← Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices
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- [00:00]
A
If you want to fly in business class or even fly in coach, but take your whole family. If you want to stay at a luxury hotel or even stay at a mid level hotel but stay longer, these trips could be very expensive, but they're made cheaper through the use of points. But most of us are inefficient at accumulating point balances and inefficient at knowing how to redeem those points. And to help us with that is Chris Hutchins, the absolute master of deals. He is the host of all the Hacks, a podcast with over a million listeners that helps you accumulate and spend miles and credit card points in addition to overall helping you optimize and upgrade your travel money and life. He's the founder of Grove, which was acquired by Wealthfront, and Milk, which was acquired by Google. And he led new product strategy at Wealthfront and he was a partner at Google Ventures. He joins us to talk about the fact that as we're heading into 2026, premium credit cards are more expensive and more complicated than any ever. And so it's fair to ask whether the points game is still worth the effort. That's what we're going to talk about today. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything. This show covers five pillars. Financial, psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate, and entrepreneurship. It's Double eye Fire. I'm your host, Paula Pant. And joining us today is Chris Hutchins. Enjoy. Chris, welcome to the show.
- [01:24]
B
Thanks for having me back. It's been a while, Chris.
- [01:27]
A
The year is coming to an end. As we close out 2025, I want to know what is the current state of credit cards? Because we haven't talked about this topic on the show in a while. And there have been some big shakeups this year, most notably Chase Sapphire Reserve, which was the gold standard in credit card rewards, is now so expensive that a lot of people are saying it's not worth it.
- [01:47]
B
Yeah, 2025 was the year that every credit card, and not every, we'll come back to that, but it seemed like we often call it like the couponization of credit cards. Everyone said, you know, let's charge higher fees and add a bunch of perks and credits and things so that we can say, hey, our fee went up by $300, but we're giving you $1,000 of more value, assuming you're actually going to use any of these things and actually use them in a way that they're really worth it. If you were never going to go to, you know, some event and now you've, you've been forced to go to this event to use this credit. I'm not sure it's fair to say that you got that value. Chase came out and said, you know, we're going to increase our annual fee on that card. And it went up to $795. And then Amex came out and said, hey, we're not going to tell you what's happening, but we're going to increase our annual fee for the platinum card to 895. Like we just, we can't be anything other than the highest consumer fee card. Then eventually they did announce all the changes they made and they were kind of the same. It was more coupons for more things that if you were about to buy an aura ring, you now get $200 off. That's really cool. But if you just went and bought a $350 Aura ring because you got $200 off, I'm not sure you really got a deal.
- [02:58]
A
Right.
- [02:59]
B
So the main theme that happened was a lot of the high earning gold standard credit cards added a lot higher annual fees that I think some savvy users were pleased by. In many ways. Someone who really optimally uses that card, either of those cards, the amex Platinum or the Chase Reserve is, is happier now than they were before. I know for the Chase Reserve example, like I am actually, I think it was an improvement. I'm happy that they're like the trade off of higher fee for what you get was a benefit. But I can see why for a lot of people it just doesn't make sense. And for some people it might even push them over to team Cash Back and just stop worrying about trying to earn points altogether.
- [03:39]
A
And that is a huge change because Cash Back was a dirty word in the world of credit card rewards for the last decade.
- [03:45]
B
Yes, I never really contemplated cash Back until somewhere around the time I think the Robinhood card came out. And it just kind of forced me to think, oh gosh, you could get 3% on everything. And then I looked, it's like, well, there were cards that were pretty close to 3% on everything before, but that moment made me kind of reevaluate some of my spending. And the Amazon card, I'd rather just have 5% cash back on Amazon than any number of points that I could get otherwise. And so it's like I took these baby steps and it kind of feels nice. Like it feels nice to just have the money in your account, the money in Your account is earning interest. But on the flip side, if you're willing to do the things it takes to make your points go further, I still think the points game is awesome. And the way to win in credit card rewards is that banks give you these massive bonuses. When you open new cards, you're never gonna get all the points. You need to take all these great vacations by getting a card that earns you, like, one extra point per dollar on streaming services, which you probably don't spend thousands of dollars on a year. I've heard people say, oh, should I get this card? It's 5x on streaming services. It's like, well, how much do you spend on streaming services? And they're like, well, you know, I spend like $800 a year. It's like, okay, and you have a card that gets you 2x points, so you're going to get an extra 3 points on $800. It's like 2400 points. Like, is this worth the time and energy versus if you run a business and you spend $5 million? Yeah, optimize that. But $2,400 to get the card that optimizes your streaming services or one new card that has a hundred thousand point, you know, welcome offer. The welcome offers are going to be the thing that moves the needle. And unfortunately, they're not that lucrative on cashback cards. So I would say if you're on the, I want a card that I just spend on. I don't want to open up a bunch of cards each year. I don't care about the bonuses. God, it's hard to beat cash back right now. But if you're willing to open a few new cards or if you're willing to be really flexible with your travel, I do still think the points is going to take you further.
- [05:46]
A
I want to dig a little bit more into both of those. But let's start with continuing to play the points game and being flexible on travel. What major things have changed? So the last time that we ran an episode about this, we talked about point me going on there and seeing where you wanted to travel and then reverse engineering that to see, all right, if I wanted to take this trip, what card would I need? And then you can kind of reverse engineer that and figure out what you need and then get that card and proactively do it. That was the status as of about a year, year and a half ago. Is that still the approach?
