Have you shunned your credit cards once and for all? You’re not alone. Maybe you had a bad experience. If you’re dealing with a lot of high interest debt, it’s easy to blame credit cards. It can be tempting to finally pay off your outstanding balances, cut up your credit cards and be done with them once and for all. While you may have good intentions when you aim to live a credit card free lifestyle, it can come back to haunt you later on.
Us Canadians love our loyalty points. But before you redeem your points, be sure to understand the tax consequences, especially if you earned those points through your work.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Tax consequences, what, tax consequences? And you’d be right in most cases. If you’re using your personal credit card to earn and redeem loyalty points, then there wouldn’t be any tax consequences from earning and redeeming them.
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.
Are you carrying a balance on your credit card? You’re not alone. In fact, carrying a balance on your credit card these days is as Canadian as Tim Hortons or Saturday night hockey. Two of the main drivers behind the rise in credit card debt are a push towards a cashless society and the low interest rate environment.
There’s no denying it. Canadians love their credit cards and the rewards that come along with them. A recent survey comes to a similar conclusion. 87 percent of credit cardholders were enrolled in reward program, according to a study by market research firm J.D. Power. And on average we spend $600 per month on our main credit card.
In a couple weeks I’ll be taking my first international trip (my first trip outside Canada and the U.S. that is). I’m going to Iceland, London and Paris. I’m very much looking forward to this trip. I’ve been literally counting down the days. That being said, it hasn’t been all fun and games. There’s been a lot of planning involved.
