college Archives - Make Smarter Decisions

How We Finished College in Three Years

July 28, 2017 by Make Smarter Decisions 26 Comments

We’ll be “empty nesters” in less than a month and it’s hard to believe that last summer, we were busy making college visits with both of our kids. As kids begin researching college options, they’re bombarded with information. I wrote three posts about choosing colleges that you may find helpful:

With the cost of college on the minds of students and parents, I thought I’d share how both my daughter and I finished college in three years – without much stress. And I’ll finish with my son’s plan to do the same. He’s entering college next month with 39 credits and sophomore status after graduating high school last month. And he had late arrival and early dismissal during his senior year. He worked hard, but it wasn’t that stressful either!

Graduating from College in 3 Years in 1988

Graduating from college early isn’t a new idea. I graduated from high school in 1985 and started college with 22 credits – 8 from AP (Advanced Placement) Physics, 6 from AP English, and 8 from AP Calculus (which we learned via VHS tapes from a local university – one of the first “video” learning experiences!)

As a science major, my normal semesters were 16 or 17 credit hours because of labs (compared to a typical 15.) My degree required 120 credit hours and all that I did “extra” was take one 4 credit summer class at a local community college to finish my undergrad degree in 3 years. (And I was still able to work two jobs that summer…) And I finished college with more than 120 credits.

I took AP classes my senior year because I was done with most of the “regular” high school level classes. My teachers were terrific and with having class everyday – we learned more (and had more support) than in a typical freshman level college course. Our AP classes met for about 120 hours/year, when a college course meets around 40 hours/year. Keep that in mind if you have kids in high school!

I then stayed on a 4^th year at my undergrad college to complete my Master’s degree (which is required of teachers in New York state.)

Graduating from College in 3 Years in 2017

Fast forward almost 30 years, and my daughter finishes college in three years too – but with WAY more options to earn credits before she gets to college and during winter/summer breaks. She’s now at West Virginia University, getting paid to earn her Master’s degree!

She started earning college credits in 10^th grade with AP World History (and she didn’t take it “early” – that’s when it is offered in our high school.) Here is a breakdown of the credits she earned before she went to college:

Advanced Placement Classes (AP test required at end of course to get college credit)

AP World History (score 3) – 6 college credits, taken sophomore year of HS
AP Chemistry (score 5) – 8 college credits, taken junior year of HS
AP Literature & Comp (score 4) – 3 college credits, taken junior year of HS
AP Physics B (score 4) – 8 college credits, taken senior year of HS
AP Calculus BC (score 5) – 8 college credits, taken senior year of HS
AP Language & Comp (score 5) – 3 college credits, taken senior year of HS

Community College Classes (offered as dual enrollment IN our local HS)

Spanish 201 & 202 – 6 college credits, taken sophomore & junior year of HS
Psychology 101 – 3 credits, taken senior year of HS
Sociology 101 – 3 credits, taken senior year of HS
Computer Science 101 – 3 credits, taken junior year of HS

That’s 51 college credits all taken during her normal high school day! She was a second semester sophomore when she started college because the state university she chose to attend accepted most of these credits. (They only accept 45 transfer credits.)

Now you might be thinking – wow, this kid is SMART and must have worked crazy hard to do that…

You’re right that she is smart and worked hard – but she also played an instrument, played on a varsity team, and worked a part-time job throughout the year. It wasn’t just about her academic classes. (And many of her friends did all of this too without that much stress.)

Does your child have to take all of these to finish in 3 years? NO. But if they take a well-rounded advanced high school schedule, they will be well on their way to earning many college credits before they even spend their first day on a college campus!

This gave my daughter the chance to finish in 3 years with some good planning – but we also gave her the option to stay a 4^th year and add another major, do an internship, or study abroad. She chose to finish early and go on to a 2-year Master’s degree program. She basically ended up with a “3 + 2” that is offered at some colleges.

The college credits she gained in high school prevented it from becoming a 4 + 2 and saved her (and us) almost $25,000!

