I love credit cards so much!

[WVMomof3]

Another reminder
A fresh year is a great time to start tracking many things. ..here's some ideas for different sheets you may want to setup in a spreadsheet(s):

• A loyalty account balance tracker - Fields may include: Program Name, Person (i.e. me, wife, children), Points balance, Last Activity, Expiration Date (if applicable), As of Date (last time I verified the balance), Approx. Value (based on my personal valuation), Notes & Membership ID. Having this setup and updated on occasion will help you verify you're getting all the points you expected AND no fraud has occurred
• Credit Card Bonus tracker - Fields may include: Card Name, Last 4 of Acct#, Person (i.e. me, wife), Date Applied, Date Cancelled (if applicable), Annual Fee (if applicable), Annual Bonus (i.e. travel credit, free night), Signup Bonus, Min. Spend, Date Bonus Received, Bonus Value, % Return on MSR, Notes
• Bank Account Bonus tracker - Similar to CC tracker: Bank Name, Last 4 of Acct#, Date Approved, Date Cancelled (if applicable), Monthly Fee (if applicable), Fee Waiver Requirements, Date Bonus Received, Bonus Value, Notes (including when I can cancel the acct without penalty)
• Referral tracker - Card Name, Last 4 of Acct#, Person (i.e. me, wife), YTD referral total (in pts/$/etc.), Max pts/$ Available, Notes (including who used my referral if known so I might repay them in the future)
• Redemption tracker - I set mine up as follows (there are a lot of ways you could do this):
  • GROSS COSTS (each as its own field):
    Flight,
    Hotel, Dining, Tickets, Other (SUBTOTAL)
  • LESS SAVINGS (each as its own field): Flight Points, Hotel Points, Other CC Savings, Misc Discounts, Other Savings (SUBTOTAL)
  • GRAND TOTAL EXPENSED (typically $0 for us as I offset all travel expenses with some sort of savings)
• And not necessarily churning related but of course you could begin tracking all of your expenses if you aren't already doing so. I may or may not have 2+ other sheets showing various expense tracking, personal balance sheet, annual ledgers, projected retirement savings, etc...I also may be crazy I know some people like using YNAB or something like that, but I'm a big "personal spreadsheet" guy on this stuff

I just spent the last couple days categorizing every CC transaction from all of 2018, all 1401 of them. Hoping to really stay on this weekly this year so I really see where we are spending this year. I am interested in your tracking of expenses and how you do it. I am trying to figure out the best way to go about exactly what I want to do. I am not going as deep as you and categorizing each thing, so not quite where you are. For example, Giant Eagle all goes to groceries whether I have bought dog food, detergent or other things also. Maybe I will be ready for that next year. lol But if you have any tips for me, let me know.

 

[WVMomof3]

Definitely a birthday she will remember. Those 50s are special.

Haha, yes indeed, she will never forget this one. She likes to be on the go constantly so this will be a big adjustment for her these next few months.

 

[miztressuz]

I wanted to clarify some things with the Shop Rite 10x Chase Pay deal.

1) It says it caps at $400 in bonuses. Does that mean I can spend $400 or I can spend $40?

2) does this cap count for one card or all? Meaning, if I max it out on my chase freedom can I then do it again on my CSP, etc?

1. First $400 spent there on the card will earn the extra 9x points on top of the normal 1x. Everything after will just earn 1x like normal.

2. Per card. So you can do 400 each on CF, CFU, CSP and CSR.

Is this promotion still active? I took advantage of it in November (?)---I received 10X UR on $400 in purchases at ShopRite. It was actually hard for me to do lol so I finished it up with ShopRite gift cards!

New promotion with just the same offer. DoC put links to each offer all in one place: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-pay-earn-10-back-or-10x-at-shoprite/

Looks like I'm shopping at ShopRite this month

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Haha, yes indeed, she will never forget this one. She likes to be on the go constantly so this will be a big adjustment for her these next few months.

OMG that sucks. One of DS9s Christmas gifts was Ninja camp. It’s a 2 hour session at a local Ninja gym with a bunch of stars from American Ninja Warrior show. I hope to heck he doesn’t get injured, though as a 50 something, I know I am more likely to be injured than he is.

 

[MarBee]

Is this promotion still active? I took advantage of it in November (?)---I received 10X UR on $400 in purchases at ShopRite. It was actually hard for me to do lol so I finished it up with ShopRite gift cards!

