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I've got this big stack of credit cards that I've accumulated over the years, 14 of them
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and a 15th on the way. But my thoughts on credit cards have really changed over the last year, so I'm about to
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start a new experiment. In this video, I'm going to show you how I plan to maximize my credit card rewards using
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primarily just 4 of these credit cards. The first card I want to talk about today is Citi Custom Cash
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As you can see from the label, yeah, I label my credit cards. I'm using this one for groceries
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Now the way this card works, it gives you 5% cash back in your top eligible spending category
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They've got a list, groceries is on that list. So this is the card that I use for groceries and pretty much nothing else
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I did find a targeted offer from the Citi app that's going to give me 6% back on a meal
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prep service that I use. So that's going to be the only other spending besides groceries that I put on this card
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For a lot of years, I used the American Express Blue Cash Preferred card for groceries
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That one gets you 6% cash back, not 5%, but it does have an annual fee
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This is part of the change in strategy that I feel is right for my spending
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I downgraded that card with an annual fee to the no annual fee version
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And now I'm putting groceries again on Citi Custom Cash. Card number two is Chase Freedom Flex
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And this is one of those cards with the rotating 5% back categories
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For quarter two, that includes Amazon.com, hotels and restaurants. I've already got an Amazon card that I don't carry with me, just have it linked up to my
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Amazon account. So I won't be using this card for that. Probably not hotel spending either, but restaurants definitely
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In addition to restaurants for that bonus cash back, the only other way I see myself
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using this card is for drugstores that gets 3% cash back all the time with Chase Freedom Flex
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Card number three is Discover It. And that's another card with the 5% cash back categories that rotate
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And I really like how things are lining up for quarter two with Discover It, your 5
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categories are gas stations, home improvement stores, and public transit. So with these three cards, that's a whole lot of bonus cash back in categories where
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most people spend a lot of money. The fourth card in my wallet is Citi Double Cash, 2% cash back
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You get 1% when you buy, then 1% as you pay it off
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And I pay off all my credit cards every month. This is my go-to card for all the spending where I don't get bonus cash back with another
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credit card. And for me, the majority of my spending typically goes on this card
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I'm primarily focusing on these four cards with no annual fees because I don't really
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think that travel cards make a whole lot of sense for me
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I saw this quote from Clark Howard recently, and some of you may know that I used to work
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for Clark, manage his website. In this article, Clark says you need to be a frequent traveler and spend $10,000 a month
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to make some of these travel cards with fees worth it. The truth is these travel cards are heavily promoted because who doesn't want a free vacation
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But the other factor is that they make a whole lot of money for the credit card companies
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and also the influencers who are promoting travel cards over cash back credit cards
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Still, I wanted to incorporate a travel card into this experiment. I recently signed up for the JetBlue Plus card
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This one's in the mail and it comes with a pretty nice bonus after spending $1,000 on
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purchases within the first 90 days, as well as paying the annual fee
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And that's $99. My plan is to temporarily move some of the spending that I put on that Citi Double Cash
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card to the JetBlue Plus card until I meet that $1,000. And then I'll go from there
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Now take a look at this spreadsheet. What I'm going to do is share what most people who talk about credit cards don't do
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And that is my spending, because I think your spending is probably the biggest factor
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in deciding whether you should stick with the no annual fee cash back cards or consider
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a travel card with an annual fee. I also want to mention a couple other cards that I will be using, but in a limited way
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over the next few months. First is Wells Fargo Autograph. And I only put my visible bill on this, and that is just for the cell phone protection
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Other cards have this too. I've just decided to keep it with Wells Fargo Autograph
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I've got a Hotels.com rewards card. I'm keeping pool maintenance on that just because my pool company makes it a little
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bit difficult to change billing methods. I've got an Amazon card for Amazon spending, and I'm really pulling back on how much I
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use Amazon anyway. Finally, I use an American Express card that gives me 2% cash back for all my business expenses
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I'm going to be updating the spending and rewards throughout this experiment. And in case anyone wants to follow along, I'll have a link down below to my website
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where I'm going to have all the details about this experiment. Thanks for watching