The cost for the credits she earned in high school was less than $1000. (The AP tests have fees, as did the community college dual enrollment courses she took.)

Planning to Graduate from College in 2020

My son just graduated from high school in June. He took many of the same courses my daughter took and he just finished taking an online community college class this summer. He even got an “early college scholars” discount at our local community college for taking classes before he “started” college. We only paid 50% of the fee because of that discount!

There are programs out there that offer money if you seek out the opportunities!

He will be starting at an out-of-state public university (University of Vermont) in less than a month! With scholarships and grants from the university, the cost of the out-of-state university was LESS than the public in-state option! DON’T make assumptions that out-of-state will always be more expensive in the end!

He will start college with 39 credits and most of his “gen ed” requirements completed. Again – he chose a college that will accept the credits he earned in high school. You need to be careful of that in your college search if you are planning on finishing early. His 39 credit hours cost us about $1000 too.

He’s a smart guy and maintained a strong academic average, but he also played football, worked a part-time job, and had fun with his friends. He is also planning on finishing college in 3 years, but he’ll have the option to stay a fourth year too. If he changes his mind about majors after the first year, he will still be able to finish his degree in four years – not five or six… (My guess is that he will be on to a MS program or he’ll be off to a great job at the end of 3 years though!)

Earning college credits in high school is giving him options (and it will likely save us all money in the end!)

Take-Aways

It’s not just about the money. Really.

We ended up saving money by finishing in 3 years – but it wasn’t the goal. Having options was the goal (and not spending tons of money to take classes that we weren’t really interested in motivated us to finish early too!)

High schools and community colleges offer an incredible number of options for students to earn credits before students go off to college.

If you have kids, look at your school district website for the course offerings. Go to your local community college registrar’s page and do a search too. And pick up the phone and call them. Our community college is terrific and they are the ones who offered the “early college scholars” financial award. You can also look into earning college credit by taking CLEP exams.

Plan ahead. And then make sure the credits will transfer.

My son didn’t originally sign up for Psychology 101 in his high school and the course filled up. Earning college credits in high school is becoming very popular! He ended up having to take it online through the community college, rather than at the high school. But it cost us a little extra and he missed out on being in class with his friends. He did get the experience of taking an online class though – and that was important too!

You and your child should also look at websites of the colleges you are interested in to see what credits may transfer in and what scores you will need. Here is a great example of how you can check transfer credits from one institution to another. And this page shows where you can find information about what AP, IB (International Baccalaureate), and CLEP exam credits are allowed for credit at this particular state college. Most colleges have this information readily available to you – when you know to look for it!

They don’t have to finish early.

Just a reminder that finishing in 3 years isn’t mandatory (and it is hard to plan a schedule to actually do it! You have to be ON TOP of scheduling to make it work – and sometimes appeal to departments/registrar.) There are also some cons to finishing early that should be considered.

*Also know that people from the college will not encourage you to finish early. They may allow it or help with questions you bring up. But you need to be prepared to advocate for yourself. My daughter was ready to tell the department chair of her major that she could transfer out after three years and do the “3 + 2” option at another college. But they did allow her to take a class that she was supposedly “not ready for” in their sequence so she could graduate in 3 years (she had no other classes left to take!)

It doesn’t have to be a stressful 3 years.

If you start without any credits, finishing in 3 years can still be done at some colleges. But it might be MUCH more stressful because of overloads and the need to take winter/summer break classes. (Although some colleges do have “fast-track” 3 year degree options now too.) Planning ahead and earning some college credits in high school can help if you ever need to drop a class too!

So what do you think about finishing college in 3 years? Did you know about all of the options available to high school students? Did you graduate early? Did your kids graduate early – or have to stay longer than planned? If you have kids in high school, have you looked at classes that offer college credit options? Do you think it is too stressful to have kids taking college level classes in high school? Or do you think these classes really aren’t “college” level?

