245. Money Hacks That Actually Work: Side Hustles, Savings, and Free Travel with Chris Hutchins

15:15Chris Hutchins:So my principle, I think I probably started, I don't know, lots of companies that haven't worked and like two companies that took three years to realize didn't work. I find that the best ideas and the best things come from how you want to spend your free time and you don't know their businesses. So I find that it's really hard to just like think, what do I want to do and just find it. But if you give yourself the free time to see like, I have 10 hours a week, how do I spend it? And then you slowly evolve to realize, oh, this thing I love doing actually could be valuable to other people. And maybe you love knitting.

15:53Chris Hutchins:And it's like, well, do you want to keep knitting and sell what you make? Do you want to start a knitting blog? Do you like talking about knitting? Do you like showing people on video how to knit? Do you like finding the best knitters and reselling their amazing stuff? Like, do you want to create a marketplace? Like, see where your passion is. And instead of just like doing the academic exercise of like thinking about it, I would say if you could give yourself the space, say, oh, I'm going to take a three-month sabbatical. And instead of going in day one, I'm going to start a company. Day one, just be like, how do I spend my time?

16:24Chris Hutchins:And let it evolve. Because my full-time job and my wife's full-time job is to run a podcast and a newsletter. But when I started the podcast, I was working a day job at a company called Wealthfront, like a fintech company. And I actually started it working there. And I asked if they wanted to own it. I was like, would you guys be up for giving me like 25 % of my time to work on this? and you guys can own the podcast. And I couldn't appreciate the fact that they said no more than anything in the world right now. But at the time, that's how little of an ambition I had to turn it into a thing. Like I was just doing it because I really wanted to do it.

17:00Chris Hutchins:And I wish I had a friend at the time who's like, no, no, no, don't even offer. Fortunately, I was lucky. But it came out of like, how do I want to spend my free time? And so look at how you spend your free time. Talk to your friends about what you're best at. I love calling a friend and being like, why are you my friend? what is it about me? What do you tell stories about me? What am I the best in the world at? And just kind of like go down that rabbit hole and explore it. But you need space for that. And that's where I think it can get dangerous to think about how much value your time is, because that space isn't a profitable time up front, right?

17:33Chris Hutchins:Like leaving a day a week or leaving four hour blocks of time to think and to just like mess around on the internet or go for a walk and and just kind of get creative. You don't monetize that time up front, but it's so valuable in the long run.

17:47Tori Dunlap:Yeah. I have a formula that I talk about in my book to like determine your side hustle and I call it the three T's. So it's time, talent, treasure. So time, exactly what you were saying. How much time do you have and how much time do you want to spend? Talent, like what are the talents you already have or do you need to cultivate a new one if there's a certain kind of side hustle you want to do? And then treasure is like, how much money do you want to be making? And are you okay if it doesn't make money for a while? Like her first hundred K, I had lofty ambitions for the company. So I was okay if it wasn't profitable for a while while I built it up.

18:20Tori Dunlap:But for some people, they're like, no, I just need money right now. So that's going to be a different kind of thing that you choose versus something that might take a little bit of runway to get started. Yeah.

18:29Chris Hutchins:One book that I really enjoyed was called Burn the Boats. I think it's Burn the Boats. Matt Higgins. And I had him on and we had this discussion about, like psychologically, when you create a plan B, it can actually hold you back. So one thing I'd encourage everyone to do, read that book, listen to an interview with him. It's like, don't worry about if it's not going to work. That is going to make it harder for it to work. So it's not just like a waste of time, but it actually has a psychological impact on the success of the thing. And when I see the most successful entrepreneurs, they are just so all in pot committed to everything they can do to make this thing work.

19:08Chris Hutchins:And when you ask them like, I don't know, what about this other company that's doing something? They're like, I don't care. Like we're going to win. And, and that mindset is great for building massive companies. But if your goal isn't to go build the next billion dollar thing, you know, maybe it's prudent to understand what your competitors are doing. You know, it's kind of like you said, treasure, it's, it needs to scale with what you want it to become. And I have two young kids. I'm not interested in empire building at this stage of my life, because I know the time commitment that goes into that.

19:38Chris Hutchins:And I just, I'm not willing to make that trade off, which means this business isn't going to 10 X next year. And that's okay. But maybe those kids go off to college one day and I'm stuck with lots of free time. Maybe that's the time I want to go build an empire and that's okay. Right.

19:54Tori Dunlap:Well, it's also, yeah, dependent on the life stage. I think we hear from a lot of people who do not have the time to think about, you know, and we're, I always say on the show, side hustle is just a glorification of the word second job, right? Like, side hustle, for some people is absolutely necessary in order to get by and live their life. And so I think what you were talking about before of like, are there small ways that you can quote unquote, game the system that don't involve a ton of extra labor don't involve you commuting somewhere, don't involve you having to put, you know, a bunch of upfront costs and are just like, okay, can I do these small things that maybe save me a little bit of money, put more money back in my pocket?

20:33Chris Hutchins:Yeah. And I'd encourage you anytime you find something that you think is a deal, like you as a child, you're like, wow, all these golf balls are free. You know, it's one thing to say, now I have 10 ,000 golf balls, but you might not have even golfed, right? Like, look at any time you see something that you think might be a deal and push yourself to think, is there any way that the fact that I found or know about this deal, that I could turn that into income for other people who want to deal? And so Young You said, here are all these golf balls. I found them for free. Other people buy them. I can sell them.

21:06Chris Hutchins:And so whether that's like a sale at the grocery store, like sometimes that might be the deal. I know people that buy grocery store gift cards at Kroger and resell the gift cards when they go on sale, but they keep all the Kroger fuel points so they can fill up their car for free. Like there is always an angle anytime you find something that feels like a good deal. So if you've become a good deal seeker, it doesn't have to just be to save you money. It can also be to make you money.

21:32Tori Dunlap:When we come back, we're getting into the most in-depth conversation we've ever had about credit card points from travel to points and everything in between. I've been doing this for years and even I learned some mind-blowing information. Stay tuned.

21:47Tori Dunlap:Back in my early 20s, when I was trying to manage my money, before I was a financial expert, it was so overwhelming. I remember checking my money every single day, tracking every single purchase I made. It was so stressful. And I wish Rocket Money existed back then because I use it and love it now. And I know that it will absolutely transform the way you manage your money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. The app consolidates checking, savings, loans, and investments into a single dashboard so you can get a clear view of your financial picture.

22:23Tori Dunlap:And Rocket Money tracks subscriptions and has the ability to cancel the unwanted ones within the app in just a few taps. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com slash ffpod. That's rocketmoney.com slash ffpod. Rocketmoney.com slash ffpod. You've heard me talk about BILT as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live. And they just leveled up even more. As of 2026, homeowners can also earn up to 1.25x points on their mortgage payments. This is thanks to BILT's three new credit cards, the Palladium card, Obsidian card, and Blue card.

23:03Tori Dunlap:All three turn your housing payments, rent, or mortgage into flexible rewards. So you can choose the card that fits your lifestyle without missing out on points and exclusive benefits. Built points can be redeemed atop airlines and hotels, Amazon.com purchases, future rent payments, and more. Built points have also been ranked by top publications as the industry's most valuable point currency. Your housing payment is already your biggest expense. Make it your most rewarding. Find the car that fits your lifestyle and apply today at joinbuilt.com slash FFpod. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash FFpod.

23:36Tori Dunlap:Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Terms and limitations apply. Subject to approval and eligibility, built cards are issued by Column N.A., member FDIC, pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated.

23:53Tori Dunlap:So the one hack that I think is such a valuable spend of your time and research and energy is the credit card point ecosystem. And we have talked a lot, especially this year, we had Brian Kelly on we had my friend Janelle on a jet on. And I've talked a lot about it on the show too, of ways you can use your credit card in a smart way. So how did you start travel hacking in the first place? Like, let's walk through those early years of you travel hacking.

