While saddened that they’d be gone on an expatriate work assignment for 2 or more years, I realized that it would be quite the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time and have familiar faces on the ground with them moving there!

Fast forward to late summer 2019. Since they moved to Israel, I traveled to the Philippines, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, California, and Arizona. Needless to say…I racked up a lot of airline miles with American Airlines.

Oh, and I still had some leftover miles from living in Japan for six months in 2017.

So when I returned home from a work trip to Japan back in August 2019, I knew the time was right to go burn some miles and go visit my friends in Israel!

When it was all said and done, I had plane tickets to Israel from Texas spending 110,000 miles and $157 USD (Economy class going there, and one leg in Business class coming back).

How I Booked The Trip

I used American Airlines’ own search tool for finding award space, or seats that are available for miles redemptions.

After logging in at aa.com, I clicked the “Advanced / Multi-city Search” link on the bottom right of the home page.

This took me to the advanced search screen, and at the top, there is a different link to a new award search. I like this new award search better because it displays the cost of taxes and fees while searching whereas the old way doesn’t display that cost to you until you’re about to book.

After clicking that, I input my search parameters. I knew I needed to fly from DFW to TLV (Tel Aviv), and I chose some dates in early November that gave me about a week’s worth of time.

Ok, so…honestly…I spent A LOT of time messing with this. Maybe like…3 days of searching around. To summarize the struggle of it all, I had some specific wants and nice-to-haves as well as requirements when searching:

• Minimize taxes and fees (because redeeming miles doesn’t cover these costs)
• Nov 7 thru Nov 14 had to be the dates, give or take a day on either end because I wanted to maximize my time there while not going severely negative on my vacation hours
• Decent layover times, if necessary even if ridiculously long
• Fly Business class at some point over the Atlantic Ocean

When thumbing through the available options, I was looking at a screen similar to this:

It was rather difficult to find an itinerary that allowed for most of this to happen. I frequently ran into something that seemed like it could work out but having to compromise elsewhere.

I wrestled with having layovers in London or in Amman or maybe avoiding British Airways altogether because they charge higher taxes and fees. I even explored having other connections within the US.

In the end…I booked:

• Coach class Nov 7 DFW-MAD-TLV for 40,000 miles / $79.60
• Business class Nov 14 TLV-LHR-MIA-DFW for 70,000 miles / $77.84
  • *Note: it’s only Business class between London Heathrow and Miami

Total: 110,000 miles / $157.44

I actually booked it as two one-way trips. I had to do that because booking a similar roundtrip award ticket would have costed me 140,000 miles and about the same in taxes/fees. I wanted to save the miles

Another thing to point is that I’ve got 9 hours on the ground in Madrid. And 16 hours in London. My goal is to be out and about in Madrid, and probably just stick around the airport while in London because London is an overnight layover.

The trip WOULD have costed me…

On the day that I booked my trip, for funsies I decided to look on Google Flights to see how much it would have been.

Going from from Dallas to Tel Aviv with the layover in Madrid in Economy class all the way, it would have been $2081!

And coming back via London and Miami would have been… a whopping $8980! Although, on Google Flights…it’s probably quoting a higher price because I couldn’t simulate my itinerary due to me being in Business class ONLY from London to Miami.

Still…visual proof:

Yikes.

So…altogether…if I had booked two one-ways on paid tickets for the same (or really similar) itinerary, the airfare WOULD/COULD have been…

Total = $11061

Now, that’s a really crazy number.

Granted, most normal people would be satisfied prioritizing lowest cost with roundtrip ticket in Economy class. And looking at Google Flights right now, a few days before I leave, such tickets are costing around $1000 and above.

Yeah, I’m glad I’m not paying even over $200 out of pocket. And that I have the miles.

Speaking of miles…

How I Earned The Miles

I mentioned earlier that I had leftover miles from traveling in 2017 due to a six-month work assignment in Japan. And I’ll add that I even did some “mileage running” to help secure elite status, and that added some miles too.

Back in July/August of 2019, I had a business trip to Japan. And that contributed as well (about ~50,000 miles earned).

But actually! A good chunk of miles that I earned this year weren’t even from flying!

Rather…shopping.

American Airlines has a shopping portal that you can tie your frequent flyer account to. They partner with many stores. Basically, you do your online shopping through AA’s portal and earn miles. 

Different stores have different earning rates. For example, Home Depot is typically 1 mile per $1 spent. Whereas Under Armour is typically 3 miles per $1 spent.

Sometimes there are bonuses.

Notice in the above picture that I earned 14,133 miles this year, which is more than half of what I’ve earned total since being enrolled in AA’s shopping portal.

A large contributor was purchasing my refurbished MacBook Pro 15” from Apple when they were running a 4 miles per $1 spent (normally 1 mile / $1). Uh wow, I earned 10,786 miles just from upgrading my laptop (and becoming #MacbookBroke)!

I also did a lot of smaller purchases but catching big bonuses.

After all the earning and saving miles, I had about ~150,000 to use. And 110,000 of that went towards this trip.

How else can I earn miles?

Note: while I do focus on American Airlines below, these methods are also applicable to other airlines, especially if they are a major airline. 

Fly

This is the quickest way. Haha, not much else to say here. However, the rate at which you can earn miles via flying will depend on elite status and if you’re flying on airline partners. Basically, the more elite you are, the more miles you can earn.

Also, class of service also impacts your miles earning. The more premium the class, the more miles you earn. 

More information on AA’s site here.

For earning miles for this Israel trip, I did quite a bit of flying.

