Andy Hough

Doing Vegas on the Cheap

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Earlier this year, I took an almost free Vegas vacation by using credit card bonuses. I still think that is the easiest way to get a cheap or free Vegas vacation, but I recently discovered a couple of new ways to reduce the cost of a Vegas Vacation. A post on the Mr. Money Mustache forum informed me of the MyVegas Rewards and Social Rewards programs that can be used to earn things such as free rooms, free buffets, free show tickets, and more.

MyVegas Rewards is a program set up by MLife which is the rewards program for MGM resorts. The basic idea of MyVegas rewards is that you can earn real comps by playing slots and table games on the MyVegas Facebook page. Playing the games rewards you with loyalty points which can be redeemed for free rooms, free meals, free show tickets and other rewards. After about a month of playing I have about 36,000 loyalty points which I could use for three nights at Circus Circus, two nights at Excalibur, or one night at New York New York or Monte Carlo.

I would suggest you join a group such as MyVegas Friends which will help you earn points faster and has guides on how to optimize your play. You might want to consider setting up a separate Facebook account for playing the game since all of the postings from the game can clutter up your news feed. Setting up a second account for games is a violation of Facebook rules so you will have to decide whether it is worth the risk that Facebook might possibly shut down the new account. Another thing to consider is that you still have to pay resort fees when you redeem for a free night. Excalibur charges about $20 a night in resort fees. Last time I was in Vegas I stayed in a non-casino hotel and paid about $35 a night so a free room is only saving me about $15 a night. I do enjoy playing the MyVegas games though so I think the rewards are a pretty good deal.

Social Rewards is a much simpler program. It is affiliated with TotalRewards which is the rewards program for Caesars Entertainment. Between these two programs you have most of the casinos on the strip covered. You get rewards for this program by sharing information about Caesars resorts and casinos on your social media accounts. You are limited to three shares a day so it is quick and easy to do this program each day. I’ve earned a little over $20 in free rewards since starting to use this program about a month ago.

Another thing to consider that I haven’t tried is legal online gaming while you are in Las Vegas. Some of the Las Vegas casinos now also have legal online casinos.   The interesting thing about these casinos is that some offer a bonus for signing up online and making a deposit. The catch here is that you have to be located in New Jersey or Nevada when playing online. I think you would be able to play online while visiting New Jersey or Nevada, but I’m not sure. This is something you might want to explore for yourself.

Although these programs aren’t as great as I first thought they are still a pretty good deal in my opinion. Since IS enjoy playing MyVegas slots and Social Rewards doesn’t take much time I’ll keep using these programs. Rewards from these programs should make my next Vegas vacation very inexpensive.

Weight Loss Bet – 5 Month Update

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Before I get to the weight loss update I want to give an update about the blog’s appearance. When the latest edition of WordPress came out I updated and noticed that all of the comments on the blog were no longer visible. I couldn’t figure out how to make them visible again. I figured it had something to do with my Thesis theme so I attempted to update to the latest version of Thesis. I was able to upload it, but kept getting an error message when trying to access the manage skins tab. This meant that my site was a blank page so that wouldn’t work. After several hours of trying to get my comments restored and make the them work I gave up and decided to just switch themes. I’m now using the free 2014 theme that comes standard on WordPress. Although it doesn’t look great it looks good enough and I don’t want to spend any more time on the blog’s appearance. The site should at least function correctly now. Let me know if you have any problems with the site and I’d also like to get feedback on the new appearance.

I now have less than one month left on my weight loss bet. The bet will pay me $3600 if I manage to lose the weight ($3000 of the amount is my own money being returned to me) and if I don’t manage to lose the weight I’ll be out $3000. The idea behind the bet is that the prospect of losing $3000 will motivate me to lose the weight.

After backsliding a little earlier in the month I now have less than ten pounds to lose. I’d prefer to have already lost the weight rather than taking to the last-minute to lose the weight, but I’m still confident that I will lose the weight. I’ve been experimenting with a low carb diet the last three days and I’ve lost over a pound a day on the diet. If I’m able to maintain that rate of weight loss I’ll easily lose the weight in time to win the bet. There is a two-week weigh-in period that starts on September 23. That day also happens to be my birthday. It would be pretty sweet if I could meet my weight-loss goal on that day. I’m making that my goal now. I’ll update you when I have met the goal.

August Income – $2270.85

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Here is a breakdown of my income for August.

Online Income

 $424.61
Craigslist

$84.45
Interest

$5.33
Account Bonuses

$220

Cash Back

$22.85
Mystery Shop

$8

Amazon FBA

 $68.26
Medical Study $200
Jobs $1237.35

Total

$2270.85

My income was pretty good in August.  Although I only worked the first couple of days in August I received a couple of paychecks so I still had decent income from the job.

