The Personal Finance Podcast - How Many Credit Cards Should I Have? - Money Q&A

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Starting point is 00:00:55 From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. this episode of the personal finance podcast. How many credit cards should I have? What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. Stop your host, Andrew, founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be doing a money Q&A answering your questions. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on the Master Money newsletter by joining the Master Money newsletter and going to Mastermoney.com slash newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast on. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a

Starting point is 00:01:56 five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five-star ratings and reviews. Now, today, you can also check us out on YouTube. If you just search my name, Andrew Jen Cola, you can find us on YouTube and we'll have our podcast episodes in addition to other videos related. to personal finance, money, and business. Now, today, we're going to be diving into four different questions here that you guys have today. The first one is, how many credit cards should you have, and what is the impact of having more credit cards versus less credit cards? And how do I optimize my credit card system as the other part that I'll talk through there? Number two is,

Starting point is 00:02:35 can I use personal expenses on a business credit card? This person is looking to travel hack, and business cards have a lot of extra point bonuses that you can take advantage of. And, so can you use personal expenses on that credit card is one of the questions there. Number three, how do capital gains taxes work in retirement when it comes to a taxable brokerage account? We'll dive into that one. And then number four, how to check if you've been a victim of a data breach. There's been a lot of more data breaches going on. We'll talk about some of those statistics and how to check to see if you've been a victim of one. And I did a check on mine and there was a lot more that I did not know about. So that is a good little tool

Starting point is 00:03:15 and resource that we're going to be talking through today as well. So those are the four things on today's money Q&A. So without further ado, let's get into it. All right. So question number one is talking about how many credit cards you should have. So hey, Andrew, I've been listening for a while now and have a question about credit cards. I have four credit cards currently, don't want any more, and wonder what is the right amount of credit cards to have to maximize my credit score? I spend less than 15% of the max on each and my credit score is in the 780 to 790 range. So first of all, great question. And congratulations on having such a wonderful credit score. You have a very high credit score that you can do a lot with. For most people, I want your goal to be to have a credit score above

Starting point is 00:04:00 725, preferably really 750. And that is something that can happen a number of different ways. Number one, though, is by credit utilization. Now, credit utilization is something I think a lot of people need to understand is 30% of your credit score. This is a very important part of your credit score. When it comes to your credit score, if you're looking to build it back up, I want you to use the 80-20 method for building your credit score that we talk about all the time. So there are three things that make up that 80%. It is 30% is your credit utilization. This is the amount of credit that is being utilized every single month. So your credit utilization is how much of your card are you using? So say, for example, if you use, if you, you,

Starting point is 00:04:42 have a $100 that you are allowed to spend on your credit card and you spend $7 a month, every $7 per 100, it's going to be utilizing 7% of your utilization rate. If you have a $1,000 credit limit and you're using $500, that's a 50% credit utilization rate. But it spreads across all your different cards and your total available credit that you have. So if you have more cards open, one benefit to you having four cards open is that you get to have a lower credit utilization rate because if you're using those cards and you're putting small amounts on each card, you can lower down that credit utilization rate. People with a credit score of 790 or more, typically will have a credit utilization rate of 7% or less is the average. Number two is your payment

Starting point is 00:05:25 history though, like making sure you paying off your credit cards, most people know about this. This is 35% of your credit score. And so making sure your payment history is something that is being taken care of is also another big one. Number three is. is length of credit history. And so the length of credit history is going to be really important when it comes down to your credit score. But this is only 15% of your score. So focusing on credit utilization and focusing on payment history is going to be the big two. And then the length of your credit history, this is why I don't love for people to close their credit cards. I'll tell you what to do here in a second instead of closing them. Credit mix is 10% of your credit score,

Starting point is 00:06:04 minor and new credit inquiries is 10% of your score. So each time you apply for a new credit card, a hard inquiry is recorded, which can temporarily lower your credit score. And since you don't want more credit cards, this is not really a concern for you. But it could be if you try to open up a bunch of credit cards really, really quickly. Now, the optimal number of cards, that's the first part of this question. What is the optimal number of cards? I have a ton of different credit cards because I am big into travel hacking, optimizing points and miles. And so I have, you know, eight to ten cards at any given time. Now, why do I have so many? And why do I think you don't really have to do that? Well, for most people, just having two cards is completely fine.

