Get the best bang from your credit card

Shopping for a credit card.

If you are going to use credit cards, why not get the most reward?  Instead of YOU paying interest to your credit card company, the credit card company could be PAYING YOU each month, assuming you’ve paid your bill on time.  Now that is a switch!

Some of the best reward cards we have found are:

Blue Cash Preferred Card from American Express offers 6% cash back at US supermarkets up to $6,000 per year which equals up to $360 per year!  In addition they give 3% back on gas and select department stores.  Even with the annual fee at $75, it is still a great deal!  Everybody needs to eat, right?

Citi Double Cash Card offers essentially 2% back on all purchases with no restrictions and no annual fee. This is another good choice.  The way the card works is you get 1% cash back when you buy, plus another 1% when you pay for those purchases.  This would be a great option for a student to start earning some cash back without the annual fee.

Capitol One Venture Card is a flexible travel reward card.  One of the best benefits is that you can book travel on any airline at any time.  The card offers two miles for every dollar spent which could turn into a pretty nice vacation!

An easy to use tool can be found at http://creditcardtuneup.com/ to help determine what card works best with your spending habits.  Check it out!

Sorry, but we have to mention a best practice when we discuss credit cards, so if you use credit cards ALWAYS pay them off in full each and every month.

Disclosure:  No compensation of any kind was received from any of the businesses mentioned above.

Looking back to go forward

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan from freedigitalphotos.net

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan from freedigitalphotos.net

History tends to repeat itself. So when you develop your stock trading plan it is imperative you “back test” your plan to see how it would have performed in the past. It should be tested in both bullish (increasing) or bearish (decreasing) markets to determine the plan’s performance. Back testing can display the risk you are taking with your money. Once you have a solid plan, you can change one rule at a time to see if you can improve performance. But remember you have to back test the changed plan in all different types of markets, all over again. It is a great way to “dial in” your plan by attempting to lower your risk and increase your rewards.

Click like if you have a trading plan.