I don’t call myself an expert at too many things, BUT I do have a really good understanding (and would even call myself an expert) on this! If you have questions, feel free to reach out! AP or dual-enrollment community classes (with strong high school teachers) are a great low-cost way for students to be introduced into college level course expectations (whether you take the AP tests and get credit or not!)

Forced To DIY – Money To Spend But Few To Hire

June 28, 2017 by Make Smarter Decisions 38 Comments

If you’re a regular reader, you know that it’s been a crazy six weeks in our household! Here are a few highlights of our sprint from spring to summer!

My daughter graduated from college (after only 3 years) and we moved her to West Virginia to start her Master’s Degree which she will get paid to earn!
Our tenant of 22 years moved out and we’re making progress on gutting the lake house we plan to downsize into this fall. We’re also prepping our house to put it on the market in a few weeks (and we even rented a storage unit.) These are important steps in putting our snowbird housing plan in motion!
We’re also in negotiations to turn over our 8-unit apartment complex to a management company! We’ve decided to give it a try for a year and we’re really impressed with their commitment and professionalism so far. It’s helped us keep a longer term focus now on our real estate investments. We could just sell all our rental properties, but we’ll give this a try – unless we get a good offer!
I ended regular full-time employment last Friday too! No more one more year syndrome for me!
And to top it off, my son graduated from high school last weekend!

We’ve definitely been busy! And we’ve been busier than we anticipated because we can’t find people to hire to help us do some work! So we’ve been forced to DIY many projects even though we have money to spend.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not rolling in $$$ right now! I get paid for the last time this Friday and that is stressful enough for someone who has been earning paychecks for 35 years… But we knew we were going to need to spend money fixing up parts of our house to get it ready to sell and on the remodel of the lake house.

Prepping to Sell

We live on a dead-end street that backs up to a 23 acre park and we’re walking distance to the school where I worked. It’s a GREAT street – close to everything, but super quiet too. And we have an in-ground pool. Summer is definitely the time to sell our house. And with both kids off to college by late August, we’d like to get the house on the market by the end of July.

It’s a great street for young families – if they haven’t watched too much HGTV…

We only have an “eat-in” kitchen and there is no master bath. But we do have two bathrooms! No granite counter tops here – but beautiful solid-surface ones (that are super durable and easy to clean) with an integrated sink that I love! And we live in a split-level that turns some people off. We love it because even in a small house, we have a huge extra living room with a nice gas stove.

The target market for our house is a young couple/family and that requires things to be turn-key ready. People who are getting a first mortgage usually can’t afford to change out flooring or do bathroom or kitchen upgrades. The flooring is the last big thing in the house that needs to be done (except for more painting…) but we have a few outside issues to address too.

The guy we use to install carpet in our rentals is booked through mid-July, so timing should be good to have him re-carpet the downstairs. We also got a quote on refinishing the hardwoods but that would require us to leave home for 2+ days and empty 3 bedrooms and the living room to somewhere? And it’s expensive ($2500+ for about 750 s.f.) YIKES…what a hassle!

We are going to rent a sander tomorrow and try to refinish one bedroom and see how it goes. In a 1400 sf house, most of the floor space is covered anyway with beds, couches, desks…and area rugs! I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Mr. MSD has also replaced a tub/shower unit and he may have to put down a deck on our front porch because the stamped concrete is starting to crumble. It’s too late to go after the concrete contractor, but it’s been hard to find someone to build the deck too! We’d spend money hiring this out to save time and to make sure it is up to code.

Luckily we’ve been able to hire a friend who is a licensed electrician to address a “crackling” noise on a light switch. My husband can do basic electrical repair, but it’s always safety first. DIY is definitely not a smart decision if you could get hurt (or hurt someone else – or burn down your house!)

Prepping to sell can be exhausting! In addition to the basics, we are trying to address anything a home inspector might find that would reduce the price or slow down the sale. We’ve loved and lived in our house for over 10 years. Almost every surface needs a little extra TLC.

Gutting the Lake House (isn’t that an awesome view?)

