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What are your best tips to save money?
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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Credit card points can be used for many things, depending on the program, and the top things to consider are redemption options that fit your needs, existing wants, and budgets...air miles, hotel points, student loans, mortgage payments, and the biggest, cash. It's a long term game, and if you can plan ahead a year or two as far as what you need miles and points for, and strategically get cards in certain programs/airlines/hotels you can get free access to otherwise unaffordable experiences.Having a partner/spouse you 100% trust you can play with doubles your effect, I mention the trust because ID theft is all too common as is financial fraud within the family. You also need to be flexible about where and when you travel to get more out of your points, if you're using points for that
I've been in the churning game for 10 years and paid off the last $13k of my school loans, and didn't pay for an airplane ticket or hotel for 10 years while flying around the world several times and taking many trips(miles redemptions are so bad after COVID and dynamic lricing for awards I bought a plane ticket with cash last month and just felt dirty.
I feel the need to counter this comment and point out that while churning is a cool thing, it shouldn't be on anyone's list of ways to save or make money.
For all the planning, opening and managing new accounts, fulfilling requirements, and then jumping through hoops to take advantage of those rewards, you really have to be committed and give up some sanity and freedom for a pretty marginal gain at the end of the day.
It shouldn't be on anyone's list of ways to save or make money if they're not capable of organizing a basic spreadsheet, and if you don't have a solid understanding of the world of credit and finance, as well as the willingness to learn the ropes of how to get higher returns for your time and credit score, yes the juice is not worth the squeeze.
My returns have been anything but marginal, but I devoted a lot of time early on to reading it as a hobby and curiosity. Like everything else, if it were super easy everyone would do it--but I'll say it's not THAT hard to get really decent results for marginal organization. 20 hours of startup reading and you're looking at free flight and hotel vacation in perpetuity most places on the globe every year once you get going, on-going time is an hour or two a quarter at most.