the last few years I've mastered the credit card game and acquired a bunch of different credit cards starting at the ripe age of 20 I got myself over four or five different credit cards and since then I have multiple binders full them so today I'm going to share everything that I've learned over the past half decade from beginning to end and whether you're 16 and trying to go for a head start within the credit card game or you're 65 and rebuilding your credit this guide will give you the step-by-step plan to optimizing credit cards for your lifestyle so growing up I was constantly told by my parents that I should avoid credit cards at all costs I actually remember getting a few mail and flyers for a number of different beginner student credit cards but I remember specifically my mother told me to just never open one up so I asked why mother Jung but she didn't really explain it to me back then she just said don't open it and was like you know get back to doing your homework you know back then I actually assumed it's because credit cards simply were just bad and there was just no use for it it was just a few years later where I realized it's because my mom had suffered through 10 years of having an enormous amount of credit card debt weighing down on her shoulders now this debt here came from a time when right after the 2008 financial recession had hit my parents had lost nearly most of their income from the economy going bad and in order to put food and our ordinary living expenses she had to put a lot of those on credit cards eventually that led into a ton of credit card debt where even 10 years later she's still had over $10,000 of credit card debt that she was managing to pay off now guys this story wasn't all G and bad as most you guys know and as most of my ogs should know I was able to pay off all of my mom's remaining credit card debt and that actually led to be one of the proudest and best moments in my entire life the thing that caused my family so much pain and stress over the years has now become one of the greatest tools that has allowed me to live and experience a completely different type of life as an example just a few days ago I just booked a vacation for my mom and my sister to visit the Four Seasons in Florida for a motherdaughter trip utilizing the best benefits and perks that I've obtained simply by understanding the very thing that caused my family so much stress I've even gotten to the point where now I have these multiple binders worth of credit cards and if you use your cards properly they can help you land your dream home your dream car by building your credit you can earn free first class flights you can get money back on every dollar you spend and even more than that whole point I'm trying to make is if you use credit cards properly they can help you to level up from being maybe a broke college student to thriving in the middle class and even building your way up to becoming a multi-millionaire the reason I frame it like that is because that was me I was literally I was I was a broke Community College Student not too sure what I was going to do in life and things have really gone full circle no matter where you are in life I believe credit cards can benefit you if you want to think about it like this you can carry your debit card around with you all the time and use only that for your spending but you pay $180 a year for that privilege of using your own money now instead let's say you put a majority of your spend on some something like the American Express gold card where with this card you're getting Forex back on supermarkets restaurants and food and plus on top of that you get a variety of different credits all for just the cost of $250 a year right away with the credits you're already in the net positive but even conservatively if you had earned just 12,000 membership reward points in a year mixed with the welcome bonus that you get from this card of 60,000 points you'd still get up to $1,400 in value just from the points alone in the first year so credit card points and cash back back allow you to earn money by spending money and not to mention if someone happens to steal your debit card let me tell you guys it is a lot harder to get your own money back versus if someone stole your credit card and they stole that bank's money that you would have to repay every single month anyways it's a lot easier getting that refunded on your account then is to get the money that was stolen off your debit card back I remember even a few years back during the pandemic I had lost a pair of my airpods while I was working out and I remember that I had bought those airpods on one of my American Express credit cards and one of the benefits that you also get with credit cards is the fact that they can reimburse you for lost or stolen or damaged items as long as it fits within that little return warranty at window and I got a check right back from American Express when I told them I'd lost my airpods so now you're probably thinking okay all this sounds way too good to be true how come I've never used a credit card and why is there a stigma that credit cards are actually bad a lot of people say credit cards are bad because they themselves had a bad experience they know family members who had a bad experience usually just have a bad credit score and they can't even get approv for any one of those cards and they like to be a hater the reality of the truth though is if you don't know how to manage your finances properly credit cards can be terrible for the wrong person I think if you have at least any type of mediocre self-control and you're not going on some crazy shopping spree and you're not maxing out your credit card not worrying about debt you should be fine so if you're wondering well Brian how does this all work how to credit card companies allow people to even make money it seems like a bit of a scam if I'm I'm making money and it's at no cost to anyone else well think of it like this there's a triangle that has all three people connected on one side is a card holder another is the vendor and the other is the bank think of the vendor as any shop that exists within your local neighborhood so if you go into the shop to buy something and decide to buy with your credit card the vendor would pay something called an interchange fee to the bank like MasterCard Visa American Express as a convenience fee for not having to just accept cash and on average this is going to be a 1 to 2% fee to that