Troy

My family went to Disney for FREE

April 13, 2019 By Troy

The Goal

In late 2018, my family went on our first ever family vacation. Yes, I’m a terrible husband because we’ve been married 11 years and this is our first real big getaway, without extended family, since our honeymoon. Knowing I had 11 years of negligence to make up for, I pulled out all the stops and took my family to vacation for 5 days, and my goal was to do it for FREE.

We stayed at a Disney resort hotel, spent two days in Disney Parks, relaxed at the resort and spent a day at Disney Springs. When I told people our plans, people would say things like, “Wow I’ll bet that took a long time to save up for” or “That’s an expensive trip but well worth it.” Or “Who are you and why are you telling me about your family vacation?” (Editor’s Notes: No one cares about your conversations with random strangers at Starbucks).

This is a pretty good representation of my Starbucks conversations.

But here’s the fun fact that I kept me smiling….we paid literally $0 for this vacation. I don’t mean literally the way a middle school girl “literally” will die if her dad embarrasses her in front of her friends again. Literally, this trip cost our family nothing in our budget. We didn’t sneak into the park and we didn’t win a game show. Our family vacation was completely covered by credit card reward points and sign up bonuses. In this guide I’ll walk you through how we did it.

Note: The credit card reward scene is constantly changing, in fact at the start of September 2018 the trip we took is no longer possible in the exact same way we did it but I plan on making a follow up post to show how this is still a viable strategy for getting to Disney for free or a reduced cost.

How We Did It

1) We utilized sign up bonuses:

Our family stayed at the Swan hotel, which is a Disney resort so that meant we had free shuttle and boat transportation to all the Disney parks and Disney Springs. To cover our 5 days at the Swan we used the sign-up bonus we received from the Starwood Preferred Guest card from American Express.

Once we hit the minimum spend requirement we had enough points to book four days but because we booked 4 days our 5th day was free, so our week stay was covered by that one card’s sign up bonus.

The convenient Disney monorail which allows you to move around the parks.

Our nearest airport is an American Airlines hub, so I signed my wife up for an American Airlines Platinum card and an American Airlines Business Platinum card. These cards have annual fees that are waived the first year, so we’ll keep them until the fees come due then cancel.

After meeting the card signup bonuses, we had enough points to fly our family of four down to Orlando for 60,000 points and $44 in taxes and fees. We actually have enough points left over that we will get to fly our family home to visit family during the holidays, which is way more fun than a 10-hour drive to the Midwest.

A real close-up picture of Spaceship Earth in Epcot.

2. Plan Ahead

Earning enough points to take this Disney vacation took some time and required some planning. We utilized 3 sign up bonuses on Chase bank cards to get tickets with points.

My wife signed up for the Chase Ink Preferred Business credit card for an 80,000 bonus. I signed up for both the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Freedom cards which gave another 80,000 points after meeting the minimum spend requirements. This gave us a total of 160,000 points to use.

3. A well-known secret

In order to get our Disney tickets, we utilized a well-known secret. If you have a Chase card that earns Ultimate Rewards points, you can call Chase’s vacation and cruise line and purchase Disney tickets through them. The tickets cost the same as purchasing them from Disney, but my Sapphire Preferred Card (SPC) makes my points worth 25% more when redeemed for travel.

You can tell they know the SPC secret.

Using my SPC, tickets which would normally have cost 110,000 Ultimate Rewards points, were only 88,000 points, leaving us around 70,000 points that we could redeem for $700 in cashback credits. We used these points to pay the resort fees and the taxes on our plane rides making our travel and lodging free for the week.

Donald is mesmerized by the amazing point redemption we pulled off.

4. Use those gift cards for food

Tip: You can use Disney gift cards to buy food at the park. Disney gift cards can also be used to buy park tickets (which with Chase taking away the ability to use Ultimate Rewards points to purchase tickets this could be a good alternative to lower ticket prices) and/or on food and merchandise within the park.

In addition, you can buy Disney gift cards at Target and if you use your Redcard you save 5%.

5. Sprinkle in a little cashback

While Target can definitely help, there is an even better option available. If you have a Sam’s club membership, you can purchase Disney gift cards for a 4% discount. Additionally, be sure to also link a credit card to cashback apps.