- [06:19]
B
So point Me was kind of one of the first really consumer friendly award booking services. And for people who aren't familiar with this whole concept. Let me rewind just a minute. The way you get the most value out of your points is to transfer them to airlines and hotels and book in their own mileage and loyalty programs, because oftentimes the amount of miles it takes to book a flight in their program is not correlated to the dollars. If you were to use your points in the Chase Travel portal or the Amex portal or the Capital One portal, they're worth a fixed value. And for most of those portals, that fixed value is $0.01. Now, Chase, long time, the Chase Sapphire Reserve was one and a half cents. And. And they got rid of that with this rebranded Chase Sapphire Reserve. And now they have this points boost where, like, how valuable your points are kind of depends on what Chase decides to boost up or down. Minimum, you're getting 1 cent. And so to get more than 1 cent, kind of in a consistent way, you could transfer those points to Hyatt, you could transfer those points to United, and you could book flights, but it's not all of them. And so people who are kind of new to this jump in and say, oh, that's the way to get value. Well, I'll just transfer my points United. And they're like, well, the flight I wanted on United actually is a terrible deal with points. And so you've got to find whether there are flights that are a good deal. And Point Me was the first one that helped with this. But it. In the early days, probably when we last talked about it, you would say, I want to go from JFK in New York to San Francisco, and I want to go on this day, and it will tell you what's there. The tricky thing is, well, you might be willing to fly a couple of days before, after, you might be willing to fly to Newark or to fly to Oakland. You know, like, there's enough variables, or maybe you're willing to go to LA or San Francisco or Seattle. And if there's enough variability in where you're willing to go, Point me wasn't great. And there have been a bunch of other award search tools that have launched. One is called Award Tool. One is called Points. Yeah. One is called Rome Travel. One is called Seats Arrow. I could send you a list that you can put in the show notes. I can send you a link to an episode where we kind of broke them all down and they have given a lot more flexibility. So I really love the points. Yeah. Daydream Explorer, because you can kind of go in and say, like, I don't know where I want to go, but I have a bunch of different chase points. And it'll say, wow, if you're willing to go to Dublin, you know, in June, you can go in business class for a screaming deal. But they also started adding things where you can say, well, I want to go from the west coast to Europe, and you don't have to know which city you're willing to fly from or fly to. And you can say over this month, and now you can start to find really great deals. So this doesn't help. If you need to be in Frankfurt on, you know, January 5th and you have no flexibility and you are only willing to fly nonstop from San Francisco, it's like, well, there's just one flight you need, and unless that flight's available, you know, you're kind of out of luck. So if that's your style of travel, which is, I always fly on one day, I always want to fly direct. I'm not willing to make any sacrifices or any flexibility points. Might only work 1 in 10, 20, 30 times. But if you're willing to say in June, I want to take a trip somewhere, and I'm a little bit flexible, where you don't have to make it the whole world, but maybe you want to go to Europe, but if you land in Paris or you land in Munich or you land in London or you land in Barcelona, like, it's kind of. You'll figure it out. You could still get some really, really great value. And even more if you're willing to fly or if you want to fly in business class, you can really elevate it in terms of value. But there's some amazing economy deals that are also awesome. So I think if you have that flexibility, there's a lot of tools that make it easy to find deals that still make those points really valuable. But there is some overhead to that. Like, you know, if you're just like, wouldn't it be nice to just go online, go to Google flights, Type in the from 2, and just pick a flight and book it. Yeah, I agree. Like, sometimes I spend way too long searching for a trip, and I. And I wish that it was just simpler, but then I end up sometimes going on a trip where I save 60, 75, 80% of what I would have paid in cash because we kind of dialed in the points game. And that kind of makes it all the fun worth it.
- [10:29]
A
It's interesting to hear you say that there are certain economy deals that are worth it, because I feel like that's a new thing that I've been hearing that five years ago in the point redemption space and the travel reward space. You never heard people say that. People would always say, oh, business class is such a better dollar for dollar, like point for dollar, such a better redemption value that it's just not worth booking. Economy. Has the redemption value changed or has the culture changed?
- [10:59]
B
I think both the points and miles game has gotten a lot less of a niche game. If you have 200,000 points, like you could take multiple trips in economy, maybe one in coach. We have so many more people playing the game that people are willing, not really willing to make that sacrifice of, well, I'm going to, I'm going to give up four trips so I can do one. In business, when it was a really niche game, like the only people that were playing it were playing it at a really advanced level. Now it's a much more played game. And those business class seats are so limited that it's hard to find availability for lots of people. Whereas in economy sometimes you can find nine, 10 flights. Like that's really cool. You're not going to get as great of a value because business class flights can just be so, so expensive. But, but again, that doesn't mean that you're not getting a lot of value. It just means that. And that is that value even real? Right. If there was a $20,000 ticket that you could get for the equivalent of $2,000 of points, it's not really fair to say you got $20,000 of value. Cause you never would have bought that $20,000 ticket. Right? Like, you know what, is that worth it to you? Maybe you would have paid $3,000. So some of the points math is also inflated by the way people use the kind of retail price of a flight. And I went through this process once of looking at, well, this is what the retail value is. So it looks like I'm getting a good deal. But let's not look at the retail value of a flight that I never would have bought. Let's look at the flight maybe I would have bought. And then you start going through this points math and you realize, well, maybe it's not as good as I thought. And so I think if you walk through what you'd actually be willing to pay, I don't know, I think some of the economy deals are really great. Like there have been flights from the east coast to Europe for under 20, 30,000 points in economy, which is for people listening. If you were using the portal, under $200, I don't know, you've got to decide what kind of travel you want to take and what's important to you. But whether it's economy, whether it's business, whether it's international or even domestic, I use my points all the time to fly from San Francisco to LA in economy because there are days where those flights are three or four hundred dollars because there's just so many business travelers taking them. But I can book them for less than 10,000 points. So like under $100. If I can get a $400 flight for under $100, what a great deal. It's economy flight. It's, it's an hour long flight. It's not the traditional kind of super sexy points redemption, but if it saves me a few hundred dollars, I don't care if it's a sexy redemption. Like, I just need to get from point A to point B. And I love a deal in that regard.
- [13:34]
A
Not paying attention to the retail value, but rather paying attention to what is this worth to you? Right. What is it worth to me? To each person individually. That mirrors what you said about the added advantages of Chase Sapphire Reserve and Amex Platinum. It's the same ethos. They've added a bunch of new features, but a lot of people are not necessarily going to use those new features. And therefore, even though it's technically a better deal on paper, it might not be as good of a deal to you.
- [14:05]
B
Yes. If we just look at the Chase Sapphire Reserve, I'm looking at this table and it's like, okay, you get $10 a month credit towards peloton. If you already have a peloton and now you're going to save $10 a month, that benefit's probably worth $120. If you don't have a peloton, that benefit's worth nothing.
- [14:22]
A
Right.
