From Losing Dream Jobs to Booking First-Class Flights: Reinventing Success with Daryn Kagan and The Miles Husband

28:25The idea that you have your own thing like this, like what I have, it's just unheard of unheard of and you know when you came on my podcast and we were talking about this you talked about how when you were one of the early people to go out and start and create your thing and people told you are you nuts look look you're gonna give up all this and you said actually yes I am because this is not what you promised it was going to be to me when I started for sure I was Yeah. 21 when I got my dream job. 25 when I lost my dream job. I tried to reframe it at the time. It was really, really hard for me.

29:05Was there a year that you felt like it sunk in, that you weren't under the covers anymore? Like how long did that process take? So if they told me in January and I finally left in September and I launched in November, probably it was spring or summer. And where the idea came from was, so Yahoo at the time, which was big, had hired, gosh, now I'm forgetting his name. CNN had a war correspondent and they hired him to go to like every bad place in the world for a year. It was like the war room or something. I can't believe I can't remember his name. Anyhow, so I'm like, well, you can do that? Like you can have a website where you just go do the kind of news you want to go do.

29:50And then just like as an intellectual exercise, I asked myself, well, if I did that, like what would be mine? And it was clear. It was like, I always loved uplifting and positive news. And I said, I would love just to do uplifting and positive news. So I went through somebody through somebody. I actually had a meeting with Yahoo. Can I tell you my pitch? Because to this day, I think it is a very. Let's go. Okay. So you go on yahoo.com. You can get your stocks, your sports, your news, your war. Where's the Yahoo in Yahoo? Click on Yahoo and get uplifting and positive news. Like, give me that. That pitch didn't land.

30:28Never heard from them again. But then it was my little sister who kind of said, what are you doing? Like, why are you giving this idea away? Go create a website and hire yourself. Go do good news. Well, because for so many years you were covering the worst news. I was. But when I had my own for that for that big stretch, I had my own show on CNN. I could realize I was getting ready. I was creating segments like, oh, let's do our uplifting story of the day. I was booking this kind of guests that were doing people who were changing the world. And so there were little spaces. Yeah. But overall, it was doom and gloom and death and destruction.

31:06And I don't know if you had nightmares. I would, after Virginia Tech, I was on the air for a lot of hours and I would have lots of nightmares. Did it affect you in that way? I mean, sadly, I, with news, I could talk about the worst things in the world and get off that set and be a goldfish. And I couldn't, we could go to lunch that day and you go, what happened? Now, I can't see any horror movies like fiction and Bad Dream to this day. I can't. I don't know why. Fiction affects me that way. News? So the good news wasn't a response to all of the bad news. Oh, just kind of more what I'm drawn to anyway.

31:44Sunshine and puppies and babies. Thinking back, I was also single when I was let go. And it was this weird time where I was like, do I stay in Atlanta? Do I not? I don't know. And I thought I was just going to be broke alone and homeless and die in the gutter, which is still my fear. And have that work out. I think it's working out a little bit different for you, Nicole. Although it's very funny that this woman that was pregnant on your street told you how freeing it is. Because just yesterday we had an interview of a woman who came in. And I was like, oh, yeah, I haven't seen you. Lots of stuff happened.

32:20I got married, had a baby, house burned down in that order. She's like, is that freeing? I was like, well, nobody's ever asking me that. But interesting question. and just losing everything that you've ever owned. Which could be a little insensitive, I think, for someone. And maybe that was insensitive for her to say that. I just felt like the three things I always wanted to be, a wife, a mother, and have a career. Here I was, I was 40, I'm in the early 40s, and I've done none of it. I have no claim on any of it. I don't have the guy who wants me. I don't have the baby. I had a great dog and a three-legged cat and some chickens.

32:57But the career didn't want me. The guy didn't want me. And I, yeah. So what was this all for? And it wasn't for lack of trying in all those departments. But fast forward, I wish that current Darren could talk. Oh, it should have had so many conversations. When she was leaving CNN, what would present Darren say to her? It's all going to be fine. He's on the way. He's taken a long time to get here. But he's on the way. And he's worth the wait. Yeah. Oh, not only was he worth the wait, but the person I am today to be with him was worth the wait. That honestly, and you're going to get to meet him and talk with him, but I wouldn't have dated him when I was at CNN.

