Well, despite all the holiday overspending, I worked some math magic and managed to keep $1000 of surplus money for December. Today I transferred it over into savings to make sure I won't be tempted to spend it on anything except our renovation!
I realized recently that my tooth implant is coming up next week! I need to start applying for credit cards so I can charge my bills to them and recoup some of the costs.
There don't seem to be any big offers out there (besides the Chase Sapphire spend $3K get $400 -- and actually it's a bit sweeter because there's a 5K point bonus if you add someone to the card -- so could be $450), but there are still several "spend $500 get X" offers out there. I just need to decide whether I'm really going to commit to opening 10 cards, spending $500 on each and getting whatever back for each. With three adults, I could do it pretty easily if I divided it between Chase Freedom, Capital One, BankAmericard, NFL (Barclaycard), and Citi Dividend. Chase Freedom offers $200 for $500 of spending; the others offer $100 for $500.
I've never opened that many in quick succession, but I don't suppose there's any issue with it. I have 12 active cards between the three of us; I should probably close a few first, but for various reasons I need to keep them all open except two. (Five of them are permanent cards; three I want open until we go on our vacation in case there's any problem; two I'm waiting on the bonus points to hit the account.)
If I successfully opened 10 cards this month, we'd have 22 between three people. That's a crazy number, though I suppose as long as it was temporary it wouldn't be a big deal. I could close two of them today, another one in about a week probably, and another one near the end of the month. Three more can be closed in late February. That would take it down to 15, and then I could close the 10 new ones as soon as I received the bonuses (within a month or two) and that would bring it down to 5 cards.
It sounds like such a pain, and a potential hit to my credit score. But it would give us $1100 back for paying $5000 in dental bills, if we were approved for all 10 cards. And we're not going to need our credit score for a couple more years at least.
What to do, what to do?
First chunk saved for the bathroom renovation; dental bill planning
December 31st, 2013 at 05:03 pm
December 31st, 2013 at 05:14 pm 1388510071
December 31st, 2013 at 09:07 pm 1388524037
I think this is going to make me sick of doing the shuffle for these little rewards; I'll probably take a break from it unless some new big offers come along.
December 31st, 2013 at 09:26 pm 1388525162
Does your plan mean AS, NT and you each apply for these new CCs to maximize spend X cash back Y each? I understand keeping the oldest CC but once you've received the cash back benefits what's the point of keeping the card 'active'? Just lock the purchases completed CCs in the safe. Line up the cards to use in date order and max out benefits? What do you imagine 'going wrong' with your newer cards? Since you are paying the balance by the due date, does it matter which of 22 cards are used on vacation?
Just down right curiosity about bthrm remodel...Will you have any plumbing [location] changed? Do you plan to buy any of the materials on sale or are your leaving all procurement to the contractor? What criteria will you use to decide what level of product to buy? Will you use a decorator/designer? They are often cost effective since their contacts offer wholesale pricing. Will you, NT, and AS do any of the demolition or common DIY tasks like painting? Will you attempt to re-sell any of the existing stuff?
While we've never done a 'serious' bathrm update/upgrade, we've survived two major kitchen remodels. In retrospect, the most difficult part was that it took much longer than the contractor's schedule. Keeping our regular daily life going while stuff was displaced, every room disrupted with stuff, daily whining by all 4 of us, unexpected debris, dust, mess. I'd done a lot of planning and I may have well done none! If I do this again, I'm moving in with a friend or relative for the duration. I'm afraid to go away as I've seen those Mike Holmes disaster shows on HGTV.
January 1st, 2014 at 12:53 am 1388537620
I have never done a remodel before either, so I'm flying blind! We'll start to price things out in a month or two, and assess what we think we can do ourselves vs. what we'll hire people to do. I don't think we'll do anything major like moving appliances because of the limited budget, and because we're just trying to get it in good shape for an eventual sale. All the places for sale in our buildings have updated bathroom fixtures, so we need it to be competitive.
I'm excited because this will be a good test for whether we'll be up to buying a fixer-upper when we move or whether we really hate remodeling and prefer something that's ready to move in.