How I’m Controlling My Spending With A Pre-Paid Cash Back Debit Card

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I have spent the last few weeks using my new American Express Serve Cash Back prepaid debit card. As I was deciding how best to use the prepaid debit card to help us stay on budget I thought it would be a great idea to load it with our grocery allowance and use the app to easily keep track how much we’ve spent and have remaining. And that was a GREAT idea, but then I came up with an even better one.

As it turns out it is our day to day spending that is really putting the strain on our budget. Specifically the amount of money we spend eating out. I am spending five days a week driving the boys all over Atlanta and unless I pack a lunch or wait until 1:30 when we get home I end up eating lunch while out and about. Eric works downtown and is horrible at remembering to bring lunch so he pretty much eats out every day. This is killing our budget. I decided that I would use my new American Express Serve Cash Back card when dining out throughout the month.

It has been awesome! I have easily been able to check my budget using the mobile app and see how much I’ve spent and have remaining. I also set up a low balance notification to let me know when I had spent half of the money I had loaded on the card. When I received that email and was no where near the middle of the month I knew I had to pull back on the spending. October is obviously far from over and just a couple of days ago I received an email telling me that my card was out of money. I definitely have some work to do but this should be VERY helpful and it is the only pre-paid debit card that gives me cash back! For every dollar I spend in a store or online I get 1% cash back.

Eric and I have already decided to set him up with an American Express Serve Cash Back Prepaid Debit Card. It’s so easy to do and this way we can both monitor how much we spend eating out on a day to day basis. No more waiting for me to login to our financial software and make sure all the categories are correct and then check to see how much we’ve gone over budget. This way will also allow us to easily track or spending separately. We use joint accounts and have had no way to distinguish which dining out purchases have come from whom. 

Make sure to register for your American Express Serve Cash Back card today so you can budget better and get cash back all at the same time! How will you use your card?