I have a $300 cap on credit card rewards on my main credit card. I usually do a good job of switching to another credit card when I hit the cap, but I got caught. I was still charging to the same credit card even though I hit the annual cap sometime in July. I'm ticked off.. that was about $30 in wasted rewards!!!

It doesn't help that the monthly bill doesn't mention anything about how much in rewards points you've accumulated for the year... Just how much you've spent. An ethical CC company (I know -- there is no such thing.) would make it clearer that you're not accumulating any more points this year.

About half the time I go to Target (which is about once a week since I do my grocery shopping there), I'm asked if I want to sign up for the Target credit card.

The promotion is 10% off the day you sign up. Then you get a 10% off coupon for every $1,000 you put on the card. Well, let's say I buy $100 worth of stuff each week. After 10 weeks I will have accumulated $1,000. On the 11th week, I will get $10 off. (But only $90 will be applied to the credit card that week, which is a slight bummer.)

So we're roughly talking about a 1% reward. (Yes, you could tweak that a little bit by delaying a bigger-than-average purchase until a 10% off day, but the effect is small overall.)

For now I'll stick with my regular credit card for now which gives me 1% rewards -- in cash, no fuzzy math involved.

I wonder if there any studies out there on how much more people spend by using credit cards instead of cash or checks. I know I have spent a lot more over my lifetime because of credit cards. I mean, let's face it, you think a lot harder about spending money when you're handing over real cash or you're looking at your checking account balance as you write that check.

It's very easy to just swipe the card and say I'll deal with it when the bill comes. I would venture to say that people using debit cards spend more than they would by using cash or check.

The credit card rewards are nice, but what have you done to your finances by spending 20% more just to get 1%-5% back on your purchases.