Just checking, but are you planning on taking any of the car ferries Island to Island (to get to Tobermory in Mull)?
There are quite a few problems this year with CalMac (ferry company) due to some of their vessels being old and out for maintenance.
Yes I am (4 different ferries, 5 crossings, 3 with a car) but my trip isn’t for 10 months. All but one of those crossings involves getting to Iona. I’m sure I could improvise if the system let me down (i.e. skip Iona). Thanks for the heads up
Not worth its own thread. I’ve been lax on churning credit cards for a while until recently.
Just 3 weeks ago, opened up a Bank of America credit card for “Spend $2,000, get $200 cashback”. We’ve since exhausted the $2,000 and I’m about to close it.
This morning, signed up for a different Bank of America credit card, “Spend $1,000, get $200 cashback”. I have my eye on a $1,100 laptop and am just waiting for Black Friday sales later this month. Whether there’s a deal or not, I’ll snap it up around then and exhaust that card.
Following that, with my spouse’s permission I’ll probably open 2 cards this month in their name, then in early December open another in my name. Those additional 3 for a total spend-need of about $3000-5000 will get us through all holiday shopping and other expenditures during that time such as food and gas, and we’ll probably be running out one of the cards through January. However, across those 3 cards I should get around $400-600 free cash back.
$200 isn’t enough for me to churn a credit card. US Bank has an Altitude Connect card that with maybe 3K of spending got me $600 in restaurant gift cards. Chain stuff like Applebees, Texas Roadhouse, Outback, Chiptole, IHOP. Also plenty of non restuarant stuff, Home Depot for one. I canceled the card last year and they let me do it again this year.
I did just sign up for one this weekend with Marriott Bonvoy that gives me $250 credit (which I am using in December at a bridge tournament host hotel) and 2-3 free nights worth of points. The airline points I get are ususally worth about $600 also, I wouldn’t do it for $200 I would wait for a better offer but I get declined a lot of places at the moment for having too many opened lines.
I need to begin looking into this, as we’re planning a vacation late next year. I’ve never done travel points because those were for rich people. Well… Now maybe I want airline points.
I totally agree, if I’m in Paris I would rather spend $75 and live in some hole in the wall rather than pay multiples of that for a room I don’t want to be in except I need sleep. All I need is wi-fi, a bed, and a shower - in that order. But getting 4-5 nice hotel nights (in the midwest, you only get 1-2 in Paris not worth it) was worth it in light of getting declined for better offers. I might try Altitude Connect again soon; see if they don’t have anything to prevent continual repeats on that deal.
I find American Airlines the easiest to accumulate points and get reasonable deals for travel. Southwest has a good deal for their card if your plans are in the US and have access to them (although I personally haven’t got the card yet, I do want it) Capital One’s card has some foreign partners but I guess they can be converted into something usable (don’t have that one either). Delta is OK through AmEx, and I got some United miles last year but they usually aren’t on my radar. I even got a card from AirFrance and earned those miles last month. But eventually I reach a limit and have to take a breather. I wish my spouse would me sign up through her but she doesn’t.
Things have gotten complicated on my end because I’ve got 3 cards now, depending on retailer.
Had already had a citibank cash back one that gives 2% cash back on everything. If they don’t accept mastercard or if it’s a restaurant then I’ve got my chase freedom unlimited visa and now, drumroll… if it’s a supermarket I’ve got this new amex cash preferred that (after the first year) even has an annual fee but it was like 5% or something back on groceries so the net was worth it.
Also what’s with places where they’re like “pay with cash and save!” and then the cash savings are smaller than the cash back I’d get by paying with a credit card…
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My regular card is the Double Cash 2% on everything. Chasing temporary savings on other categories isn’t worth it to me, and I’m not sure I pay enough on groceries to bother paying for a credit card that gets more rewards, but I understand that it could be worth it to someone else making baller actuarial money eating steak and caviar every night.
agree about not chasing categories.
