Money Blue Book

Updated List Of the Top Recommended Instant Approval Credit Card Offers Below

These days, with the emphasis towards quicker and more convenient methods of transacting business (contact-less radio frequency credit card scanners, for example), credit card companies are constantly researching ways to improve the speed of credit transactions and the expediency at which they acquire new customers. Currently, most standard online and paper credit card applications take upwards of 2 weeks to a month or longer to get reviewed and approved. For the vast majority of people, this is no big deal since most people are usually not in any particular hurry to get a new credit card. Most people apply for credit cards because they want the long term purchase convenience that they offer, or they want the ability to save money on ordinary purchases by earning credit card rewards and rebate discounts. But there are consumers who simply don’t like to wait weeks to find out whether their credit applications were approved or denied. For those who intend to use their new revolving credit account to pay down debt as soon as possible or make an emergency balance transfer, having to wait up to 4 weeks or longer is often a pretty significant inconvenience. For those types of people, choosing to go with an instant approval credit card offer may be the way to go.

Generally, instant approval credit cards benefit those with exceptional credit scores and credit histories the most. For credit cards that offer or advertise the instant approval option, once the online card application is submitted with all requested information provided, the completed form gets sent on an expedited review track for baseline evaluation and instant processing. The application information is usually immediately transmitted to credit reporting agencies for identity verification and credit score screening. The expedited process may require a few minutes to a few hours depending on the automation speed and the complexity of your financial history, but it’s usually substantially faster than the normal card approval process. Those with excellent to perfect credit scores with no extraneous or questionable personal or business information requiring further follow up may get instantly approved in a matter of a few minutes. The notification may happen online as a instant pop up congratulatory message or it may occur as an approval email that is sent to you a few hours after your application submission. With the same expediency, most instant approval credit cards can provide instant denial as well to save you time. By not having to wait around indefinitely for a decision, your time is freed to immediately pursue another more viable credit card alternate should your first card option be declined, at your own discretion of course.

However, one thing to keep in mind in all of this is that all credit card application inquiries are considered hard credit checks that result in short term negative hits against your credit score. Even if your instant approval credit card application is run through the card issuer’s computer algorithm and promptly denied, the inquiry itself will still leave a residual FICO credit score ding.

Ways To Speed Up The Instant Approval and Credit Card Application Process

It should be pointed out that instant approval does not always necessarily mean instant credit for everyone. Instant approval credit card offers are usually meant for those with excellent credit. Those with bad credit are unlikely to be approved under the expedited review process of instant approval cards. Individuals with poor or damaged credit seeking instant credit approval will likely have to resort to secured credit card offers where cash collateral deposits must be made prior to the extension of revolving credit lines. Those with average credit will likely be qualified for unsecured card offers but probably not get cleared for instant approval, as the credit application will likely be flagged for further manual review.

Those who wish to substantially increase their chances and speed up the credit card approval process should note that credit card issuers tend to have approval preference for individuals from certain financially favorable demographics and backgrounds. Obviously your credit score is the most pertinent and visible evidence of your credit worthiness. However, in my research, I’ve noticed that instant approval credit card issuers tend to offer high preference for those applicants who are married, own their homes, and carry mortgages – over single, unmarried individual applicants who rent their homes. I suspect instant approval credit card issuers use these demographic indicators to make rapid assumptions about the credit worthiness and possible risk factor of potential card applicants.

Keep In Mind That Instant Approval Does Not Necessarily Mean Instant Receipt Of Your New Credit Card

Before instant approval credit card seekers get their premature hopes up, there are certain things to keep in mind. First of all, even for those with perfect credit whereby your credit card application gets instantly approved, you won’t likely receive your actual credit card for another 3-7 days. That’s usually the time needed to set up your credit card account and mail your plastic card out to you. So if you are hoping for the company to provide you a temporary credit card number that you can use immediately, that’s a very unlikely scenario. In the past, many card issuers offered instant account approval along with instant access to your new 16 digit credit card number and expiration date. This greatly sped the approval and card receipt process, but due to the growing prevalence of identity theft cases, the practice has been curtailed. So, don’t expect to be able to print out your credit card number online after your instant or subsequent email approval. Most credit card issuers have halted the practice of issuing temporary usable numbers due to the prevalence of fraud and the need for subsequent verification.

