Debitize

There is another service which I have begun to use recently which I would like to spotlight in this blog post called “Debitize”.  You may be thinking that that name is a cross between debt being baptized or being made bite-sized.  It’s neither, but it does have to do with a concept that anyone whom has ever used a debit card from their bank is familiar with.  This company is doing something with debit or the concept of debit, but what?  I will not keep you in suspense, but it may not be what you think because if I told you that they are actually freeing people to utilize (see that rhyme with Debitize?) their credit card like a debit card, you probably wouldn’t have thought that.  Debitize also has a few other features I will discuss later.

The Reason

Nevertheless, how I came to be interested in this service was that I must have heard about it on one of the podcast.  I am avid listener and I thought it solved one of the money disagreements my wife and I have about my insistence on using credit cards for damn near everything.  She is afraid, that knowing herself, she might overspend if she uses credit all the time.  Before I came along, she was more of a debit kinda girl, and as a matter of fact, I was also until later in my 30s, even more so this past year.  I found out the tremendous power of what it is to have credit card rewards, especially those with huge signup bonus, being applied for everyday purchases you make.

At that point, I saw that it is pointless to use a debit card because you are leaving money on the table, of course that is if you are responsible with credit and don’t carry balances.  I digress, but she was the type that would use her debit card and know when she had to stop based upon how much was left in her checking account.  So, you see Debitize is kinda bridging the gap between us both concerning the use of credit because, I can now convince my wife to use credit cards without fear of overspending and do what she is used too doing to manage her money.  She will be doing what is comfortable to her within the debit concept model and I get to continue to to capitalize on credit card rewards for the both of us without the heartache.

How It Works

What happens behind the scenes is you create a login to Chase Sapphire Preferred, the amount of the purchase will be deducted from your checking within a day or so, likewise to what a debit would do, but with a little more latency.  So, if you or my wife in this instance were to get a little credit card happy, when she looked at our account, she will see the balance has gone down, perhaps too quickly, as would I ?.  The money has been deducted, but to where?  It goes into your debitize account and here is a beautiful feature, Debitize will pay down any balances for you with the money that has been transferred to your account automatically on a weekly basis ahead of the due dates for your credit cards.

There is an email notification process of whenever they are moving your money whether sending or receiving.  You do have some flexibility to carry a balance, as there are times in which that might be necessary, but I don’t recommend that you carry credit card balances, and you can pause transactions that you don’t want debitized.  They also have a feature called credit optimizer which will ensure that one of your cards is paid down to no more than 2% utilization, so that this looks favorable on your credit report.

If we are trying to automate our finances, than our life just got easier as we would no longer have to login to any websites and see what the balance is and marry up do I have enough money to pay for it all and then pay the bill and do it all over again next month.  Since I have started blogging, between work, drop-shipping, and other things, I just don’t have the time nor do I want to waste time doing that.

The Issues

I want to fully disclose that Debitize are still working out some kinks in their service, but the guys running the company have been very receptive and ensured that issues are addressed.  I had a bit of a problem with my account in that the balances on my Chase are not being pulled in correctly.  My understanding is that they had just made a change to new service provider and being in IT myself, I know first hand that shit happens when you are making changes.  Although this is the case with my account, my wife’s account is working fine.

I would still bless this service as they are in the right place and this solves a problem which I mentioned above between my wife and I views of use of credit cards.  It helps me get some of my time back having to pay or remember (more on mistake I made later) to pay bills on time.  You still should be diligent in ensuring your finances are kept in order, but for the most part you can go a bit on auto-pilot and watch, when the bill is due, it lands in your bank OK.

Highlights

• Most major banks are supported
  
• History of transactions are aggregated on the site
• Credit card Optimizer
• Automatic Bill Payment
• Transparent email notification of received/sent money
• Flexibility to pause transactions from being debitized
• Get credit card perks and rewards without the risks

An Unspoken Benefit

In listening to one of the co-founder on the Listen Money Matters Podcast, he mentioned something too that I didn’t even really think about in terms of the unspoken benefit of using a credit card when it comes to the protections you get for product purchases and the layer of protection you get in cases of credit card fraud.  You just need to report it.  If you were using a debit or only had a debit card and your card was compromised, you would be out of your money right now and trying to put back the pieces and recoup your money and the bank may not move as fast as you need them too to recover what was lost; whereas, if it were a credit card they have a vested interest, but it’s not on your time and money.  Although, you will have to go through hassle of getting new card and changing out if you had auto pay on it or something.

I’m a big proponent of using credit cards, and that didn’t happen to be one of the reasons for doing so, but now I’ll add that to the list.  The bottom line is, I love love the opportunity to accumulate travel reward points/miles, cashback as a result of using credit cards and I am very responsible with my credit, so when it comes to a way to simplify my life by using a service like this, I’m all in on Debitize.

Note: Links to sign up for Debitize and Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card can be found on my Affiliate and Referral page here.

PS: Please share your experience if you are already using Debitize by leaving a comment on this post.  Also please be sure share this content to your friends and family if you find it useful.  I thank you in advance.