33:42So how did you meet? We met through the same gay boyfriends who introduced me to Margaret, Craig and Michael. I owe them everything, my money and my husband. I was a third wheel. They had a son. you know in Atlanta there's these springtime festivals and I'd gone with them and their son to Summerfest in Virginia Highlands and I was with one of the dads Michael and Craig went to the funnel cake line and in the funnel cake line he found himself standing behind a fellow dad who had a little girl at the school where his son went and just kind of casually invited them over like oh a bunch of us are sitting and they come walking across the field and Michael starts punching me in the arm going single single incoming single i'm like i'm hot and i'm sweaty and i'm like yeah michael today's not the day and he sat down and we met and it was loud i mean it's not like the most it was like that man moment was magic but we met and then they left and then michael looked at me and said well what'd you think and i went he's like well that's more than i've heard out of you i hadn't like dated in four years so michael went on the pta contact list and reached out to the man we know as the husband today and to say you know just wondering are you in a relationship and are you you know available and he wrote back that it's complicated and i heard that and i'm like okay i don't do complicated and forgot about it but like a month later he emailed me and asked me out to coffee and here we are what happened next so we went out for long coffee then he ghosted me for a few weeks and then he popped back again and so his story was he was a single dad married had a child and they got divorced and his ex-wife died so he when we met he was raising he was single dad raising his daughter alone I had never actually dated anybody with kids which I can't believe I went that far but let alone I mean it's one thing to relate to date a divorced dad, but he was like a full-time single dad.

35:46It was just him and his daughter. And so we went to dinner and I said, well, how does a single dad date? And he said, well, how does therapist Joe say I should date? Or how do I date? I'm like, let's start with therapist Joe. He said, therapist Joe said that he's certainly allowed to date, but he should keep it separate from his daughter because she has already experienced loss. She's already lost her mother. and he's like yeah that's not how I date but having a therapist is a green flag yes oh there are a lot of green flags about him actually if you want the ultimate green flag date a man who's a father because you see it's it's fast forward I kept investing in these single guys thinking oh they'll turn into this but this was kind of like rooms to go like you could see like you know how like on social media now let's get to the good part like you see him in the good part like you could see oh wait he is he is on this earth to be of like a husband and a father like this is how he does it there's no question anyhow we dated a couple years we got married I legally adopted her so that was my sideways into motherhood and then the year before I met them I'd signed up to be a big sister in the big brother big sister program and because of what was happening in that little girl's life she came to live with us full-time so I went from single no kids to married with two little girls, with exactly the girls, the kids I was meant to have the whole time.

37:08No angst of, oh, I need a biological child. And that's how we became this family. Wow. So I would have told her, to go back to your question, I would have told Darren, sad, Darren, what you want is not coming. What's coming is better than you could ever dream for yourself because it's bigger and better and exactly what was supposed to happen. And that's what I would tell her. I'm so, so in the deepest part of my soul, happy to hear you say that. And he, I would love, he's here. I see him from my eye line. I'd love to invite him on because you guys have also, in addition to being in love and parents, get free flights in the most fascinating ways.

37:58Before we do, I just want to say, because I know your demographic is that 30 something, 30 to 40 woman. Like the demographic is who I was. And it's not just women who are worried about money, but it's women worried about like where are all the good guys. And I would just say, just know he's on the way. And that that family can look very different than what you think it's supposed to be. And when you open your mind to that, like the magic can really happen. you never gave up on that dream. It just, Oh no, I gave up. Oh, you did? Yeah. When did you give up? Right before? Right before. Yeah. It's so funny.

38:37I gave up on the dream right before I met my husband. And that they go, Oh, once you give up. I know I hate cliches, but it's true. Like I really, really, I gave it lip service for a long time. I was like, no, it's fine. But then I really believed I was like, I am, I'm fine. I wrote through what life would be like as a mother for you know women that I was talking to was like a different kind I really rethought it and like I imagined what that was and I was actually cool with it and then the husband I had so let go of it that when I met Trent who you're about to meet one of the things I thought was so hot about him is that he was a single dad so I thought oh he's busy Monday through Friday I'll only see him on the weekends that's perfect I have my weeks to myself and he was the one who said no hold on like if we're not really going for this like i became the non-committal one and he became the one who's like look are you in this are you not i was like weren't that sexy yeah well he like kind of got it's whipped me in shape i'm like oh okay he knew what he wanted he knew he knew the value that was in front of him like a smart smart man well no he was clear about what he wanted and he wasn't sure that i was that like if i didn't if i wasn't going to be all in he was not interested in somebody who just wanted to see him on the weekends he wanted a full-time relationship first time I ever found one of those people and so I married him so you gave up and then you un-gave up yes exactly but I truly truly gave up gave up yeah I know why is it like that all the time that's one of the physics of love in addition to all of his amazing attributes you call him so my term of endearment is husband not sweetheart or sweetie or whatever because I can't think of a more a bigger term of endearment since I never thought I would get one of those so I just call him husband that's like my sweetheart name and so then he'll call me wife and yeah I love it and then branded him miles husband which we will why do we call him miles husband because about the time we started dating he came up with a points and miles system to completely organize our finances.

