Earn 1 Million Credit Card Points without Annual Fees | Secret 25% Cash Back Cards | Using Rewards to Max Out Your Roth IRA #123

For a limited time, Spencer is offering one-on-one Military Money Coaching sessions! Get your personal military money and investing questions answered in a confidential coaching call.

Military families can earn 1 million points without annual fees?!   You're not going to earn a lot of points from spending. You need to focus on earning welcome bonuses. We'll teach out how in the free Ultimate Military Credit Cards course.   Main points today: How to earn 1,000,000 credit card points without annual fees    1. Greatest bang for your buck comes from welcome bonuses    2. Referral bonuses    3. Spending category maximazation    Value of 1 million points: $10,000 minimum, $11,000 cashout value, or $20,000+ when you transfer to a travel partner.   Ways to maximize your points earning: 1. Use welcome bonuses more than spending for points 2. Use transferable points (like American Express) more than specific airline or hotel cards 3. Earn towards a specific redemption goal    For example, if a business card offers $750 back after spending $6,000 in 3 months, that's 12.5% effective cash back! Or even better, you can pair with CSR and use at points in travel portal 18% cash back. To take it one step further, you can transfer to Hyatt or United, for example, and earn 2 cents and 25% cash back.   Another example: Amex Platinum 150,000 offer, and you spend all $8,000 requirement on airfare. That's 5 pts per dollar (extra 40,000 points), 190,000 points earned for $8,000 spent = 47.5% effective cash back rate! Even an 80,000 point offer after $6,000 spend would be 13% effective rate... way better than the average cash back card.   You can refer your spouse or friends (details in episode 26)    Keep earning your points easy with 3 simple rules we use-  1. Gold card for dining and groceries 4x (not Platinum's 1 point per dollar) 2. Amex Platinum for flights (5 pts per dollar) 3. Chase Sapphire Reserve for travel and hotels (3 pts per dollar)

Our new TSP course is live! Check out the Confident TSP Investing course at militarymoneymanual.com/tsp to learn all about the Thrift Savings Plan and strategies for growing your wealth while in the military. Use promo code "podcast24" for $50 off. Plus, for every course sold, we'll donate one course to an E-4 or below- for FREE!

If you have a question you would like us to answer on the podcast, please reach out on instagram.com/militarymoneymanual or email podcast@militarymoneymanual.com.

If you want to maximize your military paycheck, check out Spencer's 5 star rated book The Military Money Manual: A Practical Guide to Financial Freedom on Amazon or at shop.militarymoneymanual.com.

I also offer a 100% free course on military travel hacking and getting annual fee waived credit cards, like The Platinum Card® from American Express, the American Express® Gold Card, and the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card in my Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course at militarymoneymanual.com/umc3.

Learn how to get your annual fees waived on premium credit cards from American Express in the Ultimate Military Credit Cards Course at militarymoneymanual.com/umc3.

The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card waive the annual fee for active duty military servicemembers, including Guard and Reserve on active orders over 30 days. The annual fees on all personal Amex cards are also waived for military spouses married to active duty troops.