Even though instant doesn’t mean immediate anymore, the realistic benefit of instant approval cards is that you don’t have to wait around in vain to see if you were approved. For example, a few years ago, I attempted to take advantage of 0% balance transfer credit cards and get involved in making money with balance transfer arbitrage. I applied for several 0% credit card offers (none offered instant approval). Only after waiting around for 3-4 weeks did I finally receive notification that I was only approved for some of them. Instant approval card offers help to get around this by greatly speeding up the account approval process. Of course there is still the few days needed for the postal service to actually get the card out to you – that can’t be avoided.

Retail Store Credit Cards Are The Only Truly Guaranteed, Instant Approval Credit Card Offers Available, But They Should Be Avoided At All Cost

While I’m a reward credit card supporter, I don’t recommend that consumers ever apply for one of those instant approval department or retail store credit cards. Department store instant approval credit cards tend to offer the worst interest rates and card payment terms possible. Usually the retail cards will entice consumers with a one time savings discount of 10-20% off their first time purchase but after that, they usually don’t offer any further purchase rewards. Most of these retail cards are also very restrictive in where they can be used and are usually only good for one particular store line. Department stores utilize the marketing power of impulse buying to get consumers to opt for these instant approval retail credit cards that allow consumers to walk into a Best Buy or Circuit City with no money or credit card in their pocket and still walk out with an expensive plasma TV. These retail cards may sound tempting, but they should be avoided. If you want to get your revolving credit line quickly, you are better off evaluating and reviewing instant approval credit card offers online instead.

List Of The Best Instant Approval Credit Cards (For Both Consumers and Businesses):

1. Blue From American Express – 0% APR on purchases for 6 months. Card holders also earn 1 reward point for every dollar charged, redeemable for entertainment, retail, and travel rewards.
2. Blue Cash® From American Express – 0% introductory APR for 6 months on all purchases.  Also earn up to 5% rebate on select purchases and up to 1.5% back for everything else with the Blue Cash card.
3. Blue Sky Card From American Express® – 0% intro APR for 6 months on all purchases. Cardholders also get to earn 1 reward point for every dollar spent with redemption good towards airline travel, hotel stays, and car rentals, with no travel restrictions.
4. American Express® Gold Card – This card is currently offering 10,000 Membership Rewards(R) bonus points when you spend $500 in 3 months – redeemable for a $100 gift card. Earn 1 membership reward point for every dollar you spend, redeemable for travel, shopping, and entertainment rewards. With this offer, the first year’s annual fee is waived.
5. Hilton HHonors® Card Platinum From Amex – Earn up to 50,000 Hilton reward points when you receive the Hilton rewards card. With this card offer, you can also earn 5 reward points for purchases at Hilton locations and at supermarkets, gas stations, and drug stores. You can also earn 3 points for purchases made anywhere else.

I recently read a very interesting online article from an English (United Kingdom) website today called the Times Online (I know it’s a well known site for British people, but I’ve never heard of it before). While the views expressed seem to come from a European perspective, with some interesting but different English terminology used in the comments section such as “blokes” and “birds” (translation: “guys” and “gals”), much of the opinion piece is also applicable to the American experience. The article addressed the familiar but sometimes complicated question of why today’s modern men seem reluctant, burdened, or feel socially awkward when it comes to talking about their moms or when it comes to actually calling them on a regular basis.

Today was Mother’s Day so I did manage to contact my mother who lives overseas with my dad to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. Of course she was quite surprised but happy to hear my message (she is my mom after all), but I think she mostly enjoyed the rarity of it all. I can’t remember the last time I ever gave her a present or anything on Mother’s day (during elementary school maybe), but I think on some level she understands that grown up sons at some point in their lives must exercise that desired financial and social independence from their parents, particularly from their moms. While I do love my mom to death, it is true – there is also something very unattractive and rather unhealthy for a man who is too clingy with his mother and refuses to cut the proverbial umbilical cord.