I’m going to write a separate post about the lake house and where things stand. It is a MUCH bigger job than getting our house ready for sale. But what I can tell you is that it has been a lot harder than we thought to get a general contractor – or any contractor for that matter!

If we can get a contractor to return a call, we always let them know the house is a “gut job” so they know it will take time and money and isn’t just a repair. We also tell them we are in the process of selling our house, so they know we are serious about getting the house move-in ready.

But it’s a 1000 s.f. house and if demand for their work is high, our little house isn’t high on their list of priorities either… It’s a good thing we have a lot of friends and connections to keep giving us names of contractors to call!

This NPR article from last fall explains that the housing crash 7 or 8 years ago contributed to the failure of many contracting businesses and even though there is a lot of work now, there just aren’t the numbers of skilled tradespeople or contractors available to fill the construction or home renovation needs in most areas.

As an educator, it also concerns me greatly that we have pushed all kids to go to college when they might not be ready for that or really have an interest. Don’t get me wrong, I think that an advanced education is important for everyone and tradespeople and contractors need advanced skills too. But it doesn’t make sense for young people to take on debt and sit in English 101 (or remedial reading/math – which many have to take) when they are 18 or 19 when they could be learning a trade that could drive their future. Once they can see their future a little more clearly, college classes can take on a whole new meaning!

There are jobs waiting for people and no one skilled or interested enough to take them. Good contractors in our area can charge what they want and people will hire them. We need to make that message clear to our young people too.

We have another meeting with a contractor tonight, so our fingers are crossed! Our back-up plan is to rent a house on the lake this fall for a few months (if our house sells), to give us time to get the house finished – even if we have to DIY more than we want too!

Maybe we could hire some retired PF blogger as a contractor? We live on a beautiful lake (with many more surrounding lakes), with more than 100 local wineries and a bunch of craft breweries! We could even rent a lake house for the contractor to stay in for a month during the gorgeous fall with the leaves changing all around the lake! It could be a really fun job!

Maybe it’s not a crazy idea for the right person…

Have you done any home remodeling jobs lately? Have you had trouble hiring out jobs or finding contractors? What jobs do you DIY and what won’t you touch? Are you a contractor who wants to hang out in the Finger Lakes in New York State to make some money and have some fun too? 🙂

Decision Time: She’s Getting Paid to Earn a Master’s Degree

April 25, 2017 by Make Smarter Decisions 36 Comments

Back in January, I shared that we’re ditching the status quo and embracing change in 2017 in the Making Smarter Decisions household. Both kids had college decisions to make, I had to decide if I was going to go back to work (again), and we had to decide whether to sell our house and downsize into a rental property we own. And we are even thinking about selling all of our rental properties to fund the gap in early retirement until I can collect my pension. Can you see why our “CHANGES” theme works so well this year? 😉

We’ve made two of the big decisions already and two more are in progress! My son’s final college decision comes this week and we’re crossing our fingers that our 22-year tenant is out of the rental house we want to move into soon. (This is the one where we had the flood last week!) It was bad timing but it definitely could have been worse! Trying to look on the bright side of all those storm clouds!

But the decision’s been made and I’ve finally cured my One More Year Syndrome. I won’t be going back to a full-time/permanent job! Only 48 more days of full-time work… And my daughter has made her graduate school decision too!

Yes, she’s getting paid to earn her Master’s degree as a West Virginia Mountaineer!

She may not end up with thousands in the bank when she is done, but she is getting a full tuition waiver and a stipend as a departmental Teaching Assistant of over $1200/month! That will cover her living expenses and even a little extra for some fun. We are all incredibly excited and proud of her! (And yes, a little sad she’ll be moving further away too!!)

Today she found out she’ll have a paid research position for the summer too! This will allow get ahead on her own research, while getting to know the area, the facilities, and her peers and professors before the fall term begins.

How did she do it?

I’ll briefly share our college search and decision-making process. We worked as a family on this and it paid off. We’ll share the positive things we did and where assumptions could have cost her tens of thousands of dollars. You might find it interesting that WVU wasn’t even on our radar when we first started looking and making graduate school visits!

