Wading into the Credit Card Signup Bonus Game

Each January I find myself taking the opportunity to assess our financial situation to see if I'm doing everything I can to make the most of our good fortune. After exploring the world of credit card signup bonues the past couple months I've found that I was leaving a significant amount of money on the table utilizing a mostly cashback approach to credit cards.

With a little work, I don't think it's too hard to earn roughly 10% of one's annual income in nearly free travel by navigating the credit card signup space effectively.

Here's how I came to this conclusion...

Family vacations are something I think about every day, and one thing that's been bothering me lately is the escalating cost of airfare. Relatively mundane domestic tickets with reasonable advanced notice were coming in at more than $400 per ticket. Rip off!

With 4 tickets to buy each time we take a family trip, a swing of a $100 or $200 per ticket can have a huge impact on the cost of our vacations. And being blocked from attaining family vacations is something this deal hound will not tolerate. :)

With this in mind I thought to reassess my longstanding aversion for miles/points based credit cards. My preference for the past few years has been cashback based cards. For quite a while I was happy with the American Express Blue Cash card in conjunction with a Chase Freedom Visa. Neither carry annual fees, and they each offer between 1 and 5% cashback. The AmEx offered 5% back on gas, groceries and drugstore purchases and 1.5% back on all other purchases once $6,500 in annual spend was achieved (1% prior to that). The Chase Freedom offered 5% back in rotating quarterly categories and 1% on everything else.

The main thrust of this strategy was to:

1. Avoid annual credit card fees
2. Maximize cashback by placing spend on the optimal card
3. Use that cashback to reduce credit card bills

That seemed to work pretty well for us for a while. Things weren't overly complicated. You just needed to pick the best card for the purchase and in all you'd potentially drive your overall cashback north of 2%.

I'd estimate that about a third of our gross income was being funneled through credit card purchases. To share an example of how beneficial (or not) this approach was, for an annual income of say $100,000 about $3,000 per month ($36,000 annually) was going through credit cards. Of that $36,000 if we earned 1% cashback we'd get $360.

If we were really savvy and aligned our purchases with 5% cashback categories frequently we'd bring in 2-3% of $36,000 each year - about $700-$1,000 annually. This was a nice clip for not doing much of anything really so I thought we were doing pretty well.

Until I looked at what we might be leaving on the table by not taking advantage of credit card signup bonuses.

About a year ago I saw an offer pop up for a Capital One Venture credit card that paid a $1,000 signup bonus. Wow! By merely changing the card we used we'd earn $1,000 plus the card offered 2 "points" per dollar. Each point could be used to "erase" travel purchases which was virtually a cash equivalent for us so this card was a great one for us for the past year. It carries an annual fee after the first year but at this clip it was worth it because it effectively increased our average cashback percentage. So I was inclined to stick with it for another year.

But I was hungry for more lucrative signup bonuses like this one.

Even the Venture card doesn't offer a 100,000 point signup bonus any more. I think it's down to 10,000 points. As I looked around I found a number of moderately attractive signup bonuses, but they were mostly for airline/hotel cards and programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards and AmEx Membership Rewards.

I'd grown skeptical about miles/points based programs because the provider can devalue the points at any time by changing the terms of the program. And finding flights/rooms when you want them for a reasonable amount of points can be elusive.

I also wondered why anybody in their right mind would prefer points vs. cashback.

But in looking at this game closely over the last couple months I've come to understand how earning points can indeed be more lucrative than cashback. And how signup bonuses can be worth more than either.

By applying a variety of techniques in the example $100,000/$36,000 scenario I described above I think it is/would be fairly easy to go from $1,000 cashback to an effective $10,000 back in nearly free travel realized through a combination of credit card signups and other techniques.

10x leverage - that gets my attention.

Further Reading: Lessons learned on the way to 270,000 miles and points

Here are some concise and helpful resources which I think would be useful in quickly getting up to speed on how to navigate this interesting space:

Travel-Summary.com:

• A beginner's guide to earning points
• A beginner's guide to redeeming points

The Points Guy:

• Maximizing credit cards for free travel

If you're thirsty for more the next action I'd recommend is subscribing to the collective BoardingArea.com blogs in your feed reader.

And if you've really got it bad poke around the FlyerTalk forums.

I'll look forward to discussing this further. I'd love it if you subscribed to Casa Dwyer for future updates.

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Sweet memory from Christmas past

As a little girl, one of the joys of Christmas was receiving a box of cookies from my father's mother, my Grandma Eleanor.  Every year she boxed up and mailed an assortment of treats, and each year, there was a new variety she tried out.  Some years we liked them, some years we didn't (ever had a black walnut?  yeah, not a fan.)  As years went on, she wisely repeated some old standouts.  The arrival of that much-anticipated box always meant a batch of my absolute favorites, which came to be known in our house as 7 Layer Cookies.  After she passed away, I found some of her original recipes, and this one was on a yellowed newspaper page from The Blair Press dated December 7, 1976.  Turns out the newspaper's name for them was Holiday Magic Cookie Bars.  Call them what you want, but these are super-easy and always a holiday hit!  