Credit Card Bonuses

The second quickest way is to earn credit card bonuses. American Airlines has several co-branded credit cards, like the Citi cards, that grant bonus miles after meeting a minimum credit card spend. 

Typically, you have to spend $3000 or more within a few months to earn 50,000 miles or more, depending on the current bonus/promotion. 

Also, some of the credit cards out there let you earn miles just by using the card for purchases. Some categories of spending like Dining or Groceries earn bonus miles depending on the card.

I don’t have any American Airlines credit cards, but I have utilized credit card bonuses in other rewards programs.

Shopping Portal

I’ve already explained this above, but I find this to be a decent way to earn miles even without flying.

And actually…you can combine shopping with an AA credit card and those will double-stack!

Link to AAdvantage Shopping.

Dining Portal

In addition to the shopping portal, American Airlines has a dining portal. In this portal, the program partners with different restaurants. Again, you’ll tie it to your frequent flyer account.

You add your credit or debit card information to the portal, and anytime you eat at any of the listed restaurants, you earn miles based on your spending. 

Here’s the link to AA’s Dining Program.

I’ve found this typically to be a slow way to earn miles…probably because…I never seem to eat at the partnered restaurants! I should probably look at the list again…haha…

Buying Miles

Lastly, the other way to get miles is to simply buy them. Sometimes American Airlines runs bonuses so you can earn more miles per your own dollar spent.

I’ve read on travel blogs that this isn’t really a cost-effective way to get miles. However, it’s great if you’re short miles for an award redemption you’re wanting to do.

American Airlines usually emails about bonus buying miles for frequent flyers.

Bottom Line

Regardless of what crazy itinerary I can come up with that needlessly raises the cost of airline tickets to Israel, I probably would have spent over $1000 on airfare at minimum.

But thanks to frequent flying in the past and the shopping portal, I was able to pull off only spending $157 out of pocket and 110,000 miles. And that’s pretty good for flying cheap, and a little bit of style with Business class over the Atlantic coming home.

There are a handful of other ways to earn miles, and most of them don’t even require actually flying. 

My hope with this post is that you’re able to see that … earning and using miles is a great way to travel for less money. So if you have your eyes set on a great pilgrimage to the Holy Land, somewhere in Europe, or elsewhere…you can use miles to get there far more cheaper.

Got a question about airline miles? Let me know in the comments!

Featured Photo by David McBee from Pexels

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post How I Booked Airfare to Israel for $157 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

As I’m typing this blog post, I’m on a “new”, refurbished MacBook Pro 15″ (buying refurbished saved me $300-$400). I recently acquired it in preparation for an upcoming grad school class because the battery life on my older MacBook Pro 13″ is terrible, and it’s running out of hard drive space. My desktop computer died unexpectedly too. With my older laptop not performing reliably, I realized that my computing situation is not really conducive for handling my next grad school class, which will be research-intensive.

Spending hundreds of dollars on tires and thousands on a new laptop in the past several months really hit my finances hard.

I’m “MacBook Broke”.

via GIPHY

I guess I’ll have to put pilgrimages on hold for now since having the funds to go travel is a little nonexistent at the moment…

But, the financial burden isn’t as bad as it seems. Why?

Because I have a substantial emergency fund.

Well, had.

With an emergency fund, I was able to afford multiple tire replacements and a new laptop.

For the aspiring pilgrim, knowing the importance of having an emergency fund is necessary in the greater scheme of going on more pilgrimages for less time and money.

What is an emergency fund?

Basically, an emergency fund is a stash of money that you use to cover unexpected expenses. Life is full of unexpected events that cost money, and an emergency fund helps cover those costs.

Emergency funds are not for funding pilgrimages, 100″ 4K TVs, new yachts, or buying entire shelves of things that went on clearance. Why? Because those aren’t actual emergencies!

Why have an emergency fund?

First and foremost, emergency funds should be used for actual emergencies. An emergency is something urgent or critical in nature and impacts your day-to-day life.

Here are some example emergencies:

• Loss of job – getting fired, laid off, or furloughed resulting in a loss of job and income
• Unexpected medical costs – injuries, accidents, kids or pets getting sick, hospital visits, and more that result in medical costs
• Repairs and replacements – water heater or A/C units breaking, roof leaks, car troubles, damage from natural disasters, necessary gadgets stop working
• Last minute travel – funerals, hospital visits for out-of-state friends/family

Having an emergency fund also has a few benefits.

Benefits of having an emergency fund

• Peace of mind – that “sit back and relax, can sleep at night” feeling knowing that you have prepared for the unexpected
• Build good money habits – starting, growing, and maintaining an emergency fund requires discipline and intentionality that helps with building good money habits

Where to start an emergency fund?

The easiest way is to have literal stash of cash somewhere secure in your home. Hopefully the stash is somewhere with limited access like a cash box or safe.

But I think a better way is to keep it in a bank account that is easy to access and that also earns interest.

I keep mine in a Capital One 360 Money Market savings account (not an affiliate link). Why? Because I can easily transfer funds to my Capital One 360 checking account when I need to. Also, the Money Market savings account currently earns 2% interest when funded with $10,000 or more, which is a great interest rate assuming there’s $10,000 or more.

Which I don’t currently have…lol. But it still earns 0.85%, which is still better than what you can get at most banks.

Other banks like Ally, Discover, and handful of others also offer high yield savings. Be sure to shop around to get a good interest rate!

How much money to keep in the emergency fund?

