Side Hustles, Bonuses, and Credit Card Hacking

I know I have talked about this before, but last week Birchie did a round up of her bank bonus and credit card hacking side gigs, and it sparked a fire in me. If you know me, you will know that I already had all of this info handy; I just had to put it in a cohesive post. So let's get started. If this stuff makes your eyes glaze over, skip to the end, where I give you two suggestions for beginners and/or the non-financial people of the group! 

I started my credit card hacking journey in 2005. I signed up for the Chase United Visa and the Chase Marriott Visa and I got roughly 60,000 points for each of them as bonuses. Both cards had roughly a $100 fee. After that, I used only those two cards for the years I was traveling for work and through this, I sent my parents to Scotland on first class, sent myself to the Philippines, and supplemented my hotels for my 2008 South America and my 2010 Round The World trips. Bottom line is that from 2005 to 2023, these cards probably got me thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars worth of "free" flights and hotels. Of course, the best part about this, is that much of the money I put on those cards was for work expenses, so, thank you unnamed company that I used to work for! I think they have since gone to corporate cards, but at the time I was there, you could put everything on your own credit card. This also got me Premier status on United for years (no longer though!) and lifetime Titanium Elite with Marriott. 

I also just finally used up the rest of my United points on our flights to Germany, so now I have basically none left. Because of this, and the $95 fee, I downgraded my United card to a zero fee card, mostly so I could keep the twenty year relationship stat, as that does help when you are applying to new credit cards (they look for your longest relationship). 

I am not telling you all this to brag; my point is that sometimes credit card hacking is an excellent way to get "free" money. The best way is to get the sign up bonus and use that for free travel. Like Birchie said, if you don't travel, this may not be that exciting, and you should also make sure that you can pay off the credit card(s) every month or it is not worth the interest you have to pay on it. 

But let's get to the fun stuff. Over the last 14 months, I have received some bonuses, not just from credit card hacking, but also from moving money into a brokerage account. This worked out great for me, as I had to move my accounts after I quit my job, so at that point I searched to find out which firms had the best bonus, and I moved my funds to them. I actually ended up going with more than one, as that was the best bang for my buck. Is this a little hard to keep track of? Not for me, especially with the apps that we have now, where you can just pop in and look at them whenever you want. Also, before this year, I opened two different high yield savings account for the same reason, but I will not get into that in this post. 

What odd "side hustles" did I have last year? 

#1. Selling crap stuff on the internet! Like I mentioned in this post, I sold a lot of stuff on the internet in 2024 and did make some money but I am not sure that the time involved is really worth it! I would estimate that I got about $3,500 but the hours involved were plentiful and this is of course on things that I probably spent five times that much on. That is a complete ballpark, and maybe if you depreciated everything it would not be that much, but my point is that obviously something is better than nothing, but I did not "make money" from this gig! Net income = negative! I also sold my car, which I paid about $10,000 for in 2016, for $4,000 after using it for 8 years. So, it cost me about $750 per year to "rent" it (or $2.08 per day, not under the $1 per use rule!). 

Selling camera gear. Sob. 

#2. Brokerage Bonuses. I will not get into actual dollars here, but currently Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, JP Morgan and E-Trade all have bonuses if you transfer a certain amount of money to them and keep it there for a certain amount of time. You can usually find updated information on this at the Bankrate website. Like Birchie said, you can also find bonuses for checking accounts, but I did not go down that road. 

#3. Credit Card Hacking. Although the cost of the cards I opened is around $700/year, the bonuses that I got ended up netting me about 500,000 points, which if you value them at $0.01 per point just to make it easy (it can range from $0.005 to $0.025, but generally if you get "cash back" for them, it is at around $0.01), would be about $5,000 worth of points. Now, obviously if I let them sit and do nothing, at some point in the future, my cost per year will catch up to my bonus amount. However, I do not plan on doing that! 

In the last year, aside from the United flight, I have also booked three hotels using points and the value for the rooms was around $1,000 in total. I also booked my flight from Canada back home using a credit and so that flight also saved me about $250. So basically, I have already utilized enough points to make the $700/year fees worth it for this year. 

However, let's get to the dark side. As Birchie mentioned, the talking heads on YouTube often talk about "all the perks" and how "you basically are getting this card for free," etc. Also the credit cards themselves will say the same thing. However, you really do need to look at the fine print and see if they do actually make sense for you, based on where the best point value is, and whether or not you will use the credits etc. 

Dark Side #1. The portal. Sometimes the card will give you more points if you use the portal to book something, or they say that you get it cheaper, or you may be able to use your points to book in the portal, but this is not always a better deal. Sometimes the deal is much better on Booking or on the hotel website for example. Also, you can use points to pay off your credit card at $0.01 per point, which is not maxing out the value. You could possibly transfer points to a hotel or air partner and get a value of $0.015 - $0.025 cents of value per point instead. 