Slimer must have used a card to get cashback.

These apps work by linking a credit card to them and paying in store. By doing so, you automatically earn a few percent on your purchase as cash back. Uber often has 5% cashback at Sam’s Club. If you stack that with the Cashback App Dosh which gives between 2%-5% cash back at Sam’s Club if you pay with a credit card linked to the app.

Occasionally, Dosh runs specials where you can earn 10% or even 20% cashback at Sam’s Club and you can earn that every 24 hours. During one weekend they were running this deal, I saved 25% on all my Disney credit cards, while earning 5% as Uber credits. We used these credits to cover all our Ubering for the week and one Ubereats meal (I still have Uber credits left over because we shop at Sam’s club so often).

We then paid off those gift cards by redeeming Ultimate Rewards points as a statement credit. So we got a 25% discount on the free food we ate while at Disney and covered all our transportation since we didn’t have a car (which saved us the $25 daily parking fee Disney resorts charge).

Some Final Thoughts

Disclosure: Across the board we used 6 different credit cards to make this trip possible. We did all this by signing up for a new credit card every month and meeting the minimum spend requirement to earn a big bonus.

We put our normal bills on these credit cards and paid them off in full each month. That is the only way you can make this hobby of travel hacking worth it. If you have to spend money on things you don’t need to meet the minimum spend requirement or if you carry a balance, then this hobby is a terrible idea and will cost you more money in the long run. If you can be diligent in your finances and pay your bill in full each month, there is no reason why you wouldn’t take advantage of these incredible offers.

As you can see, going to Disney for free takes some work. This trip was really an exercise for myself to see if I could achieve the best redemption rate possible, and I believe we got pretty darn close.

There is a lot of planning, applications, and minimum spends that go into earning this trip and there is just as much work arranging your Fast Passes, choosing restaurants, character meetings, etc. so be sure to start early. We started in November for a trip in August and I really wish we had about 2-3 more months than we had to really plan the trip properly.

There are numerous other blogs that can walk you through the actual planning of your Disney vacation hour by hour but my goal was simply to help you be able to take a dream vacation that won’t break the bank. Happy travel hacking go make some memories!

What has changed or might be different for you:

Note: With the official merger of the Starwood and Marriott hotel chains, and the changes in their reward redemption prices staying at the Swan/Dolphin hotel is no longer an easy option through signup bonuses alone. But there are other great hotels in the area where you can stay that are easily within reach for a beginner travel hacker.

I recommend the World of Hyatt card by Chase for a free Disney vacation. There is a great Hyatt option at the Hyatt Regency Grand near Disney Springs. It has rooms available for 15K points a night or if you upgrade you can get club access for 21K points. This upgrade would give you access to a club lounge which includes concierge service, breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres. There is a $30 a night resort fee but you can offset that with your travel credit from the CSR and you will have free shuttles to any of the Disney parks or Disney Springs. I believe you could get great value out of the club access as it gives you access to breakfast and light snacks in the evening. Great value for a family with kids or teenagers.

Note: Before you start applying for an AAplat cards, be sure to check your nearest airports and see what the point cost would be for flying from the various airlines. We are near an AA hub, so flying to Orlando was super easy and required a low number of points. That may or may not be the case for your nearest airport.

You may need to look at a Southwest card, or United, or Delta card. Compare prices and look at the available cards from the major issuers like American Express and Chase to see what works best for you.

This guide was intended to be a step by step for a specific travel reward redemption and be sure to check out other blogs, podcasts, vlogs to learn more about the fun world of travel hacking.

Referral links:

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card: https://www.referyourchasecard.com/6/LFRV69TNN2

Chase Hyatt Card: https://www.referyourchasecard.com/205/QRAMSJ43ZI

Starwood Preferred Guest Card: http://refer.amex.us/TROYT3QRx?XLINK=MYCP

Swagbucks: http://www.swagbucks.com/p/register?rb=20387056

Uber: troyt3106ue

Ebates: https://www.ebates.com/r/YOUTHM39?eeid=28187

Cards You Will Need:

Hyatt card X 2 (refer your spouse for an additional 10K points)

AAPlat or other airline card

CSP X 2 (refer your spouse for an additional 10K points)

Budgeting to Freedom

April 11, 2019 By Troy

Do you immediately feel a little anxious when hearing the word budget? If so, you aren’t alone. Only 32% of families prepare a budget each month. Historically, the word budget has been synonymous with sacrifice, pain or at least minor discomfort. But I feel that budgeting actually provides us with more freedom by ensuring each and every dollar works for YOU.

