How Labeling Credit Cards Can Save You More Money

If you have a handful of rewards credit cards, it can be challenging to remember which cards offer the best deals in various spending categories.

For example:

• Which card gives you the most cash back on gas?
• Which card offers the biggest rewards on the items you buy at Costco?
• Which rewards category is in effect on each of your cards for this quarter?

Unless your brain is super organized, it is likely that you end up guessing the answers — right or wrong — and hope for the best.

However, personal finance personality Clark Howard says he has discovered a better system.

While shopping at Costco, Howard fell into talking with a man who said he affixes labels to his cards. That way, he can see at a glance which cards make the most sense in a given shopping situation.

As Howard comments in a story on his website, the man laid out all his credit cards for Howard to see:

“And he had stickers on the cards, and he said, ‘I use this one here, this one here, this one here,’ referring to places like supermarkets, restaurants and gas stations.”

Howard notes that such a system makes it easier to remember which cards offer the best rewards for a given shopping situation. That means you can get the most out of all the rewards programs spread across your various credit cards.