I usually never travel this much to hawaii.  So I was curious how the year stacked up.  I know from chatting with friends who always ask me LAL what's a good price and when should we go? I tell them end of April and late October is typically cheap and easy. Also January after MLK weekend is another cheap time to come to Hawaii.  January might even be better with hotel pricing and winter for many folks.

But what have you spent LAL and did you get a good deal?  I am about to do an end of year shakedown which normally I would cringe about spending so much but life is short.  And my DH said when I mentioned it, this is a short term spending because when will I be coming to hawaii so often?  Never again.  

Traveling on 12/19 and returning 1/1 we paid $2034 for 4 tickets.  We used two alaska airlines companion fares which on each purchased roundtrip ticket.  That means the $95 annual credit card fee for a $121 companion ticket (this is the fees) was used as a BOGO on $896 ticket for DH and me.  Pretty good ROI on $95 was $896.  Average cost of Xmas ticket?  $508 per person which for hawaii at christmas is a steal.  Miles run around 50k one way if you can land it.  Hawaii is very expensive always to visit at the holidays and I don't recommend it.

October 12 $179 one way

October 17 $179 one way

August 9 $115 one way per person (1 paid for 3 of us) = $345

August 15 $102 one way per person (I paid for 3 of us) = $306

June 23rd $323 one way per person (I paid for 3 of us) = $970, our flight was cancelled that day by Delta and I had to rebook in a emergency, I had bought tickets on delta for 17,500 miles one way per person

July 6th $265 one way per person (I paid for 3 of us) = $795

May 3rd $269

May 7th $228

Feb 20th $347, i flew to hawaii via boston and hawaiian airlines direct with miles I believe 35k miles.

Total for year for me was $2515 for me out of pocket 6 round trip tickets = $419 average round trip ticket to hawaii.  Total spent? $5652 for a total of 6 LAL + 3 DK1 + 3 DK2 + 1 DH = 13 rountrip tickets for an average of $434 per roundtrip.  

So if I were a family looking to budget I would say $450 to be conservative from the West Coast as long as it's not Xmas holidays. 

I had my suspicion but if we backed out the Xmas tickets which I think blew everything out of the water, the spending on our airline tickets to hawaii wasn't bad.

Next up?  Maybe our total travel spending for the year.  All in I am going to guess we're close to the $20-25k/year I budget and use in our numbers.  

The year is ending and I just thought I'd post about college savings and how small savings adds up.  Maybe to inspire someone, maybe because it's the simplest accounts we have.  My DK1 turns 14 in January.  I think we started her Education Savings Account or Coverdell in May 2010.  But Coverdell IRA or ESA are capped at $2000 a year contribution limits.  But you can invest in anything.  What have we invested in?  VOO.   Yep that's it. BORING.  Nothing special.  DK2 was born in July 2012 and I think I did her as well maybe a few months later.  So I've been tracking it for awhile. I have to go back to see how it was but 10 years ago...Realize we've never contributed more than $2k/year.

1/1/2014   DK1 $11,239   DK2 $6369

1/1/2015           $12,251           $6831

1/1/2016           $14695            $9105

1/1/2017           $16,588            $10,277

1/1/2018           $22,205           $14,612

1/1/2019           $24,801            $17,605

1/1/2020           $36,702           $27,169

1/1/2021           $39,668          $29,251

1/1/2022            $51,869          $38,691

1/1/2023          $43,940            $33,366

12/1/2023       $54,540             $41,945

total contri      $26,000            $22,000

So small amounts invested once a year for many, many years leaves to a doubling in 12 years.  It's supposed to double every 7 years but i'll take it.