Building a Foundation

A strong offensive line is foundational to a football team’s offense. A putting game is foundational to the game of golf, a strong core is foundational to personal fitness. A strong foundation is the most crucial part of a well-built house.

Offensive lines and the underlying concrete on a new house aren’t often featured on ESPN highlights or HGTV shows. But without each of them, the whole structure whether it be a team or a home, falls apart. In the same way, your personal budget is foundational to your own financial freedom.

Just Get Started

The importance of a budget is why we recommend creating one as soon as possible. Before you protest, let me give you freedom and say your first attempt at a budget will not work. If you have never tracked where your money is going, then you can’t expect for the first month to sit down and decide where every dollar from your paycheck will go without any need for adjustment.

Remove the pressure to be perfect. Instead, focus on getting it done and feel the relief of giving every dollar a job.

Your first budget attempt is that, an attempt.

Reasons You Need a Budget

1. Know where you are spending

One of the biggest reasons people overspend is that they don’t realize where all there money is going. Until you start tracking them, you never realize how much your daily expenses add up over a month.

By building a budget and monitoring each expense you are better able to understand just how much you spend each month on clothing, eating out, and transportation costs.

If you’ve never done a budget and don’t know where to start, here are some general guidelines:

No more than 25% of your take-home pay should go towards your housing. That includes rent or your mortgage including PITI (payment, interest, taxes, insurance).
You should be putting 10-25% of your take-home pay towards long term savings goals, such as a down payment on a house, retirement, building an emergency fund, or other significant financial goals.
You want to get $1000 into your savings account as fast as possible.
- If you have consumer debt (car, student, credit, or medical loan) you should then work towards paying down that debt.

If you follow the guidelines above, you still have around 60% of your take-home pay left. We believe that everyone should be using at least 10% of their money towards charitable giving.

As Christians, we give 10% of our take-home pay towards our local church. But regardless of your religious practice, the positive benefits of donating to a nonprofit or charity whose mission aligns with your values is incalculable.

That means you have 50% of your take-home pay for everything else. We like to break this down into big categories:

Groceries (not just food but anything used around the house in a typical month).
Clothing
Utilities
Entertainment (eating out, date night, concerts, etc.). We’ll have a post in a few weeks that does a deep dive into setting up a budget, but for now, these broad categories will help you get started.

2. Give every dollar a job

Every family’s situation is unique so how you assign their money will have its own unique arrangement. Troy’s family doesn’t eat out much, but our grocery bill is high because we have multiple food allergies and also tend to eat healthier meals with lots of greens.

We allocate our money in alignment with our values. Each month be sure to look at how much money you have coming in and assign every single dollar a “job” in your budget. The technical term for this approach is a zero-based budget, and ensures that every dollar that comes in your possession gets used in the best way possible.

For example, if you bring home $2800 a month, $700 (25%) goes towards housing, $280 (10%) for charitable giving, between $420-$700 (15-25%) for savings or debt reduction, and then you would assign the remaining $700 – $1400 (25-50%) into other categories such as food, clothing, entertainment, utilities, etc.

A budgeting example – try it with your specific numbers.

Make sure that every dollar is given a job. Money without a job isn’t working for you, and you want your money working for you.

We allocate our money in alignment with our values.
Troy – The Compounding Interests.

3. Reduce stress

The times in my life when my finances have felt the most out of control, have been when I haven’t had a budget. I need clear expectations for my spending habits. Early on in our marriage, frequent fights broke out around how much I spent eating out at work or how much money she spent at Target.

It’s not just overspending that can be a problem. If you haven’t assigned a specific number of funds for each budget category, you can become trapped in a cycle of fear over spending any money at all. In both situations, you become a servant to your money instead of using your money to work for you and your goals.

4. Achieve Your Goals

When you are in debt, it can seem like it’s an impossible task to dig yourself out of the crushing debt hole. But when you get on a budget, you begin living, spending and saving with freedom.

