Card.com Prepaid Cards to Help You Budget In Style

I do not own one credit card. That’s right not one.  Our family firmly believes in the Dave Ramsey approach of using “cash” and staying away from a credit card. (more on this to come in another post!)

But there are certainly times when you need to use a credit card.  For instance when renting a car.  And sometimes you may not feel safe carrying around your budgeted cold hard cash.  This is when a prepaid card can come in handy.

So check out Card.com Prepaid Cards.  This is a debit card, like the one from your bank, and you can use it everywhere Visa is accepted.  But the beauty is, you can use several options for loading money on the card.  And speaking of beauty- they have tons of fun designs to show off your personal style.

Here are some of the “selling points” on using a Card.com Prepaid Visa card:

• Free to order, activate and load
• Free app and check deposits from your smartphone
• Free direct deposit
• No overdraft fees — never goes negative!
• Safer than cash – 24/7 support, Visa fraud protection and 100% FDIC insurance on funds
• No debt, financially responsible, no interest/credit/APRs
• No credit check and approval in seconds
• 22,000 in-network ATMs
• Thousands of cool, unique card designs to choose from, including brands like: Garfield, Popeye, Betty Paige, James Dean, Care Bears, Walking Dead, Star Trek, Autism Awareness, Breast Cancer Research, Shark Week, Where’s Waldo, Doodle Jump, etc.
• Free for 30 days – then $5.95 monthly fee, which is waived when you direct deposit over $800 in the previous 30 days.  This fee is the same as the Walmart prepaid card and less than their competitors. It’s also much less than overdrafting your bank account, paying for a checking account or going into debt using a credit card.

I was given the opportunity to see just how easy it is to use a Card.com prepaid card. My card came pre-loaded, but they offer several ways to load funds (direct deposit, PayPal, Wester Union…) And don’t worry, they even have video tutorials to make the process smooth and easy.  The hardest part was choosing my fun design.  I decided to go with a pretty floral from the “Nothing is Ordinary” line.  Isn’t it pretty, kind of matches my wallet too.  I used my card just yesterday at Kroger.  Swiped it just like my debit, chose “credit” and signed on the line.  No probs!

Not only would these cards be great for safely using a “cash” system, but I think they could be great for a college student too.  Instead of running up debt on a credit card, the student and family members could add funds right to this card for late night pizza runs and text book purchases.

What do you think of Card.com? What design would you choose?

I was given a preloaded Card.com Visa card to try for review.  All opinions are my own.  And please be sure to read all program descriptions before use.