The Best Restaurant Credit Cards Offering Cash Back and Rewards

By MoneyBlueBook

Updated List Of The Best Restaurant Credit Card Offers For Eating And Dining Out

I wish I could be like a green garden plant and photosynthesize my food instead of having to buy it. I spend so much money eating out it's sad. I eat lunch at work and usually spend up to $8 for a sandwich. Dinner usually involves whatever I pick up on the way home and it's frequently $10 or more. Food in downtown Washington D.C. where I work can definitely get very expensive.

Luckily there are certain credit cards I can use to soften the financial blow by getting cash back or reward points for eating out. Most reward cards only give a measly 1% cash back, and many of the ones that offer a higher percentage back only offer it for purchases at fast food/takeout places. But there are a select few reward cards that offer a very impressive 3%-5% back for all restaurants, including fast food and even coffee shops! If you're a student who eats out often, a young professional who dines out most of the time, or even a family minded foodie who enjoys fancy restaurants, you might benefit from having a utility credit card in your pocket that will allow you to earn rebate rewards and cash back discounts for such meal expenses.

Here is one of the more popular cashback rewards credit cards for eating and dining out:

TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express - This card is brought to you by Costco and is meant for Costco warehouse club members. This card offers...

By MoneyBlueBook

Costco used to have the most generous return policy I've ever seen in the history of shopping. In early 2007 they finally changed it, but previously, Costco's policy permitted anyone to return anything with or without receipt at any time, so long as you remained a Costco member. There was no product limitation, no time restriction, and no restocking fees. It was essentially a lifetime warranty on steroids. :)

Obviously this policy was ripe for abuse. I knew people who bought expensive CRT television sets from Costco, only to bring it back several years later to return it for store credit. Even without the receipt, they could still exchange it for a brand new flat screen model many years after buying the first one. Although legitimate, some returns were pretty outrageous and I'm surprised Costco let it go on for so long.

I'm a Frequent Returner

I never took full advantage of Costco's return policy to such an extreme extent but I must admit that I used to be and still am a compulsive and frequent returner. In the past I would frequently buy a whole assortment of items with the intention of only keeping less than half of what I bought. My plan was to try them all out for a while and eventually return the ones I didn't want. It didn't matter if I had already thrown the tags away or worn the items for a while, the stores always took the items back and refunded my money. I still take gratuitous

By MoneyBlueBook

I do a lot of online shopping shopping. In fact, I'm looking to buy a cheap laptop soon and will absolutely buy it online. Other than groceries or items I need right away, I try to plan ahead and purchase everything through the internet where I can often obtain the best deals.

Here are the basic steps I take when I am looking to buy something online at the best price possible:

1) Use Froogle

My first stop is to compare prices using Google's Product Search engine. The program used to be called Froogle but Google changed the name a few months ago. Personally, I liked the old name better and still refer to it as Froogle. Not a whole lot of people use it, but I use it often.

Froogle works the same as your usual Google search engine except it compares prices based on your keyword search. It scours the web for store and auction prices and surprisingly yields a decent size list of results. It gives you an idea of the range of prices online retailers are charging.

2) Use eBay

After I have a general idea of the range of market prices, I visit eBay to run keyword searches of the item I want to buy. As I mentioned in an earlier eBay related post, it is always best to run several searches using different combinations of keywords to maximize your chances.

After factoring in the cost of shipping I compare the eBay total selling prices with the Froogle prices including shipping to

By MoneyBlueBook

I'm your typical guy. I enjoy following sports and I generally find shopping to be tedious and sort of boring. I can handle online shopping, but clothing shopping at a brick and mortar store for me is a major hassle and I always feel like I'm getting ripped off. $80 for a sweater...oh my. $65 for a dress shirt...goodness gracious. $65 for a pair of khaki pants...holy...

The scary part is that these are prices for men's clothing. I can only imagine how much women have to pay for their clothes. Historically, women's clothing have always been much more expensive than that of men's. Who knows why - material maybe? But that's a discussion for another later day.

I Prefer Shopping Online

So where does a reasonably frugal person like me shop? Well I'm definitely a point and click shopper. I do the vast majority of my shopping online since it's much more convenient and substantially cheaper as well. But clothing is one of those things that you really need to try on before you buy. Fit is important and frequently, clothes look different online and in magazines than they do when you're wearing them.

Malls Are Not My Thing

I enjoy the mingling feel at I get when I'm at the local mall but I really can't stand shopping there for too long. Shopping at the mall wears me out physically and I just don't have the stamina for it. The funny thing is that I like to run and have no problem running half marathons, but

By MoneyBlueBook

Well after a few years of having Costco membership, I've finally decided not to renew it anymore. The cost savings I got from buying in bulk simply wasn't adding up to justify the membership fee. I love their cheap tasty pizzas but I'm fed up with having to drive such a long way to get to the nearest store and having to put up with the extremely long lines at the checkout counters. At Costco, I probably end up spending more money than I ordinarily would, buying products that I ordinarily wouldn't buy, and wasting more time waiting in line than I would at a nearby grocery store, like Giant or Safeway. I think they are a great company, but they need to open up more stores and organize a quicker checkout system.

Buying in Bulk Is Only Worth It For Large Families Or Those Who Have A Need To Shop In Large Quantities

I currently do not have my own family so buying in massive bulk doesn't make too much sense for me. If I was married with kids that might be a different story since the kids would probably help to consume everything.

Most of the items at Costco come in huge portion sizes and you often end up buying mega size items that you wouldn't ordinarily buy. Have you seen the size of their cereal boxes? It's huge! Yes, buying in bulk allows you to spend less money per serving but it's only worth it if you are able to consume it within a reasonable

By MoneyBlueBook

Did you know that for the vast majority of purchases, it's almost always cheaper to buy online? The internet is full of great online deals. I've pretty much stopped buying anything at brick and mortar stores aside from groceries and basic day to day personal items. Even for groceries I've lately been researching and investigating how to buy them cheaper online. I'll write a post about buying groceries through the web when I have accomplished something to write about!

Use Shopping Portals Like Ebates, Jellyfish, and FatWallet to Save Money

If you're going to shop online, don't forget to use cash back shopping portals like Ebates, Jellyfish, or FatWallet (formerly known as FatCash). They offer links to everyday stores such as Priceline, Expedia, Target, Macys, and Dell Computers, but best of all they give you a percentage back as a cash rebate for shopping through their links.

How Do I Earn Cash Back Or Points?

Here is how the shopping portals work. You sign up and register through the portal of your choice. If you're like me, you sign up with all three of them and comparison shop between the portals every time you're about to order something. This is because the portals offer slightly different cash back percentages for different store links.

Next you browse around an online store's website until you know what you want to order. When you're ready, you sign into your shopping portal account and locate the store's corresponding link on the portal's store listing. To have