Thanks, Kristin, for taking a practical approach to personal finance instead of a ‘holier than thou’ attitude.

An easy way to ensure that you consistently redeem rewards is by having them redeemed automatically. For example, my capital one card is set to automatically cash out rewards as soon as they reach $100.

This was a great article bringing the whole decision into perspective. I’ve got a blog post (http://penniesanddollars.com/buying-vs-rent…) laying out when home buying makes sense financially, but of course there is still the emotional and time costs of owning a home.