Saving for the Future

Saving for the Future

The basics of saving for the future are to

  1. Determine what kind of life you want to live and examine ways to accommodate the future in your present
  2. Examine your current financial situation
  3. Take note of any goals you may have for the future
  4. Make adjustments to your lifestyle based on what your goals are

What kind of life do you want to live?

Do you want to live a life where you eat out often? Or spend a lot of money on shows & other forms of entertainment regularly? Would you prefer quiet nights at home and borrowing books from the library? Do you like to cook or have your meals be pre-prepared?


All of those preferences and decisions are fine. Just know that every decision, regular habit and recurring expense is going to shape the way that you save for your future and the kind of future you’ll have. Essentially, the more you spend of your income now – the less you’ll have for later. That being said, you shouldn’t sacrifice the core things that make you happy. Generally, you should be able to reduce your expenses to a certain point without losing the things that spark joy (thanks Marie Kondo!).

 

For example, let’s say you have an awesome group of friends that you hang out with regularly. Those hangouts generally compose of going to a great restaurant where lots of delicious food and compelling alcohol is consumed. These nights bring you and your friends a lot of happiness and foster an ever deepening friendship. The downside of these nights is that it runs at about $60 per person every time you go. 

 

An example of reducing expenses without losing what makes your life wonderful would be to take on hosting those friend nights at your place (or take turns hosting) and experiment together with cooking meals that you can still enjoy. Plus, alcohol is much less expensive when not being purchased at a restaurant, :). That way you can still hang out together, learn to cook and even expand the range of activities you do together (board games, video games, cards, movie nights).

 

This sort of thinking can be applied to many situations. What is it about an activity that makes you enjoy it so much and spend money on it regularly? Is there a way to get that same enjoyment at a reduced cost? Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no. But you can examine your major expenses and adjust accordingly. You may be surprised at how much progress you can make. You may even learn some new things in the process!

 

By thinking through how you’re spending you can live in the present while taking into account the future. It is a bit intimidating, but every dollar spent now is a dollar that you can’t put towards your future self (and have grow alongside you in the form of investment returns). You’ll want to balance things in order to avoid over committing to one or the other (present or future). I’m still figuring out that balance myself!

 

How are you currently doing financially?

So you’ve thought about what kind of life you want to live and where your major sources of expenses might be coming from. Here’s the fun part. You’ll get to look at the actual data tied to the decisions you’re making and see if your assumptions line with reality.

 

What you’ll want to do is figure out how much money you are getting after withholdings from your paycheque and then see how much of that you are spending on a monthly basis. Hopefully, you’re spending less than you’re earning post tax (if you’re not, you’ll need to consider if you need to dial back things in order to live within the limits of your current income). 

 

Once you have your post tax income (the money that shows up in your bank account after every paycheque) you can see how much of that money tends to go towards expenses and how much you have left over. That amount of money in % percentage form (e.g. $1000 post tax, $400 after expenses would be 40%) is what people typically refer to as their savings rate (https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/wiki/faq#wiki_how_do_i_calculate_my_savings_rate.3F). Some people like to track savings rate and find it motivating to see it increase as they make changes or keep their spending flat even when they’re getting raises.

 

The next step is to dig into your expenses to better understand how you come to that savings rate number. It may be helpful to use something like Mint (https://www.mint.com/) or Personal Capital ( to import your transactions and bunch them into categories. If you’d rather not sign up for a service and share your information it is totally doable to download transactions in CSV form and play around with them in a spreadsheet (typically I use Google Sheets or Excel for this).

 

Once you’ve roughly categorized your expenses you should be able to put together a breakdown that looks something like this.

 

Post tax income (monthly) – $3000

Rent – $1900

Utilities -$ 100

Food – $400

Entertainment – $100

Travel – $200

Health and Fitness – $75

Transportation – $150

 

This sample breakdown sums up to monthly expenses of $2925 which leads to a 2.5% savings rate. Once you have this big picture you can dig into what you should do next. For example, in this scenario we’re dangerously close to spending past what we’re earning on a monthly basis. Given how big of a contributor Rent is, we might want to look into that category first and see if there are improvements to be made.

 

Some additional categories that you might include could be things like Children and

Education. You may also want to break categories down further depending on where your expenses are coming from. For example, if you buy groceries and spend a lot on eating out it could be good to break those down separately in order to better understand where your spending is coming from (too much eating out vs. spending too much on groceries). 

 

For significant intermittent expenses that don’t come up monthly (like Travel) you can average them out on a monthly basis based on spending over the course of a year. Your expenses will vary based on your situation and your treatment/examination of them should as well!

 

Once you’re at a good point with regards to your spending vs. what you’re earning on a monthly basis you can then look at where your excess money should be going!

 

Do you have any big goals for the future?

Do you want to buy a home for yourself at some point? Return to school? Have a kid? Go on a long trip? Retire by a certain age? All these things require a decent amount of money to be saved up in order to be pursued successfully. With that in mind, it is helpful to think about how you might get there and how long it will take.

