B A R R Y wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:

By doing so, you still get to pay with "cash" (no debt), and your available
balance on your debit card hasn't been tied up with a $140 (or whatever)
pre-authorization.

FWIW, you can still use a standard credit card without debt or interest.

Of course. But so what?



I maintain a written monthly budget using Quicken. Our paychecks are
direct deposited to a credit union savings account. Each credit card
transaction is deducted from the budget immediately via automatic
download each time I start Quicken. We use the credit card for
EVERYTHING, including my monthly utility, insurance, and other bills
that are automatically billed to the card. I have a standing automatic
payment for the minimum payment due, so I can't "forget" to pay and
incur ridiculous late fees. I manually pay the entire balance each
month, as the money is always available, because the charges have
already been accounted for against available cash.

Last year, we cashed in almost $800 in free gift cards, including some
that are Visa logo, so they're good anywhere Visa is accepted. In
addition to the mileage earned, I'd much rather have automatic payments
go against the card, instead of my checking account, in case of errors.
I once received a $3500 cell phone bill when my phone was cloned.

For those that will point out that people spend more because I'm not
using green cash, that's exactly what the written budget is for. We
can't spend what we don't have. We do the same with retirement savings,
depositing it before we ever touch it. G

That's great, I guess-- you sound like a Visa commercial. But except for paying
Intuit's extortion every year or two to constantly upgrade their bloated product
so that it will still operate, doesn't just about everyone normal do something
similar?