Take Advantage of Credit Cards to Advance your Financial Independence
Credit cards rewards are an exciting topic! We do not claim to know what many other people know about credit card rewards. We don’t fly first class or get free flights to Europe...yet! What we can say is - we put everything we possibly can on our credit cards and pay the entire statement balance every month. The perks of credit cards are great! They provide you additional pots of money/points (essentially for free) that save you from spending your own money. We have been partial to Chase and hold several of their credit cards which we utilize based on the points they earn. We don’t have airline cards because we move around too much so we don’t stick with a specific airline and the same goes for hotels. Our current wallet includes…
Sapphire Reserve: for our travel & dining expenses earning 3x points
Sapphire Preferred: for our dining & streaming services earning 3x points
Prime: for Amazon & Whole Foods earning 5x points and gas earning 2x points
Freedom Flex: for purchases in the rotating quarterly categories earning 5x points
Unlimited: for drugstores earning 3x points and everything else earning 1.5x points
Many of these also come with perks like airport lounge access, Doordash memberships, Instacart memberships, etc. The promotions and point earnings change based on the cards at the time of issuance, so always check to see what is being offered. A couple of things to note about using these credit cards:
Transfer your points to the Reserve: While the Prime credit card isn’t available for point transfer (only cash back), transferring the remainder of the card points to the Reserve allows you to redeem ALL the points in the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal at 1.5x.
Be aware of the Chase 5/24 rule: There is an unofficial rule that Chase won’t approve you if you’ve opened more than 5 credit cards in 24 months.
Always keep your oldest credit card active: As long as it’s paid it helps your credit score. This isn’t specific to Chase, but we figured it could be worth mentioning.
We also recently learned about the Robinhood Gold credit card which will give you 3% cash back on ALL purchases and the cash back goes into investments in Robinhood which can be borrowed from secured by your investments to generate even more money. So naturally we are on the waitlist for that!
For more, see our 10 practical tips to implement while working your 9-to-5 to realize the dream of early retirement.
Do you put everything on credit cards?!
FINANCIAL DISCLAIMER
Do your own research! We are not providing nor are we intending to provide any sort of financial, tax or legal advice. This article simply includes practical tips that we’ve compiled based on our independent analysis, implementation, and realization of the results - which changed our lives. Everything is of course, subject to market fluctuation. Please always be informed and consult your professionals prior to making changes.
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