40:42So every dollar we spend brings a point or a mile or multiples of that back so that we're able to travel the world in luxury while spending pennies. Hell yes. And my friends were like, how do I do that? Like, this is what we do. Let's brand you. So I said, you're Miles' husband. I grabbed mileshusband.com, built him his social media. We did some media training. We'll see how I did and set him on his way. Let's meet up. I'm so excited. So, so honored to say, Trent Swanson, aka Miles' husband, welcome to Money Rehab. So glad to be here. So you just heard Darren recount your romance. Anything surprise you?

41:26I was a bit disentangled at the time. She, in fact, wasn't having a great day because she was still mourning the loss of her prior relationship, yet somewhat dated historical relationship. It had been a while, but that particular person, yeah, yeah. Explain the tears coming out of your... The reason I was spending so much time with Craig and Michael on that particular weekend was the person I had dated four years previous was getting married that weekend. And I was as brokenhearted as if we had broken up the weekend before. And so the weekend that Craig and Michael were keeping me busy, busy, busy is the weekend I met my future husband so when so what are the tears me and is it the bad band music in back is it it's too hot out is it you know why are there tears coming down oh that's when he yeah so our first meeting she was crying yeah so when you guys got together you started an experiment right where you're just trying to get free tickets to miami so i read a column written around right around 2012 where person said take advantage of this promotion you know which is buy a pair of shoes at a specific merchant through a specific technique and you get enough points and miles for two free first class tickets to miami it's like oh what is this nonsense that's impossible right if everyone could do this there would be no more flights and so i said well let me just try it so i read the very short succinct article read it followed the steps two weeks later had enough points for these free tickets in hand And then I thought it was the greatest thing in the world because I thought the Nirvana, the best place to be was flying in a recliner seat on American Airlines for a two hour flight.

43:10I thought that was the pinnacle because I didn't know. Total newbie. So we did it, loved it. Then I started to think, wait, are these techniques scalable such that I can outsize, upsize, upscale, up elegant for similar amount of work? can I do that and really make this thing phenomenal? And so that's how Miles' husband, the hobby, was born. I think the branding came from Darren a couple years later. Yeah, yeah. So that was the beginning. That was the gateway drug, those pair of shoes. And then I was like, oh, if I order this this way. And then, oh, he started with credit cards. And I mean, there'd been some pretty crazy things.

43:56the day we got married so we got married next to a waterfall which is us and our two girls and we drove from atlanta to north carolina and we're up in the highway we're all in our wedding gear and he gets off the highway and pulls into the cd motel i'm like what are you doing and what were you called a mattress run so what so yeah back in the day i guess it's going back 12 years now almost no more 2012 yeah so you could achieve loyalty status by the number of stays at a given hotel in a hotel chain. The amount of dollars per night didn't matter. It's just, did you get a stay credit? You compile enough of these stay credits, you get to the elite status, which gives you upgrades, big, sweet rooms, nice, big breakfasts, especially internationally.

44:39So there's a technique that used to work, still somewhat does work, is where you can check into a hotel and not stay. So you get a great rate, you check in, you leave and you check out by phone or not check out at all. and you just go to your account and you see your elite status credits post them pretty soon. And if Mattress runs, we'll get you fantastic benefits. It's on the way to get there. Because you had a job. That's a job. Right. Yeah, this is a side hustle job, passion. Jobby. Yeah. But it's grown since then. So you got these free tickets to Miami. You got the coveted lay flat seat. Not on that one.

45:20That was a recliner. A recliner seat. You got the coveted recliner. That's where we started. And I realized the same techniques. Adding a few other techniques can get you butlers and showers in the sky and Krug champagne and not only a life flat beds, but the entire suite, which has walls and a ceiling with your butler window. You can do the same things on those luxury airlines, Emirates, Edad, JL. So that's where the scale makes the time investment really, really pay off. Because you guys have pictures, Gloria's pictures, and Emirates with the butler. You went to Japan for$5. And 60 cents. Sorry.

