Maximize Credit Card Rewards for Your Assisted Living Business
Nov 13, 2024
Credit card rewards are more than just perks for personal purchases—they can also benefit your assisted living business. Whether you’re running a small facility or scaling your residential assisted living (RAL) business, using credit cards strategically can save you money and improve your financial standing. From earning cash back on routine expenses to building business credit, credit card rewards can play a key role in your overall business strategy.
In this blog, we’ll explore how to get the most out of credit card rewards for your assisted living business. We’ll cover picking the best card, managing spending to maximize rewards, and avoiding mistakes that could hurt your efforts. Whether you're focused on saving money or investing in growth, these tips can help your business make the most of credit card benefits.
Check out the video, too:
Business vs. Personal Credit Cards: What's the Difference?
One of the first questions many business owners ask is whether business credit card rewards differ from personal cards. The short answer is no—not really. Many credit card companies use similar reward systems for both. Whether it’s points, miles, or cash back, you can earn rewards on business purchases just like you would for personal use.
However, business credit cards come with their own set of benefits tailored to company needs. It’s important to research and choose a card that fits your business spending. And keep in mind, some premium cards have higher fees, so be sure the benefits are worth the cost.
Is a Premium Business Card Right for You?
Some small business credit cards come with annual fees ranging from $100 to $500 or more. If you’re considering a premium card, make sure the rewards and benefits outweigh the cost. For instance, if you’re paying a $500 annual fee but only earning $300 in rewards, the card may not be worth it. Take the time to calculate the value based on your spending habits and needs for your assisted living business.
Boost Your Rewards with Introductory Offers
One of the easiest ways to rack up rewards quickly is by taking advantage of introductory offers. Many business credit cards offer big bonuses if you spend a certain amount within the first few months of opening the account. For example, you might get $300 in statement credit if you spend $3,000 in the first three months. Be sure to compare offers and choose one that aligns with your regular business spending.
Choose a Card That Fits Your Business Needs
When choosing a credit card, consider the specific needs of your assisted living business. Do you travel often for work? Look for a card that offers rewards for airfare, hotel stays, and rental cars. If your biggest expenses are groceries and supplies, choose a card that offers cash back or points for those purchases. By matching your credit card to your business’s everyday expenses, you’ll maximize your rewards without changing your spending habits.
Beyond Points: Extra Perks to Consider
Many business credit cards offer additional perks, like 0% introductory APRs or balance transfer options. These can be especially helpful when managing cash flow or making big purchases for your business. For example, if you need to replace a furnace in your assisted living facility and traditional financing isn’t available, a 0% APR credit card for 18 months can provide a temporary solution. Just be sure to pay off the balance before the introductory period ends to avoid interest charges.
Making the Most of Your Credit Card Rewards
To truly benefit from credit card rewards, stay organized and track your earnings. Use your rewards to cover business expenses, like employee holiday gifts or travel for industry conferences. Keep in mind that rewards only work in your favor if they don’t come with high costs, like steep annual fees or interest rates. By staying on top of your spending and managing your rewards carefully, you can help your assisted living business save money and grow.
As you navigate the world of credit card rewards, remember that careful planning is essential. Whether you're starting a new assisted living facility or looking to improve your existing operations, a solid business plan is crucial. To help you get started, download our Business Plan Checklist here and set your facility up for long-term success.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00
credit card reward systems are complex enough when you're just dealing with your personal finances but is there some added complexity when you're dealing with a reward system for a small business we're going to get into that in today's video hi everybody i'm brandon gustafson i own and operate two assisted living facilities and i created this channel to help people just like you learn the ins and outs of investing in assisted living welcome to assisted living investing [Music]
00:00:33
hey everybody welcome back to the channel in our last video we talked about how do credit card uh rewards work what's that process like so go ahead and watch that video i'd love to see your comments over there and get your input on on your experience working with credit card reward points and and what you've experienced as you've gone through that process today we're going to get into credit card rewards for a small business all right so the big question is are business points different from personal
00:00:59
credit card points and the simple answer is no not really they're they're really not all that different credit card companies despite all their complexities and and everything that goes on there they're not trying to reinvent the system that is already working for them with their rewards system points the rewards of a business do seem to be less than some of the perks that you can get with a personal credit card unless you're willing to pay that premium to get a high reward card so
00:01:27
i've talked about this a little bit in the in the past some of these cards and i'll link that video up above some of these cards require you to pay an annual fee to use their card and that fee can be anywhere from 100 to 500 a year just kind of depends on what they are what their reward system is and if you're going to be using and paying for one of those premium cards you should want to make sure that you are doing your research to make sure um that it works for you um that you're earning the
00:01:54
appropriate amount of points on those purchases that it's going to offset the the fee that you are paying on that annual basis you don't want to get to the point where you're paying 500 a year for a card and you're only getting 300 a year in reward points that just doesn't make a lot of sense so you want to make sure that you are if you're going to pay for one of those premium cards make sure that you are going to be able to counterbalance that and make it work for your facility
00:02:20
