From my research on the internet, Deadbeat is a term used, by credit card companies, for those people who pay their credit card bills in full each month. I wrote about the term a few years ago on this website. I’m not too fond of debt, and so I typically pay my credit card bills in full monthly.
When I was furloughed because of the pandemic, I decided to carry a balance since I did not want to pull additional money from my savings. However, I paid more than the minimum payment monthly. Shortly after returning to work, I went back to having a zero balance on my credit cards monthly. I must say it feels great.
Last week, I applied and was approved for two store credit cards; Walmart and Target. I already have an Amazon credit card. I checked out the rewards, and the incentive offered using them at each store is more than I get from using my two credit cards. For example, Both cards offer 5% off purchases made at each store. I have a credit card that offers 5% cashback; however, the store cards also have additional perks for using their cards. So, it makes sense, to me, at least to take advantage of what the cards offered. Since I don’t carry a balance, there’s no risk of me paying any additional fees.
I don’t shop at Walmart too often, so that won’t get too much use. I mainly purchase items for my parents from this store.
However, I do purchase items from Target at least a few times monthly. I typically purchase my frozen fruit for smoothies from this store. With the Target card, I’ll have an additional 30 days to return my purchase if something is wrong with it, so that’s 120 days total. I rarely return items. However, that’s an excellent option to have.
I’ve never got caught up purchasing items that I could not afford, so there’s no risk of me going into debt because of my spending habits. I live well below my means. Paying with a credit card is more for convenience than anything else, and the protection that credit cards provide if my account has been compromised is nice also.
That’s interesting. I had never heard the word deadbeat to describe credit card usage. We buy almost everything with credit and pay many bills with the card. It’s paid off monthly so we actually are debt free and, I guess, deadbeats. How funny!
I got a chuckle when I first heard about it about four years ago. That’s when I got a credit card. I’d been using debit cards for some time. I used them years ago but swapped to debit cards when you could use them similar to credit cards. but the benefits that credit cards have if your account has been compromised was a huge selling point. Interestingly enough, I did not have enough credit history when I applied. Even though I had regular household expenses, I just paid by debit card, cash, or check. 🙂 It didn’t take long to build up good credit. Being a deadbeat and low utilization was key!