I’ve been taking steps to simplify my life because of everything that is going on it makes things tough to keep track, which makes me forget things. When that happens, I let someone down, either myself or the commitments I am to keep.
To help me streamline things:
- I’ve loaded all of my loyalty programs into AwardWallet to keep track of everything
- Change all credit card due dates to be the same
- Automated processes like my telephone calls
- Created multiple Twitter accounts and signed up for Offersbot to sync up the American Express Offers
- Writing things down either on paper or storing in Evernote and placing things into a calendar
- Creating checklists
- Batching processes together
While I do that, I lead a “double” life. In the world of manufactured spending, I overcomplicate things and jump through a million hoops just to keep the average costs near or below a penny. The hoops include, but not limited to:
- Go to some retail store to purchase cards
- Unload cards at a separate location
- Deposit funds from unloading cards
- Package things like gift cards into an envelope
- Mail said packages
- Check cashback sites for good gift card churning opportunities
- Calculate average costs
- Go through portals
- Purchase gift cards
The list goes on and on, it is definitely easier to make things complicated than to make it easy. When things are complicated, like manufactured spending, is almost like physics’ entropy – a measure of disorder and chaos. If it were all lined up perfectly and easily accessible deals are killed like it was yesterday’s news. This is one area that I will be contradictory of what I want to do and don’t mind spending a little extra time to make things chaotic and when needed to organize the chaos to make sure I am able to earn some points and cash that most people won’t turn towards because of complexity and level of difficulty.
It is too easy to forget that simplicity is tough. So for 2015, I will try and balance what needs to be done. With that, I will leave you a quote from Steve Jobs:
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
Beware what you ask for. Simplicity is what kills things. VR->BB. Simple. And dead. GC->WM. Simple. And dead in many areas. VRs at office supply for 5x. Simple. And dead. Green Dot. Bancorp. Incomm. All had simple products. All dead or now very hard to use. Buxx. Simple and mostly dead. Now we have Redcard. Simple. How quickly will Target modify the free load with CC benefit?
How about WM kiosks? Now it’s rare to find a functioning kiosk. And rarer than hen’s teeth finding one with MOs activated.
Anything simple enough for the CC pimps to use as easy ways meet spend so they can market to noobs/lazy and/or the incompetent is something that dies very quickly.
You are absolutely right! I will jump through as many hoops as I can to get my cash back/points where the deal is tougher to squash.
Edit: Also, finally something we can agree on!