Not Your Average Gal

Copywriter. Content Creator. Constant Sassypants.

Caroline Peterson

Take A Look At My First Guest Post!

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There are several exciting things that happen in a blogger’s life that some may find, ahem, a bit lame.

Over 200 likes on Facebook? Sweet!

Being told you convinced someone to get a super supportive sports bra? Rockin’.

Being asked to write a guest post for a site you frequent? YES, PLEASE.

I was recently asked to write about my sort of newish hometown, Fort Lauderdale, for the My Town Series over at Wanderlust Explorers. Woot! Head over there and read about my fave parts of this city I was forced to move to ;) :

Wanderlust Explorers Guest Post

Also, my Travel Hacking posts have been a big of hit!

<Cue dancing on a table> (Notice I said table and not pole. Although if that’s your chosen profession…please teach me how to walk like that in heels.)

Be sure to catch up and read them since I’ll be posting what programs I use to build my miles and points soon.

The Basics of Earning Miles and Points

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Now that you know what Travel Hacking is, let's get into the basics of earning Miles and Points.

The Basics of Earning Miles & Points | Caroline Made This
Azenhas do Mar, Portugal

 

Managing Credit Cards in the Points Game

A word to the wise:

  • If you don't pay off your balance every month, the points game isn't for you. The interest you pay in carrying a balance, far outweighs the benefits of any points or rewards you may earn.
  • Typically, you need a credit score higher than 730 to begin the points game. Don't have a good credit score? Follow these tips from my pal, Alexander at ThePointsofLife.com.
  • It's a myth that applying for multiple credit cards negatively affects your credit score long-term. While your credit score takes a 2-3 point hit when inquiries are made as you apply for a credit card, your score actually increases more as your debt-to-credit ratio improves with each approved application. (Psst. You want a low debt-to-credit ratio.)
  • Many credit card churners recommend only applying for credit cards every 90 days.
  • If you are applying for more than one credit card, do it on the same day so there aren't multiple inquiries on your report from the previous 90 days (see above.)
  • Do only what you feel comfortable with and how you think you can manage it for you and your family.

 

Meeting the Minimum Spend on Credit Cards

Most credit cards require that you meet a minimum spend in order to get your reward of miles or points. When I'm trying to meet a minimum spend I tend to use that card for everything I normally spend money on. I hit “hold” on my normal points credit cards and use only that particular card I'm trying to meet the minimum spend on until I hit it. You have to be diligent and organized about it.

You'd be surprised at how quickly your normal spend adds up. Think of all the things you pay for that are “major” expenses.

  1. Car/Home insurance
  2. Health insurance
  3. Rent/Mortgage
  4. Car Payments
  5. Student Loans
  6. Gas
  7. Utilities

Most of those items can be paid with a credit card and if not, there's usually a service that will allow you to pay with a credit card for a fee. The fees need to financially make sense. If you're spending $40-50 in fees to meet a minimum spend for not a lot of points, it's silly. Again, do what makes you feel comfortable.

Very often, I pay our rent over the course of 2 months and easily meet the minimum spend on credit cards. (I guess there's a benefit to high rent in South Florida?)

Services to pay your bills:

ChargeSmart (I’ve used this)

William Paid (I’ve used this)

RentShare (I’ve used this)

RentMoola

Now some naysayers will proclaim that paying those fees isn't worth it, but I would disagree because a plane ticket that only cost me $40 in fees to meet minimum spend that earn points for a plane ticket, is worth it to me. It may not be to you, and that's okay! Again, this is something churners do to meet minimum spending. I don’t use these services unless I’m trying to meet a minimum spend.

If you’re saving up for a big purchase, do it strategically. For instance, we desperately need a new mattress. I won’t be buying one unless it goes towards meeting the minimum spend on a credit card. I mean, why not? It’s just all about piecing together a good spending strategy so you can travel more!

