Man, oh, man. I was going to wait until tomorrow to publish this follow-up to the last post, but it kicked up some dust, so I wanted to own up. Yessir, it’s an April Fool’s Day joke. Sorry for any confusion! It would have been too obvious on April 1st in the US, so I used the alternate time zone. The hardest part was creating realistic names. Here’s where I got “Van“‘s name:
I do indeed write all the posts (minus attributed guest posts) myself. As _Jon put it in the comments: “a personal blog shouldn’t be work, it should be a passion. If you need to outsource it, you have the wrong motivation.”
I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I’m here writing the posts, including the stupid ones (man crush anyone?). I love hanging out—virtually or in-person—with you guys.
This little prank has been in my head since Jan. 10th, when the infamous Tucker Max suggested a much better version that I was unable to pull off due to this London trip… Read More
We are currently launching the new blog design and functionality - please play around. If anything looks off or isn’t working, let us know! Still working on getting everything running smoothly.
Postscript: A few questions:
1. LOL… some of you have said that one of the header photos is creepy. Which one? Just refresh and they should rotate. I’m assuming from the “too dark” comments that it’s the sunset from Panama — will yank that soon :)
2. Are the top photos rotating for everyone? Hit refresh and they should. Refresh a few times, as they might repeat here and there since it’s randomized.
I almost never use cash for travel or electronics. How?
There are two simple methods for leveraging credit card point systems to cover both business and personal expenses: piggybacking and recycling.
The former is strategic expensing, whereas the latter is arbitraging cash (or equivalents) and credit (or equivalents) to mass produce points.
I use piggybacking exclusively, but I’ve heard some incredible stories about recycling. Do your homework before using either.
Piggybacking is particularly effective for those who have followed the muse development in the 4HWW, which provide templates for automated sources of income that are low maintenance but can be expensive in one or both of two tactical areas: manufacturing and advertising.
Regardless of where your expenses come from, shop for providers/suppliers that are willing to accept credit cards as payment, and negotiate this upfront. Here’s one approach: “Rather than trying to negotiate you down on pricing [only after you’ve negotiated up what they offer you for the same price to get a better yield per dollar], I just ask that you accept payment by credit card. If you can do that, we’ll choose you over Competitor X.”
This is yet another example of a “firm offer,” and not a question, that puts you in a stronger negotiating position.
“Piggybacking” is so named because it is the use of credit cards to pay for inevitable expenses, not the use of credit cards to actively accumulate points by buying things otherwise unnecessary.
The value of any reward point system is awful — generally one cent for every dollar spent. Focus on increasing your cash-flow and the commensurate increases in normal expenses you can then pay for using select high-yield credit cards. The points then simply “piggyback” your expenses, and the full balance of all cards is paid off at the end of each month. Don’t focus on points instead of profits, just as an addition.
I recommend getting two business credit cards, always separate from your personal credit cards, with at least two separate processing companies: American Express and MasterCard/VISA.
Sign up for all of your credit cards within 48 hours to minimize the negative effect these inquiries will have on your credit score. I currently use two cards for accumulating points, which I apply primarily to travel (assume 35,000 points/dollars-spent for a domestic roundtrip and 50-75,000 points/dollars-spent for an international roundtrip): American Express Business Platinum Card:
The Platinum card offers several excellent benefits to the would-be lifestyle designer, and I wrote an article about specific features that can get you a near immediate 300-400% return on investment.
AMEX also provides the most flexible point system, as their points can be transferred to the greatest number of other programs, such as Southwest Airlines Rewards and the OnePass Alliance (of which Continental, below, is a member airline).
The primary deficit of most airline-affiliated credit cards is their inflexibility: if you own an American Airlines card, your points can only be used on American Airlines tickets, and that is it. Screw those guys, as they will happily screw you by expiring your points and imposing related jerkiness.
