September 2010

I can't count how many times I've heard people say that they don't need a Visa business credit card when they already have a Visa. Stop right there! If that's you, you're committing a cardinal business sin: mixing personal and business credit.

Some people scoff at this. They think, I've been doing this for years -- maybe decades -- and never had a problem. My Visa works just fine for my few business credit needs, thank you: I certainly don't need a Visa business credit card. But just consider some of the potential hazards of combining business and personal credit:

If you've ever had to rent a car, you've had to listen to the clerk's spiel about buying supplemental rental car insurance. Well, guess what? There's no need to buy it at all if you pay with a credit card. And since you can't easily rent a car without a credit card, you're in the catbird seat here.

All you have to do is follow a few simple steps and work within certain broad restrictions, and you're on your way to saving yourself some money.

When you get right down to it, the surest way to destroy a credit card is probably to dissolve it in a vat of nitric or sulfuric acid. Sadly, most of us don't have access to a chemistry lab, and strong acid tends to be both expensive and highly regulated.

Failing that, there are a number of other, simpler ways you can assure that your old credit cards are destroyed so thoroughly that dumpster divers and other clever identity thieves can't get ahold of your personal information. A few snips just ain't gonna cut it (to coin a phrase).

Let me put this bluntly: if you're paying the minimum payments on your credit card balances, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

The credit card companies like to pretend that they've started putting those little "Minimum Payment Warnings" on your billing statements because they care about you--but I can assure you, that's hardly the case. They're doing it because they're now required to do so by law.