As for apple stock?  DK1 sometime in 2010, again I think summer 2010, we were visiting in SF and DH's uncle.  He decided after meeting DK1 he would gift her 2 shares of apple stock and asked us to never sell it.  At the time it was $300 a share so he gave her around $600.  We didn't reinvest the dividends though we should have. I think we let the cash ride.  What's the $600 gift worth now from July 2010?  $11,891.  She has 60 shares from all the splits, but since I started reinvesting dividends actually 61.425 shares. DH's uncle didn't give DK2 but I did matching shares for her in a taxable account.  Those two shares of apple are the only reason why we had taxable accounts for the kids since we didn't plan on having enough money past the $2k/year ESA.  

Well now the kids have around $45k each in a taxable account and they have nice and hefty college funds with the ESA being a big chunk of it.  Turns out small investing can make a big difference in someone's life. We weren't born into any sort of money or inheritance.  But wow, just a tiny amount can make a huge difference. 

Imagine if either of our parents had gifted us even $500 or $1000 per year per kid for college or anything else.  I'm hoping to do that for our kids. Maybe be in the situation where we could gift the maximum per year to them.  Investing in their taxable accounts might make a bigger difference by the time they are 30.

Oops.  This quarter Discover is giving 5% back in cash rewards for shopping at Amazon or Target.  I used it to buy $900 in gift cards over the December 2nd - 3rd weekend at Target.  Target was running at 10% off special once a year.  That was $45 in rewards.  I also bought $400 in Airbnb gift cards from Target that gave a $40 gift card back as well.  This also earned 5% for $20 more in rewards.

Then if you use the discover cash back rewards to buy resturant or other shopping gift cards you can add another 10-20% on top of the cash back value.  So $40 or $45 for a $50 gift card to Dave and Busters, Panera, etc.  I typically do this to stretch the cash back rewards.

I only use the discover card typically with the rotating 5% quarterly bonus rewards.  Typically it pays back nicely but it maxes out at $75 a quarter or $1500 in spending every 3 months.  If you don't have this check it out.

Decided to add up my credit card fees annually.  I know it's a lot because we have a lot of cards.  How much?  $1420 for the year.  Yowsa. How'd it breakdown?

The alaska cards we get a companion fare and I used both already this year for $1000 tickets to hawaii.  So $95 for $1000 coupon.  Win.  Plus a free checked luggage when traveling.

Sapphire preferred gives a $50 hotel credit plus 1.5 points for travel booked through their website.  So $45 for the bonus 50% travel credit?  Keep.

Chase Ink - $95 is maybe a lot for an occasional use card. I mostly keep it to charge all my business expenses on it and keep it straight.  But it also gives better earnings in travel and business expenses.

Charles Schwab Amex Platinum with the $695 price tag.  This is for DH alone but we get $200 credit from Charles Schwab for having accounts with them. Annually these are the savings I use

$200 Hotel Credit 

$200 Airline Credit

$189 Clear

$100 saks

$240 digital credit - NYT, WSJ, Sirius, 

$180 walmart+ - use for free paramount plus

$200 Uber ($15/month plus $35 in december)

So $1509 in credits for the year means it's a keep.  I did drop the extra card which was an extra $175.  Still debating on that one.  I have $60 in pending american express offers statement credit so we'll see if it works.

Amex Gold I got when I downgraded my Amex Platinum and switched it to DH getting the amex platinum.  $250 is really steep and I'm not sure it's worth it.  

$120 year ($10 a month) Dining Credit

$200 Uber ($15/month plus $35 in december)

Even with the $320, I only kept it because when I tried to cancel they gave me $125 bonus to stay, so it became $125 annual fee. I also made $71 in Amex Offers with the gold card which helped offset the costs.

Finally the marriot chase card for $95.  This one I'm also not sure but disneysteve swears by it.  And $95 for 1 night in a hotel seemed like a no brainer to try it out.  Just got it and we'll see how it goes.

I've settled into a routine of credit cards.

I've been rolling in the bonuses this year with Amazon CC and Costco CC.  Those plus the points i've gotten on chase since my daily CC is Chase Freedom card where you get 1.5% back on everything and 3% on eating out.

What credit cards do you like?