- [14:22]
B
You know, there's a StubHub credit that every six months you get $150. If you're regularly buying tickets to go to sporting events and you buy them on StubHub, great deal. I don't, I haven't used mine. I have no plan to use it. I looked and I found myself like, oh, I guess I could buy tickets to the World cup next year. But they're like $1,000. So now I'm going to buy $1,000 ticket. I wasn't sure I wanted just so I could save $150. So I like to ask myself, and I would encourage people to ask, how much would they buy that credit for? Right. If your friend came to you and said, hey, I've got $150 StubHub credit. Would you buy it? You probably wouldn't buy it for $150, right? You would probably not buy it for almost anything unless you were about to buy tickets for something. On the flip side, they have this Sapphire reserve tables credit, which is basically a subset of open table restaurants you get $150 at. And I looked at the list, and there are restaurants on there that we regularly go to, restaurants that I'm 100% sure that in the next year I'll go to. So if I can get $150 off at a restaurant I would already go to, that is worth pretty close to $150. If someone wanted to sell it to me for $130, that's free, $20, I'm already gonna go to the restaurant. I'd probably buy it. But if you live in a city, which many people do, that don't have any of these restaurants, and now you're like, gosh, I've got this $150 credit. Maybe we should fly to New York for the weekend so we can use our $150 credit. And then you've spent, you know, how much money on flights and hotels just to FL feel like you got the value out of your coupon. Like, that's the game they want, right? Because now you probably put the flight in the hotel on your Chase Sapphire reserve. And, you know, Chase is really excited. So I would go kind of line item through these credits and ask yourself, would I buy any of these credits? Like, are they really that valuable to me? Because some of them are just a pain. Like, you get $5 at DoorDash. If you go order from doordash every month, great if you don't. And now you're constantly adding doordash orders just to feel like you got the $5. That's where, you know, they got you. That's what I would encourage people to do is to look through and say, how much value am I actually getting? What would I pay for all these benefits that are on this card? And how does that compare to the annual fee? And then maybe slightly compare it to what am I getting on this card? You know, you're getting 4x on flights and hotels. If you spend tens of thousands of dollars, the difference between getting 4x or maybe 2 or 3 on another card with a way lower annual fee, but might be really worth it. But I think you will find that for many people, if you're not getting value out of the credits, getting the extra point per dollar is not going to pay for the fee. And then you'll find people like me who are like, actually, I am able to get value out of the credits. If, if the card costs me a net nothing because I get the value, why not get an extra point per dollar on flights?
- [17:08]
A
That's great advice. Thank you. What would you say to the people who are listening who are on the cusp of some kind of a major life transition? Maybe they're about to move to a new state, they're about to retire, they're about to have a baby, or their child is turning 18 and about to move out of the house because they're on the cusp of this big life transition. They don't quite know how to anticipate their spending in the coming year. Their spending in 2025 will not necessarily be reflective of their spending in 2026.
- [17:39]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think you might not know what it is, but you probably have a sense, high level of, do we think we're going to increase our flight budget from $3,000 to 50? You know, like I would say you probably have some barometer there. But at the end of the day, you don't really need to make a decision on what to do with cards you have until the annual fee comes due. And if it came due more than, let's call it two months ago, that ship is kind of sailed. Depending on what state you're in, there are some states where I think they have to prorate, you know, the annual fee. If you cancel, I think it's. And then Massachusetts has some very consumer friendly rules around this. But whenever an annual fee comes due, that is a good time to evaluate what should I do with this card. You typically have a few options, and I think a lot of people don't consider all of them. So a lot of people think, gosh, this is expensive, I don't need it, let's cancel it. And that's something you can do. That is one of the options. For me, that's kind of the, the last resort option. I look at it and say, okay, am I going to get value? Let's assume the answer is no. Because if you would, then you're not even asking the question. You're like, I don't think so. Well, option one, you can reach out to Chase or Amex or Capital One and say, hey, the annual fee on this card went up. I'm not convinced I'm going to get this value. Like, are there any retention offers that might give me a chance to try this out, they might say no. They might say, we'll waive the annual fee for a year. They might say, if you can spend $2,000, we'll give you 50,000 points. You know, there are a lot of different options there that might really heavily influence that cost. If you were evaluating it as a $795 annual fee and now it's 195, well, that's a very different calculus. So that's one thing to consider. The other is, let's say you've had the card for a really long time, that has a positive impact on your credit score when you have, you know, the length of credit history. And so Chase and Amex and a lot of these issuers are willing to let you product change that card. So your Chase Sapphire Reserve, you could product change it to a Chase Sapphire Preferred or a Chase Freedom Flex, which has lower or even no annual fees. So you can keep it on your credit. You can keep that kind of long standing history, that credit limit all of that without needing to pay the annual fee. So I think you have other options that aren't just cancel it. But if this is a card you've had for a year and you're not getting a lot of value and it's not really helping your credit score and they're not willing to give you a retention offer, yeah, you can cancel it. Just wait the year. Because there are some banks that look negatively upon people who open up a card, get a big welcome bonus and close the card within a year. So I would always wait until it's been 365 days. You usually have another 30 days after your annual fee posts or after the statement closes with the annual fee on it to cancel the card. You can Google those rules or ask your favorite AI tool. I would then at that point, if you want to cancel it, that's fine. But when I think about the strategy, I would think coming into next year, I don't know what my spending is, but how have I felt about what I've been able to do in the past? Was using my points stressful? Was I able to get a good deal? Did I just end up booking in the portal and not enjoy it? Because on the cashback side, there are a lot of options and experimenting with something like cash back as a points person doesn't mean you have to do it for the rest of your life. I experimented with it for a little bit and I was like, this feels pretty nice. I didn't commit and say I'm never going to Earn another point again for the rest of my life. I just said, what would it look like to start putting more transactions on cards that are in cash back? And how does that make me feel? And on one hand I was like, oh, this, this is terrifying because I am used to earning so many points. And on the other hand, it was like, wow, I just got this deposit for, you know, a couple hundred bucks in my bank account this month. That, that money I'm going to put in a high yield savings account. It's going to earn interest. Like, this is kind of cool. And so there are tons of options from, you know, the baseline of you should be getting 2% or 2x points on everything you spend. Like, there are cards that have low to no annual fees that will give you 2% or 2x on everything. So anything other than that, I think you're kind of missing the boat. You know, Robinhood has the 3% card. US bank has a card that earns up to 4% with a bunch of rules and caveats that they added, which I don't love. If you're able to move a retirement account or a brokerage account into Merrill Lynch, I think bank of America probably has the best cashback card. If. And I realize that for some people this is easy, and for some people, this is not even in the realm of possibility. But if you are able to hold $100,000 either in a brokerage account or a bank account at bank of America or Merrill lynch, they have a card that effectively is 2.625% cash back on everything. And it's no annual fee. No annual fee. 2.625% back on everything. And if you upgrade to one of the premium Rewards cards, there's two of them. They give you three and a half percent on travel and dining. So you could get 2.625 on everything. 3.5% on travel and dining. Assuming you can carry that $100,000 balance, which doesn't mean put it in a checking account earning nothing. You could put it in a brokerage account and invest it. You can move an IRA over. You know, if you have any brokerage assets, it makes it a little more tolerable. Anytime I talk to someone who's over the points game and can meet that threshold, I say, go look at the bank of America Premium Rewards or Premium Rewards Elite card. It's just so simple. Three and a half percent travel and dining, 2.6 to 5 everything else. You don't even have to think. I really think it's a great Setup for a lot of people that are just kind of overwhelmed with the points game.
