I make over $100k/yr; credit cards are BS

[alcoholbob]

That was my Dad. Financed his 1st car in 1957 and the house in 1961. Cash for everything after that.

That's pretty easy considering in the 1950s and 1960s the average dude making the median income with a high school diploma could buy a house in California or New York with 2-2.5 years income

 

[WelshBloke]

OP, do you know what your credit score is? Have a lot of debt (student, car, personal loans)? Missed any payments?

A lot more goes into a credit score than the money you take home. At your age, you should be looking at your credit report at least once a year; if not every quarter.

Credit scores are pretty much bullshit though.

 

[highland145]

Depends, you can probably get an hour of happiness with $300.

Can you do 15 min for $50?

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[purbeast0]

Your lucky, credit cards are evil items that really should not exist. They are doing you a favor.

I'm the other way, these companies are still increasing my limits without asking. It is so bad that when we refinanced the lady pointed out that if we decided to max our credit cards we would effectively owe almost 70% of our income.

Credit cards are the greatest way to travel dirt cheap. I have hardly paid for any flights for my wife and myself the past 5 years. I am currently working on a United card to get 50k free points, and once I get that in a week or so, I'll get one of those cards for my wife so we can get 50k more free points.

I just booked our flights to Boston next weekend for $22 total (paying taxes), since I have 102k points on Southwest and my wife has the companion pass until the end of 2017, so she flies free with me on Southwest wherever I go, other than paying taxes.

All while having 0 credit card debt.

I typically get approved for $32k (not sure why that number, the past 3 chase cards have been that number) but I then go in and have them lower it to like $10k (which is still way more than I need). But I've heard if you're opening more cards or looking for loans, you don't want to have a huge line of credit.

In your case you could easily call and lower your limits and that 70% number won't be nearly that close.

 

[Svnla]

OP, do you know what your credit score is? Have a lot of debt (student, car, personal loans)? Missed any payments?

A lot more goes into a credit score than the money you take home. At your age, you should be looking at your credit report at least once a year; if not every quarter.

Salary/income is to determine the credit limit that a bank would grant on a CC.

What are the main components of a credit score? (Directly from FICO - the main score that use the most by financial institutions)

35% - Payment History
30% - Amount Owe
15% - Length of Credit
10% - New Credit Open
10% - Types of Credit

What are the range of the credit score?

800-850 Excellent Top 20%
740-799 Very Good Top 40%
670-739 Good Average
580-669 Not Good Below Avg
579 or less Poor Lowest 20%

In other news, I earned over $700 cold hard cash back just from 1 credit card last month and will have about $750-$800 this month. CCs are good for you "IF" you know how to use them properly.

 

[Kaido]

That's pretty easy considering in the 1950s and 1960s the average dude making the median income with a high school diploma could buy a house in California or New York with 2-2.5 years income

Reminds me of my last boss. Dude was VERY frugal. Wife & 2 young kids. Had his house & cars paid off, cooked all their meals at home (kids never got sugar or treats, all very healthy stuff), had free hobbies like running. He said his average annual spend was $12k a year. Pretty amazing.

 

[Tweak155]

Reminds me of my last boss. Dude was VERY frugal. Wife & 2 young kids. Had his house & cars paid off, cooked all their meals at home (kids never got sugar or treats, all very healthy stuff), had free hobbies like running. He said his average annual spend was $12k a year. Pretty amazing.

Wow... my homeowners taxes are already half of that! If I could even get down to $25k I'd be thrilled.

 

[Kaido]

Wow... my homeowners taxes are already half of that! If I could even get down to $25k I'd be thrilled.

I found the perfect starter house this past summer here in CT. Had a couple acres & everything, price was good, etc. Downside? $15k a YEAR in property taxes. $1,100 a month! I need to get a better-paying job, hahaha.

 

[Tweak155]

I found the perfect starter house this past summer here in CT. Had a couple acres & everything, price was good, etc. Downside? $15k a YEAR in property taxes. $1,100 a month! I need to get a better-paying job, hahaha.

Good point, appears I mixed up homeowners insurance and property taxes in my head when I wrote my reply

More income is always better!

 

[TheGardener]

Credit scores are pretty much bullshit though.

I'm not sure what you mean. A credit score, if too low, may mean you pay higher interest rates.

 

[piasabird]

I use to buy stuff on-line with a Debit Card.

You can buy a suit online with a $300 credit limit. Not a good one, but still.

 

[piasabird]

Credit Cards are almost worthless. For a large credit balance you just keep paying more and more interest and never pay off the card.

 

[GoodEnough]

You do realize that CC companies only make money off poor people?

People who pay their bill in full COST the company money in the form of interest free loans and account maintenance costs.

Anyone with a good FICO should be automatically rejected !!

 

[highland145]

Not true, Good, they make bank off of merchant fees.

 

[Kaido]

Good point, appears I mixed up homeowners insurance and property taxes in my head when I wrote my reply

More income is always better!

Oh, I didn't even notice haha. I was just bummed at the house because the monthly taxes tacked on another grand to the mortgage. I need to move somewhere cheaper lol.

Yeah, more income is always better, but I'm at a weird point in my life right now. I took some jobs early on in my career that paid well but were horrible & that I hated, and they were absolutely not worth the money for me personally. What makes me tick is (1) having a great boss, and (2) doing something I really enjoy, which I have right now, which is awesome. Downside is that it's in IT Hardware, which is kind of a dying field. I just bought an Atom PC on a stick for $129 with Windows 10...it's not quite ready for full-on office PC usage yet, but in another generation or two, it will be, and eventually they'll stick a Thunderbolt port on it for an eGPU chassis for DCC (or shrink down GPU's to fit), so everything will just kind of be turnkey. VDI is getting pretty close to being really awesome too. I foresee my field getting pretty boring in the not too distant future because I'm simply not going to be fixing or building computers anymore. Nearly everyone does virtual servers these days too. Aruba has great mesh wifi & Ubiquity has amazing wireless backhaul systems. Not that you won't always need a system admin on-site at a decent-sized company, but things have gotten so easy, so reliable, and so cheap these days that it's not even funny. I just had a user freak out because their computer had a BSOD, which they haven't seen in the last two years or so of using their workstation. So I love the job - and while it's not crazy lucrative, it pays okay & lets me get toys like VR stuff once in awhile - but I foresee it going to a dead-end in the future. But it's the same with home stuff too...the only thing I setup on the side now seems to be Chromebooks. Zero viruses & never get call-backs on functionality, hahaha.

 

[ponyo]

You do realize that CC companies only make money off poor people?

People who pay their bill in full COST the company money in the form of interest free loans and account maintenance costs.

Anyone with a good FICO should be automatically rejected !!

Credit card companies make plenty off processing fees. American Express merchant fees are around 3.5%. Amex Platinum card reward is only 1%. Amex also charges $450 annual fees for the Platinum card. Platinum card is a charge card so the balance must be paid in full each month. Amex makes plenty off their Platinum cardholders and those people are not poor.

My partner charges over 1 million a year on his Amex Platinum and gets back around $10k a year in rewards. Amex probably makes around $35k a year in merchant processing fees off of him.

 

[purbeast0]

I might actually get this card after we get the 50k bonus on my current United card and the 50k on my wife's United card that I open once I get it on mine.

https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/sapphire/reserve

The fee is $450 but the bonus is 100k points, which is A LOT of points when you transfer it to United points. It's basically paying $450 for a first class flight anywhere in the world. All those points will come in handy when we fly to Tahiti or Bora Bora.

 

[ponyo]

I might actually get this card after we get the 50k bonus on my current United card and the 50k on my wife's United card that I open once I get it on mine.

https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/sapphire/reserve

The fee is $450 but the bonus is 100k points, which is A LOT of points when you transfer it to United points. It's basically paying $450 for a first class flight anywhere in the world. All those points will come in handy when we fly to Tahiti or Bora Bora.