I’ve heard and read different suggestions, but for me, I try to have 3 months worth of necessary expenses saved up in my emergency fund. For me, that number hovers around $9000.

The consensus in the personal finance community seems to be that the ideal amount to have is 6-8 months of expenses saved up. But wow that’s a lot of money to save so I aimed for something a little more achievable. My rationale is…should I lose my job, I can probably find a new one within 3 months.

Dave Ramsey suggests starting out with $1000 for an emergency fund. After saving $1000, then work on other personal finance goals or Ramsey’s next “Baby Steps”.

How to add more money to your emergency fund

For me, I do automatic transfers. Twice a month, I have an automatic transfer from my checking account into my emergency fund for a set, budgeted amount. I like funding it automatically so that it’s more out of sight, out of mind.

Here are some other ways to grow an emergency fund:

• Use your tax refund – if you receive a decent tax refund after filing your taxes, that refund is a good way to kickstart or build your emergency fund
• Sell stuff – whenever you go all Marie Kondo (verb) in order to spark more joy with your possessions, consider selling the things that cluttered your life in order to make some money back
• Start a side hustle – having multiple streams of income is a good way to achieve financial goals, and a side hustle is a good way to monetize your passions and hobbies
• Increase your income – get a raise or promotion at your current job, or find a higher paying job

Bottom Line

Yep, I am “MacBook Broke”, but thankfully an emergency fund allows me to cover unexpected costs. If I didn’t have an emergency fund, my credit card balances would have gone way up with no real cash to pay those cards off.

Starting an emergency fund is not that hard, and funding it is pretty easy perhaps with some creativity.

For the pilgrim, having an emergency fund will give peace of mind and security regarding finances. That way, traveling and pilgrimages are more realistic knowing that whenever life happens, you can handle it.

Do you have an emergency fund? How much do you keep in it?

Photo by Melissa Walker Horn on Unsplash

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Emergency Fund: Why It Is Important appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

My goal for this site is to help others go on more pilgrimages–for less money! And less time!

If a big pilgrimage to Israel or Europe is in the works for you, saving money in whatever ways you can will help with the costs. Even if a big pilgrimage isn’t in your radar, finding ways to save money will help you achieve your financial goals so that you have more bandwidth to go on more pilgrimages or other travels.

Luckily, it’s a new year! Time for a fresh start! I know you probably have some new year’s resolutions that you’re pursuing, so hopefully “saving money” is one of them! Or if not, maybe you can squeeze it in between “lose weight” and “stop being an angry old man/woman”. By the way–if you came up with some new year’s resolutions, check out my post on setting goals, which is a better way to handle resolutions.

To help you come up with some ideas on how to save money, I’ve come up with a list of 5 simple ideas. Read on to check it out!

5 easy ideas you can save money in 2019:

1. Cut the cord

Maybe I’m too millennial or something, but it seems like most older families I know still have cable TV. I know that’s how we’ve all received our entertainment and news since before fast Internet came along.

Most cable TV packages seem to start at $50 a month and go up from there depending on how many channels you receive.

Do you really watch all those channels?

I recommend just sticking to the popular streaming services: Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, or some combination of those. Sure, your show/movie content is much more limited, but you’d be paying a fraction of the cost you were paying for cable TV. If you need local channels, get yourself a digital antenna for cheap at a local store or online. If you’re an avid sports fan, sometimes the streaming services livestreams games, but otherwise you can go to a friend’s house or a local sports bar to watch games.

For me, I’m only subscribed to Netflix’s standard plan. I only pay ~$11/month. I also have access to Amazon Prime’s selection of videos as part of my Prime membership, and that comes out to ~$9.50/month. Between those two services, I have more than enough TV and movies to watch (binge?).

2. Call and negotiate your utilities

Besides attempting to reduce the amount of electricity, water, and gas you consume, the other way to reduce those costs is to reduce your rates. Give your electric and gas companies (if applicable) a call and see about getting a lower rate. You have nothing to lose by calling. And if they don’t seem willing to give a cheaper rate, mention you’re going to cancel and go with a company that gives a better rate (if you’re not stuck in a co-op situation and have freedom to choose your utility companies).

Another service you can call is your telecommunications/Internet provider.

Especially with electric and Internet providers, sometimes they run specials. Call them to see if they have any specials running that can be applied to you.

I know for me, I frequently receive flyers/circulars in the mail from my Internet provider about specials and bundle deals. At the end of 2017, they actually sent me personal letters inviting me to upgrade to fiber optic service. I called them at the beginning of 2018, and they were able to give me faster Internet and cut my monthly price by $10. Niiiice.

3. Eat out less

Since I’m always out and about, I tend to hit up fast food and restaurants especially at work. I estimate that such meals tend to average $10 a meal, which definitely adds up over time!

Going to the grocery store armed with coupons or the grocery’s flyer has become an acquired skill for me. I try to buy meats that are on sale or buy things in bulk in order to bring the unit cost down.

With groceries, I’ve been leveling up my cooking skills. Learning how to cook simple, easy meals means that I can lower my per meal cost to $5 or less. If I’m not traveling frequently, I like to batch prepare meals on the weekend for the upcoming week. The slow cooker is my BFF kitchen appliance for batch preparing.

If you’re going to eat fast food or at a restaurant, see if you can satiate your hunger with food a la carte. In other words, don’t go for the combos. Just buy the sandwich. Just ask for a water cup. Forget the fries!

4. Get rid of one luxury membership/subscription

Examine things that you pay into like memberships and subscriptions. These things could be gyms, online services, country clubs, magazines, courses, etc.

