Frugality

Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

My income was pretty good in September considering I had very little job income.  The job income was unexpected since it was a final paycheck from a job I had back in 2008. It took them a while to find me.

I didn’t do a very good job of tracking my Amazon FBA income in September. I’m guessing I made about $50, but that might be a bit high since most of the stuff I sold made only a small profit and some items were sold at a loss.

I received some bonus income from the Motif referral bonus and the Betterment referral bonus.  Unfortunately, the Betterment bonus has ended. If you want to sign up through one of my referral links they are in the sidebar. If you want more information on the Motif bonus feel free to email me or leave a comment. I’m going to try to make more money from  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.

September was the last month of the medical study so I won’t be getting any more checks from that. Those checks did help my bottom line quite a bit. I have worked the first couple weeks of October which should result in a reasonably good income for October.

It wasn’t easy, but I have finally achieved my weight loss goal. As most of you probably already know I bet $3000 back in April that I could lose 30 pounds in six months. My weight loss started off fast and then plateaued for most of the summer. This last month I kicked the weight loss into high gear again since I was in serious danger of losing $3000. The last few pounds to lose were very stubborn. I was stuck with about five pounds to lose for two weeks. This week I watched my diet very carefully and exercised and was finally rewarded with meeting my weight loss goal. I would have preferred to have lost more than my goal, but just hitting the goal is still a big accomplishment. I’m celebrating meeting my goal by eating some foods I’ve been denying myself this weekend. After that I’m going to get back to losing weight. My new goal will be to get to 170 pounds which is considered a healthy weight for my height. I’m hoping I can hit that goal early next year. The all-inclusive vacation next month and all the holiday food might make that goal difficult, but I think I can do it.

I just sent the email to HealthyWage.com to claim my winnings. I don’t think they have anyone working the weekends, but I’m hoping it won’t take too long to process the winnings. I’ll let you know how the process of collecting my winnings goes and do a review of my experience with Healthy Wage once my bet has been paid.

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.

The hidden city trick to save on airfare has been around a long time and it works especially well on Southwest Airlines.  The idea behind the hidden city trick is that sometimes it is cheaper to book a flight from City A to City C with a stopover in City B then it is to book a direct flight from City A to City B. For example, in June I traveled from Kansas City to Las Vegas.  It was cheaper for me to book a flight from Kansas City to Salt Lake City that changed planes in Las Vegas and just stay in Las Vegas then it was to book a flight (including the same flight that went on to SLC) direct from Kansas City to Las Vegas.  I saved a couple thousand points by booking the flight this way.  When the flight landed in Vegas I just told the gate agent at the new gate that I wasn’t going to get on the flight.  The agent was fine with that, the airline employees do like to know when you are not going to get on a flight since they have to do a passenger count.   Some airlines don’t like hidden city ticketing and have rules against it.  If you violate their rules there is a chance they could suspend your frequent flyer account or impose other penalties. Southwest used to explicitly allow hidden city ticketing.  Although they no longer explicitly allow hidden city ticketing they don’t have a rule against it and don’t seem to mind it being used.

If you do use the hidden city trick you need to make sure you carry on your luggage since otherwise your luggage will end up in City C while you are in City B.  Also, it is best to book two one-way fares rather than a round-trip when using the hidden city trick since some airlines will cancel your return flight if you don’t complete the outgoing flight.  You should always book one-way flights on Southwest anyway since their round-trip fares are just a combination of two one-way fares. By booking two one-way flights you have more flexibility if you need to rebook your flight.  For example, if you see that the return fare has gone down you could cancel and rebook just the return fare to save money. If you had a round-trip fare you would have to cancel and rebook both the outgoing and return fare which doesn’t always work since the outgoing fare may have gone up in price.  By booking two one-ways if either of the legs of the trip go down in price you can save money by canceling and rebooking.  This doesn’t work on most airlines, but it does on Southwest which is why the hidden city trick works especially well on Southwest.  There are lots of other tricks to saving money on airfare.  What are some of your tips and tricks for saving on airfare?

Last week I had a five-day vacation in Las Vegas. Although I lost money gambling, the total cost of the vacation ended up being very little. I got the flight, hotel room, and rental car for free. I did not note how much cash I had before starting but I think I had roughly $85 in cash with me and had $9 left at the end of the trip. So the trip cost me approximately $80 since I didn’t take out any cash and any credit card purchases were reimbursed.

The flight was free because I have the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Card. The card has a sign up bonus of 50,000 points which is good for at least two round trip flights. I think I’ll end up getting two round trip flights plus a one-way for my points since I got some cheaper flights. One drawback to this card is that they don’t waive the annual fee for the first year. If you would like to sign up for this card you can leave a comment and I’ll send you a referral link. If you sign up through the referral link you will get the 50,000 point bonus offer and I’ll get 5000 points for referring you. If you don’t want to sign up through my referral link it is easy to find the same offer on the web.

The hotel and rental car were free because I used points from my Capital One Venture card. This card gave me 50,000 points worth $500 in travel when I signed up. This card does waive the annual fee for the first year. The link to the Cap 1 card is not an affiliate link and the bonus is smaller at this time.  I also recommend the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World MasterCard® which pays an effective $440 bonus.

We didn’t spend any money on visiting any attractions. It was my girlfriend’s first time to Vegas so there was plenty to see. We toured a lot of the casinos and watched the light show at Bellagio and the volcano at the Mirage, but there was still a lot more we didn’t have time to see. I didn’t count money spent on food as a trip expense since it was about the same as it would have been if I were at home.  I did eat at In-N-Out Burger a couple of times which I considered to be special meals, but other than that I just had ordinary food. Since I covered the expense of the hotel and rental car my girlfriend covered the $20 in gas for the rental car and the $35 for airport parking.

Overall, I managed to spend four nights and five days in Las Vegas and only spent about $80. I consider that a bargain.  My next trip will probably be more expensive, but I’m hoping I’ll have enough credit card points and SW miles to keep it cheap.