Debit card safety tip of the day:

Have multiple checking accounts when using debit cards.

1 is for daily spending (eg food, gas, misc shopping) 2 is for all your monthly bills, checks, etc.

The debit card for account 1 is what you carry on you and use at the pump, store, restaurants, etc., and card number 2 goes into a lockbox at home.

Remember, every time you go out to eat and the server walks away with your debit card, you're trusting all of your money in that account to your server who's probably not making much more than minimum wage. They could take a picture of your card and run up charges online and you'd never know it until it's too late. And this kind of low-grade identity theft happens to people every single day!

Lastly, NEVER set up overdraft protection on account 1 to draw from from account 2. Going from 2 to 1 is fine though. This way if someone ever gets ahold of your card from account 1 they can't drain your accounts since getting money back from a debited account is MUCH more difficult and time consuming than a plain old credit card, which is limited to $50 out of pocket thanks to consumer protection laws.

First things first, when you get pre-approved credit cards in the mail, please check the terms. I got this today and the terms are absolutely insane. I can't believe people fall for this stuff.

If you're in the market for a credit card and you have bad credit, the only one I can recommend is a secured card with a low limit until you get back up over 700, and preferably 720+ so you get the best terms.

If you're not able to control yourself with credit, then you really should follow the Dave Ramsey model and just not have one.

For those of you who can use them responsibly, then consider rewards cards with cash back and pay them off every month. As always, if they have an annual fee then find another company's offerings. There are so many good cards out there, there really is no excuse for having a card with terms like the ones below.