- [23:08]
A
Right. On the topic of being overwhelmed with the points game, I mean, as you mentioned earlier, five years ago, 10 years ago, this was a much more niche game that was populated by hardcore enthusiasts. I remember especially when I first came into the financial independence movement, going to a few of these travel rewards workshops and being completely overwhelmed by the complexity, the spreadsheets. People approach this like it was a second job and they were spending five, ten hours a week managing, tracking everything in these very complicated spreadsheets. What recommendations do you have right now for. For balancing the desire for simplicity with the desire to optimize? Because it seems as though those two are, you know, live in a constant tension. They, they feel, to a certain extent, mutually exclusive.
- [23:59]
B
Yeah, I mean, I live in that constant tension. Like, I would say half of the lessons and takeaways that I talk about regularly are that tension. And I would say, I mean, one, you've probably talked about satisficing and how satisficers are definitely happier than maximizers. But one, you don't even have to make the decision right away. Right. You could earn points and then decide to use them, you know, booking travel or redeeming them for statement credits and treat them as a cashback card effectively and not worry about playing the points game so you don't have to decide up front. So that's one. I would also say that you don't have to get it perfectly. I regularly meet people who are like, gosh, what do I do? I just want to take this trip. It's like, just take the trip. I always talk about my sister in law and brother in law who run a business and they put all of their spending on Southwest cards because they earn enough points to get companion passes. And they have two kids and so they have companion pass. The Southwest card is not the best travel rewards card in terms of what it earns on all of your spending, but they earn a bunch of Southwest points. They have two companion passes, so every time they buy a flight for two of them, they get to bring their kids for free. They don't think twice about it. They know that they're not perfectly optimized, but they're really happy with the outcome of what they have. I would encourage people to not worry about whether you did it perfectly. There's always time in the future to decide whether you want to play it to the perfect, perfect level. But if you have enough points to take a trip that's exciting, just take the trip, don't worry about whether it's the best possible use. I would say double check that it's not a horrible use. If you're thinking, should I transfer my points to United to book this flight? Well, just search in the Chase travel portal and say, would it be less points to just book it here? Like, that quick comparison of, like, if I bought the flight in cash with my points on the travel portal of my credit card or transferred them to an airline, you know, like, that's worth doing. Just make sure you pick the one that's the best deal. But needing to get the best deal, it's sometimes a waste of time. The honest answer I have for myself is I just stop what I'm doing and I try to go outside and take a walk. And almost every time when I'm on the walk, I'm like, I think we've hit the 80, 20. Like, usually I'm trying better and better to stop at the 80, not at the 90 or the 95. I think we're 80% of the way there. We found a trip that sounds really good. We can make it work. Let's just do that and move on. Most of these people that I've talked to and most of the people listening, like, there is another thing they're doing maybe to generate income. I always ask myself, if I spend another five hours trying to save, like, $50, or I spend another five hours building my business or doing something else, I could probably make more than $50, right? And so you gotta put some value on your time. And as simple and silly as this is, if I just got in my car and opened, like, the Lyft driver app or the Uber driver app and just started driving, I could probably make. I'm gonna approximate for the Bay Area, 20 bucks an hour. If we get to the point that I'm spending hours to save tens of dollars, a better use of my time would be to go drive around and. And, you know, give rides for Lyft or Uber. Not to say I want to do that, but, like, once I realize that, I'm willing to watch a movie instead of drive around. So, like, I. You gotta think about what my time's worth, and if I'm spending it poorly when I could be hanging out with my kids or sleeping or working, that's where I try to realize that the optimization doesn't matter. If I'm planning my anniversary and it's like a big milestone trip, maybe I'll spend the time to try to, like, find the best deal. But I Think you have to remove yourself from the situation for a moment and reflect on whether continuing to optimize is serving you. And it's sometimes easier if you could do something to break. Like if you're in that spreadsheet and it's two hours, maybe set one of those little kitchen timers. Every time you. You're like, I'm going to go research this thing. I'm going to set the timer for 20 minutes, and when it dings, I'm just going to walk away for a minute. And in that walk for one minute, I often realize, like, I don't need to keep going, but if I didn't walk away, I'd be there for three hours.
- [27:56]
A
Right? Right. Yeah. You get into that zone of hyper focus. Just the alarm on your iPhone.
- [28:01]
B
Yeah.
- [28:01]
A
Set alarm for 25 minutes, go, and then stop.
- [28:04]
B
You don't have to commit to going on a run. You could literally just walk away. Say, I'm going to walk to the mailbox. You know, like, it could be like these very simp. You know, it's one of the perks of having a pet that has to be walked. I know that I have to break my day up to walk the dog. And, like, when I'm walking the dog, I usually go, oh, why am I wasting my time this way? I didn't get to the three things that were important because I was focused on this other thing.
- [28:36]
A
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- [29:49]
B
Tonight, the NBA on Prime crew has another thrilling NBA doubleheader. It tips off with an Eastern Conference showdown as Tyrese Maxey and the Philadelphia 76ers head to Madison Square Garden to take on Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks. Then it's Western Conference action SGA and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder visit Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves. It all comes your way tonight on prime, and if you're not a Prime member, that's not a problem. Sign up for a 30 day free trial to get started today. The Sixers and Knicks, the Thunder and Timberwolves coverage starts tonight at 6:30pm Eastern only on Prime. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com Amazon prime for details.