A note about manufactured spending: I cannot offer advice in this area yet as I haven’t done it. But plenty of travel aficionados do and can offer you advice if that’s something you’re interested in. Basically, you move money around on gift cards or prepaid credit cards and use various online services to meet your minimum spending. It’s not something I’ve dipped my toes into yet — I simply meet minimum spend with our normal spending.

 

Programs You'll Benefit From:

Ideally, you'll have a some low-level points in a few programs and have an idea of which direction you'd like to accumulate more points. If not, never fear, I have some advice. I will go into specific brands and their benefits in my next post, next week.

Airlines

Take a look at your closest airport and see which airline has a hub there. You'll benefit from having lots of choices for flights. Of course, this isn't necessary. Especially if you fly a lot internationally. The hubster and I had most of our points with Delta (because Detroit was a hub and we used to live there) but we now live in Fort Lauderdale. We still manage to nearly always fly Delta. That said, a smarter move may be to put some points towards American, which has a hub in Miami, so course, I have.

Hotels

If you're not a business traveler, hotels can be tough for earning points by stays and while I haven't traveled specifically for work in years (sad face), I still put points towards brands I've liked and used in the past. Do you have a hotel that you're dreaming of staying at or perhaps a family vacation with a great family friendly resort? Put your points towards those brands.

Misc.

I can't claim to know a lot about the “other” category that points may fall in – car rentals, gift cards, cash back. My allegiance is to Avis simply  because my old work account is through them and I have status. In general, gift cards and cash back are a poor use for your points. Why? Because if you use 25,000 points to cash out for $250, you could have easily used those points for a round trip domestic ticket that cost over $250. You picking up what I'm putting down? Don't cash out simply because it's easier— I'm here to help make this second nature.

Like watching your life move in slow motion as your husband goes to use a non-points earning credit card to pay for gas when your Chase Ink gets you 2x the points at gas stations.

Noooooooooooo!

 

Points/Miles Earning Credit Cards in my Arsenal:

Holy shit, Caroline. That's a lot. Yes, but as anyone in the points game knows, I only keep and use a handful in my wallet regularly. I will close accounts that aren’t useful to us in the future or if their fee isn’t worth the price to keep it. I wish I had known more about this a decade ago. You know, when I applied for credit cards only because they had the cool transparent plastic?

Like I mentioned in my last post, I've really only been doing this since our honeymoon almost a year and a half ago. My guest post pal, Kiki, uses the points strategy too for her and her wife to fly around the world.

You can accumulate points quickly, even enough for your Southeast Asia adventure in July to be nearly paid for:

To Hanoi, Vietnam: Business Class on Korean Airlines: 70,000 miles

To Yangon, Myanmar: Coach on Vietnam Airlines: 22,500 miles

To Seoul, South Korea: Coach on Asiana Airlines:17,500 miles

To Atlanta, Georgia: First Class on Delta: 90,000 miles

Hotel in Hanoi (3 nights): Hilton Garden Inn: 30,000 points

Hotel in Seoul, South Korea (2 nights): Intercontinental COEX: 70,000 points

The rest of the hotels or flights will be paid for (on credit cards to earn 2x the points for travel) because they are so cheap it's not worth it to use points. But obviously, if your end goal is to not spend a dime on an airline ticket or hotel, you can surely do that!

 

Do What's Comfortable for You

It's really easy to get caught up in this points strategy game and apply for everything all at once or feel the need to get that big rewards credit card that was just announced. Don't. Do what's best for you and your family.

As an example, on my last round of applications, I applied for 2 cards. If you follow any of the bloggers I mentioned in my last post, you'll see that they apply for lots all at once. The newest, hottest card out right now is the Citi Prestige. I was really hesitant to apply for the new Citi Prestige because the fee is $450 a year. For most people, it could end up being a great card because you get airline lounge access and a $250 credit towards travel charges. For me, and in our current medical school, not traveling as much as we'd want to situation, it just didn't make sense. So I applied for 2 cards I know we can use in the immediate future: the Amex Hilton HHonors Surpass (we love the Hiltons by the beach here for a quick staycation) and the United MileagePlus Explorer card which prevents our United miles from expiring as long as we hold the card. Plus, we use the points mainly for shorter flights on international carriers.

