How Do You Afford This?

#05: $143K Worth of Family Travel Using Credit Card Points (In One Year)

• Ashley Feinstein Gerstley • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Rachel Lipson takes 12 to 15 trips a year with her family of four, her kids have visited 25 countries and they haven’t even finished elementary school, and she lives in one of the most expensive zip codes in the country. She’s the founder of The Point, a best-selling Substack and consulting business that teaches families how to travel using credit card points and the founder of Blue Balloon Songwriting for Small People, a 17-year-old music school for kids that now runs mostly without her. In this episode, she sits down with me to break down how she actually affords the lifestyle.

Rachel and I walk through how she redeemed over $143,000 in points last year, the specifics of her recent three-week family trip across Milan, Athens, and Malta, and the home-swapping strategy that has gotten her family into beautiful homes around the world for free. Plus, she shares her top three points strategies and the simple first step for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the points game.

Rachel reveals the times even she doesn't get the points game perfectly right, the multiple income streams that fund her family's life in Brooklyn, and the surprising childhood backstory that drives her family's travel obsession.

Get Ashley’s travel budget template (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/travel-budget) where you can estimate trip costs, compare options and plan in advance so that all you have left to do is enjoy your trip, financially stress free. 

Subscribe to Rachel’s substack (thepoint.substack.com). Get a Wallet Edit (https://thepointedit.com/wallet-edit-phone-session) for tips on how to leverage spending to earn points for travel!

Check out Ashley’s Money Club (https://www.thefiscalfemme.com/money-club) to join a community of women unabashedly going after their money goals. 

Take this quiz to get a personalized Wealth Building Blueprint (https://bit.ly/4v94g2C)

SPEAKER_00

I'm going to share the number and I will say that when I added it up, I had to add it up like 15 times because I was like, this can't be right. We redeemed points for a value of $140,000.

SPEAKER_03

My guest today is a founder, entrepreneur, and one of the most strategic travelers I have ever met. She takes 12 to 15 trips per year with her family of four. Her kids have visited 25 countries before even finishing elementary school. And she lives in one of the most expensive zip codes in the country. And this episode, she gets into the actual numbers. Rachel Lipson breaks down how her family redeemed $143,000 worth of travel last year using credit card points. And how she adds up the cards, the welcome bonuses, and the transfers to make it all work.

SPEAKER_00

If we tried to take all of those trips a year, or even maybe a fraction of those trips a year, paying cash for them, we would have a very hard time, but we use credit card points for the vast majority of it.

SPEAKER_03

She walked us through a nearly three-week trip to Milan, Athens, Hydra, and Malta. Business class on Emirates, suite upgrades, five-star hotels, and what it actually cost out of pocket.

SPEAKER_00

We stayed at the Park Hyatt Milan, which is by far one of the best hotels I've ever stayed at in my life.

SPEAKER_03

That was literally zero dollars, plus how she built a music school that runs almost entirely without her. The money philosophy behind her marriage, and the one thing people always get wrong about credit scores and points.

SPEAKER_00

My credit score is very high. Credit scores for people who have a lot of cards and are responsible with them tend to be actually extremely high.

SPEAKER_03

I'm Ashley, certified financial planner, founder of the Fiscal Fun, and I'm asking the question everyone is already wondering. How do people actually afford their lives? This is how do you afford this. Welcome to the show, Rachel.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much, Ashley. So fun to be here.

SPEAKER_03

So happy to have you. I'm I said it before, but I'm so excited for this conversation. Just to kick it off, you take 12 to 15 trips per year with your family of four. Your kids have visited 25 countries before they've even finished elementary school, and you live in one of the most expensive zip codes in the country. How do you afford this?

SPEAKER_00

Well, when you put it like that, it sounds like I don't know how I afford it. If we if we tried to take all of those trips a year, or even maybe a fraction of those trips a year, paying cash for them, we would have a very hard time. But we use credit card points for the vast majority of it. We plan around school holidays. And we, yeah, we love Brooklyn where we live. We've made it work. We had owned a place somewhere else. We had kind of renovated it, sold it, used that money to put into the down payment of our new house. We were able to kind of trade up. And that was a big part of how we were able to get our home.

SPEAKER_03

It's incredible. I'm so excited to dig into the numbers and the points and all of your strategies. But first, like you obviously have a passion for traveling and traveling as a family. Like you're not leaving the kids at home. Do you know where this passion for travel comes from for you?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I will say one thing about not leaving the kids at home. I mean, we don't have anyone to watch the kids at home. So where we go, they go. Where we go, they go. We love family travel. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's great. And there's so many aspects of it that we really love. But I think a lot of families travel without their kids because they can. And generally speaking, that while we have taken a couple trips and my parents have been able to watch them for, you know, four or five days here or there, generally speaking, where we go, they go. And we, you know, travel was something that I was actually, I mean, without getting into this, as a kid, I was very afraid to travel. I was agoraphobic as a child. I mean, I had like an intense anxiety of feeling trapped, of being in my house, of being afraid to leave my house. And so travel was not something that was a positive thing or anything I wanted to do. But when COVID hit, as I got older, I started to kind of get over some of my anxiety around travel. When COVID hit and we were literally trapped inside of our homes, all I wanted to do was travel. And so I kind of got my wish that I was home and that's like all I wanted. And then I didn't want to be there anymore. What I wanted to do was I didn't know the backstory.

