What an easy way to make $50. I just got my first payment and look forward to receiving more every two to three months.

All I have to do is use my credit card for everyday purchases, earning reward points every time. Whenever I accumulate 5,000 points, I redeem them for $50 deposited in my brokerage account. I can invest the money, or, with a click of a mouse online, transfer it to my checking account.

I use the Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express Card, the best I’ve found among “investment rewards” cards offered by a number of firms, including Ameriprise Financial, Edward Jones and Charles Schwab.

The Fidelity card charges no annual fee and offers unlimited reward points worth 2 percent of card charges if redeemed for deposits into a Fidelity brokerage account. Charge $2,500, for example, and you earn 5,000 points worth a $50 deposit. (With similar Fidelity cards, you can make deposits into IRAs or College 529 Plans. for more information, go to Fidelity and do a search for credit cards).

You are not required to convert points into account deposits and you don’t need a Fidelity account to get a card. you may redeem points for airline tickets, gift certificates, merchandise or other items. but you get the highest dollar value for reward points by turning them into account deposits.

Since I already had a Fidelity brokerage account, getting the card made sense after a MasterCard I have

from Chase, now called Chase Sapphire, lowered cash rewards to 1 percent on all purchases from up to 3 percent on certain items.

I now use the American Express Card everywhere it is accepted, including the grocery store, drugstore and gas station. to get the most rewards – and save time paying bills — I have my movie rental, Internet, cable television and telephone bills automatically charged to the card.

Of course, I use the card only for purchases I would have made anyway and I pay the card bill in full automatically from my checking account every month.

I turned to a new favorite card because the Chase MasterCard no longer gave me the best deal. I’m not advocating switching cards constantly, which is time-consuming and could hurt your credit standing.

“Credit cards don’t have a free-return policy,” said Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com, a Web site that lets you compare features among more than 1,000 credit cards. “Every time you apply for a card, it is reported on your credit score and too many applications can pull down your score.”

On the other hand, I do advocate matching a credit card to your habits and preferences.

If you pay the full balance each month, something I hope all my readers do, then the interest rate is not that important, Hardekopf said. (I don’t know without looking it up — or care — what the Fidelity card charges, since I never pay interest.) aside from wide acceptance and convenient features such as automatic electronic payments, I want cards that offer cash rewards without annual fees.

“If the card offers you more than 1 percent of what you spend, it is an above-average offer,” Hardekopf said. few cards offer cash back rewards of more than 1 percent, he noted, and the ones that do usually have a minimum spending limit, or the higher rebate rate is part of a rotating reward program with categories of eligible purchases — such as groceries or restaurant meals, for example — changing every month.

Send questions or comments to Humberto Cruz or c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Buffalo, NY 14207. Personal replies are not possible.