Credit Score and Credit Card Rewards Update for 4TH QTR 2019

I decided to consolidate these updates into one! Do you check your credit score? Do you manage it? If not, you should! Maintaining a good credit score is important if you plan to achieve FIRE. Especially if you will get into real estate investing to do so.

A few basis points saved on the interest rate in my case saved me tens of thousands of dollars each and ever year. All that savings can be put away towards reaching your financial independence that much quicker.

That is my single biggest reason why I maintain a good credit score. To maintain my ability to get the best rate possible when purchasing real estate.

So, here is my credit score update for 4^th quarter of 2019!

 

Credit Score Update

At the end of 4^th quarter my score was 828. In January, I have applied for a few credit cards that knocked 8 points of my score. Not a big deal. Any score above 780 is all the same.

Credit Card Use

Your credit usage is determined by your total credit available divided by how much of the credit you are using.

In my case, my total credit available is currently at $98,501. So $1,130 is only about 1% of my total credit line. Keeping this below 10% seems to help keep my credit score above 800.

Credit Age

Some may be wondering why my credit age is so young. The reason is because I began churning credit cards quite late in my age. In fact, I have been churning cards for only about 5-6 years. Never even heard of such thing prior. I am also not a heavy churner. I also made mistakes of closing legacy accounts I opened when I was 17 or 18. That hit my overall credit age. Keep your old accounts open if you can. It’s good for your score.

Quick Tip: Many companies now offer free credit monitoring services such as Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. Banks such as Chase and Discover also offer free credit score monitoring as well. Reviewing your score once a month may also help you stay on top of any fraudulent activity as well.

Credit Card Rewards Update for 4^th Quarter of 2019

New Cards Added or Removed

None

Credit Card Rewards

• Credit card rewards increased by 9.2% since the last quarter.
• Total rewards earned YTD: $964.74
• Total rewards spent YTD: $208.86

You can see which cards I enjoy using from where most of the rewards have been growing. My default cards are the Costco Visa, Fidelity Visa, Chase Freedom, US Bank Cash+ and lately Amazon Prime rewards card.

If you haven’t churned Chase’s Freedom Visa card, right now is probably the time to do so. They are offering $200 cash back after you spend $500 in 3 months as of this writing. An easy churn for those who haven’t done so. They usually offer $150 for sign up bonus. This card is also a keeper card with no annual fee and rotating rewards category paying 5% cash back.

Ending the year with an extra $964.74 in credit card rewards is not to shabby. Keep in mind, I did not add the statement credits for opening new accounts. With those credits, my total should be well over $1,000 this year. 😊

How I Plan to Spend My Rewards

• Upgrade PC
• Vacation
• Dyson V11
• Treadmill

That wraps up the update. I plan to do this type of update twice a year! I love looking back and watching how my score and rewards evolve over time. Do you guys track your rewards? What cards are you churning lately? Would love to hear! Thanks for reading.