SPEAKER_03

That is such an incredible backstory to it. So you weren't a traveler. This wasn't something, so you didn't even realize that you love travel till COVID hit.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't love travel. I mean, I I actually didn't love it. I was, it was, I was very fraught, full of so much stress and anxiety. And I mean, I would take trips as I got into my 20s and 30s. I would take trips, but I wouldn't consider myself excited to travel. I was anxious about it leading up to it, anxious about it on the trip. So it, yeah, it really wasn't until after 2020 when I really thought I want to get out there and see the world and see it through my kids' eyes, see it with my kids. I mean, it really became something that was like and is a real passion.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. And I don't want to sidetrack the combo too much, but curious, like, do you experience any of the fear while you're traveling now? Or it's really, or it's just so often now that it's pushed through. How do how do you experience it now?

SPEAKER_00

I think my anxiety has kind of surfaced in other places. So it's one of those things that's like matters neither created nor destroyed. It hasn't gone away, but it's in it sort of bubbles up in other places. I do still have a lot of anxiety just in life. So it comes with me wherever I go, also like my kids. But I really do feel calmer and more used to being at new places and also have worked on all kinds of strategies that like to to just feel more comfortable making plans, like being more in control of my environment in general, finding things that make me feel more comfortable wherever I go. So that even if I land in a new place, it doesn't feel fully new. It feels a little bit comfortable and like home.

SPEAKER_03

Wow. That's incredible. It's and it's also like 12 to 15 trips a year. That's like major exposure to something that was so scary before. I want to highlight a Substack post you shared breaking down exactly how much value you pulled from points last year. Can you share that number? I think it would blow people away.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. So I mean, the number, I'm going to share the number, and I will say that when I added it up, I had to add it up like 15 times because I was like, this can't be right. Like I double-checked, I triple checked, I was like, this cannot be right. Like, how is this possible? So last year, my family saved, and I would say saved like in quotation marks because like we wouldn't have spent this much money if we didn't have the credit card points and uh points and miles to use for it. We redeemed points for a value of $140,000 plus, actually a little bit more, $143,000 of travel. Wow.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. That is so incredible. And we want to talk about how you do that. Maybe could you walk us through like the last trip you took and what the finances looked like? And if it doesn't have to be the last one, it could just be one, a recent one that comes to mind, like how the finances worked of it versus points versus dollars, what you did with your apartment, and all that.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Okay, so the last trip we took was a big trip. We took almost a three-week trip that was kind of an overlap situation where the kids go to different schools and had two different vacations, but they overlapped for part of it. And so we took our whole family went for the first two weeks, and then I stayed with my 10-year-old son for the last week so that everybody could kind of miss a little bit of school, but not too much school. And it ended up where I was on the trip and my 10-year-old was on the trip for three weeks. So we started off in Milan, and that was because we got an Emirates flight on the A380, which is like the, you know, largest commercial aircraft with the double-decker seating and a bar on board. And you, you know, depending on the airport, you can sometimes board the plane from the lounge. So we flew business class using points that we had booked. I mean, almost a year before, I think. We had booked this like way in advance, knowing that spring break was going to be this big trip that we were going to go to Europe. And with that, I I will add that Milan wasn't our destination for that trip. That was just where we found the flight to Europe for business class at the points price that we wanted. And so, and we were excited to take this like kind of bucket list flight. So that was how that part of the trip came to be. We stayed at the Park Hyatt Milan, which is by far one of the best hotels I've ever stayed at in my life. And I've stayed at a lot of hotels now. And that hotel we stayed at on points, that was literally zero dollars because when you pay with points at certain hotel brands, you don't have to pay even in any taxes. And with the status that we have from all the hotel stays and from spending on particular credit cards, we were able to get free breakfast, a suite upgrade, like all kinds of different perks. And we stayed there for five nights, which was a hefty fee in points because we had to buy, we had to get two rooms because we're a family of four. And in Europe, there's like strict occupancy rules. So you have to have two hotel rooms and so we got two connecting rooms. So we had this like massive suite connected to this great room for the kids. I mean, it was like an amazing trip. And by the way, I love Milan. It's one of those overlooked cities that I think people should go to and and experience like if you like design, architecture, fashion, all the things. Then we took a, oh, what did we do? We took a cheap, like inter-European flight then from Milan to Athens, and that we paid cash for. Um, I always try to just use cash for those like, you know, easy jet flights or Ryanair or whatever it is that you like unfortunately have to take when you're in those, when you're, you know, flying between countries. We took those with cash. We arrived in Athens. We stayed at a hotel on points for a couple of days, and then we ended up switching to a different hotel that was more central, which was like a quick pivot that we did because we weren't crazy about the location of the points hotel. So we ended up splurging on a hotel that actually you can use points for, but I I was so overwhelmed by like the change and the kids and the new city and everything. I like literally couldn't get it together to just figure out the points for that, even as like a points expert. I just we just deletable, you know, and we kind of were like, you know what? Like every trip we took this year was on points. Like, well, can we just pay cash for this one? We'll earn points. This will help us to fund a future trip. So we kind of made that decision and let it go. And so we stayed at a hotel that was very central and beautiful. We really loved it. And then we took, okay, so then from Athens, sorry, long. This was probably not the long time. This is like what you were gonna get. I want all the details. I love it. Our epic trip. So we stayed in Athens for a week. We took a ferry one day to Hedra, the island that's about an hour off of the coast of Athens. I wanted to see Leonard Cohen's home because I'm a huge Leonard Cohen fan if you are into folk music. And so we came. So that was like a cash booking. It was not that expensive. It was a few hundred dollars and like so worth it and so beautiful. We didn't stay on the island. We just came back. My husband and our 12-year-old flew back on Emirates from Athens to New York using points yet again. That is clear.

