The Capitalist Maven

My wallet and sock drawer are full of credit cards, currently I have 12 active credit card accounts. The reason I have so many is to take advantage of various promotions, cashback earning methods, and 0% balance transfers. While this works great for me, it might not be so easy for everyone. Remembering to pay 5+ different bills every month on different days is not for the disorganized.

So the other day, one of my friends explained that she was no longer going to be traveling for work and thought that her miles earning card with an annual fee was no longer worthwhile. She asked what I would suggest as a replacement. My first question was, how many cards do you want to get? She looked at me funny and said, “One of course.” At that point I had to give it some serious thought. If I were only to have one card, what would it be? I kind of thought out loud, well maybe the Citi Dividend Preferred or one of the Chase 3% cards. Her husband had the Citi Diamond Preferred, which earns Thank-You points. My problem with that card is that while great for the first year, earning 5% on everyday purchases, after the first year its a flat 1%. The Diamond Preferred earns Thank-You points which can be redeemed for gift cards or preferably airline tickets using the fixed price option which can essentially double your reward to 2%. The reality is though, if managing several credit cards is too complicated for you, getting maximum value for a flight redemption is probably out of the question.

So my conclusion: Citi Dividend Preferred - Earning 1% CASH back on everything and 2% CASH on gas, grocery, drugs, and utilities. Simple enough for the masses but still yielding high cashback.

Jon Credit cards

“ma·ven

n.

A person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert.”

I first heard of the term “maven” from my girlfriend who had was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point.” She said to me one night, “You are a maven.” “What is a maven?”, I asked. “A maven is an expert in a field, somebody people come to for information”, she responded. I thought about what she said and she was right but what exactly was it that I was an expert in? I am an engineer by trade but for the most part nobody asks me technical questions. The kinds of questions are: “Is this a good deal?”, “Is this a good investment?”, or “Where can I find this for a good price?” I came to the conclusion that I was in fact an expert in the field of capitalism. Capitalism not necessarily in the academic sense, but in the practical everyday sense.

So I started this blog as an attempt to keep track of the information that I was disceminating every day and to provide it to a larger audience. It’s mostly an experiment for now but we’ll see where it goes…

Jon Background