First, I created a yearly budget based on my needs and my previous spending habits (source). Since I live at home with my parents, they pay for many of my living expenses, including housing, car fees, and homemade meals. I also assume I will pay my monthly balance on time, so I won’t need to calculate APR. In addition, I will not need to pay for the Amazon Prime membership, as my parents already have membership and are kind enough to share. Here is my yearly budget, according to my needs and past experience: Yearly budget: $1,300 Restaurants: $240 Groceries/snacks: $180 (bought from stores other than Whole Foods) Clothes: $400 (bought from stores) Online shopping (books, school supplies, etc.): $240 (bought from Amazon) Entertainment (movies, gifts): $240 I decided to find the rebates of each credit card first. With the Amazon Prime card, I would receive 5% rebate for my online shopping, 2% rebate on restaurants, and 1% rebate on groceries/snacks, clothes, and entertainment, totaling to $25 of rebate. With the Capital One Quicksilver, I would receive 1.5% rebate on all purchases, totaling to $19.50 of rebate. Through these calculations, I saw that the Amazon Prime card provides more rebate than the Capital One Quicksilver. …show more content…
The Amazon Prime card bonus is a $70 Amazon gift card (Amazon website), which is useful as I can use with my online purchases throughout the year. The Capital One Quicksilver has a $100 cash bonus when you spend $500 on purchases in the first three months ($150 current promotion). However, when I calculated my budget for three months, I realized that I would only spend $325. This would mean that I would not receive the bonus for the Capital One Quicksilver. So although the Capital One Quicksilver offers a larger cash bonus, I would not be able to obtain it, leading to the Amazon Prime card being the better