Decide which one you could without and don’t renew it.

For me in 2019, I’m going to see if I can survive without Amazon Prime since I’ll be having to renew it here soon. I determined that with so many stores opening up close to me, I can easily go somewhere to pick up what I need. Also, I rarely buy anything from Amazon that really/actually needs to be shipped to me quickly. Besides, since I live near an Amazon air hub and warehouses, even non-Prime deliveries can arrive relatively quickly.

5. Buy used/refurbished

At the beginning of 2018, I hit up Goodwill and thrift stores a lot in order to support a side income experiment as a reseller on Amazon. I realized that it’s possible to find decent (or even new!) items at such places for a small fraction of retail price.

If it doesn’t weird you out, clothes can be pretty cheap at thrift stores. As are books, toys, knick knacks, and some kitchen stuff.

For 2019, I’ll be looking at upgrading electronics. My Macbook Pro laptop from 2012 is starting to have battery issues. As much as possible, I will only buy refurbished Apple products since doing it that way saves several hundred dollars (for a laptop, anyway). Apple’s refurbished products undergo even stricter quality checks than their new stuff. This 2012 Macbook Pro is refurbished! And my 2018 iPad Pro is too!

Of course, the real way to save money is…if it ain’t broke, don’t buy a new one! (or used (or refurbished)).

What to do with all the money you saved?

You can open up another savings account, and automatically transfer the amount you’re saving from the ideas above into the account. Or if you’re more cash-centric, you can start a new piggy bank or envelope and put your savings into it.

The account, at the bank or at home, can be your fund for pilgrimages and travel!

Or you can direct these new savings to pay off higher priority debts like credit cards and loans.

Ways to save are all around you!

I offer these 5 simple ideas to save money in 2019 because they’re ones I implement. I’m sure if you spent a few minutes brainstorming, you can probably come up with other simple ways to save. The opportunities are there!

Save more money–go on more pilgrimages!

Question for you–do you have any money-saving ideas?

Featured photo by maitree rimthong from Pexels

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post 5 Simple Ideas To Save More Money In 2019 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

But I think the library deserves some reconsideration.

Maybe this is obvious to say, but I think it’s worth the reminder: you can check things out from the library. This means that you’re not having to spend money on things you can check out. So simple. And that’s pretty cool.

How the Library Can Save You Money

I’m sure you’re very well well aware, but the library (subject to availability) can let you check out books, magazines, CDs, DVDs/Blu-Rays, and other media-related items. Some libraries may even let you check out electronics and office supplies. And even some libraries will let you check out a block of time to use things like 3D printers.

Here, I want to share with you a few real life examples.

Books for Self-Help or Pursuing Being Nerdy

I tend to read blogs related to Catholicism, personal finance, fitness, travel, and productivity. Oftentimes, they recommend some book to read related to whatever topic a particular blog post is about. And I usually make note of those and/or add them to a wish list on Amazon for future reference.

Later on, if I have some time read a new book, I’ll go to my city library’s online catalog and search a book I’ve saved to see if it’s available for checkout.

I have a Kindle Paperwhite as well as the Kindle app for my phone and tablet. And I have the apps, Overdrive and Libby (which is also by Overdrive), that lets me sign into my city library’s online catalog and checkout books through those apps.

Using this method, I’ve been able to read such books as Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo.

The challenge I find with books like these are availability. Like, the online catalog doesn’t have them at all. Catholic books, especially the more recently released ones that I want to read? Usually not carried. Ah well.

Books for Fun Reading

Since I often find myself on long flights or sitting in airports for a long while, what I like to do is to read books for fun in these instances. A lot of popular movies or movie series tend to come from popular books. And this is fantastic because my library has been pretty good at having these available.

Similar to the above, using apps to check out and a Kindle to read, I’ve read books like The Maze Runner series by James Dashner, the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. I’m fairly certain I completed most of these books while in transit somewhere. Probably Japan.

Most of these books cost $8.00 USD each so I saved like $60 by NOT buying them and checking them out instead.

Audiobooks

I’m not great at running, and I’m terrible at training consistently for even just going 2 miles. But in 2017, in the few weeks gap I had at home in the middle of my 6-month work assignment to Japan, I invested in a Bluetooth speaker finally! As a way to unite my desire to be inspired more regarding running and to test out my new Bluetooth speaker, I used the same method above of using apps to check out and listen to an audio book.

That audio book was Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. I initially thought it was more of a training guide for running, but in actuality, it’s more of a storytelling narrative of the author’s journey encountering ultra-runners and the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, who are super hardcore ultra-runners.

The physical book costs $10-$12 depending on the format, and the audio CD would have been $10. Therefore, I saved $10 by checking it out from the library.

Movies

A popular series on HBO right now is Westworld. I don’t recommend watching it if mature content bothers you, but otherwise it’s a really cool show. However, the HBO show is based on (or rather maybe a continuation of) a movie from the 1970’s of the same same, which that movie is based on a book also of the same name. Whew. The book is written by Michael Crichton, who is one of my favorite authors. He’s also known for Jurassic Park, Timeline, Congo, and a handful of other books that got turned into movies.

I’ve had the original book and movie saved on my wishlist on Amazon for a long while, but I could never justify spending the higher prices to buy the book since it’s hard to find, and I didn’t want to spend money renting the movie. HOWEVER! I recently had the idea to check my local library and whaddya know–my library has the DVD release of the original movie!

Or rather, a library way across town had it. So I put in a request to have it shipped to my closest library branch via the inter-library loan. I had to wait a few days, but that was no biggie.

