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X1 Credit Card Review: 3%-10% Back on Everything-Great Value
The X1 Credit Card: Great Value for Many
The X1 credit card is a great value for many people, offering what may be the highest rate of rewards back available.
The X1 Credit Card offers 3% back on all purchases if one spends at least $1,000 a month on the card. Their app also offers useful “boosts” that provide 4% or 5% back on purchases in a variety of categories, such as gas or restaurants. There is no annual fee for the X1 card. Thus, the X1 card offers a very attractive rate for a card with no annual fee. For many people the X1 card could be an attractive option and a definite keeper, the default, go-to credit card for years.
Are there Downsides to the X1 Card?
While the X1 card is very attractive, there are some downsides to be aware of:
1.) You cannot call customer service. You have to use the app to contact them. What if you can’t get anywhere with the app? This is not my favorite. However, it is also possible that one calls an agent and can’t get anywhere either if a company has agents who are not competent, so being able to use the phone does not necessarily solve anything anyway.
2.) You cannot get paper statements. Your credit card statements are all received in their app. They do email you to remind you when a statement is generated, but I like paper statements.
3.) You cannot redeem the points at full value for cold, hard cash, only to cancel out transactions at selected merchants (kind of like buying a gift card for these merchants). Now the range of options here is quite attractive—there are over 50 options, including everything from Apple to American Airlines to Airbnb to REI to Hotels.com, so for many people this kind of redemption is almost as good as cash. But the fact that you cannot redeem your points for actual dollars at full value (although you can redeem them at a reduced rate for cash; instead of $0.01 per point value towards a merchant, while you get 70% of that for cash, so 10,000 points is $100 back at REI but only $70 in actual cash back) is a negative. Even if you never shop at any of the merchants where you can get the full 3% back (unlikely for most people) at a 70% back rate for cash, however, 3 points per dollar becomes 2.1% back for cash, which is still superior to a flat-rate 2% cash back card.
4.) If you spend less than $1,000 a month on your X1 card you do not get 3% back, but a (still decent) 2%.
Why Does the X1 Card Operate the Way it Does?
I can understand why the X1 card does these things-the fees merchants pay to take credit cards is less than 3%, in most instances, so a card that gave you 3% of actual cash back on everything would have an extremely difficult time breaking even, let alone turning a profit. It would be losing money every time you made a purchase. By the combination of extremely low overhead (no paper statements; no human beings who take calls with customer support; everything in their app; deals cut with companies that allow X1 to offer point redemption at face value while they get a discounted deal; some customers spending less than $1,000 a month and so not getting 3% back) X1 appears to be able to offer customers 3% back on all their purchases so long as they spend at least $1,000 every month with the card. In other words, they may be able to continue in the long-term as a successful business, like Chase or Citibank or American Express, instead of going bankrupt for offering people too high a rate of cash back.
For many people, the X1 credit card is a logical and reasonable choice for their default card for purchases outside of bonus categories. Someone who spends $50,000 a year on a credit card will get $1,500 back with the X1 card instead of only $500 back if he is using a credit card that offers 1% back or only $1,000 back with a 2% back card. With the bonus categories or “boosts” the X1 card offers, one can get even more back–4%, 5%, or more on selected categories that are often quite useful.
The X1 card is also made out of metal, not plastic. It feels nice in your hand. I really don’t care about how the card feels in comparison to what monetary value it offers me, but some people are into that kind of thing.
If you open an X1 card using the link here, you will also receive 4-10% back for a period of time on all purchases (a very, very attractive rate, which I will also get for a period of time if you open a card with this link). X1 has a system where they do not do a hard pull on your credit unless they are very likely to approve you. They tell you ahead of time before they access your credit file for this. Their application process first gets your approval to do a soft pull that does not negatively impact your credit score in any way and tell you if you are going to be approved or not. That is an attractive feature for those interested in the card; if you are not going to be approved, they don’t touch your credit score at all; they only do it if they are very likely to approve you.
Is This Credit Card For Me?
If you can live with the bare-bones features described above, I believe the X1 card is an attractive option that could be a financially reasonable default credit card for many people.
Click here to apply for the X1 Credit Card.
If you do not pay off your credit cards in full every month but instead pay high rates of interest, DO NOT SPEND MONEY ON CREDIT CARDS. Read the article here on the dangers of credit cards. Any rewards you get will be far outweighed by the horrible interest you will pay. Pay off the cards as soon as possible and stick to debit cards. The review above is only for people who avoid paying high interest rates on credit cards, which the large majority of the time can only be done by paying them in full every month.
–TDR
A Personal Financial Advisor to Invest with Biblical Values?
What can a Christian do when he wishes to honor the Lord with his investments? Can he use a personal financial advisor who is a Christian? I have written in the past, and highly commended, the Eventide family of mutual funds.
