By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

Sometimes I hear from people who have been rejected for a credit card or other type of loan despite having a high credit score. The ones who feel the most frustrated are those who know someone else that got approved for the same card with a lower credit score. How can that be? Why would a credit card company turn down a person with better credit and approve someone with lower credit?

There are three possible reasons (or at least three that we consider the most likely):

#1. Too Much Debt

It’s completely possible to build up a good credit score while accumulating debt. If you continually pay your bills on time while spending more than you pay back, you will go further and further into debt while getting all sorts of goodwill for on-time payments. After all, payment history is the Number One factor in determining your credit score, so if you only make minimum payments, your score may still increase over time.

However, when your debt reaches a certain level and you apply for new credit, a card issuer may look at your debt and say “No way.” Sure your credit score is good, but to that credit card company your debt makes you look like a bomb about to explode, and they’d rather not be the ones hurt when your financial world falls apart.

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

I recently got a mailing from Synchrony Bank about their Synchrony Mastercard, a credit card offering 2% cash back on all card purchases. I had been aware that Synchrony had transitioned old Toys R Us/Babies R Us customers to this card (after Toys R Us went kaput), but had never seen it advertised as a card you could apply for directly. Now Synchrony is offering it to some potential cardholders by mail only. (You won’t find an online application as of this writing; the invitation directs you to mastercard.synchrony.com, but you need an authorization code from the mailer to apply.)

No Annual Fee and Competitive Cash Rebate

The Synchrony Mastercard has no annual fee, and its 2% “flat” cash back rate on all purchases is competitive with the Citi Double Cash card, often thought of as the standard-bearer for flat cash back cards on the market. (Very few credit cards will give you 2% on all purchases; most have a lower cash-back rate or give higher rebates in only certain purchasing categories like gas, groceries, etc.)

The cash back you receive is automatically given as a statement credit, meaning it is credited to your account to offset charges you’ve made to the card. You don’t have the option to actually get the cash in your hand.

Bonus Opportunity

You can earn a $150 bonus if you spend $1500 with the card in the first three months of having it. (At least that is the bonus offer I got.)

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

The Costco Anywhere Visa is a cash back credit card only offered to Costco members. It is issued in partnership with Citibank.

Cash Back Formula Explained

You’ll earn cash back with the Costco credit card in the following ways:

• 4% cash back on gas purchases at Costco and gas stations on up to $7000 per year of gas (1% beyond that)
• 3% cash back on restaurant and travel purchases
• 2% cash back on Costco purchases
• 1% cash back on all other purchases

There is no opportunity for a signup bonus with this card, so you don’t have the opportunity to earn a quick $100 or $200 upfront like you do with many other cash back cards.

Redemption Procedure Gets A Thumbs Down

You only get your accumulated cash back once per year, in February, based upon your earnings in the prior calendar year. In addition, you get a rewards certificate sent to you that you must bring to a Costco store to get your cash back or to use toward your Costco purchases that day.

We don’t like this. First, most people like to have the flexibility to redeem their rewards more than once per year, even if those rewards are fairly small. Second, by forcing you to redeem at a Costco store location, Costco seems to be subtly trying to get you to use your rewards on more Costco purchases. They could just as easily give you those rewards as a statement credit, thus allowing you to put them toward any of your card purchases.

For the most part, this is a small quibble. Most people don’t redeem more than once per year, and the procedure that forces you into a Costco store is probably more about making you “feel” the reward (and feel good about it) than it is about forcing you to buy more from Costco. (The truth is you will probably buy plenty more from Costco than the amount of your rewards anyway, or you wouldn’t have paid for a Costco membership in the first place, amiright?)

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

For people trying to build a good credit history, credit utilization can be an important factor in raising their credit scores. Credit utilization — sometimes called debt-to-credit ratio — is the percentage of the available credit on your credit cards that you are actually using. For example, if you have $10,000 of available credit on a credit card (or cards) and you have a total balance of $1000, your credit utilization ratio is 10%.

While we advise keeping that ratio low — under 30% at least, but under 10% or even 5% if you want to be aggressive in building your score — some people worry that paying off their credit cards each month will put their utilization at 0% and thus not show up as a positive on their credit reports. This worry leads to some counter-intuitive (and wrong) advice about carrying a balance from month to month to show that you are using credit wisely.

Pay Your Cards Off In Full!

So, before we go any further, let’s be clear: carrying a small balance on your credit cards from month to month does NOT help your credit score. It is NOT necessary to pay interest in order to build your credit score. It will NOT increase your score faster than paying off your cards in full. Pay off your credit cards completely each month. Do not pay interest with the idea that you are somehow helping your credit history. You will end up paying good money for no benefit.

If we were looking for an opportunity to work from home, these are the 15 opportunities we’d tackle first. All are legitimate stay-at-home work jobs, and this site does not receive any compensation if you choose to work with one of them. (See also: How To Make Money Without A “Regular” Job)

• Enterprise – The well-known car rental company often hires at-home customer service representatives and reservation agents who work with Enterprise customers by telephone.
• TTEC (TeleTech) – Offers work-at-home customer service opportunities. From their site: “As a TTEC@Home associate, you’ll use TeleTech’s proprietary technology to support and assist customers with a variety of customer service and technical needs. This could include helping customers over the phone, via chat, or on social media. Best of all, you can do it all while wearing your slippers or flip flops! (To get started, you’ll need internet access and a home phone.)”
• American Express – Offers a variety of “virtual career opportunities” that could let you work from home. The Travel Counselor/Customer Service telephone jobs will probably be the most interesting if you don’t have the specific skills required for other Amex remote jobs. (After clicking through, search “virtual” in the job title field to see current work-at-home jobs.)