Amazon sells the DVD for $5ish, so I saved about that much by checking it out instead.

What You Can Do Now That You Know…

• Get a library card. If you haven’t already, head to your local branch and request for a library card. I bet most young adults in their early careers haven’t done this yet. Because I certainly didn’t.
• Physically go. Now that you have the card, you can get exclusive access to a plethora of things you can check out of the library!
• Use the online catalog or apps to download books/audiobooks. If your library system has this available, this makes it super convenient to check books and audio books out. Again, the app I use currently is Libby, which is a more user-friendly version of Overdrive.
• Check the calendar. The library can be a pretty happenin’ place with events and activities. Some may even host useful workshops on various topics. Most of the time they’re free!

Bottom Line

I know it’s super easy to go on Amazon and spend money on books and movies. But before you do, check out your local library to see if they have what you’re looking for. And if your library has an online catalog, you can use apps and a reading device or app to download ebooks and audiobooks.

Do you have any other tips to save money using the library? Comment below!

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Using the Library to Save Money appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

Growing up, I lived a typical, parents-are-immigrants-from-the-Philippines middle-class life. Throughout high school and college, finances were a bit of a stretch for my parents because of having to take care of my elderly grandparents, my brother, and me. After I graduated from college, I really wanted to be financially independent of my parents so that they wouldn’t have to worry about me.

I wasn’t able to find a full-time engineering job immediately after college because the aerospace industry was still in recovery mode from the Great Recession of 2008. Due to not finding a job immediately, it was a slow process taking over my most major debt at the time: student loans. Eventually, I was able to land an engineering job, and as my salary increased, I was able to tackle more and more of my student loans and take on other kinds of debt.

Honestly, I wasn’t financially savvy in my early 20’s. Not that I went overboard with credit cards, but I didn’t do a spectacular job paying them off so I was often hit with interest charges, and I didn’t make fast progress on creating a dent on my student loans.

It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I began seriously considering personal finance because of the new debts I took on. To make things more complicated, I didn’t heavily prioritize paying off my student loans. The process of learning more about personal finance has been slow-going.

According to the survey I sent out before launching Pilgrim for Less, 81% of those who took the survey said that not having enough money was an obstacle to going on more pilgrimages. Obviously, this makes sense because the typical thought we have regarding pilgrimages is that they’re long trips that cost us a week or two of our time and thousands of dollars of our money.

Whew. That can be a lot! And I can relate because I carry a lot of debt, but despite having lots of debt, I’ve still been able to pull off going to many places on pilgrimage including amazing opportunities at the recent World Youth Days, and places I’ve solo-traveled. Even with pilgrimage opportunity success, that doesn’t excuse me from tackling my debt, but I still want to be more financially independent for flexibility and traveling/pilgrimaging more.

Here’s what I’m currently dealing with:

Credit Cards

I hardly carry cash. Of course, this frustrates my parents since they’re old school like that. Most things I purchase are through my credit cards.

Long story short, I accumulated two credit cards: one with points bonuses, and one regular one that I later upgraded/converted to a travel card to earn points. When I started traveling to Japan a lot in 2015, I started learning more about earning points and miles using credit cards. Because of that, I’ve applied to three new credit cards that help me earn points and miles. My wallet has a good chunk of plastic in it, and it’s not from plastic surgery.

I pretty much use credit cards whenever I can in order to help keep track of spending. Since I use Mint and have connected many of my accounts to it, I’m able to track my spending. Credit card purchases easily categorize into the different categories I’ve set in Mint so I know where I’m spending my money. Of course, Mint lets me manually enter in cash transactions too, but I hardly use that feature since it’s not nicely automatic. Millennial problem, I know.

Up until January 2018, I manually paid credit cards.

Like I said, I wasn’t financially savvy in my 20’s so I often got hit with interest charges for not paying off my credit cards in a timely manner. Now, after reading books and blogs about credit cards and personal finance, my credit cards are paid automatically. I use Mint to make sure I’m not way off budget where an automatic credit card payment would cause overdraft fees on my checking and savings accounts.

I wish I could be victorious and say “I JUST PAID OFF ALL MY CREDIT CARDS!”, but since I use them for practically everything I spend money on, and they get paid automatically, I can’t really have that feeling anymore.

But that’s okay!

With the data I’ve been tracking, my credit card spending averages $2000 month-to-month. Now, I’ve been averaging a little higher lately because of the international travels I’ve completed, one of which was unintentional and not properly budgeted for.

An average $2000 of credit card debt every month seems like a lot, but that actually covers most of my typical expenses (like food (lots of food)). And because my credit cards are automatically paid, I’m no longer worried about my balances getting way out of hand.

Loans

Fun fact: part of my motivation of pursuing engineering was knowing that having such a career would help me pay off student loans. Now years after college, I’m not wrong. But it’s been years after college, and I still have those pesky student loans…

After graduating, I had that lull of not having a job. This actually freaked me out for multiple months because I knew that my student loan grace period would end, and I would have no way to start paying back my loans, and my parents weren’t in the best position to help me out with that at the time. Thankfully, I landed a full-time engineering job and was in better position to start paying off $80k+ in student loans.

Then I got a new car. $17,000ish for a new 2010 Honda Civic. Justifiable because my new job was 60 miles away from home. That was a lot of driving so I needed something with great reliability and gas mileage.

I was able to pay off that car in 2014!

