Reflections of 2019 – Normality (and Other Life Changing Events)

Nice view! – Bali

2019 was our 7th full year of post-work life and probably our most “normal” year to date – we lived in a normal city, Jr went to a normal school, and we did normal life things. It was nice. And different.

We did manage ~5 weeks of travel vacation (Thailand, Vietnam, Bali) and I took most of the summer off from anything with a screen, which was also very wholesome and normal and nice.

So of course something happened that will completely change our lives, forever.

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Introduction to Award Travel – Award Travel Series

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GCC: Welcome to the new Go Curry Cracker Award Travel series, featuring author and master travel hacker Brandon Chase. How to travel further/cheaper/more often/more luxuriously has been a much requested topic and it has finally arrived.

“Travel Hacking”, “Award Travel”, “The Hobby” – whatever you call it, the concept is the same: leveraging rewards programs to travel more frequently and luxuriously while paying less out of pocket.

In an age of dizzying advertisements and nonstop promotions from banks, hotels, and airlines all vying for your eyes and dollars it can be difficult to decipher the most advantageous programs to focus your attention on. However, if you are able to distill the overwhelming amount of noise down to useful and actionable strategies, the benefits can be incredible. I’m here to help you do that.

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“Free” Coffee For Life

Sometime recently there was a big hubbub about a personal finance personality saying, and I do paraphrase, “If you didn’t spend $5/day on coffee you would have $1 million at retirement.” (Orman, maybe?)

Anyhoo, the responses went something like:

“You can’t save your way to wealth!”

“Nobody gets rich saving $5!”

“F you! I like my coffee!”

My response was a little more incredulous… “Coffee costs $5?!”

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