- [30:37]
A
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- [32:58]
B
I can definitely speak to the kind of luxury travel market in that hotels are seeing more demand. Like the demand for high end properties is not dwindling away. And I would say unfortunately this kind of social projecting world we live in, where everything we do is shared in photos with everyone has led people to have astronomical expectations for a vacation. We were, we were reflecting over Thanksgiving about vacations as a kid. It was like we would get in a car and drive to my grandparents house, like that was the vacation. And now it seems like it's almost normal and expected to be like well we're going to what foreign country are you going to go to? What exotic beach are you going to go to? Like we have these expectations for what vacation even means that I think sometimes we've never even taken a minute to reflect on. And unfortunately there are a lot of people that haven't taken that minute to reflect which means there's a lot of demand for nice things. And if you look at a lot of the perks that were added in this kind of couponization of credit cards, Delta cards, they added a $200 hotel credit. The Chase Sapphire Reserve added a credit for their luxury collection, the Edit, $250 every six months. Amex is their fine hotels and resorts, $300 every six months. Like they are luring people for these cards with expensive luxury hotel credits. And the question is, is it actually working? And I think the jury's still out. I know that when the Chase Sapphire Reserve relaunched they had kind of a special high offer for points. And then I can't remember the exact sequence of events but it went away. And then they brought back something that was even better and they kind of limited to only doing it in branch at a Chase bank. But the idea that they are still pushing these big offers has led kind of industry commentary to say that the launch didn't go as well as everyone expected.
- [35:02]
A
I heard that about it as well. But also the launch, what exactly happened? Because it launched, pulled back, relaunched and there's a lot of speculation about what happened in the middle.
- [35:12]
B
I think they launched, that they were doing it, but they didn't have the changes take place because there was a lot more talk about the negative changes that would happen to people who had this card than the changes that would be beneficial to new people. And I think that's the challenge when you relaunch something you Think, wow, this new version is so cool. But this, the, like, you started out, the Chase Sapphire Reserve was like the card for our kind of generation of millennials. And so most people had it. And so we weren't interested in what it looked like as a new cardholder. We were interested in how it affected us. And the feeling we got was, wow, you're charging me more and you're getting rid of some of the things I used. Okay, yeah, you're adding some other stuff. But, like, the stuff I knew is now changing in a negative way. The handling of that story didn't go that well, at least for existing cardholders. I don't know where it netted out. I know that at the end of the day, it seems like a lot of people didn't actually, you know, they threatened, oh, I'm going to get rid of this. And, like, did they actually, I'm not sure. Like, I guess I could go look at Chase financial statements and maybe try to figure it out. But the size of the welcome offers associated with a lot of these cards leads me to believe that they're, you know, people aren't just grabbing them off the shelves without being motivated by lucrative offers. So we'll see what happens in the long run. Right. The trade off for the first year of a new cardholder on any of these cards is positive, right? If you're going to get 200,000 points for opening one of these cards that you could make worth at least $2,000. Well, for year one, who cares about a $700 fee? Like, if you really, if you're going to be given $2,000 plus all the credits, and I think it'll come out in December. If you open up a card in December, a lot of these credits are calendar year. So you get the credits for 2025, then you get them for 2026, and then your annual fee the next year, you kind of have 30 days to decide what to do and cancel. So if you opened this card in the end of December, you might be able to use the 2025, 2026, and then in January, 2027 perks. Now is this magical time where whether it's three years or two years, you might be able to get a lot more of the perks than you think in that first year. But then the question is, what happens every year after that? And so we don't know yet because these all launched in the last year. I would argue that for day to day spending, there are some cards that make a lot of sense that don't have huge annual fees. And if they have even high annual fees, what it takes to get value out of them is easier. And Capital One is just not playing the game right. Capital One is like, our highest fee card is 395. And the value proposition is really simple. We give you a $300 travel credit. You can use it in the Capital One portal to book flights, hotels, rental cars. We're not going to throw all these different kinds of coupons on the card. And if you don't like that, we have a version of the card that earns the exact same way and the annual fee is $95. They're taking a different approach, which is pretty refreshing. It's like one card, there's a 95 and a $395 version. They both earn 2x points on everything. And you choose whether you want the lounge access and some of these things for a higher annual fee that's offset by a travel credit of the same amount the annual fee increases or not. For a lot of people, that's just like an easier story. It's like, I don't have to pay almost $1,000. Everything's 2x. I don't have to think, gosh, well, should I get another card? You know, my optimizer mind says get one card that optimizes everything, like the Capital One Venture or Venture X, and then get one card that really rewards categories if you spend a lot in them. So if you're like, I've got a dining travel card and a 2x everything card, that two card combo is like, not. That's the 8020 for almost everyone. And if you spend way more money and you run a business, great, you go down the rabbit hole more. If you want more points, don't try to get another card to optimize some area of your spending or wait for a great offer and get that. Or this is something I learned in 2025, which is a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's. It's worth sharing. We booked a trip to go to Costa Rica, and we stayed at this new Waldorf Astoria, beautiful hotel. We had a great stay. We used all of these Hilton free nights and points to book it. And I thought, gosh, I was getting so much value out of this. But when I went to book it, you could book it with points, because I did. You could also buy Hilton points on the Hilton website for half a cent each. And so this room that had you been playing the points game, you'd think, I got this great deal. Because the room might be $2,000 and you got it for 120,000 points. Well they were selling points for half a cent on their website. So you didn't need to have ever played the points game. And you could have bought the points to make that room $600 a night. And they do 5th night free. So like you could buy 4 nights of points and get the 5th night free. So, like you could get this $2,000 a night room for less than $600 a night just by buying the points on the Hilton website. You didn't have to get the credit card, you didn't have to be earning them for years. Like you could have been playing cash back forever. Not every hotel chain or airline sells their points at a low enough price that these kind of deals happen. But I start it just made me realize that I never needed to play the points game at all to get this awesome deal. Like anyone could just go to the Hilton website, buy the points, book the room done. I think as airlines and hotels realize that their loyalty programs are the business like in fact for the major US Airlines, if you look at the the market cap of the company, meaning like what is the value of United Airlines and you break down all the components of it, the value of United and Delta and Americans loyalty program is greater than than the value of the airline. And there's this amazing YouTube video that you could put a link in the show notes I have no affiliation with. But they break this all down and it's like at the end of the day Delta is a loyalty program that runs an unprofitable airline because the unprofitable airline is necessary for them to run a loyalty program. I'm going to make these numbers up. But it's like if the Delta airlines is worth $10 billion, the loyalty program is worth like 13 billion and the airline's worth negative 3 billion. Now that's a little bit of an oversimplification but like directionally is correct. And so the business of buying and selling points and miles is Delta's business, is United's business. And like they just happen to fly airlines on the side because it's necessary to make the whole thing work. You know, when you think about it from that perspective, everything is being run so that if you don't play the game well, you're probably losing because these companies goals are to make money. So if you don't like playing the game, go get a card that just gives you 2 or more percent cash back. Just walk away. I will not judge you at all. In fact, I'll probably have many days where I'm jealous of you.