Fast forward to 2015, and now I’ve got a mortgage! $170k+ for a shiny, brand new house. Not having that car payment really helped as did the lack of daily avocados and toast.

Also in 2015, I started new graduate degree. I can’t really count grad school as part of my overall loans because my grad degree is paid for by my company, which is pretty sweet.

Now, I had been making payments to my undergrad loans until 2015. With the new house, I was quite challenged in paying those back, but being in grad school helped because being a full-time student in grad school put my undergrad loans into deferment so I didn’t have to pay those monthly, even though interest accumulates still.

In 2016, my brother found himself in a situation with a really unreliable car and a really long commute between home and his jobs/school. By then, I had made lots of extra money because of work trips to Japan, so I offered to give him my 2010 Honda Civic. And I did. That was enough justification for me to go buy a new 2016 Honda Civic, but since I was able to pay a huge down payment, I only had $16000ish left to pay back on it.

Currently, I’m sitting at about $11,000 on my car, $150,500 on my mortgage, and $6000 on my undergrad student loans.

Added up, that’s a lot of money to pay back!

Action Plan

The goal of Pilgrim for Less is to talk about going on more pilgrimages for less time and money. Ya know, it’s meant for us who are broke and busy!

Because I’m carrying over $175,000 in debt, going places for less money is definitely a priority of mine. I can relate to those who are in the same boat or similar where not having enough money is hindrance to going on more pilgrimages.

But!

I’ve been able to have lots of debt and still go on pilgrimages. Check out my Pilgrimage Reports.

Here’s my action plan:

• Pay off and CRUSH my undergrad student loans first because they carry the higher interest rates, and I’m relatively close to finishing them off anyway
• Pay off and CRUSH my 2016 Honda Civic’s loan
• Pay off and CRUSH my mortgage, but this is so low of priority because I already have substantial equity on it and can just sell it if I need to
• As I free up more cash, save more money automatically for traveling/pilgrimages AND paying off other debt faster
• Stay within budget regarding credit card spend

I’m not perfect, and I’m still learning how to be better about my money. At least this action plan is simple enough, without the nitty gritty details, but it’s enough to define tangible goals.

What I haven’t discussed yet is the how. How will I pay these off. That, my brothers and sisters, is future content.

Question for you–what’s your biggest priority debt to crush?

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post Crushing My Debt appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

Again, I don’t have extra cash flow anymore so I’ve become way more interested in reducing expenses and saving money.

Just to rehash–I use two tools to keep track of everything: Mint and a spreadsheet. Mint lets me have a good overview of my cash and debts across all accounts as well as some budgeting. I use an Excel spreadsheet to map out my money flow.

April, May, and June kept me pretty busy because I actually went on two of those travels that were part of the $3000+ I spent. I spent a week in the Philippines followed nearly immediately by a long-weekend in Tokyo while being home in-between. Unfortunately, I had to return to the Philippines a month later due to a family emergency.

Because of these trips, I haven’t had much of a chance to review my budget line items.

Either way, here’s the one thing that helped me reduce my monthly expenses:

Mortgage Adjustment

This actually wasn’t even initiated by me, but rather my mortgage company. They periodically review and adjust what I pay depending on insurance, taxes, etc. I received a notification via snail mail saying that my monthly mortgage will be lowered by $41.20. That’s about $400 saved for the remainder of 2018, which is awesome!

Now, I actually did also attempt possibly refinancing my mortgage because it’s been a few years. One of my neighbors, I recently found out, is a mortgage loan officer so I reached out to her. Ultimately, interest rates have gone up, and it wouldn’t make sense to refinance right now. We both agreed to let my mortgage be for now. I guess I just mention this because I’m not sitting around doing nothing, but that I’m still actively looking for ways to save money! Haha. I tried.

Going Forward

After giving it some thought, I don’t think I will do these quarterly “how I saved money” reports anymore. I want to move to more of a monthly income/expense review. The reason why is because I want to be more transparent about the extra money I’m earning, how much debt I’ve got left to reduce or eliminate, and how many airline miles/hotel points I have. Of course, this is to help me see how I’m doing financially in order to fund future pilgrimages.

You can look forward to the first one at the beginning of August!

While I didn’t have too many money-saving victories in the past few months, did you? Let me know down in the comments!

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post How I Saved Money In Q2 2018 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

I know air travel makes us think of high costs for traveling. It’s often the fastest way to travel long distances, and doing so comes at a price. Flying for travel has always been a part of my life like my arms and my legs. And despite my frequent travels, flying doesn’t personally cost me those arms and legs.

Air travel doesn’t have to cost you your appendages either.

Pilgrimages often require flying in order to see and visit the really cool sites. But this is Pilgrim for Less. You don’t need to spend lots of money on air travel to go on pilgrimages.

Over the past several years, I’ve utilized different tickets for flights. Let me share with you three ways that you can fly cheap:

1. Paid ticket
2. Award ticket
3. Nonrevenue/Buddy Pass

Not too complicated, eh? Allow me to further explain each one.

1. Paid Ticket

Paying for an airline ticket is the most ordinary means of getting your literal arms and legs onto a plane. For most people, this involves booking directly with an airline or booking through a travel agency, whether brick-and-mortar or online. You pay actual cash monies for a guaranteed seat on a flight.

For most of my life, I did not utilize paid airline tickets (because my dad works for an airline (see last method)). It wasn’t until I started traveling to Japan frequently for work starting in 2015 that I really started using paid tickets to fly places. Therefore, I’m not as well versed in deal-finding for paid tickets.