vendor so from that one transaction here's what happens the card holder pays the vendor and gets the product the vendor pays the bank in exchange for convenience and the bank pays out points to the card holder who has already been paid the annual fee so each party benefits from each other in this case the other reason too is the fact that the people who do have credit card debt and that pay at those interest rates on those fees end up paying for the benefits that people who know how to use credit cards properly get now with all that being said you have an idea now of how credit cards work why they work but there are a few crucial things that you need to know of before even getting into the space to make sure that you don't fall to the dark side of where you're paying interest now these steps are crucial so let me explain it here so first thing is to always pay your bounce in full every single month there are going to be a few exceptions if you do have some type of no interest promo I think those are fine in those exceptions but generally to do this what would help a lot is to keep track of your due dates or simply just set up automatic payments the second thing is to make sure that you don't spend more than 30% of your credit limit if you start doing this and you don't pay it off you're going to be seeing this reflect onto your credit score tanking your score making it a bit more difficult to get proved for other cards in the future a few more mistakes to avoid don't ever cancel a credit card guys this is going to tank your score I've seen a lot of people make this mistake saying okay Brian I got this really crappy card from 5 years ago that I don't use anymore well if it has no annual fee just keep it around do not close it last but not least make sure you can hit your welcome bonuses a lot of people end up applying for credit cards and they forget completely about those welcome bonus offers and this is a huge mistake because the four to 5% that you get cash back you're going to have to spend quite a bit of money in order to make that a significant return but if you want to be able to get points very quick very fast it's usually by first getting a bunch of these welcome bonuses and making sure that you can hit it but also making sure that you do not overextend yourself where you end up spending more money than you can actually pay off on at the end of the day just keep the cardinal rule it's very simple do not spend more money than you have within your checking account or treat your credit card like a debit card collect those welcome bonuses be patient apply for new cards and over time you're going to see that you have a bank of like a million to 2 million points and that can be used for quite a bit of stuff now in this section ladies and gents I'm going to go over the general guide on how to get started Within credit cards and this is following the exact blueprint that I took about 5 years ago which has led me to have over 15 credit cards since then and millions and millions of points so we'll start this out say you're player one all right this is like a video game okay this is level one if you have no credit card you're 18 years old get a secured credit card this is great for anyone who doesn't really have much income the way secured credit cards work is that they require a security deposit so if you give them like 200 bucks that is going to be your credit limit meaning that if you end up defaulting on that they're just going to keep your money and they have no liability they have no risk which is also great secure credit cards are also very beneficial because they are very easy to get I would say 99% of people are able to get secure credit cards I can't imagine a single person actually getting declin for one of these things they help you to build your credit early on and on top of that you get a refundable deposit so if you give them 200 bucks that's your credit limit over time if you keep paying your card off maybe within a few months they're going to give you your $200 back and they're going to make this an unsecured credit card which is what every single credit card technically is secure credit cards are also great for anyone who happens to get denied constantly for any credit cards I will say though I myself I did not start with a secured credit card I got very lucky because I was able to apply straight up for the next credit card which I'll show you guys soon now this here are going to be level two starter cards but guys I don't want to gloss over one important thing if you are under 18 and you're watching this video right now you're going to ask your parents to have you added onto their account as an authorized user and that's going to actually build your credit because it's going to transfer all the credit history that they've accumulated over onto Yours by the way the minimum age varies depending on banks there are some that allows like 14-year-olds to get secured credit cards and there are some that won't touch anyone unless you turn 18 years old it depends but generally the rule of thumb is that you want to make sure you start at 18 years old and if you are a bit earlier if you happen to be like a 16-year-old watching my videos right now no shame in that actually congratulations you're starting very early you can go ahead and ask your Mom and Pops to add you as an authorized user they don't need to give you that card they can shop it up right after and let them know hey this is going to build my credit so that when I do decide to get a credit card in the future it's going to be a lot easier to get going to the level two starter cards this is going to be defined by credit cards that have no annual fees these are also what I'd consider to be the other beginning credit cards aside from the starter credit card and the first one that I initially had gotten was the chase cards some of these Banks lenders can be a little bit particular about who joins their program if you have no type of profile with them if you have a hard time getting your first credit card with Chase there are still a ton of other credit card issuers that allow for firsttime applicants to get approved this include American Express this includes Bank of America it includes City Capital One so I would say Chase is a great starting point but right now year 2023 I mean a lot of updates have been made even though I personally started with Chase and that's because of the 524 rule if I could not get approved for whatever reason I'd