A budget is a tool that helps you achieve your goals. You aren’t pinching pennies, instead you are choosing where your money will be going. You move from your debt collectors or your circumstances telling you where your money goes, to you deciding where you will spend your money.

From the movie “Braveheart.”

Freedom

A budget has made a huge difference in my life and in my marriage. I encourage you to start with a simple budget that outlines your income and the largest spending categories such as housing and giving. While it will be painful to get started, the payoff will absolutely be worth it. Let us know what has worked for you in the comments below and let’s work towards freedom together!

Budgeting Tools

Here are four different online tools that you can use to get started budgeting. They all have a free version so feel free to play around with different ones to see which you like best. We’ve included a mini-review of each budgeting software.

Mint

Mint is a favorite amongst people in the personal finance space, and for good reason. Not only does Mint allow you to track your budget, but it also allows you to enter your investments, your bank accounts, credit cards, and loan balances (mortgage, student, medical) so you can track your net worth at a glance. The budgeting software uses a zero-based budget which is great. You can also see your credit score, your spending patterns, and your cash vs. credit card debt trend each month. With all this functionality it’s easy to see why Mint is preferred by many in the personal finance space. Troy used Mint a few years ago, and it was fine, but it had some syncing issues with his bank, and that’s what moved him to YNAB. Also, Mint is entirely free but they make their money through their affiliate program, and they put offers for credit cards and investment accounts right on the front of your dashboard. The ads aren’t pushy but are always there, which turns some people off.

YNAB

YNAB stands for You Need A Budget. It allows you to link your bank and credit card accounts so you can easily import transactions. Once imported, you classify each transaction to say with what budget line item that transaction belongs. You also set your budget each month using a zero-based budget. It’s the software Troy uses for his budget.

Every Dollar

Every Dollar is the software created and recommended by Dave Ramsey. It does follow the zero-based budget which I LOVE. You can try the full (paid) version for 30 days which allows you to import credit/debit card transactions into the Every Dollar app. Alex suggests you try the full version and see if the importing feature is important enough for you to to pay the $10 a month or if the free version will suffice.

Personal Capital

Personal Capital is primarily a wealth management tool. We find it most useful for linking all our banking and investment accounts together and serve as a one-stop shop for our finances. They also offer budgeting software for tracking your expenses as well as wealth management. One cool feature is that every week you get an update on how many purchases you made as well as if you spent more or less than the previous week.

Our Why of FI

April 7, 2019 By Troy

Financial Independence. Early Retirement. Perpetual money-making machines. I could go on all day with different FI (Financial Independence) buzzwords and catchphrases. But each person must answer for themselves why are they pursuing financial freedom or financial independence.

Despite what many bloggers say, the pursuit of financial independence will take years and there will be time when you feel like giving up and living the normal (ie. broke) American lifestyle. Which is why we believe that until you start with answering the question why, you will never achieve this goal. Thus every family on this path must determine their own: Why of FI.

Our Goals

At The Compounding Interests, our why of FI can be summarized as a desire to pursue our vocational and life calling without the encumbrance of being reliant on a paycheck.

We believe God has called us all to spend our time purposefully and for many that means meaningful employment. As such, we may hit our own FI numbers (25x our yearly expenses) yet still continue to work in a fulfilling job.

Alex may hit his FI number and choose to spend considerable time traveling, discipling teenagers, or in pursuit of additional education. I simply wish to optimize the time that God has given me and use that time for His glory. Troy’s why of FI looks different from Alex’s but that doesn’t make one better than the other.

Make it Personal

Personal finance is simply that, it’s personal. Each person must determine what their why is. Why are they willing to delay the satisfaction of purchases for a goal that is potentially years or even decades away?

The primary reason our families are keeping our expenses low, avoiding debt, and shoveling as much money into tax-advantaged accounts, is to reclaim as much of our time as possible. Time is the most precious commodity that we own and as it is finite, it is absolutely essential for each of us to maximize as much of it as possible and not feel tethered to a salary.

Now is the Time

Money and the ability to earn it is limitless, but time is the one commodity that once it’s spent, can never be recaptured.

Time is the most precious commodity we own…
Troy (on behalf of every human being ever)

We’ve never heard anyone say on their deathbed that they wished they had spent more hours in the office away from their families. Meaningful work can be a blessing, but as with many good things, we as humans are prone to overly focusing on the good and missing the best for us.