Starting point is 00:06:47 If you are looking to simplify your finances as much as possible, two cards is completely fine. I think for most people, if you're not trying to travel hack and really optimize everything, two to four cards, four cards, probably your max is going to be really good. You can have a travel card, you can have a cash back card, and then if you want to have two more, maybe you have a business card, if you own a business, and you can have some sort of other card that's maybe a reward's card for something you use a lot. Like Amazon has a wonderful card. If you shop at Amazon a lot, or if you like specific hotel chains, or if you like a specific place that you go to a lot. Outside of that, then you're just really getting the point in Miles game, or if you have more than

Starting point is 00:07:24 that and you have no specific reason for it, then I would reduce and or we can talk about what to do there. So I wouldn't close some of these cards, especially the ones that you've had open for a very long period of time. If you have an annual fee on those cards, the trick here is instead, if you're trying to reduce the amount of cards that you have, is to call up the card provider and ask them, can I downgrade this card? So say, for example, you have the Capital One venture and you have the paid version, which is like $79 or $99 every single year. And you're thinking to yourself, well, I just don't use this Capital One venture anymore, but I have had it open for a very long period of time. I don't know what to do with this. Instead, what you do is you can call up Capital

Starting point is 00:08:03 One and you can say to them, hey, can you just downgrade me to the free version of the Capital One venture? I don't use this as much as I want to. I still want to continue to have this open and I will use it, but I don't use it as much as I previously thought. And the annual fee is just not worth it for me. The benefits of that annual fee are not worth it. Then they will take it and they will go ahead and downgrade you to do the next card and you will not lose that credit history. So that is a hack for you to be able to maintain that credit history over a long period of time. Because again, length of credit history is only 15% and payment history is 35%. So you want to make sure that you are just keeping that role and it'll kind of help

Starting point is 00:08:37 your credit score and help chip away at the old block, as they say. But credit utilization is a big one. So two to four is completely fine. You're in that sweet spot right there. And if you are looking to travel hack more, then you can start to optimize them. And then as you start to hit those big bonuses and you don't use that card as much, then start to downgrade those cards over time. So just continuously downgrading cards is what I like to do to keep the credit history going.

Starting point is 00:09:02 If there's a card that you can't downgrade, then it's time to consider, hey, is the yearly fee worth it or do I need to close this card? So those are the other two options that you have to weigh out if you cannot downgrade that card. So there's no need for more cards for people, you know, two to four range unless you're really trying to optimize points and miles. That's kind of the sweet spot. And I think, too, if you're really trying to simplify, too, is the sweet spot for most people. keeping that simple is going to be really, really easy because A, it helps you just kind of monitor them. You can go through the statements of each of them because as you start to get more and more, you're going to get less and less aware of what's going on with each of those cards because you don't

Starting point is 00:09:38 want to open up four different credit cards every single time to kind of review some of those statements. And so if you get to 4, 8, 12, then it's really important to kind of maintain some of those. Now, the ones I keep open for the travel hackers out there, the ones I keep open, like I'll use one just for my Netflix subscription to actually have that subscription on there, then it just automatically pays off every single month. So I'll put like a specific bill on there maybe. That's a low cost bill. And then it'll get paid off every single month because it's on that free card. And that's just kind of how I keep them rolling for the most part so that they don't just get closed automatically for zero usage. Some places want you to spend a little more on the card. And that would be a

Starting point is 00:10:13 consideration where you'd have to kind of think through that a little bit more. Now, anybody listening to this podcast who has had issues with credit cards in the past, you do not have to have a credit card to have a perfect financial situation. So I would recommend that if you do have problems with credit cards, then you just continue to pay, you know, with your debit card or in cash. But credit cards are the optimized way to pay because you get points in miles and you get more protection. And there's a lot of other reasons that we've talked about on this podcast in the past. So two to four cards is fantastic for most people, unless you're trying to optimize for points in miles. I would stick to that two to four card range. All right. The next question is, can I use personal expenses on my business card? So I love the

Starting point is 00:10:50 podcast and I started travel hacking a few months ago and was able to book the hotel for our honeymoon completely free using Chase Points transferred to Hyatt. So congratulations on that. That is the beauty of travel hacking to anybody who is interested in it is she booked her honeymoon completely free using Chase Points. That's so cool. I have a small business side hustle and saw the massive $120,000 sign up bonus for the Chase Inc. Business preferred right now. I don't currently have a business credit card and spending $8,000 in three months might. be a stress. Could I put personal expenses on the card to help me reach my bonus? Good question. Also, I already have other cards that offer more points for the types of purchases I make. I wouldn't have