24:25Chris Hutchins:I mean, the early years were so unoptimal, right? It was, I just went on some flights, I accumulated some miles. I didn't really know what they were. I needed a credit card. I was living in Colorado because I went to school there. So I opened a United card.

24:38Tori Dunlap:That's most people, right? Most people open a card that somebody is like, their dad is like, this card's a good one, maybe. And then that's most people. Yeah.

24:48Chris Hutchins:And then I remember a very distinct moment where some kids that were like maybe one or two years older than me that I've become friends with, they were like, we're all going to rent a house in Mexico. I think it was in Puerto Vallarta or Cabo. I can't even remember at this point. And I was like, I want to go. And then I looked, I was like, oh, that flight's like$400. Like, I guess I'm not going. And I was like, oh, I have all these miles. Like, I wonder if I could use them. And then I was like, oh my God, I can go to Mexico. And I paid, I don't know,$10,$20 of taxes and fees. Was it the best deal for those miles?

25:17Chris Hutchins:I don't care because it was the most amazing thing. It was the difference between going and not going to Mexico. And so I will say, when you learn how the game works, sometimes it can be debilitating because you're like, wow, I know I can get incredible value if I do this other thing. But I want to encourage people to realize that if you don't get the best value in the world, but you get to go on a trip that you couldn't have otherwise gone on, that's an amazing value. And so that's where it started. I went on one trip that I could never have gone on. And then I was like, these points are incredible.

25:49Chris Hutchins:And I was like, why don't I open up these two American Airlines credit cards? Why don't I start doing whatever I can to accumulate points? And I would say, I'm sure you've talked about oh, these welcome bonuses can be lucrative. You know, open up a card. Someone's going to give you 75, 100, 150 ,000 points. One of the things I did earlier in my career, because I just wasn't spending a lot of money. Like, sure, if I had a business that was putting a million dollars a year on a credit card, I'd be racking up points, but I didn't. But every time a new trip came up in the future where friends were like, let's go here or let's do a bachelor party, I said, okay, great, can I plan it?

26:24Chris Hutchins:Like, I will plan the bachelor party. And everyone's like, really? You want to do all that work? And I was like, absolutely. We need to book six hotel rooms. I'll book all of them. I'll put them all on my credit card. We need to book eight flights to Vegas. Great. I'll buy all eight flights. And so, you know, I made sure I had a card that earned a lot of points on travel and hotels and flights. And I was everyone's travel agent. And then I'd be like, hey, if you want to pay me, send me some Venmo, send me some, you know, whatever the app of the day was. And probably back then some of it was like a check.

26:53Chris Hutchins:Yeah.

26:53Tori Dunlap:Write me a check.

26:54Chris Hutchins:but I was able to spend so much more than I actually spent. And that was the early way in which I was starting to accumulate points faster than just opening up lots of cards. Because earlier in your journey, I will say you could open up 10 cards and you'd be surprised that your credit score will probably go up. Like it's a counterintuitive thing. And there's somebody that posted this thing about he and his wife opened up, I think it was like 26 cards over 18 months and both their credit scores went up. They accumulated 2 million points and they went on a bunch of trips. So I wouldn't be turned off by the credit score thing.

27:31Chris Hutchins:But I would also look creatively at, is there a way that I could be spending more without spending more? Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting you just ramp up your spending. I absolutely am not suggesting you don't pay off your balances, like spend within your means. But if you work at a company and they're like, hey, you don't have to file expense reports if you use your corporate card, but you could use your personal card. And maybe if you're going out for a coffee, it's not worth the hassle. But if you need to buy an international flight, maybe that time it's worth using your personal card and going through the hassle of the expense report so that you can keep the points.

28:07Tori Dunlap:For all of the basics of what we're talking about here, I'm going to send everybody to episode 213. That's the one we did with Brian Kelly, because I really want to double click on all of the kind of crazier shit. So if you want the sign-on bonuses, if you just want to understand generally how credit card points work and how to redeem them that's a good episode to start with but like let's talk about the walk four blocks to get hilton like what is the like the crazy shit like the you know i've seen people with the binders of 70 cards like what is the next level unhinged shit for people who are ready oh is that oh my god you're one of them how many you got in there uh probably like at least 50

28:52Chris Hutchins:but holy shit me my wife some old debit cards costco cards like yeah wow okay see i'm not even

29:00Tori Dunlap:this bad everybody like i i talk a lot about like you know i got this trip for free or i got this hotel stay but i have eight cards seven cards and just the average person that's a lot that's crazy i i don't use i use only two or three on a semi-regular i built a model where i put in like

29:20Chris Hutchins:every credit card that could be good. I put in both like Bureau of Labor Statistics spending data and my own spending data. And I was like, where is the optimal point on the curve? Is it to have 27 cards? Like if you had every card under the sun and you used it optimally, you would earn more points than if you only had one or two. But I will tell you, the return going from one to two is massive. And the return after two really, really diminishes unless you spend a tremendous amount of money for work or personal in specific areas. So when it comes to like, what cards do you spend on? I think everyone should get a card that has elevated return on whatever they spend the most on travel, dining, groceries, whatever.

30:03Chris Hutchins:And then everyone should have an everything else card. Right? So like, I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics best two would be the Amex gold. And because you get 4x on dining and groceries, and like something like the Capital One Venture card where you get 2x on everything else. That would be like the staple. So I just want to make sure people see a binder full of cards and they don't think, wow, in order to do this optimally, I need all these cards. No. My general framework is, you really only need two or three cards for all of your spending. And then if someone's like, hey, this week, we're going to give you 100 ,000 points.

30:38Chris Hutchins:Okay. I'll take the bait and I'll make sure that I use all the perks that come with it so that if there's an annual fee, I've netted it out. And then at the end of the year, if I'm still going to be paying an annual fee and I can't get my value, I'll reach out and say, hey, is there any bonus if I stick around for a year? No? Great. Can I just change this to another card that has no annual fee? No? Okay, I'll cancel it. And some cards, like these Hilton cards, the Hilton Aspire card gives you a free annual night every year. And so me and my wife have a couple of them. And we've been able to stay at properties that cost, I don't know, more than$1 ,000 a night for a card with an annual fee of like$500.

31:19Chris Hutchins:So and I probably am at the stage of my life where maybe not a$2 ,000 a night hotel room, but I would spend more than$500 a night on that hotel room. So why not keep that card open? Am I spending money on it all the time? No. So it doesn't hurt you to keep the card open if there's no fee or if you're getting value out of it. But I'm not spending money on all of these cards. The reason they're in this binder is because I leave it at home. Like I don't need to carry it. Right. But when it comes to some of the kind of, I don't know, ninja crazy stuff, let's think about it. I mean, the welcome bonuses, I ran this analysis.

31:56Chris Hutchins:If you can't tell, I really like making spreadsheets. And I took as at some point, I think it was late last year. I was like, what are the top 20 bonuses cards will offer you to open up the card? And the average return, meaning if a card said, we'll give you$1 ,000 for spending$1 ,000 on the card, that would be 100 % return. They're going to give you your entire money back. The average return was 17 % or somewhere on that order. It was like 16.7 or 17.3. So you and I both know there is no credit card that offers you 17 % cash back. Maybe in a perfect world, you'll find a card that earns 5 % on one category up to maybe a cap per year.

32:40Chris Hutchins:That revolves every three months too.

32:43Tori Dunlap:That 5 % category is only there for a quarter. Yes.

32:47Chris Hutchins:So if you're saying what's a baseline, maybe Robinhood has a 3 % card. Doesn't work well for business. Bank of America, if you put some money on deposit, it's like a 2.6 % cashback card. So 17 is incredible. So hands down, your best value is to always be spending on whichever card is going to give you the best return on a welcome bonus. Like that is the optimal way to spend. But if you don't want to open up 15 cards a year or even five or six, I could say just pick one or two and focus on that. But those welcome bonuses, I would argue, are the place to focus. and if you have a partner that you're playing this game with, it's not a one plus one equals two because you could open one card, then you can refer your partner to it, get some kind of referral bonus, then they could open up a card and now you get the same bonus twice plus a referral bonus.