SPEAKER_03

Just interrupt with the flights. Yeah. The points you have you still have to pay the fees, but then the flight is free, right? Is that how that's right.

SPEAKER_00

You pay taxes on the cash price. So it can be it can be significant. I don't remember exactly how much the cash the taxes were, but I mean it can be from it can be from a couple hundred dollars to, or I mean, it actually can be less, but it's usually for any European airline, it's gonna, or you know, anything abroad, it's gonna be at least a couple hundred dollars and it could go up to thousands of dollars. It wasn't thousands of dollars. I think it was under a thousand dollars total, but that's four people in business class with points. You know, it was pretty special. That's great. So, yes, they took that flight back, and that's called a fifth freedom flight, which is uh it's a segment of a flight that you can take that's basically taking you from on an airline that doesn't have a home country in the departure or the arrival city. So so Emirates is based in Dubai, and you can go from, but you can so they have their their flight path is like Dubai to Athens to New York or Dubai to Milan to New York. And so you can actually just buy the segment that's Athens to New York or Milan to New York or vice versa, and that's called the fifth freedom flight. And so we got those, and it's great because you get to take advantage of like the really fancy, you know, upscale amenities on the flight that you wouldn't normally have for like an eight-hour flight, 10-hour flight. Okay, so that's what my husband and my older son did. And then my younger son and I flew to Malta. Probably we used like EasyJet or something like that, one of those like discount European airlines, paid cash for that, got to Malta, stayed there using the using a credit and benefit from a credit card that we have. So we got like a discount and upgrades and $100 on-site credit that again, like I know this is supposed to be one of those things that I should be able to keep track of. But somehow when we checked out, they were like, you forgot to use your $100 on-site credit. And I completely realized that I forgot I had it. And they were like, Do you want to buy anything? But we were late for the airport, so we didn't even use it. So it's like, just you know, keep it. It's fine. So, you know, hopefully that's a little relatable, but I don't even use all the benefits and credits, even though we would have loved to use the $100. So, not because we couldn't use it, but just totally forgot. And then we took a flight from Malta to Milan. I will spare you the details, but it was canceled when we got to the airport due to an Italian strike. But we eventually made it to back to Milan to catch our fifth freedom flight from Milan to New York on Emirates. It was an epic trip. It was a lot of points, a lot of fun, a lot of art and architecture and food and really special times. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_03

We actually are flying to Milan in later in the summer because of the same, we had Emirates points and we didn't. I don't know if maybe it was like too late to upgrade, but we're we didn't upgrade, and I don't know if that's like a a very big missed opportunity. We'll see. So we'll have to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00

It's great whenever class you fly. Emirates is wonderful.

SPEAKER_03

Their service is great. You'll love it. Okay. And then we're these points, where are they coming from? Like, are you are they with credit cards? Do you mentioned hotels? Like, where are you getting the points from?

SPEAKER_00

So the points typically come from credit card spending with one caveat that there's no way that I could ever spend as much money as it would cost to take these trips if it was just like one for one. The it's usually coming from credit cards that have what are called transferable points, which are points that you can take from the credit card and transfer to airlines and hotels to book those flights directly or those hotels directly. So that means putting regular spending on credit cards and then transferring the points when I'm ready. But then we also, because we could never spend this much money to afford this many trips, even with points, we take advantage of welcome bonus opportunities. So if a card has a certain welcome bonus and, you know, you spend this much money and this much time and you get this many points, we will take advantage of those and we do it very strategically so that we're sure that we, you know, do it in the right order so that we're not locked out of other opportunities and we can maximize all of the possibilities with various credit cards that are out there and earn points that we can use for these trips.

SPEAKER_03

Amazing. And one other thing you've mentioned, I didn't sound like you didn't do this on this current trip, but you mentioned once to me that you do apartment swapping. Could you talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00

Yes. So, yes, we do home swapping, which we do a little bit less of lately. I think because of the points, kind of make it possible to stay at hotels also. Um, it's a little bit easier to not have to get your house ready. You know, when you've got a family and you're packing up to go, and then you've also got to like make sure your house is very ready for a whole other family to descend upon it. But we do a home swapping platform that's like, yeah, it's not a small feat.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And I live in like actually, I'm like, we're very organized, and my house is usually very tidy. And still I go crazy trying to get the house ready for people to stay here. So it's a lot. So we do one-to-one home swaps, meaning it's a platform that we use that allows us to swap with just one individual family. It's not like a point system. As much as I love points, it's not a point system. It's not something that gets you, you know, credits to use for a stay with somebody else. It's like you're talking to somebody in some city and they want to come to your house and you want to go to their house and you work out the details. So it can be like they come to your house at the same time and you do a simultaneous swap, or you can do a non-simultaneous swap where they just come at another time or you go at another time when somebody else is traveling. So we do a lot of that. And actually, I don't know if anyone stayed at our house during that trip. I should remember. I cannot remember. But recently it might have been that trip. I mean, like, that's the thing about taking a lot of trips a year. The downside is like it all starts to meld together and I forget what's what. But we had a family from Barcelona stay. Maybe it was that trip or the one before. And so we have now an open chance to go to Barcelona. And we were just somewhere else. Our house was uh was empty anyway, and it's no money exchanged. They stay at our place, we stay at their place, we see the pictures, we like their place, they like ours, and we make it happen.

SPEAKER_03

So far, only good experiences with it.

SPEAKER_00

Mostly good. I mean, we've done other than that. We've done dozens. It's the work is a lot, but it's we've done a lot. And I I think we're probably like one of the most active families on their platform. And mostly good. There have been some things like somebody seemed to have a have a party, which was absolutely not what we had agreed upon. Right. There was something where it seemed like somebody was had like smoked inside, which we don't even smoke, and we definitely don't allow that. And they had burned a hole in a like a blanket that we had brought back from Portugal, and ultimately the family replaced it and paid the, you know, shipping and tariffs and everything to get it sent, to get a new one sent to us. So they made up for it. But, you know, these are like stressful things. The thing is, like, even if somebody, you know, we've broken things, we locked somebody out of their house once. That was so embarrassing and horrible. And like it was a two-key situation and like a European door, and like you, they had a key in one, and we put like it, and we like got the lock stuck, and then they couldn't get into their house, and I felt so bad. So, you know, we've been on the, we've been on both ends of it. And generally speaking, you just have to look at it as like this could have cost us thousands and thousands of dollars to book this stay. And also, these are mostly homes that you know people don't usually rent. So it's not like they're on Airbnb or they're or they're swap. They're just like people's homes, and many of them are really beautiful and interesting. And so, yeah, we really enjoy it. It's really special.

SPEAKER_03

It I think about it that way too. Like, my I have two wild rambunctious kids, like they damaged my house. You know, like how bad could another family be? Um are you able to share the name of the company you use?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's called Be Home. It's uh it's a Spanish company. They're uh they're based in Barcelona, and I've gotten to know the founders. We've met up in Barcelona. We happen to both be in Mexico City at the same time once. We've had a lot of opportunities to get to know each other, and I absolutely love them. It's been a great experience. Yeah, it's really cool.

SPEAKER_03

That is so cool. Yeah. I love it. All right. So points are obviously a huge part of your strategy and what you've crafted your incredible business, the point around. If you had to, you know, I've even been taking notes of things that you've shared already, but if you had to give us your top three strategies for those of us who want to afford to travel more, what would you say?

SPEAKER_00

All right. So, first strategy is to make sure that you are taking advantage of the money that you're spending. Like every dollar that you spend, like every, I'll put it this way, every dollar that we spend goes towards future travel. So we're always thinking about, well, whether it's the multiplier, like the 1x, 2x, 3x that you get, like the points you get per dollar that you spend, or whether it's this is going to go towards this welcome bonus. And then that means I'm gonna get 100,000 points, my $5,000 of spending or whatever, just as an example. That is something to really consider is how you're making the money that you're spending work for you and get something back.

SPEAKER_03

How do you keep track of that? Like I get how if it's like a welcome bonus. It's like, all right, we're gonna hit this, everything goes there. But the 1x, 2x for different things, do you keep that in your head or do you have a system?

SPEAKER_00

Well, generally speaking, the best system is to be working on a welcome bonus as often as you can. So then the multipliers don't matter because no multiplier will be as good as those, like as most of the welcome bonuses. But then there's cards that have, you know, if a card has 4x on dining or 4x on ride shares, or and those are like living in New York City and traveling a lot, dining, as you can imagine, and ride shares are a big part of what we end up spending money on or like transportation. There's some cards that have just like a high multiplier to begin with. So something that's like a 1x card isn't amazing, but maybe there's one that's one and a half X or 2X that can be really helpful as just a baseline so that if you're not working on a welcome bonus, you're focusing on a card that's just your everyday card that has a higher multiplier than a typical 1x. So it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to be like only thinking about multipliers and you know putting stickers on your cards to remember. I mean, that can make anybody crazy and like who has time for that? I mean, some people do, but like I like you have two rambunctious kids and a dog and all kinds, like and two businesses. Like, I don't have time for that. So I can kind of get by with whatever I memorize, but like again, like forgot the hundred dollar credit at that hotel. You know, it's it's very hard to It's not perfect. It can be hard to keep track. But you can all you can put like stickers, you could put a little note on a card. And anyway, anything is just habit. So if there are cards that you have that have better multipliers in certain categories, most people spend, you know, like gas is not a multiplier for us. Like we live in New York and we don't even have a car. So that's not even something I think about. But dining ride shares are. So I just remember the cards that I use for that and like hand them to my husband. Like, use this one. Don't forget. Don't forget.