probably actually go for the Capital One sa one card or I'd go for any one of American Express's cards first this is because if we even compare Chase to American Express Chase does not like new applicants but American Express tends to actually like newer customers Chase also has points that are more flexible and easy to use that's why people like getting them first and they're accepted a lot more than American Express because they're off the Visa network but American Express they offer higher credit limits they have higher approval rates they like newer customers and it seems like even for the cons of American Express where their cards are accepted less and their point Redemption takes a lot of work the pros and the cons start balancing themselves out personally for me there is nothing at all wrong with starting with American Express either but what I believe is the most optimal strategy and what I did before was this get one of the Chase Freedom cards you could even get both so apply for the Chase Freedom Flex card after you hit that welcome bonus maybe wait 1 to 3 months I would say say 3 months is the most safest amount of time you can wait after that you can then get the freedom unlimited if you love these beginner credit cards you could even go an alternative route where you just apply for beginner starter cards for that first year this strategy would be best for someone who is a bit more intimidated by the mid- tier cards because some of them require for you to spend a lot more money in order to get the welcome bonus offer I remember little young Jung back in this era I was still a college student and luckily enough because my e-commerce store was generating a lot of in meaning I had to spend a lot of money in ads me spending money meant that I could hit welcome bonus offers and I had no issue doing that even though my income was still relatively low in the instance where you're able to have a consistent income and you know you are still spending this money then I would consider getting a mid-tier card like the Chase Sapphire preferred now once you have the Chase Freedom cards the likelihood of you getting approved for the Chase Sapphire preferred is a lot higher this is because you have some type of credit cards within Chase and you are working up their ranks showing that look I am able to use one of your cards I'm not going to run off with your money I ain't going to steal nothing from the banks and it shows them proof that you are very ready for the next credit card within their ecosystem now within the Chase Sapphire Preferred lineup of cards like I mentioned this is going to go into level three your mid Tier credit cards where you're going to start seeing some annual fees within the $100 to even $300 range the American Express gold card now here is what I believe to be one of the best credit cards that exists within the the market and it was the credit card that I was most excited for the Chase Staff I preferred worked great for me back then as the card to follow up after my Chase Freedom cards because I took a few trips and the welcome bonus helped me in that and I was able to get the bare minimum travel benefits as well now there are still some other great credit cards like right now there is an argument that the American Express Green Card might even be better than the Chase Sapphire preferred but at the end of the day what I believe is this get as many credit cards as you can as long as you can hit that welcome bonus off offer and it doesn't matter if this card is slightly better than this one or this one is better than that one this is because credit cards are generally still going to give you all a positive net return on investment meaning if you sign up for the American Express gold card you pay $250 within the first year of holding that card you'll normally still be getting at least ,000 or even $2,000 back in card benefits and more so after you subtract the annual fees of this card and you're still reaping you know a th000 to 2, in benefits you can go ahead and break one of the Cardinal rules that I mentioned earlier where you cancel a card or the alternative to that is to downgrade that card into a level one product now guys with the optimal strategy I do need to mention this is what I did back then but right now there are a ton of good lineup of cards and it also depends on what your spending categories look like say you are an alien and you don't eat any type of food you don't hit the restaurants you don't hit the dining stores whatever they are you might not find Value in the American Express gold card but say you're someone who loves traveling and say more in particular you love High it well the world of high credit card would make more sense for you to have or if you want to travel even more without committing to a very high annual fee credit card you have things like the Capital One Venture Card too so once you move up the ranks of the mid-tier credit cards you can then move over towards the level four Elite Tier credit cards and this is where you'll find a tremendous amount of value within the travel space now you'll notice that a lot of the elite Tier credit card are going to have a much higher annual fee and that's for good reason too they're going to be giving you a lot more benefits they're going to be giving you a lot more perks and this is where you can find a tremendous amount of those travel benefits we're not going to dive deep into it guys please watch some of my other credit card review videos and by the time you get to the elite Tier credit cards I'm sure it's going to be many many months since the started this video just know that some of of my absolute favorite credit cards now exist within the elite Tier credit card setup but if you don't travel it's going to be very hard to justify any of this on top of the Elite tier we have even higher Tier credit cards okay boy what are you doing now on top of the elite Tier credit cards you have what I would consider to be like the ultra Ultra Elite credit cards where even things like the American Express black card where it's invite only start popping up on the list so going back into my optimal strategy ladies and gents we have the Chase Freedom Flex card the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card we have the American Express gold card and what I would personally do after that is actually get a bunch of Chase Inc business credit cards because they'll offer you a ton of different points by completing the