That's a good travel card with great signup bonus. As long as you're within the Chase 5/24 rule, you're golden.

 

[Svnla]

You do realize that CC companies only make money off poor people?

People who pay their bill in full COST the company money in the form of interest free loans and account maintenance costs.

Anyone with a good FICO should be automatically rejected !!

Incorrect.

People like me that pay their bills in full and on time do make CC companies money via CC transactions fee. Just not as much as people that carry balance and pay interest.

Credit card companies make plenty off processing fees. American Express merchant fees are around 3.5%. Amex Platinum card reward is only 1%. Amex also charges $450 annual fees for the Platinum card. Platinum card is a charge card so the balance must be paid in full each month. Amex makes plenty off their Platinum cardholders and those people are not poor.

My partner charges over 1 million a year on his Amex Platinum and gets back around $10k a year in rewards. Amex probably makes around $35k a year in merchant processing fees off of him.

Don't forget other benefits of the Platinum card such as: free entry to airport lounge, $200 for travel fees per year, free TSA Global Entry fee, no foreign exchange fee,and on and on. If you are a traveler, especially international, you need to get it.

 

[purbeast0]

That's a good travel card with great signup bonus. As long as you're within the Chase 5/24 rule, you're golden.

I think I've gotten 4 in the past 24 for now - Southwest Premiere, Southwest Plus, Chase Sapphire, and United Mileage Plus card.

 

[nakedfrog]

Credit Cards are almost worthless. For a large credit balance you just keep paying more and more interest and never pay off the card.

That's only true if you are staggeringly unintelligent and only ever make the minimum payments.
If one are that sort of person, then a credit card is probably not the thing for them.
These days they even have to put a little box on the credit card statements that says "It will take you umpteen years to pay off your balance with minimum payments, and it will cost you a total of OMFG dollars in interest, but if you pay these many dollars per month, it will be paid off in three years and save you LOLWUT dollars".

 

[Kaido]

These days they even have to put a little box on the credit card statements that says "It will take you umpteen years to pay off your balance with minimum payments, and it will cost you a total of OMFG dollars in interest, but if you pay these many dollars per month, it will be paid off in three years and save you LOLWUT dollars".

Hahaha you should start a credit card company that uses that exact terminology. Market it to millennials. You'll be rich!

 

[KillerCharlie]

I might actually get this card after we get the 50k bonus on my current United card and the 50k on my wife's United card that I open once I get it on mine.

https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/sapphire/reserve

The fee is $450 but the bonus is 100k points, which is A LOT of points when you transfer it to United points. It's basically paying $450 for a first class flight anywhere in the world. All those points will come in handy when we fly to Tahiti or Bora Bora.

The $450 fee is yearly, but it covers $300 a year in travel costs!

A great thing about the Sapphire is that it boosts the value of points earned with other Chase cards (the Sapphire preferred makes 1 point worth $1.25 for travel and the Reserve $1.50). That's a big deal because it makes points Chase unlimited/freedom cards worth more (you can transfer points amongst the cards).

Unfortunately I just got a Sapphire Preferred right before the Reserve came out, but in a few months I will cancel and switch.

I'm not a big spender (no debt except mortgage) and I earn about $1k/yr towards travel.

 

[jlee]

The $450 fee is yearly, but it covers $300 a year in travel costs!

A great thing about the Sapphire is that it boosts the value of points earned with other Chase cards (the Sapphire preferred makes 1 point worth $1.25 for travel and the Reserve $1.50). That's a big deal because it makes points Chase unlimited/freedom cards worth more (you can transfer points amongst the cards).

Unfortunately I just got a Sapphire Preferred right before the Reserve came out, but in a few months I will cancel and switch.

I'm not a big spender (no debt except mortgage) and I earn about $1k/yr towards travel.

It's 100 points / $1.25 or $1.50, but yes - the Reserve card gives you a nice redemption bonus.