Their fund family includes the Eventide Gilead Fund (ETILX), Eventide Healthcare and Life Sciences Fund (ETIHX), Eventide Exponential Technologies Fund (ETIEX), Eventide Large Cap Focus Fund (ETLIX), Eventide Dividend Opportunities Fund (ETIDX), Eventide Multi-Asset Income Fund (ETIMX), Eventide Limited Term Bond Fund (ETIBX), and Eventide Core Bond Fund (ETIRX). (They also have class N, A, and C shares as well as class I shares, but I utilized the ticker symbols for the class I shares here.) When one invests with Eventide, he avoids companies that support wickedness like abortion, tobacco, cannabis, pornography, violent media, and so on. In addition, their investment philosophy goes one step further to ask important questions about integrity, business practice, and value-creation. I was very excited to find out about Eventide years ago, and still believe they are the best option for practicing Bible-based values in investing, for the reasons explained in my review of the Eventide family of funds and their second-best competitor, the Timothy Plan family of funds.
Are your investments clean, or at least as clean as the Timothy Plan–which is in many ways good, although at a lower standard of Biblical conformity than Eventide–would view it? You can get a complementary moral audit from them of what you own at a link on the page here. Why not find out? Are you afraid of what you will discover? Would you rather find out now, or at the judgment seat of Christ?
One might suppose that he could have a personal financial advisor assist him in investing in a clean, God-honoring way. Is having an actively (or passively) managed account with a personal financial advisor an option? Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill Edge, and many other investment firms provide the option of a personal financial advisor who will seek to follow your investment directions for a fee. On multiple occasions, when I have discussed Biblical, Christian values with such people, they have said that they could follow our virtuous, godly directives and set up something that was acceptable. Does this work? I recently tried it. How did it go?
As is common knowledge, in the San Francisco Bay Area homes and condominiums are very expensive. I would like to be able to buy a residence close to Bethel Baptist Church that fits our ministry goals and family needs. I have prayerfully formulated a plan to get there that also dealt with other financial goals. Because Scripture affirms the value of a “multitude of counsellors” for safety and being established in one’s purposes (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22; 24:6), I wanted to run my plan by more than one financial advisor. I got a complementary meeting with one from Schwab, while with an organization called Personal Capital, part of Empower, I scheduled a meeting because they had promised one would get $100 for meeting with a financial advisor and getting a proposal. I was willing to hear what the Personal Capital person had to say about my investment plan, and that they would give me $100 for meeting with him made it better.
Over the course of three meetings, I explained my Christian, Bible-based values and what I viewed as acceptable for investments. The financial advisor with Personal Capital said something like that he was a devout Christian himself. He said he managed the assets for numbers of Christians and others who, for example, did not want to invest in abortion. Now that sounded good, no? Surely if one can get one’s investments personally under the care of a financial advisor who is himself a Christian, and who manages the assets of numbers of Christians, one can invest cleanly, like one can with Eventide. The financial advisor provided a variety of reasons why he thought what he would offer would outperform an investment strategy that held strictly to a number of Eventide funds. (This post is not about the performance side of the question, but I am actually skeptical of his claim that his mix of investments would outperform what I was doing with Eventide. For example, since inception on 7/8/2008, the Eventide Gilead Fund has grown at an annualized 12.99%, and class I shares since inception on 2/2/2010 have grown at 13.60%. That is a long time for them to outperform by several percentage points what the Personal Capital gentleman said I could expect what he was offering me would probably earn on average.) His company has a section on its website promoting the option of socially responsible investing, which they advertise as a way “to align [one’s] investments with [his] personal values and beliefs.” In any case, for investing in a righteous way, he is certainly a better option. Right?
Unfortunately, no–wrong. First, he said that he did not have the ability to actually determine whether individual companies were actually engaging in evil behaviors, or actively seeking to do good, the way that Eventide would do. Trying to make investments clean would just be, with him, taking a base strategy that did NOT evaluate things from the perspective of the kingdom of God, and simply attempting to improve it a bit. What he could do was take out some notorious companies such as a casino here and there. Would the personalization he offered be clean, according to the complementary moral audit mentioned earlier in this post? Highly unlikely.
Furthermore, he also wanted to diversify into foreign companies (a reasonable idea; nothing wrong with that). But for the foreign investments, he would simply have me get ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) that had no moral or Christian component whatsoever. So domestically, I could be part-owner (through ETFs or other investments) of companies that were engaged in evil, although not as notoriously. Outside of the USA, I could own companies that were chopping up little babies in the womb, selling abortion drugs, or marketing cigarettes and booze to twelve-year-olds. No filters whatsoever. Problem.