Chas Inc business credit card lineup you can find yourself getting an extraordinary amount of ultimate reward points that allow you to still travel for free what's great too is the other Elite credit cards that we talked about they're always going to be there guys but business credit cards opens up a completely new door for you and the great thing is is they don't affect rules like the chase 524 rule where if you do want to get approved for a new Chase credit card you cannot have more than five credit cards within the last 24 months there are a ton of great business credit cards I've made a ton of videos on this too so if you don't have a business or if you think you don't have a business watch some of my videos on how to actually get approved and guys at the end of the day regardless if you're working on 9 to5 I think everyone should have a side hustle or pursue some type of business and this will complement that this will allow you to make more money on the money that you can earn for yourself after you get the business credit cards ladies and gents it's free game um I've made a recent video talking about the three Advanced Credit Card strategies that you can also check out this includes the Hilton Diamond method where you can get a whole bunch of those get a whole bunch of Welcome bonuses stay at some really nice resorts or you can go back into the simple method of what I call scraping the dooo where you can get some of these no annual fee credit cards and accumulate a ton of points at no cost to you by the way if you do happen to get denied for any one of these credit cards I have a few tips for you there's something called a reconsideration line so this is anytime you get denied or they say all right we're not going to approve you for whatever reason you can call the reconsideration line have an actual person go ahead and manually approve your appli application on some of these cards now the reconsideration line doesn't work all the time if you got a banged up score like a credit score of like 400 something chances are they're still not going to approve you but for the people who should actually get approved and the algorithm or the computers decide that you shouldn't this can help you out so here are some Pro tips before using a credit card unless you're going for a welcome bonus which makes it easy always go for the welcome bonus first make sure that you using the right card to hit the right spending categories if it's a food card use it for food if it's a gas card use it for gas if it's for rent use your built card I talked about this a lot in this video I'm not going to say it again yes I'm going to say it again welcome bonuses make sure you hit those that's where you're going to get a lot of points I just kind of mentioned this but if you want to earn points on your rent before back in the day you would have to use a service like plastique it was a pain in the backside all right now you can use cards like the built MasterCard in order to earn points on your rent and they make it very easy to do so other than going through all the loopholes that you would have to do back then the next Pro tip use all your benefits set certain reminders because once you do end up having 14 15 plus credit cards you're going to be getting a lot of benefits that you need to account for so whether it's free Global TSA pre-check uh Global Entry clear credits make sure you actually fully utilize it every single year now guys it doesn't just end there because once you get your points the question is well Brian what do I do with those points how do I get maximum Redemption how can I start flying in private jets all around the world the private jet thing that's a whole different story but when it comes to maximizing your redemptions you have in-house redemptions and you also have Transfer Partners so with in-house Redemption it's very easy if you're using a Chase credit card just hop into the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and you can book travel there if you have an American Express card you can book it through the American Express Travel portal book it through there you're not going to find the craziest redemptions but you're not going to find the worst It's usually the bare minimum that you'll get but what I like about in-house redemptions is that it's super easy for you to get started after that you can also look into Transfer Partners guys this is going to be a whole different episode but I actually made a video as an example on American Express Transfer Partners that you can look into where I go step by step from finding a destination and showing you how you can get an extraordinary amount of money back on the points that you spend basically with Transfer Partners this is where you're going to find the most amount of Roi with your points so if you want to get a 5 to 10 cent per Point Redemption by fully utilizing a Transfer Partner getting those points moving it over into some of those Airlines and then redeeming it there is where you're going to find the max amount of value it does take a bit more work so keep that in mind but I do think it's fully worth it if you're able to save thousands upon thousands of dollars all right so ladies and gents that is going to be the video for today if you guys found any value at all be sure to check out the link Down Below in the description I have a Facebook group that you guys can join completely for free as well as an email newsletter where I'll send you credit card tips and I'll give you the best offers possible so if the Chase Sapphire preferred has a limited time bonus offer where it's about to end in like 3 days I'm I'm going make sure you guys know about it on top of that if you guys want to go ahead and subscribe that would be great but you can also follow me on Twitter and on Instagram link Down Below in the description and guys if you're trying to apply for any credit card if you're trying to ever get started out within the space be sure to come back to these videos and check out the affiliate links down below because it does support my channel allows me to continue making more content like this it costs nothing at all to you but if you don't want to use those links for whatever reason look I don't mind I don't judge that's completely okay but just at least make sure you're able to get the best possible welcome bonus offer for yourself so thank you all so much again for watching this video have an amazing blessed day and I'll see you all soon peace