Dark Side #2. The "credits." Many times the card will give you credits for dining or travel but there are usually caveats. For example, the AMEX Gold says that they will give you $100 in Resy, $120 in UberEats, $120 in GrubHub and $87 in Dunkin Donuts credits each year. If you add that up, you would get $427 in credits for a card that cost $325. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, they issue the credits only if you use the service and usually only on a monthly basis. For example, UberEats is a $10 monthly credit, only credited if you spend more than $10 in that particular month at UberEats. The Resy credits are only once per half year. So you can't just go and spend $120 at UberEats in one go and get credited. For me, the credits are worth maybe $100 if that, as I don't really use these platforms. 

Dark Side #3. Other perks. Many of these cards come with additional perks. It may be TSA Pre, travel insurance, car insurance, extended warranties on purchases or even free returns on some products. They also may have lounge access or food credits in airports. Some of these items are worth it to me and some are questionable. For example, lounge access. I have a card with this and last year I barely flew, so did not really get to use it. However I did fly, once from Canada to Portland and back, once from Halifax to Vancouver, and once from San Francisco to Frankfurt. In all of these cases, the terminal I was in did not have a lounge. So basically for now, I am 0 for 3 as far as getting any value out of my "free lounge access." However, I did rent a car for two days, and the insurance would have cost me about $60, but it was covered by my card. So that one is worth it to me. <---- by the way, remind me to tell you about the time I got scammed by the rental car company and my AMEX saved me! 

The verdict? I guess I will give the classic answer on this, and the verdict is that doing any of these things depends on your situation, so some of them may be worth it and some, not so much. If you have all the time in the world, putting something on FBMP and letting it sit until someone wants it may makes sense. If you are trying to offload a lot of stuff in a short time, it may be better to put it on the curb. Brokerage bonuses do require possible account or cash transfers, and more paperwork at the end of the year. Credit cards can offer good perks if you use them right! I guess the bottom line is that I will probably quit my selling stuff online side job and stick to the credit card hacking. 

I also plan to do a review of my cards at the end of this year and see which ones were actually worth it and which were not, and will then cancel one or two of them depending on what I find out. 

Where can you find out more? You can see what cards I currently have on my Tips and Hacks page. Other resources: The Points Guy, NerdWallet, or Bankrate. Happy hacking! 

If you want two suggestions here they are: If you rent your house, you can pay with the Bilt credit card, which has no fee, no bonus, but gives you 1 point per dollar spent on rent and 2-4x points on other things. To put this in context, if you pay $2,000 a month, you will get at least 24,000 points, which can be transferred to American for basically a round trip flight, or to Hyatt for about 2 nights in a hotel. I don't have this card, but here is an article on Nerdwallet about it. 

The second one is the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which does cost $95, but if you spend $4,000 in the first three months, it has a bonus of 60,000 as of this writing, which is valued at about $750 (put in context, a US RT flight can be found for about 25,000 points, so you would get about two of these), and it also gives 3x points on dining and 2x points on travel. You get free DoorDash too, which is worth nothing to me, but may be worth something to you! I don't have this card, but I have other cards that use the Chase Travel Portal and am happy with them so far. 

What is your favorite life hack? Do you have any side hustles? Do you know if any of your credit card have any perks? 

Looking Back: 2024 Money Pie

If you are a long time reader, you know that every year I reveal my spending for the year in the form of my favorite kind of pie, a money pie. Okay, not really; I actually prefer apple with a side of vanilla ice cream, but as I have mentioned in my Money Monday posts, I do think the number one step to financial freedom is tracking your expenses so that you know (a) where your money is going and (b) how much you would need when you retire or (c) what you would need in an emergency if you lost your job or something like that. Knowledge is power. 

Luckily now there are many different ways to do this, the easiest probably would be by putting everything on one credit card and then just looking at their breakdown at the end of each month, quarter or year. However, I love Excel and pivot tables and so I continue to do my recap by using Fidelity Full View to aggregate my spending, downloading that to Excel and then playing around with it in Excel a bit. You could just use Fidelity alone, but I like having some extra info, like what country I was in and whether my meals were breakfast or lunch. That is just me though and most people don't need this level of detail. 

2024 was a strange year for me though, as I was only in a permanent place for the first three months of the year, and then I sold my house, which cost me an arm and a leg, and also made this the year that I spent the most in one year that I have ever spent before. This was despite the fact that once I started traveling, my average spend per month was about $2,600 a month. So this year's recap will be a little different; first I will show you the pie with the home costs included. Ridiculous, right? 

Also, here is a chart showing month by month. As you can see, I sold my house in May, and also had to pay for an (expensive) plumbing job in Octotober. 

Next, I will talk about the costs excluding the home costs, since when I have them in, they make all the other slices way too tiny and skew the data too much. 

From most to least, excluding the home category, here is where my money went: 

Accommodation: 32.31%. This includes Airbnb, motels, hotels, camping, a subscription to the Warmshowers (cycling accommodation swap) network and a subscription to the Trusted Housesitters (pet sitting) network. 

Shopping: 15.85%. This category includes toiletries, clothing, misc. home items & appliances, electronics and books. I also put any cycling related items in this category, which is why it is so high. I spent a lot of money on bike maintenance, bike accessories and gear, and I also got a new laptop. I probably should have put the bike mainenance in the transportation category, but...I didn't, and in 2025 I won't really have to worry about that as much. 

