Credit cards: Top 4 tips for retirees

Credit cards make sense in retirement, as long as you don't slack off on managing your credit. Seniors who maintain a healthy credit history and high FICO scores will benefit – not only from low interest rates and better terms on loans, but also from leveraging lucrative credit card sign-up bonuses to earn thousands in free travel, cash back, or other merchandise. The key is to use credit cards responsibly. Here are four tips on how to use your credit cards in retirement: 

1. Credit cards take a back seat to retirement budget

Stelios Varias/Reuters/File
Credit cards are pictured in a wallet in Washington in 2010. More than 1 in 3 seniors carries a credit card balance even though credit card debt is something retirees should avoid.

Credit card debt is something seniors should try to avoid in retirement. High interest charges can quickly eat away at fixed incomes and make it extremely difficult to ever dig out of debt.

Nevertheless, many retirees continue holding onto card debt. Some 37 percent of households headed by an individual age 65 to 74 carried a balance, according to the Federal Reserve’s 2009 “Survey of Consumer Finances.”

To protect yourself, take a close look at your budget and adjust credit card spending habits so they’re properly aligned with your retirement income. And don’t forget to always pay your credit cards in full and on time each month.  

1 of 4

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.