If you're doing it right then your credit card account should be earning you the approximate equivalent of 1% cash back via rewards points or another mechanism. For my personal card I use Chase Sapphire (the one without the yearly fee), which gives 2x points for all dining purchases. Always confuses me when I see people using cash or debit cards. At my current rate of spending I could get a free iPad and a few other goodies every year by doing nothing more than not bothering to carry cash. In fact, merchants have to increase their prices slightly to account for the transaction fees, so anyone using cash is actually (in a small way) paying for my rewards.