Mat Greten

The Southwest Companion Pass is not Worth It

2018-09-23T00:00:00-06:00

Yes, it is the holy grail of travel rewards. Yes, it means that you get free flights for your companion. Yes, this is a half off on flights you’d take already. Yes, you’ll get this for about two years. Yes, just by earning it, you’ll probably have enough points to fly for free for two whole years. But it is not worth the cost.

The Southwest Companion pass is not worth it for us.

But wait… can’t you earn it by just applying to a few Chase cards and booking one flight? That sounds pretty inexpensive.

Yes, that is exactly the way to earn it.

So why can’t you afford it???

To get the companion pass you need a combined total of 110,000 points. Sign-up bonus points count towards this number.

It used to be possible to chain together personal cards to reach this bonus amount. However Chase / Southwest introduced a restriction:

Source: Southwest Rapid Rewards® Plus Credit Card Information Page

If you have a personal card, you can no longer get a second personal card to chain the bonuses.

Okay, well, you can still do the business card to get the points!

Yes, that is exactly where I went as well. Most other Fi Bloggers and Podcasts have explained that as long as you have a business you are good to go here. That business here is not defined clearly and your side-hustle most likely counts.

With this in mind, I filled out the application. I was ready to press submit but slowed down to read the fine print:

Source: Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Business Credit Card Application Page

And that hit me like a sack o’ bricks… or at least made my stomach flip. The wording here is pretty black and white:

I certify, understand and agree that: 1) This is a business account which shall be used only for business purposes and not personal, family or household purposes;

This legalese leaves no wiggle room.

Yes, meagerfindings.com is my business. I have a business. But I have virtually no monetary expenses in running this business at this point. $12 a year for the domain name and $5 a month to run a Linode Server. That is waaaaayyyyy below the minimum spend for the business card.

I cannot see a way in which we would meet the minimum spend for this card. Unless I spend $3,000. on advertising meagerfindings.com… Otherwise, I’ll break the spirit and the letter of the agreement here.

Call me a goody two shoes or legalistic. Do what you want, however my Lord has made it pretty clear that lying is not an option:

“You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. - Leviticus 19:11

“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.” - Proverbs 12:22

There are many, many more verses that echo these sentiments.

I mentioned that my stomach flipped a little. I had that sinking feeling of when a dream crumbles. The companion pass and other cards could save us thousands of dollars over the coming years. The fact that this gave me a physical reaction in my stomach is quite telling. My heart is intent on providing for my family and being a good steward. But it looks like I may be putting my hope in FI a bit to much.

I am thankful that I saw this, had the gut punch, and closed the tab immediately. In my mind it was a done deal. After searching for other cards to apply for, I returned to reread and make sure I didn’t misunderstand. Yeah, it was the same as I left it. The page spells out using the card for personal expenses would be lying.

For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. - Romans 14:23b

If I were to apply for this card at present, it wouldn’t be faith. No, it would be me a) lying and b) putting my faith in the ability of travel rewards to improve our future.

Yes, there may be room in the future for the companion pass for us. If so then we’ll celebrate the growth of this business and the addition of the companion pass! But as things stand right now, the cost of the companion pass would be our integrity. This cost would be another thing our savior would be paying the price for.

Nearly Free Google Play Store Credits

2018-09-02T00:00:00-06:00

Wait… there’s an official Android app, straight from Google, that offers you credit in their very own Google Play Store?

Why yes! They call it Google Opinion Rewards. The app offers short surveys based on your recent search and location history.

I do not have an affiliate relationship with Google and I receive no incentive for linking to or reviewing this app.

Payout to Time Ratio

In just under one year, I have earned $34.70 by taking very short surveys in the Google Opinion Rewards app for Android.

Each survey takes between 30 seconds to one minute to complete and I have completed 105 surveys so far.

Lets do a quick break down of this:

$35 / 105 surveys = $0.33 per survey

If each survey takes 30 seconds:
$0.33 * 120 surveys in an hour = $39.60 an hour

If each survey takes 45 seconds:
$0.33 * 90 surveys in an hour = $29.70 an hour

If each survey takes one minute:
$0.33 * 60 surveys in an hour = $19.80 per hour

Even if I spent about a minute on each survey, I’ve only spent 1 hour and 45 minutes on this. Okay, I’m gonna say it, I’m overthinking this. Any way you slice it, these are 3-5 question surveys that take very little time.

How can you use these Credits

You can use these credits for anything you purchase through the Google Play Store: apps, music, movies, tv-shows, and ebooks. These credits also work for in-app purchases to remove ads from apps.