- [42:07]
A
When you talk about airlines selling these points, the big buyer of these points are the co branded credit cards that they work with.
- [42:14]
B
Exactly. Yeah. But sometimes there are some airlines and I realize this is probably a little bit advanced, but Avianca is a member of Star alliance, which is the same airline program that United's a member of. Avianca's, I think I ran the math this year they've sold their points probably 14 or 15 times. And many United flights you can book with Avianca miles and they sell them for very, very cheap. So there are times where there's a great deal to go from San Francisco to Frankfurt in business class. And yes, if you had United miles, you could just book it and it'd be way easier because there's no penalty for cancellations and all that stuff. But you could also just most of the time United Avianca miles are on sale, you could buy them on their website, book the flight, get a screaming deal. And there's actually companies that have been created to take advantage of that market that will basically sell you that United flight for like 30 or 40% off because on the back end they're buying and brokering all these points and getting these great deals and making it so you don't have to think about it. And so if there's a $5,000 flight to Europe that it's a great deal on points, yes, you could play the points game or you could go to a site like flyflat.com, and you could buy the flight for like maybe $3,500. Now it'll come with a bunch of restrictions like you're not buying the flight that if you cancel you're going to get United credit. It's probably non refundable. But there are ways to kind of play the points game without actually playing it by buying points, booking flights through sites like Fly Flat and you know, that kind of thing that mean that you're not giving up all the deals by not playing the game. You're giving up some of them and some of the flexibility, but not all of them.
- [43:51]
A
And that actually ties well with another question that I was going to ask, which is when you were talking about going to the Hilton website and buying the points, the thing that struck me was, yes, but you need to train your brain to remember to do that. And I think for people who are not used to thinking like this, there isn't necessarily that pause before booking a Hotel room where you're like, wait a second, let me check to see if I can buy the points that would, you know, like, that's a whole other, like, mental habit that many people have yet to form.
- [44:24]
B
And not only is it something that you have to train, like, it still happens to me. Like, just the other day, I bought our kids suitcases for a trip. Like, so Christmas, they're getting two cool little suitcases. And the website I was on, like, there was a coupon and a Black Friday promo. And I was like, God, I got a great deal. And then I checked out. And the next day I realized, oh, my gosh, I never went to look whether I could have gone through one of these shopping portals like Rakuten or Capital One Shopping. And I looked and I was like, oh, I could have gotten another 5% off, right? So, like, even I, even I, who lives and breathes this, who runs a podcast about this, I still haven't fully been able to make sure I check every single item off before I'm buying something. Usually if it's full price and there's no deal, that's the trigger for me. I'm like, this is expensive. I should see if I can get a deal. But I totally lost the game on Black Friday because I was like, oh, this is such a good deal. It didn't even cross my mind to see if there were ways to make it even better. And so, yes, you totally have to retrain your mind. It's probably easier when you're planning a big vacation or making a large purchase to kind of pause and say, gosh, this is expensive. Is there a way to make it cheaper? And maybe the answer is no, but in the world of AI tools, anytime you're about to make a really big expense, go into whatever tool you like, Gemini chatgpt, and say, hey, I'm about to book a trip. A big trip. Are there ways that this big trip or this big purchase could cost less money? I imagine you might get, you know, some feedback. Well, do you have frequent flyer miles? Like, are you able to, you know, you could just kind of go back and forth. And I know because a lot of the content I've made on this I have heard is now showing up in some of these responses. So, like, you can indirectly get Maya feedback by. By asking these questions. And I've had new listeners join our podcast, say, oh, I found you, because I was asking a question to ChatGPT, and it suggested I listen to one of your episodes. And so, you know, as much as AI might replace a lot of content. For now, it seems to be also sending us traffic, so that's cool.
- [46:27]
A
Chris GBT yeah. Ever feel like your money just disappears each month? It's easier than ever to overspend. From subscriptions piling up to impulse buys after seeing an ad on your phone to ordering takeout a few times a month. Rocket Money helps you rein it in by showing you where your money is going and helping you make better decisions so you can keep more money in your pocket. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. They have a dashboard that's really cool. It lays out your total financial picture, including when bills are due and when you get paid in a glance. It's super easy to digest. You can see it all right there. Rocket Money has saved users over 2.5 billion, including over 880 million in cancelled subscriptions alone. Their 10 million members save up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. So you can get an alert if your bills go up in price. You can get an alert if there's any unusual activity in your accounts or if you're close to going over budget. And if there's a particular goal that you want to save for, Rocket Money can analyze your accounts to find the best time every month to put extra money aside, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Paula today that's RocketMoney.com Paula RocketMoney.com Paula P A U L A this year, give a gift that goes far beyond the moment. An Invest529 account. Whether it's a child, grandchild or someone just starting out, you're helping them save for education that can open doors for a lifetime. Invest529 is a tax advantaged way to help save for college, trade school, or even apprenticeship programs. It's flexible, easy to start, and you can contribute any amount, big or small because the money can grow tax free. It's a gift that can really build value over time. So instead of giving something that gets used up or set aside, give the gift that can change a Life. Start an Invest529 account today. Go to invest529.com to learn more and get started. Investments involve risk. Results vary. Consult with your financial and tax professionals administered by Commonwealth Savers Plan hey, what's up y'?
- [48:50]
B
All?
- [48:50]
A
Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair My favorite thing about the holidays?
- [48:53]
B
Decking out my whole house.
- [48:55]
A
It's not a competition, but if it.
- [48:56]
B
Was, well, I'd win the season with Wayfair Outdoor Inflatable Santa. Got it on Wayfair Trees, lights and ornaments.