 

There are a few components to planning savings for goals in the future

 

  • How much do you need to meet your goal?
  • When will you need the savings to be available for your goal?
  • At what rate will you need to draw down from those savings to attain what you’ve been saving for?

 

How much do you need to meet your goal?

For example, if you’re looking to buy a house you might consider roughly what kind of house you’d like and what sorts of areas you’d be interested in buying in. With a bit of research you can settle in on a rough range of prices you’d be willing to consider and then decide on how much of a down payment it makes sense for you to put down upfront. With that in mind, you’ll know how much you’ll need saved by a certain point in time and you can start planning towards it.

 

Let’s take the purchase of a $500,000 home for example. 

 

Using a 20% down payment as our baseline (lower interest rate, avoids PMI – https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/7poswg/how_much_is_an_actual_reasonable_down_payment_on/) we’ll need $100,000 on hand when purchasing the house. We should add another $15,000 in closing costs for the various things you need to pay for when buying a home (inspection, agent fees, lawyer, etc – https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/really-costs-buy-home/).

 

At that point it just becomes an equation to determine at which point you’ll be able to reach your goal. Take your excess, post-tax income that you’re saving on a monthly basis (let’s use $3000/month for simplicity) and divide your savings goal by that (in this case, 115/3 = 38.33 months or almost 4 years).

 

Seeing how long it will take you to save up to your goal may provide you with an impetus to reexamine how you’re spending money in order to get there quickly, give you some encouragement that things are more attainable than you thought or lead you to decide to focus on other goals in the meantime.

 

For something like saving up for a house, you may be looking at a long time horizon which leads into my next question.

 

When will you need the savings to be available for your goal?

Generally, as you’re saving you should be putting money into your chosen allocation of index funds (more on that later) but you may want to alter how you’re saving up money based on when you’re anticipating you’ll be needing it.

 

In the case of saving up over the course of 4 years for a downpayment for a house you’ll likely want to choose to save your money in a form that makes sense in relation to your time horizon. If you take the simple math that we did previously, $115,000 / $3,000 per month you get 38.33 months. However, it isn’t quite that simple as there are a few things that could lead to a different outcome.

 

Given that you’re waiting 4 years before you have enough money to buy this house:

 

  • The cost of the type of house that you’re interested in could change between now and four years from now
  • Your money could increase (or decrease) over time depending on how you’ve decided how to save (or invest) it.

 

Which brings us back to a form of storage for your money that makes sense for you and your situation. In the case of a house that takes a long time to save up for, you’ll probably want it to be in a place where it is working for you (i.e. earning returns) while you’re working toward your goal. 

 

Generally, when it comes to investing money you’ll want to find the investment opportunity that matches your risk tolerances. Riskiness of your various money storage options are as follows (least risky to most risky):

 

  • Cash holdings (checking account, actual cash on hand, etc)
  • Bonds
  • Stocks (also known as equities)
  • Real estate
  • Private company shares

 

Another rule of thumb is that, the more diversified your investment is, the less risky it becomes. So, even though stocks are generally riskier (and provide higher returns) than bonds, holding a stock index fund could be less risky (and provide a lower return) than an individual bond.

 

With that in mind, you may want to pursue a strategy where you put your money into more volatile investment types earlier on as you’re saving up and gradually move into a less risky allocation as you get closer to your savings goal (and to wanting to be able to actually spend the money you’ve been saving up).

 

In the case of saving up for this house, you could do the following:

 

  • Invest in equity index funds (100%)
  • Invest in equity index funds (50%) and bond index funds (50%)
  • Sell your investments and move your money into a high interest savings account or term deposit (if you know exactly when you’d like it to be available)

 

With this strategy, you’d be able to get much higher returns on your money as you’re saving up vs. storing your savings exclusively in cash (see this chart – https://novelinvestor.com/asset-class-returns/ – to see how returns tend to vary by asset class). However, there is a downside as there is always a chance that your investments will decrease in value as you’re saving up. We’re trying our best to mitigate that risk by reducing the risk of the holdings as we approach wanting to make use of them but you can never guarantee returns from an investment (despite what anyone tries to tell you).

 

In short, depending on how long you need to save for to reach your goal you should invest in appropriately risky asset classes in order to make use of the returns you can earn on your money over time. As you get closer to your goal it’s best to reduce the risk of your investments to avoid too much fluctuation and end up missing your target (in terms of the timeline you are aiming for).

Do you want to make any adjustments to the way you’re doing things?

Now that you’ve thought through what kind of life you’d like to live, your current financial situation and goals you’d like to reach in the future. You might want to make adjustments to the way that you’re currently doing things in order to get to where you’d like to be. You may also be perfectly happy with the way things are, but if you’ve never thought about this sort of stuff before it is likely that you’ll want to make at least a few changes.

 

If you’re facing a scenario where you’re not progressing towards your goals at a rate that you’d like to you might make some of the following changes:

 

  • Change of career for better hours, benefits or pay
  • Reduction in non-core expenses (eating out, entertainment, etc)
  • Change living situation to reduce costs (move to a smaller place, get a roommate, etc)
  • Shed unneeded assets and services (car that you don’t frequently use, subscriptions that you’re paying for but not using, etc)

 

You might also not be moving along at the pace that you’d like but uncertain of where you can make changes without ending up unhappy/sacrificing too much in your life. That’s fine too. Now that you’re aware of the pace that you’re moving at and where you’d like to be you can use that to make more informed decisions about how you choose to live your life!