AMEX, by contrast, is not only flexible but has a catalog of over 20,000 worthwhile products (including iPods and assorted electronics) for purchase directly via their website. I use this card to pay for all online pay-per-click advertising (Google, Overture/Yahoo, etc.), which in turn pays for all of my domestic travel and consumer electronics purchases. My current point balance at the time of this writing is 197,486 points.
Many businesses will not accept AMEX for payment due to its high discount (processing) rate, hence the need for a MC/VISA card. This particular Chase card is sponsored by Continental Airlines but points are applicable to the OnePass Alliance, which comprises nearly 20 airlines. It is critical that you attempt to get a card with no blackout or restricted dates that are reserved only for paying customers.
I was given 15,000 points upon signing, which left me with 35,000 points to acquire before any free international flights. I use this card to cover a minimum of $20,000 per month in manufacturing and $5,000 per month of print advertising, for an average of 6,250 points acquired per week.
This means I can get a free first-class roundtrip ticket to Japan or Brazil every eight weeks or so, particularly if I sweet talk a OnePass operator into helping me drop the miles needed, which can be done with a few sentences of playful begging. Call back until you get an operator willing to help.
One can also combine the AMEX points when needed and boost the points using recycling for an international roundtrip every four to six weeks, without any real effort other than normal business expenses (of course put on autopay) and a little well-placed charisma. My current point balance on the Continental card is 78,265 points.
Recycling Points
Recycling and related arbitrage allows you to legally move cash from credit cards to cash-like instruments and back to credit cards, without significant fees but with all the benefits of point accumulation. There are many methods at your disposal, but the least time-intensive I’ve heard of involves a simple 1-2-3 process:
1. Set your credit card cash advance limits to $0. You don’t want any nasty surprises if the processors or banks change their policies, and cash advances are an expensive way to learn. If they ask you why, just tell them you want to protect your account against identity theft.
2. Purchase gift cards that can be used as MC/VISA debit cards. An example of such a card is the AllAccess Card. “CharterOne Mastercard Gift Cards” used to be the cult favorite, but I couldn’t find them.
3. Use the gift card to purchase a Walmart or postal money order, which is then deposited back in your bank account to pay off your credit card balance and finalize the points. There is a nominal cost per 1,000 points associated with this ($1.25 or so per $1,000 money order with the USPS), but it is a useful tactic if you don’t have the requisite cash-flow or have a deficit of a few thousand points for your desired reward.
Alternatively, you can replace steps 1 and 2 by simply purchasing traveler’s checks at a AAA agency, which is often commission-free, and then redepositing them into your bank account to pay the credit card balance. The rules and restrictions for the cards change often, so the payoff may vary, but you shouldn’t get hurt in the attempt, assuming that you have a $0 cash advance limit and pay off your balance in full at the end of each month. Again, do your homework, as things change often.
Also… play nice and tell your dear accountant about your plans so his head doesn’t explode trying to figure out what the hell is going on with your cash-flow.
Last but not least…
If you are still a few thousand points behind par and need to inflate your rewards account quickly to get an international ticket, AMEX is often happy to provide a boost in exchange for spreading the wealth.
Call AMEX and tell them that you would like to get gold cards for your family and employees (even if you have none, they don’t check). The last time I used this, I received 2,500 per referral for a maximum of five people, or 12,500 points. I signed up the three members of my family and two of my best friends, whose cards were then mailed to me, at which point I simply cut them up and tossed them in the garbage.
Each card cost me $35 each, a total of $175, but it also pushed me over the threshold and allowed me to get a $1,000+ roundtrip ticket to Brazil for nothing but points.
This last tactic is needlessly expensive if you are not on a deadline of some type, but I was rushing for a pre-Christmas relaxation trip to warmer climates in 2004. If you are similarly short on time, this can put you on a plane where you wouldn’t have enough points otherwise.
Men, please take this as the verbalization of fantasies I know everyone of you has had. Ladies, take this as an inside look at the hardwiring of the male mind…
Perhaps it’s too much flying monkey or watching mating battles on Planet Earth, but I’m beginning to think (once again) punching jerks might not be such a bad idea.