I was able to get the $10 Starting Strength app for absolutely nothin’ while getting all the benefits the app offers. I’ve also used these credits to purchase music albums and to buy the pro versions of applications to support the developers of apps I use daily.

The App Itself

Being a Google app, this app is fairly stable. Simple, clean, and easy to use, this app really doesn’t have much to get confused by or mess up.

I have had two or three times where the app fails to send my response or encounters an error. Yet the survey has always been available via the main screen of the app after reopening the app.

You Mileage May Vary

I am very excited about the $34 I have received throughout the last year. My wife is even more excited that she has earned the same amount, and in two less months than me. Granted, she has completed 134 surveys as she is out and about and in more stores than I am thanks to her job. She has received less compensation for more surveys. I also have a coworker who has made twice what I have made, in only one more month of being on the platform.

Privacy Concerns

The highest paying surveys require you to take a picture of your receipt from a store you visited or leave a public-facing review on Google Maps. Both of these survey types make your real world information visible to other people. These Google Maps surveys will appear with the name you signed up with for your Google account with. They will also be visible to anyone who views your Google Maps profile or the reviews of the place you visited. In the case of the receipt, your receipt will most likely be viewed by a human. What does Google do with your receipt data? That’s a great question, one for which we don’t have an answer for. My assumption, is that Google wants to know how you paid for your items at the store as they seek to expand their Google Pay app and acceptance of this payment method in brick and mortar stores. However, one could argue that this information is being given to advertisers to further fill out their profile of you by bridging the gap of your physical purchases with those recorded by Google already.

Location Data

Each survey you take is either based on the physical stores you have visited or your recent Google search history. This means that you will be further commenting on the data that Google is collecting on you. This can make you more vulnerable and can also help to build a larger profile of your behavior. Both of which are not great when it comes to the increases in SPAM and phishing attacks.

Choose your own adventure privacy

As with any privacy matter, you have to gauge what you are comfortable with. Every action we take has inherent risk and everyone has their own risk levels. There are generally agreed upon actions that most people see as extremely risky with low reward. Like closing your eyes while crossing an intersection…. not a move many will condone. Then there is eating ice cream. We all know its probably not very good for us, but the taste is sooooo worth it. But we remember the risks involved and try not to go back for a third helping…. because admit it, you already snuck a second helping.

I still use Google products and haven’t been successfully persuaded not to. In a perfect world I probably wouldn’t use Google, but in a perfect world I also wouldn’t use a smartphone or laptop either. I believe the value I get from using Google products outweighs any risk it introduces to my family. Yes, there are nightmare scenarios where Google could leak our information or do something evil. I do not believe that Google Opinion rewards opens us up to additional risk. At least no more than using Google’s other products. We are already leave reviews on Google Maps. We already store most of our life in their servers between Gmail, Keep, Maps, Calendar, and Photos. You could say this app is only another drop in the bucket. If you’re opposed to Google services, that sounds like a horrible argument. Yet, if you don’t have reservations to trusting Google, you’re good to go.

If you are comfortable with all of this, head on over to Google Opinion Rewards in the Play Store to download today. Feel free to comment below on why you trust Google, or why you choose to forgo a few free dollars.

Earning $60 in One Minute

2018-08-21T00:00:00-06:00

Remember when I discovered that not all junk mail is junk mail? I have another example of a quick win for minimal effort, if you can even call it effort.

6,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points for an Email Address

Southwest is giving out 6,000 Rapid Rewards points for 1 minute of your time and your consent to let them send you emails.

Why are they doing this?

You may recall that right before June of this year, your inbox was suddenly flooded with new privacy policies and services asking your to allow them to email you. This was due to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becoming enforceable back on May, 25 2018, requiring companies to gain your consent before continuing to send marketing emails to you. Southwest may have wisely waited for the dust to settle before sending out their consent request or they may have needed to up the ante to get email consent again.

$60 in a Minute?

Time is not a renewable resource, so I tend to break down task duration and cost down to hourly rates or down to the minute. Nerd Wallet currently values Southwest Rapid Rewards points between 0.9 cents per point and 1.6 cents per point, depending on the ways in which you redeem your points.

For the sake of simplicity, lets call it 1 cent per point:

6,000 points * $0.01 = $60.00

Taking the two required steps to qualify for this bonus took me literally less than one minute to complete. I’m tempted to call this post “Getting a $3,600 an Hour Rate for One Minute” but I think that is a little to far on the side click-bait and sensationalism. Regardless, there’s $60 for signing up for an email.