Dining Out: 11.86%. This category includes eating out, coffee, booze and ice cream. This one is crazy, and way higher than normal for me, probably because I had 19 breakfasts, 43 lunches, 42 dinners, 48 coffees and 10 ice creams out, plus various drinks and snacks, bringing my total number of times dining out in 2024 to 192 times or basically once every two days! Yikes!! As a comparison, in 2023, this number was 52 (6 breakfasts, 16 lunches, 12 dinners, 16 drinks including coffee and 2 desserts), so I nearly quadrupled my normal amount. 

When I stayed with or met up with people I often bought them a meal, so the dollar amount is a little higher than it would be otherwise. However, time spent with friends is priceless and so many of them (you!) were willing to put me up, and I appreciate that! 

Groceries: 10.05%. Despite being on the road for much of the year and therefore having to buy groceries in smaller (more expensive) quantities, and more often (I went to the grocery store 162 times in 2024!), I only spent about $700 (or $58 per month) more in 2024 than I did in 2023. Go figure! I would have assumed it would have been a lot higher. I guess only being able to carry so much on the bike kept me from overbuying! Also I definitely dined out more than I normally do, so much of my food cost probably went to that.

Utilities: 8.95%. This cateogry is a new one for me, as I was putting some of these items in the Home category before, or the Misc. category, but now they bascially cover most of my fixed costs, aka non travel costs, such as computer security, credit card fees, phone, computer software, cloud storage, and subscriptions. I do pay a lot in credit card fees, but I used the bonus points from these to pay for four tickets to Germany, so I think it is worth it for the time being. I will reevaluate at the end of 2025 and will cancel any that are not worth paying for anymore. 

Health: 8.59%. This category includes health insurance, out of pocket costs, massages, medicines and vitamins etc. I did most of my medcial stuff before I quit my job, which did cost me a little bit out of pocket, but the bulk of this is from my monthly insurance premium. 

Transportation: 7.40%. This includes airfare, Lyft/Uber, public transportation, car insurance, maintenance, registration, gas, tolls, car rental & parking. Most of the cost here was gas, trains (I took Amtrak three times and Via Rail Canada once) and ride share, because when we were done riding from Canada to Mexico, we were in the middle of nowhere and it cost $250 to have someone pick me up and take me and my bike to El Paso. 

Misc.: 4.83%. This category includes gifts, haircuts, legal fees, tax prep software and education expenses. I had to pay some taxes out of pocket. The biggest expense here was gifts by far; the second biggest was my CFA yearly fees, which cost about $300 per year. 

Entertainment: 0.16%. This category includes music, theater, sporting events, museums, tours etc. However, the only thing I did was one "free" walking tour in Seattle, but otherwise, my entertainment in 2024 was mostly riding through or past places, walking around in towns, or eating, which is covered in a different category.  

So, 2024 was a little unconventional and I am looking forward to seeing what 2025 brings. Just for fun, if I took what I spent for the year minus the home category and prorated it then adjusted it to be over a year again, I would have spent about 67% of my normal spending for the year at home in the Bay Area. This seems a little high so I am wondering if I will spend less for a year of international slow travel than I did for a year of moving every day but camping sometimes. 

What do you think? Do you think I will spend less or more in 2025 than I did in 2024?

In 2025, I will give actual dollar amounts per month and will also break down which country I am in so that I can compare these at the end of the year. I know that some places I plan on being are known for being cheaper, but I am also curious to find out if some of the places that we (I) assume are more expensive end up being cheaper than I thought. 

Do you track your spending? What was your highest spending category? How many times do you think you went to the grocery store and/or dined out last year? 

By The Numbers: November

November was the month of pets, and also I only had a few fun rides, but nothing big. I did start to run a little bit, and have been doing a ton of walking, and am still trying to get my steps each day! All of the below numbers are as of November 30, 2024. 

My accountability buddy

Mileage To Date:

Total Days on the Road: 252

Total Days Ridden: 154

Days Ridden in October: 1

Total Miles Ridden: 8,600

Miles Run: 43 (the most miles I have run in a month since March!)

Average Steps per Day: 10,200 (phew!) 

Accommodation To Date: 

Airbnb: 12

Established Camp: 35

Friend: 36

Housesitting: 47

Motel: 70

Warm Showers: 9

Wild Camp: 40

Train: 3

Total Days: 252

Total average cost per day: $32

Verdict: November was only one night in a hotel and the rest of the time I was housesitting. Obviously this brought the average cost down. 

As seen on my Thanksgiving day run

Total Cost: November

*Please note that I eradicated my travel category since basically all my costs are what I would have categorized in travel before. 

Accommodation: $75 (↓ from October) Includes any place where I rested my head for the night. In November this included housesitting (29) and a motel (1).

Dining Out: $174 (no change from October) Includes coffee, ice cream shops, snacks and meals at a restaurant, including bakeries and the train canteen. This was still down about 30% from the average for this trip. Once again, being in one place helped, but basically the majority of this amount was in one day spent at the Seahawks game. Those beers are pricey! 

