**The upside to the spendy January is I was able to redeem another $50 credit card rewards to my ROTH. Don't expect to do that too often this year. This card mostly pays for Health Insurance, some utilities, and miscellaneous. (Might average $50 every other month, for most the year).
My parking ticket contributed $1.20 to this bounty. I can look on the bright side.
**Right after I last posted, I got an e-mail that my new AmEx bill was ready. I marveled how it was only $500 when I realized it closed on the 4th as I had originally asked. ??? I am not sure if this is the new closing date - my online login says it isn't. But it's a little too coincidental, so maybe it is. Will save me an e-mail. !!
Thank goodness, because I still squeaked by about how I thought we would. I don't think we bought anything this week, so not like it helped me much to close early. BUT very happy to have all the credit cards on a calendar month. The 4-card system is MUCH easier than it sounds. But it is a must that they all just be on a calendar month. Then I pay the little ones off the first of the month and the bigger ones the middle of the month. It just works; not much to think about. Easier than I Expected. This one card is new and they would only move up the date a few days at a time - I figured I'd get it straightened out eventually.
This month they are all BIG, except Target was only $100 for Groceries. The new AmEx actually was small enough at $500 - I may just pay it this week. Gas/Groceries for 3 weeks or so. The visa had all sorts of insurance, school lunch for 6 months, so was large. Usually it is only $200 for some utilities.
**Out of ALL The credit card rewards I have done, this AmEx Blue is the only one that makes you wait a full extra cycle to calculate and redeem rewards. So I need to go through and double check their calculations. Is not a big deal with Quicken - I just pull a report and check their gas and groceries category matches my records.
Since I had asked them to move up the cycle a few days, they gave me a two month cycle to do so. SO, I *finally* got about $75 rewards with this last statement. Rewards I earned in Nov. and Dec. I can not redeem quite yet, but hoping tomorrow.
I haven't given it *any* thought. The other AmEx rewards go to the ROTH because that is the only way I can redeem that reward. SO, I am thinking of just automatically putting all these rewards to my mortgage. In fact, I should also match the ROTH rewards into the mortgage. It's not like we need these to max out our ROTHs - will do it anyway. But this may be a solid $800 extra to our mortgage this year, if I match the other AmEx rewards into the mortgage.
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As for one-time rewards, haven't seen anything terribly enticing, and giving the credit a bit of a break.
Reminds me, I don't know what the heck list dh got on. We got some weird "Borrow $6,000" offer that looked payday loan-ish. Never got an offer like that before???
& I swear Citi has been sending him a 0% balance transfer offer every single freaking day. They still hate me. I could double dip on the Citi, but they so did not seem to want my business last time, and never send me any good offers. No idea how I got on their bad list, and how dh got on their good list. So, I have been kind of saving that double dip for WAY last. But anyway, I don't know what their angle is. If they send this balance offer 20 times in one month, we will cave and say yes? We have no balances to transfer, so besides looking closer the first one or two or three times to see if there was any other rewards offer, it just goes immediately to the shred pile.
Rewards Update
February 7th, 2013 at 02:14 am
February 7th, 2013 at 02:48 am 1360205316
February 7th, 2013 at 02:51 am 1360205465
February 7th, 2013 at 03:19 am 1360207165
February 7th, 2013 at 04:38 am 1360211905