Author Archives: Gomanson

Weekly Review (March 15, 2015)

It was a slow weekend at Menards. Today there was only 1 new ad flyer and I wasn’t able to max out the quantities on all the free items; my new purchases finally caught up with my available in-store checks. The total retail value of items I bought for free this weekend was only $11.99.

It was a little better week on the free gas tactics front. I redeemed points for the “big coupon” on Tuesday and filled my car and two 5-gallon gas tanks at a $1.06/gallon discount. My total free gas for the week* ended up at $28.73.
* commute only – not counting personal miles or my wife’s car

New Posts this Week
– Early March Menards Haul shows my free Menards stuff from the past couple of weeks.
– Tracking is the Key (and why you shouldn’t do it) is a response to those of my friends who see the value in using the tactics presented on this site, but who see the tracking and record keeping I do, and think it’s a necessary step. It IS a necessary step, but I’ve already done it for you! That’s one of the main reasons I created ValueTactics.com in the first place!

New Deals
No big credit card or points news this week.

We’ve been having warmer weather up here in Minnesota, which makes me think about flea market/garage sale season. So I’ve been thinking about some of my free stuff tactics and miscellaneous and one-off ways to make money by selling things. Yesterday I found myself half owner in a few dozen 40″ soccer balls and double action air pumps, for the low cost of offering some space in my storage shed. My friend and I will be partnering to market these online soon. I’ll let you all know how that goes. You never know when an opportunity to create value might come along, out of the blue. Just have to keep your eyes open! (Although a 40″ high-quality soccer ball with washable removable cover is hard to miss!)

Now you’re updated. Go employ some Value Tactics!

Tracking is the Key (and why you shouldn’t do it)

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Ok, I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. The title should have read, “…and why you don’t have to do it.” You don’t have to because I already did it for you! Let me explain…

Sometimes a friend or relative will hesitate using the tactics on this site. They will say something like, “Sure, you get a bunch of free money, stuff, and travel- but look at all the time you spend on it! It’s just not worth it. And besides, I’m not organized enough to make it work.” They are referring to the time I spend reading other blogs, studying fine print, entering data into spreadsheets, analyzing my spending, etc. It’s true I spend more time than I probably should staring at giant spreadsheets. But there are several good reasons why I obsessively record and track everything related to the value tactics I employ:

I run this website. Before I publish a recommendation to the whole world, I need hard data that proves it really works.
I was originally a doubter. When I was introduced to the credit card game I was skeptical it would all work; when I started the gas savings game I wanted to find out if it was worth it (it was); etc.
It’s a hobby. Keeping track of all this stuff is very enjoyable to me. Yeah, I know, it’s a pretty OCD hobby, but I love it!

Life is busy. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I record, track, and summarize the results of my own experiences with these tactics so you don’t have to. Use the data presented on this site to make your own determination if something is worth doing or not. It will save you time, energy, and headaches. But of course, if you want to make giant spreadsheets and stare at them late into the night, make graphs and print out reports, go right ahead! You may find it’s fun to see exactly how much value you can create by using the tactics outlined on ValueTactics.com.

Check my personal results tracker on the sidebar, read my weekly updates, read about individual tactics, scour the web for others’ results, and make your own decision whether a given tactic is worth it or not.

I’ll respond to the second part of the nay-sayers’ comment, “I’m not organized enough to make it work,” in another post. (Click here to read that post!) Don’t miss any new posts: Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Thanks for reading!

Early March Menards Haul

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There were 5 ad flyers running concurrently on Sunday, so I loaded up! Everything you see here was purchased from February 22nd to March 8th. I used rebate checks to buy it all, for a total of $0.00:

10 each of 6 oz, 8oz, and 12 oz locking storage jars
2 stain brushes
6 paint brushes
2 edging paint brushes
2 bags of rubber bands
2 spray bottles of furniture polish
2 duster kits with 24 refills
4 decorative shelf brackets
4 freeze cube mason jar cups
4 insulated tumblers
6 hose-end spray bottles of insecticide

That brings my running total of free Menards stuff to $4,336.83! There’s a lot of useful stuff in this particular haul, but most of it will probably end up at the flea market or a garage sale.