In General, Boys, Men, and Sons Have A Primitive But Instinctively Driven Desire To Seek Social and Financial Independence From Their Parental Guardians

This common practice and social phenomenon of sons never calling their mothers and only doing so when they actually need something from them seems to be quite prevalent. Haven’t you seen the recent Comcast Digital Voice mother’s day commercial? The commercial was advertising the company’s new digital phone service and was encouraging all viewers, but men in particular, to sign up with Comcast phone access this mother’s day so they could give their mothers a call and wish them well. The funny commercial had scenes of mothers of all countries and languages clutching phones to their ears and systemically fainting to the ground in disbelief as the voices of their sons sounded through the ear pieces. The humorous punch line is that sons never call, thus when they do, it creates such a monumental shock to the mothers that it leaves them dumbfounded.

But the truth of the matter is that most of the male friends I know, myself included rarely call or contact our moms. The more financially and socially independent men tend to be more self reliant and don’t feel the need to call their moms on a daily, weekly or even semi regular basis to talk about nothing in particular. If you asked me when was the last time that I actually called my mom or either parent over the phone, and not counting the times they called me first, I would have to offer you an embarrassed guilty look and say over 6 months to a 1 year ago. Ever since I became financially independent after graduate school and no longer needed to beg my parents for money, I’ve relied on my own abilities to eek out a living. Since then I’ve learned to take care of myself, gotten used to setting my own schedule, arranging my own meals, and keeping myself out of trouble. Everytime my parents call (especially when it’s my mom), I innately feel like I just reverted back to a childlike state in which I am still nagged and coddled by my guardians. Every time my dad calls he always wants to chat about my job or where I’m going with my life professionally and occupationally. But everytime the phone gets handed off to my mom, she starts chatting incessantly and repetitively about my diet, what I eat, what I shouldn’t eat, the importance of needing to cook for myself, and my sleeping habits. The nagging about my living lifestyle could seriously go on and on for hours if I didn’t conclude it at some point. Everytime I talk to them I feel like I’m in elementary school again, but the fact of the matter is I’m not. I’m a grown adult, with a full time job, who is paying the rent, taking care of the bills, and fending for myself as a man should.

The Social Difference Between How Grown Up Sons and Daughters Treat Their Parents

Sexist, stereotypical or not, I think most girls and women are closer to their mothers than boys and men are. Daughters simply are more driven to call their mothers on a regular basis and chat about random things like their eating habits, living habits, who they are seeing, or whether they are happy or not. It’s probably the inherent differences in male and female nature that explain why they treat their parents so differently once they’ve left the family nest. Perhaps women are simply more inclined to pick up the phone and call their moms or anyone else for that matter due to the lifetime motherly bond between them that’s never broken or altered. Maybe it’s how we are molded when we are young – daughters are generally raised to become nurturers, gatherers, and future mothers, while men are usually raised to become grown up hunters, and caretakers of their future brood. When I pick up the phone, I call a person for a specific purpose and not just to shoot the breeze. I always find it strange when some people call for no reason at all then just to chat.

When I was young, I always saw emotional reliance and financial dependence on my parents as a tremendous weakness. My view was that I would never become my own man until I could break away from them and financially fend for myself. I still hold that view today and see single friends in their early and mid 30’s who are still living at home with their moms and dads as pretty strange. I understand there are key differences in certain European, Asian, and Indian cultures whereby sons are expected to live at home with the parents until they marry, but I’m viewing all of this mostly through the classic American perspective that encourages independence, especially when it comes to males. I love my mom very much and she’s done a wonderful job of letting her two sons go off into the world on their own, but I know many other moms out there have trouble letting their little boys become men. It’s important to keep your little solider safe when he is young, but at some point you have to kick him out of the nest for his own good. The best thing my mom ever did for me was to let me be, and let me make mistakes and learn on my own.

Personally, I think it’s natural for men to want to break away from their mom’s embrace at some point. It’s all part of the growing up and rite of passage experience for males. How is he expected to one day take care of his own family if he cannot assert his own independence and take care of himself before letting others help take care of him. Besides, what woman would want a man who incessantly clings onto his mother? I know some women out there claim that they desire a man who loves his mom and treats her well, but obviously what women wouldn’t? Being kind and treating one’s mom well is one thing, but being a mama’s boy and always calling the mom to get her advice and approval is a little strange when the guy starts to reach his 30’s, 40’s or even 50’s. Living at home as a single male and having your mom still cook your food, do your laundry, and pick up after you just seems extremely childish. I have no problem with a girl or daughter calling her mom regularly after marriage, but when I hear about men who constantly feel the need to call their moms to get approvals or give updates, I simply find them to be very wimpy, for a lack of a better word. My mom will always be my mom and she will always have a special place in my personal hierarchy of women, but at some point, sons have to grow up and join the world of men and inevitably leave their moms behind to a certain degree. However, I will always treat my mom with love and respect – but not as a little boy, but as a grown up, financially independent man.