just do your research make sure that it's worth it to you and and that it's going to be something that you come out ahead because that's the whole point of going through all of this education on credit card points is to make sure that it's going to work for you something to keep in mind as as well as you're looking through these different credit card offers and the different types of credit cards that are out there is that there are intro offers i have not talked about those yet in any of my videos but an
00:02:50
intro offer is in addition to all those extra reward points and miles and cash back that you're getting on your card they give you what's called an intro offer which is awesome an intro offer is basically it says if you spend x amount of money in the first y months of having the card then you will get z dollars in return so for example if you were to spend let's say that the the credit card has an intro offer where if you spend three thousand dollars in the first three months then you could earn three hundred
00:03:24
dollars in a statement credit or rewards equivalent to three hundred dollars it all is going to vary as you're looking through and trying to sign up for the the credit card that you want to work with um just kind of go through and see what they are oftentimes you're going to see that example that i gave you and then they'll say and if you pay an additional ten thousand dollars in the first six months will give you an extra six thousand six dollars or six hundred dollars or something like that um so you just
00:03:54
kind of want to look through those and see what type of intro offer could you get and how can i best take advantage of that each card again is just going to be different so just make sure that you do your research on what your intro offer is for a particular card and just make sure that you know if you're going to use that that you're going to be able to hit that it's an offer that's there you might as well try to to hit that offer so you can get that extra cash back that extra point value that extra mile value
00:04:24
is just another way to incentivize you to use the card and as long as you're using it appropriately you might as well take advantage of the programs that they have so some things that you want to consider as you're kind of looking through the different small business credit cards that i would just suggest that you kind of take a look at are some of these questions you might want to ask yourself travel are you going to be like me where you need to go and visit a facility out of state and you're
00:04:50
going to need to fly or when you get there you need somewhere to stay or you're you don't want to take a car so you need to rent a car or you're going to be taking an uber or something like that you want to make sure if you're going to be doing that then getting a card that gives you some extra points for redeeming those points for travel related items is it might be beneficial to you so make sure you take a look at that do you get extra points for shopping at vendors where you're going to be
00:05:17
purchasing a lot of stuff from talked about this in a previous video in assisted living we buy a lot of groceries and so getting somebody that is going to give you extra points for all the groceries you are going to be purchasing is just going to benefit you so make sure you look into that is it worth it to pay that fee for a card make sure you ask yourself that question do the simple math it is not hard math i promise you that i know a lot of you are looking at this you're like oh my gosh i can't do all this math
00:05:43
um he's talking about converting points to dollars and i just my head is about to explode it's okay this is simple math you can do it it's not too hard um comment down below if you need some help with it get on assistedlivinginvesting.net uh set up a consulting call we can kind of go through this together just reach out to me if you have any questions with i'd love to kind of go through that with you a little bit the other thing is you know what are some of the extra perks so there are
00:06:09
extra perks that i actually have not even talked about and and touched on in any of my videos things like is there transfer financing so you could transfer a balance a high balance from an old card to a new card and get a better interest rate or an introductory zero percent interest rate or something like that a lot of cards will offer that and so you want to take a look at at that type of a an offer there might be a just a straight up introductory interest rate while they'll give you zero percent interest for the first 18
00:06:37
months and if you're needing to buy a big thing and you can't get financing from somebody else you could essentially um finance that on a credit card you know maybe you've got a furnace or something like that your furnace goes out you need to buy it you get a credit card that has a ten thousand dollar limit on it has zero percent financing for the first 18 months you basically have financed that at zero percent interest for 18 months and you can start making incremental payments on it and get it paid off and
00:07:04
you don't have to worry about that huge ten thousand dollar bene that huge ten thousand dollar purchase so that's just something that you want to take into consideration as you're looking at credit cards what other types of perks are there and the intro offers that we've been talking a little bit about just do your research remember if you're good at staying on top of your credit cards they can be an incredible way for you to make some extra money save on travel or even buy gifts for your staff that's what
00:07:31
we've used ours for in the past buying christmas gifts use that cash back it doesn't come out of our our budget anymore and saves us a little bit of money so that's great and just make sure you take your time to research and find out if a credit card is the answer for you i've talked about this in a previous video just make sure you kind of get there do the research if it's right for you do the research on which card is best for you so you can take advantage of it take some time and just figure it out it
00:07:58
doesn't take a lot of time just a little bit and if you do that you're going to find the thing that's going to work for you so just remember that in our next video i'm going to get into how i use a small business credit card for our business what do we use it for um how it works for us uh kind of explain that because i'm sure you've been thinking to yourself this whole time how does he do it like what's the process i know he's out of state so does his administrator have a card how do
00:08:23
they stay on top of that we're to get into that in in the next video to learn more about investing in assisted living make sure you visit me on assistedlivinginvesting.net i've got a blog free resources you can set up a consulting call with me i'd love to have conversations with you and also make sure you follow me on my other social media platforms and remember it doesn't take a lot just a little bit keep making steps one at a time you will be successful if you are consistent just
00:08:48
keep making progress i promise you will be successful thanks for watching and have a great day [Music]
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