sounds like the dude has finally grown a pair and taken on challenging roles, instead of only acting in big-budget Hasbro commercials.

At one point, he recommends the stock IOC -- InterOil Corporation. Did some research on it, not 100% sold yet but I will bet some money on that horse. I love natural resource exploration co's, especially oil.

His larger assumption that oil will rally for the remainder of the year... I think that is spot on, and I will have a lot riding on that very soon.

Not professional financial or investment advice. Author may have, or will have in the near future, holdings in the companies mentioned. No warranties or guarantees provided. For entertainment purposes only.

Publishing Again - Google Problem Fixed

Quick programming note that we will be regularly publishing new content and credit card reviews here again. It appears that the Google issue has been fixed.

(Thanks, whoever at Google helped with that!)

Mint.com Review

I reviewed Mint.com on here back in December: you can read the full review here.

What really fascinated me about Mint.com then, and continues to fascinate me about the free personal finance tracking/budgeting service today, is that it allows people with very complex financial pictures see everything at once.

This is a powerful ability. When our finances are scattered amongst many credit cards, investment accounts, a 401k or Roth IRA, checking accounts, online savings accounts, etc... it can be almost impossible to climb up and gain a clear view of where we stand financially. 

So this is the power of Mint.com, and other services like it, such as American Express' free new tool for their charge card users. If I had to review Mint again today, my stance would stay pretty much the same, although since then a few more of my friends have started using the service and all of them seem to love it.

Personally, I don't use Mint, and here's why: I've simplified my financial life to a point where I don't need to. I think this is really the end goal, or the dream, for most of us. Now, if I just had more money in some of those accounts, I would be really thrilled.

I recently paid off all of my credit cards, for the second time in my life, so I no longer have to worry about due dates or late penalty fees. I don't think Mint.com would be useful to me, because my accounts are easy to keep track of in my head:

2 checking accounts, one at Chase, one at Bank of America. Although it's not perfect, I try to use BofA mostly for business-related expenses, and Chase for personal day-to-day stuff.

Company 401k plan. There is no reason to check this balance on a weekly, monthly, or even yearly basis. My 401k is for the long term. I contribute from my paycheck automatically and forget about it. Plus, my 401k plan provider sends a paper statement once per year showing the overall return for the year. That's all I need.

Roth IRA. Also very long term. Checking the balance weekly or monthly would only freak me out, as I invest in MUCH more aggressive stuff using my Roth IRA (my 401k has only a handful of options). I shovel in more money whenever I have enough "extra" cash in my checking accounts to feel comfortable about doing this. Checking the balance once every 6 months is good enough for me.

That's it! No other accounts to worry about. All of my credit card accounts are still open for credit score reasons, but have a $0 balance and are not in use (I've shredded the physical cards). 

So yes, Mint.com can be a great tool if you have complex finances, but your long term goal should be to simplify to the point where you don't need personal finance software.

My Citibank Balance Transfer Posted! Yay! (With Screenshot)

As you can see, it looks like my Citibank balance transfer offer -- which I applied for last week -- went through without any problems. The money is now sitting in my checking account.

Will have to decide what to actually do with it at some point very soon, but for now, I think I will just marvel at the fact that I now have $9,507 in an account that I previously wasn't using anymore at all... and which only had seven bucks in it. 

Futures

Futures are a stock market and investing term. "A financial contract obligating the buyer to purchase an asset (or the seller to sell an asset), such as a physical commodity or a financial instrument, at a predetermined future date and price," is how Investopedia defines them.

Some investors use the stock market futures values to predict how the market will do when it opens the next morning. If futures values are down, the stock market might dip that day, if futures values are up, the stock market might go up that day.

Of course, this is NOT always the case. Invest with caution -- you can lose money in almost any market if you are not vetting your picks thoroughly.

My favorite site for checking the futures? It would have to be Bloomberg's futures page, although CNBC also publishes pre-market U.S. futures data on its site.

Savings Account Bonus ($25 Free Money)

As far as I know (and believe me, I take advantage of EVERY bank account promotion I hear of), ING Direct's $25 bonus offer for brand new online savings account customers is still the best, most hassle-free thing out there at the moment.

Here's how to get your free twenty-five bucks, with no risk or inconvenience.

1. ING Direct gives you a generous $25 bonus if you open a new Orange Savings account on their web site with an initial deposit of $250 or greater -- the catch is you need a "friend" to refer you first. A friend who is already a banking customer at ING. This is a more or less instant 10% return on your money, which is great considering that savings accounts are not typically a hugely profitable business for banks... especially not a bank that prides itself on not having any bogus inactivity fees or monthly maintenance fees. (If you open your account with less than $250 initially, you will still be able to open it, but you will NOT receive the $25 bonus at all.)

2. I can send you the friend referral, since I have been a happy ING customer for several years now.

3. Include your e-mail address and first AND last name in the comments section below. Your comment will NOT be taken live; no one else will see it, just me. I will NOT retain your e-mail address or use it to send you any mail whatsoever, with the exception of the invite code you will receive via e-mail from ING Direct. Without your full name, I cannot send you the invite through ING Direct's referral system.

4. Please be patient after you post a comment with your information. I will send you an invite code, typically within 6-12 hours. Often I send it within minutes of you requesting it, but sometimes I am unable to (on an airplane, in a meeting, etc.) which is why you may have to wait a bit. But no worries; I will do it.

Some info about the account: ING Direct is a great online bank. Deposits are FDIC-insured, so your money is safe, just as safe as at an "offline" branch of a big regular bank like Bank of America or Citigroup. 

ING Direct is the U.S. online banking arm of Dutch international banking giant ING Group. They are rock solid... and if they aren't, I am in deep trouble, because I keep a lot of my money at ING Direct. :)

The interest rate at ING Direct for online savings account customers is excellent: 1.10% APY at the time of writing this. Not the highest rate on Earth for a savings acct, but definitely close to it. And the $25 in free money is unbeatably easy to get your hands on.

I don't know of any other legitimate large banks offering such a sign up bonus. If you find one, please let me know in the comments and I will write a post about it, after fully testing it out!

One other awesome thing: Once you are an ING Direct customer, you can refer up to 50 of your friends -- send them invite codes to get an account of their own. You will be paid $10 per eligible new account... That's a quick and easy $500 in your pocket. Gotta love a bank that understands word-of-mouth marketing. Their web site is also a pleasure to use and I love the mobile version of it on my iPhone. OK, enough gushing, just get a damn account, or don't.

It's definitely better than the 0.01% or 0.30% APY your local bank branch probably offers on savings deposit accounts, though.