For any newer readers, I wrote two posts last summer about finding and choosing the best college. And choosing the right college by managing the information overload in the digital age.

The first post talked about how I had to seek out college information in the 1980’s and how colleges overwhelm students with information now. Students seem to get stuck on finding the best college now, rather than one that meets their needs. The second post shared my daughter’s decision-making framework for the first three graduate schools we went to visit. The framework and her ranked goals helped to organize all of the information we had for each school.

My daughter is finishing her undergraduate degree from an in-state university in May. She’s only gone to college for 3 years because she had a solid plan of study. She also brought more than a year’s worth of credit from her high school classes – Advanced Placement (AP) and a few community college classes that were offered in high school.

These advanced classes are offered in most high schools and community college classes can often be done online (and even in the summer!) Our community college even offers scholarships to high school students to take college classes! (If you have questions about the high school/college credit part of her plan – let me know through email or in the comments. I did the same thing 30 years ago! And my son plans on doing it too!)

Her career path requires an advanced degree. So last summer we searched out accredited Master’s degree programs within a 5 hour radius of home. And we went and visited three colleges that seemed to be a good fit.

A few weeks later, I wrote a follow-up post called Making Assumptions Can Cost You Thousands When It Comes to College. I have a Doctoral degree, two Master’s degrees and a Bachelor’s degree and I attended two different colleges. I’ve also taught at four colleges (two private and two public). And I still made assumptions when it came to choosing colleges and finances related to college. Those assumptions could have cost us a ton of money too! (So I hope what I’m sharing with you will help you make smarter college decisions!)

West Virginia University is six hours away. Just beyond the somewhat random driving time we had chosen. Luckily my son did a college visit there and we realized it might be a good option for my daughter too!

After her visit to WVU, she was excited to add it to the list of options (and she was really excited that they have a PhD program as an option too.) She also learned during the visit that most graduate students receive some type of funding to help minimize the cost of their advanced degree!

We added WVU’s information into the decision-making framework (shown below.) We also eliminated the only in-state option she had because it wasn’t a good fit in terms of the exact major she wanted. She applied to the three colleges and then had to wait for three long months…

She had interviews at two of the colleges and she was accepted into all three programs. A real honor because two of them were quite competitive! And when the financial aid offers came in – the answer was clear and it didn’t require the use of the framework (but we were glad we had it ready to use!)

If you look across the first row (extremely important), each college met the criteria in terms of program and accreditation. If you look across the second row (very important), the only college that would allow her to minimize cost (and even make a profit!) was West Virginia University. If you look at the rest of the table, the only drawback of WVU is extra driving. Since this was only ranked “important” – it didn’t matter as much as minimizing costs. The possibility of going on for a PhD at WVU would just be a bonus if she wanted to consider that in the future too!

It was a very easy decision! But we know that if she would have never considered WVU, she probably would be paying at least $75,000 for her graduate degree and living expenses. So be careful about your assumptions!!

I’d also point out that my daughter didn’t “fall in love” with a campus or a particular program – even though that would have been easy to do. She stayed objective and decided what she needed and wanted and she prioritized. She could have been happy at any of the schools we visited because she had spent time figuring out her end goals.

We also know that it takes a great deal of time to research colleges, make campus visits, and learn about resources that are available. And I’m glad we had that time. It certainly paid off!

Finding funding is a challenge, but it can be done for at least some majors. Many colleges and universities offer “TA” (teaching assistant) or “GA” (graduate assistants) positions that reduce the costs of advanced degrees. The positions require a lot of extra work (in addition to taking graduate classes,) but they can be a great way to keep costs down and minimize the use of student loans.

Thanks for reading and feel free to share her story (and the decision-making framework) with anyone you know who is thinking about earning an advanced degree. (The framework can also help parents coach their kids in making undergraduate college decisions).

I know some people don’t believe there is a need for advanced degrees, but there are still MANY career fields that require them – including teaching (in many states.) So let’s figure out ways to help people who choose or need to earn those degrees!

