I mentioned a last week that I just was not feeling the personal finance vibe (and full disclosure – totally went out and ate a chimichanga immediately after writing, though I did manage to forgo a bunch of liquor and buying any clothes so…. kind of a win… or a personal finance bloggers fail too story… whatever).

Then I remembered one of the things that really motivated me when I was paying off my student loans was frugality – because there’s always a new trick you can learn or skill you can pick up when you’re aiming to maximize your frugality. That kind of constant involvement kept me motivated.

So I thought – I’m planning to go to Hawaii in less than 3 months with the best friend who is not frugal at all. I’ve got a rough budget of $3,500 though I’m willing to go as high as $4,000… but why not see how low I can actually get my spending while not compromising on any of the quality one would expect of a vacation at that price?

So that’s the new challenge and since we’re just starting to sort out our plans right now, my first thought was to try to do a little travel hacking and I realized that over the next 5 or so months, I do have about $2,000 in expenses coming up – some I’ve already saved up for, but could theoretically be paid for with gift cards.

If I spend $4,000 within 3 months, I can collect a $625 travel credit through the Chase Sapphire Credit Card. This is my most ambitious spend yet, but here’s my current plan.

Pay for my car insurance for the year ($1,100). Pay for as many miscellaneous wedding expenses for the best friend’s wedding from that fully funded savings account that I can (between $400-$900) – so already halfway there.

It’s like fate knew I was trying to hit a minimum spend and I lucked out and got a speeding ticket this week. Well… lucked out is not the word or anything, but I’m gonna hold onto this silver lining to make me feel less stupid about my driving habits. Add $250.

I also just opened a PNC Virtual Wallet account with a $2,000 deposit from my card – after reading about 50 articles that claim it will not be billed as a cash advance, but as a purchase.

We’ll see how that actually goes. I’m willing to take the risk, because by opening the account with $2,000, I also get a $200 bonus, as long as I leave it open for 6 months with a balance of at least $2,000 at all times. This means that if I have angered the credit card gods, hopefully the $200 bonus will mitigate that and I’ll just have learned something new that doesn’t work.

So for the next 6 months, most of my down payment savings, for the house I don’t plan to buy for several years, will be stored in this PNC account and I will use the $2,000 already in that savings account with another bank to pay off the credit card balance.

Part of the reason why I think this will work well is because I know I have the liquid savings to be able to do this. If most of this is going smoothly over the next three weeks or so, I may apply for a second card with a smaller rewards but only a $1,000 spend and see if I can hit that too.

I haven’t figured out a reason why this shouldn’t work yet, but to me it’s another example of why having ample savings is really useful. I’m able to turn over some of the money in my bank account to buy gift cards that will act as money, and I’ll be able to use my actual income to replace the money in the savings accounts. And overall I’ll be able to shave off at least $600, if not more, of this trip.

Now I just have to see if my money juggling skills are actually boss-like or if this whole plan is going to go down in flames.

 

Anyone else got any tips for how to lower the price of a Hawaiian vacation? Or warnings of things not to do on my hacking/savings/thrifting spree?

Or suggestions of what island to go to and what to see? Turns out Hawaii is huge and you can’t even come close to seeing all of it in one week. I want to see a volcano and go to a luau – those are my main Hawaiian goals.