What Credit Card Earns the Most Rewards? Part 3: Most Rewards for Different Shopping Categories

Some cards earn different amounts depending on what type of item or service you purchase with it. Note that your ability to earn these bonus rewards relies on the card company coding the transaction under the appropriate category, so be sure to read fine print (for example some cards say only some Department stores apply for the bonus reward amount) and check your rewards statement to see that the purchases are going under the category you expect them to. Check the below table for a collection of some of the best of these cards.

Today's Best Gas, Groceries, Drug Stores, Department Stores Reward Cards (Last Edited 8/7/2013)

Card	Card Type	Grocery	Gas	Drugstore	Department Store	Books	Other Purchases	Rewards Type	Annual Fee	Other Info
AMEX Blue Cash Preferred	American Express	6%	3%	1%	3%	1%	1%	Cash Back	$75	6% on groceries only on $6,000 of groceries/year. List of eligible stores. $150 Sign up Bonus. Can redeem reward dollars for statement credit, merchandise and gift cards anytime over $25 in rewards.
Sallie Mae Rewards	MasterCard	5%	5%	1%	1%	5%	1%	Points	$0	5% on Groceries and Gas up to $250/month, 5% on books up to $750/month. 1% on everything over the limit and all other purchases. Can redeem 2,500 points for $25 statement credit and so on. Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com don’t consistently code as book purchases.. Look at Citi Forward Card for 5 points/dollar on those purchases. $25 Cash Back with first use.
PenFed Platinum Rewards	Visa	3%	5%	1%	1%	1%	1%	Points	$0	Redeemable for Visa Prepaid Cards starting at $50 rewards and above.
Bank of America Cash Rewards	Visa	2%	3%	1%	1%	1%	1%	Cash Back	$0	2% and 3% only earned on up to $1,500/quarter. Redeemable above $25. 10% Cash Back bonus if deposited to Bank of America account ($25 cash back=$27.50). $100 Bonus if you spend $500 in first 90 days.
AMEX Blue Cash Everyday	American Express	3%	2%	1%	2%	1%	1%	Cash Back	$0	3% on groceries only on $6,000 of groceries/year. List of eligible stores. $100 Bonus if you spend $1000 in first 90 days. Rewards redeemed with cash back of $25 or more.

What Credit Card Earns the Most Rewards? Part 2: Best All-Around Spending Card

How much work do you want to do? Some people will spend an entire afternoon cutting coupons in newspapers and researching websites to maximize their discounts, while some don't think it's worth the time. Similarly with credit card rewards, there are many cards that specialize in offering higher rewards in certain categories if you're willing to dig, while a few just offer a higher rewards rate on everything. Below are the currently available cards that earn more than the 1% you'd earn with your average credit card.

Today's Best All-Around Spending Cards (Last Edited 2/8/2014)

Card	Card Type	Rewards	Rewards Type	Annual Fee	Other Info	Link
Fidelity Investment Rewards	American Express	2%	Cash Back	$0	Cash back must be redeemed to Fidelity Account (Checking, Brokerage, 529 or Retirement) and only after earning $50 in rewards. Checking and Brokerage Accounts are free to open and have no maintenance fees.	Click
Discover Escape	Discover	2%	Points (Redeemable for Travel or Amazon.com Credit)	$60.	Earn additional 100 points($10)/month in rewards for the first 25 months as long as you make a purchase -similar to $250 sign up bonus.	Click
BankAmericard Travel Rewards	Visa	1.6%	Points (Redeemable for Statement Credit)	$0	Only 1.5% if you don’t have a BOA checking, savings, investment, or retirement account.	Click
Capital One Quicksilver Cash Rewards	Visa	1.5%	Cash Back	$0	One-time $100 bonus if you spend $500 in first 3 months. No foreign transaction fees. Requires great credit.	Click
Northrop Grumman CU Cash Rebates	Mastercard	1.5%	Cash Back	$0	Cash back deposited annually(March) not monthly. Check Eligibility. If not Join  Southern California Historical Aviation Foundation via $50 donation. No foreign transaction fees.	Click
Dollar Bank Valued Customer	Visa	1.25%	Cash Back	$0	Max cash back of $500/year as opposed to no limit on above cards. Cash back deposited 2 times per year (Jan and July) and not monthly. Business version of the card has no rebates and is redeemable anytime.	Click

I'll do my best to keep this list current as good rewards credit cards sometimes come and go. In my next post I  review other cards that offer up to 6% on certain categories of spending for those looking to tote multiple cards.

(H/T to Fatwallet)

What Credit Card Earns the Most Rewards? Part 1: Introduction

The standard credit card usually offers 1% cash back or 1 point per dollar spent. Some credit cards can earn even more. Given that the average family spends over $48,000 each year and let's estimate that 2/3 of those expenditures are paid with credit cards, then earning 1% more on purchases can add up to an additional $320 each year. Below I'll discuss what cards are out there for those that want to maximize the card rewards you earn.

Beware! Hunting for additional credit card rewards only makes sense if you're paying your credit card bill on time and in full as the average APR for credit card debt is about 15% and frequently can be more than double that, while credit card rewards don't get much higher than 2%.