Have any of you readers enjoyed a reduction in costs for your advanced degree programs? Or have your employers helped pay for advanced degrees? Feel free to share your story or ask questions in the comments!

Photo Credit: Geoffrey Whiteaway@freerangestock.com

Finding the Cure for One More Year Syndrome

March 15, 2017 by Make Smarter Decisions 48 Comments

I made the decision to leave my full-time job last spring. As much as I enjoyed teaching at the college level, my husband and I finally accepted that we had enough. We are Financially Independent and it was my chance to stop reading about FIRE and actually Retire Early. And defining what your early retirement will look like is the beauty of being FIRE’d. So why am I writing a post about one more year syndrome?

My plan was to retire from full-time work, not all work. My husband is retired and works about 5-10 hours a week on our rental properties. And 5-10 hours per week of online teaching was still in my plan. I still have five years to go before I can collect my pension. Online teaching counts as service credit and I need to earn 3 more years of credit to reach my maximum pension level. It would be crazy to give up online teaching at this point in time! $15,000 a year for the rest of my life crazy!

Downshifting was an easy transition last spring. We had plenty of things planned for the extra hours available each day! But two months into early retirement, my plan was challenged. A former colleague called and offered me an interim two-month administrative position and I accepted.

And that decision brought on a case of OMY – one more year syndrome.

Two-months has quickly turned into a year. Paychecks are rolling in and a boost in my service credit and final average salary for my pension are on target. And my son is finishing up high school.

It’s been a very normal year.

We’ve also paid off a rental property, visited our vacation condo and padded the kids’ college accounts. Even though the extra money I’m earning isn’t necessary, it has been really nice. And I’m afraid I might miss it. So why not work just one more year?

And that’s how it happens. Just OMY….

I started calculating my salary, service credit and the impact on my pension for working one more year. We could pay off another rental property. And if I lived to be 85 – that one year of work would be worth about $200,000.

That’s when I wrote – Should I work another 200 days to earn up to $200,000?

I read the comments to that post and went back to my post from last spring when I decided to leave full-time work. Here were the end goals I identified last May – ranked by importance:

Maximize My Health/Wellness – Extremely Important (EI)
Meet Financial Obligations/Increase Wealth – Extremely Important (EI)
Commit to Deepening Relationships – Very Important (VI)
Continue Personal Growth – Important (I)
Create a Flexible, Location Independent Lifestyle – Somewhat Important (SI)

A flexible, location independent lifestyle wasn’t that important last spring because my son was still going to be in high school. Since he will be heading off to college this fall, I needed to rethink my goals for next year.

Here are my new end goals (changes in bold)– ranked by importance:

Maximize My Health/Wellness – Extremely Important (EI)
Create a Flexible, Location Independent Lifestyle – Very Important (VI)
Commit to Grow/Strengthen Relationships – Important (I)
Continue Personal Growth – Important (I)
Increase Wealth – Somewhat Important (I) *meeting financial obligations is a given

Once I revisited my goals, the decision was clear. And I didn’t even need to create a new decision-matrix to prove it to myself. One more year of full-time work was not going to allow for the flexible, location independent lifestyle my husband and I really want. And that is very important to us now – even more important to us than increasing our wealth.

I’m cured of OMY syndrome.

But I also want to share four key things we learned and came to terms with this year too. Learning and helping others are both habits I am really focused on building this year! Hopefully this deeper thinking and sharing will help prevent my OMY syndrome from returning!

Kids – Well, they aren’t kids anymore. All of our children are technically, adults. Our jobs as parents will never end, but our roles are shifting too. It’s not easy, but we are working to embrace that shift and focus on our needs and wants – in addition to theirs.

Work – I have no plan to work full-time again, but I know I will work. And I get job offers every week. But I’ll be very selective now too. I can also try out some new ideas of my own that may generate some income. I’m embracing the upside of having a lot more time in my future!

