Do you use credit cards in your business/or personal?

[JRB]

This is from another thread over on business issues.

Are you using a charge card for your business, why, why not?

Same for personal, why, why not?

John

[CAframer]

Yup, both business & personal, but NEVER EVER carry a balance, just used for convenience, & administrative ease.

[Mike Labbe @ GTP]

For business: Everything except mats and moulding. (Equipment, prints, travel, misc supplies, etc) Moulding companies generally have a larger 2-5% discount for early cash/check payment.

For personal: Everything except mortgage. (Shopping, food, all utilities, travel, fuel, vehicle expenses, etc)

We rarely carry a balance, although we carried a large one for the first two years of the business - and again for the Wizard. (over 20k combined, mostly @ 0%)

Reasons: 1%-6% rebates, no concern about being late for anything because it auto bills to the card on the due date, no stamps, year end statements, extra 30 days interest free, balances can be put on 0% cards for a year at a time if necessary.(and payment money can sit in my bank earning interest until its due).

Although we use them heavily, I am aware how dangerous they can become. In my opinion, the banks hand them out too easily. A person can easily be tempted to spend beyond their ability to pay back the debt. I think the trick is to make them work for you(rebates, 0%), not the other way around smile.gif

This will be an interesting thread

[Cliff Wilson]

Business and Personal 1! each. Always pay off monthly.

Business -- everything except accounts with pre-pay discounts.

Personal -- larger purchases only.

why? -- rewards and delayed payment. Essentially interest free loans for float period.

[Maryann]

post deleted by me

[johnny]

Some giftware/small crafts companies we deal with won't sell to us unless we use one. Personally, I'd like to tell them to blankety-blank off, but the buyers really like the items and they sell so I just deal with it for now. In the future though, it will be much harder to become a supplier of mine with that requirement. It kind of sneaks up on you. Suddenly, you've got 20 companies sniping at your checking account with your debit card and you lose control of when you pay your bills. I can't wait until these current lines run their course and then they get the boot. Their replacements will be Net 30.

[gemsmom]

I had one card for both business and personal purchases.

If using the card negated a discount, I did not use the card. Others were set up on credit card. Saved me time on bill-paying, a chore I hated.

We never, ever, carried a balance.

Loved the air miles. Went lots of places without purchasing a ticket. First class, most times.

[Baer Charlton]

Air miles.

How do you think I fly all over teaching the way I do....?

stipends and honorariums don't float the boat usually. :D

[Framar]

Well I am glad to hear that all of y'all are such savvy and responsible card users! I am just the opposite - I try to save them for major (vehicular and veterianary) expenses but the banks love me cause I am always running just below my limit (on 3 cards) but I do get a free CD or a book now and again - don't bother with air miles - never go anywhere.

Thank God I have credit cards however because sometimes it is so slow I find myself living offa them!

Gosh, I hope I am not the only idiot around here! When the mail comes every day I shred all the card offers and I spend all day on the phone politely telling Capital One and Chase, "No thanks!"

Bad, Mar, Bad!!!

[Phoneguy]

I use one card for most purchases. I use the airmiles for products mostly. Digital Camera, VCR, stuff like that. We usually pay the card off monthly, except when I forget, but then it is paid off asap, never more than a week overdue, and I kick myself and promise never to forget again!

James

[EllenAtHowards]

Of course you are not the only one, Mar. Not saying I am or ain't, but lots of folks who would never admit it do carry a balance. When you have a, shall we say, fluctuating business such as ours, sometimes it's feast and others it's famine. A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do (and guys also, of course, never forgetting the stronger sex)

[Janet L]

I do have one credit card. Use it for travel. I don't carry a balance. I like being debt free (except for my mortgage). I pay bills the old fashioned way...w/a check. I'd love to be able to juggle the credit cards as Mike has suggested, but being a one and a half person business, I'm afraid I'd forget to make a payment on time and would be hit w/the high finance charges.

[David N Waldmann]

Originally posted by JRB:
Are you using a charge card for your business, why, why not?
Yes. For several reasons.

It's "necessary". A lot of places it's just not feasable to buy things without one. Such as almost any place on the internet.

It's convenient. One bill a month to pay instead of twenty or fifty (we have it automatically paid in full out of our checking account every month).

Rewards. Without trying to top anyone else's story, I'll just say that free airline tickets are great.
Originally posted by JRB:
Same for personal, why, why not?
Yes. Same reasons.

I use one card for each. One happens to be a Visa that I use for Vermont Hardwoods, and the other is a Mastercard that I use for Me. They both have unlimited credit as long as they're paid off every month (or at least down to the "revolving amount" limit), which is very convenient for buying equipment. I also have two backup personal cards that I carry with me (but not on my person) when traveling.

[B. Newman]

I read just enough of the other thread to know that some folks hate Discover, but we have a Discover gas card that, as long as we make 1 gas purchase per month, there is no finance fee.

(1 gas purchase per month???? Ours is more like 10-15 purchases per month between the two of us and the farm!)

So, when we got it we put an old balance on it, then pay off the gas portion every month while paying down the old balance - all at 0%. (Plus with the cash back awards, we actually gain on them!)

Then I have one that I use strictly for business where we have some things like webhosting, etc that are automatically paid, and any standing orders we have.

And then one for personal online use. So I guess we have 1 each, Discover, MC, and Visa that we use and (for the most part) pay off monthly. There is comfort in knowing, though, that if we have a "slow" month, we can opt to not pay it off and still be ok.

Betty

[Jerry Ervin]

One more plus to making purchases with certain VISA cards is the added warranty to the product. The card I use for my personal purchases doubles the written warranty for any item. That is a big benefit for the cheap electronics people buy now from China.

As for business, all of my suppliers except one offers some form of discount (2%10/net30, 5%10/net30) that I would not get when using a card.