In my next post, I'll show you which cards I recommend and how you can use them to get the most points for your hard-earned money. Sound good?

Any questions?

 

Interested in more travel hacking posts?
Start here: What is Travel Hacking?

Short-Term Health Goals Before our Trip

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We leave for Southeast Asia in less than 50 days! Baby Jesus. With that, comes a myriad of items to buy and things to do. I need a lightweight pair of flowy pants or capris to beat the heat that surely will not be available for my size and frame in Southeast Asia.

“No worry. We have bigger sizes for you in back.” – sweet gal in Cambodia

Oh I didn’t tell you that story? I’ll save it for another post.

I got a nice wake up call last weekend when I tried on a few of my reserve dresses for a wedding we’re going to this weekend. What? You don’t have reserve dresses? Guess that’s the benefit of going to 27 weddings.

I fit into the 3 I tried on.

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Sort of like my large ginger cat fits into the small-dog Christmas sweater we got for him but it’s so tight he eventually just waves the white flag and lays on the floor, immobile.

I even made the hubster zip up one of the dresses while I held onto the bed yelling, “Ready? GO!” <cue sucking in> It’s cool. Breathing is for suckas.

Eventually I settled on the blue dress. It fits well and I wore it just last year for our anniversary. Plus, I can breathe. Bonus.

It was a nice reality check.

We’ve been busy with guests, trips and overall busting our asses working this past month. Which means my normal routine of grocery shopping and working out didn’t well…work out. I still worked out this past month, just not as much. I still packed my lunch this past month, just got distracted by offers to eat out with coworkers.

Damn the man, the Mexican food in Fort Lauderdale is something I can’t turn down.

And the tight feeling in those dresses proved it.

I need to feel comfortable while we’re traveling and right now, I don’t. I’m not looking for a quick weight loss solution. I don’t expect to go down sizes or lose massive amounts of weight. I just want to be a bit firmer, the best version of me I can be at this time. My body responds really well when I lift weights at the gym.

Secretly, I should have been a Swedish wrestler. That’s what everyone in Southeast Asia thought I was anyway.

One night in Bangkok… Now off to #Cambodia! #C9LTHoneymoon

A photo posted by Caroline (@carolinemadethis) on

So, here’s my game plan.

Operation Get My Shit Together, engage.

Gym 3x a week.

  • Strength train: arms, legs, abs
  • Cardio: walking, as my achilles lets me (see below)

I stupidly (stupidstupidstupid) re-injured my Achilles running on the beach during Easter last month. I pushed it too hard and the days and weeks afterwards it was screaming at me. I couldn’t even do a HIIT workout on the treadmill, which is only 20 mins, without it hurting the next day.

So I took a break from running to let it heal. But I need to strength train, specifically my calves, in order to help support my achilles. This is something that really helped last time it started acting up.

This is so incredibly doable. Going to the gym most likely needs to be in the morning because as you can see, my days are pretty much filled to the brim and the last thing I have energy for at the end of a day is to hit the gym.

I usually start off thinking that to get back on track after a month off, that I need to be at the gym or working out 5x a week.

NOT TRUE!

What you can, when you can.

Obviously nutrition is 90% of the equation and I’ll reinstate my plan to bring lunch to work 4 days a week and eat out 1 day. I tend pack healthy, low-carb, whole-food lunches. I won’t put anymore silly stipulations on it other than that. We do really well balancing eating in and going out at home.

So there it is. I say this is “short-term” because we have less than 50 days until our trip. Obviously these are lifestyle habits that I typically employ.

I can’t beat myself up about this past month, it gets me nowhere and starts a vicious cycle of negative self-talk that usually makes me hungry. Crazy, right?

