How to make $14,000 honeymoons cost $500, and taking a gap year with Noah from Money Metagame

Summary: Olá! We're thrilled to bring you another FIRE enthusiast, money blogger, travel rewards (expert-level I'd say), and overall amazing dude. Meet Noah from Money Metagame. Noah is about to embark on a gap year, so this proved an excellent opportunity to discuss setting that up, how it'll look on a resume, as well as a dive deep on the financials and how it might affect early retirement. Also, he and his wife took a worthy-of-viral-pinterest $14,000 honeymoon to Fiji, New Zealand, etc, flying business class the whole way.... For less than $500 total. In this episode we discuss: how a gap year might affect your target retirement date how he's manage to build an incredible amount of miles/points (travel rewards 101) why he's used over 60 credit cards over the past few years the different savings vehicles you can use to save for FI (important!) how he aspires to be a professional obstacle course racer :) This is a great episode for investors (specifically those building for FI), as well as current and future travel rewards enthusiasts. Enjoy! Show notes and links from today's episode Noah's blog: Money Metagame (and on Twitter!) Reddit's travel rewards subreddit --> /r/churning Chase Sapphire Card (preferred) - Great everyday CC for transferrable points. The Flight Deal - One of Noah's favorite sites for grabbing low-fare price alerts! Southwest Companion Pass info Tough Mudder - one of the obstacle courses Noah has been into. This scares us ;) Are you in our Facebook group yet? Come join! We have cookies. Key takeaways from our chat with Noah at Money Metagame 1 - The details of planning for a gap year (i.e. mini-retirement) One of the goals of early retirement is to....retire early. Still with me? Good. Taking a gap year, or any extended break from work and income, usually delays your targeted FI date. So the question is...it worth it? The short and long answer is "it depends completely on you." In Noah's own words, any delay or change in his targeted retirement date "is worth the experience." He and his wife plan on driving around the country, staying in hotels, adventuring, exploring. They might not be able to do that later in life (different circumstances, jobs, kids, old age). Since they have the opportunity to take the gap year now, early retirement can wait. Goals change, and "it's the right time in our lives," in Noah's case. Would you delay FIRE for a year for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Food for thought. 2 - Explaining a gap year in your resume Frankly, just be honest. "I took a year off to travel the world" likely makes you more desirable to an employer, rather than the other way around. If anything, a hiring manager would respond with "how'd you do that??" You can always find more work. Don't stress over the resume. 3 - Travel rewards are real. Noah is a master at juggling credit card spending bonuses, finding cheap flights, nabbing access to private airport lounges, etc... But the takeaway is this: it's doable for the rest of us as well. You don't need to juggle 60+ credit cards, but you get plugged into various low-fare alert sites right this second, for free. Check out the links above for some resources Noah mentioned, and take advantage of one! Even if you don't have specific travel plans, why not try for one CC spending bonus anyways? (just pay off the debt in full every month of course...). Those miles might come in handy sometime soon. Also, Southwest Companion Pass (more info here). Enough said. 4 - Where does the money you save for FI go?

How to make $14,000 honeymoons cost $500, and taking a gap year with Noah from Money Metagame

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