To learn how you can get hauls like this for free from Menards, read my page about the Menards free after rebate system.

Weekly Review (March 8, 2015)

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It was a good weekend at Menards! Today there were 5 simultaneous ad flyers going, including a Crazy Days sale. (Crazy Days are Fri-Sun sales, usually with several free items) The total retail value of items I bought for free this weekend is $133.40.

My free gas total for the week was $6.81 using free gas tactics. One of the coupon flyers we get in the monthly junk mail has a few 15 cent coupons which are valid Sundays only. With gas prices edging slowly back up, I’ve been filling up on Sunday nights to save every dollar I can on gas.

Travel News
My wife and I returned on Tuesday from a 4 night, 5 day trip to Couples Resort in Negril, Jamaica, to celebrate our 10 year anniversary!

The main pool at Couples Negril

We splurged a bit on this all-inclusive resort. I planned the trip between April and August of last year and at the time I didn’t have many points or vouchers built up for lodging. So I decided to bite the bullet and make this my last “full price” vacation before starting to reap the rewards I’d been accumulating with points and miles. Although we paid for the resort (got a decent early bird sale price) we did get the airfare for free! $618.69 in airfare for FREE by redeeming 40,880 Southwest Rapid Rewards I got by transferring points from my Chase Ultimate Rewards account. Yes, if you’re doing the math, that’s less than you’ll get with just the sign-up bonus from Chase’s popular Sapphire Preferred card! With just this one card’s bonus you could fly to a Jamaican paradise with your wife, girlfriend, or mother-in-law. Then when that person gets the card too, they can return the favor and fly you two back there next year!

The trip was exactly what we needed after a long winter full of cold weather and stress. The resort was outstanding and the weather was great. I’ll do a full review coming soon. I’ll also do a breakdown of how we flew for free and what the whole trip cost us. Stay tuned. . .

New Deals
The only newsworthy change in the card world this week was a negative one: it looks like the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier card is back down to 25,000 bonus points with every public offer I could find. This card had been at 50,000 points for some time, which it will almost certainly be back to in a few months, as this card is one of the most predictable as far as bonus offers go.

Now you’re updated. Go employ some Value Tactics!

Weekly Review (and Preview!)

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Part of my purpose for creating ValueTactics.com is to give regular updates of my activity with these tactics. It’s a way for readers to see how all this plays out in a real person’s life; not just as a string of hypothetical examples. With these weekly reviews you can see how day to day decisions and actions can add up and create a lot of value.

I also want to keep you updated on new card offers, points program changes, and other tactical intelligence to help you create and capture as much value as you can.

The 11% sale is finished at Menards, and there were two active ad flyers on Sunday. I picked up 30 stackable locking storage jars, 4 paint brushes, and 2 stain brushes for a total of $0.00. The total retail value was $70.09.

My free gas total for the week was $11.34 using free gas tactics.

I redeemed 5000 Wells Fargo Rewards for $50 cash.

I did my monthly update on my Big Spreadsheet and found that my wife and I had a net gain of 1,017 points this month (all types combined). That didn’t seem like a lot until I remembered that I spent 45,000 miles on a round trip ticket to Costa Rica for a friend.

Travel News
My wife and I are packing our bags tonight, because tomorrow morning we take off to paradise to celebrate our 10 year anniversary!

Order this and other great panoramic prints at Blakeway Panoramas.

Stay tuned for trip updates…

New Deals
The only major news this week in the card world is Chase’s public bonus offer of 55,000 miles on the United MileagePlus Explorer Business card. Even if you own a business, I recommend getting a personal card from Chase first so you can establish your relationship with that important card issuer first. Here is Frugal Travel Guy’s report on the new bonus offer: Increased Sign-Up Bonus for Chase United MileagePlus Business Card

Now you’re updated. Go employ some Value Tactics!

