Site Seeing: The Good Doctor

As I perused a helpful website I’ve taken to regularly visiting over the last year or so, it dawned on me that it might be useful for others if I highlighted sites that I enjoy and have benefitted from financially (and, perhaps, otherwise). And for readers to maybe share the same. 

So, I consulted with the writers, editorial staff, and publishing muckety mucks of the FI for the People media empire. Which is to say, I asked myself a question. The muckety mucks raised all sorts of questions and sowed no shortage of doubts as to whether this effort would be met with anything but sheer boredom approval by the readership . . . as muckety mucks are wont to do. Unluckily for you, Dear Reader, the muckety mucks greenlit the project.

So, here we are.

Spot on

Now, the site I’m going to shine the inaugural spotlight on isn’t necessarily my faaavorite website. Or the most helpful site. But good and helpful it is. And anyway, as it’s the one that provided the inspiration for the post, it gets said spotlight.

So, let’s all give a rousing huzzah! to Doctor of Credit (DoC), today’s profile website. 

Doctor who?

You may be surprised to find out that the DoC (presumably the mastermind behind the DoC website) is not a licensed medical physician. In fact, I’m not even sure if the good doctor ever graduated medical school. Or even went to medical school. Or any school for that matter. But let’s not quibble about DoC’s credentials for performing this or that critical operation. Or prescribing this or that life-sustaining medicine. 

No, DoC is a website that, every day, posts info about, among other things, various deals—at retailers, on online websites, and otherwise—and on new credit card bonuses and benefits, and on bank account sign-up bonuses. 

Discovery channelled

I likely first discovered DoC in 2016, after earlier that year learning/reading about travel hacking. The site has a ton of information on on the credit card sign-up bonus front, which is really all that I’d have been looking for content on at that point. 

But, wait. There’s more. Much more.

After the Right Honorable Financial Panther started posting somewhat regularly about bank account sign-up bonuses a few years ago, I discovered that DoC has a trove of great info on that topic, too. So, off I’d saunter to visit DoC every few months or so.

As my bank account sign-up habit grew in 2020, so, too, did my visit-DoC habit. It was sometime later that I realized that DoC posts multiple times a day about various deals that come up daily, in addition to the posts about credit cards and bank accounts.

Full disclosure: most deals featured on DoC aren’t ones that I qualify for or have any interest in. But some are winners, and those come along weekly for me, if rather irregularly. So, paying regular visits to the good doctor has been useful.

About a ROI

DoC has helped me in multiple ways. First, I’ve taken advantage of a few credit card account sign-up bonuses as a result of information that I came across on DoC. That’s netted me travel points translating into a few thousand dollars in free travel.

Second, the good doctor has provided me with information on bank account sign-up bonuses I’d likely never have learned about. That, too, has put into my pockets few grand that’d otherwise have remained in the pockets of fat-cats bankers. 

Last, I’ve learned about random deals I’d otherwise have been unaware of. For example, DoC once posted about a grocery store at which I regularly shop offering gift cards for 10% off. I consequently hoovered up several of those gift cards and will enjoy a 10% discount on groceries for, probably, a year or more. As another example, I’d booked some flights on Southwest and later, learned via DoC that the airline was offering flights for 50% off. I then checked the fares for the flights I’d booked, discovered that the pre-discount prices hadn’t changed from when I’d booked the flights, and then cancelled and rebooked to take advantage of the 50% discount. Good times. Good times.

Add it up

All told, the total value of savings and revenue generated for me has been about $4,000. That’s mostly from credit card and bank account sign-up bonuses, with the rest coming from random savings on this or that. And, although I discovered the site about five years ago, most of the benefits I’ve enjoyed have come in the last two years. So, my annual benefit has ratcheted up pretty significantly.

And in the end . . . 

I came clean earlier by cautioning that the DoC likely is no medical doctor. But, physician or not, the good doctor is no quack.