Here are select blog carnivals and blog festivals I participated in over the last few weeks. Apologies for the delay in getting these out (extra curricular duties have been occupying most of my free time). Other than my own article submissions, there are definitively a lot of good finance and frugality articles in the mix worth reading as well. I’ve listed the website links where the carnivals were hosted and the articles I’ve mine that were submitted. At least one was selected as an Editor’s Pick. Take a look!

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Most investors are familiar with superstar investment guru and easy going philanthropist Warren Buffett. How could you not? After all, he’s the single richest billionaire in the entire world and one of the most influential value focused investors. While the wealth snapshot order has swapped places a few times, at least on this recent Forbes ranking of the world’s richest billionaires, Warren Buffett is seated at the very tip of the money stacked totem pole, surpassing even Microsoft uber-geek and fellow billionaire, Bill Gates. But to label him a mere superstar investor would seem to dilute the sophistication of a man who spent a life devoted to a uniquely patient and value minded, get rich slowly type approach to building long term wealth. Warren Buffet is not your typical get rich quick financial motivator, but one who regularly preaches patience, with a keen eye for the undervalued potential of possible long term investments. The Oracle of Omaha, as Buffett is often fondly referred to today, is also the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the corporate manifestation of his immense and massive self made wealth, despite otherwise living and practicing a life of true humility and frugality.

Despite his tremendous wealth, Warren Buffett is also one of the most generous financial figures in the world in terms of how much he has contributed and donated back to society through charitable causes. A few years ago, he gathered up the bulk of his $40 something billion fortune (at the time), and made the decision to donate his money to the Bill Gates and Melinda Foundation as well as to a few other notable charities dedicated to the improvement of health and education in the United States and around the world. How’s that for enlightened and compassionate capitalism? Rather than spend his vast wealth on fancy cars, $2 billion dollar homes, or on over-the-top accessories that even hip-hop rappers would envy, Warren Buffett chose to live a relatively frugal life comprised of smart financial planning and wise long term investments that rely heavily on value choices. As a staunch supporter of wealth redistribution and progressive tax policies that favor the poor, he is also one of the most down to earth CEO business men out there – and yes, that’s him playing his quirky but famous ukulele in the picture.

So How Did Warren Buffett Become So Rich, And What Is His Single Most Valuable Piece Of Investment Advice For New Investors?

I’ve read Warren Buffett’s works and listened to him speak on Youtube, and I’ve come to greatly admire the man. For those that want to emulate his approach to investing and replicate the secret of his success to long term investment growth, his method can easily be summed up in a few short sentences. It is a concept all long term value investors have known all of their lives, but sometimes it takes a great role model to sum it up through a few inspiring words:

“Occasional outbreaks of those two super-contagious diseases, fear and greed, will forever occur in the investment community. The timing of these epidemics is equally unpredictable, both as to duration and degree. Therefore we never try to anticipate the arrival or departure of either. We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

- Warren Buffett, 2001.

The Oracle of Omaha’s way of creating wealth has always been making value centered financial decisions based on principles of frugality and longevity. His ability to continue investing until his 70’s (and hopefully much longer into the future) have enabled him to practice his long term strategy to its full potential. But his tremendous financial success has always been his ability to channel and harness the eternal capitalistic concepts and emotions of human fear and greed. By playing on and understanding the counter correlation between fear and greed, Buffett has been able to shape his outlook to better determine when a presented opportunity represents one that’s worth taking and when it merely represents a potentially risky financial bait that must not be succumbed to. Thus when the stock, financial, and real estate markets are dropping and everyone is hastily running into the hills for their financial lives, Buffett sees an opportunity. But when prices are soaring and flying high – encouraged by euphoria and near unanimous over-optimism and exuberance about future prospects, Buffett clenches down and exercises extra caution.