 

Keep looking for ways to live smarter and get to where you want to be without giving too much of what makes you happy in the present moment. You’d be surprised by what you can find when you start looking at and paying attention to the choices you make.

 

Measure What Matters – Broken into Bullets

I recently read Measure What Matters as our new executive at Humble Bundle is introducing OKRs as a means to drive the company towards our goals. The book was surprisingly interesting to read and made a good case for OKRs and the different ways in which you can use them. What follows below is the summary I made of the points from the book. Hopefully they can be helpful to some of you, :).

Objectives and Key Results

Choose OKRs that are a stretch. 100% completion is not a requirement.

It can take some time to build out OKRs (6 months to a year or more). You may want to start with a smaller pilot group and build up from there.

OKRs help departments come together to make sure that everyone is meeting their goals.

OKRs should not be tied to compensation. Tying to compensation leads to sandbagging of numbers.

OKRs can be adjusted midway if they are no longer relevant but adjustment should be accompanied by discussion and consensus.

The OKR creation process should be transparent and collaborative. OKRs are not meant to be assembled from on high and handed down as directives. The best top level OKRs end up being reflected in the OKRs written by individual contributors.

Progress on OKRs should be tracked continuously in smaller portions than the time period for the OKRs themselves (e.g. Weekly for Quarterly OKRs).

OKRs do not have to be quarterly or annual. They can be multi year endeavors if the situation calls for it.

OKRs do well when paired with CFR (Conversations, Feedback, Recognition). CFR allows for the steering of employees and keeping them on track rather than catching issues or optimizations outside of the moment when they are relevant (and avoids recency bias).

OKRs allow for the whole organization to move in the same direction on key goals and initiatives (e.g. Operation Crush). By using OKRs, a company can be much more agile and avoid the sluggishness that comes with size and scope.

OKRs provide clarity for everyday decision making and prioritization. Does this help me to achieve my OKR?

Key results should not exceed 3-5 per OKR.

OKRs should be graded (0-1, Green/Yellow/Red) to assess progress once the period has been ended.

For OKRs to succeed, a culture of trust and collaboration needs to exist. Individuals should be free (and safe) to fail. Without the right environment to operate within the potential unlocked by OKRs will continue to be held captive.

OKRs allow managers to scale through their direct rapports.

OKRs need to be transparent and publicly available. An active culture of viewing others’ OKRs is healthy and allows co-workers to direct themselves in an efficient fashion and plan for the needs and capabilities of other teams as a part of their process.

Getting everyone on board for OKRs may require consistent nudging and will likely require continuous effort to preserve and expand upon them.

OKRs provide clarity in challenging times and allow companies to re-evaluate their approach before its too late if they aren’t making needed progress.

Stretch goals can produce truly formidable results (Google Chrome rollout, push to 1 billion hours viewed for YouTube).

OKRs produce a meritocracy by tracking progress and results and not limiting recognition solely to those who speak the loudest or happen to be in the limelight.

OKRs bring focus and allow companies to commit fully to their priorities.

OKRs can also contain things like staying true to a company’s values and continuing to put users first (e.g. Zume and not sacrificing quality of ingredients in the push for growth and efficiency).

Different departments should collaborate to find what they can do to help each other succeed. OKRs should open up dialog for this to occur naturally.

Things to do in Vancouver

This is a list I’ve been working on for friends visiting Vancouver. If you have any suggestions or feedback please feel free to leave a comment, :).

To do

North Shore

  • Where I grew up!
  • Things to do
    • Lonsdale Quay
    • Ambleside Park
    • Take the Seabus to and from Vancouver
      • Nice ride with great views!
  • Nature
  • Grouse Mountain
    • Grouse Grind, intense hike up to the top of the mountain. You can also take the gondola if you’d rather not hike your way up.
    • Lumberjack show at the top
    • See wolves and bears
  • Capilano Suspension Bridge
    • Nice suspension Bridge
    • Walk amongst the trees
  • Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge
    • Nice hike in the woods
    • Free Suspension Bridge
    • Waterfalls
  • Deep Cove
    • Baden Powell Trail, Quarry Rock is a short hike with a great view
    • Kayaking
    • Cute little town
  • Lighthouse Park
    • Really nice hike and lighthouse by the water

UBC/Point Grey

  • Things to do
  • Nature
    • Pacific Spirit Regional Park
      • Huge forest on University Endowment lands that you can hike in
    • Wreck Beach is nice to visit and has quite a nice view at sunset
      • Note that this is a nudist beach
    • Nitobe Memorial Garden – UBC Botanical Garden
      • Beautiful little garden on campus. So peaceful and quiet here, :).
    • Botanical Gardens at UBC are nice as well