The Fine Print

After reading the fine print on the mailer, there are a few things to keep in mind:

You must open an email at least once every 60 days.
You must stay opted in.
You must keep your account open… umm yeah.

This offer is only valid for the Rewards Member listed on the mailer. This mailer is probably being sent out to all Rapid Rewards Members, but I am not 100% sure on this. However, I currently don’t have any ideas on how to get $60 a minute for my time, so I’d willing to gamble one minute of my time and a few more promotional emails for the chance at snagging this bonus.

Visit southwest.com/emailexclusive to complete the two, quick steps required to qualify for these bonus points if you are already a Rapid Rewards Cardmember.

Saving Money on Cell Phone Plans

2018-08-18T00:00:00-06:00

Cell phone plans, love ‘em or hate ‘em, lets explore some options on slashing your phone bill.

Verizon

When we got married in 2011, Kate and I combined as many services, utilities, and bank accounts that we could. The wireless plan was one of these services. At the time we were on my family’s existing Verizon family plan. We were paying $120 a month for service before factoring in the cost of cell phones and activation fees. We each had 2GB of data on this plan and a limit on minutes and texts. This price included a 15% discount we had on the account and 5 lines total, yet it still came out to be about $60 a month per line! After being robbed for about 5 years, we finally made the switch away from Verizon’s over-priced plans.

Google Project Fi

Google’s aptly named Project Fi started off as an experiment that quickly gained traction and seems like it is around to stay.

Project Fi is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO, meaning that Google buys the ability to provide wireless cell service from other, already existing companies. Think of it as pay-to-play telecom towers or Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Cool, what’s all that mean to the consumer? Well, Google is just leasing time/space on existing networks/infrastructure, which substantially decreases the cost of running and Internet Service Provider or Wireless Cell Provider. In the kindness of their hearts, Google passes these savings on to the consumer, or maybe they just want to look into more of our communications, but either way, this is a vastly cheaper option than your standard Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, or AT&T options.

How much cheaper?

Calls & texts: $20/mo (Unlimited domestic calls and texts with 24/7 support) Data: $10/GB Extra people: $15/mo each

We joined Fi, while there weren’t sharing plans so it was $20/mo each for talk/text plus $10/GB, this later dropped to $35 for talk and text once we had the option to combine our plans. At the start we were paying:

$20 - Talk/text
$20 - Talk/text
$40 - 4GB of Data
$5 for device protection for one phone
$5 taxes and fees

$90 per month

But how did this actually work out?

Glad you asked, as it happens I have every Google Project Fi bill recorded:

Wait… doesn’t that grand total equal out to $134.19 per month on average? That is way over the estimated $90 and worse than with Verizon! That is correct, but you can see some large spikes in prices that were caused by purchasing new phones or paying phones off. For instance, look at May 2018, when we paid off our new phones all at once on top of our normal bill.

I am not even going to address cell phones in this post, we’ll leave that for another day. We have some meagerfindings to share from what we have learned about purchasing and owning smartphones, but we’ll save that for later.

For a better look at the price, lets look at our first year of using Project Fi:

Once you adjust for us buying new phones / paying off phones, you can see that we actually hit an average of $88.39 per month. Hey, that’s a few dollars better than our best case scenario at signup! Thanks to Fi’s Data Refund, we received money back when we didn’t use data we had purchased.

Pros and Cons

Pro: Coverage on Multiple Networks

In Colorado, Verizon reigns supreme in terms of wireless signal. If you’re up in the actual mountains, not down in the plains east of the front range like us, any local will laugh if they hear you have a carrier other than Verizon. When companies say they cover 98% of Americans, they aren’t saying 98% of America’s land is covered. Only a small amount of Americans live on or along the I-70 corridor, one of the only highways allowing you through the mountains of Colorado. Not to mention, there is no service on any carrier once you start getting off this narrow corridor.

In the plains of Colorado, the situation is a little better, however signal in Colorado is not all that great even at the lower altitudes. Over the years, Verizon and T-Mobile have bought up the largest contiguous wireless spectrum bands which has helped them to secure their signal strength. This has also left the remaining spectrum bands few and far between, making speed and reliability somewhat unpredictable on other carriers. I used to think it was the unique topography of the area but it’s actually the lack of contiguous spectrum bands, as highlighted in this article explaining why Denver is ranked last in a list of 125 cities in terms of wireless speed. As that article suggests, T-Mobile is pretty much Verizon’s only quality competitor here, but Verizon still has spectrum that holds T-Mobile back.

