What’s In Our Wallet? How To Money Hosts Use These Credit Cards

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* Advertiser Disclosure: How to Money has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. How to Money and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Lastly, the site does not include all card companies or all available card offers.

In the spirit of full transparency, today we’re going to open up the contents of our wallet to you, dear How To Money listener. You’ll learn that we eat our own dog food, personally using the exact same awesome rewards credit cards that we recommend to you guys.

No matter your family size, using the right credit card for purchases is really important. It means earning the highest rewards or cash back possible, for spending you are doing anyway!

Quick reminder: You should only use credit cards if you can stick to the golden rules and pay your balances off in full each month!

The Benefits of Rewards Credit Cards

Let’s quickly run through the top perks you get when using credit cards. We discussed this all in a podcast episode about crucial credit card benefits recently.

Some folks tell you to avoid credit cards altogether. But that’s a bad idea. We would tell you to use them consistently, but to do so wisely. 

We believe that everyone should have a minimum of two credit cards in their possession. And it’s crucial to apply for credit cards based on how you spend.

Getting a recommendation from a friend isn’t good enough. The credit card they use might not be all that great for you. Make sure you are holding cards that match your spending profile. 

So we’ll do our best to not just show you what is in our wallet, but why it’s there. Hopefully that can help you decide whether or not the cards we use the most, make sense for you or not.

Credit Cards in Joel’s Wallet

The card I’ve had the longest is the Fidelity Visa card. That gorgeous green piece of plastic has been in my life for a decade and a half. What I love about this card in particular is that you earn 2% back on every purchase you make. And that money can be used to fund a retirement account through Fidelity. 

Haven’t opened up a Roth IRA yet? Let your credit card help you out! There’s only one other card that offers you a consistent 2% cashback bonus. Having a heavy hitter go-to card like this is a no-brainer for most folks.

Have I mentioned on the show how much I like Costco? Oh, good. I didn’t want that to go unsaid. Lol. But this is just one of the many Costco membership benefits I take advantage of, so the card_name is an important part of my plastic collection. This card offers 2% back when shopping at Costco. Not bad. But it also gives you 4% back on gas purchases and 3% on restaurants & travel.

That makes this card an excellent choice when at the pump, eating out, and at your favorite warehouse club. This card provides other helpful membership perks too.

The biggest perk is snagging 6% back on all of your purchases at the grocery store. A recently added benefit is that you score 6% back on your streaming service spending. Those benefits alone make this card worth considering for lots of folks, in particular for families with a lot of mouths to feed. Terms apply.

If you’re new to this card, there’s also a hefty welcome offer right now: bonus_miles_full

The coolest side benefit of this card is return protection. You are able to return purchases to American Express within 90 days if the retailer won’t take that item back. It’s one of the best secondary credit card benefits people usually forget about!

Credit Cards in Matt’s Wallet

Now that Joel has passed me the mic, it’s time to share what credit cards I’m using the most these days. This has shifted over time as I used to take a super minimal straightforward approach, but these days I’ve decided to optimize fully based on my family’s spending. So I’ll approach it with those different categories in mind:

Groceries:

First up in my wallet is the card_name. There’s some bestie overlap on this one. And I actually avoided this card for a while because of the annual fee. But after running the numbers I realized that was shortsighted and could save a ton of money on groceries.

When I earn 6% cashback on up to $6,000 in groceries every year, we’re talking about an extra $360! So let’s take it back to some 1st grade math: is $360 > $95? Duh. So if you’re spending big money at the grocery store every year, then this one is a no brainer.

Restaurants:

After a review of our in-person spending, I quickly realized that aside from the money we spend at the grocery store (mostly Aldi), the next most expensive category in our budget is on eating out. And so naturally it made sense that I would need to find a card that prioritized restaurant spending which is how I found the U.S. Bank Altitude® Go Visa Signature® Card. This card offers 4% cash back on charges made at restaurants with no annual fee. If you have standing date nights on the calendar or you like to support your local pub, make sure you’re getting rewarded for it!

Gas:

This is one that Joel turned me on to. After joining Costco in order to take advantage of their home refinance products, it made sense to also get the card_name. And even though we’re infrequent Costco customers, the 4% cash back at gas stations makes this one worth keeping around in my wallet.

Everything Else:

Now the last card I’m going to share with you isn’t technically one that I carry in my wallet, but it still deserves to be mentioned. I’m a big fan of the card_name because it offers a nearly unmatched 2% cashback on all purchases with no caps on the amount of cashback you earn. And did I mention that it doesn’t have an annual fee either? The simplicity and straightforward nature of this card definitely lends itself to financial minimalists who don’t want to have to think about credit card rewards more than they already do. (If only it came in all white or black).

But you might be wondering: “why don’t you carry this one in your wallet?” Well it’s because I only use this card for online purchases and any automatically recurring bills. Since the rest of my in-person purchases are already covered, I use this card for everything else online- you can’t beat a consistent guaranteed 2% with the Citi Double Cash card.

Also, having started many businesses and side hustles, I have tried out quite a few different business CCs over the years. Here’s a full list of the best credit cards for consultants, if that’s something you’re interested in!

Should You Get One of These Cards?

Getting a new credit card just because Matt or Joel use it would be a bad move. There are other great credit cards out there besides the ones that we use. So much of determining the right card for you is running the numbers to see how the rewards will stack up in your real-life scenario.

For instance, my sister has card_name that comes with an annual fee of annual_fees. See Rates and Fees. I, on the other hand, do not have this card. But my sister travels frequently. She uses the additional credits like the $200 hotel credit and the $200 airline credit. Using those two benefits alone pay for more than half of that pricey annual fee. This card offers a bevy of other valuable benefits that she derives value from.

Don’t let an annual fee, even a hefty one, turn you off. Run the numbers to see if that annual fee is worth it or not given the context of what that card offers and your spending habits. For big spenders, especially those who like to travel, those cards can be a no-brainer.

Factoring in other advantages like a strong sign-up bonus are important too. Remember, the card_name that Matt has in his wallet? It can net you $1,250 right now if you meet the minimum spend of $4,000 within three months. If you can hit that without spending more than you otherwise would, it’s a killer deal. So make sure to factor that into the equation also!

Don’t Overthink Your Credit Card Assortment

Having your budget on hand is helpful because it can inform the direction you go in. If an inordinate amount of your monthly spending happens at Target, for instance, you’ll probably want to get the Target Red Card since you’ll nab 5% off all the purchases you make there. Or if you find yourself spending quite a bit at the grocery store like Matt and I then you’ll probably find the card_name to be a winner for you as well. Terms apply.

Some people create spreadsheets and go after the credit card rewards game in an incredibly analytical way. If that’s how you roll, more power to you. 

But most folks just want to be able to quickly determine which two or three cards offer the best rewards combo for them. That shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out. There’s no need to go overboard.

The Bottom Line:

So, that’s all the plastic we have in our wallets! We stick with these cards because they work best for our spending and we don’t have to worry about big annual fees.

Every now and then we come across an amazing welcome offer for a travel rewards card. And those are great to take advantage of when they pop up.

But for the most part, we like to keep our credit card strategy very simple. And we recommend you start that way too 😉

_{*Advertiser Disclosure: How to Money has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. How to Money and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Lastly, the site does not include all card companies or all available card offers.}

_{*Editorial Disclosure: Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.}

_{*User Generated Content Disclosure: Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.}

_{*For rates and fees of the card_name, See Rates and Fees. For the card_name, See Rates and Fees}