SPEAKER_01

You know, shame them.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, typical stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Okay. So number one is be very mindful of where you're spending on which card.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Number two is something that a lot of people don't know about or find very mysterious and confusing, is transferring points out to partners. So that's transferring points out to airlines and hotels and booking your travel directly through them. So instead of going into the travel portal of your credit card where it says like book travel, and then it's and then you can go and it's like a nice like website that you can go and you can search, you know, for everything that you want to book. Instead of doing that, which is like user-friendly and where they want you to go, and they make it easy to do it, you can find the little button or in the drop-down menu that says transfer points to partners. And it's usually hidden, it'll be like in the last menu and the last drop-down. Um, if your card allows it, transferring points to partners can get you significantly more value. It doesn't mean every time you do it, you're gonna get more value. So that's something that's like a misnomer that people are like, I tried it, I looked, and it was like a worse value. But it's not like that. You have to find the good value. But the first rule of thumb is to not use that portal because that portal, aside from it being a third-party booking site and having kind of all kinds of headaches associated with those bookings, you're unlikely to get even close to the same value that you could get if you were to transfer your points out. Number three, I feel like there's a lot of things that tie for number three. One is, well, let's say this. I hoarding points is something that a lot of people do. They get really stressed out by not knowing when they should use their points, when they should not use their points. I'm a big fan of using points. Like obviously, I book a lot of trips, but I'm also a big fan of earning points. So they go hand in hand. You gotta earn them and you gotta spend them. If you hoard them, they are like cash sitting in a bank with everything getting more expensive around you. They lose value. So there's points inflation, just like everything else, and they devalue over time. So you don't want to just leave them sitting there. There's no like high yield savings account for points, like where they're you know, growing. That would be great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Who wants to do that? Business idea. Business idea. You heard it here.

SPEAKER_00

Invest your points. Yeah, trademark. But like they're not gaining any value. So you want to use them and you but you want to use them wisely. So keeping in mind that there is a calculation that you can that's like very confusing. So I kind of want to spare you the details of it, but there's a calculation that will help you figure out the cents per point, like how many cents each point is worth. And if you do that calculation before you go to transfer any points or before you go to book a trip, you can make sure you know, like, I'm doing this and it's the right thing to do, and I'm getting good value, and then you can move forward and not just be sitting on all your points. Take action.

SPEAKER_03

I get a lot of questions about how playing the points game impacts your credit and how many cards are too many. How many cards do you have right now? And like how have you seen fluctuations in your credit score, or has it not been a problem for you?

SPEAKER_00

So I'm like, my number of credit cards is a lot of credit cards. I have a lot of credit cards. I mean, I will tell you, I have dozens of credit cards. I mean, dozens. Like, I don't even know how many I have. I mean, I do. Like, I it's not like, oh, I have no idea. Like I know, but I don't know the exact number, but I know what they are and I keep track of everything. There's, I think again, like there's a lot of misconceptions about points and cards. And I think one of them around credit scores is and just sort of around cards and points in general, is that you have to rack up debt in order to earn these points. And it's actually exactly the opposite. If you're somebody that carries a balance on your cards, you will have a very hard time getting approved for cards and a very hard time kind of playing the points game. It will be very hard for you. So actually paying off your balances in full each month on time is like the bare minimum of your like entry point for traveling with points. So I think that's just like one important thing to know. And then the second thing about credit scores is my credit score is very high. Credit scores for people who have a lot of cards and are responsible with them tend to be actually extremely high because your credit score is made up of different pieces. And the one, the biggest part of your credit is payment history and you know, paying your cards on time and all of that. But the second biggest, well, what most people think the second biggest is is inquiries. So that's like, oh, I'm gonna get a hard pull on my credit. Like I, it's gonna be a ding. I shouldn't apply. But that's actually a small part of your credit. It's doesn't, it's not that it doesn't matter, but it's a small part, a small percentage of your credit score. The so 35% is your payment history, 30% is credit utilization. And the crazy thing about it is 30% of your score, and a lot of people don't even know what it is. So you credit utilization is how much credit is available to you. Ashley, I know you know this, but I'll tell your your No, yes, tell me, tell us, tell Alice. Okay, I'm telling everybody. I was just, you know, thinking I'm telling Ashley about credit scores.

SPEAKER_03

Uh but no, but I really get this question a lot because people are so inspired, but they're worried. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So so credit utilization is how much credit is available to you versus how much you use. And you want that number to be really low. The higher it is, the more risky you are to lenders. So if a credit card company sees that you're using 50% of your credit available to you, that's risky. They're like, wow, if we give them more credit, they're just gonna use like as much, you know, if you're using even more than that, it's very risky. So if you have a new credit card and that credit card has a credit line of, so let's say you have a credit card now, your credit card has a credit line of $10,000 and you spend $5,000 a month, that's 50% credit utilization with your one card. If you now get another card and you get another $10,000 in credit line, but you're responsible and you still spend your same $5,000 a month anyway. Now your credit utilization is dropped in half. So that's how over time having more cards can drop your credit utilization like significantly. And we live in Brooklyn, we spend a lot of money, have businesses that have a lot of expenses and you know, fam family expenses and all kinds of things. So we spend a fair amount. My credit utilization is probably between one and two percent. That's what I hear.

SPEAKER_03

The top, the top credit scores are under 4%. Yes. And I think to your point, the like these benefits aren't worth it if we're carrying a balance. It's like if you're able to pay it off every month, then that's when we can kind of get into the quote unquote game of this. And and because those interest rates can be so high that it's like outweighs all of these benefits. So thank you for that rundown. For people who are like just so inspired that are about what you're sharing, and they're just feeling overwhelmed. Like I know that this can be overwhelming, even like you mentioned, like, oh, I forgot to do this or I did this thing wrong. Like, what would you say is a great first step for them?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that's a good question. I think the overwhelm of this is like what the credit card companies and the hotels and airlines are kind of literally banking on. They're hoping that it's, I mean, I don't know, I can't speak for them, but it's like it's so confusing that you throw up your hands and you just say, This is like too confusing. I'm not gonna mess around with it. Or it's for other people. It's like it's not for me. It's like I don't have time, it's for people with more time. But it's not. The first thing you can do is just focus on one trip, like focus on one part of a trip. If you were gonna take a trip anyway, think about can you get those flights covered with points? Can you get that hotel covered with points? Maybe not look at it as, I mean, if you sit there and say, okay, next year I'm gonna take 12 to 15 trips in a year and I'm gonna save 140,000 points or $140,000. Like that's gonna sound overwhelming. And it's, I'm sure it sounds inspiring, but it sounds also probably totally unrelatable. But it is possible. I will say, you don't have to do that. It's not all or nothing. It's not like every trip you take has to be covered with points and you have to get like the best value and go crazy over it. You don't have to be into it to use points. You just need to be smart about it. So just keeping in mind those point values, keeping in mind, transferring the points, making sure that you're earning points on your spending and just using them for something that's wise sometimes, is a good start. It doesn't have to be everything all at once.

SPEAKER_03

I love it. Starting with one thing, I really could talk to you about points for the whole time, but I want to talk a little bit about your businesses because you are inspiring other than uh the the amount of travel that you do on points. One of the things I found so inspiring, you mentioned you had two businesses that you've built this business, a music school that mostly runs without you. I'm curious, like what did it take to get to that point?

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your kind words. Yes, 17 years ago, I founded a songwriting school for children. So that company is called Blue Balloon Songwriting for Small People, and and we offer one-on-one in-home music lessons to kids in various cities, uh, mostly in New York and then elsewhere in virtual. So that was not meant to be a plug for the school, but I want you to know what we do. So that's no teachers going into students' home. Teachers go, I just realized I've said, you know, I've had the business for 17 years, so fine-tuned my elevator pitch for the business. But the teachers go into the students' home. So they're one-on-one music lessons. And over many years, people used to say, you know, when are you gonna have a brick and mortar? Like that'll make you a real business. That's when it'll be like the real a real, legit company. I mean, this was, you know, when I was younger, but still, and then obviously COVID hit, and I was like, I am so glad I don't have a brick and mortar. And I just love the convenience that it offers families. And so everything is remote. So that's the first thing to know about the business. Everything on my end is remote. So I'm not going to these, you know, lessons and all that. The teachers are going, they do, they do in person, but but my relationship with the business is is mostly on a remote level. So I got the business to a point about in about four years ago or so, where my team runs the day-to-day. I have like a whole amazing team and they all know exactly what they're supposed to do, and they have everything really uh, you know, they delegate things as they need to, and everything is is covered by by everyone on the team, and it allows me to be able to come in and kind of oversee things and then and then step away. So they really are able to run it in a way that doesn't need me. You know, and I I will say I think of the company as as it's 17 years old, it's kind of like almost an adult, you know, it's like going to college. Like we I meet with it, we have dinner, but like I don't have to like pick it up after school, like take it everywhere. Like it can manage without me, but it still needs to come in when I'm dead. But it's like healthy. It's like a healthy relationship, like it's grown and I've I've given it what it needed to be at this point. Like it's not a coincidence, but it's a really incredible place to be with a business.

SPEAKER_03

With that four-year-old mark, like four years ago where it shifted, was that some was it just that the business was mature enough for that? Or did something change with your mindset that said, okay, now it's time for it to, you know, go off to college or go on without me? Like what shifted four years ago?

SPEAKER_00

So four years ago was like the tail end of COVID times. And what happened was during COVID, I was working like crazy like everybody else, but I had been working like crazy for many years. So I was working like 15 to 16 hours, you know, 15 to 18 maybe hours a day for many, many years and was really struggling, but also had such drive and was like, I'm doing this. This is, you know, it was so important to me. But when COVID hit and my kids were home, I had always worked from home, but then my kids were there and like that. And what ended up happening was I just like burned out. Like it just happened really fast. You know, it was too much. It was like too much overwhelm trying to clean the house in between like cooking and watching the kids and working. I mean, it was like way too much. And so that's when I started to realize that I needed to get out of the day-to-day more. I needed to like be able to pass on more of my work to other people and have them be able to do it. Otherwise, the business wasn't going to succeed because I just couldn't, I couldn't run it at the level that I had. And so I very, I worked with a coach, I very deliberately worked to get things off my plate to find the right people, to find the right personality types and working styles and and and very, I would say slowly, but it also kind of happened fast, got things off my plate, gave, you know, felt I was able to train my team to be able to do more things without my oversight and and then pass them off and and and be like, this, this is on your plate, it's not on my plate anymore, in a good way, where they, I mean, they now take things off my plate and they say to me, like, we don't need you for this anymore. Like, still, it happened like we don't need you. Yeah, they want me to stay out of it. But they're like, they can do it, they can handle it. They don't need me for all those things. So, yes, it was deliberate and it took time, but it's been incredible and it's been going now for for years this way.

