529 Plan Rewards

Well I haven’t received my official notice, but it’s being reported that FIA has pulled the plug on the 2% Fidelity 529 Rewards Card - at least for new accounts. Hopefully, the card will remain open for existing accounts (like me), but something tells me the end is probably near for everyone.

This is very bad news for parents trying to accumulate funds for their childrens’ college account. For people disciplined enough to pay off their credit card balance each month, the Fidelity 529 card provided a great tool for painlessly setting aside college savings. In the three plus years I’ve had the card, our family has added more than $4,000 to my daughter’s college fund.

Apparently FIA has introduce a new Fidelity/Amex 529 card to replace the MasterCard. The new card pays a still decent 1.5% reward but, sorry, in my opinion, Amex just doesn’t cut it when it comes to everday card use for things like groceries, city water bills, and the myriad other items I’m able to buy with the beloved 529 MasterCard.

We’ll let you know as we learn more.

Keeping cash in the wallet is the historic trend; it’s the world of credit cards today as most of shopping is done on credit cards. Banks offer a variety of cards which include visa card, mastercard, student card, travel cards and so on which anyone can apply for. Citibank’s citi cards are most popular among visa card for worldwide spending. People with a low credit rating also need not worry about getting credit facility as there are various loans available to lessen their debt. Such individuals welcome to avail facility of credit cards, that are bad credit credit cards. Financial institutions also extend bad credit loans to people with a low grading credit history. A vast range of different kinds of home business on the internet provide the appealing facility of shopping online. One of the biggest networks of home businesses online is the insurance businesses which provide insurance quotes to consumers to select from. Such businesses also provide income opportunity to insurance agents who book insurance orders online. Agents get a higher commission to sell multiple insurance as in case of selling a business insurance.

Carrying a balance on your credit card erodes the value of any “rewards” that might be earned by using the card. Use this credit card calculator to gauge the cost of paying interest on a credit card balance against
the benefit of earning rewards. In the first field, enter the percent value of the basic reward your credit card pays. Typically this is 1% or 2%. (Air mile rewards are usually valued between 1% and 2% as well.) Next enter your credit card expenses for a typical month. Some credit cards offera higher rebate percent for specific items such a gas or groceries; enter this percent together with an estimate of the monthly qualified charges.

Finally, enter the dollar value of the credit card balance you typically carry together with the APR rate (%) for your credit card. The calculator assumes that the monthly balance you carry remains relatively constant. If you let this balance grow, the net value of any rewards is diminished further.

The Credit Card Calculator script is available here for free distribution or use on financial websites.