How do you get back on track after being off for a few weeks or months or years? (Hey—no judging here!)

“Did you win the lottery?”

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I’m happy to introduce Kiki from Wanderlust Explorers for my very first, brand spankin’ new guest post! If you’ve ever wondered how people manage to travel so much, read up. Kiki and Jen are experts at making this travel thing work.

Hi everyone! Happy to be here guest posting on Caroline Made This. Funny, we only met once or twice for trivia, but from what I have read on her blog, we're pretty similar in how we are living our lives. The blogging, the love of travel. Samesies. I think what sealed the deal on us being buds was when I made some snarky comment about how a young 20-something girl was being very loud and ridiculous to get some guys' attention.

TerracottaWarriors_WanderlustExplorers

A little background for everyone on Wanderlust Explorers. We are Kiki and Jen. Married since 2013. Have known each other since 2001. Dated for, wow, almost 10 years of that. I am a freelance art director/graphic designer. Jen is a Registered Nurse, specializing in ICU or Cardiothoracic ICU patients. We love travel, outdoorsy things (hiking & camping), craft beer and road tripping. We've been leading a nomadic lifestyle since 2010. Kiki's favorite color is blue, Jen's is green.

I was laid off in October of 2008. You know when all of the banks and housing markets failed. At the time, I had been working at one of those fancy, schmancy advertising agencies on Madison Avenue that had big name clients. My first job and I was laid off! Canned. Adios senorita! I was devastated as anyone would be. The jobs were disappearing. I had no sight of what I should do for the future. I had been dating Jen and decided to jump and hope the net would appear.

What eventually happened was a slow motion- the…net…is…finally…appearing. In May of 2010, I formed my business. My own LLC. Funny that a client made out a check to my business name, so I had to form the business to get my moolah. That was the day that I probably felt the most like an adult, until I bought a house.

I'm guessing everyone is now noticing that gap. October 2008 to May 2010. Yes. The gap. This is that gray period where I was reeducating myself. Homeschooling myself if you will. I was on unemployment, but did whatever work I could get. Logos, flyers, you name it. I was applying anywhere I could. I even worked the U.S. Census. It's not like I wasn't trying. The small, Northern Michigan town wasn't really ready to hire someone who had worked on Madison Avenue.

Jen and I moved in together in April of 2009. She agreed to carry the brunt of what I could not pay. I was a model housewife. Making coffee & breakfast in the morning. Lunch, dinner, cleaning, laundry, you name it. We kept our expenses tight. No cable, just the local channels and PBS. I'd rent movies from the library. We were super savvy about where we would buy what where. Had the pricing down to a T! No that's cheaper at Meijer. Sam's Club has that on sale this week. You get the idea. We never went without the things we wanted, we were just smart about where our money went.

Jen_WanderlustExplorers_FerrisStateUniversity_Graduation

Jen graduated with her MSN from Ferris State University in May of 2010. In June of 2010, we sold all of our stuff and we hit the road and left Traverse City. We called it our “Jobless, Homeless Roadtrip Across America” Jen was going to be a travel nurse. (What is a Travel Nurse? Check out her blog: www.wanderlustnurse.com). We set out across the United States, sights set on California.

Since then my freelance work has grown into a respectable business. We've lived in 9 different states: Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Texas, California, Colorado, Arizona, Washington and recently spent 6 months in New York City. And have visited 45 out of 50 states together.

Wanderlust_Explorers_Utah

Pretty close to being able to tick all 50 off of the bucket list — anyone up for a white water rafting trip to West Virginia?

So how do we do it? Jen has been messaged by friends and random nosey people from high school asking if we won the lottery. Nope. We're just very financially responsible. Trying to save for everything that may come our way. We had a long engagement so that we could save money for the wedding and pay off two engagement rings. I must say that you heteros are very lucky to only have to save for one engagement ring and one wedding dress.