Starting point is 00:11:31 much use for the card other than obtaining the sign-up bonus. Would it hurt my credit score if I got this card, obtained the bonus, and then close the card after the first year to avoid the annual fee if I don't use this card. Okay, two good questions here. So number one is using a business card for personal expenses. So let's look at the IRS rules really quick. So technically business cards should be used solely for business related expenses. And mixing personal and business expenses can complicate your bookkeeping and may raise red flags if you ever get audited. Okay. So that's number one. Now practically, it is possible to use personal expenses on a business card when you're trying to meet the spending requirements, but it is really important to keep meticulous notes as you

Starting point is 00:12:14 need to separate those personal and business expenses, especially when it comes to time to file taxes. So like every year, for example, sometimes when I have my business card, I will accidentally, and or sometimes it has to be on purpose, use my business card for personal expenses. So one good example is recently I was at a sporting event. And when I was at that sporting event, my normal card that I have with me, I have this wallet that kind of is mag safe on the back of my iPhone. And I can only carry three cards in there. One is always my license, and then I have two other cards. It's typically one of my business cards, and then it's my other card that I'm utilizing at that time that I'm trying to gain points or whatever else. And the card that I was trying to gain points on, my personal card,

Starting point is 00:12:58 for some reason, the backing came off of that card, so it could not utilize the chip reader. And so if you had to put the card in the chip reader, which usually I tap, I usually don't use the chip reader. But when I had to use the chip reader, I could not stick it in the chip reader because for some reason the backing came off. So I was at the specific sporting event. I didn't know the backing came off yet. Pulled my card out and the chip reader wasn't working because a piece of the card was coming off. I have to order a new card. So instead, the only other card I had on me because my license is my third card in that wallet is my business card. So I used my business card for this personal expense, made note of it, let my accountant know, and then my accountant kind of took care of it.

Starting point is 00:13:36 And he puts these transactions in a separate area that is like, you know, here's some personal expenses that accidentally went on the business card type of thing and has that set up in that way. And so that's one thing you can do. Another thing, though, from separating them is you can prepay some of these business expenses. Like, for example, if you have subscriptions with the business or some things like that, you can prepay for the entire year, A, you save money by doing that, but B, you also can get the sign up bonus by doing some of those subscription payoffs. In addition to, if there's things like, for example, that you need to renovate your home and you have your home office, in your home that you are utilizing exclusively for business, you can do some of those upgrades like

Starting point is 00:14:16 that where you are spending more money. So typically I'll open a business card if I'm going to be spending more money on big buildouts. Like, for example, I just built out a brand new studio for YouTube and all that other stuff in a commercial space. And so because we did this build out, I had a new card that we put into access because I knew I'd be spending thousands of dollars that would help me kind of hit some of those sign-up bonuses. Because you can actually time these a lot of times towards when you think you'll be spending more money. In addition, if you have clients that you're working with and it comes Christmas time or anything like that, you can start to buy them gifts going towards some of that client stuff. So none of this is tax advice

Starting point is 00:14:50 at all whatsoever. You know, talk to your CPA if this would work for you. But at the same time, these are some of the tactics that you can utilize to try to hit some of those sign-up bonuses if you don't spend a lot on your business cards. Now, a lot of my businesses now spend enough to get to those bonuses back in that when I first started them, though, they did not. And so there were some things that you can do to get some of these sign-up bonuses because these sign-up bonuses for business cards are very, very valuable. So anybody who has a business out there who is looking to travel hack, they are very valuable in terms of the sign-up bonuses. So this is something to definitely look into for sure and really good stuff there that you were looking at that. Those are just some of the

Starting point is 00:15:27 quick hacks and tips that I have, but it's always better to make sure that you have business expenses on that card if you can. Number two, though, is the impact on your credit score. So you'll have the hard inquiry obviously up front, which can temporary lower your score. We actually covered that in the first question here on this episode. But then that's usually just short term and it's temporary. Now, closing the card has a couple of things that will happen. Number one, if you close the card, you'll lose the available credit limit, which is a credit utilization differential there.

Starting point is 00:15:57 Number two is closing the card could lower the average age of your credit accounts. But if you've had a bunch of them open for a long time, it's not that big of a deal. But if the card does not provide. ongoing value outside of those points and you're not thinking that the annual fee is worth it. Business cards have even more perks than personal cards. So sometimes the annual fee is worth it. But if it's not worth it, then you can consider downgrading to the no annual fee version. So a lot of times that's what I would do. Chase typically has no fee version cards and they have the ink line across the board, which you can downgrade to some of those free versions of the ink.