SPEAKER_03

It's amazing. So it was some it came out of a need, essentially, like a need to have things work differently and it pushed you to make the change.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I think so.

SPEAKER_03

All right, so and tell us about the new business, the point. And I'm just curious like about the different ways having multiple businesses, any other ways, like what are the ways you're earning money?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Okay, so the new business is the point. Uh, it is a company that helps families travel using credit card points, using points and miles, and kind of helping families see what elevated family travel can look like in like a in a way that is sensitive to like culture and history and art and food. Like we're very into all the things and like getting to know places. And so I share a lot about the trips we take and like the unique trips we take, and especially with the kids taking them to places that aren't just not like no shame on like a with a beach vacation, but like we take all kinds of trips, a lot of city trips. And so I help kind of inspire and teach people how to take trips like that with their kids and then how to use points to do it. So that is the point. That is the point. That's how I got the name. I love it. That is the point. But no, that's the point. That is the point of the point. Yes. And so, and and and honestly, that was kind of when the name of the company was called Brooklyn Family Travelers when I first started it, and it kind of started to outgrow the name. And when I was thinking of a new name, I loved the simplicity of the point. And part of what I liked about it was that, yeah, the point of all of this, like what is the point of all of this? It's like, it's like the experiences you have with your family and all that. So it always feels like right when it comes up. So the revenue streams and kind of how it all works. So with the point, I have a best-selling substack, which has been really cool. So that's a newsletter that has a paid tier. So it's kind of a small but mighty newsletter, but it has a really significant readership of paid members. And so that has put it on the leaderboard as a top 40 best-selling Substack in travel, which is pretty cool. So cool. Which I love. And so that's one. I mean, even though that's great and it's not that something I would want to lose, and I value it so much, it's not like a ton of money. Like this is Substack is one of those things where, you know, they take a percentage, but also it would require having like signific a significantly larger newsletter for that to be a really big part of my income overall. I do a lot of I have a lot of affiliate relationships. So I have affiliate relationships with the credit cards of the credit card companies. So that's something that I'm able to write about different credit cards that people can get to earn these points, take these trips. And then if people use my links to apply for those cards, it doesn't cost them anything, but I get I get paid. So that's very helpful. And, you know, like any affiliate links, business owners always appreciate when you use them. And that's a big part of my income. And I do sometimes sponsorships and partnerships. I don't do a ton of those. I'm interested in doing more of those when they align, when they feel like they really resonate with my brand and with my audience. Like those are those are relationships that I really love. I do a lot of like coaching, like point strategy sessions. Um, I don't do like a ton of them, and it's not a huge part of the business model, but it's something that I do like one-on-one coaching that teach people how to use their points well. And then I do classes sometimes and and things like that. I also, so that's the point. And then with Blue Balloon, I mean, that's you know, it's that has its own like expenses and the the the families pay, the teachers get paid, the staff gets paid, there's like insurance and legal fees and uh software and like a million things that no one that if you don't have a business, you would never know what it goes into having a business, but it's like so expensive. And so that is still the you know, the main income for our family is that business. And and then I also do business coaching, which is really fun. I have two business coaching clients right now. Currently, I usually only take like two at a time. Uh and I help people figure out how to take ideas they have and build them into businesses.

SPEAKER_03

Would you I didn't know you did that? That's amazing. And so it makes sense that you would do that. You're really good at that.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03

Curious, so much of this, like even in your original business name, Brooklyn Family Travelers, like you've talked about your kids. You're very money savvy, very point savvy, very business savvy. What do you hope your kids learn from you about money?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I love that. So I, you know, the kids have this weird life where they're like, I mean, they're, you know, kids are freeloaders, right? They're like not contributing. They're like total freeloaders. They like can't, I mean, even in this, they can't open credit cards, they can't get the welcome. Take me back, right? We're like, I'm just like, yeah, I'm just like, come on, guys. No, but so they're their lives are like we try, we know, we give them a lot an allowance, we try to give them a sense of like what money, what money buys, like what things cost. But then of course they're taking business class flights and staying in five-star hotels and not and you know, they don't and and so that we try I try to explain to them the value of all this stuff. I mean, we talk about it a lot. We also talk a lot about like different currencies and the places we travel to, which I think is always like an interesting way for kids to learn about math and just learn about cultures and get a sense of like what things cost, but also how different people spend money and how things cost different amounts in different places. And they are very interested in money. Like I think a lot of kids are interested in money, but they're very interested in, I mean, they see me working and they see all the different ways I work, and they we talk sometimes about real numbers. And it's something my parents never did when I was a kid. And I don't actually have no idea. I'm like curious if that's something that more people do now. But it's something that, you know, as a kid in the 80s, it was like I had no idea how much my parents made. I had no idea how much things cost. It was always like, this is none of your business, which I guess I understand. I try to take some of like the shame out of money with my kids. Like that's a big part of, I mean, I don't know if everybody feels this way, but I have a lot of like this feeling of ha spending money and having money makes me feel kind of ashamed and trying to feel like it's okay to spend money on things that are important to me when there's like people in the world who ha who don't have as much, or you know, there's just so many ways in which I feel a lot of anxiety and like like worries about money. And so I want my kids to have a less complicated relationship with it, but I don't know if that's really possible. So when I want things to feel like less complicated and less anxiety provoking, I like to look at like the facts and not see things as this like just vague thing like you wouldn't understand, you know, telling kids like you wouldn't understand. So I try to be somewhat real with them about numbers and how much things cost, but then also want them to be grounded and like understand that it takes a lot of work and luck and a lot of things to get to a place where you can afford some of these things. And also, like most of the stuff we do with points, we wouldn't be able to afford if we tried to use cash for it. We wouldn't be taking 12 to 15 trips a year.