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

Dave Ramsey is a popular personal finance writer/broadcaster with a loyal fanbase. I suspect his fans are so loyal because Ramsey says just about everything with supreme confidence, as if no sensible person could have a different opinion. When people are feeling lost, whether financially or otherwise, a strong personality with strong opinions may feel like a godsend.

This is not to bad-mouth Ramsey. Much of what he says is good, common sense. But not everything. And I believe it’s good to question Ramsey’s guidance just the same as you would question anyone else. Like most who give you advice (even me), Ramsey wants to make a buck off of you, as you’ll notice from the astounding number of info products he’s hawking on his website and how often he pushes you to buy.

So, today I’m going to discuss Dave Ramsey’s 7 Baby Steps to Financial Peace, a checklist for people trying to get their financial lives together one “baby” step at a time. I’ll look at where Ramsey makes sense, and where he simply has a strong opinion that many other financial experts would disagree with. Let’s go step by step…

Baby Step 1: $1,000 cash in a beginner emergency fund

It’s a sickening feeling when it seems you are just barely getting by and then an unexpected expense come up. Where are you going to get that money for a car repair, appliance breakdown, emergency room visit, etc., when you can barely meet your expected expenses?

The key, then, is to plan ahead, to do whatever it takes to rustle up $1000 to put into a separate account that you only touch in true emergencies. To do this, you’ll need to examine where every dollar is going and siphon away a few bucks each month to build this fund. Or, do something to earn more temporarily, whether that’s taking on an outside project, starting a side hustle, or selling some of your stuff.

This is no-brainer good advice. The obvious first “baby step” in your financial life should be to build some sort of cushion so you do not plunge into complete desperation when faced with an unexpected expense (which you might as well think of as an expected expense because something always eventually goes wrong, you just don’t know what it will be).

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

One of the toughest things to handle during a job search is the question about your desired salary. My desired salary is $5 billion, but I’m not going to land a new job with that answer. So, what should you put on a job application or say during an in-person interview? Should you offer a number, or should you maneuver to get the employer to make an offer first? There’s no easy answer, but here are some things to consider:

Can you sidestep the question?

In the best of all worlds, you could answer the desired salary question by saying your salary is negotiable and that you’d really like to understand more about the position before answering. In other words, you’d like to be interviewed before talking money. If you have this opportunity, take it.

Unfortunately, many times your first step in the interview process is filling out an online application that forces the desired salary answer out of you. (The dreaded drop-down menu that forces a salary range is the worst.) In that case, think about the following questions:

What is the expected salary range for the position you’re seeking?

If a job listing doesn’t state a salary range and you’re not sure what a reasonable salary might be, do some research. One source for such information is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Wage Data, which is listed by area and occupation. This may not get as specific as you’d like, but it could prevent you from stating a desired salary that is way too high or way too low for the position. (If your desired salary is too low, you may appear to be under-qualified for the job, which could knock you out of the running just as fast as asking for too much money.)

By Adam Jusko, ProudMoney.com, adam@proudmoney.com

Wells Fargo has added its own deals portal, offering cardholders the chance to earn cash rebates on purchases with specific merchants. The Wells Fargo Deals we are seeing as of this morning include:

• Happy Cards – Spend $100, Get $15 back
• MGM Resorts Las Vegas – Spend $500, Get $100 back
• Ray-Ban – Spend $150, Get $30 back

You want a credit card but you have no credit history. It’s a “Catch-22” — banks won’t take a chance on you because you have no credit, but you’ll have no credit unless someone accepts you.

Below we offer some unsecured credit card options for those with no credit history. Note that you may have a higher interest rate with these cards and may have to pay an annual fee. (If that sounds bad, you should consider using a secured credit card to help build your credit. This requires a security deposit but is often cheaper overall.)

Capital One “Average Credit” Cards

Capital One has a number of cards that it lumps together under the “average credit” banner, but their description of average credit seems to include those with no credit history, or at least very little history. Among the major issuers, they are the first one we would try. You can also use their Pre-Qualify page to see what you’re likely to be accepted for, without any harm to your credit score for doing so.)

• Capital One Platinum Mastercard – No annual fee but a high 26.99% interest rate. No rewards.
• Capital One QuicksilverOne Rewards – $39 annual fee and the same 26.99% interest rate, but you’ll earn 1.5% cash back on all your purchases.
• Capital One Journey Student Rewards – As the name suggests, this one is for students. Capital One and other card issuers are more lenient with students, meaning it is easier to get accepted, even with no credit history. No annual fee, 26.99% interest rate, cash back of up to 1.25%.

Citi will be ending its Price Rewind Program, effective September 22, 2019. A popup message on the Citi Price Rewind site today says: