0:00

Welcome to the bigger pockets money podcast

0:02

where we interview Chris Hudgins and talk

0:04

about all the hacks.

0:06

If you're booking a villa or a, you know, like

0:08

a house, you're looking on Airbnb.

0:10

If it's in another country, sometimes this works in

0:13

the US, but off really great in Mexico

0:15

and overseas. Take the image

0:17

that best represents the property, save

0:19

it to your computer, go to Google image

0:21

search and upload it, and

0:23

chances are there's probably three or four

0:25

other websites that are a broker

0:28

for booking that same property. Like, you

0:30

might find that property somewhere else and it can

0:32

be be twenty, thirty percent cheaper,

0:34

you might even find a website that the owner

0:36

themselves has set up, so there's no extra

0:38

commission going to a booking agency and

0:41

you could save even more.

0:42

Hello. Hello. Hello. My name is Mindy Jensen.

0:44

And with me as always is my hack

0:46

fanatic cohost, Scott Church.

0:48

And with me as always is my cyber

0:50

secure Mindy Jensen, cohost,

0:53

cohost, mini Jensen, whatever it is.

0:55

Scott and I are here to make financial independence

0:58

less scary, less just for somebody

1:00

else. To introduce you to every money story

1:02

because we truly believe financial freedom is

1:04

attainable for everyone no

1:06

matter when or where

1:07

you're starting. That's right. Whether you wanna retire

1:09

early and travel the world, on to make big time investments

1:12

in assets like real estate, Start your own business

1:14

or accumulate a large number of tactical wins

1:16

that help you advance your financial position. We'll help

1:18

you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way

1:20

so you can launch yourself towards those dreams.

1:22

Scott, I am so excited

1:24

to talk to Chris Hudgins today from

1:26

the Hacks podcast. He is

1:30

filled with tips

1:32

and tricks for making your life a

1:34

little bit more optimized or a lot more optimized

1:36

and getting things done in the easiest

1:39

way possible. He was just an absolute

1:41

delight to talk to, and literally the

1:43

whole episode is tip after tip

1:45

after tip. And I just

1:48

loved this show. Yeah. I

1:49

mean, he he's fantastic. He can just rattle

1:51

off great tips one after the other

1:53

for the entirety of this show. I

1:55

mean, he is a wealth of information and definitely

1:57

encourage folks to to learn more about Chris

1:59

because he is he's an expert in this space.

2:02

Before we begin, Chris, let's take a

2:04

quick break. Okay.

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And we're back.

3:47

Today's guest is Chris Hudgins, the

3:49

host of the All Hacks podcast. Chris

3:52

has an impressive resume filled with big

3:54

names like Google, Grove, Milk,

3:57

and Wealthfront and has been featured

3:59

in The New York Times of Wall Street Journal and

4:01

CNBC but it's his

4:03

ability to master ways

4:05

to hack his life and come up with

4:07

the easiest way to get something done that truly

4:09

caught my eye. Today, we're going

4:11

to talk with Chris about all

4:13

the hacks. Chris, welcome to the BiggerPockets

4:16

money podcast. I am so excited to talk to

4:18

you today.

4:18

This has been a long time coming. I'm so

4:21

excited to be here.

4:21

So let's jump into a

4:24

little bit of your background before we

4:26

look at some of your favorite Hacks. Where

4:28

does your journey with money begin? Oh,

4:30

my journey with money. It's one of these

4:32

things where I always try to pin it down with my

4:34

parents. I never get a good answer Come on. Tell me

4:36

the childhood story that I could come on a podcast

4:39

and be like, I had the lemonade stand and

4:41

then I hired my neighbors to run it

4:43

and I don't have a perfect,

4:45

like, childhood money story. There are a bunch

4:47

of random little, like, oh, I'm gonna create

4:49

a magazine to pretend that I'm the press

4:51

to go to concerts for free, but they're like little

4:54

little stories. Wait. What? I

4:56

wanted to go to concerts as a kid in high

4:58

school, and so I just made like a fake magazine

5:01

on and print it out on paper so that I could

5:03

just kinda like go and be like, oh, I have this

5:05

cool zen about music. Can

5:07

I come to this concert as a press person?

5:11

And and it worked for shows that were like five

5:13

hundred people shows like in a church basement kind

5:15

of shows. It was not it was not

5:17

like I was going to a, you know, a giant

5:19

stadium concert. but it still got you free

5:21

tickets

5:21

into a concert. That's like so your

5:23

life hacking skills started

5:25

when you were in high school. Yeah.

5:27

But but there's not like a journey. It's just like

5:29

a random thing that I was like, how do I get into this

5:31

thing? Or in high school, another one

5:33

was I went to boarding school. And

5:35

there are a lot of people to go to boarding school to have a ton of

5:37

money. My parents didn't give me this allowance

5:39

and this credit card that allowed me to do whatever

5:41

I wanted. but I loved pizza

5:44

and everyone was always ordering pizza. And so

5:46

what I did was I would just order Domino's

5:48

Pizza and I would sell the slices

5:50

at enough of a markup that I would get two

5:52

slices every night. So I

5:54

feel like my whole life was just like boarding school

5:56

was a good example because everyone had their parents

5:58

credit card except me. So I had to find

6:00

ways to make

6:02

money and and kinda keep up.

6:04

And so I convinced the school to hire me to run

6:06

the mail room because I was like,

6:08

then I can make some money. I

6:10

don't know. So I and then I could curry favors because I

6:12

was like, oh, I can unlock the mail room after hours if

6:14

you didn't get your package. So

6:18

you know, my life is full of these,

6:20

like, random things, but

6:22

the kind of broader, bigger picture

6:24

financial story kind of came

6:27

After college, I took a

6:29

job in investment banking and management consulting.

6:31

I took two jobs because I didn't know what

6:33

I wanted to do. And I had two offers

6:35

that started nine months after each other.

6:37

And I didn't have the time to figure out what career path

6:39

I wanted because I was late to the game. So I was

6:41

like, ask friends, what's the best job in there? Magic gets all

6:43

the investment banking like, oh, I'll do those.

6:45

And I hated both of them. So nine months into

6:47

the first one, I said, I'm not gonna do this, and I

6:49

took the other offer that I'd already accepted. I went to

6:51

work there. And I was

6:53

like, wow, if I don't love working, what

6:55

am I gonna do? Like, I have fifty,

6:57

sixty, seventy, eighty years left in my

6:59

life. And if I don't like working, I

7:02

I'm screwed. So I was like, I have to save every

7:04

dollar and find a way to be very optimal

7:06

because otherwise, I'm gonna be stuck doing a job I

7:08

don't love. And so not knowing

7:10

at the time that there was a fire movement,

7:13

not knowing all of this stuff, not having read

7:15

mister money massages blog, I

7:17

was just I need to find line

7:19

item by line item a way to reduce all the

7:21

costs on, you know, my spending

7:23

so that I can save as much money as possible, so

7:25

I don't have to work a job, I don't love. because

7:27

my naive self was like, well, I've only had two jobs,

7:29

but I didn't love either of them, so I must not

7:31

like working. What do I do?

7:33

I disagree with you. I think the broader

7:35

story is you going

7:37

back to high school always looking for ways

7:39

to figure things out instead of

7:41

playing by the rules. Yes.

7:43

Because the rules are you

7:45

work for forty years and

7:47

then you retire at age sixty five

7:49

and the rules are you pay for concerts

7:51

and the rules are you buy

7:54

a pizza or you don't eat a pizza,

7:56

you don't sell it by the slice. Why

7:58

would you do that? There's I

8:01

love that you are always looking for

8:03

ways to I

8:05

don't wanna say, like, get well,

8:07

you're looking for ways to hack your life.

8:09

You're looking for ways to hack the

8:11

system.

8:12

It's funny. III was working with this woman

8:14

to I hired someone who helped me

8:16

figure out, what are my, like, life

8:18

principles? Like, if I ever gonna write a book,

8:21

what how do I distill everything I

8:23

think about the world into

8:25

something that is not just, you know, a

8:27

five hour rambling story And

8:30

over the course of a month and a half, we kind of

8:32

came up with, like, what are the principles of

8:34

living an optimized life mind? And the first one is the

8:36

conventionalism sucks. which I think

8:38

is where you're going. It's like, I I always

8:40

when someone says, oh, this is how it works,

8:42

even when it's, like, normally

8:44

accepted. I'm just, like, WISH Like,

8:46

is there another way to do this? Like,

8:48

maybe that's actually not correct.

8:50

Maybe this other

8:52

thing will and that's, like, the

8:54

guiding principle, and then there's a bunch of

8:56

others that we kind of came up with after

8:58

talking this. And now I'm like, oh, now I have nine

9:00

principles for living an optimized life. Now

9:03

I gotta figure out how to put more of them

9:05

into into pros and and something

9:07

that someone could read. Can you roll through a

9:09

couple more of those principles, please? Yeah. So the the

9:11

next one was question the outcome you think you

9:13

want. So I think a great

9:15

example of this is someone says, you know, I need

9:17

more money. like, why do you need more money? Oh, I need more

9:19

money so I can retire early. Well, why do you wanna retire

9:21

early? Oh, I wanna retire early because I wanna

9:23

spend time with my family. It's like, well, what if

9:25

you found a way that you could

9:27

you know, find a job that gave you a little bit more

9:29

time now, and then you had time to spend with

9:31

your family. Or hypothetically, maybe you

9:33

decide you wanna and you get summers off and you spend

9:35

all the summers with your kids and you don't have to so,

9:37

like, there if what you really want is

9:40

that you want more flexibility to spend time with

9:42

your family, Like, the only way you might

9:44

get there is questioning the original

9:46

outcome you thought you wanted, which was, oh, I need more

9:48

money to retire early. And so

9:50

that was one Another one I

9:52

think is I really believe in structured

9:54

information gathering. We have a note on this one

9:56

that's come up with a catchier way to say this.

9:58

But whenever I'm

10:00

collecting information, about anything.

10:02

I try to figure out how I can structure

10:04

it before I do any research. So

10:06

my wife and I were deciding, gosh,

10:08

our daughters too. you our

10:10

neighbor has a daughter and she's going to ballet class.

10:12

We're like, should we be sending our daughter to like

10:14

a class or something gymnastics? I

10:16

don't know. And so I was like, oh, let's figure

10:18

out what all the options are. But instead of just doing

10:20

casual research, I was like, let's build a page in

10:22

our Notion board and let's, like, figure

10:24

out what we wanna collect. how often does it run?

10:26

How much does it cost? Like, how far

10:28

away is it? You know, how

10:30

old are the kids in it and all that stuff? And now

10:32

we have this little, like, mini database

10:34

that when I go to my wife, she's like, oh,

10:37

well, what could she do on Wednesdays? because she

10:39

isn't at preschool. I don't have to go back

10:41

out and do all this other research. I've

10:43

already kind of like collected in an

10:45

optimal way, and it

10:47

forces me to think about what I

10:49

want to get out of learning when I'm

10:51

trying to do research and then I end up finding more

10:53

optimal outcomes because I just I've been able

10:55

to collect more information in a structured

10:57

way. So that's three of them. Where can

10:59

people find all of the the the

11:01

principles that you have here. Nowhere.

11:03

Yeah. No. That's the like, these are

11:05

fresh. So one of my jobs actually,

11:07

you know, if you want more, email

11:09

me you know, Chris at all the hacks dot com, and we

11:11

can I I can get some feedback. But

11:13

the conversation I had with Sarah

11:15

Stibitz, who's this person who's

11:17

excellent, at helping people

11:19

distill their thoughts on the world

11:21

into, you know, principles or a

11:23

framework. We just came up with them.

11:25

These are like draft form

11:27

days old, and I'm still supposed

11:29

to go and test them and see how they should be

11:31

iterated. So this is not something

11:33

ready for primetime, but know, you

11:35

heard it here first. Well, for

11:37

for a show on hacks, we really started

11:39

with the deep core fundamentals

11:42

to to get going here. So this is awesome.

11:45

Where where WISH a resource? Or what's something that we

11:47

could link to in the show notes? Where people could learn

11:49

more about this concept before we move into some of

11:51

the other discussions we're gonna have today.

11:53

The concept of coming up with these, like, life

11:55

principles? Yes. I I wish

11:57

that I had a place. Maybe I'll come up

11:59

like, all the hacks dot com slash principles, and I'll

12:01

put my draft principles there. I don't know if I'll

12:03

get it done, but, you know, I'll put at least a

12:06

landing page or something. If you subscribe to

12:08

the newsletter, I put

12:10

together. I'm going to write a newsletter to test this

12:12

out, but it might be a couple Hacks.

12:14

So I don't know. This is

12:16

so fresh on on top of my mind. I don't have a

12:18

place for it yet. for now, it's something to

12:20

consider life principles, go

12:22

Google it, and try to figure out ways to research if

12:24

you're interested in learning more. Yeah. I mean, Grey

12:26

Dahlia wrote wrote a book about life

12:28

principles that I think you know, was a little bit of

12:30

inspiration of just like what would mind

12:32

be. But for me, it's less about

12:34

life and more about optimizing your life.

12:36

Like, the thing that I feel like is

12:38

my thing. Yeah.

12:38

I think that is your thing. Let's

12:40

talk about optimizing your life.

12:42

What is your absolute favorite

12:45

optimization under any category

12:47

at all that you have ever come

12:49

up with besides, you know, the free

12:51

concert tickets in high school. That would have been

12:53

my favorite. No. No. Oh, man.

12:55

It's really I mean,

12:57

there's like the obvious favorites and

12:59

the the like kind of obscure favorites. So, like, the

13:01

obvious favorite is that my wife and I have

13:03

traveled extensively on credit card points,

13:05

but I feel like that's not like unique

13:07

enough to to come out and be like, oh, my favorite

13:09

Lifehack is like earn points and take trips

13:11

for free. though. Well, it doesn't have to

13:13

be some brand new thing that nobody's ever thought of.

13:15

That's a really great life hack is

13:17

I just spent this

13:19

year six thousand dollars

13:22

on airfare because I

13:24

was going to Germany with

13:26

my daughter, but she was going on a

13:28

school trip and the school trip gets

13:30

a huge discount and they can book whenever they

13:32

want. And Lufthansa's like, yeah, you already

13:34

buy a, like, five thousand tickets

13:36

a year or so whenever, but I only

13:38

buy three tickets once on Lufthansa.

13:40

They're like you can pay full price. So

13:42

if I would thought about it in advance, I

13:44

could have gotten Chase Ultimate Rewards credit

13:46

card and started earning those points

13:48

and transferred them over to

13:50

Lufthansa when it was time to buy with

13:52

three weeks' notice even though I knew that I was

13:54

going on this trip for eighteen months.

13:56

So being able

13:58

to travel extensively for

14:00

almost nothing is a great life hack. I think

14:02

that's one of the best life hacks

14:04

out there. Where

14:07

Hacks you gone? What have

14:08

you done? Yeah. I mean, I I I've done the tally.

14:10

It's probably sixty five, sixty six

14:12

countries at this point. Oh my

14:14

god.

14:14

That's okay. So that's not just to

14:16

grandma's.

14:16

No. No. We've

14:19

we've been all over. I mean, we hit a lot

14:21

of places once where we took a trip. We

14:23

flew one way to South Africa. We

14:25

quit our jobs. and we just said

14:27

we're gonna figure out where we go, and we ended up

14:29

mostly overland trekking from South

14:31

Africa to Singapore. on

14:33

trains and buses and hitchhiking and all kinds

14:36

of stuff. Yeah. All the way up Africa,

14:38

through the Middle East, through India and Southeast

14:40

Asia. And so but

14:42

but for us, travel

14:44

was the thing that we wanted to do

14:46

that, you know, wasn't in the

14:48

budget. Right? If you look, we we're trying to this

14:50

was early on. My wife and I have been

14:52

together since two thousand four. So a

14:54

long time. And when we were just kind of

14:56

living on our post college budgets, we're

14:58

like, well, how do we do all the things

15:00

we wanna do and not run out of money? And,

15:02

you know, there are ways to hack housing,

15:05

you know, house hacking. There I'm sure you've

15:07

had plenty of episodes on that. Like, there's ways

15:09

to, you know, eat for cheaper but travel

15:11

was this thing where it's like there's not really a

15:13

way to get a flight

15:15

to Europe or to Asia for

15:17

seven dollars. unless you

15:19

play the point of miles game, which is why I

15:21

think that that became this one

15:23

huge item on our budget, that the

15:25

only way to get rid

15:27

of was either to not do it, which we

15:29

didn't think was what we wanted or to play

15:31

the game. And so that one for

15:33

us has led us take I don't know,

15:35

all kinds of things. We've done, you know,

15:37

a lot. We've been to so many

15:39

places. Like, Japan is awesome.

15:41

Namibia was one of our favorites. the

15:44

Thailand and be the whole Southeast Asia circuit

15:46

was amazing. It's and so cheap.

15:49

So it's like once you get there, if you

15:51

can use your points to just cross the ocean and

15:53

land there, then all of a sudden it's really cheap. So

15:55

I think most of our travel has optimized

15:57

around going to places that once you're

15:59

there where it's not as easy

16:01

to use points and miles, it's a lot

16:03

less expensive. So, you know, my wife and I

16:05

have never been to the UK. You know,

16:07

we've never like, a lot of these, like,

16:09

mainstream, like, I was joking with my

16:11

wife. We've all over the world and but she's never been

16:13

to London. And I've only been because I

16:15

went once as a small kid, but,

16:17

like, we haven't gone to the expensive places.

16:20

Japan aside. We've been to Japan a few times because

16:22

it's just like our favorite place. Can you tell us

16:24

what you did to earn all those points?

16:26

How you optimize them and

16:28

what if anything is available today?

16:30

because I know that the the reward systems

16:32

change and so that many of the hacks you

16:34

probably used are not

16:36

available. And then there are new ones that -- Yep. --

16:38

that were taking their place. So I think the biggest

16:40

thing is there's kind of like two

16:42

main ways to earn points. One is just

16:44

make sure that every time you're spending money on a

16:46

monthly basis, you're putting it on a card

16:48

that optimizes where you

16:50

spend money. So if all your money is being spent on

16:52

groceries, the AmEx

16:54

Gold Card gets four points per dollar on

16:56

groceries. There are a lot of card, you know,

16:58

the AmEx platinum card, which someone might be

17:00

like, oh, that's even better. It gets one point

17:02

on groceries. So, like, it's not there

17:04

there's not a one size fits all solution for

17:07

everyone. And so I always say, look at

17:09

where you spend the bulk of your money. If it's

17:11

travel and dining, Chase sapphire

17:13

preferred, reserve, great options, it kinda

17:15

depends. If if you spend all your money at Home Depot, there's

17:17

not like a great option. So you might

17:19

get a card like the Capital One Venture or

17:22

Venture X that just earns two points

17:24

on everything. So that's

17:26

one. And then the other is

17:28

that credit card issuers,

17:30

banks, you know, give

17:32

massive bonuses to try to

17:34

lure new customers to use their products.

17:36

And so if you sign up for a

17:38

credit card, you know, you can get anywhere

17:40

from if if you're picking the right

17:42

opportunities, let's say, anything seventy

17:44

five to a hundred and fifty thousand

17:46

miles or points to open a

17:48

new card and spend you

17:50

know, some number of of dollars in ninety days. And so

17:52

a lot of my points have come

17:55

from that and just, you know, oh,

17:57

there's a new card. It's got a

17:59

hundred thousand point sign up

17:59

bonus. Let's sign up for that one. And I'll

18:01

say before going any deeper on

18:04

this. No amount of points

18:06

is worth paying interest on any of

18:08

these cards. if anyone listening right now is like

18:10

I need to pay off my credit card bills, do

18:12

that first. This is not going

18:14

to outweigh the, you know, the

18:16

seventeen twenty five percent

18:18

APR's at all. So if

18:20

if that's the circumstance you're in, this is

18:22

not the game for you yet. But

18:24

I promise there is another episode of this

18:26

wonderful podcast that will help you think about how to

18:28

save and pay off debt. So

18:30

I have one little tip about your

18:32

credit cards. You just said that the Amex Gold

18:34

gives you four points for groceries,

18:37

so now I need to go get one

18:39

of those. but you can

18:41

have more than one card at a time.

18:43

And what you should do is if you

18:45

can't remember, especially if you have

18:47

like fifty different credit cards at

18:49

your wallet, right on the top of the credit card

18:51

what you're using it for. I have a

18:53

card that has an

18:55

address on it because it's

18:57

for that house. That is the only

18:59

thing I use that card for is to put purchases

19:01

for that house on that card. I

19:03

don't wanna mistakenly use it

19:06

for another house or another project, so

19:08

I don't. And I'm gonna get this

19:10

AmEx gold and write groceries on there

19:12

because I wanna make sure I use it

19:15

for groceries. I've got a Costco card

19:17

that's I think three or four points

19:19

per dollar for gas when you're at

19:21

Costco. So right on

19:23

these cards, so you're using them in

19:25

the most optimal way. But what I

19:27

do is I have a hotel points

19:29

card, I have a Costco card,

19:31

and I think we have a Southwest card as well

19:33

just because Hacks where we travel the

19:35

most. So we're constantly earning

19:38

points for these things that we are

19:40

using anyway. Yeah.

19:41

And I'll say in with the advent

19:43

of Apple Pay, I feel like, you know, I'm not carrying

19:45

all these cards around anymore. So I'm gonna give

19:48

a plug for an app that's really

19:50

fantastic called card pointers. and it's basically

19:52

load all the cards you have in. The one great thing

19:54

that I know anyone that cares about, you

19:56

know, information security or privacy,

19:58

this is not an app where you go link your accounts and

20:01

they like pull down all your spending data and you

20:03

have to share your passwords. This is just I have

20:05

these cards and they'll just

20:07

say, okay, the card of

20:09

your arsenal of cards that is best

20:11

for each category. It

20:13

works really well if you're trying to do this with a

20:15

partner that's maybe not as excited as you are,

20:17

you say, hey, let me just load this up and then you have

20:19

an app. They can open the app and it's like

20:21

just a crib sheet for what

20:23

to use where. probably

20:25

helps with categorizing expenses as well

20:27

because they're all the same buckets of spending that

20:29

are going on one card. Yeah. I think if you

20:31

got all the hacks dot com slash deals, there's

20:33

a card Pointer's deal there. if you use their

20:35

pro if you sign up for pro,

20:37

but it's a great app. I use it.

20:39

I pay for it. It's I

20:41

think it's an easy way to give it. And I I helped set it up

20:43

for my mom once. I was like, hey, you have three

20:45

cards. Here are the settings for you. Yeah.

20:48

Okay.

20:48

This is obviously the best hack is the travel

20:50

hacking. What's the most unusual hack that

20:52

you love? I think one that it seems

20:55

so

20:55

obvious, but

20:57

somehow it just never came to me. And I

20:59

I I've shared this with you before WISH I

21:01

know you love it. We were trying to go

21:03

through this process after we had a child. We were like, gosh,

21:05

we don't have time. Right? We used to have all this

21:07

free time and then you have one kid and then you have less

21:09

free time, but there's only one kid. So one of

21:11

you can slip away and then we have two kids and we're like, now

21:13

we have no time. because, you know, when we're

21:16

not working, like, we have to be on the

21:18

kids. And so what are we gonna do?

21:20

And we started going through what are all the things in

21:22

our life that take time that

21:24

we could outsource. And

21:26

they're the obvious ones. You know,

21:28

you'd probably all either have or know

21:30

someone that has someone who could help clean your

21:32

house or you could drop off your laundry to

21:34

get it washed in these things. And, you know,

21:36

we had someone help clean the house, but we didn't you know,

21:38

we did our own laundry. I think my wife would never

21:40

want someone else deciding what gets dried, what does

21:43

it, what never never in a million years.

21:45

And then someone I don't remember

21:47

who was, like, what if you outsource your

21:49

meals. And I was like, well, we're not gonna outsource to

21:51

a chef. Like, we're not we're not the kind

21:53

of people that have the money to just have some chefs

21:55

come over and cook us fancy dinners.

21:57

and someone had told me, oh, no. No. There's people that'll

21:59

just like

21:59

prep meals for the week. Like, you send them five recipes,

22:02

they'll go to the grocery store, they'll make them, they'll put them

22:04

in top of where and drop them off your house. And I

22:06

was like,

22:06

really? So I made

22:07

an ad on Craigslist, and I'll even

22:09

send you guys a link if you wanna put it in the show notes

22:11

of like, here's the the ad I made. I

22:13

got like five or seven people wrote

22:16

back and for I think I

22:18

did the math about half the cost if

22:20

I were to like order DoorDash

22:22

for dinners, for about half of

22:24

what DoorDash would cost. Someone went

22:26

to the grocery store, bought

22:28

all the ingredients, cooked meals, and

22:31

dropped them off twice a week so that

22:33

we had each time two

22:35

days of enough food for two

22:37

dinners and leftovers for

22:39

lunches. And so basically sell it it was

22:41

this woman who just WISH, I like to cook. It was she

22:43

was not a professionally trained chef

22:45

she's just like, I like to cook and I can follow

22:48

directions, you know, in a recipe. And

22:50

sometimes she's like, I have some ideas. Can I try

22:52

this recipe or and it was the best

22:54

thing ever. So for like six months

22:56

and my wife and I love to cook. But for six months,

22:58

we just didn't have the time and we were just

23:00

trying to get into the right routine and

23:02

we didn't have to think about it. And it was the best thing ever.

23:04

That is

23:05

my favorite hack because I've never

23:07

heard it before. First of all,

23:09

Like, the the travel points, I love that,

23:12

but, like like you said,

23:14

that's not a new hack. This I've never

23:16

heard before, and I absolutely love

23:18

that because it can be so hard to

23:20

find the time to cook sometimes. You're like,

23:22

well, I don't wanna go out to dinner, but you

23:24

kind of that's the only option or,

23:26

you know, DoorDash, which is also very expensive.

23:28

Or, you know, we've had meal

23:30

plans that sponsored the show. Those

23:33

are awesome. But if you haven't already ordered those, what are you

23:35

gonna eat tonight? Or you have to

23:36

cook them. Like, if you have meals delivered, even

23:38

if they chop up the ingredients where you can get it

23:40

already, you still need time. this,

23:43

it's take something out of the fridge, put it in the

23:45

oven for fifteen minutes, and, you know,

23:47

you don't have to sit and watch the oven, you

23:49

know, like you could step away. And

23:51

so that was just amazing. And then we started thinking,

23:53

gosh, are there other things? And unfortunately,

23:55

we couldn't find any other, like, huge

23:57

unlocks in our life. Though

23:59

I'm now thinking, you know, I've I've

24:01

never been one to hire a virtual assistant,

24:04

but what we've been doing is cataloging

24:06

various tasks that

24:08

could make sense for an online virtual

24:10

assistant. And one that sounds

24:12

so silly, but Hacks, like, twenty, thirty

24:14

minutes we put now we're cooking and we

24:16

have this app called Paprika, which is

24:18

like a recipe manager app and a meal

24:20

planning app because my wife and I were like, gosh,

24:22

we kinda miss cooking. Let's bring that back. And we

24:24

might, you know, go back and forth, cook for six

24:26

months, go back. And I was like, we have

24:28

all these recipes. I just need someone to go

24:30

through all the recipes and put

24:32

them all in a list and then

24:34

just add them to our Amazon Freshcart.

24:36

And I'm like, I wonder if that's a task for, you

24:38

know, a virtual assistant? Are these sites like fancy hands

24:40

where you buy, like, five, fifteen minute tasks

24:42

a month or something for twenty dollars

24:45

Hacks something we're we're gonna experiment with next is, are

24:47

there little kind of research driven

24:50

tasks? Like, oh, we need to get

24:52

our dog vaccinated. We haven't

24:54

found a vet. Can you just call around and find a vet that

24:56

can get them in this week? You know, like,

24:58

little tasks like that that'll you know, maybe they

25:00

take you fifteen, twenty minutes. but

25:02

those things add up. And, you

25:04

know, at the end of the day, if you spent

25:06

fifteen minutes three times, you know, you almost

25:08

spent a whole hour of your day doing these

25:10

things that you could have spent I don't

25:12

know, working, reading, hanging out with your

25:14

kids, relaxing, sleeping.

25:16

You know? So for me, I'm trying to find

25:18

these these things. I'm trying to catalog them

25:20

so that I can kind of really feel like I

25:22

I have something to fill fill the time if

25:24

I had five tasks a month. I wanna fill them all.

25:26

Okay. The most surprising thing that you just said is that

25:29

you have not yet hired a virtual

25:31

assistant.

25:31

that something you guys both do and

25:33

I'm just like late to the game? No.

25:35

No. I'm just way

25:37

behind you. I just we have virtual

25:40

assistants at bigger

25:41

pockets, but I don't

25:43

have one for my personal life.

25:45

I I have experimented with personal systems

25:47

in the past, including

25:49

back in college, any

25:52

times. So What was what was

25:54

the funnest

25:54

one that you had your virtual assistant do,

25:57

Scott? I I

25:57

had the virtual assistant call my

25:59

mom for me. and and and

26:01

hear about her day. That

26:04

didn't go over too well. I don't

26:06

advise that one. But now that you can break it

26:08

up into, like, I only need

26:11

an

26:11

like, I'm looking at fancy hands and

26:13

it's like three requests a month, five

26:15

requests a month. Like, that you don't need to go

26:17

hire a full time assistant. and you

26:19

could have people do everything from research to scheduling

26:22

things. You know, I could have done when I

26:24

described earlier trying to research all

26:26

the classes that, you know, I could or daughter could

26:28

go to. That probably took me forty five minutes,

26:30

but, you know, I I could have found someone

26:32

that could do that. So I don't

26:34

know. I'm I'm starting to think about whether I'm gonna

26:36

have enough tasks that it would make sense. So

26:38

outsourcing things, you

26:40

know, I like to calendar audit like, where am I

26:42

spending my time? Am I spending a lot of time on things

26:44

that someone else could do that would give me more leverage on

26:46

my time to do the things that I'm like uniquely

26:48

capable of doing? Ideally, that could earned money

26:50

so that I could make up for the fact that I just hired someone to do

26:52

these other things. I think the framework here

26:55

is whether or not you

26:56

articulate it like this. You have a very

26:59

clear understand of the value of your

27:01

time and you know these

27:03

things are below that threshold and

27:05

value and these things are above it.

27:07

And I am generally at

27:09

max capacity. Therefore, if I have

27:11

a good handle on that, everything above

27:13

below the threshold needs to get outsourced

27:15

in some way to somebody else.

27:17

And if you can do that, that's great. And, you know, for for

27:19

those listening, a great a great tool for that is

27:21

if you earn a hundred thousand dollars a

27:24

year, then you can compute the value of your time

27:26

at fifty dollars per hour. That's

27:28

all pretax. It might be a little less

27:30

than that after Hacks, but that's a

27:32

great way to to to compute, you know, that's two

27:34

thousand hours per year at fifty

27:36

dollars an hour, you to a hundred thousand dollars annual

27:40

income.

27:40

So if you're if you're doing tasks that

27:43

are ten dollars an hour, fifteen dollars an

27:45

hour, like going to the

27:47

store,

27:47

shopping, and cooking, perhaps,

27:50

then that may be a good arbitrage. like

27:52

it was for Chris. Otherwise, you may you you know,

27:54

you'll need to do that. And that that number should move

27:56

over time. So I really struggled with that because I

27:58

was like, well, But it's

28:00

not like my employer is gonna give me more money if

28:02

I work a little more. So the thing that

28:04

I finally did was I signed up to

28:06

be a Lyft driver. and

28:08

I did one ride. And I was like,

28:11

oh, my wife had worked at Lyft. So I

28:13

was like, oh, this is kind of fun. I get to go do the thing

28:15

the company work at. So

28:17

I gave a ride and I was like, now at any point in

28:19

time, I could open an app and flip a

28:21

switch and start making in the Bay Area

28:23

right now, I think it's like thirty dollars an

28:25

hour or something. So now,

28:28

I struggled with could I really

28:30

value my time at fifty dollars an hour? Because

28:32

if I spend this if I don't spend this

28:34

hour researching activities for my

28:36

daughter, I'm not actually going to make fifty

28:38

dollars. Now,

28:39

I sign up for Lyft and now I know

28:41

if I'm

28:41

not like, if I want to make fifty

28:44

dollar thirty dollars in the next hour, I have a way to do

28:46

it. And that immediately made me think, okay,

28:48

every hour I'm not turning this on,

28:51

I'm with WISH you know, I'm foregoing thirty dollars

28:53

an hour, which means that I should be

28:55

able to spend thirty dollars an

28:57

hour for someone else to do something. So

28:59

For me, it needed that one extra step

29:02

of actually creating a

29:04

simple way to show myself that I could

29:06

go make that money at an hourly rate. Even

29:08

though that might be lower than my hourly rate at

29:10

my job, it at least put a floor that

29:12

was like, if I'm just hanging

29:14

out doing nothing, like,

29:16

I know that I could be making thirty dollars an

29:18

hour. And so that changed everything for me.

29:20

And now I'm like, well, if it's

29:22

if it's not worth thirty dollars an hour to pay someone, then why

29:24

am I not out there earning that thirty dollars an hour?

29:26

So that helped me get comfortable. Love it.

29:28

You just take

29:29

that a step further and go to the

29:31

marginal value of the addition of the next

29:33

hour worked. So you're

29:36

an economist. Yeah. I

29:38

try. And and I would just wanna loop back quick because

29:40

I I don't know if we're gonna get back to travel, but

29:42

there are a couple cool fun travel hacks I wanna

29:44

throw in there. One of my favorites

29:47

is When you book a hotel, book it directly

29:49

with the hotel. And

29:51

here's the reason. So hotels are still in the

29:53

hospitality business. and

29:55

they love building relationships with

29:57

customers because the loyal repeat business

29:59

is what drives a lot of revenue for

30:01

them. So And if you book on Expedia

30:03

Travelocity, they kind of don't really get that

30:05

opportunity because the channel between

30:07

the consumer is with Expedia Travelocity.

30:09

So you book directly to the hotel, you get their email either

30:11

on their website or call the front desk

30:13

and email them and just say, hey, here's

30:15

my confirmation number, coming on this

30:17

day. I'm really excited to stay with you. If you're

30:20

celebrating

30:20

anything, let them know. Then a few

30:22

days

30:22

before, reply and just say, hey, just want to follow-up.

30:24

We're still on track to

30:26

be in couple days. Really excited. I

30:29

have gotten hundreds of

30:31

emails, Twitter messages,

30:34

you know, Instagram foot posts of people who've

30:36

gotten upgrades, gift

30:38

baskets, wine, free

30:41

cocktails at the bar. They're parking

30:43

comped free breakfast all the

30:45

way to my favorite, which was

30:47

their initials embroidered on the pillow

30:49

in the room, all for sending

30:52

an email. So like if you want a hack that'll get you something

30:54

for nothing, it's just send the

30:56

email to the hotel and see what

30:58

happens. I'm not gonna promise it'll work

31:00

every time. But if it's the kind of hotel

31:02

that has room service and could deliver, you

31:04

know, chocolate covered strawberries

31:06

or a bottle of wine to your room, I think

31:08

it'll probably work if I had to

31:10

peg it forty, fifty percent of the time. That's

31:12

awesome. And you could hire a

31:12

VA to do that for you? I probably

31:14

could have. Yeah. They I'll add it to the list

31:16

of tabs. Every time I book hotel for the

31:19

confirmation, have that person go and said that.

31:22

Yeah. So I'm I'm a big,

31:24

like, nerd on the the travel hacking. I think

31:26

it's like the core. I always tell

31:28

people the

31:28

podcast, all Hacks. It's like one third all about travel,

31:30

one third about money, and one third

31:32

about life. And life is career. It could

31:34

be hosting cocktail parties. It could be anything

31:37

you do. But the travel

31:39

side is like where I think I find all

31:41

these kind of weird crazy things. Chris, these are

31:43

these are fantastic. Let let's go let's

31:45

fly through a bunch more of these tips. else

31:47

you got for hotels or or other travel

31:49

tips. Okay. I got a

31:49

couple of cool travel ones. One,

31:52

if you're booking a villa or a, you know, like

31:54

a house, you know, you're looking

31:56

on Airbnb, If it's in another

31:58

country, sometimes this works in the US, but often

32:00

really great in Mexico and

32:02

overseas, take the image that

32:04

best represents the property, save it to

32:06

your computer, go to Google Image Search

32:08

and upload it. And chances

32:10

are there's probably three or four other

32:13

websites that are a broker for booking that

32:15

same property. So you

32:16

might find, you know, some local

32:18

version of Airbnb in Mexico. There's

32:20

a site called Cabo Villas, which is WISH

32:22

for booking villas in Cabo. you

32:24

might find that property somewhere else and it

32:26

can be twenty, thirty percent cheaper.

32:29

You might even find a website that the owner

32:31

themselves has set up so there's no extra

32:33

commission going to the booking agency,

32:35

and you could save even more. So that's one.

32:38

If you're flying international, Don't

32:40

always look from where you live to where you're

32:43

going when you're searching for flights. First

32:45

off, I do all my flights searching on Google

32:47

flights. I think it's the best tool book

32:49

there, you go book on the airline's website, but

32:51

Google flights is where I start when I'm using dollars

32:53

to book a flight. If you're using points,

32:56

whole different ballgame. But if you're using dollars, Google Flights,

32:58

you could put open ended things like

33:00

San Francisco up to one stop,

33:02

go anywhere and look at a map in

33:04

July for one week trips. you could do all

33:06

this crazy stuff. But if you were trying to get

33:09

from where I live San Francisco to

33:11

Santa Rini in Greece, there's like

33:13

three airlines that fly all the

33:15

legs necessary to get you there.

33:17

But if you say I wanna go from San

33:19

Francisco to Athens, there's

33:21

probably fifteen airlines that can get

33:23

you to Athens, and the flight from Athens to

33:25

Santa Fe is like fifty dollars.

33:28

So if you're looking to go anywhere that's a

33:30

little bit off the beaten path, it's not a

33:32

major city. Maybe it's an island.

33:34

Maybe it's a small town. Just

33:36

try to buy your ticket to the, like, the

33:38

closest destination. People call

33:40

these, like, positioning flights. Get yourself

33:42

really close to where you wanna go, and then just do

33:44

that last leg separately because

33:46

The way all these flight searches work is they're

33:49

all looking for some carrier and their

33:51

partners that will get you the entire way

33:53

there. Very few of them will pair

33:55

up like in the US, like a

33:57

southwest flight with a Lufthansa flight.

33:59

Like, you've probably never seen that

34:01

happen. So if you were in Germany trying to do

34:03

this and you're like, I wanna Seattle.

34:05

It's like, we're only looking at places that

34:07

United and Lufthansa work together because they're

34:09

partners. So that's one

34:12

I love if you're booking car rentals, auto slash

34:15

is this great website where you can go in

34:17

and just say, like, here's where I'm

34:20

booking. And even if you've already booked separately, they'll just continually monitor

34:22

for you. And if they find a cheaper price,

34:24

they'll say, hey, we found a lower price and

34:27

because almost all car rentals, you can just cancel the

34:29

reservation and book it book it

34:32

again. They really help with that. And

34:34

then if you're not booking with a credit

34:36

card that has all the several benefits.

34:38

You know, delayed bags, lost

34:40

bags, triptylate cancellation, evacuation

34:42

stuff. Make sure you do that.

34:44

And then just stay on top

34:47

of you know, if you have something come up,

34:49

make sure you cancel it. If you have something come

34:51

up, there's a little tiny hack that doesn't always work.

34:53

But if you need to

34:55

cancel a flight, if you know you're not gonna take that flight,

34:57

I always wait until like twelve hours before to

35:00

cancel it because every now

35:02

and then there's a schedule

35:04

change or a delay or something, and then you get

35:06

to cancel it for free. A lot of

35:08

the airlines now will let you cancel for free, but you

35:10

get credit. but we were in Hawaii,

35:12

and we kinda wanted to come back a day early. And so we booked a southwest

35:14

flight the day early, but we didn't

35:16

cancel our other flight and

35:20

until we were ready to leave. And sure enough, they

35:22

changed the flight. And they're like, hey, if you need to cancel at

35:24

no cost, you can't. because they pushed

35:25

it back by four hours. So

35:27

I always wait to cancel flights. That's have a

35:30

look. I've got a hope

35:30

I probably have fifteen episodes on travel hacking,

35:33

so we could probably do the next

35:35

three hours on this. you know, I've

35:37

got go check out more there, but I don't know. Those are some of

35:39

my favorite travel hacks. That

35:42

was fantastic.

35:42

what's

35:44

another category of hacks that, you know, outside of travel that you

35:46

have? I'll I'll call this like

35:49

spending money. It's

35:51

it's pretty broad, but I'll

35:53

put it in the money category. There

35:56

are a few ones that I love here. So

35:58

one, Amazon smile. It's like

36:00

this site where you could basically if you buy

36:02

everything through Amazon, smile. It's

36:04

basically you get to buy the same stuff that's

36:06

on Amazon, except Amazon will donate

36:08

one percent to charity.

36:10

So that's a cool one. Help

36:12

other people. I think that if you have a

36:14

family and you look at the cost of

36:16

buying memberships to zoos

36:18

and museums, It's

36:20

because most of them are all nonprofits. When you

36:22

join the membership to the zoo or the museum,

36:24

it's a taxable it's a tax deductible

36:27

donation to a charity. And

36:30

if you factor that in most zoos and museums and

36:32

we're talking like science museum or history

36:34

museum or art museum, most of them

36:37

end up costing about twenty

36:39

five percent more and sometimes even as little as

36:41

less when you factor in the tax

36:43

deduction. So Hacks had family

36:46

in town for

36:48

Thanksgiving a year ago, and we all wanted to

36:50

go to the Oakland Zoo. And to get a

36:52

membership to the Oakland Zoo that included

36:54

four guests and kids was the

36:57

exact same price after you factored in the

36:59

tax deduction as just buying

37:02

all the tickets. So we just got the membership

37:04

to the zoo. And then for the next year, we've been able to go

37:06

to the zoo for free. I

37:07

do wanna tag on to your

37:10

zoo tip with my

37:12

museum tip that I think I got from Jillian

37:14

John's Route from Montana

37:16

money adventures. your

37:18

Nature and Science Museum membership

37:20

is good at something like

37:22

three hundred and sixty Science and Nature museums

37:25

around the country that are more than ninety

37:27

miles outside

37:28

of your home

37:31

museum museum.

37:32

So we are close

37:34

to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

37:36

So any museum within

37:38

a ninety mile radius might membership

37:40

wouldn't get me into, but there's a list of

37:43

more than three sixty. I'm on their website

37:45

right now. There's a list of more than

37:47

three sixty science centers and

37:49

museums that you can get into with your

37:51

museum And I think actually somebody up

37:54

in Oregon told me this

37:56

as well, there's a Portland museum that's

37:58

pretty interesting.

37:59

So it doesn't work

38:01

with zoos, I don't think, but it works

38:04

with science museums all around

38:06

the country.

38:06

there's another version of that that a

38:08

lot of zoos have. So if you're in a if you have a science

38:10

museum, you might be able to go to the science museums. If you're in a zoo

38:13

one, you might be able to go to the zoo ones. or

38:15

there's actually a in Curiosity half zoo, half science. And

38:17

I think they are in both. Mhmm. So

38:19

we have a membership there.

38:22

Yeah. It's it's wild and, you know, I

38:24

don't know, kids love it. So it's like anytime

38:27

you're traveling, you're like, oh, what's the free museum we

38:29

can go spend the afternoon in

38:32

because we may you know, we made a one time donation, you

38:34

know, in the last year at our local one. The

38:36

other fun one, library extension,

38:39

you know, you install this browser extension. And

38:41

when you're browsing Amazon, it'll just

38:44

tell you whether your local library has

38:46

the book. that you're looking

38:48

at either available in digital download right away format or check

38:50

out at the library. So

38:54

you're looking at a library, like, oh, I'm about to buy this book or you're looking at Amazon, you're

38:56

about to buy a book. It's like, oh, I could just literally download

38:58

the Kindle version of this book right

39:00

now for free from my local library.

39:03

Oh, that's a good tip. Unclaimed money. I don't know

39:06

if you've talked about this a lot, but there's a website

39:08

for every state where you can just go

39:10

search whether there's money owed

39:12

to you. anytime I'm so, you know, that's probably, like, the version

39:14

one of it. Go see if anyone owes you

39:16

money. I I just cash a check for one

39:18

dollars. So sometimes you get

39:20

a check a mail that's not really it

39:22

might not be worth your time to it.

39:24

But on the flip side, that

39:26

website's also a place where people can go find your

39:28

address because they just need your name and your city

39:30

and they confirms your address. So I like to clear all my unclaimed money

39:32

out. But I also anytime I'm going to a friend's

39:34

house for dinner or something, I'm like, oh, I got

39:36

your address. I got your name. I

39:38

go look up and I show up to

39:40

dinner and I'm like, oh, I brought a bottle of wine, but I

39:42

also found that Verizon owes you

39:44

thirty five dollars. So if you wanna go to

39:46

this website, you can get a free thirty five

39:48

dollars. And so Hacks my, like, party hack is is bringing money.

39:50

What what is this website? So

39:52

every state has a website where

39:54

you can go search a database of unclaimed

39:58

money. or unclaimed property. So California has

39:59

one like that I've gone to because I live here.

40:02

And you can search by last name

40:04

and city

40:06

and find out whether you have unclaimed money anywhere.

40:08

So, you know, while I get

40:10

through any other ones, go look and see if you find any

40:12

unclaimed money, we could have a live report.

40:16

Yeah. I'm doing this right now.

40:18

I found

40:18

a thousand dollars once. I don't remember what

40:20

it was

40:20

for, but I was like,

40:22

how do I not remember a thousand

40:24

dollars? It was it was really

40:26

crazy. By the way, no

40:27

one knows me money. Okay. Before

40:29

we

40:29

move on, let's take

40:31

one last break to hear a word from

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42:26

Well,

42:26

speak so one of the reasons I don't know if this was your case, Minnie, but one of

42:28

the reasons a lot of people have unclaimed money is,

42:30

like, you go to the hospital

42:34

And this is something I learned. I did a whole

42:36

episode on this, if it's interesting, about paying your medical bills.

42:38

And there's these crazy things that

42:42

happen where your insurance might only cover a certain amount, and so only

42:44

allowed to bill you for that amount, but

42:46

it's legal for these companies to

42:48

send you the bill for the rest.

42:51

So I fractured my foot and they gave me a

42:53

walking boot. And it was like the cheapest

42:56

crappiest walking boot you get at the hospital

42:58

relative to the really nice one on Amazon

43:00

for fifty dollars. and I got

43:02

a bill in the mail for three hundred and fifty dollars. I

43:04

was like three I could buy a better

43:06

version of this for fifty dollars. This

43:08

is crazy. And I had been in touch with this

43:10

person who eventually came on the podcast.

43:12

Marshall Allen, who wrote this book, never pay the

43:14

first bill.

43:16

And I reached out to him and he was like, oh, well, here's what can happen. Your

43:18

insurance might have only covered fifty dollars.

43:20

So it was a four hundred

43:24

dollar boot. they can make up whatever price they want. This is a four hundred dollar boot. Sure says,

43:26

no. No. We're only paying fifty. It's legal for

43:28

them to send you a letter that says, hey, the

43:30

rest of this boot was

43:32

fifty dollars that your insurance didn't cover. Now what they don't

43:34

make clear is that the letter actually says if

43:37

you added the goodness of

43:40

your heart wanna pay the rest of the three hundred and fifty dollars you are but

43:42

you are under no legal obligation

43:44

to. The letter shows up. It looks like a

43:46

bill that's like your insurance didn't cover the

43:48

rest. You owe

43:50

three fifty. And so over the course

43:52

of getting shingles,

43:54

I went to emergency room twice because I had no

43:56

idea what was going on and it was excruciatingly

44:00

painful. and I got all these medical bills that

44:02

my insurance covered most of and people were just like, oh,

44:04

do you wanna pay the extra fee? You know,

44:06

you're the doctor at

44:08

the insurance even though the

44:10

was in network, the doctor wasn't. And

44:12

so if you wanna pay this extra, you

44:14

can. And through a

44:16

series of, you know, following his book, and

44:18

like playing through these tactics, I ended up

44:20

owing nothing extra. But I got bills

44:22

for hundreds and thousands

44:24

of dollars. And one of them I thought was legitimate and I paid

44:26

fifty two dollars and they gave it back

44:28

to me once the insurance company

44:30

finally settled

44:32

it all. But a lot of people, if

44:34

you have gone and paid these and your insurance company eventually settles it all, that's where you

44:36

can might be owed money the hospital

44:38

might be like, oh, we couldn't find them.

44:41

And eventually, they have to hand that money over to the state, and

44:44

then the state holds onto it. Well, I just

44:46

checked

44:46

all three states that I have lived in recently,

44:48

and way and nobody owes me

44:50

money anymore. That that was a great

44:52

trip about the the the legal or

44:54

the the health bills. That that's awesome. I had no idea

44:56

if that's the case. Yeah. On the health side,

45:00

like, never pay the

45:00

first bill. I mean, like, Marshall Allen wrote the book.

45:02

I'm not gonna take a coin the phrase. But, like, if you

45:04

get a bill from a medical provider, there

45:07

are like ten steps you can follow. I I did a whole episode. We walk through all

45:09

of it. There's a book. Do not pay the

45:11

first bill you get.

45:14

there's like ten reasons that we don't have time to get into about how

45:16

you could argue not paying that bill,

45:18

getting your insurance company to cover it,

45:21

you know, there's some laws in different states about

45:23

not being able to charge you for out

45:25

of network things at an in network facility

45:28

that just changed. So

45:30

that was a great one. On the health

45:32

side, I learned this

45:34

trick when I was working

45:36

at Google. just like

45:37

hide the unhealthy things at your house if you feel like you have

45:39

to have them. Google basically at one point was like, well,

45:41

we don't want to get rid of the M and M's

45:43

because people like M and M's. and

45:46

we don't wanna get rid of the coke because there are people that really want this and

45:48

we don't have to be mad, but they would black out

45:50

the fridge, the section of the fridge,

45:53

would blacked out with the cokes behind it. And

45:55

then above that where there's like waters and and

45:57

other things, it was not blacked out. And then the jars on

45:59

the

45:59

counter with like you know, healthier

46:02

snacks were clear glass and the

46:04

other ones were completely blacked out. And they found that they

46:06

just massively reduced

46:08

the amount of unhealthy snacks

46:11

and drinks people were consuming without having to remove them. So if you

46:13

have healthy unhealthy snacks at home, you

46:15

know, don't get you don't have to get rid of them though

46:17

that's probably the best move.

46:20

you could also just obfuscate the cover of them and and hide them in

46:22

less less convenient places. Or my

46:24

favorite on there is just give yourself

46:26

five minutes every time. So

46:29

if you see this cookie and you're like, I really want that cookie. Just say, you know

46:31

what? I can have the cookie in five minutes. Don't tell yourself you can't have

46:33

it because now you're depriving yourself

46:35

and that's depressing. if

46:37

you tell yourself you can have it in five minutes, you feel

46:40

really

46:40

good about walking away because you know in five minutes

46:42

you can eat it. But ninety percent of the time in

46:44

that five minutes, you've gone and done something else and

46:47

forgotten about it. By the way, as in front since

46:49

me and Mindy are continually giving the updates.

46:51

My wife is owed between eleven and

46:53

forty nine dollars. You are welcome as a

46:55

dinner guest anytime, Chris. Look

46:58

at that. I hope it's on

47:00

the forty nine side. Yeah. No bottle

47:02

of wine necessary. So Great. I

47:04

want an update what what it was.

47:07

Yeah. We'll have to figure it out later. Back back

47:09

to the spending, this

47:10

kind of goes in line with with kind

47:12

of my my shopping strategy if I'm

47:14

buying something online. you know, a lot of people know that you

47:17

can go to Rakuten and you can sign up

47:19

and get cash back and there's a bunch of other

47:21

sites to do that. I love cash back monitor

47:23

because it basically says here's all

47:25

the cash Hacks websites that you could get. So the way

47:27

it would work is you wanna buy something on

47:29

a website, you go see if they have the ability

47:31

to click a link on one of these shopping

47:33

sites earn cash Hacks a lot of the credit card

47:36

companies. So Chase has a portal. You buy it through their

47:38

portal. You earn one or two percent

47:40

back in

47:42

points. So that's like level one. I kind of go

47:44

a little crazier sometimes. So

47:46

if I'm trying to buy something,

47:49

I will go as far as to see if I can find or even

47:52

buy coupons. So there's this

47:54

website that's like I think it's

47:56

save letter n deals dot

47:58

com. I think I'll double

47:59

check. But I I

48:02

buy Home Depot and

48:04

Lowe's gift cards on online.

48:06

And so you can basically go to the this website and you pay. They have

48:08

like crate and barrel coupon. Oh, I bought it for crate

48:10

and barrel. This couch in the background. I

48:14

I got, like, ten or twenty percent off

48:16

by buying a crate and barrel gift card

48:19

on the Internet. And so I'll

48:21

always look to see if there's a way that I find coupons or buy coupons

48:24

because if you're buying a couch spending

48:26

four dollars

48:28

to get, you know, a coupon that says you fifteen percent is totally

48:30

worth it. And then if that

48:32

doesn't work, I will go and buy

48:35

gift cards for the retailer but

48:38

I'll do it wherever I get the most points. So for

48:40

example, if I needed to buy a we

48:42

just bought a we just renovated bathroom, so

48:44

we need to buy a toilet, And

48:47

I really wanted a splurge for, like,

48:49

little Japanese toilet, built in toilet seat,

48:52

heated seats, all the all the good stuff. And

48:54

so we wanted it at Lowe's, and I was like, okay, I need to

48:56

buy this. So I bought a Lowe's coupon that brought the price down by

48:58

ten or fifteen percent. And

49:00

then I was like, well, how do I get the rest of

49:02

it? So I went to the

49:04

grocery store where I get four points per dollar

49:06

on my MX gold card and

49:08

I bought Lowe's gift cards. Because

49:10

if I my credit card at Lowe's, I'm just gonna get one or two points if

49:12

use my card at the grocery store, I'm getting

49:14

four, and then so I'm getting the four points on the

49:16

gift cards, so then

49:18

I buy toilet

49:20

with the coup I plugged in the coupon, I went through the

49:22

shopping portal link to get one or two percent

49:25

back. I'm paying with gift cards that I

49:27

got four points per dollar for. And

49:29

at the grocery store, you usually don't get variable amount

49:32

gift cards. And so,

49:34

you know, that brought it down to, like, there's

49:36

still seventy five dollars or eighty dollars. Then

49:38

you can go to Amazon and you can buy an eighty

49:40

dollar you could buy a gift card to the exact

49:42

amount you need. It gets delivered and

49:44

fulfilled instantly. I got the Amazon

49:46

gift card for or I got the Amazon

49:48

credit card for five percent back on Amazon.

49:50

So all in, I think it was like twenty five

49:52

percent off by stacking cash

49:54

portals buying coupons online

49:56

and then using the right gift card.

49:58

And then my if you can't

50:00

find a coupon online, my hack there is

50:02

just pop up the live chat on any website and just ask for

50:04

a discount. Like fifty percent of the

50:06

time, I just say, hey, I'm shopping on your site.

50:08

I really would love these floor mats. We

50:11

got a new car. There's another format that's a

50:14

little less expensive, but I love yours. What

50:16

can you do? And I've gotten,

50:18

hey, here's a gift card

50:20

or hey, you know, refresh

50:22

your cart by clicking this link and you'll see that

50:24

I've discounted your price or one time

50:26

someone's like, I can't do anything. But if

50:28

you search social media for someone's referral link,

50:30

you'll get twenty and off. So I go

50:32

to search. Twitter dot com and I'm like, you know, referral name of

50:34

company and I find someone who inevitably

50:36

posted their referral link on the

50:40

Internet. So anytime I'm buying something online that's

50:42

over, I don't know, fifty dollars or

50:44

something where this is worth

50:46

the effort. I to

50:48

stack as many of the things as I can

50:50

to earn as much back or get as

50:52

much of a deal as I can. I'm just

50:54

speechless at

50:54

each was at

50:55

all the ways that

50:56

you can I mean, I thought I was

50:58

frugal. Yeah. This

50:59

is pretty impressive.

51:00

I'm not getting I'm screwing

51:02

up left and right compared to

51:04

So, look, you can go off the deep end here. Right? Like, I could do this when I'm

51:06

like, I need to buy a hammer. And, like,

51:08

how can I get my eleven dollar hammer down

51:10

to, you know, nine dollars and saving

51:14

two dollars. And honestly, I

51:16

think maybe the satisfaction I get from

51:18

saving that two dollars is probably worth

51:22

an amount equivalent to thirty or forty five minutes. But now

51:24

that I have two kids, maybe that's gone down.

51:26

So I will say you can go too

51:28

far. I think a good example of

51:30

this is I I

51:32

realized when part of this song claimed the money thing,

51:34

I was like, gosh, my my information's on the

51:36

Internet. We have kids, like, I have podcasts. I

51:38

don't really need the whole world knowing where

51:40

I live. And if you Google There

51:42

is probably your address and your phone number and

51:44

your email address are probably available on the public

51:46

Internet for anyone to find.

51:50

And so I was like, I gotta get rid of this. So I started doing some research and there's

51:52

like six hundred data brokers who sell

51:55

your personal information to

51:58

each other. and publish it all over the web. And I was like, you know what? I'm

51:59

not gonna pay a service to go do

52:02

this. And then I was like, let's go find

52:04

the six hundred data brokers, go to each of

52:06

their websites, request

52:08

them, remove my information. And, like, just five hours into it,

52:10

I was like, what am I doing? And so

52:12

I found this company delete me. I

52:15

went and signed up and for like hundred dollars, they

52:18

contact all six hundred data brokers and

52:20

have them all remove all of your personal

52:22

information off the

52:24

Internet everywhere. And now, you know, I challenge

52:26

you to find my personal

52:28

address or phone number on the Internet because

52:30

it's been

52:32

scrubbed. And then, you know, in true optimization fashion, I went one step further,

52:34

and I emailed them, I was like, hey, guys. I love

52:36

your product. I just used it. I got rid of

52:38

all my information. I have this podcast. I wanna

52:41

talk about it. you

52:42

guys wanna be a sponsor or the podcast?

52:44

And so now they're a sponsor. All the hacks

52:46

dot com slash delete me,

52:47

get twenty

52:50

percent off. But I thought, like, half of my

52:52

sponsors ended up coming from me just

52:54

finding a product I love and reaching out to them and saying, I

52:56

love your product. Can I talk about it to

52:58

my audience? And

53:00

and most of those products are ways to to

53:02

optimize your life in some way, shape, or form.

53:04

And so there's a great example of

53:06

It was not like, figure out how

53:09

long something's gonna take. Find out if it's gonna be

53:11

worth your time and whether there's a service

53:13

that'll

53:13

do it. So My

53:14

wife got caught in this trap once. We we have a small

53:16

children, and she was thinking, oh, it's time

53:18

to start feeding our children. food.

53:22

We're like, they're what are we gonna cut it in?

53:24

What are we gonna serve them? How do they get a variety

53:26

of foods? And she was doing all

53:28

this research? And I was like, gosh, it's wouldn't it be great if someone just made a

53:30

meal plan for, like, the first hundred

53:32

days your kid eats and it just has all the ideas

53:34

of everything

53:36

there and oh, I found one on the Internet, but it's thirty dollars or something. I

53:38

was like, you just spent the last, like, seven hours.

53:40

I was like, can we just pay the thirty

53:44

dollars? So I think we went, you know, this swings both directions. It's like

53:46

not optimal, now it's so

53:48

optimal, and now we're finding that middle ground where

53:50

it's like, you

53:52

know what? This is either worth our time, or at the

53:54

end of the day, the incremental

53:56

value from picking the best

53:58

of the three incredible hotels

54:00

we could stay out in our

54:02

budget just not worth it. All three

54:04

are gonna be fine. Pull the trigger. And that's where

54:06

we balance each other out because

54:08

we can both find ourselves going down rabbit

54:10

holes, but if

54:12

you if you just kinda think, okay,

54:14

let me bounce this off my wife and she's like, yeah,

54:16

stop. Just just we found a WISH pick

54:18

any of the three. It doesn't matter. For

54:20

food, I'm always the

54:21

optimal person. Like, what's the best thing on

54:23

the menu? Someone told me he's like, narrow it down to

54:25

two. I don't wear a

54:28

watch, but conceptually, pretend you wear a watch, narrow it down to two, call one

54:30

right, call the other left, look where the second hand

54:32

is and pick it. Like, don't try to get

54:34

to that last level, you

54:36

know, that that Perreto eighty twenty were like, don't don't feel like you have optimize

54:38

the last little bit. Unless it's a huge

54:40

thing. You know, if it's like

54:43

buying a house, you know, yeah, figure

54:45

out how to optimize it because it's a massive purchase. But if it's what you're gonna have

54:47

for lunch, you know, maybe don't spend thirty minutes

54:50

reading the Yelp reviews trying to get the

54:52

most optimal

54:54

thing because you're probably not even gonna remember

54:56

what it was three weeks from now. I asked the waiter, what would you

54:58

choose? The

54:59

Bison Burger or

55:01

the chicken sandwich and he'll be like,

55:03

oh, the chicken sandwich is great. The bison burger is

55:06

dry. Great. That made

55:08

my decision. We did that

55:09

one time and I was like,

55:11

I asked this waiter, I was like, how are the how's the beet

55:13

salad? And he goes, oh, I hate beet. And

55:15

I was like, oh, okay. Like and

55:18

and that's gotta scarred me

55:20

from, like, Well, what WISH this person's personal view on

55:22

certain types of foods? Like, you know, you asked that

55:24

sandwich to a vegan and they're like, both of these are

55:26

terrible. You

55:28

know? So But that's that is my go to

55:30

by the way, but I I've been scarred a little by by people who have strong opinions about

55:34

certain foods.

55:35

Well, Chris, this has been fantastic.

55:36

You I mean, there's I

55:38

mean, that that you are a gold mine of

55:41

information about ways

55:44

to say a large number of little ways to stack

55:46

enormous savings and save yourself a

55:48

lot of time as well. This

55:50

is really

55:52

impressive. what's the best way for people to learn more about you and

55:54

go deep into the rabbit hole of these

55:56

little tips and tricks? Yeah. I mean, if you're

55:58

listening to

55:59

this podcast, you're probably

56:01

in a podcast app. So you could probably search for all the

56:03

hacks. That's my show. It's also at all

56:05

the hacks dot com. Hacks have

56:08

a newsletter and a podcast each week. And, you know,

56:10

my goal is to help you upgrade and optimize

56:13

your life, your money, and

56:16

your travel. And if you wanna get in touch, you can find me on social

56:18

media. You can email me chris at all the

56:20

hacks dot com. I Hacks to hear from

56:22

people. And I

56:24

hope I could help you save money, live a happier, healthier,

56:26

wealthier life, and, you know, feel like

56:28

you got a little a little back the next time you're

56:30

trying to buy something or take an adventure.

56:33

Nice. That's awesome. And I I'll tell you what,

56:35

I'm definitely gonna sign up immediately following

56:37

this recording. Matt, this was great.

56:39

Yeah. This was an awesome show,

56:41

Chris. I knew about AutoSlash, and that's the

56:43

only one that I already knew. Everything else

56:45

was brand new information,

56:48

and I'm super excited to listen to your show every week that it comes

56:50

out. I appreciate your time

56:52

today. Thank you so much, and we will talk to you

56:54

soon. Thanks for having me. This

56:56

is fun.

56:56

me this is fun Alright, Scott.

56:58

That was Chris Hudgins from all

57:00

the hacks podcast and that was

57:03

fantastic. We didn't share

57:05

this during the recording, but our

57:08

producer was sitting in on this

57:10

episode and she found a hundred

57:12

and eighty three

57:14

dollars on unclaimed money just from listening to

57:16

Chris. So she's gonna invite Chris over

57:18

to her house for dinner too. Nice

57:20

job, Kaylen.

57:22

Yeah. That was that was really cool. I mean, all of us found money, I think,

57:24

or for either us or a significant others within a

57:26

few minutes on the on the search. The unclaimed

57:28

property thing is is legit.

57:31

do encourage you if you're gonna follow

57:33

that tip to look google

57:36

your state's website, you know,

57:38

your state dot gov and

57:40

follow their link to the unclean property because there are some sketchy out But

57:42

if you do that, you may find your own

57:44

some money. Yeah. That's a great tip. I thought

57:46

this

57:46

was a lot of fun and

57:50

you could make money just by listening to this episode. That's a bonus.

57:52

Scott, you ready to go? Let's do it.

57:54

That wraps up this episode of

57:56

the BiggerPockets money podcast. He

57:59

is Scott

57:59

trench, and I am Mindy Jensen

58:02

saying take care

58:03

of polar bear.

58:23

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