Time – Between the two of us, we’ve been on more than 100 trips around the sun… And the older we get, the faster those trips seem to feel! Simply put, we’re not getting any younger.

Health – We are thankful for our health and we work hard to keep ourselves healthy too! But we know our health can change at any minute. We went on vacation last month and came home to learn our neighbor had died suddenly. He was 64 and planned to retire next month. We are not going to live in fear of dying, but at this point in our lives…we go to more funerals than weddings.

OMY syndrome is very real for some people – and I experienced it this year. And I can easily see how one more year could turn into five or ten more years too… Without a clear plan and revisiting your end goals often, “normal” gets real comfortable. And days of work can turn into years of work before you know it.

We think we’re making a smart decision that will “stick” this time! Hopefully the effort we’ve put in reflecting on and revisiting our end goals will maximize our satisfaction with this decision, while minimizing regrets.

Next week, I’ll explain the financial part of our retirement plan with some fun charts and graphs. I clearly need more time learning how to make them – but I am having fun learning how to do that too! We have a gap to fill for the next five years if we want to make good use of our time! Stop by and check out our plan! And as always, thanks for reading.

*Photo credit: chrisaram2 @ pixabay.com

Beginner Travel Hacking – Analyzing Our Winter Break Trip

February 22, 2017 by Make Smarter Decisions 32 Comments

It’s February break, so we are enjoying a week off from school. We headed to Washington, D.C. to check out some colleges last weekend and then flew out of Baltimore to enjoy a few days at our vacation condo near Siesta Key, Florida. (For those of you who might think going out-of-state for college is a waste of money – my son’s best offers are from out-of-state schools. Those colleges are cheaper than our in-state public universities! Don’t make assumptions…)

I’d consider us to be amateur travel hackers, so I thought I’d share more about how we saved money on this trip. We made the decision to drive the six-hours from our home in New York to Washington because it was difficult to find reasonable flights. We put this trip together less than two weeks ago, which limited some options. Driving worked out great because we were able to do a lot of touring around Washington on a Sunday afternoon. Monday was a federal holiday and traffic was pretty light too! We didn’t really plan for that – but it was definitely helpful (and the sunny 70 degree days were TOTALLY a bonus too!)

Hotel

We aren’t really tied to any specific hotel chain because of credit card rewards or points, so we stick to two simple goals – a safe area and clean rooms. We found a room at a hotel in a nice neighborhood with really good reviews and a decent price on Hotels.com ($125/night and $23.50 for parking). I checked prices on a number of different sites and we couldn’t find anything cheaper that met our requirements.

Before I booked the room, I went to Raise.com and ordered a $100 e-gift card for Hotels.com and paid $92.94 ($7.06 in savings). The gift card was e-mailed immediately and was ready for use. Raise is an online gift card marketplace where you can sell gift cards for cash or buy discount gift cards to all your favorite brands. They also offer a one-year money back guarantee. I have saved $25.54 on three Hotels.com gift card purchases since December. I get emails from Raise about once a week offering bigger discounts too. (For example, there is a four-hour flash sale this afternoon that saves $4 off a $40 purchase). This may sound complicated at first – but with a few extra clicks, it’s easy to save money!

I then logged in to BeFrugal.com because it was offering 12% cash back on Hotels.com. I used the $100 e-gift card and put the remaining $25 charge on one of our new Chase Sapphire Reserve credit cards. My husband and I just got the Reserve cards (in-branch) in early February. They come with a huge sign-up bonus of 100,000 Ultimate Reward points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. The $25 charge was credited as an “adjustment” toward the large annual fee for the credit card within a few days. (You get $300 in travel credit back on the $450 annual fee and it was great to see it credit so fast!) Even though we will pay a fee, we plan on using the Reserve cards to pay almost $7,000 in federal and state taxes in April – so that $4,000 spend per credit card will be easy to do! The fees for paying taxes with a credit card are easily off-set by all of UR sign-up bonus points and we will pay off the cards at the end of April to avoid any interest charge.