I kept better track of my Amazon FBA income during August so I can give an exact figure there.  My main motivation for doing Amazon FBA was to earn a Southwest Companion pass through using the Rapid Rewards shopping portal.  I should have my companion pass at the end of the month so I’ll probably cut back on Amazon FBA.  I wasn’t doing a big volume anyway so cutting back won’t make much difference.

I received some bonus income from the Motif  referral bonus and the Betterment referral bonus.  If you want to sign up through one of my referral links they are in the sidebar. If you want more information on either of the bonuses feel free to email me or leave a comment. I’m going to try to make more money from these referral bonuses.  I like them because they make me money and make money for my readers as well.

My cashback income stayed about the same. If you haven’t joined Mr. Rebates yet you can get a $5 bonus for signing up through my referral link and I’ll make a little money for referring you as well.
Mr. Rebates

This month is the last month of my medical study.  I’ll be getting a larger check this month than last which should help my overall income for the month.  Without any job income I’ll probably make less in September.  I do plan to ramp up selling stuff on Craigslist and Ebay so that might offset some of the loss of job income.

 

 

August Expenses – $1194.15

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for August.

Household $410.23
Entertainment

$194.90

Transportation

 $115.23

Food

$119.67
Student Loan

$106.00
Phone

$26.81
Health

$221.31

Total

 $1194.15

 

My August expenses almost got down to my target level of $1000.  I had a dental appointment which cost $165 which caused part of the overage. My entertainment expense was the only category that was way too high.  I spent $40 on a $50 movie gift card which will be used mainly this month and I put some more money into fixing my bike which resulted in the high entertainment expense.  All of my other expense categories were okay.  This month I am having some oral surgery so my expenses will be way up. I will probably also have some travel expense. Everything else should remain about the same.

Being a Movie Extra

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After my recent post on my movie scene with Reese Witherspoon I received a couple of questions about being a movie extra and I have received similar questions in the past when I wrote about being an extra. I thought I had written a post about the process of being a movie extra here before, but it turns out the post I was remembering was a short post on Bank Bonuses that I wrote way back in 2006. That post didn’t have a lot of information and I know a little bit more about being an extra now so I’m writing this post to answer people’s questions on this subject.

How to Get a Job as an Extra

The most common question about being an extra is how to get a job as an extra. For my first two extra jobs were when I lived in Austin where they usually have a couple of movies or so shoot there each year. For both jobs there was an article in the local paper about a casting call for the movies. They want you to show up to the casting call with a head shot. You don’t need to get a professional headshot, you can just take one yourself. The casting employees aren’t too worried about the quality of the photo, they just want to have a clear idea of what you look like. After filling out a short application I then waited several months before I was contacted to work on the movie. My most recent job I responded to a post on the extra companies Facebook page stating that they needed extras for the next week. I found this company by doing a Swagbucks search for “extra casting” in Atlanta. Note that when you do an internet search for extra casting a lot of the results will be scams. The scams are mostly obvious, but remember you should never have to pay to work with an extra casting company. Also, I was lucky to get the last job since I didn’t live in the Atlanta area. Most extra companies only want to deal with locals since they might need you to work on the spur of the moment or the job might be canceled at the last minute.

How Long Does an Extra Job Last?

The length of the extra job will vary. My first extra job lasted a couple of weeks with weekends and a couple of random days off. My second extra job was only for one day and my last one was for seven days over a week and a half period. When you’re hired for a job they should tell you about how many days it will be, but you will need to be flexible.

Typical Day of Being an Extra

Being an extra is a pretty easy albeit somewhat boring job. Most of the day is spent in an extra holding area. This is an area away from the set where you wait until a PA comes to take you to the set for the scene. I spent most of my time in the holding area talking to other extras and reading books on my Kindle. The typical day lasts from ten to sixteen hours. These are long days, but since you are mostly just sitting around they aren’t that bad. When you are called to the set you will be given further instructions on what to do. A couple of general rules are to not bring your cell phone to the set and to not bother the actors or crew. Since the days are so long you will be given a meal at some point and they usually have snacks and drinks available throughout the day as well. The quality of the food and beverage varies by the job. The food is usually okay but not great. On one occasion when there were just a few extras working we got to eat with the cast and crew and their food was much better.

How Much Does Being an Extra Pay?

Being an extra does not pay much. My pay on the jobs I’ve done was always just a little bit above minimum wage. On the plus side, you do get overtime when you work over eight hours and you almost always work over eight hours. The overtime and the long days make the paycheck a little better despite the low wage, but being an extra isn’t a lucrative job. I think it is worth it since the work is easy and if you are lucky you might get to see yourself on the big screen with a movie star.