Card Review: Chase Sapphire Preferred

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Our well worn Sapphire Preferred cards (pre- chip+PIN)

Basic Stats
– Issuer: Chase
– Logo: Visa
– Points earned: Ultimate Rewards
– 1 pt per dollar on all purchases
– 2 pt per dollar on travel & dining
– 3 pt per dollar on dining (1st Friday of every month)
– Foreign transaction fee: no
– Chip + PIN: yes
– Annual fee: $95

Current sign-up bonus
– ~~40,000~~ (50,000 as of 11-17-15) bonus points after $4000 spend in 3 months
– 5,000 bonus points with addition of authorized user
– 1st year annual fee waived

The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the gold standard in premium credit cards. It’s been around a long time and has remained a good deal for years. Chase has a reputation for excellent customer service and Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) are the single most valuable points out there. Besides being incredibly versatile, UR points do not expire and they can be transferred among your accounts, any business accounts you may own, and your spouse’s account for free. Besides the sign-up bonus and regular spending, you can also rack up UR points be using Chase’s online shopping portal, which will get you at least 1 extra point per dollar at most major online retailers.

And remember, the minimum bonus spend also counts towards regular points accrual, so by the time you get the bonus for this card, you will have earned at least ~~44,000~~ 54,000 UR points. Add an authorized user when you apply and make one purchase with the second card for another 5,000 bonus points. Make some of those purchases at restaurants or hotels and you can get to ~~50k~~ 60k quite easily.

Here are some examples of how you could use the UR points you earn from this card:

3 nights at Hyatt Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort in Costa Rica; $1695 worth of lodging for 45k Ultimate Rewards transferred to Hyatt Gold Passport
One-way business class on Canada Air 787 Dreamliner, Minneapolis to Zurich; A $5006 flight for 57.5k Ultimate Rewards transferred to United Mileage Plus
The lie-flat business class mini-suite in Canada Air’s 787 Dreamliner
Round trip from the continental U.S. to the Caribbean in economy class; 35k Ultimate Rewards transferred to United Mileage Plus
Depending on where and when you fly, 49k Ultimate Rewards transferred to Southwest Airlines could get you 2 round trip flights.
~~49k~~ 59k from your bonuses & required spend gets you ~~$588~~ $708 in travel from the Ultimate Rewards Travel Booking service
~~49k~~ 59k from your bonuses & required spend is also worth $490 $590 credited to your account. This is the least efficient redemption method, but you could use it if you really want the cash.

My experience with the Chase Sapphire Preferred
This was the first “premium” credit card I applied for, way back when I was starting out and mainly focused on getting my debt on to 0% interest cards. I figured as long as I was apping cards, I should go for one with a nice bonus and points program. Creditkarma says the average credit score to get approved for the Sapphire Preferred is 730. I was right around 760 and got instantly approved online. My wife applied at the same time and was also approved online.

The metal core of the Chase Sapphire Preferred

When we got our cards in the mail, we were pleasantly surprised at how cool they looked! (Trust me, once you’re a full blown card fanatic you’ll care about how they look, too). The unique thing about the Chase Sapphire Preferred is that it’s metal. That’s right, not only will this card get you some valuable points, but it may save your life someday if you ever get shot in the wallet. We still enjoy the comments we hear when handing the card to a cashier to pay for something.

We both hit our bonus spends and the points earned eventually funded my very first points redemption, airfare to Europe with UnitedPlus miles transferred from Ultimate Rewards. UR points have bailed me out several times since then, with their incredible versatility (Ultimate Rewards can be transferred to 11 different partner programs.)

My wife ended up downgrading her card to the regular Chase Sapphire to avoid paying the annual fee after the first year, but I have paid the fee twice on my Sapphire Preferred (a rarity in this game). It hasn’t left my wallet in 3 years and is still my go-to card for dining purchases.

