Did I mention we paid off our last credit card? Because I am crazy excited about that! So freeing! We have so much extra money each month now. More to save, more to give away! And to think this all started with paying an extra $25 toward debt a month. That was all we could scrape up! This didn’t happen because we were rolling in the dough, instead we were drowning in debt and made little progress for the first 8-9 months. During that time we went from being able to pay $25 a month toward debt to $150 a month. It felt like we would never get out. But then another card bit the dust and then Lindy’s ring, and the next thing you know we are paying $300-$400 a month toward debt and still growing!
That is not what I intended to write about, but I am just so excited and want all of you to know that you can do it! It doesn’t take much but it will take time.
The true reason for the post is how we ended up celebrating our freedom from credit cards. WE GOT A NEW CREDIT CARD! Wait… what?! That’s right, a few weeks after we paid the last one off, I applied for a new card. Something I have been wanting to do for a while now. As you may know I would rather have credit cards work for me rather than be scared of them and avoid them like the plague. So far we have a great everyday credit card (Our Chase Amazon Card), a great Gas Card (Costco American Express), and a credit card for large purchases (Discover Card). But I wanted a credit card for air travel. That is why we got the Jet Blue American Express Card. Why Jet Blue? Well for some reason my wife loves them. Also, one of their stops is Long Beach, CA where we would like to fly into to visit our California friends. I figure if we could get a free flight for both of us a year or at least one free ticket a year, it will be worth it.
The nice thing is that if we spend $1,000 on the card in the first 90 days we get enough points for us to fly for free to California later this year. That’s what I am talking about! Once we have activated the card, I am going to try and bump the spending limit of our Amazon card and then start the great credit card purge. I will be canceling at least two credit cards, both with small spending limits that shouldn’t hurt our credit score too much. I will probably be keeping the others due to the length of time I have had them and the spending limits on them.
Does anyone else use their credit card instead of getting used by them? Why do you do this? Or why do you not do this?