Wanderlust_Explorers_Wedding

We saved up the full 20% for a down payment on a house so that we didn't have to end up paying mortgage insurance. C'mon people! It's not that hard. Just save your money! Find free stuff to do.

  • Rent Redbox movies instead of going out to a movie.
  • Hit up the thrift store for clothes.
  • Shop on eBay (most of time you will get what you are looking for at 30% off!)
  • Have friends over for a bbq/potluck instead of going to the fancy restaurant. Odds are the meal will be better and you'll spend more time together. Double bonus!
  • Have a bonfire.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to have a good life.

A lot of how we travel is funded through credit card miles. We put everything on our credit cards, pay it off monthly and then travel with the miles. Another awesome thing we have done recently is get a Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account because we had spent a lot of money in ATM fees when we took our 4 month honeymoon in SE Asia back in 2013. The best part about this Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account is that there are no ATM fees…ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD! At home in the U.S. we use Ally Bank, again no ATM fees and they have amazing rates for money market savings accounts.

Shanghai_Wanderlust_Explorers

Right now we are in Shanghai — Jen is volunteer teaching nursing at a local university with Project Hope and we flew over here using only 35,000 miles per person one way from Grand Rapids. Such a deal — the flight only cost $75.00 total (we splurged and bought the trip insurance). The miles had been collected on our United Mileage Plus Visa. Bonus with that card is that there is no foreign transaction fee. We also have a Delta Skymiles Amex Platinum card, again no foreign transaction fee. With that card you have a higher annual fee but get a free companion ticket. So we just use miles to book one ticket and use the companion or pay out of pocket. Either way we are covered with Amex & Visa so we will always get miles. We even went so far as to put most of our wedding on our credit cards so that we could get miles and pay it off immediately.

Wondering how are we living in Shanghai? Jen is provided with an apartment and monthly stipend. Ironically, the apartment is the largest that we have lived in since leaving Traverse City back in 2010. We're loving being full immersed in a city that is so different from any in the U.S. What you may have heard about the Chinese is all true, the pushing, the spitting — that's not them being rude. That's just them. But I'll get more into that in my next post.

(Editor’s note: Bolding done by me.)

Why do I Wait for a Weekend Alone to Take Care of Myself?

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Want to hear something fun? I fainted last Saturday. As in, “Oh deary me,” place a hand up to the forehead and gingerly collapse. Except it wasn’t nearly as graceful I’m sure.

Of course I had to be in my bikini and cover up when it happened. (When I finally came to and stood up, I had a wedgie the size of Florida that suddenly created a new thong. Hooray for showing the restaurant your ass!)

IMG_8070
About 10 minutes before the giant wedgie occurred.

 

Preface: The hubster, our friend and I were at the beach for about a half hour. After one beer, we decided to go to grab a good ol’ slushie from Fat Tuesdays (I had to pick FAT TUESDAYS of all places to faint). Suddenly, without warning, I got very hot. Cold sweats set in and I asked for a water. The hubster came back with one and after I had a sip of it, my vision started going and BAM. I was out. Like any sober girl at Fat Tuesdays would be. Son of a…

After a gamut of weird tests yesterday, the doctor says my ticker is okay. I was probably dehydrated. Blood work all came back healthy too. She may want me to follow up with a cardiologist so I can share the fun story all over again. “Yes. I was at Fat Tuesdays. No. I wasn’t drunk.”

Don’t ask the hubster about it. I gave him a good scare. Don’t ask our friend about it. He’ll tell you I apologized about the whole thing an obnoxious amount of times. As any guilt-ridden child does.

The whole thing freaked me the fuck out. Do you know what it’s like to literally feel your body shut down within seconds? I could only grasp onto the table before it was lights out.

I’ve questioned myself about it a lot, as any introspective person does. Why did my body give out on me? Why did it get so stressed? Am I that stressed? Juggling too much? Is this my body’s way of telling me I really do need to go to bed by 11pm?

No. I was probably, more than likely, just dehydrated. But it made me wonder about how full my plate is. While it is organized, my schedule could sure use some reprioritizing.

The hubster is leaving for a bachelor party this weekend which has my mind racing full of things that I can get done while I’m alone.

Normal things:

  • This blog
  • Cleaning, errands
  • Southeast Asia Trip planning
  • Finances
  • Online class (I’m taking a writing/business course)

Fun things:

  • Chick flick
  • Singing in my Spice Girls t-shirt (pants optional)
  • Reading by the pool
  • Going for a long walk

If the hubster is home ZERO of the above fun things get done. It has nothing to do with him. I can’t tell you how much he encourages me to just STOP. Hammer time. (Sorry. Had to.) But there’s this internal obligation in my head to be working on stuff for me or us or work, rather than taking time for the fun things, just for me.

Why?

What I’m most looking forward to this weekend is not having a demanding schedule, which is truly only a schedule I dictate to myself.

My schedule during the week is pretty full and not unusual from yours, I’m sure:

Leave the house for 11-12 hours for the office, get home between 7-8pm, have a good 2-3 hours to get your everyday-life duties finished and write a blog and maintain friendships and family relationships and check your work email and finish up projects so you don’t walk into more work the next day and maybe if you’re lucky squeeze in a quick, few sentences of a book you’ve been meaning to finished before…boom. Done.

I literally have an item on my to-do list on my iPhone from 2012 to “finish reading self-esteem book.” It’s been on there for nearly 3 years because everything else in my life is clearly more important than a book about improving my self esteem.

I mean, really?

I need to better prioritize me. Fit me into the to-do list. Prioritize time for things that fill me with energy and not feel guilty about it.

I’ll do it just after I finish wrapping up this freelance project that I’m on deadline for tomorrow…

How to Easily Follow Blogs

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I follow and read a lot of blogs. It’s basically how I learned to use our miles and points to pay for our upcoming trip to Southeast Asia this July.

In order to keep up with how often blogs are updated, I use a blog aggregator called: Feedly.

feedly

It basically houses all the blogs I follow and updates as new blogs are pushed live. You can organize them all by category and add or delete blogs at will. A lot of people use blog aggregators for news stories to keep up with current events too.

It’s quite easy to use and after initially being annoyed I had to switch, I’ve found that it was a good replacement for Google Reader (which is now defunct) or the good ol’ bookmarking technique, which is super time consuming.

Plus, if you miss a post or update from your favorite blog on Facebook, it’s right there in your Feedly to read.

How does Feedly work?

I access Feedly through the website and have also downloaded the app to my iPhone and iPad.

You can sign up through various types of accounts. I used my Google account because it was easier to migrate all the blogs I followed on the Google Reader.

feedly4

 

Once signed up and in, you can either explore content you’re interested in or plug in any blogs you already follow by clicking Add Content.

 

feedly3_converted

Feedly will often try to choose which category it thinks that particular site or blog would fall into, but you can also just create your own.

feedly5

 

After your read or mark “Hide” on an article, it will disappear from your feed. I read so many blogs that I often just hit hide to get it out of my feed if they are posts I’m not very interested in.

Bloggers love comments and the pitfall of Feedly is that you can’t actually comment on particular posts through Feedly. All you need to do is click the title of the post and Feedly will take you directly to the site so you can comment on there.

I often see that images and graphics are aligned a bit funny in Feedly, so it’s great to go to the actual site. Feedly acts as a nice intermediary and I just end up going to the blog site anyway after I see there is a new post. I don’t work for Feedly and I haven’t been paid to show you how it works. I just know that, for me, it’s been really helpful when I want to keep up with the blogs that I read daily.

You’ll notice on the right side of my blog there’s even a Feedly button so you can add me to your hopefully long list of blogs in Feedly. I can’t tell you how helpful it has been for me and organizing loads of information from the interwebs.

Do you use any type of RSS feed or blog aggregator?Â