Should I Use My Visa Shift Card for Everything??steemCreated with Sketch.

in bitcoin •  7 years ago 

I've had my Shift visa debit card for a few weeks and am really loving making regular purchases with it. If you're not familiar with what a Visa Shift card is.. it's basically a Visa debit card that allow you to use your Bitcoin from your Coinbase account like you would a debit card.

bitcoin-debit-card-visa-shift-card.jpg

So far, I've used it for gasoline, Starbucks, McDonald's, bowling, and a movie. The transactions always go through and there are no exchange fees or miner fees for the transactions. When I spend $5.87 at McDonald's for instance, Coinbase just sells $5.87 of Bitcoin at the current rate and sends it to Shift to cover my McDonald's purchase. It's very easy and a great deal when prices are trending up.

So here's my thought.... should I just throw buy bitcoin on coinbase from time to time and then use my shift card for just about everything I want to buy? Is anyone doing this????

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I really enjoy the shift card, it was a well spent $10 BTC, I love how everywhere I have used it so far it works! I had to upvote and follow because this was a good post!

Are you using it for everything or just every now and then?

I have used it at alot of stores, and also like at wallmart to get cashback after a purchase. Also I use it at some local places here in Portland, Oregon like some of the places on the show portlandia..coffee shops and weedstore atm's and stuff. Yeah all sorts of places really, it is as good as my paypal mastercard, im impressed!

meep

Nice to see you pop in here meep! the legend continues!

meep

So for me whenever I try to connect it to coinbase it says "We hit a technical error" Did this happen to you? And what can I do? thanks! :D

Interesting post. Questions so I can think of your question more clearly: 1. Do you have to pay any one time fees or annual fees for that card? Do you get any kickbacks when you spend $X (like points or cashback)?

From what I know already, you are probably paying around 4% to get cash into Coinbase, no? So your btc needs to go up that much just to make up for that cost. You can also setup a recurring payment to Coinbase so it fills it up automatically (buying btc to have ready to use your visa shift card, like topping up). So it really comes down to initial fees, do they cover the costs compared to using a typical visa which gives you usually 1% back (which unfortunately is a mutualized cost between you and the merchant, as in, the merchant jacks up the prices to cover this, so really, you pay for your own points and cashbacks :)

The only fee I pay for the Shift card is a $10 one time fee to get the card. There are no annual fees and/or recurring fees. Yes, it costs me a bout 4% to buy BTC at Coinbase. My thought was to just buy BTC weekly with the fee and then use the card to pay for my lifestyle (which is pretty simple).

I use my steem and SBD from here, and sell for BTC, and load that onto mine to spend. So that way you never have to buy it, if you can make enough on here, that would be lit! I bet you could make $50 or $100 a week on here soon, and that would be great to exchange into BTC to load on there every week. I had a post I made a few months ago for example that made $53 about the west coast electric highway , and 7 days later you get the steem so you could do that once a week easy!

Sounds like a good plan. Mainly for 2 reasons:

  1. By investing a regular amount at a scheduled frequency, you'll be dollar cost averaging BTC which, overall, is the best way to invest in it.
  2. If you were to use this visa only when the price is at least 5% higher than the last buy (and staying within that amount), you can break even and actually be bridging using btc and old mediums to start using it.

Just like if you spend less than you make, here, if you spend less than you invest, you'll spend profits and gain capital. All the while the only risk is what is on the exchange (ideally you move extra amounts to your own wallet).

I like the idea.

Thanks. I am going to go all in I think and give it a try.

Actually, you can deposit money from you bank account into your Coinbase USD wallet, then go to GDAX which is owned by Coinbase (same login username and password) to do a Limit Buy and there are no fees. I do the same thing in reverse when I am transferring money from BTC back into my bank account.