SPEAKER_02

We'd be taking like a trip, you know. So it's not like, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I do think kids are very naturally curious. And I do think like the past generation that got very shut down because people don't want to talk about it. And so, you know, people will say, Oh, is my kid like greedy? They care so much about money. But I just think it's natural they're seeing we work so hard to make a living, to earn money. And so they see that and then to just be able to share, okay, this is what something costs, or this is how we made that work, or we went business class once, and now my son's always like, Can we stop in those seats? I'm like, not this time, but if that's something that's important to you and you work really hard, that could be something that happens for you in the future. So just like to help them start seeing the trade-offs and and how money works, I think is really valuable. You mentioned they're too young to have credit cards. So, like your kids don't have a point strategy yet or anything, do they? Like you have to wait till they're a little older for that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that you can add your kids as an authorized user, and different banks have different rules as to like what age you can add them. And that can help their credit depending on the bank. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't really make a difference. It depends on, again, depends on the bank. But but in terms of it benefiting us, it they won't be able to open credit cards until they're 18. And then they can be kind of another person in the in the family that's then able to open their own cards and and earn points. But as of right now, there isn't much. Yeah, they're they're they're on the wings of it, they're watching it, they kind of see and understand to some extent, but they're not able to take part.

SPEAKER_03

Right. All right. A few more questions because we're running out of time. But what's something about your finances people would never guess?

SPEAKER_00

I think one thing is like I think the people see, oh, I have this like home in Brooklyn and we take all these trips and everything seems so like luxe and fancy. And I think one thing is that I my parents were our retired public school educators. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, like very solidly middle class. And and my husband, you know, his he was only child of a single mom, and she did very well for herself. But it's we didn't have, you know, a situation where we had like trust funds and parents, we can call for help if we, you know, need to, if we're gonna miss a mortgage payment or something like that. Like we're not we're we're very much like self-sufficient and on our own with our finances. And which I've as I've grown older and had more direct conversations with more people about money, the more I've realized that a lot of people have a lot of help. And a lot of people whose like lives you look at and you say, like, wow, how do they do that? Like a lot of people work really hard and don't make a lot of money, and a lot of people work hard and do make a lot of money, and a lot of people have help from their families.

SPEAKER_03

When I do the woman on the street interviews, something I found when I was in the West Village, I interviewed people about where they live and how much it costs. And seven out of eight people that I talked to didn't pay for their own rent. Oh my gosh. So it was like, yeah. So I think it's it's very common. And I do think that's one of the reasons I love doing this is a lot of times we're comparing ourselves and our lifestyle to people who aren't paying for it or who are using credit cards to pay for it. And then, of course, there is this group of people who are doing both, or they have these strategies that we can learn from. And so that's a big part of why I'm doing the podcast is like, how do we how do we do some of the things that we see that are so aspirational? Which curious, what are you working towards affording next? Like this was all about how you afford to travel and use points and have built these businesses, but what's next for you that you're trying to afford?

SPEAKER_00

I think, I mean, right now we're we live across the street from the kids' elementary school and they're both graduating. So one thought when we live in a beautiful neighborhood, we love our home. But one thought is could we live closer to where they're going to school next and have them be able to walk to school and kind of move our lives in that direction? But that with mortgage rates have like more than doubled since we got our home. So that requires then being able to pay more to be able to move to have something like close to what we live in now. So my hope is somehow in the next couple of years, we could move closer, kind of closer to the city, like closer, closer to Manhattan, closer to the water, closer to the kids' schools, and so they can walk to school and we could still live in a place that's that's similar to where we live now. I love it.

SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Rachel. I'm so inspired by how you've used points to leverage your lifestyle and started the point to help all of us do the same. So thank you for this behind-the-scenes look into how you use points to travel the world with your family. Where can everyone find you and support your work? Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so I am on SubSec. As I mentioned, I have the best-selling Substack The Point. I have an Instagram account for The Point. That's the point.edit. You can find the website is thepointed.com. And then with Blue Balloon, you can look up blue balloonschool.com and you can see all about the music school that I have that I created so many years ago.

SPEAKER_03

Amazing. Everyone go follow Rachel, subscribe to her newsletter. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for listening to how do you afford this. If you loved this inside look into how people are actually affording their lives, follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We have new episodes dropping every week, and trust me, you do not want to miss them. And please share this with a friend. You'll get credit for introducing them to their favorite new podcast, and you'll be helping me on my mission to make crafting a wealthy life more accessible, more transparent, and a whole lot more fun. See you next week.