Groceries: $234 (↓ from October) Includes food and snacks from a grocery or convenience store. This is down 23% from the average for this trip. This is likely due to the fact that by housesitting especially for longer periods, I tend to be able to shop less often and cook more real food rather than eating grab and go type things. 

Health: $234 (same - insurance premium) Includes my health insurance and any costs for health care (which I have luckily not had!!!). I am hoping that next year I will be able to lower the amount of the premium, but I do expect to pay out of pocket for some things (for example, I need to get my teeth cleaned and I am going to need new contacts) while I am abroad. 

Misc.: $195 (↑ from October) Includes CFA membership, shipping, gifts, personal care. This month was higher due to gifts. 

Shopping: $2,058 (↑↑↑↑ from October) Includes costs associated with cycling maintenance, cycling gear, running and camping gear and other clothing or toiletries. And electronics!! Sigh. I had been holding off on buying a new laptop because I cannot carry two on the bike and did not want to do any organizing while on the road, but now that I am more settled, I bit the bullet. And it hurt. Hopefully this laptop lasts me as long as my last one, which lasted about ten years. I calculate this as a cost per day of about $0.27, which is pretty darn good! To get that cost per day with the new one, it will need to last 15 years. Wish me luck. This is not all electronics though; I did finally buy some new undies (yay!), some TP (double yay!) and a couple of merino tops that I found on sale and could not pass up. 

Transportation: $27 (↓ from October) Included an Amtrak ride and a few local bus rides. 

Utilities: $273 (↑ from October) Includes a monthly breakdown for the following, even though some of them are charged only once per year: phone, subscriptions, credit card fees and internet security (NordVPN & McAfee). 

Total Spent: $3,286 (↑ 20% from $2,750 average and ↑ 37% from October*)

Verdict: *If I had not bought the computer, this would be my lowest cost month for travel. However, these things happen, so I am keeping it in. Also, full disclosure here, I also still had some home related costs over the last months, so my total spend this year will be more than I have ever spent in one year. 

I am looking forward to next year when it will be more of a "clean slate" and am still considering trying to have a budget of around $2,500, although I know that since my first destinations are in Europe this will not be as easy. However, 2026 will probably be in a lower cost area and so I feel that even if I am over in one year, I will be under in others. Also, I love me some croissants and am not going to skimp on things like that. Croissants are the new ice cream!

To end this number heavy post, here are a few recent stats! 

Favorite Ice Cream: My little cousin (she is 13) made homemade ice cream for Thanksgiving. Yummy. 

Favorite New Town: I really enjoyed Bellingham, but also Northeast Seattle is very pretty too. Towns near water really are the best. Seattle itself is not "new" but I really do like it too. 

Favorite New Water Related Venue: See above, but I will say Lake Washington, even though there have been some good Puget Sound views too. 

Lake Washington

Lake Union

Favorite Food Item: I had an excellent carnitas taco at Tacos Tecalitlan in Burlington, WA. 

Favorite Book: The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

Okay it's your turn!! Have you read The Mountains Sing? Are the Christmas decorations out in your neighborhood yet? 

Money Monday: How to Save on Taxes

Disclaimer: Tax evasion is illegal; tax avoidance is not. I am not a CPA, financial advisor or tax attorney. Please consult a professional for personal advice. 

Who doesn't want to save money on taxes? Here are a few ways we can do this! 

Health Savings Account (HSA). If you have an option to do this, it is a good idea. Why? Because you can put money in pre-tax, and invest it until you need it for medical costs. If you spend it on medical, it is tax-free on the way out too. It also rolls over, so you never lose it, and you can transfer it if you leave a job. Some jobs offer this, but even if others do not, you can still get one on your own and get a tax write off at the end of the year. For 2024, you can put up to $4,150 for singles or $8,300 for families. If you do not use it on medical by the time you are 65, you can withdraw it with no penalty for any reason, but you do have to pay tax. You can also pass it on when you die; for a spouse it will be tax free, but if it is to another, they will have to pay income tax on the proceeds. 

Who can invest in an HSA? If you have a high deductible health plan (HDHP), you can invest, even if your employer does not offer this. You can open an account at Fidelity or various other brokerages fairly easily. Once opened, you can transfer money in, and they will keep track of how far you are from the cap. 

Donations. If you donate regularly, it may be worth doing it all in one year rather than year after year, especially if that amount is higher than the standard deduction. For example, if you donate $3,000 a year, consider donating $30,000 this year and nothing for the next ten years. I know this is a lot, but it could save you money on taxes if you can afford to make a bigger contribution in one year. You can also open an investment account (called a DAF) where you can put all of the money this year and then donate a little bit each year to the charity or charities of your choice. 

The other thing you can do is donate stock. Let's say for instance you bought $1,000 worth of Nvidia ten years ago, and now it is worth over $300,000 (don't you wish?) If you sold $30,000 worth, you would have to pay capital gains taxes on somewhere around $29,900 in profits. But if you donated $30,000, you would get to write off a $30,000 donation, and you would still have $270,000 worth of NVDA. So you would kind of "save twice" on being taxed. 

Speaking of capital gains. For those of you who don't invest, there are many good reasons to do so. One of them is that you can play the system in several ways. 

