My blog is mostly about great deals, and I have only recently started writing it again. I haven't been deal shopping in a while, and I don't write my blog unless I am actually doing the deals I am including.
Today's post is a little different.
I recently booked a trip for my son and I to go scuba diving in Belize. This is a huge accomplishment for me, because I am a single mom, who has been married twice, and bankrupt once. Life has handed me nothing, everything I have I have worked for.
In the Army we had a saying - "Work smarter, not harder".
While I love Dave Ramsey and his snowball method for getting out of debt:
Read about the snowball method here
I dislike his idea that no one should ever use or needs a credit card.
Credit cards, when used well, offer a lot of great benefits. For my Belize trip I used airline miles, paired with a fare sale, and I paid a total of $135 round trip for two tickets to Belize. I used 70,000 airline miles gained from previous flights I had taken and a credit card sign up bonus that offered 50,000 miles after spending $3000 on the card in 3 months. To get the $3000 I rolled a few of my monthly bills that I was paying anyway through my credit card.
The flights alone would have cost $4000 round trip when I priced them at the beginning of the summer. With airline miles I am doing the whole trip, at the hotel of my choice (the same one I stayed in with my family when I was a child), all meals and scuba diving included, and getting our scuba certifications, passport for my son, and advanced scuba certifications, for less than the price the airline tickets would have cost me. That is working smarter, not harder. If I had saved the cash for the trip without the use of credit card benefits my son would be long graduated from high school before I had enough money. With the cards and a little smart planning I plan to take him on a different trip out of the United States each year, culminating in a trip to Europe after he graduates. I want the cultural experiences that only travel can offer him.
And just so you know, anyone can do this. I don't have stellar credit. I still have a bankruptcy on record. Sometimes my balances are too high and that can lower my score. All I really have is a good knowledge of how credit works, how to use credit without abusing it, and how to monitor my score and make sure I am not hurting it too much.
I monitor my credit score on Credit Karma because it is free. It is not one of those sites that claims to be free and then tries to con you into paying a monthly fee, it is actually free. Another site has joined the game, and they are also free and update scores daily unlike Credit Karma. They are Wallet Hub. I also use the advice on Credit Boards because those guys know what they are talking about. I used their advice to get my first credit card the same day I filed my bankruptcy in court, and I have used it to build my credit back up from a 350 credit score up to a level where I now usually get approved for new offers (not always, some deny flat based solely on a bankruptcy).
This month I booked the Belize trip, and I used some $10 certificates from my Best Buy credit card to buy some of the school supplies for my son, I used a $25/$75 AMEX card benefit to get him school clothes from The Gap, and I made a little money buying concert tickets on Live Nation with my AMEX card discount and reselling them when it turned out I was scheduled to work at the Cardinals game the day of the concert.
I get a lot of questions from friends and family who know that I don't have a huge income, asking how I do it. This is how. I work smarter, I maximize every dollar that comes my way. I think in terms of income streams. I never rely on just one income for my financial stability. I live within my means. I coupon. I rebate. I stockpile. I invest. And I will be writing more about all of it.
A lot of my financial foundations came from reading this book:
I highly recommend it if you need a clear cut way to think about money. It helps you track every dollar that has come into your life, where that money has gone, what you have to show for it, what you supported with your use of it, and what you can do differently so you have something to show for it in the future. Reading this book changed my life, and I have re-read it repeatedly over the last 20 years. I have also never been able to keep a copy because I keep giving my copies away to people who need them.
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