Downtown Vancouver

  • Things to do
    • Visit
      • Gastown
        • Hipster part of Vancouver
        • Cobblestone streets
        • Steam clock
        • Fancy coffee bars and silly fashion stores
      • Coal Harbour
        • Beautiful neighbourhood by the water
        • Pathway along the water that leads to Stanley park
      • Canada Place
        • Convention Centre by the water
        • Pathway by the water
        • Olympic Flame
      • Granville Island
        • Cool little island made from a sandbar
        • Used to be industrial now full of small artisan workplaces and cool shops
        • Visit the Granville Island Market
        • Improv at the Theatre on the Island is also very good.
      • Kitsilano/West 4th
        • Nice part of the city with restaurants and good shopping
        • Lots of streets named after trees
      • Granville Street
        • Street where pretty much all the clubs are located in Downtown Vancouver
      • Robson Street
        • Best known for shopping and food
        • Good ramen here
      • English Bay
        • Nice beach by Stanley Park with beautiful views
      • Commercial Drive
        • Quirky part of the city with a lot of small businesses
        • Similar to the Mission in SF
    • Activities
  • Nature
    • Stanley Park
      • Amazing park that represents a big chunk of the city
      • You should bike around the Seawall!
      • Visit the Vancouver Aquarium if you like aquariums
    • English Bay

Food

Overall Recommendations

  • Ask for Luigi
    • AMAZING Italian food
  • Bon’s off Broadway
    • Crazy cheap breakfast diner, very colourful
  • Heritage Asian Eatery
    • Delicious Asian food. Get the Dandan Noodles, duck wings and crispy dumplings
  • Jade Garden
    • Love this Chinese food place on the North Shore. My favourites are the Hot & Sour Soup, Crispy Ginger Fried Beef and Pad Thai Fried Flat Noodle
  • Nam Nam Noodle | Home | Nam Nam Noodle (square.site)
    • Extraordinary hand pulled noodles at great prices.
  • Indian Village Eatery
    • The best Indian food I’ve had in Vancouver. Affordable, delicious and you can see them make your food. The most friendly and warm legit Indian ladies making your fantastic food.
  • Go Fish
    • Amazing fish & chips by Granville island. Beautiful views and you can get many different varieties of fish. I always go for the salmon, :D. Their coleslaw is great too!
  • Bao Bei
    • Taiwanese food in Chinatown
  • Meat and Bread
    • Simple and delicious sandwiches. Lunch rush is a bit crazy during weekdays but if you work around that you should be good!
  • Phnom Penh Restaurant
    • Great Vietnamese food. Make sure to get their chicken wings!
  • Richmond Night Market
    • If this is running, this is a fun spot to visit for a couple hours. Try out some of the night market foods, :D!
  • Savio Volpe | Home – Savio Volpe
    • Astonishingly good place to eat. Their food is expensive but delicious. But everything I ate there was fantastic.
  • HK BBQ Master | HK B.B.Q. MASTER
    • Fantastic BBQ pork for a great price. Highly recommend eating here.
    • Cash only (although there is an ATM in the Superstore above)
  • Kim’s Market | KIM’S MART 
    • Legit Korean grocery off Broadway. If you need to shop for groceries you can get some well priced stuff here and explore some Korean snacks!
  • purebread | https://www.purebread.ca/
    • This is my favourite bakery in Vancouver by far. Their stuff is SO good and SO beautiful. Definitely on the pricey side but if you can afford it it is worth it. I recommend visiting their Mount Pleasant location
    • 5 E 5th Avenue, Vancouver
  • Granville Island Market
    • Oyama Sausage Co
      • Get one each of their sausages up on the counter. They’re so delicious and since they’re dried you can keep them in your backpack as a snack (my brother Seb originally suggested this place to me!).
  • Chun Fun How Vancouver
    • My favourite boba place in Vancouver. Get the osmanthus tea and some fresh egg tarts. Soooo good!
  • Double Double Restaurant
    • Awesome congee + chinese donut. Get a large bowl and you’ll have food for three days, xD. Double up here and treat yourself to takeout from HK BBQ Master at the same time.
  • The Lunch Lady
    • Excellent Vietnamese food on Commercial Drive. Come here if you want the fancy version of some of your Vietnamese favourites.

Surrey

  • Go here for Indian food

Richmond

  • Go here for Chinese food

Kingsway

  • Go here for Vietnamese food

Lonsdale

  • Go here for Iranian food

Other Locations to Visit (Further Treks)

Whistler

  • Excellent skiing and snowboarding in the winter
  • Great hikes and mountain biking in the summer
  • Beautiful mountain resort town

The Chief

  • Awesome hike up to the top of a massive granite face. Cool views.
  • Will take 2-3 hours depending on fitness

Squamish

Victoria

  • Capital city of British Columbia
  • Really nice place to visit for a day or two
  • Beautiful heritage buildings
  • Better weather than Vancouver
  • Lots of museums and such

Various Islands near Vancouver

  • Take the ferries to access these
  • Mix of beautiful nature, cute little towns
  • Totally different lifestyle from the mainland. Much slower and more down to earth.
  • Some islands to consider
    • Bowen Island
    • Galiano Island
    • Saltspring Island

Winter stuff

  • Grouse Mountain and ice skate (take the gondala up)
  • A nighttime walk along the water from DT Vancouver to English Bay is pretty nice
  • Christmas installation at Capilaino Suspension Bridge is sooo beautiful!
  • Go snowshoeing at Cypress mountain

Where do I start with credit card churning?

