One easy to implement strategy to simplify your financial life with regards to spending is to first only use one credit card per family that has some kind of rewards. However, that to me is not the most important part of the card. The most important part is being easily able to view your balance online at a financial institution that you already do business with and see what's being spent. If it's already part of one of your online destinations; like a bank or brokerage then you help reduce the number of sites you're having to go to. It also should make paying the balance easy. So, putting these things together you get one card, with rewards, at a bank you already do business with and they make paying off the card easy each month. If you're a big traveler, a saver or a spender then there's plenty to choose from. Bankrate is the best site to find cards. For my money I like earning cash within the brokerage account I already use so I can buy assets that will appreciate with the rewards money. Sort of a double dip of simple. However using cards from your bank or other institution you're already working with are the same.
Another idea if you have to have multiple credit cards in the household is to use one credit card for all your recurring subscriptions. The reason is that we tend to build up many monthly subscription fees and they can be hard to track and unsubscribe from.
Last, I'm trying out some of the financial management tools like Mint and Personal Capital that automatically categorize your credit card spending by category and allow you to look at the monthly changes to categories like eating out, groceries and subscription services. This way you can quickly have discussions with your partner or yourself about changes that you need to make. Enjoy
#creditcard#onecard#budgetidea