In the last few years T-Mobile has been buying more spectrum, making it even more of a contender in the area. However reception between cities can still be spotty.

Project Fi combines the coverage of T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular. Google’s last Nexus phones (now discontinued) and Pixel devices have the ability seamlessly switch between each of these networks, even while on voice calls.

Pro: Data Refund

With Project Fi, you pay for your data up front and receive a credit off your next bill for any data that you didn’t wind up using. This is effectively roll-over data, but in a much better format, cash!

This has changed since we left Project Fi. It looks like Fi now lets set a data estimate, but you only pay for what you use, after you use it. You are billed after the fact rather than before and then given credits. Works out to be a similar, but less convoluted system from what I can see.

Pro & Con: Watching Your Data Consumption

The biggest expense with Fi’s plans will be the data. At $10/GB the data isn’t exactly a deal.

After signing up with Fi, data consumption quickly became something I gameified to help me spend as little as possible on data. I was able to get my average data consumption down to less than 0.43 GB of data per month, whereas my wife’s consumption sometimes peaked at around 3 GB a month.

For context my wife is a social worker who is out in the community all day, every day. She is constantly using Google Maps, looking up addresses, logging notes, and doing other data heavy tasks. I on the other hand have high-speed wifi for nearly 95% of my day; both at work and at home. With this in mind, the only real data drag for me was my commute. Between downloading Google Maps areas for offline access and downloading podcasts ahead of time, my data consumption was pretty well contained. However, this did not stop me from doing the math on this:

GB = 1024 MB

/ $10 = $0.01

Each MB costs just over $0.01. Stupid as that is, I have a temptation towards being cheap rather than being frugal. That 5MB picture file just cost 5 cents to send my wife and 5 cents for her to download if we were both on mobile. Even worse when we’re snapping pictures at 12.3 MB per image during a whole day’s worth of wonderful hiking with friends. Let’s say 60 pictures * 12.3 MB (original quality) = 738 MB or $7.38. There is something to say about just waiting till your on wifi, it doesn’t kill ya. But you have to keep this mentality in balance.

After a few years of gaming this out I started to be cheap and would not load links people sent me, open MMS messages, or look up restaurant reviews unless on wifi.

Data Conservation Tips

If you are in a healthy space with data saving and want to increase your frugality in these area, here are a few tips on saving data:

Cache All All The Things!
- Download and cache everything you may need ahead of time. I may or may not have 250 hours of podcasts ready to go at anytime…
- Don’t stream / download anything while out and about. It is amazing how quickly this adds up.
Use the data settings of your device to see how much data each app uses, both in the foreground and background. Restrict background data on apps that seem to use a lot of data. I’m looking at you Instagram!
Restrict your browser’s appetite for data:
- Use the Firefox browser and set it to open new links in Firefox, but not to load them till you open the app. If out and about, you can then click on an interesting link, have the url sent to Firefox, but not load the page until you are on wifi again.
- Install the UBlock Origin plugin to Firefox, which will block ads before they load, saving you from spending data/money on ads and tracking scripts that also slow down your browsing experience. - If using Chrome, set Chrome to Data Save mode, which allows Google to send you scaled down versions of cached web pages and images to help save data. - Try out the Brave browser which automatically blocks ads and tracking scripts.
Use an app like SignalSpy on Android.
- This app will help breakdown which apps use data on which day and while in the background or not. This is the data settings in Android on steroids.
- This app also helps you see which carrier you are currently using when on Fi, signal level, and allows you to switch carriers for troubleshooting purposes as well.

Pro: Amazing Customer Service

No one never hopes to call customer support. Trust me, I’m a technical support analyst. We understand you don’t want to talk to us. We get it. The Project Fi Support team is hands down one of the best. From helping me boot into recovery to troubleshoot a misbehaving Nexus 5x, to next-day shipping a replacement for that 5x, they are professional and extremely helpful.

Verizon ate my phone number when I left them and Google’s Support reps did everything they could to make things right, even when it wasn’t their fault.

Pro: Referral Bonuses

I no longer have active referrals for Fi since we left, but their generous $30 referral program paid for a month or two of Fi for us.

Edit: it looks like my referral may still work to get you a discount at least though! Give it a shot: https://g.co/fi/r/CR9401.