For optimal card sign up paths check out this credit card flowchart from r/churning: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/9hf4ex/faq_credit_card_recommendation_flowchart/

I would also recommend reading the links under Basic Reading for r/churning:

Miles vs Points: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/74hghz/miles_vs_points_what_are_they/
Why you should not churn: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/8m487c/why_you_should_not_begin_churning_v30/
Credit Card Decision Flowchart: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/9hf4ex/faq_credit_card_recommendation_flowchart/
Beginner’s Chase Guide for Under 5/24: https://old.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/9sgpmk/beginners_chase_guide_for_folks_under_524_v_20/

I’ve also written an accumulation of what I’ve learned about churning that could potentially be of use to you: https://pezant.ca/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-credit-cards-churning/

If this was useful to you, please consider using my referral links for cards that you’re signing up for: https://pezant.ca/blog/referral-links/

Referral Links

If you want to support me please use these referral links. However, if the links don’t offer benefits beyond what is otherwise available (e.g. 20K less points for same amount of spend) please don’t feel bad not using them.

Credit Cards

— Chase —

Chase Ink Preferred | 80K UR Pts | $5K spend | 3 months | $95 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/21a/SRV7DUK9GS

Chase Business Unlimited | 50K UR Pts | $3K spend | 3 months | $0 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/27/EHU94X50D5

Chase Freedom | 20K UR Pts | $500 spend | 3 months | $0 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/2/GFZYM6X5FE

Chase World of Hyatt | 25K (50K total) Hyatt Pts | $3K spend ($6K total) | 3 months (6 months) | $95 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/205a/1BYIYRWD9E

— Chase Southwest Cards —

Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus | 40K RR Pts | $1K spend | 3 months | $69 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/WORBD6CZ14
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/C5UT3U7QG3

Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier | 40K RR Pts | $1K spend | 3 months | $99 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/WORBD6CZ14
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/C5UT3U7QG3

Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority | 40K RR Pts | $1K spend | 3 months | $149 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/WORBD6CZ14
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/C5UT3U7QG3

Southwest Business Premier | 60K RR Pts | $3K spend | 3 months | $99 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/WORBD6CZ14
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/C5UT3U7QG3

Southwest Business Performance | 70K RR Pts | $5K spend | 3 months | $199 AF
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/WORBD6CZ14
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/257f/C5UT3U7QG3

— Amex —

Amex links for a particular card feature that card first but allow you to apply for any card within their catalogue and still provide a referral bonus to the person referring you.

Try opening the link in a mix of browsers (and in incognito) to see if you get a better offer depending on your configuration.

Amex Business Platinum | 50K(75K) MR Pts | $10K (20K) spend | (3) months | $595 AF
http://refer.amex.us/NICHOPMWYY?XLINK=MYCP

Amex BBP | 15K MR Pts | $5K spend | 3 months | $0 AF
http://refer.amex.us/NICHOPtF1p?XLINK=MYCP

Amex Green | 25K MR Pts | $3K spend | 3 months | $0 AF ($95 after 1st year)
http://refer.amex.us/NICHOPArfn?XLINK=MYCP

Do you need to be under 5/24 to get a Chase business card with EIN?

TLDR: You cannot bypass 5/24 by using an EIN instead of a SSN.

If you’re looking to maximize the number of cards you can get from Chase before being locked out by their 5/24 rule like me then you’re likely targeting business cards offered by Chase to maximize the rewards you can get from them.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if I can sign up for the Chase cards that suit me with my SSN and then get an EIN and use that later on once I’ve passed 5/24 to get more Chase business cards. Alas, after a bit of research I’ve confirmed that you cannot bypass 5/24 by using an EIN instead of a SSN.

See sources/references below.

From reddit (r/churning):

The 5/24 rule can also be bypassed by applying using a paper application instead of the electronic one with a BRM. This only bypasses the 5/24 auto-denial. You can still get denied for having too many cards, among various other reasons.

Getting Approved for Chase Business Cards
byu/nuhertz inchurning

 

Sources

Getting Approved for Chase Business Cards
byu/nuhertz inchurning

How Does the Chase “5/24” Rule Affect Businesses With Separate EINs?