Thank you Grandma for the recipe, and those sweet memories of childhood. 

Grandma Eleanor's 7 Layer Cookies

6 tbsp butter 

1 and 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs 

1 can sweetened condensed milk 

6 oz semisweet chocolate chips 

5 and 1/2 oz butterscotch chips 

3 and 1/2 oz sweetened shredded coconut 

1 c chopped nuts

Put butter in a 13x9 pan and then into the oven while it preheats to 350 degrees. Once melted, make sure the bottom of the pan is coated. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs evenly over the butter. Pour milk evenly over the crumbs. Top with chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut and nuts. Press down gently. Bake for 25 minutes or until light brown. Allow to cool and cut into 24 bars.

Enjoy!

10 Frustration Reducing, Money Saving, Life Improving Tips and Tricks for New Parents

I remember being at the hospital the morning after Sam was born 7 years ago. As I was walking the halls my eye caught something I'd never noticed before: A brochure for a college savings program. It's amazing how your perspective changes and things that were never on your radar screen suddenly become important.

Now that we're through the preschool years and moving on to the next stage I thought it would be helpful to share some idea for new parents that worked well for me.

First, subscribe to Amazon Prime. Reducing the number of errands you have to run will be more valuable than ever plus you get some free video content. If you're not a Prime subscriber yet check out Amazon Mom - even if you're a dad. You just need to have a little one in your life. Great deal.

Here are 10 frustration reducing, money saving, life improving tips and tricks for new parents:

1. Small Screwdrivers

You're going to be opening and repairing a lot of toys over the next few years. This set has come in incredibly handy almost every week.

2. Button Batteries

The first time the batteries go dead on one of their little toys and you try to buy replacements at CVS you'll know why buying these in bulk off Amazon is one of the best deals going. Super-expensive locally and super-cheap online with fast free shipping even without Amazon Prime (since they're tiny and can fit in a standard envelope).

3. Battery Tester

Once the kids get old enough to start repairing their own toys, you might find that as soon as a toy doesn't work they think the battery needs to be replaced. So they'll set aside the old batteries and install new batteries and the toy still doesn't work. After a while you get these little piles of mixed up batteries and it's unclear whether they have remaining charge. A battery tester like the one below will test primary and rechargeable AA, AAA, and 9V batteries. Works great.

While we're on the topic of batteries, I dabbled with rechargeables but found they'd often wind up in a seldom used toy so I'd have to buy more and more rechargeables to keep up. I found buying Kirkland (Costco) AAs and AAAs the best way to go. No shortcuts here that I could find.

4. Re-manufactured Ink Cartridges

Kids love to print. Even after engaging them in a discussion about how expensive ink and paper is and remind them of the environmental impact of needless printing they'll still want to see their creations come to life.

To maximize household tranquility and minimize financial, impact buy affordable off-brand ink cartridges. For our printer, I can get 2 or 3 replacements for each color for 1.5x the price of a single cartridge - a massive savings. Check the seller ratings and go for it. Even if a few of them don't work you'll come out way ahead.

5. Buy Refurbished Apple Devices

A top of the line iPod touch (5th generation) goes for $299. They still sell the 4th generation for $199 with 16GB. Right now Apple is offering an 8GB 4th generation iPod touch for $129. This is an ideal price point for a device that will sometimes allow you to finish your meal in peace, and you won't have a heart attack if your kid drops it on the floor.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/ipod/ipod_touch/8gb

6. Books

Chances are you'll likely receive books as gifts so without much effort you'll have an ample supply of bedtime reading material. The single most requested bedtime book? Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever.

Related: Best bedtime routine recommendation we received from a pediatrician that worked? "If you come brush your teeth you will get 3 books. If you don't come now, you'll lose a book."

There's also this fantastic Richard Scarry Christmas book:

7. Best Affordable Toy

Automoblox. Less than $10 shipped for these super-high quality toys are the best $10 toy for a 5 year old boy I've found:

8. Best Expensive Toys

Legos without a doubt. They provide so many hours of quiet, interactive building, but man are they expensive. You can drop $100 at the Lego Store in a second. Oh well, having boys we're lucky - no interest in American Girl.

Best Lego value I've found? The Lego Creator Lighthouse Island. Not only are lighthouses super fun but the Creator series allows the set to be assembled 3 different ways. Pro tip: If you lose the instructions, read them from an iPad from a site like this.

9. Movies

I thought I had this all figured out when I started buying used DVDs of their favorites. But you know what I discovered? They never want to watch something we own. Owning a movie makes it no longer a favorite!