It must be said that while we want to advance God’s kingdom, we also anticipate enjoying the freedom and flexibility that is associated with a fully funded lifestyle.

Enjoy the Ride

We enjoy traveling, going on mission trips, seeking out new adventures, and we want to make those items occur with regularity, even while working. We have been blessed beyond measure and our hope is to extend that blessing to others by use of our finances and time.

God has called us all to make the world look a little more like the way He originally intended for it to look and to make the most of the time we have been given. Our why of FI is to pursue the work and life that God intends and to enjoy the blessings of life along the way. We would love to hear your why of FI in the comments below!

About Troy

March 12, 2019 By Troy

Master of Dad Jokes, former pastor, current board game nerd, and once ate a 5 pound burrito to win a bet. All of these statements describe me but they don’t define me.

I was a former student pastor before I was called into the nonprofit field. I currently work as the Operational Director for a nonprofit ministry in North Carolina. I’m a father to two children, a husband to my wife (can’t believe we’ve been married for over a decade. My faith in Christ is what serves as my guiding light in the decisions our family makes about money, work, and how we spend our time. I believe managing money properly is a powerful way to steward the resources God gives us as humans.

It’s my passion to help pastors and Christians not be enslaved by money or debt, but to wisely use money as a tool. My hope is that through Compounding Interests, pastors, youth workers, church members, and Christians all across the country will have a healthier relationship will find financial freedom to have more time and energy to pursue Kingdom work.

How to Get Lucky in Life

March 11, 2019 By Troy

You have a 1 in 3,000 chance of being struck by lightning in your lifetime and a 1 in 88 quadrillion chance of winning the 1 billion dollar Mega Million/Powerball jackpot. May the odds be ever in your favor? I don’t think I volunteer as tribute.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since I listen to about 3-4 of them a day as my job requires me to drive all over the city visiting schools. On this particular episode of the Bigger Pockets Money Podcast, their guest mentioned that despite their hard work, that they were never really lucky in any of their circumstances.

The idea of luck intrigues me, I think about luck as someone who can beat the odds, and if that were the case the luckiest man who ever lived would be Han Solo, how many times in the original trilogy did that guy defy impossibly long odds to escape an asteroid field. In fact he was so good at defying the odds that he didn’t even want to hear the odds.

I think in our culture we have become enamored with the idea of luck and getting a lucky break. When one of our friends or coworkers gets a big break we often assume that it was just luck on their part, but one thing I’ve noticed is that the harder people work, the luckier they get.

When we fall back on the belief that some people just catch lucky breaks which allow them to pull ahead of us, we place ourselves in the victim mentality that makes us feel that our destiny and our future is not in our own hands but in the hands of forces outside of our control. I reject that line of thinking.

I reject that because I believe that I have control of my destiny, that luck is simply the result of opportunities coming my way because of the hard work I put in to create those opportunities.

When I landed my first job it was a student pastor position at a megachurch of over 2000 when I was fresh out of seminary. There is no way I should have been able to get that job with my lack of experience. I believe I had the necessary talent and the skills but not many churches will take a chance on someone like that.

I reject that because I believe that I have control of my destiny, that luck is simply the result of opportunities coming my way because of the hard work I put in to create those opportunities.
Troy – The Compounding Interests

However, it was my hard work that I put in as a volunteer at a previous church and the networking that I had done while I was in seminary that opened the doors for me to “get lucky” and land that role. As I’ve been pursuing financial independence, I’ve worked hard to grow my side hustles and I’ve been able to increase my income 15% in less than 6 months. The growth of my side gig and work to have a system in place, has kept my time commitment to a minimum.

Was I lucky? Yeah, I did have a few lucky breaks that helped me speed up the process but really these lucky breaks came about because I worked hard to put myself in the right place, at the right time, to capture the greatest return on investment.

So here’s my question to you, dear reader, what are you going to do to make sure you get lucky today? It might seem overwhelming to reach some of your goals, but if you break it down everything seems more attainable. Don’t let the enormity of your goals and dreams keep you from working hard to achieve them. Now get out there and work hard to find some luck!

We would love to hear about what you do to increase your luck in the comments below!