Starting point is 00:16:30 So you don't have to close it. So that is another option for you that I would look into as well. and it is something that I do a lot. So you can do that and then maximize the bonus. And then for long-term use, if you don't think you're going to utilize it, you can downgrade to just the regular ink and go from there. Now, the card that you're looking at is a fantastic card. And if anybody wants to look at some of the credit cards we recommend, if you go to the personal financepodcast.com, I usually don't direct you here, but I have a link up top of the personal financepodcast.com that is a credit card link. And that's like all our favorite cards. Those are affiliate links. So if you are going to open up a card and you listen to this show, and you get value of this show. If you want to support the show, that is a great place to do it

Starting point is 00:17:08 in addition to supporting our folks that are sponsors of the podcast. Those are two great ways to help support the show because we're trying to give you as much free value as possible. And so if you can, utilize that credit card link and that just helps support the show, keeps this thing running and keeps the lights on here. So that is another place to look there is I will kind of let you know there. Now also in the master money newsletter, if you guys have noticed as of late, when big sign up bonuses like this come up, we start to notify people in the newsletter. So we have a section called Deals of the Week in the Master Money newsletter. And sometimes it's ways to get a good deal on a checking account. Sometimes it's ways to save money eating out. Like we had a recent one that was like Bogo, Burritos at Mo's or something

Starting point is 00:17:49 like that. But then sometimes it's credit card bonuses and sign up bonuses that are big like this one. And so there's a lot of them out there that you can go check out. That could be very helpful as well. And so I think it's a great card. If you can meet the spinning limit, you can maximize those values. but just figuring out how to meet the spending limit is the bigger puzzle of the two. Hope that helps and let me know if you have any other questions. I remember when I needed to hire someone fast, but finding the right person quickly felt impossible. And if you've ever been there, you know how stressful this can be.

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Starting point is 00:21:03 An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IDPrivatewealth.com. All right, question number three is my question for you is related to capital gains taxes. My wife and I have been fortunate enough to max out our retirement accounts and have enough extra to put into a brokerage account tabbed for retirement. Love it. I understand that when we withdraw these funds from the brokerage account will be subject to capital gains tax based on our income level at the time. I also see that if our income level is below $94,0.50 for married filing jointly,

Starting point is 00:21:44 very true, then we will pay 0% capital gains tax. If we are retired when we start drawing down on this money and we draw down less than $94,050 per year, I assume this counts as income, that we can access the money tax-free. Can you let me know if I'm missing something here? So wonderful, wonderful question. And first of all, if you want to hear a second perspective on this and a kind of a thought process on this, we have an episode with Katie Gaddy, who is the host of the Money with Katie's show. And it's more so talking about how to reduce your taxes to zero in retirement. And so there's a couple of strategies we talked about in that episode. Very good episode if you want to check that out. And we will try to link that up down the show notes below as well. But you are on the right

Starting point is 00:22:24 track with your understanding of capital gains taxes and you're not missing much. But there are a few nuances I would definitely consider based on your specific situation. And this is very key. Like if you don't have a CPA and you're approaching retirement, get one because it's going to help you a ton just factoring this out and planning all of this out. Your accountant will be able to definitely help you through this process too for your specific situation. But let's first look at capital gains tax. Okay. So for most people listening, and it sounds like you understand this, but for most people listening, capital gains taxes on a taxable brokerage account, meaning anything that's not like in a Roth IRA or something like that, there's three levels to it. There's the 0% rate. And as you mentioned, if your taxable income, including capital gains is below a certain threshold, which is $94,000, $94,000 for married filing jointly in the year I'm recording this, which is 2024,000, you could potentially qualify for a 0% capital gains tax rate. Now, 15% rate is if your income is between $94,051 and $490,300.

Starting point is 00:23:23 then you have long-term capital gains. They are typically taxed at about 15%. And then for income above $492,300, then your rate increases to 20%. So not crazy. I mean, it's much lower than the income tax would be for most stuff. Now, for qualified dividends, one thing to note here is if you have any qualified dividends, they are taxed at the same rates as long-term capital gains, 0.15 or 20%. If your income is below that $94,0,000, your qualified dividends could also be taxed at 0%. Now, the key here is that the $94,050 threshold includes all of your taxable income. And this is what I want most people to note. This means this is your wages, if you get any wages at all.