However, I do utilize Google Flights as a starting point for researching cheaper flights. What makes it great is that it’s a search engine for airfare, and it provides a user-friendly interface where you can easily adjust your flight details in order to see how those changes affect the price. Google Flights will also allow you to compare results between booking direct with the airlines and some of the online travel agencies. One time I was able to find round-trip tickets on American Airlines from Texas to San Diego for $180 using Google Flights (unfortunately…I was never able to get on that plane because I got sent to Japan!).

Ways to Reduce Ticket Price

Within paid airline tickets, here are some ways or considerations to reduce the price of your ticket:

• Fly during non-peak season (ie. Rome in the winter and spring)
• Similarly, fly during the week and not during the weekend
• For round trip tickets, have longer trips between incoming and outgoing flights (7 day trip vs. 3 day trip)
• Add layovers or stops
• Utilize low cost carriers
• Purchase lower fare codes (like basic economy, or non-refundable fares)

Paying for an airline ticket is going to cost the most money out-of-pocket.

2. Award Ticket

Most major airlines have a loyalty program that you can sign up for. When you do, you can earn miles for that airline. Redeeming those miles to fly results in an award ticket. Typically, you can only redeem award tickets via the airline itself or through an airline partner. For example, I have American Airlines AAdvantage miles, and I can only redeem those on American Airlines or on one of American’s partners like Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific. Signing up for a loyalty program is pretty easy usually just requiring your name and basic contact information.

Because of frequent business trips to Japan for work, I’ve earned many miles. I’ve been able to redeem those miles for trips like flying my parents, my brother, and myself to Italy for a week in 2017 or attending Mother Teresa’s canonization in 2016. Using miles.

An airline’s website should allow you to search award tickets much in the same way you would search for flights normally. I often see a checkbox that you can check in order to tell the flight search bar that you’re looking for award tickets.

Award ticket costs usually depend on the airline and where you’re traveling to. One thing I didn’t know when I first started dabbling in award tickets is that redeeming such awards actually carries two costs: miles and taxes/fees. However, the taxes and fees you pay out-of-pocket are, generally, way cheaper than buying a paid ticket outright. For example, you can fly Singapore Airlines new first class suites for a one-way ticket costing ~$4500 (USD) from Singapore to Sydney, Australia. The award ticket for the same seat is 150,000 KrisFlyer miles and ~$70 USD for taxes and fees. When I went to Rome for Mother Teresa’s canonization, it only costed me 77,500 and $178.36 for a round-trip economy class seat from Texas to Rome on American Airlines when such a seat normally costs $1200+.

Ways to Earn Miles Easily

You can earn miles pretty easily using the following ways:

• Fly frequently
• Fly frequently with elite airline status (because bonus miles earned are usually given for passengers with status)
• Use an airline’s shopping portal to earn miles from shopping online
• Use an airline’s cobranded credit card
• Be on the mailing list for an airline’s award program for other miles-earning opportunities

3. Nonrevenue/Buddy Pass

Airlines usually give their employees benefits to fly for free. They are able to do this by flying nonrevenue standby whereby they can fly on flights with space-available seats or seats that are unsold. My dad works for an airline so when I was growing up, my family frequently used his benefit to visit family in different states. Even now, I’m still able utilize his benefits to save costs on flying.

For employees of airlines and immediate family members, standby tickets are free. Sometimes they can extend this benefit to others, sometimes called a “buddy pass”, but with a small(er) out-of-pocket cost that are usually just taxes and fees. On trips to the Philippines this year, my parents used my dad’s benefit to travel to Japan for free in order to connect to Manila. Because I’m over the age threshold for a dependent, I have to use my dad’s buddy passes, but using them I can travel to Japan round trip for ~$500, which normally costs $2300+ for a paid economy class ticket.

I have a friend that also has a father who works for the same airline, and we’ve been able to pull off day trips from Texas to other places in the US of A. One weekend, we went to Washington, DC for a day to visit a seminarian friend of ours, came home the same day, and the first thing next morning we flew to San Diego to visit another good friend, stayed one night, and came back first thing the next morning. All in a weekend. We’ve also hit up day trips to San Antonio, Nashville, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. These day trips typically cost me <$200 round trip when they can easily be $300+.

Struggles Flying Nonrev

Despite the potential for saving lots of money, there are several struggles with flying using nonrevenue standby or buddy passes:

• You’re not guaranteed a seat and therefore can be bumped to standby on the next flight (and the next flight, and the next flight…until you’re having to sleep at the airport…)
• You usually board the aircraft last
• Your family member or friend with the benefit only has a limited amount of buddy passes
• People flying standby are processed by priority (and buddy pass travelers are often processed last)
• If you have elite status with the airline, those benefits will not apply

Unless you or your spouse works for an airline or you’re real buddies with some friends who do, then this method is going to be challenging to accomplish.

As I mentioned earlier, this is the method I grew up with, and its been my ordinary means of flying for forever. It’s only been with the past few years that I’ve been utilizing paid and award tickets.

Bottom Line

Flying is a fast way to get anywhere, but it does come at cost. Thankfully, there are multiple ways to fly cheap. For going on more pilgrimages for less, the key is to leverage lowering the cost of flying so that you can see more of the Church in the world.

I should also mention that packaged pilgrimages or pilgrimages done through a pilgrim office or travel agency are paid tickets but with a group discount. However, if done like this, you might not earn or use award miles. As an example of what I mean, if you flew from Chicago to Rome with a packaged pilgrimage, you’d be flying all those miles without earning award miles (9646 miles for round trip, to be exact!). That’s enough miles to almost cover a one-way flight domestically!