GET THE CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED
I’m not cool enough to have credit card affiliate links but I can get bonus points of my own if you apply through my referral link. If you got some value from my review, I would appreciate it very much if you applied through the link, which has the same terms and bonus as the public offer.

Click here to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred!

Even if you don’t use my link, I highly recommend this card to anyone as it offers a nice pile of Ultimate Rewards, no foreign transaction fees, 2x points on travel and dining, and no annual fee for the 1st year.

First Menards Haul of 2015

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It’s been a slow couple of weeks on the Menards front. They opened 2015 with back to back 11% rebate weeks, meaning all the regular sales go bye-bye, including free after rebate items. But this Sunday there are three concurrent ads running again. Here’s what I managed to get for free after rebate so far in 2015:

3 black plastic boot trays
4 ratchet clamps
4 pairs Nitrile-dipped gloves
1 7″ plywood saw blade
4 Mini dust pans and brooms
4 7″ metal grinding wheels

That brings my running total of free Menards stuff to $4124.39! Those clamps seem to always come in handy, and the boot trays are great for keeping the floor clean during Minnesota winters. Any of these items will probably sell at a garage sale or flea market.

To learn how you can get hauls like this for free from Menards, read my page about the Menards free after rebate system.

What is value?

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Value was once described to me as the difference in price between what you paid for something, and what you were willing to pay. This is a good definition but I would like to modify it slightly.

Let’s say my wife and I take a 4 night vacation to the Hyatt Regency Spa and Casino Resort in Aruba. Standard rooms are $565/night in April and airfare is $505 per person, bringing the total for airfare and lodging to $3270.

However, for our trip we’re using two pair of free-night vouchers which we had from each signing up for the Chase Hyatt Credit Card. We are using American Airlines miles to book the flights so we’re only paying about $200 in taxes and fees for the airfare. We are getting a $3270 vacation for only $200! (This is a hypothetical example but a friend of mine and his wife took almost the exact same trip, all with the sign-up bonuses from 2 credit cards each).

However, according to the definition above, the value is only the difference in what we paid ($200) and what we would have paid. This is where I diverge from the definition. In this example, let’s say we weren’t going to take the vacation at all if we had to pay for it. So our willing to pay price doesn’t apply. But what if someone had magically offered us the same trip for $500, out of the blue? Even though we hadn’t planned on the trip or budgeted for it, we probably would have paid $500; such an amazing deal would be hard to refuse. So how much would have we paid for the same trip? For the sake of this example, let’s say $1000 would have been our threshold. In this case we were willing to pay $1000 but we only paid $200, so according to the definition we derived $800 of value.

We followed the definition of value to the letter, and only came up with and $800 value for a trip that should have cost $3270 but we only paid $200 for. If that seems a bit off to you, I agree. Of course there is no definite way to accurately measure this sort of thing. Many things we would intuitively assign value to are intangible and hard to define. So to keep things simple, here’s how I do it:

In the example above we took a trip for $200 that would have cost your average non-ValueTactics reader $3270. We would not have taken the vacation if we had had to pay full price, though, so according to the definition of value, we can’t count the full price as value. HOWEVER, in my mind the enjoyment of the trip is amplified by knowing we got it for far less than it should have cost. To me, that adds value. FURTHERMORE, the fact that we took a vacation at all when we wouldn’t have been able to afford one otherwise makes it even sweeter, adding yet more value.

It’s impossible to assign a numerical value to these intangible benefits, but it’s apparent to me that they add value to the experience. So when I am tracking the amount of value gained by, for example, booking a trip with points and miles, I call it even and go with the full retail price minus my actual out of pocket expenses.

Therefore, in the example of the Aruba trip, $3270 – $200 = $3070 value! To me, this seems like a logical way of tracking how much value I create and capture from these tactics. In this example, my wife and I got a $3070 vacation by applying for 2 credit cards each. That’s worth it to me!