5 Things to be Thankful About Your Credit Card This Thanksgiving

Can you believe it’s almost Thanksgiving already? It seems like summer was only yesterday. New Year’s is often a time we like to reflect about the year that was and set personal goals for the coming year, but it seems like we often take the good stuff in our lives for granted. Our family, friends, job and health to name a few. Something else we can add to that list is our credit cards.

If you’ve taken the time to shop around and be an informed consumer when it comes to selecting your credit card, you likely have a thing or two to be thankful of. Let’s take a look at five things to be thankful about your credit card this Thanksgiving.

1. You Don’t Regularly Carry a Balance on Your Credit Card

Today’s cashless society means more convenience, but at a cost if you regularly carry a balance on your credit card. If you plan ahead for one-time yearly expenses like Thanksgiving, you’re ahead of many Canadians, who simply charge these expenses on their credit card and worry about them later. By paying off your credit card in full and on time, you could be saving yourself tens of thousands of dollars in interest over your lifetime.

2. You Aren’t in the Habit of Taking Cash Advances

Even more damaging to your finances can be cash advances. With a cash advance, the interest rate is often even higher than carrying a balance on your credit card. On top of that, you’re charged interest the moment you take the cash advance. There’s no interest-free grace period. It might be a little tougher to say “grace” this Thanksgiving (pun intended) knowing that you paid for your turkey with a cash advance.

3. You Don’t Needlessly Pay Credit Card Fees

Some credit card fees like foreign exchange and late fees are easier to avoid than others. For example, are you travelling to a foreign country to visit family for Thanksgiving? It’s worth taking the time to review your credit cards in your wallet to see which one offers the most favourable foreign exchange fees. Likewise, if you have credit cards in your wallet that you don’t use as often, you’ll want to get in the habit of using them every two or three months to avoid losing any hard earned rewards.

4. You Redeem Your Credit Card Points

Canadians love to earn credit cards points, but we aren’t the best at redeeming them. If you took the time to not only consider the rewards, but how easy they are to redeem, you have a lot to be thankful for. It’s rather pointless to spend months or years earning points, only to not be able to redeem them for the rewards or trip you wanted in the first place.

5. You Use Your Credit Card to Build Your Credit Score

Credit cards aren’t just a good way to manage your short-term cash flow, they’re also a great way to build your credit score. If you’re planning to make a big purchase down the line like a house or car, building and maintaining a good credit score is crucial. If you’re using your credit card in a positive way to do that then you have another thing to be thankful about.

The Bottom Line

By using a comparison website (like CreditCardsCanada.ca 🙂 ) to shop around for the best credit card for your own personal situation, you have one more thing to be thankful of this Thanksgiving.

Wishing you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving!