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Get McGinty: Plastic that pays

If you want some perks and can pay off the balance each month, a credit card can work for you.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We all want our dollars to stretch further, and sometimes, picking the right credit card can really help you, if you are disciplined enough to pay it off each month.

We narrowed down the list to the top three.

The first credit card we found really offers you something back: Amazon Prime. You get 5% back on all Amazon purchases, including groceries at Whole Foods. If you spend $400 a month on food, you’ll get $20 back. Over the course of the year, that’s $240. 

You’ll also get 2% back at restaurants, gas stations, and drug stores plus 1% back on anything else. When you sign up, you get a $70 Amazon gift card. 

There are no annual membership fees, but there are other fees, so as always, read the details and the fine print.

Another credit card giving you money back is Costco credit card. It's not as good as Prime, but it's still good. You get 4% back on gas everywhere, 3% on restaurant and travel, and 2% on all Costco purchases. Just filling up $30 once a week gets you back almost $63 at the end of the year.

The last suggestion comes from Nerdwallet, their best of 2019. They like Capital One Quicksilver. This card gives you a $150 cash bonus if you spend $500 on purchases within the first three months. 

You get a flat 1.5% back on every purchase, and if you are looking to shuffle balances with a transfer, you can do that with zero interest for the first 15 months, after that it’s a minimum interest rate of 16.24%.

A final footnote: Running up credit can be dangerous to your long term financial plan. But, if you want some perks, and then can pay everything off each time, it can work for you. You’ll be what some card companies call a “freeloader”.

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