After the third meeting, when I got his actual proposal, I looked over the companies that he wanted me to invest in. I cannot share on this blog post what they were, because it is proprietary information with them. However, without even doing a complementary moral audit, I knew that many of them would fail, and that a Christian had no business owning them. It would be a tremendous step backward were I to join the Christian clients of this professedly devout Christian financial advisor. My investments would not be clean, much less focused on companies that are positively doing good. It would be a bad choice.
If blog readers assume that their investments are clean because they have a financial advisor who goes to church, reads the Bible, and even possibly is a truly born-again Christian, they should make very, very sure about it. At least with my situation, the fact that this advisor told me that he was committed to Christian doctrine and managed the money of a good number of Christians, and could personalize investments to avoid what is bad turned out not to mean a whole lot. It meant we could take a framework focused solely on gaining filthy lucre and could clean up bits and pieces of it. With Eventide, everything is built around a Biblical framework of investing. What a difference–and what a blessing! Eventide won hands-down over the professedly devout Christian financial advisor who said he could personalize investments to be suitable for Bible-believers.
Naturally, I did not sell my Eventide investments and move over to Personal Capital with Empower. Personal Capital would not have allowed me to invest in a way that glorifies and pleases the Lord.
Other reasons why I did not move over to them–such as that Empower had poor customer service when they were the 401K company for one of my jobs in Wisconsin (I was able to invest in Eventide through them, and that’s all I did), that what the financial advisor said would be their likely performance is lower than how Eventide has performed since their Gilead Fund and other funds started, that Empower / Personal Capital never even gave me the $100 for spending a lot of time with them and having several meetings, that they did not have a phone number for me to call to get help with this, but only an email, and that their customer service here in California seemed to have even more room for improvement than they did in Wisconsin, were less important, although they were not very promising. These all could have been reasons for me not to go with them. That I could not invest cleanly was necessarily a reason not to go with them, but stick with Eventide.
What about you? Do you have confidence that what you invest in pleases the Lord, and will be something you can be happy about when you stand before Christ on judgment day? Don’t assume that you do, just because you have a financial advisor who claims to be a Christian and who says he can personalize your investments.
–TDR
Consider Fighting Inflation with Safe 7.12% and 9.62% Interest Rate I-Bonds
Because of our current high rates of inflation, Inflation-protected Treasury Bonds (I-Bonds) are set to earn 7.12% interest for the next sixth months, followed by 9.62% interest the six months after that. In addition to mutual funds with Christian values, which tend to adjust to inflation in the longer-term, but, as with all mutual funds, can have big swings in the shorter term, someone who wanted a guaranteed rate of return might find these US treasury bonds attractive. I view their security as comparable to FDIC insurance. If you have confidence your money in your checking account is not going to disappear, the money in the I-bonds is not going to disappear unless the US government defaults on its debt, which is probably not going to happen in the short term, at least (and, while the high rate of inflation is terrible, it reduces the real value of our national debt, and so actually is a debt-fighting strategy–devalue the currency to devalue the debt–albeit an immoral one that repays lenders with currency worth less than what they lent out).
You can purchase up to $10,000 in I-bonds a year, per person (corporations can buy $10,000 each as well) and get up to $5,000 back on your tax return in I-bonds. Whenever you sell them, you lose the last three months of interest if you have held them for under five years–after five years you don’t lose any interest. So if inflation suddenly comes under control and their rate of return declines correspondingly (I’m not super hopeful), it would be wise to hold them for at least 15 months so you don’t lose out on the 12 months of high interest. You also can’t sell them before holding them for a year, so only tie up money you won’t need for at least a year.
I believe that churches, as charitable organizations, can also buy up to $10,000 a year, and a church school, as a separate entity, could do so as well. There may be ways for individuals to buy $10,000 worth and donate them or get refunded for them by a church that wanted to get a lot of these instead of having inflation eat up their savings account, but I have not extensively looked into this possibility (feel free to post anything useful in the comment section of this post in this regard).
You do not pay federal taxes on I bonds, but you do pay state and local taxes, I believe. (I am not a tax advisor.)
To lock in the 7.12% and 9.68% rates, you need to buy them before the end of April. So you might want to look into doing this soon. The interest rate is very attractive.
Get more information or buy I-bonds online here. I am thankful for Doctor of Credit for bringing this opportunity to my attention.
By the way, while I believe Biden is doing a terrible job, high inflation was just about inevitable after the insane increase in the money supply and crazily low rates of interest that we have had for years. If Trump had won, we would still have had high inflation right now, in all likelihood, although perhaps not quite as high, if Trump and Congress had not spent so much money this last year (by Trump not helping two Republicans lose in Georgia, flipping the Senate to the Democrats, and giving the Democrats a unified government so they could spend even more recklessly). Trump was “lucky” to lose and not be the one who gets the blame for the foolish money policy the USA has been pursuing for years.
