Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's Take Control Tuesday. That means Mansa Moussa is on the phone with me. And Mansa, I have a couple of credit cards that offer rewards back. And a lot of times I'm not really sure what to do about that.
Today. You have some sound tips for us, especially in this economy.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, during hard times, one of the important things working families can do is recognize value that may already be moving through their household every week.
If you remember Elisha and The widow in 2nd Kings chapter 4, she was in financial distress.
He said, how can I help you? And then he said, tell me what you have in your house.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: She didn't think she had anything, but the provision started when recognizing and wisely using what she already had available.
And I want to say that there are many households today that overlook resources that may include credit card rewards, loan programs, cash back, and intentionally using your weekly spending habits to help to create real support for your family budget.
Now, here's how we do that. There's two strategies.
Depends on where you're starting out. First of all, if you don't carry a balance on your credit cards, if you pay your credit card balances and full every month, this program really works for you because the rewards allow you if you're using the right card for the right category. It's about stacking rewards with loyalty programs and digital coupons and earning rewards on spending your household was already going to do anyway. That's the key.
So, for example, you use your store loyalty number, you look on their app, you activate digital coupons, you buy sale items at the store, you pay with a card that rewards a grocery purchase.
Now you just stack the store discount, loyalty pricing coupons and cash back all on the same purchase. And listen, small efficiencies add up over time.
Now strategy number two. These are for people that carry balances on their credit cards.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: If you carry a balance at 20 to 24% interest rate right now, your main goals should still be reducing debt.
So ideally you don't keep adding new spending to high interest balances. Instead, what you do is you use a separate credit card for necessary spending like gas or groceries.
Get that credit card, pay the statement balance in full each month, and you still earn rewards on spending that you are already going to do anyway. Okay, if possible, get a reasonable credit limit on that credit card.
Because we've talked about it in the past, credit utilization really matters.
So if your weekly grocery spending maxes out a small linear credit card, that's going to hurt your credit score. So Once again, just because you have a higher limit doesn't mean you have to use it all. So once you get the rewards from those cards, now you can use those rewards strategically because they can reduce gas costs, food costs. You can use them as statement fees, or you can actually use cash to help improve your cash flow or build your emergency fund.
Now, here's the discipline and the wisdom of this.
The strategy only works when rewards are connected to normal spending habits.
Not chasing rewards, not buying things. Extra normal household spending, that's the key. You're getting rewards for money you were already going to spend.
So small savings, small rewards, small efficiencies used consistently can reduce pressure on the budget, improve your cash flow, support debt reduction, and help you build financial stability over time. The challenge today is what category do you have for each credit card that you should be maximizing for your benefit?
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking about that right now. Wow, great advice. And hopefully this can help somebody. And you can also share this information as well. Go to our website, takecontroltuesday. Com. You can share that. You can like that. And you can use that as well. Manson, thank you.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Thank you.