33:40Chris Hutchins:So like that is where it starts to get really fun and you know, I have a friend who every time there's a big welcome bonus, he not only signs up for it, but he refers his mom, his dad, his sister and his partner. So like he's getting four welcome bonuses for them, four referral bonuses and one welcome bonus for him. And he's just printing points at this point. And that is where it starts to get really fun, is starting to figure out how you can help the whole family and take big fun family vacations. But that's all on the earning side. I think that a lot of people listening have probably been doing that to some extent.

34:15Chris Hutchins:They probably opened up a car, they probably earned tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe a few people cross the million mark. And they're like, but what? It's just so hard to use these points. Like, I feel like I wonder if people kind of give up and I'm sure Brian talked about it. So I don't want to go too deep. But the one thing I'll say is it's never been easier to find out if your points can get outsized value because there've been all these tools that have launched recently. So one that I don't know if you talked about is called Points Path. It's a browser extension that layers on top of Google Flights.

34:49Chris Hutchins:And it only works for the major US airlines. But it's like, I'm searching for a flight on Google Flights. And it's like, hey, on United, if you use your United points, it's a better deal with points. You don't even have to like use another tool. I mean, technically, you're using a tool because it's a browser extension. But you're not going to some miles and points tool or paying a subscription. It just sits where you live. And so that's one where I think it can easily help you kind of optimize without even having to think about it. There are others. There's like Points Yeah and Award Tool.

35:22Tori Dunlap:For those who are listening on audio, I now have another tab open and I am signing up as we speak. Point.me is a partner of ours. That's the other one I love of seeing like, yeah, I want to go this place at this time or you can be more general than that to see like what my points are going to get me to.

35:39Chris Hutchins:Yes. Yeah. So I would say find a tool that you like for when you're searching for a flight and take a few minutes, not hours, to say, hey, I'm looking to go from here to here. Is there a better deal with my points? No? Great. Let's save them for the next trip. I find that the more flexibility you have, the easier it is to get really, really outsized value. And so flexibility doesn't mean dates. It could mean where you go. It could mean how far in advance you plan it. Sometimes my wife and I will say, you know what, we really want to take a vacation and we don't have any flexibility. It's spring break.

36:13Chris Hutchins:Like we are going this week, but we're really flexible where we go. And you know what? If we don't decide until a month before, we're okay. And so some of these tools have alerts. And so you can basically say, hey, I'm looking to go to Europe. You can search. I can't remember if PointMe has this yet or not. I use PointMe a lot because I think they have one of the best sets of all partners. There's another tool called PointsYeah, an award tool. and I'll say, hey, San Francisco to Europe, set an alert for the date I want. And I might set it six months in advance. And maybe three months later, I get a ping that's like, hey, San Francisco to Paris, 50 ,000 points in business class.

36:54Chris Hutchins:Which had I redeemed those points for, I don't know, Amazon, you know, I probably would have gotten like$300 or something. And so now I'm here, I am going to business class for something that is way less than that all the way to Europe. So don't be afraid to think about flexibility outside of just dates. It could be where you go. It could be when you go, whether you change planes. And then think about trying to get places not necessarily from where you live, which might sound crazy. But a lot of the things these search tools do now is like, give me a flight from the West Coast to Asia, right? And you're like, I want to go to Japan, but like, or I want to go to Hong Kong.

37:34Chris Hutchins:I'm willing to fly to LA before I get, you know, because not, it sounds crazy, but sometimes I'll find flights where it's like the hard leg to get to Europe isn't LA to Paris. It's San Francisco to LA, but you can buy a San Francisco to LA flight for like 60 bucks sometimes. So like, don't lock yourself into only leaving from or going to a specific place. Um, and then I'm going to throw a curveball here. So I recently came across this perspective shift. And when I say all the hacks, when I talk about my show, it doesn't have to be like a little trick. It could just be something that kind of opens your eyes to a different way of thinking.

38:17Chris Hutchins:And so we were planning this summer trip. And we found this hotel on the island of Mallorca in Spain. And if anyone ever gets a chance to stay there. It's called Cap Rokot. It is unbelievable. It's built into a fortress. It's the pinnacle of luxury. It's amazing. And I think when we were looking to go last summer, it was like$2 ,800 a night. That is past the threshold of what I will spend on a vacation. But the reason we found it was because I was using this tool called Rooms.Aero. A-E-R-O. and I just went to Hilton, small luxury hotels of the world. And I was like, what is available anywhere in the world in the month we want to go for four nights?

38:59Chris Hutchins:And it was like, Capro Cut is available. And I was like, great. It was 120 ,000 Hilton points a night. Now I happen to have that many Hilton points or free night certificates, but here was the crazy thing. On that day, just for fun, as I was going to book it, Hilton said, hey, we're having a sale on our points. On the Hilton website, that day you could buy 120 ,000 points for half a cent each, which made it$600 per night. So let's pretend you're listening to this and you're like, this points and miles shenanigans. Like, I just, it's not for me. I'm a cash person. I love cash back. Great. But if you're going to the Hilton site and you're about to book this thing that's$2 ,000 a night and you could just buy the points to book the exact same thing for$600, like, I don't know.

39:47Chris Hutchins:seems like a great opportunity. And points and miles go on sale all the time. And so you can use these tools to say, is there a great points and miles deal to get to Japan, to get to Paris, to get wherever you're going? Even if you don't have the points, one of the airlines that you can use to book that flight, because one of the things to know is like a flight on United is bookable by United, but it might also be bookable by Air Canada or Avianca Life Miles or these other carriers. And Avianca, as an example, a Central American carrier, their points of miles go on sale all the time. And there are times where you'll be like, wow, I don't have 100 ,000 points to get to Europe.

40:25Chris Hutchins:But boy, do I wish I would because I could fly business class. And oh, turns out Avianca is selling these points for like one point something cents. And so you could just buy it there and book it. Now, I would encourage you to make sure it's available. Like get to the checkout screen before you buy the points. Because if you don't, you're stuck with a bunch of Avianca points. But I don't know. It's this mindset shift where I was always all in on points. Now that I realize there's the opportunity to buy them and use them, it just made me wonder, like, are there times where cashback might be better?

40:57Chris Hutchins:You know, I earn all this cashback. I invest it. It grows. And then when I'm ready to go on a trip, more often than not, I might be able to just use those points to buy or use those dollars to buy the points and go on that same trip. Get that crazy outsized value without having to even play the points game? The answer is like, for me, no. Like, I'm still doing it. But for someone who doesn't want the overhead of points and miles, you can still benefit from points and miles by buying those points on sale.

41:25Tori Dunlap:Everybody listening, you need to go back about 15 minutes and you need to listen to all of that again. That was... No, it's so good. I know I just said it, but I mean it. Go back and re-listen to all of that. Take notes. This is probably the most thorough conversation we've ever had about travel credit cards and traveling for free or at major discounts. When we come back, we're getting really granular about what this process looks like from step one all the way through checking into your hotel. We'll see you back here shortly.

41:53Tori Dunlap:I cannot tell you how stressful it is sometimes to run a small business. I think that small business owners listening, you understand. Everyone else, cut us some slack. It is hard out here. There is so much to think about between payroll and HR taxes, tax filing, direct deposits, health benefits. There's so many things that are really, really complicated about running a business. But Gusto has made it so easy for us. We have used Gusto for four or five years. And then I was using them when I was a nine to five employee on the other side. And they're truly so helpful. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses.

42:33Tori Dunlap:It's all-in-one, remote-friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. It's really quick and simple to switch to Gusto. You can just transfer your existing data to get up and running fast. And you get direct access to certified HR experts to support you throughout any tough HR situation. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash ffpod and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash ffpod. One more time, gusto.com slash ffpod. I shared this on social media, but my family and I have been going through a rough time.

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44:22Tori Dunlap:The thing we keep coming back to in all of these episodes is like, you can be as crazy about this as you want, right? It can just be, you know what? I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, or you can spend a million years on this, right? And you can hack it all you want. The thing you said about being really flexible is something that single handedly changed my travel experience. I would go on what we called friend moon with my friend. We would go on a trip every year, but we would let the deals determine where we went because we were super flexible of like, oh, okay, there's a deal to New Zealand.

44:53Tori Dunlap:I've always wanted to go to New Zealand. Great. We wanted to go to Morocco, but there were no deals from Seattle to Morocco. It was extremely expensive. But guess what? Seattle to London was a deal and then a Ryan Air flight from London to Morocco. So you can start to think about ways to be more flexible with your travel that are both just the deals, but then also the credit card points to your point of, okay, I want to potentially go at this time or even just like this area. Get me close. This is what I just did. My partner's family, somebody was getting married in Italy. If I tried to go Seattle to Italy, it was a specific time last year, it was going to be so much money.

45:34Tori Dunlap:But I found us a deal from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany, and then hopped on a Ryanair flight from Frankfurt to the Amalfi Coast. That's what we're talking about here.

45:44Chris Hutchins:And it's always funny that you're probably sitting here like you get off this business class flight in Europe and you're like, all right, where's the economy check-in counter for Ryanair?

45:52Tori Dunlap:Chris, that is the funny thing. And I've been meaning to do a post about this. The year before we went to Paris, lie down flat seats. It was my first ever business class flight. The first time I ever turned left on a plane. And it was thrilling. You know, it's like five course meal in the sky. All you can drink champagne, full lie flat seat with a bed. We got off. We took the bus to get to our hotel or our Airbnb. It wasn't even a hotel. It was the Airbnb that I found that was nice and clean, but pretty cheap. And then we got on a Ryanair flight from Paris to Scotland where we actually wanted to go.

46:25Tori Dunlap:And then I checked us in at the Balmoral, which is like a literal castle and is a$900 a night hotel that I did with credit card points. And again, we took a bus from the airport to get to there. So it's like you get to choose where you want to spend your money or spend your points. And I think that the incredible thing about all of these hacks, especially around travel, is you and I are not spending$2 ,500 on a hotel room. Like, we probably could. I refuse. That is an obscene amount of money. And for the average person listening, that is way outside your budget. But you get to have these once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

47:01Tori Dunlap:You get to stay at the five-star hotel where they say your name when you walk in the door. You get to have the experiences that you could not afford otherwise because you've done a little bit of due diligence trying to figure out how to use these miles effectively. Yes.

47:20Chris Hutchins:I got two quick things. So one, there's this thing called the Dunning-Kruger effect. And it's like this cognitive bias theory. So the way this works is when you have really low competence on something, you're actually way less concerned with being optimal. and you could use your Amex points for Amazon and feel good, right? And then you go through this, I just did this episode with this woman, Devin Gimbel, who has really thought deeply through this. It's like, once you learn, so for some people that will be this moment, you have this moment where you're like, I've been doing it all wrong. And now you don't understand how to do it, but you know that what you've been doing is wrong.

47:59Chris Hutchins:And I, or not wrong, wrong is the wrong word, but it's like not as good as it could be. And I wanna encourage you to not feel, Like this is a not fun place to be. Like you are not yet an expert, but you have just enough knowledge that you're doing it wrong and it feels bad. And I just want to let you know, the more you think about it, learn about it, experiment with it, you will climb back out of that kind of valley of despair, if you will, and it will be amazing. And so we had this episode where we talked about, like you start at the top, then you're like, oh my gosh, my entire life could be so much better off, but I don't actually know how to do it.

48:32Chris Hutchins:And you feel awful. And if that's you, there is hope. We have all been there. And then the other side of that valley is amazing. So I want to flag that. I also want to say on the Airbnb front, because some of these optimal hacks, tips, tricks don't have to be points and miles. I met a host of an Airbnb. And I don't know how it came up. But the idea of negotiating your Airbnb came up. And they were like, yeah, about 50 % of my guests negotiate the price with me. And I was like, what? Like I am a deal seeker and I didn't know that you could negotiate Airbnbs. Turns out you can and I've used it and it works.

49:09Chris Hutchins:So it sounds like you have done this also.

49:11Tori Dunlap:Yep. Absolutely. I negotiate every Airbnb, especially if I'm a return guest. So if I went to an Airbnb and I really liked it and they knew I was nice and clean and didn't throw a rager and I'm going back, I'm like, hey, I was lovely to work with last time. I will be lovely to work with again. or especially if I like solo travel or I'm just with one other person and we're like renting a place that has multiple rooms. This is actually what my friend and I did in New Zealand. There was like multiple bedrooms that we weren't going to use, but it was in a killer location. Um, and it was a little outside of our budget.

49:46Tori Dunlap:And I said, Hey, if you can give us, I don't remember what I asked for, like 20 % off or something like that. We're not going to use that bedroom. So you're not going to have to clean it. Right. And, uh, you know, it's just me and my friend traveling. we're two women we we will book right now and they gave it to us and i you again the the recurring theme one of the recurring things of this show is why not ask like yeah you might hear no but you might hear yes and that's fantastic even negotiating i mean i always ask for a room upgrade at a hotel always and they don't know who i am right they don't know i have millions of followers they don't know I'm an influencer.

50:25Tori Dunlap:They don't know who I am. But I just go, hey, do you have any complimentary upgrades you could offer me? And, you know, let's call it 30, 40 % of the time, they're like, no, I'm sorry, we don't. Okay, no worries. And some of the time they do. And I get a really nice room out of it for free just because I asked.

50:39Chris Hutchins:And you can ask without asking. So one of my favorite things to tell people to do, if you book a hotel, book it directly with the hotel. Absolutely. When you book on Travelocity, Expedia. Booking.com.

50:50Tori Dunlap:Yeah.

50:50Chris Hutchins:It's not that there's a flag on yourself, but book it directly to the hotel. Find an email address, call and ask for one and send them an email in advance and say, hey, I just booked this thing for three nights. Here are my dates and my confirmation. I'm really excited to stay with you. You know, we're celebrating my husband's birthday, you know, whatever it is. And you don't have to ask in that moment because hotels love hospitality. And I guarantee that some percentage of the time that's probably close to or above 50%, you will show up at the hotel and something will happen. Whether it's champagne, whether it's, you know, free drinks at the bar, an upgrade, a better view, like sending an email to the hotel in advance is one of my all-time favorite tips because it costs you nothing.

51:34Chris Hutchins:You're not even asking. For people who are uncomfortable, you don't even have to say, can you upgrade my room? Just let them do the thing that hospitality companies like doing. But book directly with them so that they know you actually are interested in building a relationship with them. Because if you just book on the internet, like with TripAdvisor, they might not even have your reservation until like the day before you check in because of the way this whole systems work. So book direct.

52:01Tori Dunlap:And if something goes wrong, you are working through booking.com or Expedia's customer service. You are not working with the hotel. So if you have to cancel or something goes wrong, yeah, Chris, I'm going to add a hack to your hack. If you are emailing them, which I highly recommend doing as well. Email is your fake assistant.

52:18Chris Hutchins:I love it.

52:19Tori Dunlap:They don't need to know you don't have an assistant. I literally have an assistant, but I don't make her do this because she's got better shit to do. So I have made up an assistant. And by the way, it's a dude because dudes get usually more respect, unfortunately. So Scott emails all this time. Scott is the hard ass. Scott will come in and be like, Miss Dunlap is coming at this time at this like make up an assistant. Again, you don't have to be an influencer. You don't have to have a podcast. Make up your assistant because you will get so much new shit. It's so fun. It's so great.

52:50Chris Hutchins:These things work. You don't have to... There are hacks that take a lot of time. But one of my favorite ways to find a little extra income that for 10 % of my audience, because we did a poll, resulted in more... resulted in hundreds of dollars of money. And maybe you've talked about this before. But whatever state you live in, go to the state's unclaimed money database and search for yourself. And yes, some of you will be like, I found nothing. Some of you will be like, I found that I'm owed$3, but it's going to take me an hour to figure out how to get it back. I would encourage you to do that anyways, because if you don't, someone can probably find your address.

53:28Chris Hutchins:Like it's a good way to reverse engineer what is someone's address. But some of you will find hundreds of dollars. A few of you will find thousands of dollars. so it's a great way to just check if there's any free money out there for you i like using it as my like dinner party thing you know because you know someone's address because they're going to dinner at their house i'll just search it up and come over and be like hey you know we brought you a bottle of wine but did you know that like verizon owes you four hundred dollars

53:56Tori Dunlap:that's so good i'm like i'm making you money and i haven't even stepped foot in your father's days

54:00Chris Hutchins:around the corner i couldn't figure out what whether to get you tie or socks but i did find out that Aetna owes you$1 ,300 from seven years ago, dad's going to be stoked. So you're welcome.

54:12Tori Dunlap:Yeah, that's so fun. Okay, so we were talking about travel hacks. And again, this is the thing I could talk about forever. So can we start at the beginning of booking the trip? So the flight, what are the hacks that obviously points we're checking, we're checking, you know, I love that tip about, you know, can you buy, you can buy miles, right? Not just like Hilton points, but You can buy Alaska Airline miles or Delta miles. So what other hacks around the flight as we're planning the trip can we be thinking about?

54:40Chris Hutchins:Okay, I think there is a lot here. So when I'm thinking about booking a flight, there's probably... I did this episode with this guy, Zach Resnick, and I can't remember what number episode it was. But we went through a checklist of 25 things you can do. So checking if it's available for points, we talked about that. buying points if you can, looking for gift cards. Sometimes airlines have gift cards on sale. So right now, at least in the Bay Area, you could buy Alaska gift cards for 10 % off. Very often, Southwest sells their gift cards at Sam's Club and Costco for 10 % off, I think, or maybe sometimes 14 % off.

55:23Chris Hutchins:So that's one.

55:24Tori Dunlap:Chris, can I pause you for a second? Yeah. Can I just... We have to talk about Costco. Like that's a hack in and of itself is I, everybody knows this because I'm from the Pacific Northwest Costco. If they reached out and they're like, Tori, we need a kidney. I'd be like, which one? Like I love Costco so much, but they do a lot of like, you can go in and buy the cards, you know, and then you exchange them for the stuff at the register, you know, but like right now they're doing, um, a three day park hopper pass to Disneyland. And I'm a huge Disneyland addict for like way less. I think it's like 75 % off and it includes like a meal ticket or something.

55:59Tori Dunlap:But like Costco is your secret weapon, both for like Costco travel, renting a car, getting gift cards. Like I love Costco just as a hack for things beyond the rotisserie chicken. So you mentioned Costco. I can't not. I mean, we haven't talked about it,

56:15Chris Hutchins:but I have two Costco things on my desk. One is a Costco membership. The other is a rack, which you might not know what this is, but it's from PAMP, which is a Swiss company that makes gold. And I asked for an extra one. It's one of the racks that Costco puts gold on in their storeroom.

56:31Tori Dunlap:Oh, yeah.

56:32Chris Hutchins:I probably bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold at Costco in the last six months. Wow. And I've started a gold reselling side hustle that is quite lucrative. So Costco is amazing. We can come back to that. But I want to hit on all the flight things. Yeah. Sorry. I just got

56:48Tori Dunlap:excited. You said Costco and I was like, no, no, I love it.

56:50Chris Hutchins:Believe me, a last like two weekends ago, I think we went to Costco five times. More because the limitations on gold purchases and the number of Costco's in the area, but a few other things. So there are rare cases where a travel agent is going to get you a deal for a flight. I would say if you are flying internationally, especially if it's one way, there might be some obscure options. I will say if you're booking a one-way flight international, you are going to be faced with an outrageous price. And if you just simply change it to a return, a round trip, even if you don't need the return, the price will go down.

57:28Chris Hutchins:And so I had a friend who has way more money than I do. And he was like, I'm looking to go to Europe. It's just a one-way ticket. It's like$9 ,000. And we added a return in economy. And the entire ticket went from like$9 ,000 to$4 ,000. He saved$5 ,000 by adding an extra flight. The same thing is sometimes true. There's this website, SkipLagged, which basically does what's called, you know, like hidden city ticketing, where it's like, well, flying from San Francisco to New York is$500, but flying from San Francisco, connecting to New York and going to Boston is$300. You know, you could, if you weren't checking bags, like get off in New York and miss your flight to Boston.

58:08Chris Hutchins:The airlines don't love this, so I wouldn't do it a ton, at least not if you have your frequent flyer number on the account. But if you're doing a one-time trip to Asia, and I don't know, like Japan Airlines is$1 ,000 if you fly through Japan to Taiwan, and it's$4 ,000 just to Japan, like, I don't know, that'd be a case where if I'm not checking bags, I'd be willing to kind of take the$3 ,000 savings on a one-off case. If you're flying a ridiculous amount, I would say, do everything you can to become friends with someone that works at the airline and kind of encourage them to make you their buddy.

58:46Chris Hutchins:There's kind of a gray market for brokering these buddy passes, but I would say it's very gray. But if you found the right airline, like we talked about this in this episode where it's like, how do you go about getting those things? I think that was a 156. And like, there is a way to do it. I was like, should I just be reaching out to people on LinkedIn? How do I find it? I don't travel enough and I have a family, so it's not worth it. But if I were single traveling a ton and maybe taking a sabbatical, I would do everything I can to find out if I know anyone that works at an airline that might be able to make me one of their partners.

59:21Chris Hutchins:If you do have a company, most companies can enroll in the business program of the airline. And it might only be 3%, 4%, or 5 % off. But I don't know. Like I want, my principle is every time I'm buying something, whether it's a, you know, a new toilet at Lowe's or it's a flight, it's like, what's my checklist of all the ways to save money? Like, can I buy a gift card? Is there a shopping portal where I could use Rakuten to, you know, layer on some extra points? Is there a coupon or a promo code? Am I using the card that gets the most points? Can I, you know, like all of the things every time. So I don't know.

59:54Chris Hutchins:I think that's the most of it on travel portals. I will say you and I have a similar belief that booking on Expedia for a hotel can leave you in a frustrating situation if you need to change things. So I rarely will do that. You also might not, if you had status with Hyatt, you might not get any elite nights. You might not get treated well because they're not always required to do any of those things for third-party bookings. On the airline side, things are evolving. And so keep an eye on this evolution. There's this thing called NDC, which sounds like it could be a cool thing. It stands for new distribution capability.

1:00:30Chris Hutchins:It's like the dumbest moniker. But it allows these travel portals to book flights with airlines as if they were booked directly with the airline. You can still manage them with the airlines. You can still change things. As these travel portals adopt these platforms, you won't have that problem with flights. And so Capital One, the Venture X card gets you 5x points on flights if you book in their travel portal. You know, I may be questioning whether I want to do that depending right now on whether my flight will change. But in the future, if that travel portal adopts this, which honestly, I don't know how you would know if it did yet, but they'll probably do some marketing around it.

1:01:12Chris Hutchins:I'll certainly be talking about it on my show and newsletter. Like, then I'm down to go book in a travel portal to get more points.

1:01:20Tori Dunlap:Oh, that was so good. When we come back from a word with our sponsors, we're wrapping up our conversation with Chris by talking more about credit card points and other ways for you to hack your everyday life, including how Chris is teaching his kids about getting better with money. We also talk about how to know when a deal is actually worth your time versus a waste of your time. Stay tuned.