I think the AMEX one also gives like $7/mo back on Disney+ which is a pretty fundamental streaming service for my household. And we spend ~1200/mo at Shoprite, plus another 200-400 at Costco. AMEX gives 6% on groceries so I just figured 1200 * 12 * (6% - 2%) = $576. They charge you like $70/year for the card (first year free) but that seemed worth it for the added complexity.
If avoid the higher summer prices and fly to Europe either late April/early May or September.
I have 173K miles on American and I could get this: (and the return journey is reasonable)
Flying out of Des Moines definitely adds to the $ cost but I don’t seem to pay much if anything in miles.
The amount you still have to pay is based on airport taxes (LHR will be higher)
The cost in dollars? At least $925, so I save $833. (If I were paying with $$ I might do better elsewhere) I may have paid up to $99 also for the card, don’t remember. Still waaay worth it.
For my trip to Scotland coming up, my friend paid about $830. I paid <$150 I think.
There were 60K options to go to Paris. Right now you can only get 50,000 miles on a card after paying $99 which isn’t great. If they were going to give you 60K I might pull the trigger. You would probably want to check what you would actually need pretend booking a flight with miles (might need a userid to login)
Mission accomplished for 2023. +90k in the brokerage which was the high end of what i estimated. Max 401k and HSA. The house project i had planned came in about 5k less than expected, but i found other ways to spend that.
I also started investing on my own within the brokerage account. Previously all my significant savings were all in retirement accounts and expected to be untouched for many years. I need to get through taxes to understand any implications there better to complete my view, but feel a lot more comfortable doing this on my own now. Most of it has just been ETFs, in fairly conservative options as I may need this money in the next 5 years.
2024: much of the same. The brokerage savings will likely be closer to +50k. I think i can be more aggressive on this tranche, and need to think about shifting some of the current savings out of TBIL as opportunities come up.
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I did HVAC, but got a new roof instead of a porch. Spent the $45k I’d budgeted so no change to the bottom line there. Exceeded my $32k brokerage goal and socked away $43k there.
Was able to sell a little equity this year so I have $20k in dry powder for the porch. Plus I’m getting $7,500 back for buying an EV plus $2,000 for the heat pump soon. So for 2024 I’ll do that porch plus either windows (restore, not replace) or solar.
Old houses are no joke. We obviously knew the roof and HVAC were old when we bought the place. I think our initial list totaled about $140k but we added to it and went a little crazy on a few projects, I’d say we are looking to finish right around $200k over five years on renovations.
Beautiful home though. It’ll really look great with the new porch and a bit of landscaping.
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- Max out 401k - Done
- Max out HSA - Done
- Max out Roth - Little bit of a whoopsies on my part. Individually, I would have been able to max, but me and the SO decided to get married before year-end so our combined income will be way too high so can’t contribute anything
Had to my pull my 2023 contributions out and luckily, the earnings weren’t crazy (the account is only a couple years old). - $1-$2k/month to brokerage - Done. Most went in to a money market.
- New car - Done
- 2023 Travel - Done. Now just have to get through the holidays
- Buy a big, fat (lab grown) rock - Done. Doing an unconventional wedding.
- Maintain charitable contribution amount from 2022 - Done, maybe slightly higher than 2022.
- Save any excess for future home purchase - Done. Courteous of my employer being generous when results came in well above expectations.
2024’s goals will be much the same, with a focus on saving any excess.
I have 2023 goals that are now 2024 goals. Although I did have a 2024 goal that became a 2023 goal (buy a new car because the previous one didn’t turn out so well).
I did everything I set out to do.
about $30K in 401k
$7,750 in HSA (next year I will fund my entire HSA in three months, should be fun)
deferred $40K to be paid out between 2025-2029
$12K in the company stock purchase plan
moved money into both Roths from taxable account
My dad’s passing contributed $130K but that certainly wasn’t a goal.
With the market rebound good chance I will retire 4/1 with my $1.5M number and then some.
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Damn Klaymen, you’re gonna need a $2,000,000 thread set up real soon. Excellent work.
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