Starting point is 00:24:04 This is your Social Security. This is pension income. If you get pension income, this is also traditional IRA and 401K withdrawals and capital gains all count towards this limit. All of them. So that's how you have the income limit. And then don't forget that the standard deduction currently is $27,700 for married couples filing jointly in 2024 is also subtracted from your gross income to determine your taxable income.

Starting point is 00:24:29 This effectively raises the amount that you can earn before crossing into that higher capital gains tax bracket. Your boy loves the standard deduction if you don't own businesses and things like that. You can get in there and you can get the standard deduction on your taxes as well. So strategy for a lot of people is this is kind of where I would strategize, especially with my CPA, is I would say, hey, how do I stay below this threshold? If you're on the line here, I would say, how do I stay below this threshold, factoring in all my income sources, my social security, and all this other stuff, in addition to making sure I also consider the standard deduction. Because if you can do those two things, you can really come in to retirement paying minimal taxes

Starting point is 00:25:07 overall, which is a fantastic way to save, especially if you're in a place where your cost of living can stay in this range. More power to you. I mean, that is an amazing way to live in a retirement is not paying taxes. The last thing I want to do is pay extra to Uncle Sam. So staying below that threshold, this allows you to get closer to that 0% tax rate. So just be mindful, though, of those tax deferred accounts and, you know, withdrawing from some of them because they are tax as ordinary income and could push you into a higher tax bracket. So make sure you're thinking through that. And then you've got to consider those Roth conversions as well.

Starting point is 00:25:40 So if you anticipate being in a higher tax bracket later, you might consider doing Roth conversions in years where your income is low and Roth IRA withdrawals in retirement or tax. free and don't count as taxable income. This will help you stay within lower capital gains tax brackets. So that's another thing to note. And then future tax law changes, just make sure you're kind of aware of some of those because that's one thing I like to stay up on all the time. Here's a great example of this. Okay, something like a Roth 401k, they're changing the rules on that thing all the time. And honestly, it's exhausting how often they're changing the rules in the Roth 401K. I've had it two instances where I've talked about the Roth 401k on the podcast. And I'll record some of these episodes

Starting point is 00:26:21 like a month in advance, for example. This one is a couple weeks before it comes out. And when I record the episode, I'll finish the episode, and then all of a sudden the episode goes live and I'll say whatever the rule is that I'm specifically talking about. And then the rule changes between that month timeframe. And that's happened twice to me. And it's because they're just constantly changing the rules all the time. And then I have to go back and I have to correct it on the next episode. And it's one of those things that it's wild how often they're changes. So just make sure you're looking at future law changes on some of this stuff and looking through that. But your understanding is correct as the way that you're looking at it. And then the key is managing the income, considering all the sources of income that you have

Starting point is 00:26:59 coming in, because that could take you over and you're not even aware of it. And then taking advantage of the standard deduction is the three things that I would look into. And then making sure you have a CPA in your corner who is also looking at this. Very important. You need a second set of eyes on this, at least in my opinion. And it's up to you. But it's, in my opinion, I think you need a second set of eyes, always, always looking at this stuff to make sure that you were looking at it correctly. Yes, wonderful observation. Thank you so much for the question. That's a fantastic question. And if you have any other questions, please reach out to me and we can help any way we can. All right. So the last part of this episode is, as you know, a couple times a month, usually twice a month.

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Starting point is 00:28:20 finances because if there is some sort of cyber criminal out there that gets your information and they get a hold of your information, what is going to happen? What's going to happen is that they're going to start to Google you and try to find the rest of your information so that they can open a credit card in your name or maybe they can open a student loan in your name or they can use your information for some sort of activity that you do not want them to use it for. And so what Delete Me does is they go to those data brokers and get your personal information removed from the internet. Unfortunately, the regulation around data brokers is not very solid. And so Delete Me can help you in combating that by getting that information removed. So if you go to join DeleteMe.com slash PFP20, that link will get you 20% off a

Starting point is 00:29:01 Delete Me subscription. It is some of the best money I've spent because I spent hours and hours trying to get my personal information removed. And then I finally realized, hey, a friend told me, you don't have to do that on your own. Delete me will do this for you. And they recommended me, delete me. I tried them. They are absolutely amazing. And they did it so incredibly fast. And they continue to monitor data brokers and make sure that you get your personal information removed. And so I absolutely love them. So if you are interested in getting 20% off that service, that is one of the first things that I would be doing. Now, a second thing that you can be doing, because these data breaches are happening more and more and more, and we've seen one where a lot of people got a