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1:04:20Chris Hutchins:credit report, and I'll come back to that, they're almost always not going to approve you for a new card. Now, I say that show up on your credit report because business credit cards don't always show up on your credit report. Most of them don't. A lot of other issuers have similar rules. Amex, it's like you can't apply. I can't remember all of them. It's like you can't apply for the same card within 90 days. And if you go search card approval rules by bank, there's a blog post that the frequent miler team wrote where it's like a list of every single one of those rules. Obviously, if you're going to be applying for a card, make sure you don't break those rules.

1:04:52Chris Hutchins:Some issuers are like, we'll only approve one card within six days. Well, then don't apply for two cards back to back. It's just not going to work. That one's the most notorious. What that means is if you saw two great signup bonuses, maybe apply for the one at the bank that cares less about those kind of rules second and the one that cares about those rules first. So if you'd opened four cards in the last 24 months, and you're really eyeing two cards with big welcome bonuses, get the Chase one first, because you might not get approved for the Chase one second. I would say high level, Capital One is like, if you've opened a lot of credit cards, they get skittish.

1:05:32Chris Hutchins:Chase kind of has more rules. They're less skittish than that. And then Amex is probably the least skittish. And then obviously, they're not the only three issuers, but high level, like those are three of the biggest. But sequencing what order you apply for a card in makes sense. And if you want to hit the game hard where you're opening, I guess, more than five personal cards over 24 months, then that rule is going to matter. But we talked about business cards. And I think one thing that's important to clarify is, I know a lot of people who think, well, I can't have a business card. I don't own a corporation.

1:06:03Chris Hutchins:And I will say, there's a wide definition of what a business is. If you have an Instagram account, and maybe one day you might want to monetize that. Well, every time you post, you're kind of laying the foundation for a future influencer business. You don't need to go get your EIN from the IRS, though that is a very, very simple process. Like fill out a form online and get it immediately by email. But if you have anything that could one day make money, that could be a business and you could do that business as a sole proprietor. So I know a lot of people who are like, oh, I've done a little consulting.

1:06:39Chris Hutchins:I'm like, you have a business. Oh, sometimes I like buy things and sell them on eBay. Well, you have a business. Like, I would imagine that almost every single person here listening is doing something in their life that would legitimately classify as a business, even if it doesn't have revenue yet, even if it's not, you know, filed with the state.

1:06:58Tori Dunlap:I teach piano lessons. I yeah, all of these things. This is one thing actually, Chris, this is perfect to talk about because I've been meaning to talk about this. I almost want I like beg of people to just quote unquote start a business even if it's not really a business to get all of the additional perks of business owners the write-offs the uh points and miles especially if you pool your business points and miles with your personal points and miles like there's so many opportunities for you to your point to come up with what the business is and immediately start saving a shit ton of money on the things that you're already spending money on or thinking about on a day-to-day basis.

1:07:44Chris Hutchins:I can't remember. I think it maybe is like the hobby rule or something, but the IRS doesn't look too great at people who have a business that has a bunch of expenses and no income forever. No, totally.

1:07:58Tori Dunlap:Yeah, there's a massive asterisks on that. Thank you.

1:08:00Chris Hutchins:So I say, if you don't have any revenue, those write-offs might not be as lucrative as you think. But again, you would be surprised at how many things might generate enough revenue that it's a business. I buy a lot of gold at Costco. I sell that gold. I have a business, even though I might not think of it that way. If anyone has a credit card, which I imagine most people do, and you log into your issuer, and there's all these deals, like a card-length deal where it's like, oh, if you spend$200 at Lowe's, we'll give you$50 off. If you go spend$50 at Chewy, we'll give you$15 back. Well, every time I see one of those, I think, is there a way to make money?

1:08:40Chris Hutchins:And so this is a fun exercise with my daughter. And we had this Lowe's offer for$5 off$200. And I don't need anything at Lowe's right now. There's nothing that I need at Lowe's. But I use this app called Card Pointers. And it added that offer to seven of my Amex cards. So we go to Lowe's and then I look at the gift card rack at Lowe's and I look for whichever gift card has the highest resale value, which was I think at the time it was Apple or Dick's Sporting Goods. I think it was Dick's Sporting Goods. They were all sold out of Apple gift cards. That's what I wanted. And so for$200, I buy a$200 Dick's Sporting Good gift card, which I could sell for like 89 cents on the dollar.

1:09:21Chris Hutchins:So I lost 11%. But I was getting 50 of the$200 back. So I was getting 25 % off. so I get 25 % off and I can sell it for an 11 % loss like I made 14 % so we just bought 7 we went to the self checkout $200 gift card, one Amex $200 gift card, next Amex we're just buying these gift cards, taking advantage of this offer reselling the gift cards and I think that day we made like$200 now, was it worth my time to go through this hassle, drive to Lowe's spend an hour buying these gift cards you could argue no but do you want to know how excited my five-year-old daughter was when I put$200 into her little bank account.

1:10:02Chris Hutchins:And we started talking about what she could do with$200. And that afternoon, we went for ice cream. And she's like, can I buy mommy and daddy ice cream? She bought me ice cream.

1:10:11Tori Dunlap:Yeah. Oh, yeah. So even when...

1:10:15Chris Hutchins:Now that we have children, when I see these little plays, if you will, where I'm like, it maybe isn't worth my time. I'm like, but could I teach my daughter a lesson in this process. And I don't know what that lesson's worth, but it's worth a whole lot more than the dollars we saved. So I don't know. You can see I just could go down all these rabbit holes on this. You take this where we want to go, but I feel like every time I see a deal, it's like, how could I make money on this deal?

1:10:42Tori Dunlap:You and my father would be best friends. I don't know if you know this about me. I started my first business when I was nine years old because my dad bought a candy like vending machine, like a gumball machine and brought it home and said, do you want to start a business? And I owned 15 of these vending machines by the time I graduated high school and all the profits went to my college fund. And this was the thing that my dad and I would do once a Saturday or once a month on a Saturday is we would go out and we would service the machines. And like, I didn't invent anything. I didn't go on Shark Tank, right.

1:11:12Tori Dunlap:But I learned how to run a business. I learned how to manage money. I was writing checks as a 10-year-old. I was writing checks at Costco to be able to buy my chocolate-covered raisins to go in my vending machine. And I learned so much from that. And I also have so many memories with my dad. It wasn't really about the money. We barely made any money. It was about spending quality time with my dad, learning something new. I 100 % believe that a lot of the skills I learned throughout my childhood of running this business, I use every single day in running this business now. And so those kind of things, yeah, it might not be worth your time, but wow, it becomes an activity.

1:11:49Tori Dunlap:And it's an activity. Like I didn't have to take her to the fair to spend a bunch of money or to a movie. We didn't spend any money. We actually made money. Like I love that.

1:11:59Chris Hutchins:I'm looking at this can and I'm like, cause one of the things we do is we take all the aluminum cans and we go recycle them for the cash.

1:12:05Tori Dunlap:Same shit I did too.

1:12:08Chris Hutchins:And I'm like, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Hawaii, or Iowa, at least on this can. We just collect all the cans. We go cash them in. The place is kind of grimy, but my daughter's like, I don't really like this place. I'm like, but at the end, somebody hands are like$4.85. And she's like, this is so cool. I made money.

1:12:29Tori Dunlap:Yeah. So that leads me to something that is really important. We talked about it briefly at the beginning. But in my head, usually, because I think, you know, when you get to the point where either you're, you know, a busy person or a business owner, or honestly, my mindset kind of switched as I started to make more money. I realized like, okay, there's a certain cost benefit analysis that I need to do of can I be using my time to make more money than, again, trying to find out all of these hacks. So you had briefly talked about it, but I just want to return to like, when do we determine what's worth it for us versus what isn't?