Learn To Invest Like Warren Buffett By Understanding The Interplay Between Investment Fear and Greed

For capitalism and democratic concepts of wealth creation to thrive, there has to be an ultimate driving force – and that is greed. Greed is good, and as one well known movie put it – greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit and it works. There is nothing inherently wrong with greed as long as it can be properly channeled into a powerful motivating factor to achieve success. But greed has its place – and so does fear. There is a proper time and place when both greed and fear should be acted upon. Upsetting the proper dynamic between the two capitalistic emotions has the potential to lead to disastrous financial results.

Warren Buffett truly understood human nature and the inherent lemming pack mentality that curses most individual stock market investors. When we see a particular financial investment take off and expand two or threefold in a short period of time, we immediately become enraptured over the financial potential, and our greed induced instincts cause us to blindly pursue the investment bandwagon. It is in our very nature to do so. That is how stock market bubbles and even real estate bubbles are formed – through the unwavering lemming effect whereby greedy investors join the rapidly expanding investment pyramid until the base comprised of new entrants can no longer sustain the prices and valuations at the top.

So to succeed financially in the spirit of Buffett’s approach, one has to obtain a more prudent, long term, value-based opportunity outlook. When stock prices are low and dropping, fear causes the majority of people to want to escape and pull their money out of the market in instinctive response. When the markets are seeing red and valuations are dropping, the tendency is to pull your money out of fear. But Warren Buffett sees this moment of fear as the ultimate chance for greed to triumph in the long term. It is not about timing the market, but about looking for the potential upside. When the market has tanked or is tanking, there is much higher potential upside. For undervalued investments, Warren Buffet would see this as the perfect opportunity to take on new positions for the long haul – particularly when the stock or fund fundamentals are sound.

On the flip side, when the entire market is in consensus that a particular investment ought to keep soaring and continue on its upward trajectory, in Buffett’s eyes, that is when cooler heads must prevail and caution ought to be taken. When everyone is in near unanimous agreement that stock prices should keep going higher, the potential for a massive reversal of potential is much greater. When others are greedy, that is when you must exercise fear as a counter intuitive response to the masses. The potential downside at that point is much greater and it’s likely the time to exercise greater restraint. Steps to protect oneself could be to purchase options to hedge against downside risk or to limit one’s investments to less volatile positions.

Thus, if you want to invest like Warren Buffett, heed his most important advice – invest and seek out opportunities when there’s blood on the streets, but hold your cards closely and guard yourself when everyone else seems to be ebullient about financial prospects. It’s counter intuitive to human nature, but it’s the perfect balance and manipulation of fear and greed. Learn to invest in long term value sectors using low expense broad market Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) and low cost mutual funds. Pick out a general low cost online discount broker or open a Roth IRA, and buy and hold investment positions that you believe will grow in the long term, and finally, resist the urge to constantly check your stock prices and bail at the first bump or trouble. Think long term, not short term.

Invest In Value For The Long Term and Understand That Stock and Real Estate Markets Will Naturally Rise and Fall Over Time

Inevitably and invariably, markets ebb and flow, and stock prices never maintain their upward trajectory forever, but at the same time, they also never head downward forever. So long as one maintains a long term investment outlook based on the understanding of fear and greed, we can all learn to profit like Warren Buffett has over the years. Buffett was able to make smart value based investment decisions because he had a long term opportunistic approach to investing. When he acquired control of a simple textile company called Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, he used that company as his primary investment vehicle to acquire and invest in companies that he understood, and retained management services of those he trusted. The key was that he held on. He did not attempt to outplay the market or try to time the market, or guess when he should exit or enter the market. He simply remained patient and sought out opportunities when others were fearful and exercised extra caution when others were greedy.

When the entire world was enraptured with the dot com craze from 1999 to 2001, Warren Buffett was ridiculed for ignoring and failing to cash into the high flying technology stocks that seemed to triple in valuation overnight in leaps and bounds. During this high flying dot com era, Buffett continued to invest his company’s assets towards acquiring old fashioned but valuable investments such as carpet cleaning businesses, roofing enterprises, furniture rental stores, and boring paint making companies. When the stock market finally plummeted and self imploded due to gross over valuation, Buffett’s company was one of the ones that remained unscathed and has continued to prosper since then.