Its been a while since I share anything... but here is my new saving area I discovered

How do I begin to write this post? It feels like my mind went on fast speed rewinding every event that has happened since I last wrote a post.

I could share many wonderful events, places visited, deals that I took advantage off and much more, those I will include in upcoming post but overall I want to change a little as to the post I will include from this month forward.

As a person who has been able to save through couponing, watching movies for free, getting points with store apps, taking advantage of restaurants & stores promotions, looking back we have saved more than $30k in a period of less than 4 years since we started in 2012.

I know that number seems like a lot but keeping track of my savings which I shared (Grocery Expenses cut in 1/2) and (How to see a movie for Free) you can easily see that using coupons and searching for deals can save you a great amount of money and when you add each receipt you will be amaze how much you have saved in a year.

Overall Couponing (Since Nov 2012 – July 2014)
- Purchases $20,105.99
- Paid Out of Pocket 1689.94
- % Saved 91.60%

When it comes to entertainment which in this case is watching a movie before is released, you can save a great deal if in a month we watched 4-5 movies. Since the time we started watching movies before they are released we have notice many screenings are offered per week or every other week, so if you are interested there is a movie for you to start when ever you get a chance to get a ticket. In our case at the beginning we used to go and watch every movie we received screening tickets for, in some cases that would be 3 movies in a week, but 2 years ago we started to select the movies we wanted to watch. Having said that selecting the movies we decide to watch can still round off to 3 or 4 movies a month making the overall total just a minimum of what we are saving in a years period.

Overall Movies (Since May 2012 – Sept 2016)
- Purchases $960 each year = $3840.00
- Paid Out of Pocket $0
- % Saved 100%

**The main purpose of this post is to introduce to you a new way I am preparing myself to save on traveling.**

I am amazed how much our lives has change when taking advantage of the great deals, coupons and offers but earning points and miles is my new method of savings and traveling to places I never thought it would be possible.

A few months back I shared how I was excited when I applied for my chase freedom credit card, before applying you get doubts and fears such as I wouldn’t get approved, or it would affect my credit score and getting a credit card is not a good thing but knowing how I have self control with cc I quickly push those thoughts to the side and went ahead and applied. I do want to say before applying my credit was very low but I can say since then my credit score just like my husband has never been better (right now I just reach excellent score). (on a later post I will share what we did to not just raise our credit score but our credit limit as well).

Having said that, I want to share before applying for this credit card we sat down as a family and talked about what are our traveling goals, knowing where we want to go will determine which credit card to apply for and the chase freedom was so far the best card to get specially when trying to raise my credit score.

What is my ultimate goal when applying for bonus credit cards?

My ultimate goal is to get points as I shop for Almost FREE future Travel/Vacation trips. Since we are fairly new to the credit cards points system so far we can say we have saved a lot on trips or weekend stays we have done since we started. I know it takes time to earn the points, to understand each credit card program and to plan on what is our next vacation trip.
Being smart with our money, keeping a budget and paying every credit card in full has helped us raised our credit score by 135 points since the summer of 2015 which is when we started applying for bonus credit cards.
Another goal is to travel visit new places enjoy some of the perks companies have to offer without paying full price.
Plan a 20th Anniversary Hawaii Trip
Plan a Europe Family Trip
Able to learn how to save on trips so I can help other plan future trips as well