1:13:10Tori Dunlap:Because some of these are 100 % worth it. I can spend two hours researching business class flights and get them for super cheap. Amazing. Some of these other hacks, I'm not sure. So how do we determine that and how do we determine that for each of us as individuals specifically?

1:13:27Chris Hutchins:I'll give you an answer and then a caution. So you could do it as simply as saying, okay, what is my hourly rate? And that can be tough when you're an entrepreneur because the three hours that you spend thinking about your business could come up with an idea that makes you an unlimited amount of money or could be completely useless. And so I like to think of it not as an hourly rate, though, maybe it's backed into it, but I just set it more than trying to calculate my income divided by my hours. It's like, what is my threshold for when an amount of money moves the needle? And for me, I have one when I'm with my kids and one when I'm not, assuming that the thing is a teachable lesson.

1:14:10Chris Hutchins:For 50 bucks, I might take my kids to do something to teach them. But if it's during the 9 to 5 workday and they're in school, I'm not going to do it. So I would say everyone has to come up with that dollar amount. It's going to be relative to how much you currently earn, how much you save, how much savings do you have? If you've saved a ton of money, maybe you're not interested in spending more time to save more. It's going to be relative to what else you would do. If you don't have a business idea, then that's probably different than if you have an active business you're running and you're taking time away from it.

1:14:44Chris Hutchins:I would not encourage anyone with an active business to be spending the weekend going to flip gift cards from Costco when they could be building a company if that's their main thing. So I try to think of a dollar amount. And then I say, wait, wait, pause. Is this thing going to cross that threshold? Is going to Costco to flip this gift card going to make me enough money that I want to do it? But I would encourage you to maybe choose the hours by which you do this. Because for me, I've probably set that thing at hundreds of dollars an hour somewhere. But I don't want to think about it on the nights and weekends.

1:15:24Chris Hutchins:Because the last thing I want to do is my daughter's like, Hey, do you want to play a game? And I'm like, well, the game's going to take an hour. Like I got to pay$400 to play a game with you. Sorry, kid. So like for me, when I have work hours, I try to value my time. When I'm not during work hours, I try not to value my time. And I set a much higher bar. And so when I was talking about Costco gold, my wife and I, like the bar for weekend time with the kids is like$1 ,000 an hour. so and and it just happened that last weekend there was this like any trip to costco we'd make a thousand dollars and we were like kids are going to costco again um but if it was 300 like i might do that during the work day when it's just my time but but on the weekend i set a way higher bar and i'm not really thinking it's more like opportunistic than trying to you know track every hour and value each one.

1:16:20Chris Hutchins:So I would say earlier in my career, it might have been$20, went up to $100, maybe now has a few hundred. And during times when life is busy or family's involved, it might cross$1 ,000. So you don't need just one number. It can be relative to the situation and relative to your time. But I can't overstate how important free time is when you're running a company because you're just so caught up in all the day-to-day that it's always so hard to think, you know, what should we do? And so for us, I really wanted to go to Iceland. And we ended up starting like a tours business where like, we found a guy that knows more than anyone in the world about Iceland.

1:17:00Chris Hutchins:We did an episode about just Iceland. And then we said, Hey, we're going to go on this trip. Does anyone want to come? And we took a group of people to Iceland last year. And now we're taking two groups of people to Iceland this year. like that didn't just like pop in my head until I was kind of ruminating on Iceland and it came there. So leave time for that. It is valuable. It's just hard to put a put a specific dollar amount on it.

1:17:23Tori Dunlap:Yeah, I just realized we didn't talk about Costco. So let's touch on Costco really quick. And then I have one last question for you after Costco. Okay, so yes, the$4.99 rotisserie chickens, absolutely incredible. But the one that I found that literally everybody in my life knows because I was trying to bully anybody and everybody into taking this on with me. They had a Costco travel deal. Did you see the Four Seasons Bora Bora situation at the beginning, I think, of this? I was staying at the St.

1:17:50Chris Hutchins:Regis Bora Bora on points. And every couple we met, we were like, how did you decide to come here? And they're like, Costco, Costco, Costco.

1:17:58Tori Dunlap:It was so it was round trip economy from L.A. to Bora Bora. And as anybody who's tried to get to Bora Bora knows that flights are so goddamn expensive. So I think it was round trip flights. And then it was like, you get free breakfast, you get all of that. But it was four nights, I think at Four Seasons Bora Bora, which normally costs like$2 ,500. And I think all in the whole trip was like$4 ,000,$5 ,000. It was so cheap. And I didn't end up pulling the trigger, but everybody heard about it. I was like, it was so good.

1:18:31Chris Hutchins:I don't know when this will come out, But right now, for whatever reason, Hilton has a ton of open inventory at the Conrad Bora Bora for 120 to 140 ,000 points a night. Which again, Hilton points go on sale all the time. We've been to the Conrad Bora Bora twice. Economy flights ever since French B, which is like a discount French carrier, came. Economy flights have gotten very cheap. So from San Francisco, I've seen Bora Bora for$600,$700 round trip. So if you have Hilton Points, if you want to buy Hilton Points, a trip to Bora Bora can be in your future. I don't know why Bora Bora doesn't get as much love as the Maldives because if you live on the West Coast, it's like an eight-hour flight.

1:19:17Chris Hutchins:It's not that farther than Miami and New York. And you went on this trip. It's amazing. If you are an active person that wants to have a thousand places to drive and do, it's not a trip for you. If you're someone who wants to just relax at a hotel and have everything catered to you, it's fantastic. And if you open up one of those Amex Hilton cards, or at least the Aspire card, you get diamond status on Hilton. So at least when we went, free breakfast, which these breakfast buffets are just unbelievable. I actually did an episode that I filmed from the Conrad Bora Bora talking explicitly about how we like the price mechanics of that deal.

1:19:57Chris Hutchins:It was a little windy. Like the audio quality isn't as good as others, but Bora Bora on points specifically like looking at it today in June, 2025, I was blown away at the availability to go during the summer, which we've been in the summer is a great time. It's a little warm, but not like, you know, desert Valley warm. Uh, it, it was great. So I would encourage anyone with Hilton points or a desire to buy them to check out the Conrad and Bora Bora. Highly recommend. Or check out the Costco travel deals.

1:20:31Tori Dunlap:Yeah. Guys, I have, I think, seven tabs open just from you and I talking. Like, again, you think I'm good. Chris is next level. Okay. My last question for you. Your show, All the Hacks, which is literally going to be my next, you know, 12 hours of listening. You talk generally about upgrading your life or optimizing. So what are some of the best non-money related hacks that changed your life for the better? Like I'm thinking especially about that episode you did on sleep.

1:20:59Chris Hutchins:Yes. I mean, sleep, it's so funny that in our world, especially with the kind of people on Instagram, everyone's like, you know, do you use an infrared or do you use a like dry heat sauna? It's like how, you know, you can optimize so many things in your health. If you're not dialing in your sleep, I would say on the order of important things, it's like sleep, exercise, and nutrition, all the other little tiny things you can do to tweak your health don't really matter. So I always laugh when I see someone ask me, because we have a sauna, and I love the sauna. And they're like, do you think I should get a sauna?

1:21:32Chris Hutchins:And I'm like, how often do you exercise? For longevity purposes. They're like, I want to live longer. Saunas are known to do that. Do you want to get a sauna? Should I get a sauna? How often do you work out? They're like, I'm not really working out right now. I'm like, you know what's going to move the needle on longevity a lot more than a sauna? Exercise. Like, you know, so I think that definitely sleep is important. Definitely nutrition is important. Definitely exercise is important. All those things. Some fun health things that I love. This is a very simple hack. I am really bad when it comes to saying no to eating unhealthy food.