Con: Google could Deprecate Fi at Any time

Google has a long history of killing of Products that niche groups of consumers love. This is usually when the products either don’t return a profit or don’t fit with their revised larger roadmap/goals. That being said, Project Fi continues to gain market share and seems to fit with the company’s current goals. I don’t see this as a real threat at the moment, but it is something to be aware of.

Mint Mobile

So after such a glowing review of Project Fi, why did you switch to Mint Mobile???

We ultimately switched due to Mint Mobile being the true FI frugal cellular option. If you are willing to pay for a year of service up front, Mint’s rates drop down to absurd levels.

For 2GB of data, with unlimited talk and text, I pay $15 per month or $180 in one lump sum. For Kate we pay $240 for the year ($20 monthly), and she gets 5GB of data. If we go over on data, we get throttled, but we haven’t even come close yet.

Pros and Cons

Pro: I Didn’t Realize How Cheap I Was Being By Paying More Cell Service

I hinted at this earlier, but I have a tendency/temptation towards being cheap. This would come out when I wouldn’t want to look up a review for a restaurant or when I’d feel a gut reaction when looking at something important or meaningful that would cost a few pennies. When we switched to Mint Mobile, I had a large feeling of relief, simply by retiring from the aggressive Data Conservation game. Financial Independence is not about being a cheap-wad or about sacrificing, it is about getting the most value with the resources we have. With Project Fi, I was pinching the MB’s so hard that I was afraid to use them. This was miserly as it was truly pennies that I was worried about. Please do not read any of this as a criticism of Google’s Project Fi, but rather as a criticism of myself.

Con: Only One Carrier’s Network

Like Fi, Mint Mobile is another MVNO, however Mint Mobile only run on one network: T-Mobile.

After gathering 2+ years of data while on Project Fi using SignalSpy, it was easy to see that we were usually on T-Mobile’s network when not on wifi. Kate had more variance as she drives all over Colorado some days for her job, when doing so she would occasionally be on Sprint’s network. Neither of our phones saw US Cellular’s network at any point in Colorado. With this in mind, jumping over to only using T-Mobile wouldn’t be a too much of a difference.

We do notice a few dropped calls on Mint, due to T-Mobile’s interrupted spectrum, but honestly, this is not any worse than Project Fi was for me.

Pro: Option to Pay Annually

I love the option to pay in one lump sum. I use this with any service I can and companies usually give you incentive to do so. This also makes meeting minimum spend for Credit Card / Travel Hacking easier for one quarter in the year as it puts a bulge in our expense calendar at Mint renewal time.

Right now we are trying to decide whether to save monthly for next year’s cell service bill now or to just invest the $36 per month. Either way, using Mint we get to make this choice!

Mint Impressions

Currently we are in our third month of using Mint Mobile. After getting setup we haven’t faced any difficulties and have been saving $50 per month or $600 a year! A few of my friends have been using Mint as well and have been loving it with no complaints either.

Mint has kindly allowed me to have an affiliate link to their site. This post was already going to praise Mint, but I do want to let you know that the links to Mint here are affiliate links.

Get 12 Months of unlimited talk & text + 2GB/month of 4G LTE data for only $15/month

FI Cell Plans

Whether you check out Project Fi, Mint Mobile, or someone else, I would recommend that you reevaluate what you are paying for cell service and whether or not you are getting the same amount of value you can get elsewhere. I was afraid to make the jump for fear of disconnected calls, offers that were to good to be true, and just general fear of the unknown, however I have absolutely no regrets for taking control of our cell phone plans. It doesn’t have to look like it does with us, but hopefully you can pick up a meagerfinding or two from our personal journey with cell service providers.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve been able to slash your cell service bills or if you have any tips on this subject!

Update on Verizon

In the spirit of fairness, lets look at Verizon’s current prices as the $120 figure at the top of the post was from two years ago.

Looking at their prices today it looks like big red may have dropped their prices a little as a similar plan with just the two of us today would start at $50 for 4GB of data shared between the two of us, with unlimited talk and text. But then you add in the fine print:

Plan cost per month, plus $20/mo/line access fee per smartphone purchased on device payment. Plus taxes & fees.

Ahh, looks like we can add $40 for the two phones on the plan bringing us up to $90 a month for the modern day version of the plan. Hey! That’s $30 cheaper than what we were paying from 2011 - 2016! But that is definitely more than our monthly $36 Mint Mobile bill and not considering that Kate is getting 5GB of data per month now…

Meagerfindings?

2018-08-05T00:00:00-06:00

What are meagerfindings?

Meager what now?