What cards do I use? I use to keep 4 credit cards on me to fully maximize my rewards as much as possible. I've since decided to go with 2 as the hassle of carrying more items in my wallet, paying more credit card bills each month, and managing additional card rewards redemptions wasn't worth the slight increase in payout.

I use the Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express card and Chase Freedom Visa card.

The Fidelity AMEX is my daily spending card as I earn 2% cash back rewards on all purchases with it. As long as the merchant accepts American Express I don't have to think about how many rewards I'll earn on my purchase. Each month in which my rewards total is over $50, the rewards simply deposit into my Fidelity Checking Account. That's potentially the only extra step for this card, is that to earn the rewards you need a Fidelity Account to deposit it in, but you can choose between a Checking Account (Fidelity calls it a Cash Management Account), Brokerage Account, 529 account, or a Retirement account - the first 2 of which I know are free to open up and maintain. There's no annual fee either for this card.

The Chase Freedom Visa is my backup card for all merchants that don't accept American Express or if I make a purchase in a spending category that's part of Chase's 5% rewards for that season. Each season Chase will rotate what categories earn 5%. Currently, those categories are Gas Stations, Theme Parks, and Kohl's. You can see what future categories are here. Note that before each new category period you do have to activate these 5% rewards by clicking an activate button online, though you can sign up for an email or text reminder so you don't miss out. Additionally this is a Visa Signature Card which offers other benefits such as additional warranties on purchases, travel benefits or even buy one get one movie tickets in the summer. This card also has no annual fee.

In my next post I'll delve deeper into high rewards cards that are currently available.

Mint.com: Keep Track of Your Savings, Spending, Budget, and Goals

Saving money is a fine goal by itself, but to have a good sense of how much you're saving it's best to track your money. Luckily, modern technology has made doing this extremely easy. I used to track my spending each month by logging into each of my bank accounts and recording each transaction in an Excel sheet and then compared it to another sheet with my budget. Later on I used the site Yodlee, to track all my bank accounts, but found their site to often have technical problems, so I switched over to Mint.com and have been happy with it ever since.

Mint.com has been around for over 5 years now and I imagine many of you are familiar with it. For those who aren't though I'll go over why you should consider using it and how to setup your account with them. If you already use Mint, I'll go over what I use it for so that you may learn something new.

What is Mint.com?
Mint.com is a free web-based financial management service. It allows you to add your bank, credit card, investment, and other financial accounts. Once added you can easily view a snapshot of the state of your finances, every transaction from each account, how your spending and savings matches up with budgets and goals you can create. You can also further sift through your data to analyze trends or check offers that Mint provides on ways to possibly save money.

To add an account you do provide your username and password for each financial account you'd like to track, but over the 5 years I've used it I've had no problems my secure banking details becoming insecure. Mint.com uses similar security that banks use to keep the login and banking transaction data secure. It's also owned by Intuit, the make of TurboTax, Quicken, and Quickbooks which each provide similar ways to login to your financial accounts securely. Given this, I trust that my information is not being exposed to third parties.

Given that it's free, secure, and in my experience easy to use, I think it's a no-brainer addition to your financial life.

How I use Mint.com

• View Current state of My Accounts

Every week I login to Mint and make sure that my accounts are updated (reasons they aren't: I've changed my bank password or technical issues on the bank's end) and then I glance at the Overview page to see the balances in each of my account. This quickly gives me a sense of how much cash I have in my bank account, the size of any credit card balances, and the amount in my investment accounts. This saves me alot of time as I don't have to log in to multiple account each week. It also allows me to quickly view if deposits or payments have gone through and if I have enough cash or credit to cover future purchases.

• Ensure Accurate Transactions

The second thing I do is click Transactions at the Top. Starting with where I left off re-categorizing last time, I look at each transaction and make sure it's a valid entry and then I make sure Mint has categorized it correctly. Ensuring your transactions are categorized correctly is important in my view as otherwise it undermines the accuracy of your budgets and likely your faith in using Mint.

If something needs to be re-categorized I either click the individual entry that needs changing and then click Edit Details below it or I check the box next to all the entries that I want to change to the same category and click Edit Multiple at the top of the page. As you make these edits you can set rules; the option to create a rule shows up each time you change a category as you can see below.

• Track Budget and Goal Progress

Next I track if I'm on track to meet my budgets and goals. Simply clicking the Budget tab shows me the budget I've previously created. I can edit it if I want or simply use the green/blue bars to see if I'm on track to meet my budget this month.

Similarly for the Budgets tab I can track how I'm doing saving towards my emergency fund, house, retirement or any other goal you create for yourself.

So after setting up all my accounts on Mint, I find that I only need 5-10 minutes a week to track all my spending and savings, which makes it extremely easy, realistic that I'll do it, and even satisfying to do. If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions of how you get the most out of Mint.com or other services please comment below or contact me directly.

Hello There

As a frequent reader of personal finance blogs and other sites that have helped me become more frugal over

the years, I've decided it's time for me to join the ranks and share my tips and ideas for being frugal.

The first posts I have in mind involve finding the right credit card, general savings strategies, online banking tools, cheap cell phone plans, and other tips on being frugal. I'm sure other post ideas will come to mind. If you're interested in anything specific please leave a comment and I'll do my best to share what I know.