46:03You went to Japan for$5 and 60 cents. So how do you strategize? This is really a growing business. The credit cards are the credit card points. Purchases are the largest profitable segment of the airline business. And so it's a really big space out. There's a lot of noise. But the real strong signal is, you know, as a normie who wants to travel luxuriously, the best thing to do is build out a plan on where you want to go. How many people are going? What's the minimum class of service? and how flexible is your calendar. So answering those four questions will drive you to earn the exact types of airline points, the exact type of bank points where you can most efficiently redeem those for that travel and also with the least amount of out-of-pocket spend.

46:55Because when I first heard about this, you do to my friend where you say, I'm not going to tell you when we're coming home or where we're going or how we're getting home, but we're going in business class. I do like that part. or first class. What? Why? So there's two parts of it. There's the earning side. How do you earn the most and best points? And that's kind of what Tone was talking about. And then there's the burn side. How do you actually find the tickets? Because I'm sure anybody who's listening, who's interested about miles and points has tried to go and book a ticket and either can't find it.

47:26Like, what do you mean I need a million points? So there's the earn side to get good on and the burn side. So let's go to the earn side. What's the best way? So what's more important though, is you really work on your vision. You define that vision. Answer those four questions. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to go? What class of service? How many travelers? How wide or narrow is your window, date window, right? And so answer those questions. That's the burn site, right? That will tell you exactly the template for the earn site. And so you have to kind of work backward, reverse engineer this, because what really happens here at LAX, right?

48:02People show up with a pile of American points in a pile of SkyMiles, right? I want to go and fly the Etihad Butler with my SkyMiles. Well, guess what? You didn't tell us that in the beginning. You didn't lay out your vision. And so what did you do instead? You collected blindly these series of loyalty points without knowing how they're even redeemable. If you only drink the Pete's Cafe Mocha, why are you earning Starbucks star points? Like you're never going to be able to use those at Pete's. Go to a car dealership. You say you want a car. The dealer, instead of asking you the qualifying questions, family, van, sports car, snow tires, and city takes you to the car that has the highest dealer holdback percentage.

48:48All right. So that's what you really want to avoid is you want to earn points and spend your money with a purpose. You purposefully earn the points exactly targeted to the luxury tour, the luxury destination and location that you want. And that's one of the big secrets of loyalty points is if you lay out that model, it becomes more simple, less out-of-pocket spend, and you don't earn points that you'll never have a strategy to redeem. Because every dollar you spend earning an airline mile costs you two percentage points in discount. Because most people who want a travel coach to see grandmother in Tulsa should probably just get a 2 % cash back card and then write a check to themselves every month, put it in a dowry, travel grandma, travel dowry, and go in there and buy your ticket with cash.

49:41That's the simplest way for folks who want to really travel in economy class domestically. But like producer Morgan was saying, she and her husband still want to take a honeymoon. So let's reverse engineer that. So what would be the best way to get her to, I don't know, where do you want to go? Fiji? Find a partner who wants to go on a honeymoon with you. Check. We got that. So let's say Hawaii. We want to go to Hawaii. No, we have to dream bigger than Hawaii. Okay. Okay. Where do we want to go? You know, it's funny because you guys brought it up. Japan is so cool. Perfect. Great. You know nothing about it.

50:15Don't know where to go. Perfect. Let's use Japan. So great. And you're going to be traveling from West Coast or East? Okay. So Japan from the East Coast. And it's interesting because in the past two weeks, literally the entire mechanism so the destination and vision didn't change but the mechanism to earn the best points changed because a credit card issuer created a new partnership with Japan Airlines so Capital One introduced a brand new partnership and introduced a 30 % bonus where you transfer a point and get 30 % extra so they created this big spin-up and so So the best way to do this now is if you have Capital One miles, you get 30 % more than you would.

51:00Otherwise, now, the other challenge is this, is as you're looking at this redemption side, the biggest mystery that most folks misunderstand or dismiss is inventory is tightly controlled. So if you go up delta.com or any airline.com, buy the ticket, your credit card, the inventory is pretty much infinite. There's 200 seats on the plane. You can buy any of those 200 seats. Award inventory is tightly controlled. Between one, zero, one, and nine seats are made available. So the trick is what's the propensity and tendency? How many tickets are made available? What's the cadence of release? When those are taken, are they replenished?