A friend sent me this link today that says it’s until 2/4: https://www.dansdeals.com/credit-ca...-10-points-per-dollar-freedom-sapphire-cards/

So I can charge $400 worth of groceries and then get 4,000 points?

Can I do this on multiple cards?

ETA: sorry, this posted at the same time as the answer above

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I bought our DL tickets through the UR portal a couple of weeks ago. Click on the Legoland tickets and then scroll down. It will say something like people also looked at these offers and Disneyland should be there!

Nope. Nothing. I’m not ready to buy, just pricing but the UR portal is practically worthless.

ETA By searching LA, I can find Universal but no Disneyland.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I just spent the last couple days categorizing every CC transaction from all of 2018, all 1401 of them. Hoping to really stay on this weekly this year so I really see where we are spending this year. I am interested in your tracking of expenses and how you do it. I am trying to figure out the best way to go about exactly what I want to do. I am not going as deep as you and categorizing each thing, so not quite where you are. For example, Giant Eagle all goes to groceries whether I have bought dog food, detergent or other things also. Maybe I will be ready for that next year. lol But if you have any tips for me, let me know.

So I'll re-state that I'm a bit crazy about this stuff...and I'll try to maybe give a simplified version of what I do.

I categorize all credit card purchases into one of the following categories (I have collapsed several categories to make this not seem as wild):

• Grocery
• Necessity
• Restaurant
• Utilities/Cable/Etc.
• Transportation
• Travel
• Children's Activities
• Insurance & Prop. Taxes
• Other Major Expenses
• Miscellaneous
• Reimbursable Expenses (work/other)

- I will call out major expenses that occur but most stuff that doesn't fit above gets lumped into Misc.
- I track this monthly based on the due date of the card (i.e. if the card payment is due in Feb then these are Feb expenses - this just makes it easy to keep multiple card's expenses on the same cycle).
- I also then keep track of all non CC expenses in a ledger (and of course the CC payments go in there too). Then I categorize everything into one annual summary using the following categories:

• HOUSING (sub categories include Mortgage, Homeowners Insurance, Real Estate Taxes)
• TRANSPORTATION (sub categories = Auto Insurance, Masstransit, Parking, Gas, Auto Maint.)
• UTILITIES (sub categories = Water, Gas, Electric)
• TRAVEL (track the gross cost and my net cost after all my churning efforts)
• HEALTH & LIFE (sub categories = Life Insurance, Medical/Dental Premiums, Medical/Dental Expenses)
• GROCERIES
• NECESSITIES
• RESTAURANTS
• COMCAST
• CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES
• CHRISTMAS
• HOME IMPROVEMENTS & REPAIRS
• OTHER MAJOR EXPENSES
• MISCELLANEOUS
• TITHES & CHARITABLE
• REIMBURSABLE EXPENSES (not included in my total "me" expenses)

This involves combining the non-CC expenses from the ledger with my monthly CC tracking sheet.

I tried my best to simplify but this is generally how I track things

 

[happ]

So I'll re-state that I'm a bit crazy about this stuff...and I'll try to maybe give a simplified version of what I do.

I categorize all credit card purchases into one of the following categories (I have collapsed several categories to make this not seem as wild):

• Grocery
• Necessity
• Restaurant
• Utilities/Cable/Etc.
• Transportation
• Travel
• Children's Activities
• Insurance & Prop. Taxes
• Other Major Expenses
• Miscellaneous
• Reimbursable Expenses (work/other)

- I will call out major expenses that occur but most stuff that doesn't fit above gets lumped into Misc.
- I track this monthly based on the due date of the card (i.e. if the card payment is due in Feb then these are Feb expenses - this just makes it easy to keep multiple card's expenses on the same cycle).
- I also then keep track of all non CC expenses in a ledger (and of course the CC payments go in there too). Then I categorize everything into one annual summary using the following categories:

• HOUSING (sub categories include Mortgage, Homeowners Insurance, Real Estate Taxes)
• TRANSPORTATION (sub categories = Auto Insurance, Masstransit, Parking, Gas, Auto Maint.)
• UTILITIES (sub categories = Water, Gas, Electric)
• TRAVEL (track the gross cost and my net cost after all my churning efforts)
• HEALTH & LIFE (sub categories = Life Insurance, Medical/Dental Premiums, Medical/Dental Expenses)
• GROCERIES
• NECESSITIES
• RESTAURANTS
• COMCAST
• CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES
• CHRISTMAS
• HOME IMPROVEMENTS & REPAIRS
• OTHER MAJOR EXPENSES
• MISCELLANEOUS
• TITHES & CHARITABLE
• REIMBURSABLE EXPENSES (not included in my total "me" expenses)

This involves combining the non-CC expenses from the ledger with my monthly CC tracking sheet.

