Christmas is coming…

OK, I know it seems very early to be thinking turkey and trimmings!

But not if you want a nice fat cash bonus on everything you buy in the run up to the ’season of spending’.

Amex (or American Express) have a credit card that actually pays you to use it.

How can that be possible?

Well card companies make their money in two main ways:-

• from the interest you get charged when you don’t pay off your balance
• a transaction fee every time you use the card, which the shop has to pay

Special Tempting Extras

So some cards offer special extras to tempt your custom. Often these are virtually worthless, or are ‘points’ that tend to be worth a lot less than you might think!

But a small number of cards actually give you back a percentage of the amount you spend, or ‘cashback’.

Amex Have Gone Crazy Hog Wild

Normally cashback cards pay between 0.5% and 1%.

But with the Amex Cashback Card you get a crazy 5% for the first 3 months!

To stop you going completely nuts and breaking another bank, they do limit the maximum you can earn that big 5% cashback on to £4,000 spending - but that does mean you can still get £200 back in your pocket!

And it doesn’t end there either.

Because you also get up to 1.5% for all your spending after the first 3 months. So even after Christmas is done - you can still rack up a great cashback pot.

There are only 2 sticking points that I can think of:-

• you need to be earning a minimum of £20,000 per year to be able to apply for this card
• for cashback to make sense, you should be paying off your balance in full every month - otherwise the interest will outweigh the cashback!

Otherwise, why wouldn’t you want to put all your Christmas shopping and any other big spends through a card that is going to pay you back 5%?

Read more about the Amex Platinum Cashback
More about Cashback Credit Cards

[Q] What’s the best thing you can do when everyone is losing their head and proclaiming the end of the world?

[A] Shake your head sagely and find something more interesting to do.

The newspapers are always full of doom and gloom. The TV news is right there with them.

Is it the credit crunch or a recession…house prices are down, mortgage rates are up, gas and electric prices are up, petrol prices are up, the banks are failing…

The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling…

Sure, burying our heads in the sand and pretending nothing is happening won’t make it go away.

But maintaining some composure and a wry smile won’t hurt either!

Happy Days

The best thing you can do for the sake of your own sanity and those around you, is give up absorbing all the doom and gloom filled news. Do you feel any happier after reading a newspaper? Or watching the 9 o’clock news? No, me either!

By all means stay informed, just don’t bombard yourself - even the Dalai Lama would end up depressed after a day or two watching the UK news.

Keep things in perspective, and deal with any real problems as they affect you.

The storm will pass, and the news media will return to trying to depress us about things in other countries again before too long.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine…