Unlocking Credit Card Rewards: A Guide for Assisted Living Investors
Nov 14, 2024
Running an assisted living business means managing a lot of expenses, and supplies like food and materials can take up a big chunk of your budget. But did you know you can use credit card rewards to save money? By choosing the right small business credit cards and using them wisely, you can make those everyday expenses work in your favor.
In this blog, we’ll explore how you can unlock the power of credit card rewards to boost your assisted living business. From earning cash back to travel points, we’ll show you how to turn regular purchases into real savings that help grow your business.
Check out the video, too:
How Do Credit Card Rewards Work?
Credit card rewards programs are designed to give you something back for every dollar you spend. But not all cards are the same—each has its own system for earning and redeeming points.
Most credit card companies offer rewards that convert into cash back, travel miles, or discounts on purchases. To make the most of your rewards, it’s important to understand how your card’s point system works. Each card has a conversion rate that determines how many points you need to get a certain value, like $100 in cash back. You can usually find this information online for your specific card, making it easy to see how much your points are worth.
Maximize Rewards for Your Assisted Living Business
Before you pick a credit card, think about where your assisted living business spends the most money. For many facilities, groceries and supplies are huge expenses. If that’s the case, look for a card that gives extra points or cash back on grocery store purchases.
Some cards, like Discover, offer rotating categories where you can earn 5% cash back on different things at different times. For example, one quarter might offer extra rewards on groceries, while another might offer more on gas. By keeping track of these promotions, you can maximize your rewards just by timing your purchases right.
You might also want to check if your favorite grocery store offers its own credit card. These store-specific cards often come with extra perks, which can add even more savings for your assisted living business.
Compare Credit Card Rewards
With so many credit card options out there, it can be tough to know which one offers the best rewards. One easy way to compare is by calculating the cash value of your points. For example, if 10,000 points are worth $100, then each point is worth $0.01. This makes it easy to compare different cards and see which offers the best deal for your spending habits.
By understanding the value of your points, you can pick a card that maximizes rewards for your assisted living business. Every dollar you save means more money for other important things, like improving the quality of care for your residents.
Tools to Help You Choose the Best Credit Card
Luckily, there are great resources out there to help you find the right card. Websites like NerdWallet and The Points Guy offer detailed reviews and comparisons of the top business credit cards. These sites are updated regularly, so you can stay informed about the latest deals and perks.
However, keep in mind that every business is different. A card that works well for another small business might not be the best fit for yours. For example, a card that offers lots of travel rewards might not be as useful if your biggest expenses are groceries and supplies. Choose a card that fits your business’s specific needs.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the right credit card can lead to big savings for your assisted living business. By learning how credit card rewards work and using resources like NerdWallet to compare options, you can make smart decisions that benefit your business. Focus on cards that offer the best rewards for your main spending categories, like groceries, to get the most value for your money.
Visit Assisted Living Investing to learn more about investing in assisted living and maximizing your company's financial performance. We provide a number of resources, including consulting services, to support your success in the assisted living sector. Download our Business Plan Checklist to ensure you have a comprehensive plan in place to help you launch your assisted living business.
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
is there an easy way to understand your credit card rewards are there resources to help you out 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 for people like you to learn the ins and outs of investing in assisted living welcome to assisted living investing [Music] hey everybody welcome back to the channel in our last video we talked about what are credit card points uh what are they you go over there watch
00:00:34
that and kind of get a good overview of what those credit card rewards are and how they a little bit of how they work but today i really want to get into how they work you know how do those credit card rewards work what's that process like how do you figure out the conversion um we're gonna get into that so is there a simple point conversion system no no there's not as i mentioned in in the previous video point systems can vary amongst credit card companies that even among the different cards under the same credit
00:01:04
card label under the same credit card company umbrella they can differ most credit card companies will have a conversion table on their website that you can look up though i'm going to be completely honest with you they're not super easy to find the the best way to find those conversion tables is to perform an internet search for something like point conversion system for my credit card and if you if you just try to find it and navigate through their website more than likely you're gonna have a
00:01:34
hard time trying to find out how exactly where that where that table is because they are they hide it pretty well um i've had several words just like i cannot figure out where this is and so just take some time probably do an internet search and see if you can figure out where that system is once you've found it it becomes relatively simple um to to do the conversion but there's not like a straightforward just everybody has to follow this same table the same rules people they all just have different
00:02:07
systems so make sure you look up what you need for your specific card you'll even find that with certain vendors or certain market segments i've talked about this before so like gas stations or supermarkets or something like that you'll get different reward amounts so something like two times the points or three times the points if you go to a gas station or if you buy groceries at this store if you use a a big club like costco or sam's club or you might get two percent three percent five percent
00:02:36
cash back um discover card is is one that is popular that gives you five percent cash back but they rotate it on a quarterly basis so you gotta stay on top of which market segment am i working with um it could be club warehouses and amazon or it could be supermarkets or it could be gas or it could be travel and they'll give you extra perks extra cash back for uh the quarter and they'll just advertise you have to sign up for and just kind of be aware of it so when you're looking at different cards you
00:03:04
want to make sure which point systems are they is it going to be rotating is it something i can take advantage of all the time or is this something that i need to be aware of and you know for nine months of the of the year i'm not going to be able to take advantage of all the money i'm spending on groceries in an assisted living facility so you kind of want to do some research on that and figure out what's going to work best for you there now the next question is there a simple way for me to normalize
00:03:34
credit card reward values and i would say yes there is the easiest way to kind of normalize those credit card rewards is to determine the cash value i'll put that in quotes again the cash value of a point um and then put a nice round number of rewards to see what their normalized value is so you can see in this table that i've kind of normalized things by doing a rewards earned at ten thousand so let's say you've earned ten thousand points um so that's the type of redemption we've
00:04:06
got your total redemption value is in there as well um and then you'll still need to look at that point value for your credit card but this type of table can help you determine the cash value of your rewards and can help give you a familiar number to work with so in this table you can see you know you've earned 10 000 points and then you've got on there you know if it's the point value of of cash back or if it's a gift card or if it's miles um whatever it is that you need to do and then it has the
00:04:37
um it has the redemption value so it says you know one point is worth one cent or one point two five cents or one point five or two cents two two cents and then you just kind of do the math on that and figure out what that point value is it's not going to be always that simple and straightforward some of these point values are going to be worth 0.6 or 0.75 and so you need to get with your credit card vendor and figure out um kind of what their their point value their reward value per for the real cash value
00:05:10
is but then if you just kind of multiply that by 10 000 that's going to help normalize these numbers for you so you can kind of get a feel for what they are and then you can kind of use that across the board with the different credit card companies that you're looking at in my next table right here i've got you can easily calculate the value of your point so i'm i talked about that just a second ago this is how you do that so if you take the value of the points so let's say you have 10 000 points and
00:05:37
you multiply it by the point value so in this case what i'm showing on here it's one cent per point is the value of that so you take ten thousand you multiply that by one cent and that's a hundred dollars that's the the point value it works this way because one cent is basically a percentage so that's how you would um look at at multiplying percentages and i've shown that here also in this table so if you have ten thousand points it's one percent cash back in this case
00:06:09
let's say rather than a point value it's a hundred dollars in cash back so that's kind of how you can do it that's how you can figure out what that process looks like how you can do that conversion how you can normalize each of your points so you can have a better understanding of what you're looking at when you're trying to dig through and figure out what the point values are for each of your cards it it can be overwhelming when you're looking at 10 different cards you're like oh my gosh i can't
00:06:36
figure out which one is the right one for me this is a good way for you to kind of normalize exactly what those point values are there are several resources though out there for you that a lot of them do this kind of work for you so you don't have to do it which is great you can find just incredible resources online that to find the best reward systems um for a credit card for you so some of my favorites that i've used in the past are the points guy and nerd wallet i highly recommend those websites
00:07:05
they do really good in-depth analysis on the best cards they update them on an annual basis they are consistently looking on there just very well done very easy to read through and find the information that you need for a card that's going to work best for you so highly recommend you getting on their websites and kind of using them as you're trying to figure out which card is going to be best for you once you've decided that you want to move forward with a card so spending that time researching the
00:07:34
credit cards on their website using those resources the points guy nerd wallet getting on some of those different blogs and things like that it's going to just kind of help you make the best decision for you for your credit card rewards now make sure that you do take into consideration however how you'll be using your business credit card when deciding which rewards are going to be best for you so you're going to be spending a lot of money on groceries i would say apart from our wages that we pay to our staff groceries
00:08:09
is by far the next biggest expense item that we have in assisted living so you're going to be spending a lot of money at walmart or target or one of those club warehouse stores or your local supermarket or something like that and so you want to find a card that's going to give you extra points for all of the groceries that you're going to be purchasing so look for something that gives you points for supermarkets or warehouses is what i would highly suggest that you do if there's also going to be a certain
00:08:39
vendor that you're purchasing a lot from you know say there's a walmart that's just two blocks away from your facility and that's just where you're gonna do you do walmart plus and um you can get the free delivery from walmart and you're just like you know what this is what we're gonna do see if they have a card because if you use their card typically you're going to get like a premium in point values um for those and so just kind of keep an eye on that so some of the ones that you would consider
00:09:04
are i've mentioned these several times throughout the videos at walmart target sam's club costco if you have one of those by you and you know you're going to be working with them consistently then i would suggest getting with them maybe you have a local supermarket that has their own card you know like the kroger brand of of um supermarkets um they'll they probably have a have a card i'd say kroger because in different parts of the country they are known under different names but
00:09:35
you're familiar with what is what you're going to be using so get in with that vendor see if they have a credit card if they don't then see if you can find one of those more major credit cards that are going to give you a premium on points for the money that you're going to be spending at each of those vendors and don't rush into a card just because one of those websites says that you should so love the points guy i love nerdwallet they are great resources but just because they say it's
00:10:03
the best small business credit card does not mean it's the best credit card for you do your research don't just rush into it like oh my gosh he said that this american express card is the best one i'm doing it take your time just kind of look at it in general their guidance is probably correct they probably have the general guideline for which card is the best but just because it's best for most people does not mean it's the best for you in your specific situation especially in
00:10:31
assisted living when we're spending so much money on groceries um you might have a better option so just do your research and find the best card for you is what i would tell you to do i don't know that i can give you the best one we have a few different cards that we use actually and i'll get into that in a future video and i'll link that up above and next time we're going to be getting into credit card points for small businesses and how they work so make sure you watch that video and
00:10:59
kind of i'll explain how you can take advantage of this for small businesses and and how it might work for you to learn more about investing in assisted living make sure you visit me on assistedlivinginvesting.net for other content i've got a blog up there and you can set up a consulting call with me would love to have conversations with you and then please follow me on all my other social media platforms and remember it doesn't take a lot just just a little bit just keep going step by step by step keep making
00:11:25
progress if you keep being consistent you will be successful thank you for watching and have a great day [Music]
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