Starting point is 00:29:35 hold of social security numbers based on a couple government entities that we talked a few weeks back about. And because of this, we have to start monitoring these breaches. And unfortunately, these breaches are happening so frequently that most people are not taking them seriously. And so there is a website that I have found called have I been poned.com. So how this is spelled is have I been, B-E-E-N, instead of owned, the O is a P-W-N-E-D. So P-W-N-E-D. So have I been P-W-N-E-D.com? And you can see if your data has been compromised to set up alerts, on these incidents. So I'm actually going to do this right now, live on the show,

Starting point is 00:30:18 and we're going to see if my information has been removed this. I'm not associated with this website. I just found it and thought it was cool. It's completely free. It looks like they have like donations for this and stuff as well. So I put my email address in, okay? And when I put my email address in, I'm doing it right now, boom. Okay, I have, how many data breaches do I have here? 19 data breaches. Oh, great. So 19 data breaches with my email address, the one that I use to like sign up for stuff. So one thing I would recommend is getting a separate email address that really doesn't have any information in there, which this was a mistake I made early on, is my email address had some of my information in there. Instead, I made a really

Starting point is 00:30:55 generic email for going forward where nobody's going to be able to kind of associate that back to me. If you put like your last name. First name or your first name. Last Name at Hotmail.com or Yahoo, whatever you use, then you're going to end up with a lot of different issues there. So I would kind of do something like XYZ, 243s, whatever you come up with. just a random email address that can help you with some of this stuff. So I have data breaches from Canva. I have them from Chegg. I have them from Gravitar. I have them from My Fitness pal. MySpace, dang. MySpace is coming up and biting me in the butt. Years and years later. Fun fact, me and my best friend used to have a shared Myspace. That was real cool. Neiman Marcus. We have

Starting point is 00:31:36 Park Mobile, Twitter, T-spring. So there's a bunch of different websites here that I have had a data breach in. So check this out. This is a really cool tool that you can use to check in on some of these as well. And then if you do have some of these incidents, I would make it pretty serious here. One, change the password that you have at that location. If you have it, or just close the account if you don't use it anymore. I'm seeing a bunch of these here. I don't even use anymore. And one of them, I don't even know what it is. So I'm going to go take that off. Two is notified your bank if you see this come up because this website can actually alert you. So you get those notifications immediately. You notify your bank when that happens. And then

Starting point is 00:32:13 you make sure that you can, you know, freezing your credit again, I'm going to say this over and over again until my face turns blue. You need to freeze your credit. It's just part of everyday life now. It's part of, you know, being prudent with your finances, freeze that credit, homies, and then stay vigilant. And then don't ignore some of these data exposures. They may seem harmless. They may seem like nothing's going to happen, but what if something does happen? That's what I want you to really think through here. When it comes to data breaches, it's just not something you really want to play with, is it? It's not really something you want to just ignore. And so just making sure they're going to happen more and more guys. They're going to happen over and over and over again, but we just

Starting point is 00:32:48 got to make sure we have a checklist, a plan to make sure that we kind of take care of some of this stuff. And then just limiting some of the data sharing that you have is important to. You know, it's tough. I would try to kind of, like I said, create an email address and create some information that would help you in a lot of situations so that you do not get nailed on some of these data breaches. The people who do not have a protection plan in place, the scammers or whoever else they are, they are going to go after the easiest to find first. So using Delete Me to Remove Your Information, people who don't have their credit frozen, they're just going to, you know, if your credit is frozen, they're just going to move on really quickly. People who do not have their information out there.

Starting point is 00:33:25 All of this stuff's important. So really, really important stuff to look at and I hope this really helps you guys out by utilizing that tool. Again, it is have I been PWNED? So we'll try to link it up in the show notes below. low too so that you have that available for you and you can check that out use at least the notification service that they give you that's what i'm using right now um and it's free so definitely check that out again thank you guys so much for listening to this episode i truly appreciate each and every single one of you if you guys have any questions please join the master money newsletter and

Starting point is 00:33:54 where you can respond to any of those newsletters that we send out every single week and maybe your question will get answered on a money q&a just like this thank you guys again for listen to this episode, I want to bring you as much value as possible. If there's a way I can do that, please reach out to me and let me know. Thank you again, and we will see you on the next episode.

The Personal Finance Podcast - How Many Credit Cards Should I Have? - Money Q&A

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