So I'm quite the fan of rewards credit cards and have assembled a burly armory of cash back cards. Here's what my lineup currently gets me:
Restaurants, fast food, takeout, delivery-5% back (Citi Forward/Discover More)
Amazon.com, book stores, movies, movie rentals, Netflix, music, iTunes, ?Spotify?- 5% back(Citi Forward)
Gas- (5% back from Chase Freedom now) 3.3% from BankAmericard otherwise
Drug stores-5% back, Chase Freedom
Target-5%- Target Card
Office supply stores, internet, cable, phone services (5% back, Chase Ink, business card)
Grocery Stores- 2.2% back- BankAmericard (I spend so little at traditional grocery stores with Target and Amazon that Amex BlueCash doesn't make since)
Everything else- 2%- Fidelity Amex
Anything that doesn't take Amex and isn't one of the above categories...(almost never)-1.1% back, BankAmericard
Q: Isn't it hard to remember to pay all those bills, all those credit limits, all those logins?
A: No, everything's set on autobill. The spending on a lot of the cards isn't that enormous, so I'm never close to some cards modest limits. I have my logins saved in an encrypted keepass file and can see all of the accounts in Mint.
Q: Doesn't this take a lot of time?
A: Well sure, initially it's a few hours of searching and preparing. But finding good cards kind of feels like hunting big game- it's a lot of fun. And once you have your setup, you're talking about 3 seconds of thought while you're opening up your wallet anyway. I'm getting a few thousand back a year doing this for less than an hour of logging in and cashing out rewards. And depending on your spending habits, you don't even need to get this complicated. If you're just a standard Mustachian, the Fidelity Amex alone, maybe with the Chase Freedom or Citi Forward (5% at Amazon!) Visa will let you get great savings.
People get so excited and determined to find 10-50% off discounts for the occasional miscellaneous item through craigslist or ebay and that's great, but being able to knock at least 2% off of almost anything and everything you're spending for the year can be another big boost.
Q:Don't you feel tempted to spend more just to get the rewards?
A: No, I'm a Mustachian and not stupid enough to equate spending more with increasing my stache. I do smirk a bit when people talk about gas prices (because that's the one price people think about regularly) and say I pay a price 10-20 cents less. I don't use any tiered cards (and would check the math before I do) so I'm not too concerned about misusing a card.
Q: Isn't it hard to remember what card to use?
A: Not really. The Fidelity Amex is my go-to card, so if I "mess-up" I'm still getting 2% back. A lot of the cards are just set as the default option on recurring bills or online services, so I don't even have to think about that. It's hardest to remember the rotating categories in the Discover More and Chase Freedom categories, but these 5% categories usually overlap either with each other, are already covered as 5% back somewhere else or are some category I just never use.
Q: Doesn't having all those cards hurt your credit score?
A: Nope. Applying for all these cards certainly did ding my score, temporarily, a little bit. But keeping up on the payments for so many cards and building a history, getting a large amount of credit and not using much of it has been pretty good to me. Also it's very easy to get credit limit increases as CC companies will pull my history, see that I have a large amount of credit and then be willing to have their card with a much larger credit line. All of the inquiries disappear after 2 years as well, so if you have the cards and limits you want, get loads of rewards, and have no intention of applying for a mortgage in the next two years, who cares if your credit score goes from "incredibly perfect" down to "pretty good"? My Equifax score was 787 as of a few weeks ago, I have a $25k limit on my biggest card and only 7 years of credit history, with most cards being opened in the last 4.
So what's your lineup?