Citi Mastercard pays me to buy my own groceries!

I have a limited monthly budget allowance for luxuries. But no matter how small (or large) my paycheck is, I will always buy groceries, gasoline, medicine, and pay my utilities every single month in full, in cash. Wouldn't it be great if a credit card would reward me for using it in the places where I actually do spend the most money every month... in the basic necessities of my life?

With Citi Dividend Platinum Select Mastercard, you can earn 5% cash back for the first 6 months on all of your supermarket, drugstore, gas station purchases, and utility payments, and 1% cash back on all other purchases, up to $300 per year. After the first 6 months, you will continue to earn 2% cash back on all of your supermarket, drugstore, gas station purchases, and utility payments, and 1% cash back on all other purchases, up to $300 per year. And you can earn an additional unlimited amount of cashback rewards per year when you shop through the Citi Bonus Cash Center affiliated merchant program.

My initial interest rate on this Citi credit card was a pleasing 10.99% with no annual fee, and 0% on all balance transfers for the first 12 months. But beware, the initial interest rate may be as high as 14.99% or 18.99% and the 0% balance transfer may only be for 6 months depending upon your own credit history. If I had any complaint with this credit card, it was that my initial credit limit was not very high, merely 5% of my declared annual income, to make this one of my smallest credit cards in terms of how much I could charge or transfer to it compared to my other cards. And I have not signed up for any of the sign-up offers to be able to evaluate them fairly.

I have been so happy with Citi Mastercard that I have since stopped using all of my other credit cards. It is very convenient for me to budget and track all of my grocery, gasoline, pharmacy purchases, and cable/internet on just one monthly bill. If I could, I would put my garbage, gas and electric bill on my Citi Mastercard, too, but those local utility companies don't accept credit cards. Because I've paid off the entire balance monthly for the last few years, my credit limit has been increased to 20% of my annual income while my interest rate has been lowered to 9.99% on purchases.

When I've built up at least $50 in cashback rewards, I can request my rebate check from Citi Cards, and it arrives in my mailbox within two weeks. But I like to use my rebate check for Christmas shopping, so I let the cashback rewards build up all year long and request my rebate check in November. Does it get any better than this?