Way #1: Harvest losses. You can sell any stock that has a loss and claim up to $3,000 in losses each year against your ordinary income. What does this mean? This means that if your taxable income is $50,000, by having a loss of $3,000, it brings this down to $47,000, thus lowering your taxes by roughly $1,000 if you are getting taxed 30%. You can buy the stock back after 30 days and still keep it, but you can "harvest" the loss first. Many people do this every year! 

Way #2: Step up in basis. If you have stock, like NVDA, that has gone up in price a lot, you can save this for your heirs, and when you pass it on to them, it is as if they bought it on the day of your death. This means that if your heir gets your NVDA and they sell it a day after you die, they do not have to pay any taxes on the gains. 

This is also a rule for property, so if you pass on your property to your heirs, they will also get a step up in basis, and the "price they paid" or their "cost basis" will be as of the day of your death. 

On the flip side, if you have something that has a big loss, this may be used to offset a gain you have somewhere else, so may be worth selling before you pass away rather than giving this to your heirs. Capital gains on sales net off, so if you needed some income for example, you could sell one thing with a loss and one with a gain so that you have proceeds but don't have any tax implications. Also, losses carry over, so if you sell something and get a $10,000 loss but only take $3,000 against your income, you will have $7,000 in losses left for next year (and beyond). 

Way #3: Harvest gains. If you have a stock like NVDA, and you cannot afford to pass it on to your heirs, it may make sense to wait until you are not working any more to sell it. By doing this, you don't have any (or have very little) income coming in and you can sell it little by little so that you don't get into a higher tax bracket. Also, if you make less than a certain amount (for 2024 this is $47,025 for singles and $94,050 for married people), your capital gains are taxed at 0%. So basically, if your social security is $2,000 a month ($24,000/year), as a single, you could sell enough (to have less than $23,025 in gains) to stay below the cap and you would not pay taxes on any of those gains (you will still pay tax on your SS income, but this is beyond the scope of this post). 

Last but not least, in investing, it is good to have a little of each account type (IRA/401k, Roth IRA, regular taxable brokerage account, regular savings account) so that you can make the most of them depending on your situation. Especially if you are going to stop working before 59.5 which is the age you can usually take from your retirement accounts without penalty. However, there are ways to make it all work, and to save money on taxes too by having one of each account and taking from each depending on your particular timing. 

The other thing you may not realize is that at a certain point you are required to withdraw from your retirement account (currently it is 73 but it keeps changing and is supposed to change to 75 in 2033). This is called an RMD (requirement minimum distribution); depending on how much you have in your retirement account, it may make sense to withdraw a little each year after you are 59.5 so that you are not hit by a larger amount later on. This may not be an issue, but it is worth keeping an eye on. 

Do you do any of the above things? Do you have any investment accounts? At what age do you plan on retiring? 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my next ask me anything post!!

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

Money Monday: By The Numbers: October

Finally, things have simmered down enough and it is time for my monthly spending recap, along with a few other random stats! For the month of October, my bike trip was slightly winding down, and I spent a lot more time visiting and housesitting than I did riding. All of the below numbers are as of October 31, 2024. 

Montreal bike (they were everywhere!)

Mileage To Date:

Total Days on the Road: 222

Total Days Ridden: 153

Days Ridden in October: 10

Total Miles Ridden: 8,540

Average Miles Per Day Ridden: 55.8 (vs 56.57 as of Sept 30)

Max miles per day: 101

Accommodation To Date: 

Airbnb: 12

Established Camp: 35

Friend: 36

Housesitting: 18

Motel: 69

Warm Showers: 9

Wild Camp: 40

Train: 3

Total Days: 222

Total average cost per day: $39

Verdict: Although October involved a lot of housesitting and stays with friends, the motels were more expensive than normal and there was no wild camping. This only brought the average per day down from $40 to $39. 

Total Cost: October

*Please note that I eradicated my travel category since basically all my costs are what I would have categorized in travel before. 

Accommodation: $1,106 (↓ from September by $15!) Includes any place where I rested my head for the night. In October this included housesitting (13), Motel (9), Friend (5), Airbnb (2), Established Camping (1) and Train (1). 

Dining Out: $174 (↓ from September) Includes coffee, ice cream shops, snacks and meals at a restaurant, including bakeries and the train canteen. This was down about 30% from the average for this trip. This is likely due to the fact that I was not on the move as much so could plan my groceries and meals out better. However, I did go out and get food in Montreal and Quebec a few times, and went out with Elisabeth! I feel like this was more quality than quantity though. 

Groceries: $254 (↓ from September) Includes food and snacks from a grocery or convenience store. This is down about 20% from the average for this trip. This is likely due to the fact that by housesitting or staying with friends, I tend to be able to shop less often so can stock up on more things. 

Health: $234 (same - insurance premium) Includes my health insurance and any costs for health care (which I have luckily not had!!!). I expect to go for my colonoscopy procedure in the next six months and it will be interesting to see what the out of pocket is for that with my new insurance plan. (by interesting, I mean please don't hold your breath!) 

Misc.: $33 (↑ from September) Includes CFA membership, shipping, gifts, personal care (as you can see, there is not much of that happening)

Shopping: $4 (↓ from September) Includes costs associated with cycling maintenance, cycling gear, running and camping gear and other clothing or toiletries. The $255 average for this trip is mainly because I've spent about $1,100 on bike maintenance, which equates for about 62% of this category. Luckily in October, I barely spent anything! Bob sure is high maintenance! (*Dad joke)

Transportation: $169 (↓ from September) Included one flight for me and Bob and a couple of local bus and train rides in Montreal and Quebec. Why is it so low, you ask!? I used points for a lot of this, which I talked about in my last Money Monday post! 

Utilities: $232 (↓ from September) Includes a monthly breakdown for the following, even though some of them are charged only once per year: phone, Garmin charges, subscriptions, credit card fees and internet security (NordVPN). 

Total Spent: $2,205 (↓ 20% from average and ↓ 27% from September)

Verdict: Pretty much all categories went down from September and most were lower than the average for the trip. I am still trying to figure out what I should target for my budget for next year, but I am thinking that $2,500 a month may be a good number to start with. I do think that there will be a couple of things that I will need to upgrade next year (for example, my normal travel backpack is from the 90s!) but hopefully they will not cost more than the cost of bike maintenance, so it will even out. 

This brings to total spent for seven months to $18,407 or approximately $2,600 per month. The highest month is still the Tour Divide (July) and the lowest is April with October coming in second lowest.

Verdict: Being on the move more or trying to go faster equals more expensive for the most part. Being able to slow down and buy things in larger quantities and stay in one place for a week really does make a difference. 

To end this number heavy post, here are a few non-cycling related stats! 

Favorite Ice Cream: The Real Scoop in Wolfville. 

Favorite New Town: Wolfville, although Mahone Bay was pretty dang cute

Favorite New Water Related Venue: Hubbards Bay or Blomidon

Favorite Food Item: I really loved the family dinners at Elisabeth's house! However, I had a blast getting a loaded poutine at La Banquise in Montreal. Was it touristy? 100% yes. However, it was still a lot of fun and it was very filling! 

Favorite Book: God of the Woods. I will be doing a post about what I read later, or you can find my list on my Goodreads page here! 

Okay it's your turn!! Have you read God of the Woods? What was the best (or worst) thing you spent money on in October? What month is normally your highest spending month? 

If you haven't already, you can fill out this form with any questions you want answered for my upcoming ask me anything post!!

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

Money Monday: Credit Card Hacking

Let's talk about getting to travel for free! 

But first, I realized in last week's post that I kind of jumped into the middle of the saving topic without covering the basics! However, for those of you who have not seen some of my prior posts, I do think that if you are just going to do one thing, it should be to pay into your 401k (403b/RRSP etc.) at least up to whatever your employer will match. If you don't have an employer who offers this, there are other ways to save, but I will cover them in a future post! You can find posts about a lot of these subjects on my Tips and Hacks page, but also here are a few of my favorites.

Every Quarter Counts: Three Tips for Growing Your Wealth Early 
Saving My Latte For a Rainy Day: Saving for Retirement
Make a Dollar Out of Fifteen Cents: What I Splurge and Save On 
My Last To Do List: Trusts and Other Documents 

The second thing that I think is important is to pay off all of your credit card debt. I did a review of a friend's finances once and the two things that really stood out to me were that (a) he had multiple charges for some subscriptions that he hadn't even realized because he was not looking at his statements and (b) he was not paying off his credit card in full every month! This can really add up! 

For example, if you have a balance of $5,000 with 25% interest rate and you pay it down $100 a month ($1,200 total), by the end of the year, your balance will be unchanged, at about $5,056, and you would have paid about $1,256 in interest that year. If you pay it down $200 a month ($2,400 total), your balance would be about $3,700 and you would have paid about $1,100 in interest. You would have to pay $475 per month to get it down to $0 by the end of a year, and you would still pay about $700 in interest. That is a lot of money to pay to the credit card companies! Obviously there are emergencies, but I think putting money aside for them in advance is much more prudent. 

So before I begin this post, I have to throw out the disclaimer that you should not do this if you can't pay off your card in full every month. Now let's talk about credit card hacking! If you are unfamiliar with this, it involves opening a credit card to get the welcome bonus, using the points for free stuff and possibly closing or downgrading the card later. Personally I like travel related cards, and Chase has one of the best values for that, so let's talk about that first. Side note: to my foreign friends, I am sorry, but these are US centric cards. However, please feel free to go to the bottom and let us know what card you use or any tricks you have to get the best value for your money!! 

Travel card ($600 - $1,500 bonus value) / $95 annual fee. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is currently offering $300 Chase Travel Credit + 60,000 bonus points (please verify by going to their site). What does this mean? Basically this can be worth anywhere from $600 - $1,500, depending on how you use it. Once you spend $4,000 in the first three months, you will get 60,000 points, and when you purchase any travel related items through their portal you will get up to a $300 credit. This includes the obvious things like flights, hotels and car rentals, but also has activities and cruises. 

