Beware: Store Charge Cards
Store charge cards can make shopping at certain merchants more enticing due to built-in deals when you use your store card. Most retailers offer 10% or 15% off your first purchase when you sign up for their store charge card. This offer becomes especially enticing when you are planning to buy large ticket items like furniture or electronics, or even if you are doing much of your holiday shopping in that store.
Store charge cards can save you some money on your purchases, but they can also cost you. You might be more likely to go back to that store more frequently than usual once you are a cardholder. Also, store charges see a lot of customers forgetting to pay their bills, or sending in late payments, often resulting in added fees on their accounts. If you plan to pay off your store charge card balance in full and on time every time, this type of charge card might work for you.
Identifying the Best Credit Card Offers
When searching for the best credit card offers, it is important to consider a few specifications regarding the companies and their offers. Many will entice you with upfront bonuses, only to pound you with incredibly high fees and restrictions once you have received your card. For this reason, it is vital that you keep a few things in mind when choosing the right card for you.
Zero or Low Introductory APR
The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) indicates how much interest you will be required to pay on a credit card for one year. This percentage is divided by 12 to indicate the amount of interest charged on your balance each month. Some credit card companies offer low or zero interest rates for up to the one year when accepting an offer.
Are You Overspending To Save Money?
**Today’s guest post is contributed by LearnVest **.
With every news channel reporting that shoppers spent $45 billion this past Black Friday alone, it is more than clear that the power of a well-publicized deal gets Americans to spend some serious cash!
This is seemingly great news for the economy, but what has actually changed for shoppers over this past year? The employment rate isn’t up, nor is the housing market—so why is spending this holiday season on the rise? Do Americans actually have more money to spend, or are they just overspending and racking up debt?
Early Bird Bargains.
Case in point: We ventured to the local GAP store at 6am on Black Friday with our friend Susan. They were offering 50% off from 6am to10 am, and we jumped at the chance to be there bright (or actually, dark) and early when the doors opened. At 50
Marketing is NOT Advertising, Emails and Postcards!
If I were to ask 100 people to define “Marketing” I’d probably get 100 different answers. The problem is “Marketing” has become a nice little euphemism for dirty words like “advertising”, “sales”, and “direct mail”.
I’ve also noticed that all a sudden everyone is a Marketer: I met a guy the other day who makes signs – he introduced himself as a “Marketer”. Then I met a woman who sells online ads, she also identified as a “Marketer”. Everywhere I go I run into people who at first- glance do what I do, but when I dig a little deeper I learn they’re really selling some marketing tool; not actually engaging in the bigger picture – or the process and planning of Marketing.
I’ve been able to forgive sellers of marketing tools for calling themselves Marketers – I mean, everyone is doing it. But then I read an article by the CEO of Read more…
SmartyPig Cash Rewards
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