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If you use a credit card frequently, you may wonder if there’s more that card can do for you. And credit card companies have answered that question: yes, there is something that you can receive in return for being a great customer.

What do you do?

When you’re using your credit card you may want to ask yourself what it is that you tend to purchase or need to purchase. There are many rewards cards that are tailored to these individual tastes. For example, those that enjoy traveling will like a rewards card that offers them frequent flyer miles for purchases that they have made. Or you might want to get a rewards credit card that allows you to accumulate credits for gas.

And of course, cash back credit cards seem to work best for consumers because you automatically get a percentage of each purchase going toward rewards or into an account from which you can redeem the amount to your monthly bill or receive a check in the mail.

How often do you use a credit card?

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when choosing a rewards credit card is to decide to make purchases that you wouldn’t normally make unless there was a reward involved. What you really want to do is base your decision on what you already do with your credit. You don’t want to sign up for a credit card because of the rewards and then drive yourself into debt to get those rewardsthat defeats the purpose.

What are the rules?

If you’re looking for a rewards credit card, realize that every company is different in the way that they handle their reward redemption. While the advertisements might make it sound simple, there can be restrictions that might make it too difficult of a process.

For example, frequent flyer miles might only be able to be redeemed with certain airlines on certain dates within a certain time frame. If these kinds of rules will hinder your reward redemption, then it’s best to find something that it more flexible.

A rewards credit card can certainly pay you back for using it, but make sure you’re getting what you want and not just another hassle. It’s not a reward if it makes you do all the work.

Freeroll poker tournaments are daily events that happen on a lot of the best online poker websites. Freerolls are much loved by the poker playing community as they offer the poker players the chance to win some real money without losing any. The entry to these freerolls is - as the name suggests - free and prize money can range from a few dollars for a placing to hundreds of dollars for winning the big freeroll Texas Holdem poker tournaments.

So why do the poker sites have freerolls? Is it because of their extremely generous nature and the fact that they make vast sums of money so they feel a moral obligation to give some of it back?

What do you think!

No of course it isn’t, the reason that the big poker websites offer freerolls is to attract people to their site.

Here’s the theory in a nutshell - You hear that a site has a great freeroll, it costs you nothing to enter and you can win $100. You think “Great!” and you go along to the site and get registered as a member so that you can play the freeroll. You play and finish early and are annoyed because you feel you should have done better, or you go close to winning and so you’re looking for some more action. What do you do? You spend some money at the site and play another poker game!

Always check the freerolls for cash-out requirements, you will nearly always need to play some hands for real money before they let you take the money out. Often this is on a 1=1 basis, so if you win $20 at the freeroll poker tournament you will need to have played for $20 in real money in order for you to be able to withdraw the money.

Article by Ian McIntosh of http://www.Love-Texas-Holdem.com. Check out the site for all the latest information on Texas Holdem freerolls and tournaments.

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When buying something, you can buy in one of two markets. The first is buying on terms in the retail market and the second is buying in the wholesale cash market. This can be illustrated by referring to the biggest purchase we all make in our lifetime - Real Estate.

In recent years, when you are buying a house it is easy to get financing of the first mortgage, so the seller is not forced to finance the whole sale. What I mean is the seller doesn’t become your first mortgage holder, the bank lends the money and the seller get the cash. Moreover, he will most likely make some concessions if he doesn’t have to carry back a second trust deed.

Therefore giving the seller all cash, will usually get you a better deal than asking the seller to let you buy the house with a very low down payment, with him carrying back a sizable trust deed. The big savings come when you are buying real estate that doesn’t have easy institutional financing available. The purchase of vacant land can be the best example.

My father was interested in buying industrial lots in the city of Montebello, just east of downtown Los Angeles. This was during the 1960’s. In those days it was common for a buyer to put down 20% and the seller to finance the remaining 80% for 10 years at 8% interest. For example: a $10,000 lot would cost you $2,000 down with $97.06 payments every month. After 10 years the total of the principal and interest payments would be $13,647.45. If you wanted to build on the property you had to pay off the land loan, first. The sellers then would not have to wait the whole 10 years before getting all their money.

Many property owners sold their property because they wanted money and getting the $2,000 wasn’t much money to them. So, my father would offer $5,000 all cash to the sellers. More than 1 out of 5 would take the cash up front instead of waiting for payments over 10 years. By offering the extra $3,000 cash down, my father saved $8,647.45 on the sale ($5,000 on the price reduction, plus the interest on the note). Now that is buying wholesale!!

Buying cars can be done the same way. When you pay retail, the dealer talks monthly payments. If he lowers the price, he’ll raise the interest rate. When you are buying for cash, he can only talk price. When you are leasing an automobile, they don’t even tell you the price!

The major consideration in leasing a car or not, is made by the leasing company to be all about what the monthly payment is going to be and how much extra it is going to cost you when you drive over 12,000 miles per year. Ever financed a used car from a “no credit check” dealer? He gets you for 36% interest on the balance you borrow, after getting a 50% down payment from you. Then if you miss a payment he takes the car and sues you for the difference. Buy what you can afford in cash and save making the lenders rich.

I read a report once that said that the average man makes $1,500,000 over his lifetime. Of that amount, he uses $600,000 to pay the interest on his purchases. Let’s look at the purchase of a home, from a slightly different point of view. A man who makes $1,500,000 in a lifetime will be earning on average about $30,000 a year or $2,500 per month.

He can afford to spend 40% of his income on rent or a mortgage payment. This means that he can afford a $150,000 house. If he can qualify for a 90% loan he would owe $135,000 at 8% amortized over 30 years. That means he pays $221,609.58 interest plus the $150,000 principal to buy this one house and pay it off over 30 years. The interest alone is almost 15% of his lifetime earnings! Buying anything on credit can cost you more than the retail price because you must add the interest to the cost of the item.

My suggestion. Buy for cash and negotiate for the best price you can get. If you must borrow, pay it off in as short a time possible. Also, never borrow for personal consumption. Postpone the purchase long enough to pay cash. If you can’t afford to wait until you save the money, you shouldn’t buy the item. It is just too expensive. To buy on payments raises the cost even higher than the cash price, so it becomes even more expensive. So if you cannot afford the cash price, you definitely cannot afford the financed price. My suggestion is to pay cash and buy wholesale. BUY THE BEST, PAY CASH

About The Author

Willard Michlin is an Investor, Business Broker, California Real Estate Broker, Accountant, Financial Distress Consultant, Well known Public speaker and Administrative/Business Consultant. He can be contacted at his Ventura, California office by calling 805-529-9854 or by e-mail at kismetrei@earthlink.net. See other article by Willard at http://www.kismetgroup.com/; kismetrei@earthlink.net