I seem to be catching myself making a series of stupid decisions recently, so I thought it might make a good series for the blog: Stupid Stuff I did this week…. Let’s start with TopCashBack.I’m loyal to no loyalty program, I simply sign up for them all, and use whichever is best on that day. […]
In case you weren’t aware. I’m an expert.
Last night I picked up two copies of the Ritz Carlton with 140K bonus, for $395 a pop, and I was pretty excited about it too.Today Josh over at the Forum calls me out via message, asking me what my angle is because as far as he figures it, that wasn’t a smart move. So what […]
2015 Challenge – Live a month without money
An average human can live 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water and 3 seconds without checking their iPhone. But how long can you live without money? I’m not talking crazy here (well I am) about going off to live in the caves of Utah like Daniel Suelo. I’m talking living the life you […]
Learning from Criminals- how to value points
I’ve been bothered by this for the longest time. But I think we are all screwing up big time when it comes to Credit Card points. By valuing them high, we are stagnating, and losing real money. I find it interesting that people (myself included) who have been in ‘the game’ for any length of […]
From Forever Stamps to Airmiles
What’s a post on Forever Stamps doing in the Travel section? Sadly it’s not a new trick to make points, nor is it relevant because you might need one for your post cards. This is one of those, psuedointellectual posts that I pride myself on… bear with me, or, if that is asking too much […]
Paying your Mortgage with a Credit Card
I received a message on the Forum from a reader asking me how to pay regular expenses, such as his mortgage, insurance, etc on a Credit Card, and while I gave him a specific answer there, I’d also like to expound on this concept here. As you guys might know, I’m trying to not write […]
Cheat Day – just pay cash…
This weekend we had Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and today Cyber Monday. They really drive home the ‘sales’and the feeling that I am going through right now – overload. Yesterday I pulled the trigger on the appliances purchase for my new home, as an example of the savings I bought a Refrigerator that was […]
The Cheapskate Challenge Winner!
Earlier this week I decided it would be fun to start up a thread in the Forum asking people how they would go about dropping the price of an appliance. The starting price was $1999, but it was already showing up as $1699 on sale. I wanted to see how people addressed the problem, and […]
A beginners guide to Real Spend
All this talk of Manufactured Spend but what about spending on stuff you actually need? I personally find this a fascinating topic because the two subjects really do go hand in hand, and perhaps by understanding one more, we might learn about the other.Let’s look at Vanilla Reloads firstA digression into MS for a moment. […]
Better than free Ultimate Rewards points
An opinion (that I disagree with) is that creating zero cost points (URs in this case) via MS is optimal. The logic behind the statement.. Because free points cannot be beaten? The post from Shawn (who is putting out good stuff) is here:Basic premise: Earn 1035 UR from a $206.95 GC purchase. Deduct 1% for VSE, […]