Kind of a strange name. Meager isn’t usually a positive description right? Lets check:

Definition of meager:

meager

adjective mea·ger \ ˈmē-gər \

1 : having little flesh : thin

2 a : lacking desirable qualities (such as richness or strength)

2 b : deficient in quality or quantity

“Meager.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 5 Aug. 2018.

Okay, yeah, not the most positive name for a website. So why do I call my site meagerfindings?

These are my humble opinions

I am not a personal finance guru, or a certified financial planner, or particularly gifted at math. I haven’t clawed my way out of massive debt. I haven’t come up with some stock-picking scheme to get rich quick. I haven’t “bought” a house yet. I did not suddenly think up a flawless path to financial independence.

These are not profound findings

I don’t have a master plan, instead I am finding life-hacks, tips, tricks, bonuses, deals, setbacks, pitfalls, and value in unexpected places. A lot of the findings I surface are run of the mill ideas or concepts, sometimes with a novel twist.

These meager findings make all the difference

Thankfully, we don’t need profound, draw dropping realizations to completely alter our lives. They sure do help and we are thankful when we get divine inspiration/feedback. However, most the time, we live life day-to-day. Despite what action-thriller movies, shows, and novels exhibit, our lives probably won’t be decided by the heroic actions of one to five 24 hour periods of time. I don’t live the life of Jack Bauer, far from it. Instead the trajectory of my life is an accumulation of day by day, hour by hour choices. Sure there are some milestone moments that ratchet things into high-speed, but most of the time, it’s the small choices that make up the overall results.

Do I choose to go to the gym today or do I give into not feeling like lifting heavy things today?
Do I choose look the other way and not deal with what I just saw him do?
Do I invest that extra $100 or should I buy 5 cases of Bounty Bars on Amazon?

These are all value choices. And to be honest, most of them are very small choices that in isolation will not have a large impact on my life. However if I start repeating these choices, there can be profound consequences to even the most innocent of these choices.

For instance, as I approached finishing up my second bachelors degree, I began to notice that my waistline was expanding. Turns out that while I was a full-time student and still working full-time, I started making choices to forgo working out, sleeping, and eating healthily in order to push through to graduation. Thankfully, its also the small choices of spending 45 minutes to an hour at the gym, doing only 3 exercises per visit, but increasing the weight on the bar each time that is also leading me to be in the best shape of my life at the age of 31. It all started with the choice to show up and lift an empty bar though, and then to show up again and add a few pounds more each time.

Making the choice to show up and put the work in truly makes a difference over the course of many months.

For some higher level examples, play around with my FiCalculator to see the difference that additional savings can make when compound interest is applied.

There are countless additional meager findings that add up to outsized results and I hope to reveal more of these every day choices that can make all the difference.

Earning $900 in less than 4 hours

2018-07-13T00:00:00-06:00

I’ve heard several times that as you save, more opportunities to make more money present themselves. We’ve been able to see this in a large way for the first time.

Right now my wife and I are in the process of saving up for a down payment for house. We have been putting the down payment into Marcus from Goldman Sachs due to their 1.5% annual percentage yield they had in January 2018. Their rate has increased to 1.8% in the last 5 months, not to shabby. (Quick tip if you sign up for Marcus… their website will not allow you to sign in if you are using a VPN.) I have not found a better rate to date with zero risk and the ability to keep the entire down payment in a liquid state… until now.

Update: 08/21/2018 Marcus’s current interest rate is 1.85%.

Chase bank is currently offering a sign up bonus of $300 when you deposit $25,000 within 20 business days of opening the account as long as you maintain a $25,000 balance for 90 days. The return rate here works out to be 4.8%:

Chase Savings Bonus APY:
$300 / 3  = $100 monthly return
$100 * 12 = $1,200  annual return

$1,200/$25,000 = 0.048
$25,000 * 4.8% = $1,200 annual return
$1,200 / 12 = $100 monthly return

Within Marcus:
$25,000 * 1.8% = $450 annually
$450 / 12 = $37.50 monthly

Difference:
$100 - $37.50 = $62.50 additional for 3 months

So, for letting Chase hold our down payment for a few months we get a 3% increase on our APY. After these 3 months the rate drops down to their usual 0.01% APY. The down payment will most likely be headed back to Marcus unless there is some amazing benefit that I’ve missed with the Chase savings account.

This offer is available until August 6, 2018.

Granted, this all assumes that we follow the fine print to the ‘T’ by leaving the money in for 90 days after the deposit clears, maintaining the minimum balance of $300 every day to avoid a $5 fee, and keeping the account open for six months to avoid having the bonus withdrawn. There are other ways to accomplish this in their terms, however this is the most straight forward path that will work for us.