I tried my best to simplify but this is generally how I track things

I have a similar system, but gift cards are distorting my expenses. If I buy a gc at a grocery store because of a promotion, the expense ends up in the grocery category. If the gc is for a clothing store, then it really should be in my clothing category so I can track how much I spend on clothes. I need to do a better job in 2019 of keeping track of things.

 

[afan]

Spending my New Years planning 2020 travel.
Looking at 2 Cali trips maybe. Disneyland/Universal in June. Northern Cal in July/August?

For Cali peeps, would it be reasonable to fly into Oakland, hit Yosemite & Sequoia NP, and fly home from Burbank in a 7-8 day trip? How is weather then? I generally avoid August travel because I hate hot/humid but is NoCal that bad?

I would try to fly into Sacramento instead of Oakland, it would be closer and the traffic in/around/out of the bay would be less. I don't know about the weather at the parks, but it gets hot in the valley which you would drive through if that's the plan to go south. I think it depends on how much time you want to spend between the two areas. I'd check to see how far the drive would be, it's probably an entire day to get to SoCal from where you'd be in NorCal since you're outside the Bay Area and it's already 6 hours from San Jose to Anaheim. You might be able to find a cheap flight on SW or Alaska between Sacramento and one of the SoCal airports to help with the timing.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I have a similar system, but gift cards are distorting my expenses. If I buy a gc at a grocery store because of a promotion, the expense ends up in the grocery category. If the gc is for a clothing store, then it really should be in my clothing category so I can track how much I spend on clothes. I need to do a better job in 2019 of keeping track of things.

Ok...I'll go a little more in depth on this one (i.e. sound crazy, haha)

A receipt from a grocery store doesn't automatically go to grocery in my spreadsheet. Sometimes I'll end up putting a portion to Necessity (non-food items like toothpaste), a portion to Misc (perhaps they had a toy or something of that nature), and then the rest to grocery.

When we buy a gift card (at a grocery store or anywhere for that matter) I run a balance sheet of sorts where I hold that expense in my "out of period" category and then charge it to the actual appropriate category as we spend the gift card. I true it up each month by using an "out of period" entry in miscellaneous that eventually offsets itself across the months. It's hard to actually type out what we do there effectively but it works for me AND as a bonus allows me to keep track of all my gift card balances.

 

[chattadisser]

I have a similar system, but gift cards are distorting my expenses. If I buy a gc at a grocery store because of a promotion, the expense ends up in the grocery category. If the gc is for a clothing store, then it really should be in my clothing category so I can track how much I spend on clothes. I need to do a better job in 2019 of keeping track of things.

This is exactly the problem I have. We buy a multitude of GC's at the grocery when they are on sale or have specials and the amount spent at the grocery is truly not the grocery money spent. I have trouble keeping track of what category some of that money should be allotted to.

 

[Judique]

Beautiful pictures! Love the baby penguins. Happy New Year and Happy Birthday! I hope I can celebrate my 50th more like you than how my sister celebrated her 50th a couple weeks ago. She kept sending us pics of this cool "playground for adults" her daughter and her went to as a birthday gift. Climbing walls, zip lines and lots of fun things. Until the warp wall. Womp womp. Two weeks with an external fixator and finally just able to have surgery. No work or driving for 3 months!!

Wow, sorry to hear she got hurt! My birthday is coming in 2 and a half weeks and I'm going to settle for dinner out.

 

[WVMomof3]

So I'll re-state that I'm a bit crazy about this stuff...and I'll try to maybe give a simplified version of what I do.

