Balance Your Budget & Pay With A Card That Fits Your Personality

 

{I received a complimentary prepaid Visa from Card.com in exchange for an honest review of their product offerings. All opinions are 100% my own and based on my personal experience with the product.}

 

Never spend your money before you have it. ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Do you ever struggle with staying within your budget? I do. I am really good at doing the budget, keeping a spreadsheet with bills, pay periods, balances, etc., but I run into a problem when I use my regular Debit care for everything, and I mean everything. I use it for bills, gas, groceries, and all the “extras”. In addition my hubby has his own card connected to the same account so I really have to be careful and keep track of not only my purchases, but his as well. Reconciling the checking account to make sure we don’t go over budget is literally a daily task and I’ve been trying to think of ways to make the process a bit simpler and much less stressful. That’s why when I heard about Card.com and their pre-paid Visa, I was definitely curious. I thought maybe using a pre-paid card for our monthly allotment of purchases beyond the bill paying would keep us from being tempted to go over budget because unlike the checking account debit card, once you’ve used all the funds you can’t make more purchases until you re-load the card. No overdraft possibilities there!

 

Now to be totally honest, I’ve not previously been a fan of prepaid cards purely because of all the fees. It seems that when you read the fine print there’s a fee for everything you do with a lot of the prepaid cards out there, even just making regular POS purchases, and I really hate the thought of paying someone fees to use my own money that I have paid up front. I mean I am trying to stay within my budget and save money not unnecessarily throw more of it down the crapper right? When I learned that the monthly fee associated with Card.com products was only $5.95 I thought that was reasonable. Also, the monthly fee is only charged if you load less than $800 a month on the card which means if you direct deposit your paycheck to it, no fee! Now that’s a pretty good deal.

 

This card would also be an awesome option for tweens and teens that are learning money management and financial responsibility. You can load allowances or gifts right to the card and they can begin keeping their own balance sheet and working toward saving goals. I’m definitely going to start doing this with my son. One of the coolest things about Card.com is that they have thousands of styles to choose from so you and your family members can all get their own card that suites their taste. (As you can see I chose the Bettie Page card since I’m ultimately going to make this my hubby’s card and he’s a fan…if I get one form myself I’m thinking Bulldog Puppies or The Walking Dead.)

 

Card.com had also made using their prepaid Visa, super simple, which is important for me because in all reality, I’m kind of lazy and I’m super busy so I don’t have time to hassle around with complicated procedures and stuff like that. Some of the ways Card.com makes using your prepaid Visa so easy are:

 

• Free to Order, Activate & Load
• Load Cash via your bank account, PayPal account, direct deposit, or Western Union and Green Dot MoneyPak

• iPhone & Android Apps allow you to photo-capture checks for deposit
• Super easy set up for direct deposit – the form comes with your card
• Use everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted
• The Visa Zero Liability policy fraud protection applies
• No overdraft fees! Never goes negative.
• Your funds are FDIC Insured thorough the Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC
• Get Cash at over 23,000 ATM’s worldwide ($3.00 fee per transaction which is very comparable to my regular ATM fees on normal bank debit card)
• Check your balance and bank from the cloud for you techies out there

 

So, if you’re like me and looking for a new tactic to stay within budget I’d definitely recommend that you head over to Card.com and check out what they have.  Seriously, once you see all the card styles they have, you won’t be able to resist getting one for yourself. Who thought problem solving could be so fun?

 

~ Alison

 

Have you used prepaid cards before? Do you like them? What other tactics do you use to make sure you’re staying within your allotted budget? How do you make being responsible fun? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading!