Credit cards – you either hate them or love them. The people who hate credit cards do so because the interest rate is extremely high and if you are only hitting the minimum payment, you are watching the interest accrue. If this sounds like you, these next few posts are not for you! If you have a problem paying off credit cards, proceed with caution!
I personally freaking LOVE credit cards. Why? Because I get points on points AND it helps me build credit! Despite our ugly $500,000+ med school loan, Braden and I both have a credit score of 750+. Why? Because we pay most things on our credit cards and pay them off each month on time.
Today’s post is going to be a post on things I wish I knew about credit cards as a medical student. Although this is directed toward med students, really the basics of taking advantage of the rewards points works for everyone i.e. premeds, physician assistants, people who like to travel, etc. The next post will be more information on specific travel credit cards.
Things I wish I would have done as a med student:
– Started a travel credit card in the first year med school. I would then save all the reward points gained from that card to be used specifically for interview season during fourth year. Why? Because you are going to be traveling A LOT and the more points you have accrued, the less you spend on hotels and travel! Don’t be greedy like me and use the points during third year, save those points!
– If you have a big purchase coming up and do not have too many credit cards, find a credit card that’s been piquing your interest and see how much you have to spend in the first 3 months to receive the sign-up bonus. e.g. Chase Sapphire Preferred gives you 600,000 points or $600 if you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months.
– Now $4,000 is a lot of money for a med student to spend in 3 months. Perhaps you are signing up for Step 2 AND are buying some furniture. Boom! Those two purchases alone can get you close to $4,000 and then during those 3 months you just put your daily purchases on the card to get you up to $4,000. You just earned yourself $600 towards interview travel! Congrats!
– If $4,000 is unreasonable, there are other cards such as Southwest, Delta, American Airlines where you need to spend $1,000 in the first 3 months to get the bonus. I will write more specifics in the next post.
– In general, place your Step 1/2/3 purchases on your credit card. You are going to pay it anyway with your debit card, so might as well get those bonus points!
– Perhaps you are currently in fourth years and haven’t already started a credit card. Do not despair! You’re going to be spending a lot of money this year. Put your travel and application costs on your credit cards and pay them off. You were planning to pay it off anyway, so might as well take advantage of the points.
– For premeds, starting a travel credit card goes for you as well. You will be traveling for med school interviews, so take advantage and build those points so you can use them for travel/hotels.
– The key to all of the above is to pay off your credit card monthly. If you are unable to do that, then do not follow this path. It will lead to a very bad scenario where you are accruing a massive amount of interest each month. For us, we were able to pay everything off using student loan money/family support. Not everyone is in the same scenario.
Note: If you get rejected, don’t be discouraged. You either put in the numbers wrong, were too honest, or you can recruit your parent or sibling to open you a card and add you as a joint user. (Then you can just treat it like your own account).
What do you think? Do these tips sound reasonable? What travel credit card is your go to? Comment below!
Couple of Surgeons 