Comparison of Major Internet Providers in the Bay Area (Primarily San Francisco)

Tier Breakdown

NameTier LevelSpeedCostReliabilityAdditional Notes
Sonic (Fiber)A1000 up/down$40/moExcellentNo annual contract
WebpassA1000 up/down$60/month or $550/year ($45/month)ExcellentChoice between annual or monthly contract
Monkeybrains (if in the right service area)AExcellent$105/3 months ($35/month)GoodNo annual contract, pay in 3 month increments, no modem required
Wave BroadbandB1000 up/down$62/month (12 month plan, doubles at end of term), may be able to reduce monthly cost by providing own modemGoodLooks like recently service and pricing may have become significantly worse. I had a good experience with them back in 2015/16 though.
ComcastB150 down$60/monthGoodMake sure you use your own modem or they’ll charge you a fee. Avoid the TV bundle as it includes a $8 fee that gets tacked on
AT&TC1000 down90/month (plus taxes)Good 
Sonic (Non-Fiber)C15MBps down50/monthGoodForced to take a home phone as part of your service
Race CommunicationsCircumstantial1000 up/down$60/moUnknown 
PAXIOCircumstantial1000 up/down$99.50/moUnknown 

 

Gallery of all screenshots

Sources

best internet in SF?
byu/design_1987 inAskSF
Best ISP in SF?
by inAskSF
Cheapest *internet only* service provider in San Francisco?
byu/PPeePantsCity inbayarea
What are the best ISPs out there?
by inbayarea

This site is kind of awful but sort of useful for getting a sense of what is available out there at a glance.

Official Google Adwords Coupon Link

Just want a code? Go here.

If you want to get an introductory offer for the Adwords account you’re setting up you’ll see a bunch of results from random blogs claiming to have coupon codes that give you a certain amount of credit but inevitably those codes don’t work because they’ve been used, are expired or the author is lying. The only way to reliably get an intro offer is to go to Google themselves and get a promo code from them. This was surprisingly difficult information to find so I’ve brought it together here to benefit you, :)!

The current offer is to get a $75 credit once you’ve spent $25 on Adwords (which is much better than a $0 credit once you’ve spent $25 on Adwords, :P). Make sure that your budget is 10$/day or more otherwise you won’t qualify for the credit (I got burned by this, 🙁 )!

You can find the Google offer here.

I’ve also included the page in an iFrame below if you’re lazy and don’t want to navigate to the site, :).

Important note: You can’t make use of this coupon if you’re using an account that was already signed up with Adwords so make sure that that you use a new email address to sign up for this. There are many folks posting on forums and the like complaining about having used the coupon and it not applying (since they weren’t applying it to a fresh account).

Once you provide your email and generate the offer you’ll get an email like this containing your coupon code, :).

Terms and conditions of Offer (for anyone interested)

*Qualify for free setup support from our Google Ads team when you invest $10/day or more. Hours: Mon-Fri, 9am-9pm ET.
You have received this email because you have agreed to occasionally receive help and tips on how to get started with Google Ads or Google Ads related promotions.
†Terms and conditions for this offer:
• Offer available to new Google Ads customers with a billing address in the United States and Canada only. One promotional code per advertiser.
• To activate this offer: Enter the promotional code in your account before December 31, 2018. In order to participate in the offer, you must enter the code within 21 days of your account receiving its first ad impression.
• To earn the credit: After entering the code, your advertising campaigns must accrue costs of at least $25, excluding any taxes, within 30 days. Making a payment of $25 is not sufficient. The tracking of advertising costs towards $25 begins after you’ve entered the code.
• Once 2 & 3 are completed, the credit will typically be applied within 5 days to the Billing Summary of your account.
• Credits apply to future advertising costs only. Credits cannot be applied to costs accrued before the code was entered.
• You won’t receive a notification once your credit is used up and any additional advertising costs will be charged to your form of payment. If you don’t want to continue advertising, you can pause or delete your campaigns at any time.
• Your account must be successfully billed by Google Ads and remain in good standing in order to qualify for the promotional credit.
• Offer subject to ad approval, valid registration, and acceptance of the Google Ads Program standard terms and conditions.
• The promotional credit is non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered.
• Offer may be revoked at any time for any reason by Google Inc.
• Use of the offer may be restricted to automatic payments billing options.
• If you create your Google Ads account in a different currency than the one in which your promotional credit has been awarded, the actual amount of the promotional credit may be subject to foreign currency fluctuations.
• Your use of this voucher and/or the promotional credit constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions. Offer void where prohibited by law.
**For customers committing to $10 per day or more in ad budget. Free service. Mon – Fri, 9am – 9pm ET. Offer limited to new advertisers based in the U.S. or Canada. Support is available in English only and subject to business and website qualification.

Dosh, $5 Referral Link

$5 offer for new users joining Dosh.

I recently came across Dosh in r/churning and looked into it a bit. When signing up, I did my due diligence on checking for any referral or signup promos. If you just create an account regularly you don’t get any initial cash on signup but if you use a referral link you do. So make us both happy and use mine, :P!

Briefly, Dosh gives you cashback for purchases made on credit and debit cards that you’ve added to the app with participating merchants.

Use this link (https://link.dosh.cash/X59CPi2WQQ, make sure to open on your mobile device) to set up a Dosh account and get $5 for linking your first card (debit or credit).

In my opinion, its worth setting up because you can earn cashback on purchases you’re already making without having to even think about it. Do bear in mind that they will be able to monitor transactions for the cards that you sign up with (if that’s a concern for you).

