Episode 2: Banking and Credit Cards

Welcome to episode two of Moneysplained. We’re talking banks, fees, and credit card offers. This is a beast of an episode. From avoiding bank fees to evaluating three separate real-life credit card offers, there’s a lot to cover. I’ve got Kim Palmer from NerdWallet, which is an excellent website for doing comparison shopping for checking accounts, credit cards, online brokers, and loans.

This episode is all about being a smarter consumer and Kim will walk us through how to avoid confusing offers from credit card companies. Remember, they WANT you to rack up debt. They only make money when you rack up debt.

All those fancy travel rewards points are just the carrot on the stick. If you’re super strategic and can manage your credit card payments so you’re never carrying a balance, points can be awesome, and in a later episode I’ll detail how I spend seven nights in Italy relying completely on travel rewards points. I’ve been late a few times on my monthly payments but am generally good at paying off the balance each month.

If you’re spending beyond your means, aka you definitely couldn’t have paid cash, you might not be a great candidate to sign up for a credit card. And if you’re in serious credit card debt, we’re going to talk about getting help and repairing your credit and credit score in the next episode. First we have to learn how to be discerning consumers.