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I was chatting with a friend and ASSI guest blogger this evening about credit cards. He told me he had to spend $1,000 each month on a credit card recently in order to get a $100 rebate at the end of the quarter.
OK, I think most of you would have guessed which credit card this is. Yes, it is the UOB ONE card.
Anyway, I have the same card but I make sure I spend only a bit more than $500 a month (together with 3 monthly GIRO payments) to get higher monthly interest income of about $100 on $50,000 deposited in my UOB ONE account.
$1,200 a year and better than any fixed deposit can offer!
Of course, I also get a $50 rebate for card spending at the end of each quarter.
Back to the story.
This friend of mine is actually very frugal. I would say that he is more frugal than I am.
To spend $500 a month on his credit card is already quite a challenge. Why did he try to spend $1,000 each month not so long ago?
Apparently, there was a month that he spent more than $1,000 on the card due to the purchase of a (once in a very blue moon) big ticket item.
What he tried to do next was to spend $1,000 per month in the following two months in order to get $100 rebate at the end of the quarter instead of $50.
Pause.
Pause.
Pause.
OMG!
For $50 more in rebate, my frugal friend forced himself to spend a lot more money!
Being a frugal person, forcing himself to spend more money, I believe, gave him a lot of stress as he didn't know what to spend money on.
I wouldn't have done it. I try to avoid stress in life.
Frankly, I don't think it was worth the angst.
Also, that extra $50 rebate was probably insufficient to cover all the cost of all the stuff he bought which he didn't want or need in the first instance.
Even the smartest people do silly things once in a while.
We are only human.
UOB ONE card,
1. UOB ONE Account or OCBC 360?
2. Stupid AK learns about Y.O.L.O.
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