51:46When are they replenished? So let me get back to your question, why? What is this wait till the last minute? Because the last minute is a huge reward inventory replenishment scheme. So 72 hours out or less, the seats that are not going to be sold with cash are flipped over to this rewards bucket of inventory. And that's what you can really redeem points at the very last minute. So one of the tricks is a wait till last minute to get the best inventory, which is contra the most of our thinking. Right. But for example, last summer, the summer of 24, we went to Japan. We were like Morgan, her husband, but he we do.

52:24We like to do what's called a spin the wheel vacation where we say, OK, we know we're going to go at this time and he'll figure out where we can go. And so we knew we were going to travel. It was like the first week of June. We had a like 12 day window. So we locked that window. It's one of the four questions. Right. What's your window? So we locked in that window and really limited our universe of what we could do based upon that. So while the window was locked in, I went to research which loyalty programs released which award inventory for which airlines. How do you know that, the inventory?

52:57Is there a site? Every loyalty program publishes their award inventory. And if you track it frequently enough, you can track the trends, the ups and downs when it stays flat, what triggers replenishment, whether it's first class. But it all real starts with creating that vision. You know, I'm going to Japan. What should I do? And the big part of this Capital One JAL relationship is every loyalty program by rule generates its list of available inventory on a calendar. some of those go as far out as 360 days into the future whereas others go only go 330 days in the future so that difference between 30 330 and 360 if you have access to the inventory at day 360 you will steal it from the program who only gets access at day 330 so how do i if i'm going to Japan, I know I have two first class seats on every flight out of Dallas, one out of LA, one out of JFK, three out of O 'Hare.

54:08How am I going to get myself to O 'Hare for the greatest chance of that award inventory opening up? And the first thing you have to do is say, I've got to get access to the program. We're at 360 days in advance. I can buy it and lock it in as opposed to waiting for 330 days when everyone's already picked over the inventory and that seat that you want is not going to be there. But even if Morgan just starts with, this is where we're going and starts collecting the right kind of points, she and her husband are going to be light years ahead of most people who come to you and say, oh, will you help me book my dream vacation?

54:38And I have the wrong points. Sure. It's right. And so the Capital One Venture Card is great for that. Any of the Amex cards are great for that because they have access to that loyalty program who has inventory earlier than its competitors have it for the very same seat on the very same airplane. Not sponsored by Capital One. It's a little bit of a Rubik's cube. But if you start without focus and realize I need to have enough miles and points earned 360 or 330 days in advance, then that's how you lay out your scheme. So you're looking 12, 18 months in the future and realizing I need to have a certain accumulation of the right currency.

55:20So when the inventory comes available, I immediately know where to go and I lock it in. Okay. So how did you guys get there for$5? How can Morgan get to Japan for$5? Okay. Well, yeah, our Japan story. So you found, we knew we were going to spin the wheel. We were going to go somewhere. I think it was a Thursday. And he said, we can do Japan, JAL first class, but we have to get to Chicago by Tuesday. So we had a 96 hour notice and we already had our date windows. is we knew our minimum class of service. We had our dog sitter lined up. We knew where we wanted to go. And so the only challenges that we had is to get from Savannah to O 'Hare.

55:59And there was a nonstop on American and we used to use some points for that too. So that's how we did it. Now it's difficult to lay out the recipe without naming credit card issuers who are not sponsors. What the best technique is going to do to be is you want to earn points in a loyalty program that has access to long 360-day inventory. So JAL and Cathay Pacific are two that have access to that. So their program is called Asia Miles. So you open up an Asia Miles account. Which is free. Which is free. And you would pursue those banks who have relationships with Asia Miles. I believe it's Amex, Capone, and C all have relations, meaning you can transfer points into there.

56:49and you want to pursue the single bank that has a relationship with JAL, which is Capital One. We currently have a bonus of 30%. So understanding those relationships, you can earn points from many, many banks and many, many programs. But what program do these points need to be sitting in? What bucket? So I can book the ticket. What's the bucket they need to be in by when to book that ticket? And that's really the mechanism to make this happen. So explain the window thing to me. So around that time, 330 days before, you're going to call the airlines? Some airlines. So really, it's the loyalty program.