Here’s a screenshot of nearby offers for me if you’re curious

Do note that, unfortunately, you need to earn another $20 in Dosh (minimum $25 balance to withdraw) before you’re allowed to cash out.

How to Pair Hush (CB3) Bluetooth Headphones

I recently got a pair of Hush Bluetooth Headphones at work and couldn’t figure out how to pair them to my computer for the life of me. After a bunch of searching online I finally found the answer!

  • If you look at your headphones with the noise cancelling toggle on the left you’ll see the other three buttons on the right.
  • The top one on the right side has a play/pause symbol on it (and a little circle nib).
  • When you hold it for long enough you’ll hear a “Power On”.
  • Keep holding that same button and you’ll hear “Pairing On” and that’s when it’ll enter pairing mode
  • Note: You won’t be able to enter pairing mode if your headphones are already on (no matter how long you hold the button).
References:

https://www.amazon.com/ask/questions/Tx2FMWOIF6GKQXC?_encoding=UTF8&sort=helpful

When holding the button down and you hear device is powered up keep holding the button down and you will hear pairing mode on. It took a little while for me to figure that out as well.

Marcus Bank: ACH Transfer Fund Availability

I recently opened a Marcus bank account (for the purposes of then transferring funds to another account and triggering a Direct Deposit). I funded with a transfer from Charles Schwab and it was taking forever for my funds to be available so I inquired how long it would take for them to available.

Turns out that funds become available in your account 5 business days after they’ve been deposited into your account.

Hope this proves to be helpful for anyone else looking for this information!

A Beginner’s Guide to Credit Cards & Churning

So you’re interested in starting churning (or maybe you just want to sign up for the best credit cards available to you)? I too was at that same point just a short time ago. I’m still learning a bunch and getting into but I’ve acquired enough knowledge and have a newcomer’s perspective which may be helpful for those starting off.

What is churning?

I would describe churning as moving through credit cards at a pace that is faster than a typical consumer with the specific goal of extracting as much value as possible out of them as possible. If you consider the value provided to you by a credit you have some baseline of underlying benefits (cashback, points earned, etc) but the blended value when taking into account a signup bonus is much higher.

Because of that, if you can manage the complexity and hit signup bonus spending goals, bouncing between cards and closing/downgrading them once you’ve hit the signup bonus will you leave with a higher effective value/dollar spent ratio than if you just use a few cards in a more typical fashion.

Steps

1) Building credit and checking your score

First step to starting to apply to credit cards is to make sure that your credit score is high enough. I would recommend opening an account at Credit Karma and using their free credit scoring to keep track of where you’re at. They’ve also got approval odds by card which I’ve found to be helpful so far so that you can get a sense of how likely it is that you’ll be approved before taking the hit to your credit with the application.

Note: If you’re like me and didn’t have a credit history until recently you’ve basically got three options.

Open a secured card (I happened to do one with Wells Fargo) to build up credit history before getting a real credit card. Secured cards are like credit cards with training wheels. You put up a certain amount of money and then are allowed to spend against it. You’re not actually being given any credit. You can only spend up to what you gave the bank as a deposit. That being said, within 6 months of getting one I was able to apply & get a better credit card (CapitalOne Quicksilver 1.5% Cashback).

Get added as an authorized user on someone else’s credit card. This is probably the best route to take as generally you won’t want to keep using your secured card (they’re all pretty terrible) and may end up closing it eventually (which will hurt your credit score in the short/medium term).


Find a credit card with a very low threshold for approval and hope that your application will be accepted.

2) Types of cards

Second step is getting a sense of what kinds of cards you would like to get. Broadly, there are a few types of credit cards:

  • Cashback cards
    • Cards with cashback that give you a certain % back for every purchase.
      Some of these cards give you more cashback for certain categories of spending either on a permanent or rotating basis
  • Points cards
    • Cards that give you points that you can redeem for different sorts of things depending on the card.
    • Points can be very flexible like Chase’s cards (Chase Ultimate Rewards, a favourite of the churning community) where you can transfer them to a variety of partners or much more specific like an airline card where you’re earning points that are only usable for that airline.
    • Points are generally more valuable on a value/dollar spent (explained in more detail below) but less flexible than just receiving direct credit or cashback.
  • Cards with perks
    • Some cards have excellent perks that can make getting them more appealing to you depending on what you happen to value.
    • For example
      • Entry to airport lounges (Chase Sapphire Reserve)
      • Rental car insurance coverage (a standard benefit but better cards have much stronger protections)
      • Cell phone damage protection (Chase Ink Preferred)
      • Purchase price protection (if price falls you get money back
  • Cards with annual fees
    • Generally cards with better sign up bonuses, benefits and cashback/points have annual fees
    • You should take into consideration the annual fee when evaluating the benefits offered by the card
    • A common tactic is to get a card with an annual fee, make use of as many of the benefits as possible in the first year (sometimes double dipping is possible based on benefit renewals and when annual fees are charged – see more below ) and then downgrade the card to another card from the same company that doesn’t have an annual fee (which will avoid your credit score taking a hit from lowering average credit age, utilization, etc).
    • Sometimes annual fees are waived for the first year but will generally be charged after that

3) The 5/24 rule

Before you make your choice you should be aware of some curious limitations that exist in the world of credit cards. Mainly, what’s known as the 5/24 rule which applies to Chase credit cards. Basically, when applying for a personal Chase credit card they won’t approve your application if you’ve gotten 5 credit cards over the past 24 months (i.e. you need to have gotten 4 or less credit cards in the last 24 months). This rule is why there are particular flowcharts (like r/churning’s Credit Card Recommendation Flowchart) that provide you with what’s deemed to be the optimal order to apply for credit cards in.

