I took the plunge here at How I Save Money and decided to close my American Express Blue Cash card. I still have one Amex card that I will leave open because of the credit limit and the age of the account.

The card I closed has had its credit limit reduced by Amex repeatedly (while the other card stayed with a good limit). I do not use the card and they would not increase the limit, citing high utilization as the reason for denial. Well it seems to me that reducing my available credit every few months would increase the utilization each time…but as Carlos Mencia says ‘Dee Dee Dee’.

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I was so very excited to see that my apartment complex was offering rent payments online. I can already pay my rent with my Chase Freedom Visa card and earn points for cash back.

Unlike some other places, my apartment complex does not charge extra for paying via credit card so I was very happy about that.

Then I noticed that they were offering an online payment option. Oh yeah!

This would make it even easier for me because now I could pay my rent from the comfort of my own room.

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I have a Capital One credit card that was at a rate of 8.9% when I first got it. I really loved my ‘no hassle’ card until they decided to hassle me. They increased my interest rate to 13% so I could keep the card open. They were doing some changes and gave me two options.

Options

1. Keep my current rate and have the card immediately closed or

2. Accept a higher rate and the card would stay open.

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I have written about ways to make money using your credit cards but I just found this post I mostly love called 25 Reasons to Love Credit Cards.

Now I do not agree with every single reason listed here but there are some sound reasons listed. Some of those very points are the reason I use credit cards.

For example, I use my cards to get cash back rewards that I would not get from using cash. I have also gotten some sweet deals like bonus cash for opening credit card accounts.

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I wrote recently about using cash back credit cards to make money and help you to save some money too. I use my Chase Freedom Visa card in this way and I always make sure to maximize the results that I can get from using the card.

Charge everything!

I do this by firstly charging everything under the sun. If I have the money set aside for something I look to see if I can charge it and then send the money over to the credit card instead of the company.

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I have been seeing a lot of people talking lately about credit cards and how they are evil. In the defense of the cards I just have to say that credit cards are neither evil nor good. They are simply pieces of plastic.

What you DO with the card is what is important. If you manage your cards well then you will have a great relationship and you will love your cards.

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I posted recently about how you could make $100 by opening up a new Chase Freedom Visa card. The offer expired after a few days but it is now back up here. You can make $100 by getting a Chase credit card with a few simple clicks.

I got my card and got the bonus and I am very happy with the card. The interest rate for this card is a little bit higher than some other cards that I have but this is not an issue for me. I pay off the card IN FULL before the payments are due so that I do not get charged interest.

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I just went through my little pack of credit cards and saw that I had a Sears master card that I have NEVER used.

In fact the card was not even activated and still had the little sticker on it. I called to activate the card and then promptly closed it out.

Now we all know how the general nugget of wisdom in the personal finance world is that you should not close old credit cards, even if you no longer use them. This is in order to show that you have a larger amount of available credit to potential lenders.

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