–TDR
Cryptocurrency (like bitcoin)–A Biblical, Christian Perspective
I believe people have liberty in Christ to own bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies if they wish to do so. If you bought bitcoin or other crypto before its price exploded, and you made a lot of money, I am happy for you. However, I am staying away from it. These are my reasons, as a Christian, to stay away from cryptocurrency. (This article is my opinion, protected by the first amendment, not official financial advice. I am not a financial advisor.) This post is just the bullet points. The entire article can be read by clicking here: Read “Cryptocurrency: A Christian, Bible-believing perspective” here.
1.) Cryptocurrency does not actively do good.
If one invests in the Christian mutual funds associated with the Eventide family of funds, he is investing in many companies that are not only attractive investments but also actively are doing good things. At best, if one buys and holds bitcoin or other crypto, what he has purchased just sits there. It does not do anyone any good.
2.) Cryptocurrency is very frequently used to actively do evil.
There is substantial evidence that a high percentage of cryptocurrency is used by evil people to do evil things, whether funding drug cartels, supporting human trafficking and pornography, supporting terrorist organizations, engaging in money laundering, assisting rogue regimes to evade sanctions, and the like.
3.) Cryptocurrency lends itself toward speculation, not rational investment.
I can’t explain why bitcoin should be priced at $20, $200, $2,000, $20,000, $200,000, or $0 a coin. I can’t give you a reason why in thirty years bitcoin is likely to continue to appreciate in value, rather than becoming worthless.
4.) Your cryptocurrency can easily vanish.
If you lose your password, your crypto is gone—you can never get it back.
Furthermore, if your crypto account or wallet gets hacked, you can’t get your crypto back.
It is not surprising that crypto firm Coinbase has an “F” rating with the Better Business Bureau.
The Bible says all riches are “uncertain” and we need to trust in God, not in money (1 Timothy 6:17). However, with cryptocurrency the “uncertain” is written in all caps in flashing neon lights, surrounded by warning signs illuminated by floodlights, while sirens blare “UNCERTAIN, UNCERTAIN.”
5.) Arguments for cryptocurrency are unpersuasive.
In my opinion, arguments for crypto fail to convince. Reputable financial advisors who say to steer clear of cryptocurrency are legion. Reputable financial advisors who even offer it as a suggestion (not a recommendation) are much less common, and those who even throw it out as a possibility say to only put a tiny percentage of one’s assets into crypto, and only if one is wealthy, and warn that one could lose 100% of the investment.
To read more, please read the complete post “Cryptocurrency: A Christian, Bible-believing perspective.” Feel free to comment below, but if you comment, please read the complete article first. Thanks.
–TDR
Tithe on Investment Gains!
As of the day I am writing this post (4/19/21), the flagship Eventide Gilead Fund, a leading fund in the Eventide family of Biblically-based, Christian mutual funds, is up an incredible 90.97% in the last 12 months. The Eventide Healthcare and Life Sciences Fund is up 65.5% in the last year, and the new Eventide Exponential Technology Fund is up 67.78% since inception. (Past performance is not a guarantee of future results, we know.) It is not very easy to tithe, say, week by week on investment gains, but it would be appropriate to do it once a year, if not more, perhaps analyzing end-of-year statements.
Some people may be used to tithing on income from their employment but just do nothing with investment gains (and losses). This is not Biblical. If your IRA or other investment vehicle now has $190,000 in it when a year ago it had $100,000, you have gotten $90,000 in “increase” (-1.7% for yearly inflation, so actually $88,000 in real gain) and you are to “tithe” on your “increase” (Deut 14:22, 28; 26:12; 2 Chr 31:5)–and do so cheerfully and with thanks to the Lord who has blessed you, not just tithe on your weekly or bi-weekly employment income. (The reverse would also hold true for investment losses.)
Don’t withhold the firstfruits that belong to the Lord, but make sure that in this year of very strong gains in the financial markets you honor the Giver of all good things with at least 10%, if not much more, since we are not under the law, but under grace.
–TDR
New Christian Mutual Fund
I am very thankful for the Eventide family of mutual funds, for the reasons explained in my “God-honoring and Bible-based Christian mutual funds” post. If you do not have strong confidence that whatever you are invested in is not funding abortion, tobacco, alcohol, sexual perversion, and other evils, use the link on this page to get a complementary moral audit of your funds.
Eventide has a new fund called the “Exponential Technologies” fund (ticker: ETNEX, ETIEX, ETAEX, ETCEX. Most people should get ETNEX, if you have a lot of money you can use ETIEX.). It works as: “A concentrated mutual fund representing our ‘best ideas’ for long-term capital appreciation in the information technology and communication services sectors as well as healthcare technology and device industries.”
Consider adding this new Eventide fund to your portfolio, in conjunction with what your financial advisor says (you can get a free consult with an organization like Fidelity.)
–TR
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