So I am once again sharing my love of Perkstreet with you.
After my last post I told SuperNerd I needed to fill up at the gas station and because I was working on the previous post I wondered if it’s cheaper to use my Perkstreet debit card as a debit card to get a discount at the pump or as a credit card to get a perk from Perkstreet….
The Nerd in me came up with a pretty easy way to figure it out…. it’s a formula and if your cell phone has a calculator you have no choice but to try it out…. right? please! It’s really nerdy cool, I promise!
Take the credit card price and multiply it by .99 for 1% cash back (or .98 for 2% cash back). Then see if that number is LESS than the debit card/cash price.
Let me show you with my example from yesterday’s gas trip.
Credit Card price: $3.09
Debit Card price: $3.05
We are earning 2% because we are still within our first 3 months with Perkstreet.
So I take $3.09 x .98 = $3.0282. That means that it’s cheaper to buy gas as credit (without a pin) than it is to run it through as a debit purchase (with a pin).
The best part… it’s the same card who get’s the honor to swipe for my gas!
Related posts:
I’m a BIG fan of PerkStreet IF you insist on using a debit card. Another option would be the Pentagon Federal Credit Union Platinum VISA card. First, by using a credit card, you’re deferring payment so you gain interest on the money in your bank account until you have to pay off the card in full. Second, the PenFed VISA gives a 5% reward on gas all the time. No rotating reward. Always 5% so you can do the math there and see that’s 250% better than PerkStreet on rewards alone. Thirdly, the PenFed VISA is a brainless reward. That is, your reward for the current month is subtracted from your current bill. It’s basically instantaneous redemption. The card of course has other rewards, but I won’t drag out this comment. You can Google the reviews including one at my site
Good luck!
Thank you for your comment. The important thing here is that we DO only use debit cards. We have gotten rid of all credit cards. Since dropping the credit cards, we have really reduced our spending. For me it hurts me more to pay now because I know it is coming right out of the bank today. It makes me think twice about the value of my purchase. At the end of the day, many things aren’t as valuable as their cost, the needs and the wants appear. And that is where we are winning. Our other debts are shrinking because we aren’t feeding the credit cards with what we wanted to buy.
Perkstreet is great because the company believes in these principles and the business model isn’t built upon debt interest as all other banks are.