The current issue of Esquire brought out my inner Tyler Durden with a hysterical article called — I believe — “Why I Started Punching Jerks Again.” I believe? I believe so because the online editors changed the title to “In Defense of the Fistfight.” Shame on them. The original makes more sense, as it’s first-person… Read More
How do you quantify life? My brother and I jumping out of a plane 36 hours ago at 18,000 feet, the highest tandem skydiving in the world. I’m the one doing front flips out the side exit.
“You’re nobody here at $10 million,� said Gary Kremen, the 43-year old founder of Match.com, of Silicon Valley.
In the August 5th New York Times article titled, “In Silicon Valley, Millionaires Who Don’t Feel Rich,” he and others in the nation’s wealthiest 1/2 of 1 percent admitted to feeling compelled to work 60-80-hour work weeks just to keep up. Hal Steger, who’s banked more than $2 million and has a net worth of $3.5 million, echoes the sentiments of these “working-class millionaires” when he says, “…a few million doesn’t go as far as it used to. Maybe in the ’70s, a few million bucks meant ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ or Richie Rich living in a big house with a butler. But not anymore.â€?
C’mon now.
I live in a nice part of Silicon Valley, and I do whatever I want for less than $5,000 per month. There are more metrics to consider. More important, I’m “happy” by all conventional measurements. But I’ll be the first to admit… it hasn’t been this way for long. Only in the last three years have I really come to understand the concepts of time as currency and positional economics. Before I explain how you can use both to exit the rat race and dramatically upgrade your Lifestyle Quotient, let’s look at some numbers… Read More
Love him or hate him, Clinton was arguably the best networker the White House has ever seen. ((c) St. Anselm College)
This week I interview Christine Comaford-Lynch. This five-time CEO not only sold or took public all of her companies, she has also assisted more than 700 of the Fortune 1000 with accelerating innovation. Bill Gates has called her “super high-bandwidth,” and she’s consulted with both the Clinton and Bush administrations. The best part? She never graduated from high school.
I convinced her to take time out from her new book, Rules for Renegades, to discuss one of the most important skills she’s used to climb to the top—networking.
1. How did you get yourself in the White House, and what were the most important networking lessons you learned there?…Read More
Is this what your thinking looks like?
[Thanks for the Japanese vending machine, Woesinger!]
Words are thoughts.
The better we choose our words, the more we hone our thinking machine, and just like software, it’s a case of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. Thinking hard is pointless if we don’t use the right tools.
Think and speak with precision. Less is often more. Here are 10 common words I have observed to cause stress, depression, and conflict due to their vagueness. All of them are overused to the point of being meaningless. The solution? Stop using them and find more descriptive alternatives. I recommend focusing on removing one or two each week, even if just as an exercise.
The problem with people who have no vices is that, generally, you can be sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
-Elizabeth Taylor
Dolfin 88% cacao Belgian dark chocolate — the best in the world and incredibly inexpensive
In life, as in relationships, the small things are the big things. The good life isn’t the result of milestone Lamborghinis and Caribbean trips, but the little adventures and small indulgences we all too often miss along the way.
Some of you already know that Saturday is a “free” day on my diet, and I take this freedom to eat (and drink) whatever I want seriously. I’m not one for the monastic life.
World-class luxuries need not be expensive, and many aren’t. Here are five of my favorites for less than $5, listed in order of preference:
1. Dolfin 88% Pure Cacao Belgian Dark Chocolate
Few chocolates can pull off more than 70% cacao (cocoa) without tasting like chalk. I was told that Dolfin 88% was “the best dark chocolate in the world” by the current master of the famous It’s It ice cream empire. He might just be right.
2. Blue Fin 2005 California Chardonnay
I’ve never been a white wine person, but the Rombauer 2005 Chardonnay, tasted at the legendary Brix of Napa, changed all of that. It opened my eyes to a world of buttery, antioxidant-rich goodness. The Blue Fin Chardonnay, at a whopping $3.99, matches most $30-40 whites. Truly amazing.
