October 2011 Archives

The first shot was taken with my lowly BlackBerry and my lowly composition skills. The second was taken by Nicki, our design director, who has superior composition skills and, most recently, a superior camera phone. The iPhone 4S does amazing close ups, with realistic colors, and sharp detail. That being said, my shot wasn't too bad. (The third shot below was taken with Laura's Android. Shows how small our little "post flower" was.)

Clark Howard recommended the website creditcardtuneup.com where you can plug in your spending patterns, and the site will point you in the direction of the best rewards program. I did this almost three years ago and decided to switch our "first card out of wallet" from Discover Card to American Express Blue. At the time I did not realize I could only get cash back annually, unlike Discover who allows you to get cash back as you go. But, the estimated $1,000 cash back by the estimator has proven to pay off.

I just ran our spending patterns (which are still largely grocery, department store, and gas) through the tune up again and got the results below. Where is American Express Blue? It didn't even show up in the list. (I'm just showing above $500 payback below.) I wonder how much of this is driven by advertising campaigns paid to Credit Card Tune-up or referral fees? Perhaps Amex is not pushing Blue right now, because it has certainly continued to pay back. Hmmmm.....