I think there's a better way to do this than to control your spending, and that is to control your desires.
That is the key, and why so many will never be able to retire and will only stop working when health issues force them to.
I think there's a better way to do this than to control your spending, and that is to control your desires.
I have had cash back credit cards in the past and they are ok. As I once found out the problem with some of Discover's offerings (and I imagine other offerings as well) is that they are limited. I once bought a few thousand worth of kitchen appliances using Discover during a time period that they offered 5% cash back on home improvement items, only to find out that the high cash back rate was limited to a small amount of purchases since I failed to read the fine print.
(What I did make out on though is that Discover doubled the time for the manufacturer's warranty which save me over $600 in repairs on those appliances).
I find the 2 miles/points for each $1 spent cards to be much more convenient. We use Escape by Discover (unfortunately no longer available, but grandfathered) but there are other similar deals still available from what I have read. Since we travel enough to fully use the credits, we end up getting 2% back on everything we charge and most of our spending is put on that card which is paid off every month.
While I could finagle the various cash back deals and probably do better, to be candid, I have better ways to spend my time.