- [49:03]
A
Wayfair hosting must haves like diamonds, sets, beds, sheets and towels. Wayfair for everything in your style, delivered.
- [49:10]
B
With fast and free shipping.
- [49:11]
A
Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair Every style, every home. Are there any favorite AI prompts that you have that you would recommend people use?
- [49:33]
B
I feel like that is a great question that I would love to ask lots of other people. I am a poor prompt writer other than I've given the like persistent feedback to ChatGPT to not be so nice. I'm like, you know, I've gone in. There's a way in the settings you can say like, here's the thing, I want you to always know. And I was like, I'm just so sick of the AI tools always trying to like validate my feelings where I'm like, well, I'm like, well, what do you think about this? They're like, well, that's such a good idea. I'm like, well, what if it was a bad idea? Like, I don't want you to just make me feel good. Like I'm. I want you to be an expert here. And if I'm saying, would it be better to buy a round trip ticket through Greenland? I want you to say, no, that's dumb. Instead of, well, that could be interesting if you want to go see. You know, that kind of stuff. So the prompt I like is just telling in the settings. Look at this with a critical eye. Please tell me when I'm wrong. Don't always make me feel good. I care more about getting the right answer. Treat me like a scientist. Don't be a therapist. Like that level of prompting, but on an individual prompt basis. The only great hack I've heard here is first ask your AI tool to write you the prompt. Say, can you help me write a prompt for how I would do this thing? Then you take that prompt and open up another window with different context and then ask with the prompt. So that is what I would do if I were trying to get better at writing prompts is I would literally use another session to ask a tool to help me write the prompt.
- [51:08]
A
Or you could ask one tool to help you write it and then paste that prompt into a different tool.
- [51:12]
B
Sure.
- [51:12]
A
Like ask Claude to help you write something that you then paste into Gemini or ChatGPT and vice versa.
- [51:17]
B
Yeah, I don't know to what extent different chats share all the context. You know, you could probably open up an incognito window or something. But I don't know the answer to whether if you ask it in one chat and then use it in another, will it know that you already had that conversation or not with Claude specifically.
- [51:35]
A
Because that's the one that I use the most with Claude. They just started a thing where your various chat sessions now all can reference each other. Because I will start a chat session and it'll reference, I mean, little things like it knows the name of my cat in a brand new chat session and it'll bring, It'll be like, oh, and then with Tazzy and I'm like, how did you know? We haven't talked about that, but it knows that from a different session that took place weeks ago.
- [52:03]
B
Yeah, I've noticed that with my kids. And I'll be like, oh, we're planning a trip. And they're like, oh, you bring in, you know, your two kids along. I'm like, whoa, whoa, like, what's going on here? But lately I've been doing a lot. I've been playing a lot with writing just software and using my cursor to build stuff. It's just wild how much progress you can make so fast that if you're thinking about anything in life, you're like, oh, I would be really cool if I could have a tool that did this. You would be surprised at how quickly you could build a tool that would do that thing. This whole world of on demand tools to do things for going back. I bet it would be very easy for you to use an AI tool to say, hey, help me make a browser extension that anytime I'm on a travel website, will you pop up an alert on any screen after I've searched for dates that says, hey, don't forget to do these five things. If you're trying to train your brain to remember to do things, why not rely on technology to help you train your brain to do it? Anytime I'm checking out on a store, on any e commerce site, I want a shopping extension that pops up and says, hey, did you check for coupon codes? Did you look at shopping portals, whatever that is.
- [53:18]
A
Here's your checklist.
- [53:19]
B
Yeah, I would use these tools to try to support you building these habits in whatever aspect of your life that is. You know, we're talking about going into the new Year. If you really struggle with remembering to work out. Yeah, you could set a reminder on your phone, but, you know, you could probably build a tool that says, hey, insert into my calendar these things. Use these tools to help you build better habits and live a more intentional life in the year to come. I think that's what we're getting towards, and they're just starting to be good enough that they can do a lot more than they could months ago. Like, if you're listening to this three months from now, you could probably do more things that we, you know, we're even thinking of right now. We're coming up on the end of a year. You know, I'm not much for these prescriptive New Year's resolutions. That's not my style. But I'm kind of going in more mantra focused. It's like in 2026, I just want to be more intentional. And I think that's what I probably said in 2025. So, you know, maybe I need to work harder, but I just feel like that is my goal, is to spend the time the way I want to take the trip. I want to. A challenging question one of my guests asked me once was, he's like, when you're planning a trip, are you choosing the trip or is the trip choosing you? And he was kind of alluding to the fact that when you have a lot of points and miles, maybe you go to these sites, and these sites say, hey, the best deal for your points is to go cruise around Scotland. And now all of a sudden, you're in Scotland and you're sitting down there with your partner, and you're saying, gosh, isn't this awesome? We got such a deal. And then you're both like, but didn't we want to go to the beach? Like, you know, like, are you in control? And you can use points to be in control, but it can sometimes, you know, the deals can chase us. And now all of a sudden we're like, well, like, I didn't get the aura ring. Or maybe you wanted some other fitness.
- [55:05]
A
You wanted the whoop band.
- [55:06]
B
Yeah, yeah. And now you're. You're wearing the aura ring because your Amex Platinum card gave you a credit. And every time you look at it, you're like, I can't even buy the thing I want because I've let this credit card dictate it. Now, don't get me wrong, my wife and I both have an Amex Platinum. I even love my aura ring. So that was not, you know, this is not A don't let the world control you. Kind of every, you know, be, be scared of things conversation, just look at everything and say, do I really want this? Is this what I want? Is this serving the goal I have? And if not, that's fine, get rid of it. But if it is, or if you're not sure if it is, keep it around and kind of check in and see how it feels.
