What do you buy with your credit card rewards money?

[ESMonitor]

I am about to clear $200 in CC rewards. I generally spend my rewards money on fitness related products, but I am open to other possibilities.

I won't let myself spend the reward money to pay a bill or to offset any outstanding CC balance. No thank you.

How do you spend your CC reward money?

How big of a balance do you allow it get before you cash in?

[Nutria]

I am about to clear $200 in CC rewards. I generally spend my rewards money on fitness related products, but I am open to other possibilities.

I won't let myself spend the reward money to pay a bill or to offset any outstanding CC balance. No thank you.

How do you spend your CC reward money?

How big of a balance do you allow it get before you cash in?

Every month, we cash it out (typically $35-$40), sending the money directly to our savings account. (Maybe we can do that only because we use the same bank -- Chase -- for savings, checking and credit card.)

[disneysteve]

I just take our Discover and Chase cash back as a statement credit. That's the simplest way. I see no benefit to them sending me money just so I can turn around and send it back.

[GoodSteward]

I usually sit on it until it builds up to a reasonable amount. I'm building around 25 a month I guess. The intention is to use it at Christmas to help buy gifts, but we usually use it up before that to pay for random things we may get. Last thing I used it for was to pay for a pair of headphones I've been eyeing for a while. Got them almost half price, so I just used the rewards as a statement credit to pay for it.

[phantom]

I take my rewards as a statement credit whenever I have the minimum and I happen to be logged into my credit card account. That usually happens a few times a year.

I try to think of the rewards money as little as possible. I don't want to get into the mind set of spending money to earn rewards to spend on something else. That seems like exactly what the credit card companies want to encourage.

[97guns]

i take it as a statement credit too, i like to buy gold and use rebates to knock down my cost

[frugal saver]

Mine pays at $25 gift card vs $20 cash, so I've been getting Amazon gift cards to use for household stuff that I'd buy anyway and then transferring the amount saved to my regular savings account.

[ESMonitor]

I just take our Discover and Chase cash back as a statement credit. That's the simplest way. I see no benefit to them sending me money just so I can turn around and send it back.

Agreed. To clarify, I too take the credit, (I don't have them mail me a check) but I don't use the rewards $ to pay for previous expenses on my statement aside from whatever I decide to purchase with the rewards money. I'll cash in with a rewards credit for same amount as whatever I decide to purchase subsequent to the purchase. I like the idea of saving some of it for Christmas shopping.

[AJ444]

I get a statement credit automatically at the end of each month.

[rennigade]

I won't let myself spend the reward money to pay a bill or to offset any outstanding CC balance. No thank you.

Money is money. So you spend the rewards $$ on workout gear...you drop $100 towards that...then your utility bill comes in and thats $100. Whats the difference? Are you going to pay for the utility bill in bitcoin or gold shillings? Either way that bill is going to have to get paid somehow son. Again...money is money.

[disneysteve]

Money is money. So you spend the rewards $$ on workout gear...you drop $100 towards that...then your utility bill comes in and thats $100. Whats the difference?

Exactly. Money is fungible. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. With the exception of retirement savings and college savings I don't compartmentalize our money saying this dollar is for vacation but that dollar over there is for the mortgage. It's all the same.

[DaveInPgh]

Like many of the other previous replies, I typically take mine as a statement credit. Usually don't mess with it until it is at least $100.

Dollar for dollar gift cards are always an option that I consider pointless, but my rewards program occasionally has discounted gift cards as an option. If any are for places I regularly shop or eat, I take advantage of the discount.

[kork13]

I always just take it as a statement credit, typically in months during which we've had higher-than-normal expenditures. For example, when we had to replace the water heater (cost of which went to the card--hooray points!), I redeemed about $100 of our cash-back rewards to soften the blow. And going back to the "money is fungible" idea, I do that on ALL of my credit cards, because although the other cards don't directly knock down the payment due on the big bill, it still frees up money that I can now send toward that large CC bill.

I *could* cash out the $30-$40/mo that we earn and have it immediately available to boost my bottom line, but I appreciate being able to use the cash back rewards to help me out at a time when it's useful.

[Nutria]

Exactly. Money is fungible. A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. With the exception of retirement savings and college savings I don't compartmentalize our money saying this dollar is for vacation but that dollar over there is for the mortgage. It's all the same.

How do you ensure that you have enough money for vacation and auto insurance and tuition and taxes and ensure that you have an adequate EF after all that? (Of course, you could just be a lot wealthier than us!! )

But since money is fungible (which is why the barter economy will never return), moving it from the spreadsheet "vacation" column to the "car" column in an emergency (a real emergency, not an I "need" the iPhone7 because I'm an Apple fanboy emergency ) is easy.

[Drake3287]

We use the BofA Travel Reward card and typically get about $1,500. back each year. Money goes right into our vacation fund to purchase 2 round trip tickets to either Hawaii or USVI.

In the "old" days of using my United Mileage Plus Visa Card, I was lucky if I got enough miles for just 1 ticket a year and even then finding a free flight was next to impossible on our schedule.

With the great cash reward cards out there, I don't know why people still pay an annual fee to use the United or other airline card's.