Today was a bittersweet day for us. Our house was remediated yesterday. The crew was really sweet. They made our (sheetless) beds, cleaned our rooms up, and even fixed some things that were broken around our house. But that kind of work doesn’t come without a price.
A hefty price, at that. It actually broke our hearts to have some of our worst fears confirmed a few months ago. We spent 5 months pouring love into (renovating) this house and got to spend only 2 sick months in it before we moved out “just to see” if the house was making us sick. Suspicions confirmed.
Sometimes life gives you lemons and you’ve just got to put on your big girl panties and deal with the bitterness. But, the good news is that if you can find some sugar and water, you can come out with lemonade.
Our lemonade comes in the form of credit cards. For our Dave Ramsey family, this is taboo, but it’s the silver lining for us at the moment. Yes, this house put us in serious debt. I wouldn’t recommend it. But, I would sometimes recommend using stellar credit to your advantage. Here’s how we did it.
Right now (and often), Southwest and Chase are offering their Southwest Premier card with 50,000 bonus points. And the Rapid Rewards program is awesome. We used it for our 5 year anniversary to upgrade our wedding rings and I wear the bonus from that credit card on my finger every day. Real diamonds and gold.
It doesn’t come without strings, though. The first string is that you have to spend $2,000 with the credit card in the first 3 months of having it open (the details vary). And the second string is it comes with a $99 annual fee. So, basically, when you open the card, you already owe them 100 bucks.
But here’s the good part. 50,000 rapid reward points comes out to $500 in gift cards! You read that right! So, I pay $100 and get $500 back in gift cards. It’s not a bad deal. And if you’re like us, you can get one for each person. That comes out to $200 in fees spent for $1000 back in gift cards.
Don’t forget you have to spend $2000 for each card, though. Before we found out about our house situation, I planned to make the $2000 happen by putting everything I could on the card, including bills. But, it just so happens that our remediation is $4,000. See where I’m going with this? We’ve already got our spending taken care of!!! Sugar for our lemonade!
The next thing we have to do is sell our house and pay off the hefty balance, which should happen in the next month or two. And then, we pick out our gift cards! Hooray!
So, in essence, we’re spending $4200 ($4k for remediation and $200 in fees for 2 cards) and getting mold remediation and $1000 in gift cards. That’s really not a bad deal when you think about it.
Want me to make it even sweeter? Because, I mean, who doesn’t like a cherry on top? I’m going to get Walmart gift cards. Not that sweet? Well, Sam’s accepts Walmart gift cards. And guess what they sell at a discount? Disney gift cards. It’s about 5% off (just like at Target if you have a Red Card). So, if I spend my $1,000 at Sam’s on Disney gift cards, I’ll be getting $1,050 to spend on our Disney vacation.
I know. Our sad mold remediation just turned into half of a Disney vacation that we were praying to be able to take next year already anyway. Now, we’re just praying that our cute little (healthy) house sells now. God is good!