57:29So the place that you deposit earn points into and the place you pull the points from is the loyalty program. They own the award inventory. So if you look at Delta, SkyTeam is their alliance. Delta owns its own inventory for its own flights. They also share some inventory on their partners here, France, Virgin Atlantic. But the loyalty program determines on whose planes, whether it's their own planes or a partner planes, what inventory gets made available. So you've got to get your points in that loyalty program. You have to know when is the highest propensity for award seats to be released on that program for the destination that you want to go to.

58:09Of course, you have to know how much it costs. generally these award charts are static in terms of price don't change very much from time to time there's an overnight inflation or a price increase you have to watch out for but if you if you're loyal to the right programs that have a low propensity to do that you're somewhat i guess immune from inflation airline loyalty is an interesting thing in chasing status because that runs a lot of people you talk with them about that a lot like a lot of people oh i've got to make gold i got to make diamond i've got to whatever make and you're not a big fan of chasing status well i you know we we um as a test method last year we earned um advantage executive platen like the highest status except for concierge key which is invite only and so we did it with fly by flying zero miles so we on americans right yeah tell them how you did that so with milk hits So their Americans program rewards, and Delta is getting more this way, they have partnerships, anywhere from meal kits to hoteliers to different tangential travel companies to muffin manufacturers.

59:21So if you're a partner ecosystem and you spend your money using a city car, city AA card, you will earn this concept of loyalty points. And if you reach 150 ,000, is it, you become city executive platinum. So I found a way by looking at all their partners and all of their price lists of their stuff. And I did, okay. Combination of what's the cheapest, what's the most utility to the family. So don't buy junk just to get stat. Buy something that has high utility to the family and which gives you the biggest multiple of those points. So I built like a little three-way algorithm and I found out a technique where I could buy over and over and over again.

1:00:05And we made executive platinum. And so. By eating dinner. So, but that's great news. But then, you know, what's the benefit of that? It's, am I going to get upgraded with my super diamond elite status? Or am I going to sit there like number three or four on your upgrade list and be sitting in the same darn seat everyone else's? And so the challenge is you even see it in Delta. They, by strategy, no longer upgrade these diamonds because why? I can come as a non-status member the day of or the day before. I can check in and I can get a cash promo pushed to my mobile phone. Oh, upgrade your coach ticket for$299.

1:00:40And I cut the knees out of the hard loyalty earner who's working so hard to earn double, triple diamond. And I come in as a no one and I spend a very little amount of money and I get you the seat that they should be giving to you. That's nice. I think a lot of people also hoard their points. They do. They hoard. Well, they hoard them because of a perceived value and they will have value. But if you're hoarding points without the plan to redeem them. Because they could lose value at any minute. Well, I mean, I think the big debate in the points and miles space, and part of it is the incentive to keep buying my credit card, keep clicking my link.

1:01:21I get$200 in my pocket every time you apply and get approved. That's part of the driver. So what they'll say is use your points because they keep devaluing over time steadily. And while that might be true on its face, the point, the value of a point is always a function of the value of the retail price of the ticket. And so as ticket prices have gone up 10, 20, 30 % over the past three years and the award pricing remains constant, the value of your point of your unspent point is even higher now than it was. We end our episodes, you guys know, with a tip that listeners can take straight to the bank.

1:02:01Is there another one we haven't extracted yet? I think earning points in miles, there are several techniques to do it. The largest and quickest, most efficient way is through credit card signups. There are other ways we didn't get into very much other than the Capital One. I think signing up for credit cards is a serious business. So self-examine. Will you pay your statement in time? Or will you borrow against it, right? And so look at your own self-finance. Do you have enough cash to spend$5 ,000 in a 90-day period to get$80 ,000,$100 ,000 bonus points? So self-discipline is super important because it's 25 % interest rates, you know, compounding monthly.

1:02:45It's too expensive to screw up. So credit is really important. You know, be careful. I think the number one tip is go to one of the publicly traded, go to Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, do a self-assessment check. Don't click on their credit card links because they offer inferior credit cards and they haven't asked you the top four questions. So don't buy from someone who hasn't qualified you. So do a self-check. Look at number of accounts you have open. Look at your credit score, any delinquencies. You'll get healthy first because you'll need that to buy a house. You'll need that to buy a car to get the best rates.

1:03:19You need that to add a bankruptcy. So yeah, look at that. Treat credit as an asset, but treat it seriously and don't get overextended. Don't go into debt for points.

1:03:32Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.