1:22:05Chris Hutchins:Like, you put a plate of cookies in my house, I will eat a lot more cookies than a normal person. so what I've started doing is I don't try to say no don't say no to the cookie say no to the cookie for five minutes give yourself permission to have the cookie just in five minutes and for my brain and the way my psychology works it is so much easier than saying no but in those five minutes I get distracted and all of a sudden I'm like on to some other thing and I forgot about the cookie and then maybe I come up to the kitchen an hour later I let myself eat a cookie and then I say five more minutes till the next one.

1:22:40Chris Hutchins:But old me would have eaten 13 cookies before I even left the kitchen. And so like that is a very simple thing that has actually changed how much unhealthy food I consume in my own house. I also think that if I'm going out to restaurant, I sometimes look at the menu in advance, usually like right after lunch, and I just like decide what I'm going to order for dinner, because I make a much better decision when I'm not hungry at home than when I'm sitting at the restaurant. And if I go to the restaurant, I'm like, that burger looks good. If I'm at home, I'm like, I don't know, that salad looks good.

1:23:15Chris Hutchins:And so I just like pre-commit to what I'm going to order. It's not like I'm calling the restaurant saying when Chris shows up tonight, do not let him order anything. You know, I just, it's like little mental ways to change my perspective in my mind. And it helps so much.

1:23:29Tori Dunlap:Yeah. I'll share two with you that you may have talked about on the show. I love it. One blew my mind a couple months ago and it's so fucking simple. if you want eight hours of sleep you need to be in bed for nine hours like it's so easy but all of us are like okay we're doing the math of like okay if i wake up at seven i gotta go to bed at 11 blah blah and it's like no you're gonna take 20 minutes you know to uh fall asleep you're gonna have to get up and use the bathroom you're gonna toss and turn a little bit like you will not get eight hours of sleep so you need to spend nine hours in bed and like that single-handed i was just like like okay i need to stop doing the mental calculations for eight hours and i need to do the mental calculations for nine and i need to get my ass in bed with nine hours to spare so that's the first one that like was so simple the second is um uh i have a history of diabetes in my family and the order in which you eat your food matters

1:24:24Chris Hutchins:so much do you know about this so much yeah but i've been i mean i'm guessing you've worn like a continuous glucose monitor to even see the data? Oh, I'm not quite that crazy yet.

1:24:32Tori Dunlap:Okay. But no, I like, listen, Glucose Goddess is the one I listened to. Do you know this woman?

1:24:37Chris Hutchins:I know, but I have not, I do not know.

1:24:40Tori Dunlap:Basically, it's like the order in which you eat your food matters so much for our blood sugar and our energy. And even if you are not diabetic, it's like, basically, you don't want to put carbs in first. And you definitely don't want to like have a sweet breakfast. Protein first. Protein first with fiber. So bread often is the first thing that comes out, right? And same thing with your cookie example. I don't, I'm never going to turn down bread, okay? But the bread sits on my plate until the salad comes out. Then I eat the salad and then I eat the bread. So I eat the salad first and then I eat the bread.

1:25:15Tori Dunlap:So just even that has changed my energy level so much. Same thing, I don't drink a lot of coffee. I had a coffee this morning, I know if I drink that coffee on an empty stomach, I am going to be a fucking crazy person all day. So I wait, the coffee sits there. I do not even take a sip. I eat the food and then I get to have a sip. But it's like, it's not deprivation. It's just doing things in a different order. And it's single-handedly changed so much of my life. So I think you have more self-control.

1:25:43Chris Hutchins:My version would be to tell the waiter or the waitress, I'd be like, could you just bring the bread later. Like I see it on other tables.

1:25:49Tori Dunlap:Yeah, I mean, sometimes it doesn't happen. So I will be 100 % honest. If I am ravenous, sorry, I'm eating that bread. But in general, I try to say, okay, I'm at least going to have like two bites of salad, three bites of salad, because the way she describes it, and I think most dieticians and nutritionists describe it the same way, is it's like your body is a sink and what you're shoving down the sink first is the thing that sits there, right? So like you need to think about, okay, I'm going to put veggies and I'm going to put, you know, I'm going to wait to put the fats or the sweets until the rest of it.

1:26:18Tori Dunlap:So that's been super helpful for me.

1:26:20Chris Hutchins:Totally. Now, I would say I've got I've done a lot of like health testing. And to anyone that's interested now, I believe you can get continuous glucose monitors over the counter now. You can. And it's wild because I wore one for a week. And there are a few things that people say are like, for some people, if you put like cinnamon with your carbs, the spike is lower. So I was like, let's experiment with this. Oh, apple cider vinegar is the one I've heard.

1:26:43Tori Dunlap:Apple cider vinegar. Yeah.

1:26:44Chris Hutchins:I'm not even kidding. I would like just experiment. My wife and I had some fun experiments. We were like, what happens if we eat 30 Swedish fish? And it's like, your blood glucose is like literally so high off the charts. It's insane. But when I would eat like cinnamon rolls versus bread, the cinnamon rolls did not spike me as much as bread because I guess my body cinnamon. But when you actually see the data working, you're like, oh, wow, eating my protein before I eat my carbs. You can see that it has an impact and you can try different foods all week. And I would encourage you, the first time I did this, I did not do it.

1:27:17Chris Hutchins:Write things down because it's so interesting in the moment. And then three months later, you're like, wait, what was the thing that spiked my blood glucose? I totally forgot. Or even just take photos and then you can figure it out later. At this point, you could probably export your data, take a photo of every meal. The photo has a timestamp in the data, put it all in chat GPT and say, here's all the food I ate this month. Here's my data. Just tell me what I should and shouldn't eat. Like probably if you're not leveraging AI for almost everything you're doing, it's like having an army of interns for free.

1:27:47Chris Hutchins:And that's just one great hack. But it was so fascinating to see the data that comes off of a continuous glucose monitor. Because then I was like, now I'm changing this thing. And it wasn't just because someone told me, it's because I actually saw it work in my body.

1:28:00Tori Dunlap:Yeah, Chris, you should follow Glucose Goddess because she literally does charts of like cookie, cookie with milk, toast, toast with avocado. Like, and you can see the different spikes. It was, it would just tickle your brain. Okay. I could talk to you for hours. We have to wrap up. Chris, tell me everything about the podcast and newsletter. Where can people find more about you?

1:28:20Chris Hutchins:Everything's at all the hacks.com or chris Hutchins.com. They're the same place. You can search my name. If you're listening to a podcast, just search for it. I would say similar to what we're just talking about. Like I try not to focus on just points and miles. I feel like if you had a podcast that was all about that, a lot of people like me and you, we might just be like, it's too much. So we actually just did an episode on gut health. I'm looking at this board. We've done an episode on happiness, medical tourism. I like to dive into upgrading your life, your money, and your travel. There's a special place in my heart for points and miles.

1:28:50Chris Hutchins:But my goal is every episode, no fluff. Let's just get to the tactics. Let's get to the playbooks. And let's figure out how to dial one area of your life in. And I hope that every single time someone leaves with one thing that will change their life and make them happier, make them healthier, make them feel better. And that is the goal. And so it might be a lot like I'm not just sitting there like shooting the shit, right? Like it's like, I want you to learn and then get back to your busy life. And so you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm always open to people reaching out. You can contact us on the website.

1:29:24Chris Hutchins:Links to everything are there. Yeah, that's where I am.

1:29:28Tori Dunlap:Amazing. Chris, thank you. This was so valuable.

1:29:31Chris Hutchins:Thank you so much. This is a lot of fun.

1:30:00Tori Dunlap:Appreciate you supporting feminist media. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

1:30:06Tori Dunlap:Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100K podcast. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com. If you're confused about your personal finances and you're wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com slash quiz for a free personalized money plan. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant Research by Sarah Shortino Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Midcalf Marketing and operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Lefieux Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K Kaitlyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakmikyeva, Sasha Bonar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Daryl Ann Ingman, Shelby Duclos, Megan Walker, and Jess Hawks Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton Photography by Sarah Wolfe and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.

1:30:59Tori Dunlap:A huge thanks to the entire Her 100K community for supporting our show.

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