Leap of Faith (Flowchart)

Note:  The miles game is constantly changing.  As of now you can no longer buy Vanilla Reloads with credit card at CVS, and vanilla brand Visa cards can no longer be used to reload bluebird at Walmart. (6/21/14)

Today I was emailing with a friend who also plays the miles game and is into the early retirement philosophy.

We were comparing notes and he seemed a little surprised by the sheer number of credit card applications that my family completes in a year.

Despite not having any ethical reservations about manufacturing spend, he still had not taken the jump.

From what I can gather his reservations were that the undertaking would be difficult to keep track of, and possibly risky.

In my conversations with friends, I’ve been struck time and again by how complex manufactured spending seems when explained (despite how simple it is to execute in reality.)

I know it is simple, because all of my friends who have tried it, just picked it up very quickly and without much difficulty.

I know the risk is minimal, because I’ve watched my credit score like a hawk throughout the entire process and have seen no loss of credit score.

I  previously tried to explain The process in this post (and others), but questions linger.

What to do?

The answer is obvious. This calls for a flowchart! And one with not many boxes!

I’ve included links to my previous posts and others from around the blogosphere below so you have the best resources possible along the way.

So without further ado I present

Manufactured spending 101, flowchart edition.

1. Link to Bluebird Application.

2. Vanilla Reloads:  Why they are great.  

3. How to Load Vanilla reloads onto Bluebird.

4. How to load Visa Gift Cards onto Bluebird at Walmart (gag) note if no kiosk or kiosk out of order, just go to customer service or money center and load it there with an employee.

5. How to use Blue Bird Bill Pay.

6.  See 5!

7. (No current tutorial, but its intuitive…trust me.)

8. And for god’s sake don’t forget about Amazon payments. and (tutorial)

9.  And if you are going to get one Bluebird, shouldn’t your spouse get in on the action?

(Using 2 Bluebirds and Amazon Payments you should be able to manufacture $11000 a month spending, in about 3 hours, for about $80 all in, netting you a minimum of $2000 in travel value from credit card bonuses.  Do you really make more than $640/hour***?  I don’t.)

***640$/hour is a conservative estimate as to the value of using manufactured spending to get credit card sign up bonuses and this is why:

1. There is almost no six card Churn who’s spending requirements cannot be met with $33,000 in three months.

2. I have never made less than 250,000 miles/points from a six card churn. (and the $2000 Assumption is based on only 200,000 miles gained.)

3. Assuming this level of manufactured spending, you should be able to meet the requirements for a six card churn for you and your spouse every three months.

4. Given that it may actually take a month and a half of manufactured spending to meet requirements, I could lower the hourly wage to $427 an hour but…

5. This ignores the fact that Miles are not taxed! ( see this post)  So at the highest marginal tax rate those miles are actually worth closer to $854/hour!

6. The money you make from the manufactured spending itself  is not included in this calculation. That’s just pure gravy.

7. Most miles are worth well more than one cent per mile, which actually increases the value of your labor conservatively by at least 50%!

Take home: there is big value to be had from manufactured spending in the miles game! It will be more than worth your time if you enjoy it.