STOP this MS!
 

...says Yahoo: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/playin...140734943.html

Enjoy whatever rewards your credit card offers. Indeed, find a credit card that offers rewards in line with your established spending habits. But don’t allow the promise of rewards to lead you to lose control of your spending.

lol

Wait...we're not supposed to carry a balance? What the hell

I just don't understand people who have CC debt. I hope no one who is in the MS game does. That's a lethal combination.

"What you don’t want is to pay excessive fees for the privilege of using a credit card. If your landlord will take a credit card for the rent payment but charge a fee of 2.95% for doing so, it’s not worth it to use the card simply for the sake of earning points. Going back to the numbers above, a $1,000 rent payment would cost $29.50 in fees, earning just 1,000 points."

Does no one have common sense? I mean come on!

"No, the problem isn’t that manufactured spending is wrong. It is that most consumers cannot avoid falling into a debt trap when they start using credit cards. Consumers with credit card debt tend to find it very easy to add more purchases to their existing balance, and thus the never-ending cycle of debt lives on."

Oh that unavoidable trap of CC debt. Gets me every time!

An amazingly illogical quote. Not paying off CC debt has nothing to do with MS. Why is the writer connecting the two?

Idk, I kind of agree with the writer. A lot of people are not smart and fall easily into debt. If you carry credit card debt, you are more likely to be sloppy with your MS, and create more debt. I'd say its safe to say that the vast majority of the people on here don't carry CC debt, but I could always be wrong...

But the caution is not specific to MS. The writer could more logically connect it to not buying that fancy sound system or as a caution not to use a CC at all.

That is true. I don't like how the writer makes it seem like CC debt is unavoidable for most people, and figuring cost/profit/risk is almost impossible. Although, she is probably right :-/

The clueless hoi polloi of the credit card game are what makes generous rewards possible!

wait, spending 20k in beans last month to pay off my 2% mortgage while only paying $25 minimum payment on my credit card is a bad idea?

what??!

I agree 100%.

The warning from the writer is not specific to MF at all. It's specific to any rewards credit card.

Take the Citi Forward card for example that offers 5 points/dollar (5% cashback if redeemed for certain rewards) at restaurants, among other places.

Some people mightend up spending more at restaurants just to get the extra rewards (thinking 'I'm going to eat something anyway, might as well go to a restaurant'), but here's a simple example that shows this is a terrible idea. We all know it's cheaper to eat food from the grocery versus food at a restaurant:

Restaurant
Deli sandwich and drink at local cafe = $10
5x bonus points = 50 points or $.50
Net Cost = $10 - $.50 = $9.50

Grocery
Deli sandwich and drink at grocery = $8
1x bonus points = 8 points or $.08
Net Cost = $8 - $.08 = $7.92

Result
Even though you got 525% ((50-8)/8) more points in this oversimplified example, you saved 17% ((9.50-7.92)/9.50) by eating food from the grocery instead of a restaurant even after you take into account the rewards points.

I know this is an oversimplified example but I think it makes it obvious that you should think twice before blindly spending money just because of the credit card rewards.

A message to those who lose control of their credit card debt: thank you, thank you, thank you for funding my MS largesse! :p

I've got a better connection. Us MS-ers (or is it AOR-ers?) are guilty of polluting the planet because we fly too much! And, and, if airlines got rid of the different classes, everyone would be equal and more people would fit on the planes. It's all MS' fault!

Just sloppy writing.

Ms. Rotter wanted to explain 'Manufactured Spending', but, after having done so in the first half of her article, she seemed to want to fill up another half page or so worth of words, and present some sort of 'conclusion' to the article she already started.

She should have ended the article somewhere around here:

'...Dedicated manufactured spenders constantly research purchasing options, as well as what bonuses are available for using certain online portals, particular businesses, or certain categories of goods.'

Unfortunately she chose to fumble along and present a very much unrelated conclusion for another page or so.

I get a kick out of people that assume because I have a great deal of different credit cards I must have some terrible debt piling up when it is in fact the opposite I have a steady cash flow coming in. It's sad that people are unable to control their spending, but on the other hand thew CC companies need to make money to afford customers like us :)