So what to do instead? Ditch the DVDs (they're annoying to keep track of and get scratched) and get a streaming device like a Roku, an Apple TV ($85 refurbished) or both. Rent from Amazon (some titles included with Prime) and watch it on the go on an iPad.

10. Best Holiday Tradition

The candy strip. My mom shared this tradition with us, I loved it, and it's working very well for us. On halloween night when they've returned from trick-or-treating and they're pouring over their haul ask them to count out 25 pieces of candy. Take those 25 pieces of candy and set them aside until December 1st.

Then, create or buy (I've seen these at Home Goods) something they can hang on their wall with 25 pockets in it and place a piece of candy in each pocket. Let them enjoy one piece of candy each day in December rather than gobbling it all up in the week or two after Halloween.

Question of the Day: What are some of your favorite money saving tips and strategies for raising young kids?

I'd love it if you Subscribed to Casa Dwyer to be informed of future updates.

Review: Boston iPhone Repair

Ouch, right?
 
I've never been a fan of protective cases for iOS devices. Why take a device whose design Apple has relentlessly thought about and cloak it in a bulky mediocre plastic protective case? Well, the reason is you want to reduce the chances that your expensive highly subsidized device is going to accidentally be smashed.
 
Like this iPhone 4S which had both sides shattered due to an accidental drop.

When faced with a smashed up iPhone what are our choices?

1. Ride it out and wait until you're eligible for an upgrade. Doesn't work well when glass shards cut your finger while trying to ride it out.
2. Go for an early upgrade. Depends on where you are in your upgrade cycle. If you're eligible for an upgrade you'll still likely want to get the damaged phone repaired because it carries significant resale potential. If you're somewhere between brand new and eligible for an upgrade you might be eligible for a reduced price upgrade (like $449 for a new iPhone 5).
3. Go beg for mercy at the Apple Store. I hear they'll give you a new [refurbished] iPhone 4S for $199 if you trade your old one in. Not the greatest option in the world but at least you'd be getting a clean device, a new battery, and the reliable comfort of Apple standing behind the phone.
4. Get it repaired. That's what I did and that's the subject of this blog post.

A Google search for "iphone cracked screen" predictively revealed "iphone cracked screen repair boston". I was primarily looking to get information on Apple's policy for out of warranty replacement but I was intrigued by what might be available for repair options in Boston. So I checked out Boston iPhone Repair's excellent blog post here: http://www.bostoniphonerepair.com/archives/339

In that blog post they lay out in reasonable terms whether it's worth it to have your device repaired vs. taking it back to Apple and begging for mercy. I liked how they rolled and their 5 star average Yelp rating looked solid. Their site estimated $90 for repair of a cracked front screen and $40 for the back. Compared to $199 plus tax at the Apple store this sounded like a good deal. So off to Boston iPhone Repair for a 2:00 pm arrival.

They're just east of Harvard Square right across from the Inn at Harvard on Massachusetts Ave on the second floor of this building:

Upon arrival it was just what I was hoping for: Two competent guys sitting behind the counter ready to repair my busted device right then and there. No waiting.

Ned -- on the right in the photo below -- is the founder of the business and a ringer for Mark Zuckerberg who claims to not understand Twitter. He started Boston iPhone Repair four years ago as a come-to-you business. Now they're right across the street from Harvard, so the Zuckerberg resemblance is particularly uncanny and the efficiency with which they can repair iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads is hard to beat. In the time I was there a half dozen happy customers came and went. One customer was turned away for an iPod touch repair they felt would be better served by a visit to the Apple Store.
 
They looked at my device and told me it was normally $90 to repair the front glass and $40 for the back but since they were both busted he could repair both for $120. Cash, check or PayPal. It would be done in 30 minutes. Would I like to proceed? Heck yeah!
 
I had my 7 year old with me so half the fun was watching the pros dissect the iPhone. These guys know what they're doing.
 
But it's kind of like watching your wife have a C-Section. You're a bit curious and interested in the procedure at first, but about half way through it you're just praying for a positive outcome.

30 minutes into it I started to get a little worried. The technician asked for some alcohol. "Alcohol? What for?" I started to get concerned. Like a worried father, I started hovering over the operating table.

 
8 minutes later I was presented with my pristine repaired iPhone 4S. A success!
 
However, the phone said it was "Searching" for a signal. I placed a test call to my phone and it went through. I mentioned this Searching business to the technician and he pulled the SIM card out and re-inserted it and it was as good as new. No issues since. Works perfectly.

I brought the repaired iPhone home and presented it to my wife. You would have thought it was a bouquet of flowers. This was her first iPhone and she doesn't like technology, but coming from a BlackBerry she loves her iPhone. And she was glad to have it back in good working condition.
 

I love it when a small business does exactly what they're supposed to do and I pay them a fair price for doing something I couldn't have done as well as they did.

 
So check 'em out - highly recommended:
 
Boston iPhone Repair in Harvard Square
http://bostoniphonerepair.com
@BostoniPhoneFix
 

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