I categorize all credit card purchases into one of the following categories (I have collapsed several categories to make this not seem as wild):

• Grocery
• Necessity
• Restaurant
• Utilities/Cable/Etc.
• Transportation
• Travel
• Children's Activities
• Insurance & Prop. Taxes
• Other Major Expenses
• Miscellaneous
• Reimbursable Expenses (work/other)

- I will call out major expenses that occur but most stuff that doesn't fit above gets lumped into Misc.
- I track this monthly based on the due date of the card (i.e. if the card payment is due in Feb then these are Feb expenses - this just makes it easy to keep multiple card's expenses on the same cycle).
- I also then keep track of all non CC expenses in a ledger (and of course the CC payments go in there too). Then I categorize everything into one annual summary using the following categories:

• HOUSING (sub categories include Mortgage, Homeowners Insurance, Real Estate Taxes)
• TRANSPORTATION (sub categories = Auto Insurance, Masstransit, Parking, Gas, Auto Maint.)
• UTILITIES (sub categories = Water, Gas, Electric)
• TRAVEL (track the gross cost and my net cost after all my churning efforts)
• HEALTH & LIFE (sub categories = Life Insurance, Medical/Dental Premiums, Medical/Dental Expenses)
• GROCERIES
• NECESSITIES
• RESTAURANTS
• COMCAST
• CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES
• CHRISTMAS
• HOME IMPROVEMENTS & REPAIRS
• OTHER MAJOR EXPENSES
• MISCELLANEOUS
• TITHES & CHARITABLE
• REIMBURSABLE EXPENSES (not included in my total "me" expenses)

This involves combining the non-CC expenses from the ledger with my monthly CC tracking sheet.

I tried my best to simplify but this is generally how I track things

I have a similar system, but gift cards are distorting my expenses. If I buy a gc at a grocery store because of a promotion, the expense ends up in the grocery category. If the gc is for a clothing store, then it really should be in my clothing category so I can track how much I spend on clothes. I need to do a better job in 2019 of keeping track of things.

Thanks, this is helpful. I am on the right track. My banking info is what I am tackling next. I think it should be fairly easy as it is mostly just CC payments and Mortgage. Though I may be surprised at how much still goes through there. I do still write checks, just not as much as in the last few years. Especially since all of this years Church went to Credit Card! Yay for that! lol I def do not do as much GC buying as most here do, so I did try to identify those and put them in the correct categories.

 

[GlamMistress]

Pretty sure it does still work. I'm curious why you would do this, though -- as long as you have a Chase card that is 5x UR at office supply stores and a CSR (or CSP), I'm thinking that's the best "basic" deal on gift cards.

No UR cards (ok we have an old Freedom we don't use). I'm locked out of new Chase accounts. I'm probably the only person on this board that doesn't chase URs - I do MR via Amex instead.

 

[wisconsinmom]

You can check on the Premier application by calling Chase 1-800-432-3117 ...if it says 7-10 days it’s probably a deniel.
Did the AF post today or is today the due date....if it posted on your account today...the bonus points will probably show up in your RR account and count towards your CP a few days after your January statement closes
From what I’ve read the recommendation is to wait 30 days to apply

I just called and got the notified in writing in 2 weeks message. This whole thing makes me nervous. I don’t want to get shutdown!

 

[palhockeymomof2]

I just called and got the notified in writing in 2 weeks message. This whole thing makes me nervous. I don’t want to get shutdown!

Usually the 2 week message means approval.....keep checking your chase login too if approved the new card will show up there.....fingers crossed for you

 

[wisconsinmom]

Usually the 2 week message means approval.....keep checking your chase login too if approved the new card will show up there.....fingers crossed for you

The problem is I already have a premier card that is 4 years old. I feel like if they approve this I’m breaking terms of service by having two southwest consumer cards and am at risk of not getting the bonus.

Any thoughts? Should I call and and ask them to pull the application? Let it ride? Cancel the current card?

I’m going to for the CP.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

The problem is I already have a premier card that is 4 years old. I feel like if they approve this I’m breaking terms of service by having two southwest consumer cards and am at risk of not getting the bonus.

Any thoughts? Should I call and and ask them to pull the application? Let it ride? Cancel the current card?

I’m going to for the CP.

If it were me Id let it ride since you last got the bonus 4 years ago or if your nervous secure message chase asking to cancel the old card, then wait and see if the new application is approved. If it is great...if not wait 30 days to reapply for a SW personal card

 

[disneedee]

Wow, sorry to hear she got hurt! My birthday is coming in 2 and a half weeks and I'm going to settle for dinner out.

I went crawdading for my 50th.

 

[DisneyMandC]

So this is silly... but I've still never done a PNC bonus. I want to do the $200 one on DH's new CSP. IS there anything specific I need to know in order to fund it with a CSP? I've never done that before. Can I lower my cash advance amount via SM?