More Bonuses!

We were also able to take advantage of a similar signup bonus twice over with First bank, a local Colorado bank. The $300 sign up bonus is dependent on a single direct deposit over $500 within the first 90 days of the account being opened. An optional debit card costs $5 a year, first year waved, but we declined this altogether. The account must also have a positive balance each day and remain open for one year to keep the bonus.

This deal sadly expired on July 8th, so as of this writing there is no link to share for this one.

Direct deposit takes a few minutes to setup with our employers and then we’ll have to allocate a few additional minutes to move the funds back into our usual checking account after deposit to pay bills. We both spent an hour at a local branch getting the account finalized. All in all, not bad for $600 as a couple as long as we follow the fine print.

I also humorously managed to trigger Chase’s anti-fraud protections, locking myself out of my online account, by trying to do one lump sump transfer. This was easily remedied by a twenty minute visit to a local branch though.

After years of honing in our expenses we now have the float to withstand moving around our direct deposits, delaying parts of our paychecks for a few days, and moving our down payment around all in one month. I am extremely thankful to be in a place to take advantage of the opportunities that July has presented.

From now on I am going to be much more inclined to read the “junk mail” as this could all have been spread out over the last few months if I had read the mailers a few months ago. We also would have been able to have used the Chase bonus twice if I had read about it a few months earlier.

Update: 07/31/2018

So far so good! We’ve received the two First Bank bonuses already, one of which went directly to an unexpected $300 expense and the other has already been deposited into the down payment fund.

Trip Report: Backpacking the Four Pass Loop

2018-07-12T00:00:00-06:00

The Four Pass Loop

A few weekends ago, we had the privilege of backpacking the Four Pass Loop in Aspen, Colrado. This challenging 27.1 mile loop includes 7,000+ feet of elevation gain and an equal amount of elevation loss. This is due to four difficult, yet beautiful passes.

We first did this hike two years ago as our first backpacking trip with just the two of us. That was truly a humbling experience as we learned the some important lessons about always checking the map, couple communication while doing difficult things, and how to be thankful for the smallest things.

The trail was still very difficult this year, however there were a few differences that helped us enjoy the trip even more than on our first time out together.

Amazing Hiking Conditions

Colorado has only received 73% of our usual snow pack amount. While this makes for nasty wildfire conditions, it also made for spectacular backpacking conditions as we had clear skies and no postholing at any point on the route. We still had ample access to water along the way, making for light(er) packs between camp sites. Two years ago we were not aware of the abundant streams so we wound up carrying more water than necessary at times. Even though we had crampons, gaiters, rain gear, gloves, and hats, we didn’t wind up using any as it was blessedly dry for us this time around. Last time we were rained on, snowed on, hailed on, and woke up to a frost covered tent each morning.

Trail Rider Pass in 2015:

Trail Rider Pass in 2018:

Knowing the Course

Backpacking always has its challenges; one of the major ones being navigation. Thankfully the route we traveled was still fresh in our minds two years later, making interpretation of the map and critical junctures unbelievably easy. Thankfully this was not false confidence! This made for a much less mentally exhausting trip and also removed opportunities for disagreement due to different perspectives.

A Challenging Start

We arrived at the trail head around midnight, prepared to jump into sleeping bags to sleep for a few hours in the back of our vehicle, however we had a surprise in store. As we were prepping the car for sleep, the park’s camp host paid us a visit.

Camp Host: You’re getting a really late start.

Us: Oh, we’re not starting, we’re going to bed.

Camp Host: Where at?

Us: Just in the back of our vehicle for a few hours.

Camp Host: No. No you’re not. Not in the park. You can start now or come back in in the morning.

Us: Guess we’re getting a really late start.

With just a look we both decided to start hiking, 3 hours after we usually fall asleep, rather than risk loosing one of the two last spots in the parking lot.Thankfully this also set the tone for our trip; we didn’t set out to have a leisure stroll, but to be challenged and find joy in the midst of difficulty. This was not the way we wanted to start out, but it was truly a blessing to get an early start and to set a tone of perseverance from the very start.

Passes Were Still Wonderfully Difficult

Trudging up the steep slopes with loaded packs provided wonderful challenges, both physically and mentally. This time around, I was much better prepared for the passes thanks to Starting Strength, which I’ll write more about in a future post.