Now that you know about these three different ways, stay tuned, and we can further explore strategies on using these methods to go on more pilgrimages. For less. And fly cheap.

Question for you–have you ever redeemed award miles to fly somewhere? If so, where did you go?

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Screenshot of redeem miles from aa.com.

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post 3 Ways To Fly Cheap appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.

As I mentioned in my pilgrimage problem for 2018, I don’t have extra cash flow anymore. To make things more complicated, I also booked $3000+ worth of air travel for 2018 using the extra cash I had earned in 2017.

Now, I’m not a financial bind or anything as a result of making it rain with plane tickets, but I needed to make sure that I started 2018 strong. I need to be better about how I manage my money so I can achieve my financial goals AND still go on more pilgrimages. For less.

How I Saved Money

I use a combination of two things to manage my money: Mint and a spreadsheet.

Mint is a popular web service and app that lets you connect your accounts so you can do budgeting and pay bills. I use it primarily as a dashboard to see where I’m spending my money and how much money I have.

I keep an Excel spreadsheet of how my money flows: what I earn, what I save, and what I spend for fixed and budgeted costs.

During Christmas break, I spent some time rebuilding that spreadsheet to better match what I’ve got going on in Mint and to make my cash flow more transparent to me. Once I rebuilt the spreadsheet, I pretty much went line-by-line on my expenses and asked myself if each particular expense was something I could reduce or eliminate entirely. I was able to identify a few and proceeded to take action on them.

Here they are:

Internet

I have AT&T as my internet provider. For months now, they’ve been offering me to upgrade to their fiber optic plan. They kept spamming me with a $50/month Internet 100 plan. I had been on their mid-tier plan paying $73 a month (including rate, rental, and taxes).

Since I was tired of receiving mail regarding this offer, and I was interested in saving money, I decided to give AT&T a call to inquire about this $50/month plan.

The call was easy—they only had to switch things on their end as my current AT&T router can already handle the higher bandwidth. In other words, I didn’t have to hurry and wait for a technician to come over to my house for my chihuahua to yell at.

Now, I’m paying $63/month (including rate, rental, and taxes). That’s $10/month saved for internet expenses! It’s not much, but it adds up over a year.

Two things I should mention though. I know the $50/month offer is a promo rate, and it will go up after 12 months. I set a reminder for the end of year to call AT&T and fight to keep the same rate. Lastly, AT&T has a contract in my neighborhood to be the sole internet provider other companies are not currently an option.

Podcast Hosting

I had a podcast last year while I was in Japan. I chose a mid-tier, $20/month plan to start out with, but I stopped at eleven episodes because I started grad school classes again.

At the beginning of the year, I decided to downgrade to the lowest tier hosting plan because I stopped uploading new episodes. Now I just pay $12/month to host.

Gym

Currently, I’m a member of 24 Hour Fitness. Thanks to a corporate rate through work, I was paying $47/month for a Super Sport level membership. This means that I can use any Super Sport level facilities across the country for that price. When I didn’t have the corporate rate benefit, it was $48/month for ONE LOCATION. What. Forget that!

My company switched out insurances starting this year, and the insurance plan I enrolled in has an added fitness benefit. This benefit is the Active & Fit Directory gym membership. Basically, I pay one low cost for membership into Active & Fit, and I have access to their entire directory of gyms that participate. My local popular gym chains participate: 24 Hour Fitness, LA Fitness, Anytime, Planet Gym, and more.

Obviously, when I found out that Active & Fit is only $25/month, it was no brainer for me to switch. $23 a month for gym access! AND I signed up for LA Fitness! How about dem (money) gains!

Unfortunately, I found out recently that 24 Hour Fitness is withdrawing from Active & Fit, and I’ve got til the end of the year to enjoy it. This isn’t a problem because I’ve still got LA Fitness. I just need to re-strategize the timing of when I go to the gym since I usually go at weird hours in the wee morning on the weekends.

TruGreen

Last year, I was assigned to work in Japan for six months. That meant that I wouldn’t be around to maintain my front and back yards. I hired TruGreen to do that for me where they added fertilizer, weed preventative, and other stuff to my yards every so often. For mowing, I hired some neighbors. For watering…well…I hoped that it rained enough.

When I returned home from Japan after my assignment completed, I let TruGreen come out maybe once or twice more.

At the beginning of this year, I cancelled their services knowing that I wouldn’t be on extensive international travel this year. I’m around to maintain my own lawn. Sunburn and ant bites, included.

I was paying TruGreen about $70 every time they came to my house, which was about every six weeks.

And now I won’t be doing that. Over a year, that’s a lot of money saved. Which is nice. But now I’m having to pay for bags of fertilizer and other things and spending my own time to do the work, but that’s okay.

TL;DR

• Called AT&T to save $10/month on Internet service
• Downgraded podcast hosting and saved $8/month
• Started a new gym membership program saving ~$20/month
• Canceled TruGreen and no longer paying $70+ every six weeks

Total saved per month = ~$60/month

Did you have any monthly savings victories so far this year?

JR

JR is a full-time engineer working in the aerospace industry. Apart from having such a fly job, he flies unto the arms of Our Lady and the Church pursuing his faith and a relationship with Christ. Over the past several years, faith and flying via pilgrimages became a thing. When he’s not being fly, JR hangs out with family, friends, his chihuahua, and with thoughts of the next trip.

The post How I Saved Money In Q1 2018 appeared first on Pilgrim for Less.