Thursday, January 26, 2012

Life Without Credit Cards - now let's figure this out

We have tow trucks and my husband is out on the road a lot.  He needs credit cards to function. 

We have a personal debit card that always has a low balance, and just ordered a debit card or Visa Check Card from our main business account.  Not really "Credit Cards" and for some reason my husband was adamant about getting a prepaid credit card.  I don't see much difference.

I did some research today and found this site =  Prepaid Credit Card Review 2012 
They show a very nice comparison of many prepaid cards and the fees for specific transactions.  You need to be careful, some cards will charge you just to check your card balance.  I found this site to be very helpful to compare fees and figure out what was best for us. 

I chose the American  Express prepaid card.  You can read the review here:  American express prepaid review
  There are no monthly fees, whereas every other card had one. 
  • There is a fee  of $2 if you access an ATM.  We shouldn't need to use that.  
  • Thee is a fee to reload the card - unless you use a checking account to reload.  We plan on using a checking account so that won't affect us.  
I did read on another site that this 2nd point is a deal breaker for some.  Most people using prepaid credit cards do not have a checking account. 

For now, this card fits our needs.  I'll be tracking the fees, and will post anything out of the ordinary. 

We haven't been using credit cards at all for the last 3 years.  Just for gas on the road.  I'm most upset about losing my Kohl's Department Store Card.  they have great sales when you use your Kohl's credit card, and I love shopping there.  We had a very small balance on that and I paid it fine.  Apparently, they will close that instantly and I'll be out of luck.  I have other department store cards with 0 balances.  I imagine they'll be closed as well. 

This is a new credit free life, and I'm ready to embrace it.

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