- [55:46]
A
I do want to say, referencing back to something you said way earlier, keeping your credit history. If you have a long credit history with one particular card, I just want to validate that point because I did this myself just a couple of months ago. I had a very, very long history with. It was actually an airline co branded card. It was the American Airlines a Advantage card, which I know everyone in the travel space is like, don't get a card that is specific to any particular airline. So I know I've broken the cardinal rule, but I've had this card for like 12 years. And I had the premium version of that card which at the time that I got it was I think 400 a year or 450 a year. And I just set a calendar reminder that right before the card member anniversary, I would call them and say, hi, can I speak to retention? And then they would always offer me some type of a deal. And usually it was if you make a minimum spend of X per month, then we give you a $50 statement credit per month. And they would give a deal that was good enough that the actual renewal rate would end up being maybe 100 bucks. 150 bucks. So I've kept this card for you. I've had a very long history with it. And then two things happened. One was that they raised the rate. I don't remember off the top of my head, but I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 650 a year right now. 600 or 650 a year. So one was that they raised the rate pretty significantly and the other was that retention now just doesn't offer the same type of deals that they used to. I didn't want to lose the credit history that I've built with them. So I did exactly what you talked about. I just downgraded to the $95 a year version of that card. But I still have my entire credit history with them, so didn't affect my credit score. So I just wanted to say that as a, as a personal example of applying several of the points that you raised, negotiating on your card member anniversary and also downgrading when needed, just As a personal example of, hey, this stuff works.
- [57:47]
B
Yeah. I mean, when you have a good credit score, it unlocks lower rates on loans, whether it's a home loan, auto loan. It makes it easier to get approved for new cards. There's a ton of value to having a good credit score. It's pretty complicated. There's multiple tiers of going into it. You probably have done an episode, I know I did like this really probably like an hour long deep dive on credit reports and scores. A few months ago it was episode two 21. And I would just encourage anyone who's like, I want to optimize that. I put that together and it was a pretty deep dive into it.
- [58:22]
A
We'll link to that in the show Notes.
- [58:24]
B
There are a bunch of things you can do to kind of tweak and manage your credit to kind of put you in a really good position to get approved for new cards that have big bonuses. I think my, my parting advice is if you want to earn a lot of points in 2026, I would challenge you to think less about a card that's going to earn you an extra point on some category that you spend some amount on and think more about whether there's a card that would give you 100,000 points for giving it a chance. Give it a chance for a year, even if you have no long term goals with it. But the end result might be a lot better than you think. And that would be the way to accumulate a lot of points and travel for free and do all the things we talk about.
- [59:09]
A
Wonderful. Well, thank you for joining us. Where can people find you if they'd like to learn more?
- [59:14]
B
Yeah, I mean I spend every week on my show called all the Hacks going down everything from travel points and miles to personal finance to life to health. It's kind of an exploration in my journey of kind of trying to optimize everything with the same lens we talked about of like trying to find that 80, 20 so you're not, you know, maybe I'm going down the full rabbit hole so you don't have to. Would maybe be one way to describe it. And so wherever you listen to podcasts, you can search for that. And then every week I send a newsletter that is basically all the best kind of deals, news, finds and everything I'm finding each week that don't squarely fit into the podcast because we try to record it a few weeks in advance. And you can find that@AllTheHacks.com or just search for my name anywhere. And I Think that's it.
- [59:59]
A
Awesome. Well, thank you again for spending this time with us. It's always good to talk to you, Chris.
- [60:04]
B
Yeah, I'm glad we got to catch up. And happy New Year, everyone.
- [60:10]
A
Thank you. Chris, what are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one. Credit cards didn't just get more generous. They got more complicated. And they didn't just get more expensive, they got more nuanced. Because higher fees don't necessarily translate to higher value if you weren't going to use them anyway or if the benefits change your behavior and now you're going out of your way to use stuff that you otherwise wouldn't have. Premium cards are now justifying fee hikes by stacking a bunch of credits. That's what he meant when he said it got more coupon. Yeah, but that only matters if it's something that you are going to use in the first place. If a benefit nudges you into spending that you otherwise would not have chosen, then it's not providing real value.
- [61:00]
B
There's a StubHub credit that every six months you get $150. If you're regularly buying tickets to go to sporting events and you buy them on StubHub, great deal. I haven't used mine. I have no plan to use it. I looked and I found myself like, oh, I guess I could buy tickets to the World cup next year, but they're like $1,000. So now I'm going to buy a thousand dollar ticket I wasn't sure I wanted just so I could save $150.
- [61:24]
A
That is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two. The real points leverage comes from welcome bonuses rather than category tweaks. Most people overestimate how much value they get from optimizing their everyday spending. Like, oh, I'm going to put groceries on this card and gas on this card and restaurants and dining on this card in order to maximize all of the value that I'm getting from these cards. I mean, that can do a little. But I mean, unless you're running a major business through that and you've got a whole lot of volume flowing through, probably the juice ain't worth the squeeze. But the big wins are going to come from big signup bonuses rather than squeezing extra points out of small categories.
- [62:06]
B
If you're willing to do the things it takes to make your points go further, I still think the points game is awesome. And the way to win in credit card rewards is that banks give you these massive bonuses when you open new cards, you're never going to get all the points you need to take all these great vacations by getting a card that earns you like one extra point per dollar on, you know, streaming services, which you probably don't spend thousands of dollars on a year.
- [62:34]
A
Finally, key takeaway number three. If the whole points game feels stressful, cash back is actually surprisingly freeing. You don't need to necessarily ultra optimize the simplicity of getting some cash back that you can put into an investment account that can outweigh the theoretical upside of points.
- [62:58]
B
Experimenting with something like cash back as a points person doesn't mean you have to do it for the rest of your life. I experimented with it for a little bit and I was like, this feels pretty nice. I didn't commit and say I'm never going to earn another point again for the rest of my life. I just said, what would it look like to start putting more transactions on cards that are in cash back? And how does that make me feel?
- [63:18]
A
Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Chris Hutchins. Thank you so much for being an afforder. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do three things. First, share this with your friends. If you're traveling over the holidays, share it with the people on both sides of the flight. Your departure city, your arrival city, friends, family, people at the holiday party. Share it with your seatmate on the plane. Share it with the Uber driver. Share it with the people at the New Year's Eve party. Because that is how you spread the message of fi r e. The message of being smart with your money and practicing great financial habits. So that's thing number one. Thing number two please open up your favorite podcast playing app. Make sure that you've hit the follow button so that you don't miss any of our amazing upcoming episodes. While you're there, please leave us a five star review. I would appreciate that. Five four F II R E and number three please subscribe to our newsletter affordanything.com newsletter that's affordanything.com newsletter where we will send you all kinds of info that we do not share anywhere else. Thanks again for being part of the Afford Anything community. Paula. I'm Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast and I'll meet you in the next episode.