Since I pay off my credit card balances every month, I make almost all my purchases by credit card in order to get the rewards points. I’ve switched the primary card I use a few times looking for the best rewards program, and recently I noticed the promotion for the American Express TrueEarnings card at the Maui Costco:

• 3% back for gasoline
• 3% back for restaurants
• 2% back for travel
• 1% back for everything else

Rebates come in the form of an annual rebate certificate that you can exchange at Costco for cash or purchases, and there’s no annual fee provided that you have a Costco membership automatically billed to the card (you get 1% back on this, too). Going over my expenses over the past year, it looks like I’ll get a rebate of 1.5%. You can go to their online calculator to calculate your annual rebate.

Personally I like American Express. The one time someone compromised my card, I received a phone call and was able to resolve the issue with no hassles. Other card companies sometimes treat you like an accomplice in the crime and demand notarized sworn affidavits in order to reverse charges. I’ve also taken advantage of their automatic no-cost rental car insurance when I was involved in an accident in a rental years ago. While it wasn’t completely hassle-free, it was a good enough experience that I’d definitely recommend using your AmEx for renting a car. AmEx also offers extended warranty coverage up to 1 year on your purchases, which a friend of mine used when his stereo died 9 months after the original warranty ran out. That, combined with a good deal he found, allowed him to upgrade to a much better system for free.

Have you found a better deal in a rewards program? Let me know in the comments.

This probably sounds pretty obvious to a lot of people, but if you’ve lost your job, file for unemployment benefits as soon as you are no longer working.

I’ve known a few people who’ve lost their jobs and seemed reluctant to file for unemployment benefits. They figure their financial situation is not dire and that they can get by with their savings and severance packages until they land a new gig. I’m not sure if this is a matter of pride, an inability to deal with a highly stressful situation, or pure laziness.

The fact of the matter is that if you’ve had gainful employment, then you’ve been paying for unemployment insurance directly and indirectly, and now’s the time to collect on that insurance. The benefits aren’t much; the maximum in California is $450 a week if you earned an annual salary of $47,000 or higher. But they should take the edge off your unemployed status and give you some breathing room until you find a new job that’s comparable to your old.

Benefits can start the week you are unemployed; you may not get benefits for up to one week, starting from the time you file for unemployment benefits, so you’re best off filing as soon as you can. With almost 1 in 10 workers facing unemployment, processing times can be lengthy. Again, you’re best off filing as soon as you can.

California Employment Development Department – Unemployment

I recently bought a Zojirushi EC-BD15 Coffee Maker to replace my old coffee maker. The problem I had with the old one was that it kept coffee warm by continuously heating it, which quickly “burns” the coffee and makes it somewhat unpleasant. I’m the kind of person who will hit snooze a few times in the mornings, so if the coffee maker starts a little too early, the coffee will be lousy by the time I get to the kitchen.

The Zojirushi and other thermal carafe coffee makers don’t use a hot plate at all. It heats water to a higher temperature and funnels it into a vacuum bottle-like carafe, which keeps the coffee hot for hours. So it doesn’t matter if I’m not around to pour off a cup right after it’s done brewing, it stays pretty consistent throughout the morning. An added bonus of this model is that it seems to be pretty good about not spilling a drop from either the basket or the carafe. My old coffee maker consistently dripped from the basket onto the hot plate or from the carafe onto the counter.

Of course, if you happen to set the coffee maker going without having the carafe under it like we did this morning, you’ll just get a big mess all over the place. But at least you won’t have a hot plate covered in layers of burnt coffee and peeling paint.