Best Hacks to Save Money in 2026 (Best of) with Chris Hutchins
Episode
88 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Career Growth, Relationships, Startups
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Welcome Bonus Strategy: Credit card welcome bonuses average 17% return versus typical 2-5% cashback rates. Open cards strategically with partners to stack bonuses—one person opens card, refers partner for referral bonus, partner opens same card for their welcome bonus, effectively doubling rewards per household.
- ✓Points Purchase Arbitrage: Buy hotel points during sales to book luxury properties at massive discounts. Example: Cap Rocat in Mallorca costs $2,800 per night cash but 120,000 Hilton points, which can be purchased for half-cent each ($600 total), creating 78% savings on identical bookings.
- ✓Card-Linked Offer Multiplication: Add same promotional offer to multiple cards from one issuer, then purchase high-resale-value gift cards to trigger bonuses. Example: $50 back on $200 Lowe's purchase across seven Amex cards yields $350 cashback, resell Dick's Sporting Goods gift cards at 89 cents per dollar for 14% profit.
- ✓Flight Booking Sequencing: International one-way flights cost significantly more than roundtrips—adding unused return leg can cut prices by 50% or more. Use tools like Points.me, PointsYeah, and Award Tool with flexible destination searches to find business class redemptions at 70-80% below cash prices.
- ✓Business Card Benefits: Sole proprietors qualify for business credit cards without formal incorporation or EIN. Business cards bypass Chase's 5/24 rule (five personal cards in 24 months), don't report to personal credit, and offer higher welcome bonuses while building points faster through everyday business expenses.
What It Covers
Chris Hutchins shares advanced strategies for maximizing credit card points, finding online deals, and travel hacking, including welcome bonus optimization, gift card arbitrage, hotel negotiation tactics, and teaching kids entrepreneurship through deal-finding.
Key Questions Answered
- •Welcome Bonus Strategy: Credit card welcome bonuses average 17% return versus typical 2-5% cashback rates. Open cards strategically with partners to stack bonuses—one person opens card, refers partner for referral bonus, partner opens same card for their welcome bonus, effectively doubling rewards per household.
- •Points Purchase Arbitrage: Buy hotel points during sales to book luxury properties at massive discounts. Example: Cap Rocat in Mallorca costs $2,800 per night cash but 120,000 Hilton points, which can be purchased for half-cent each ($600 total), creating 78% savings on identical bookings.
- •Card-Linked Offer Multiplication: Add same promotional offer to multiple cards from one issuer, then purchase high-resale-value gift cards to trigger bonuses. Example: $50 back on $200 Lowe's purchase across seven Amex cards yields $350 cashback, resell Dick's Sporting Goods gift cards at 89 cents per dollar for 14% profit.
- •Flight Booking Sequencing: International one-way flights cost significantly more than roundtrips—adding unused return leg can cut prices by 50% or more. Use tools like Points.me, PointsYeah, and Award Tool with flexible destination searches to find business class redemptions at 70-80% below cash prices.
- •Business Card Benefits: Sole proprietors qualify for business credit cards without formal incorporation or EIN. Business cards bypass Chase's 5/24 rule (five personal cards in 24 months), don't report to personal credit, and offer higher welcome bonuses while building points faster through everyday business expenses.
Notable Moment
Hutchins describes taking his five-year-old daughter to Lowe's to execute gift card arbitrage across seven credit cards, turning promotional offers into $200 profit in one hour, then depositing the money in her account and letting her buy the family ice cream with her earnings.
Episode Transcript
Financial feminists. Welcome back to the show. If you are new, my name is Tori. I am a money expert. I am a multimillionaire, and I've helped over 5,000,000 women be better with money. And we are in the twilight of 2025. Okay. But I'm so excited for what's happening in 2026. Today, I have got a great episode from earlier this year. It was so popular, and we got so many messages saying how valuable it was that we wanna make sure that you either hear it again or hear it for the first time. We're talking all about how to save money on almost everything this year. So even if you've already listened to it, it's worth a second listen just because of how jam packed all of this is. There's so much information about saving tax that you can use, especially when the economy feels a little worse for wear. But before we get into that, I wanna share that on January 1, we are doing a brand new miniseries to help you get your finances together in 2026 called our personal finance cheat sheet. We're going through everything from saving to spending to investing and the mindsets that might be holding you back. So please make sure you're subscribed on YouTube if you wanna watch the video or hear wherever you're listening to the podcast. We wanna give you all of this information. And it is serialized, so we're going step by step through everything you need to know to get your financial shit together this year. And if you're looking for more resources as you start this year, we have free workshops, we have guides, we have the tools we recommend for budgeting or for bank accounts at herfirsthundredk.com/sfpod. And the best place to get started is that quiz you're gonna find on that link. You answer six questions. We'll give you a free personalized money plan, herfirsthundredk.com/sfpod. Alright. Let's get into the episode. We'll see you back here in a few days. This is probably the most valuable conversation we've ever shared about how to save money on literally anything. From travel to groceries, we are getting all of the hacks. Chris Heshchens is the creator and host of the All the Hacks podcast, a podcast that helps you upgrade your life, money, and travel. And boy, oh, boy, did he bring the heat. We could have talked for three hours. I find that the best ideas and the best things come from how you wanna spend your free time, and you don't know their businesses. In this episode, Chris completely rewires the way you think about saving money and time. I can almost guarantee that you'll never look at money or your spending or even your time the same way after listening to this episode. That's where I think it can get dangerous to think about how much value your time is because that space isn't a profitable time upfront. Right? Like, leaving …
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Books, tools, and gear mentioned in this episode
SignalCast may earn commission on purchases via these links.
Tools
- Points.meRecommended
“Use tools like Points.me, PointsYeah, and Award Tool with flexible destination searches to find business class redemptions at 70-80% below cash prices.”
- Award ToolRecommended
“Use tools like Points.me, PointsYeah, and Award Tool with flexible destination searches to find business class redemptions at 70-80% below cash prices.”
- PointsYeahRecommended
“Use tools like Points.me, PointsYeah, and Award Tool with flexible destination searches to find business class redemptions at 70-80% below cash prices.”
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