For the points, at the very least, they can either be used to get cash back or buy gift cards at around 0.01 per point (value of $600) or you can use them to purchase travel through the portal, which is usually about $0.015 (value of $900) or you can transfer them to airline or hotel partners, which is where you can get the best bang for your buck. For example, if you transfer these points to Hyatt and use them to book a hotel room with points, the value will be about 0.02 per point ($1,200). This card does have a $95 annual fee, but it also gives you a $50 annual statement credit for hotels booked through their travel portal, so if you use this, it is only $45/year. This card also gives higher points per dollar in categories like travel and dining out and has no foreign transaction fees. 

In conclusion, if you travel at least once a year, this card may be a great fit for you! And if you don't love it after a year, you can cancel or downgrade to a no fee card. Basically with the current welcome bonus, you could stop using it after you get the bonus and still get value out of it for approximately six years (or more). If you travel a lot, you may want to go with the Chase Sapphire Reserve which gives you extra perks like lounge access and TSA Pre/Global Entry, but comes with a higher annual fee. 

Cash back card ($200 bonus value) / $0 annual fee. If you don't really travel a lot or you don't spend a lot on travel related items, you can get the Freedom Flex card, which currently has a welcome bonus of $200 after you spend $500 on purchases in the first 3 months. It gives you 5% cash back for a quarterly rotating bonus category, which includes groceries, gas, Amazon and pet services, which if you max this out, could equate to $300 per year. It has no annual fee and a 0% introductory APR. There are tons of different cash back cards with different % for different categories, so a combo of best bonus + best % for what you spend on is the way to go! 

Hotel card ($500 - $1,000 bonus value) / $99 annual fee. If you travel at least once a year and stay in at least one hotel/motel per year, I highly suggest getting a hotel credit card. I think the current best bang for your buck is either the IHG Premier or the Hyatt card. Let's talk about the IHG card. This is good for hotels like the Holiday Inn, Intercontinental and Staybridge Suites (list here). The good thing about IHG is that they are literally everywhere, versus places like Hyatt and Marriott which are sometimes pretty few and far between (or very expensive). 

It currently has a 140,000 point bonus (please verify by going to their site), which they state is up to 4 nights free, but I just booked a Holiday Inn Express in Strasbourg for ~24,000 points per night, plus with this card you get the fourth night free, so my four nights cost me 71,000 points, so this could possibly be more like eight hotel nights (or more in places like SE Asia or South America). If I would have paid for this room, it would have cost me about $500, which means that if I can book another at the same price, the welcome bonus would be worth about $1,000. In addition, you get an annual free night's certificate, which is good for up to 40,000 point hotel, which could equate to a value of about $200. This card does cost $99 per year, but if you use your certificate for a $200 hotel, it still "saves" you money! Last but not least, you get automatic Premier Elite status, which can give you perks like upgrades, early check in, late check out, and possibly a snack or a drink. Once again, if you decide this is not for you after a year or two, you can downgrade to a no fee card with no ding on your credit, or you can cancel if you choose. 

One last thing I want to talk about is a card that does not currently offer a bonus so is not really one for "hacking," but could be a great option for people who pay rent and that is the Bilt Rewards card. Please note that I have not used this myself, so you will have to do your own research. However, my understanding is that you can use it to pay your rent with no credit card transaction fees, even if you normally pay by check (they will issue the check for you) and you will get one point per dollar spent on rent plus extra points for other categories on rent day (the first of the month). You also get points for travel and other categories and it has no annual fee. You can then use the points for free travel, to pay part of your rent or for gym memberships etc. FYI currently a RT flight to Europe in Feb would cost about 40,000 points. 

Have you fallen asleep yet? No? Great, because one other thing I want to add is that if you do travel, many of these credit cards also come with added perks like rental car collision (LDW) insurance (normally $10 - $30 per day), travel trip delay or lost luggage protection, purchase protection, roadside assistance (~ $99/year value), TSA-Pre (~$100 value every four years), cell phone protection (~$75/year value) and more. These extras may cover the cost of your fee in some cases! 

Have you ever done any credit card hacking? Do you already have any of these cards? What is your favorite credit card and why? 

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here. 

Money Monday: Easy Ways to Save or Make Money

You know I like a good bargain just like the rest of you, and I am frugal to a fault in some people's eyes. However, I don't think that I give up quality in many cases, and I do prioritize quality in others. For example, I don't need to pay an extra $50 for a hotel with free breakfast when I would rather hit the streets and buy breakfast along the way or have a snack of peanut butter and a bagel in my room. Or, I don't need to eat three meals out when traveling, when I can just as easily eat a bagel and peanut butter in my room and then splurge on lunch. I guess the key is that you have to be willing to eat a bagel and peanut butter! Here are a few other ways to save without sacrificing happiness. 

Be aware. This is the number one thing in my opinion. This kind of goes along with culling your subscriptions, which I talk about below, but I think that you should take a look at what you are spending each month or quarter or year and then change what needs to be changed. Even if you think that nothing needs to be changed, I think it is important to know what you are spending your money on instead of just letting it all go out the door without thinking. This is easy enough as a lot of our banks will let us add external accounts so we can track our spending, but I use Fidelity's Full View. This is free for customers, and if you are not already a customer, you can open a cash management account, which is what I did. 