The terms and conditions on BeFrugal say that gift card purchases are not included in the cash back program, but I did this in December and I was still credited the cash back for the full amount – including the gift card. Just keep in mind YMMV – your “mileage/cash back” may vary. We are hoping this will credit for $15 – well worth one extra click for another 12% cash back!

The original $7.06 savings from Raise.com and the extra $15 from BeFrugal are almost enough to cover the hotel parking fee! We’ll have to wait and see if the credit comes through (it takes a few weeks for it to show up) but there is one more bonus for using Hotels.com. Hotels.com has a rewards program where you earn a free night after collecting 10 nights of hotel stays in a year. The free night is valued at the average of the 10 stays. We normally don’t stay in hotels that many nights in a year, but this year will be different with both kids off to college and with more travel tentatively planned for this fall. If we average $100/night for the 10 nights – we can consider it another $10 off this stay. That would be $32.06 ($7.06, $15, and $10) off the $125 price/night. A 26% savings for less than 5 minutes of extra work.

Flights

We flew non-stop from Baltimore to Tampa on Southwest. We booked the flights on 2/11 and flew out 9 days later. The round-trip flights were 21,095 points per person. But we also have a Southwest Companion pass, so I fly for no points as my husband’s companion! The total points for three of us to fly was 42,190. (If we paid cash, our tickets would have cost about $635 – an average of about $212 each.)

Transferring Chase Ultimate Reward (UR) points to Southwest allows us to pay for flights. We earn tens of thousands of UR points each year from everyday purchases. We use our no annual fee Chase Freedom cards and earn 5X points on select categories each quarter of the year. This quarter includes gas purchases and April-June is grocery stores (see this link for specifics on which stores/purchases are included). We will even buy gas and grocery gift cards for a few months ahead to help maximize points. BUT we also pay all of our credit cards off each month because otherwise the points wouldn’t be worth paying credit card interest! We also get a lot of points from well-planned credit card applications that pay huge bonuses (like the Sapphire Reserve) and from 5X business purchases using our Chase Ink card at office supply stores.

A mandatory airport security fee of $11.20 each was our only out of pocket cost. We paid the $33.60 in fees with our new Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card too and the charges were coded as “adjustments” toward our $300 travel credit (part of the annual fee).

We love Southwest because of the non-stop flights and the flexibility to cancel/change our plans up to 24 hours before we fly. And earning the Southwest Companion pass from Southwest credit cards (and some extra spend) has been our biggest travel hack so far. We’ve earned the Companion Pass twice and had the perk of one of us flying for free (except for the fee) for the last four years! Our current pass ends at the end of December so we’ll try to earn another one early in 2018!

Rental Car

When we decided to fly to Florida, we knew we would need a rental car. I usually check a few different sites to see what the price range is for our dates. I usually check Cheaptickets first and then go to Southwest.com to check their prices and possible bonuses. The price range for rental cars (economy/compact cars) was just over $300 for 5 days. It’s “spring break” pricing and people heading south will pay those prices!

The Ultimate Rewards portal on Chase is usually my last stop – and often, it has similar prices to the other sites. When I searched, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I found the same cars at the same on-airport rental agencies for $154. I double checked my dates and then booked a car. This is an even better deal than I found at Thanksgiving!

We had enough Ultimate Reward points to pay for the car, but the cost was low enough that we chose to pay instead of use points. Using our new Chase Sapphire Reserve – the cost of the car was “adjusted” and included in the $300 travel credit too! We’ve already spent enough in travel since we got the cards to have over $200 of the $300 credited back to us in this trip alone.

So those were our travel hacks for this week! How did we do? And what questions do you have? For those of you who are more “advanced” than us, where could we have saved more money? Is there a hotel credit card that we should be considering? Is travel hacking not worth all the hassle to you? Does it just seem too complicated? I’d love to hear your thoughts and any suggestions you might have to help us and other readers make smarter travel decisions!

Are you facing a major life decision? Maybe “analysis paralysis” is preventing you from moving forward? Or are you just plain stuck and need advice?

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