The Beauty of Cash Back

Yesterday I got a check for $87 from my credit card company. This was my cash back reward for using my CitiBank Dividend Platinum Select card. I just love to have the credit card company paying me for a change.

This card gives you 2% cash back on supermarket purchases, gas, utilities and the like, and 1% cash back on everything else. My wife and I both have one of these cards, and for the past two years we maxed out the rewards at $300 per card annually. That's a total of $600. Pretty nice for doing our grocery shopping. Payment is delivered via check in increments of $50 or more, upon request, at any time. As an added bonus, I use this card to pay my reimbursable business expenses, which adds a nice little kicker to those expense reimbursement checks.

Believe it or not, this card used to be even better until last year. It used to be that the card paid 5% on supermarket purchases...

We also carry an American Express Blue card, which has some cash back features, and no limit on the amount of the cash back you can earn. Unfortunately, that card only gives cash back once a year and then in the form of a credit to the account. I like checks better.

These cards work very well for us. Of course, we never carry a balance. Carrying a balance on these cards would be pretty expensive and not a very wise move.