Open a high interest savings account. The reason I opened a cash management account at Fidelity is twofold. First, they reimburse all ATM fees, so when you are traveling abroad or are going to be in small towns where you may not find your regular bank, you can withdraw money with ease. I rarely withdraw cash, but when I do, it is nice to just be able to get out a little bit and not worry about the $9+ fees that my brick and mortar bank sometimes charges me each time. I was often getting out more (too much) cash because I did not want to go back again for another withdrawal.  

The second reason I did this is also due to their high interest rate. You can either leave your funds in cash, which will get you about 2.44% as of the time of this writing, or you can buy a money market fund, which is currently yielding about 4.50%. If you have money sitting in a checking or regular savings account, I highly suggest you move some of it to a higher yielding account. If you don't like Fidelity, there are also high yield savings accounts online like Marcus or Citizens which also will give you a better rate (FYI: currently my main brick and mortar bank checking account has 0% and my savings has about 0.03%, vs. the high yield accounts, which are around 4.0% - 4.5%.) It literally takes two minutes to open and maybe one or two days to transfer the funds over to a new account. 

Change your phone plan. People, we are past the era where we need to be paying $75 or $80 per month for a cell phone plan. There are so many plans out there now that are cheaper, and they are not worse quality! I personally have Google Fi (this is not a sponsored post, but if you click this link, you can get $60 off) and I have had it for years now and I do not miss my expensive AT&T plan! I was paying $80 per month, and now I pay about $80 for myself and two other people. Before I added the family members, my bill was about $30/month. Google Fi also triangulates between T-Mobile and US Cellular, so it will pick up the one that has the best service and use that. Also, it works internationally with little to no extra charge. When we traveled to Mexico, a friend of mine who had Verizon paid $10 a day to have international roaming, therefore adding about $100 to his bill that month. I paid NOTHING. 

I don't know all about the other plans, but I think Mint Mobile has a deal for $15 a month with unlimited data. Also, the All The Hacks podcast did a more thorough review of all of them if you want to learn more. However, the bottom line is that you pay per GB if you don't use a lot of data, or you can get unlimited data if you need it. Most of us are at home or work most of the day, where we have WiFi, and when that is the case, you do not use any data. I use less than 1GB of data every month. 

After reading this post by CCR, I am adding an addition to this in that if you are traveling internationally, even if you have the expensive Verizon plan, you do not need to pay the $10 per day international fee. Most newer phones now support e-SIM cards, which means that all you need to do is download an app (I use Airalo and if you use my referral code KYRIA0085, you will get $3 off your first purchase). From home you can load up some GB of data and then as soon as you step off the plane, your data will work. Easy-peasy. If you have an older phone, you can also get a real SIM card at most airports or city centers. You can then download things like maps, podcasts and audiobooks so that they can be used offline, use any streaming while in WiFi land and you will barely use any data on the road.

Speaking of referral codes. Before buying most things or signing up for anything, I check Reddit to see if there is anyone offering a voucher or a referral code for it. (I also use cash back apps, which I will discuss in a future MM post). A lot of the time, you will get a discount and probably the person referring you will get something too. Sometimes it can be as high as $60 off, like my Google Fi code, or sometimes it is a % off, or a discount on your first purchase, like Airalo. And I am sure you yourself have referral codes for things you use; you can post them on this site and if someone clicks on it, you may get a bonus too. I have received statement credits on my Google Fi account of $600 (the max allowed) by doing this! You can find my referral codes on my travel tips and hacks page if you are interested in getting a discount or giving me some extra points for something you were going to get anyway. :)

Cull your subscriptions, or alternate them. I know that it is easy to just set it and forget it, but do we really need to have four or five different streaming subscriptions at the same time? What if you make a list of which shows you like on each platform and then alternate one every two or three months? This does require a little organization, but it is worth it. Also, see above; maybe your library app has the show you like! Also, often the channel itself will show the show for free; for example, ABC has the option to watch past seasons of Grey's Anatomy right on the ABC website for free. And who doesn't love Grey's Anatomy? 

Additionally, things like Amazon subscriptions can pile up (hello TP and cat food, I am looking at you!) and so it is worth reviewing them every quarter to see if you really need more of the items on your list. I make a point to review my credit card purchases every month to see if there is anything out of whack, but if you don't have time for that, I think at least once a quarter is a good idea. Even if it is something like a credit card fee on a card that you meant to cancel, you can call them and often get it removed retroactively. And...if even once a quarter is too much, there are apps like Rocket Money or Pocket Guard that will do the work for you, and will even suggest or negotiate better deals for things like your cable or phone bill. (disclaimer: I have not tried either of these apps myself) 

During NoBloPoMo, this will be a once a week feature, so stay tuned for next time, when I talk about credit card hacking! Also, if there is something you want to learn about, or any questions you have, let me know! 

Do you keep track of your spending? If so, what tips do you have? What phone plan do you have, how much data (non WiFi) do you use each month, and how much do you pay per month? Do you have a high yield savings account? 

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. You can find the rest of my posts for this challenge here. You can find the list of participants and their information here.