This started for me in a really boring moment. I was sitting at my kitchen table paying bills, phone in my hand and realized almost every charge for the month was on the same credit card. Groceries, gas, random subscriptions, everything. It’s a fine card and I’ve had it for years but I couldn’t remember the last time I actually chose it for a reason.
Out of curiosity I opened my statement and started doing the math on what I earned back. It wasn’t terrible but it also wasn’t great. I caught myself thinking about how much I spend in a normal month and whether I was just leaving value on the table by never revisiting this.
I do have some money saved up and my spending is pretty steady, so hitting a sign up bonus wouldn’t be an issue. What stops me is the mental part. Another card means another thing to track, another account to manage and I’m not sure where the line is between being intentional and overcomplicating my life.
I’m not trying to churn or open a bunch of cards. I just don’t want to be lazy about it either. For people who’ve been through this decision, what made you finally pull the trigger or decide to keep it simple?
how do you know when it’s time to add another credit card instead of sticking with the same one?
byu/HairyTemplate inCreditCards
Posted by HairyTemplate
5 Comments
Always be working on a SUB. If its a sock drawered card, close it and start the clock on reopening it for another SUB
Basically just look at it as a hobby, totally optional, either you’ll enjoy the small gains from it vs the extra complexity or you won’t
I usually just get new cards when I have a big expense coming. When I don’t, I just use a combination of cards I have from previously churned cards
Damn, this post is kinda deep. Or maybe it’s still too early for me.
Anyway, my decision to add another card was after I paid off my credit card debt, and decided to go for a card that offered cashback on gas. After that, I began applying for cards to cover certain categories.
the logical progression for the cashback side of the hobby (as opposed to the travel rewards chasers), is to start with a “catch-all” card to put all your charges on that gets you at least 2% cashback on everything unlimited (with no annual fee and ideally no foreign transaction fees) there are several cards like this out there,
Then most likely 2nd step is to scrutinize your typical organic spending and pick a specific spend category or two to use a targeted card that will get you at least 5% cashback in that category, common categories, people target like this are grocery, restaurants, online shopping, Amazon, gas stations, urility bills, travel, etc… (note that the optimum card for grocery spend depends on where you buy most of your groceries as classic grocery stores can code differently than big box stores like target and Walmart, and then wholesale clubs like Costco also code differently)
Then you might want to review the list of cards that have a broad set of categories that earn greater than 2%, to fill in the gaps and optimize your rewards, if you are enjoying the “hobby aspect” and don’t mind additional cards to use in more categories (usually these are cards with 3% earning in a list of specific categories. Some of these also have a 5% category – the cashback! files/lists in this sub will be helpful here, and this is a list of several of these widely available cards that I posted a couple weeks ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/s/bcBMnaoxV7 )
the other likely path is to always/frequently be working on a new card SUB