West Maroon pass

Thanks to our late night start, our approach to the first pass was just over two miles “shorter” than we had planned for it to be. This first pass is the second tallest pass of the four, however most of the ascent is gradual until you reach 11,700 feet or about four miles into this push. At this point we hit the steeper grades on which Kate’s marathon training truly pays off as her recovery rate is astounding. I on the other hand had plenty of heavy breathing to do but we made it up all the same. We completely forgot to take a picture at the top of this pass as we were eager to get down to start the next pass.

The steep descent from West Maroon pass:

After rapidly descending 700 feet from the pass we started the gradual climb to Frigid Air pass. The views here are breathtaking, filled with vibrant wild flowers and lush greens. We were on this gradual ascent around 2 pm, meaning the sun was relentless. Our poor pup over-heated and had to be coaxed on with treats. We were both worried that we would need to turn back, rather than committing to the second pass, the point of no return on this trip. Thankfully, once relieved of her pack, Summit carried on, meaning we didn’t have to add 50 lbs to one of our packs or turn back.

Frigid Air pass

The last pitch of Frigid Air pass is haltingly steep, reminiscent of summiting a 14er, yet missing those last 2,000 feet of elevation. This pass took my breath away as well and made for a great quick lunch spot.

We set camp up around 12 miles in on this first day. While we hoped to go a bit further, we recognized a decent camp site on a ridge that was close to the last water before the terrain would get steeper again soon. This night we feasted, having underestimated the MountainHouse meals we brought along. The two packs of Pad Thai claimed to contain two servings each… this time, that was accurate. We went to bed more full than ever before in the wilderness.

We awoke on our second day refreshed and ready to go. We practically flew through the gradual slopes of the first few miles.

Trail Rider pass

Prior to Trail Rider, you lose nearly 2,000 feet of elevation. This makes for an arduous hike up as you gain all your lost elevation over two miles. Throw in a false summit for a good mental obstacle and this stretch was truly testing. The top of the pass itself was dry but very windy. So windy that after pausing for a picture we started the descent to SnowMass lake. After a quick glimpse at the bustling lake we busted out two more quick miles to finish out the day.

Buckskin pass

Having went to bed around 6pm the night before we hoped to arise quite early to begin our last pass and get back to the car. Our feet were certainly ready to be home. Even with the delightfully early bed time, we slept for about twelve hours. Later start than we had hoped for, but Buckskin pass proved to be quite easy compared to the previous days pass. While not easy, it was over before we knew it. The descent on the other hand was just as arduous as we remembered, but no rain this time! The elevation here is thankfully varied between steep and very steep, but this is where our feet took a good pounding as we plodded down the last few miles before hitting the main trail used by day hikers and backpackers alike to reach Crater lake.

This quick three day trip was a whirlwind. We were glad it wasn’t shorter but were also thankful when we reached the trail head. It was stunningly beautiful, provided opportunities to push ourselves, and helped to highlight both small and large things to be thankful for both on and off the trail.

Mat Greten

The Southwest Companion Pass is not Worth It

Nearly Free Google Play Store Credits

Payout to Time Ratio

How can you use these Credits

The App Itself

You Mileage May Vary

Privacy Concerns

Location Data

Choose your own adventure privacy

Earning $60 in One Minute

6,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points for an Email Address

Why are they doing this?

$60 in a Minute?

The Fine Print

Saving Money on Cell Phone Plans

Verizon

Google Project Fi

How much cheaper?

But how did this actually work out?

Pros and Cons

Pro: Coverage on Multiple Networks

Pro: Data Refund

Pro & Con: Watching Your Data Consumption

Data Conservation Tips

Pro: Amazing Customer Service

Pro: Referral Bonuses

Con: Google could Deprecate Fi at Any time

Mint Mobile

Pros and Cons

Pro: I Didn’t Realize How Cheap I Was Being By Paying More Cell Service

Con: Only One Carrier’s Network

Pro: Option to Pay Annually

Mint Impressions

FI Cell Plans

Update on Verizon

Meagerfindings?

What are meagerfindings?

These are my humble opinions

These are not profound findings

These meager findings make all the difference

Earning $900 in less than 4 hours

Enter the Sign Up Bonus(es)

More Bonuses!

Update: 07/31/2018

Trip Report: Backpacking the Four Pass Loop

The Four Pass Loop

Amazing Hiking Conditions

Knowing the Course

A Challenging Start

Passes Were Still Wonderfully Difficult

West Maroon pass

Frigid Air pass

Trail Rider pass

Buckskin pass