4) Evaluating the value of a card and its benefits to you (cpp & value/$ spent)

Now that you have an idea of what kind of card you can qualify for, what sorts of cards you might be interested in and what the recommended routes are depending on your situation you can start to make an informed decision on what sort of card/cards you’d like to go after.

I’m mostly following optimized routes based on maximizing returns from signup bonuses currently but I anticipate that I’ll eventually build out some basic spreadsheet models to make decisions between cards based on the types of rewards they are offering (airline miles, cashback, multipliers for certain categories, etc).

I’m proposing a model where you consider value/$ spent. So, consider a scenario where you’re spending $3000 on a card, with that card returning an equivalent of $500 worth of benefits to you, and that card costing you $95 in annual fees (or some other form of direct costs to you). That card would then have an value/$ spent ratio of 405/3000 or 0.135 (with the 405 coming from 500 – 95). Using this model you can evaluate cards more objectively. Ideally you would mock up a spreadsheet with anticipated expenses (and accompanying categories) to get a sense of the return that you would get on your spending from each particular card.

I would generally value Chase’s UR points at 1.5 cpp (cents per point) and Amex’s MR points at 1.25cpp.

5) Applying for business cards

Business cards are interesting because they can have great sign up bonuses and some have great perks (for example the cell phone protection offered by Chase Ink Preferred see below). With regards to Chase, business cards also have the advantage of not counting towards the 5/24 rule so its often recommended you get those first in order to get as many Chase cards (and Ultimate Rewards points) as possible.

Business cards be a bit tricky to obtain as they are meant to be used by businesses and, hence, come with a requirement that you have a business if you want to get one. Don’t fret too much though, something as simple as this blog that I write can count as a business. If you’re earning income and have expenses tied to your business you’ll probably qualify so give it a shot, :)!

Once you’ve applied you may find yourself awaiting review. In that case you can follow this flowchart to figure out what your chances of being approved are and whether you should take any next steps.

Note: If you’re applying under a sole proprietorship and using your own SSN (if you have an EIN then you should use your business name instead) make sure that you use your own name when filling out the form. Here’s an example of Chase’s business card application flow.

6) Acronyms

Once you get into the world of churning you’ll come across a wide variety of confusing acronyms used without much understandable context for a newbie (like you or me). Here’s my collection of acronyms that I’ve come across so far and managed to grasp an understanding of the following acronyms:

CPP: Cents per point (cents of value per point earned, a typical comparison metric used when looking at the value of points earned through credit cards)

  • MO: Money Order
  • MS: Manufactured spending
  • VGC: Visa Gift Card or Vanilla Gift Card
  • MSR: Minimum Spend Requirement

7) Manufactured spending (gift cards, bank sign ups, Plastiq, etc)

I’m just started reading about manufactured spending so I don’t have much to write here yet but the gist of it is that the best way to do a large amount of manufactured spending is to get a certain kind of gift card and then buy a money order with it under a debit transaction. It seems like this has become hit or miss as the most convenient route (buying MOs from the United States Postal Service) doesn’t work the majority of the time. More to come on this later as I continue to read about it.

Update: If you’re not looking to Manufacture Spending for a massive amount of spending then it seems like the best route is to open accounts with banks that accept credit card funding. That way you can open an account, fund it with your chosen card (but make sure you have things set up so you don’t hit with a cash advance fee on your end, more on that here), add extra money beyond the maximum for credit card funding if you’d like to meet conditions for account open bonuses, then withdraw your funds & close the account when it suits you.

You can find a great list of banks that allow for credit card funding here.

For more on Manufactured Spending check out this great breakdown from Frequent Miler.

8) Referral Links

You can find all my referral links here. Consider using them if you found this post helpful, :).

9) Other Links

Chase Business Reconsideration Advice: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/6hclj4/i_survived_the_dreaded_chase_business/

Chase Business Reconsideration Flowchart:  https://i.imgur.com/AZuA0tj.jpg

Credit Card Recommendation Flowchart: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/9hf4ex/faq_credit_card_recommendation_flowchart/

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/kevlarlover/Card+Recommendation+Flowchart+v11.html

Banks that allow credit card funding: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/does-funding-a-bank-account-with-a-credit-card-count-as-a-purchase-or-cash-advance/

Avoiding cash advance fees: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/how-to-avoid-cash-advance-fees/

Manufactured spending breakdown: https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/manufactured-spending-complete-guide/

Chase business card application flowchart (reconsideration/approval): https://imgur.com/a/oXlPW