Tentmaking Tips

Actually, we’re back!

I took a 6 month break from writing these weekly newsletters & I’m going to resume again with help from my friend Simon Holley, a fellow pastor & tentmaker in the UK. Check out his bio on the Tentmaking Pastors site here. 

Simon oversees a network of churches across Europe, Africa & the Middle East. As a tentmaker, his focus has been on helping people use their skills, passion & expertise to develop online coaching programs. He’ll tell you more about this in future newsletters.

My vision with Tentmaking Pastors has been to help pastors, missionaries & Christian leaders supplement or replace their income with tentmaking like the Apostle Paul.

Simon shares that vision & adds an additional component of helping leaders “around the world,” not just in the US where I’ve been a tentmaker. Our plan is to continue to help leaders in developed countries, but we also want to write & develop resources to help leaders in the developing world as well.

We’ll

I invited newsletter subscribers to share any additional “hacks” they’ve used.

One of my good friends and fellow pastor at our church, John Bradshaw, responded back with some other great “hacks” that his family used to put their kids through college.

He shared 3 additional “hacks” and I’m going to quote him here:

1. Stay at home - Don’t go to UT Austin (in the case of someone whose family lives in Lubbock). Stay in Lubbock, go to Tech, and live at home (one of my kids did this). And your community college point from the last newsletter makes this even better. Go to South Plains Community College (again using Lubbock as the example) for two years and then go to Tech.

2. Apply for every scholarship available (there are a ton) - When one of my daughters said she wanted to go to Hardin Simmons (a private school) we said, “That’s great but we can’t pay for it and we don’t...

I had heard of these before but wasn’t quite sure how they worked.

I started doing more research and quickly became convinced that I needed to add this tool to my financial life. I just set mine up this past week.

Let me share with you a high-level overview of what these are and how they might benefit you.

What is a Donor Advised Fund?

Let me quote Fidelity Charitable:

A donor-advised fund, or DAF, is like a charitable investment account for the sole purpose of supporting charitable organizations you care about. When you contribute cash, securities, or other assets to a donor-advised fund at a public charity… you are generally eligible to take an immediate tax deduction. Then those funds can be invested for tax-free growth, and you can recommend grants to any eligible IRS-qualified public charity.

This definition gives at least two of t

Tuition prices are sky rocketing.

Add the cost of room and board if your child chooses to leave for college.

Books aren’t cheap either.

My oldest daughter is a Senior in High School & my youngest is a Freshman.

You can imagine that were talking a lot about college these days.

My girls are asking questions like, “Should we even go to college? If so, where should we go? And, if we go, what should we major in?”

If they end up choosing to go to college, it raises the question, is it hackable?

Turns out, it is.

I’ll share some of the hacks we’ve discovered & then I welcome you to email me any additional hacks you’ve used. I’d love to do more emails on this subject because it’s such a big financial commitment for families. Especially if you’re trying to keep your children far from student loans, which I certainly am.

Ok, let’s begin.

1. Dual Credit Classes - my oldest daughter is taking as many of these as she can. Me and my wife did
...

Honestly, both are fantastic!

I recommend people start with Chase cards first because of the 5/24 rule.

But once you’ve maxed out your Chase cards, AMEX is a great place to go next.

While Chase UR points are still the most flexible in my opinion, AMEX MR points are a close second.

Unlike Chase, AMEX has cards like the Blue Business Plus card that get 2x on everything (up to $50,000 in purchases).

But unlike AMEX, Chase allows you to transfer points back & forth from your spouse.

Instead of choosing between them, I get both, but I prioritize Chase if I’m under 5/24.

And once you get an AMEX card, they’ll start sending you additional offers in your account.

I recently got an offer for up to 99 employee cards where they’d give me 15,000 MR points for $4,000 in spend over 6 months. Wow!

I went ahead and got 5 employee cards (they can be in your name) and plan to get 75,000 MR points in the next few months.

Also, AMEX right now has the ability to tr

This is especially concerning if their tentmaking activities don’t involve having a job at a church or company that offers a group health insurance plan.

This is a great question & certainly something many who have thought about tentmaking have had to consider.

Ever since I came off the payroll at our church, I had to find alternative ways to get health insurance for our family.

And it’s not as hard as you might think.

In fact, there are some “hacks” that could allow you to get health insurance even cheaper than if you were buying into a group plan. More on that below.

My hope is that this newsletter might begin to alleviate any fear you’ve had of finding health insurance apart from a group plan at your church/company.

Once I came off the payroll, I was able to work with an insurance agent to apply for my own group coverage with my real estate company. Since I had at least one employee, we were ab

We like that everyone can choose what they want & that you have healthy options as well.

The main problem is the cost.

As you know, if everyone gets a burrito or a bowl, for a family of 4, it can really add up.

4 chicken burritos = $8.90 x 4 = $35.60 + $2.94 tax = $38.54 x ~4 weeks/mo = $154.16/mo

Ouch!

It can add up, but it doesn’t have to.

We’ve come up with multiple hacks.

1. Kids Meals

   My 17-year old daughter often eats there with her friends & she recently told us that the kids meals have plenty of food and there’s not an age restriction.

   One night our family of 4 all tried the build-your-own kids meal & we loved it.

   It was only $5.50 each and it came with protein, two sides, chips & a drink.

   Plenty of food for us!

   That’s $23.82 including tax to eat out as a family of 4.

   $23.82 x ~4 weeks/mo = $95.28 per month for our family to eat weekly at Chipotle.

   Not bad,

   ...

In Texas, the broker’s exam has a 56% pass rate, so plenty of people have to retake it a few times to pass.

The test is 4 hours long and there is a lot of content to study.

I decided to spend some extra money on the one resource that made passing the initial real estate licensing exam a cinch.

An Exam Prep.

You have to pay extra for these resources, so I’m not sure if many people do it, but I’ve found it makes it so easy to study the pertinent information & pass the first time.

I bought the resource, studied the summaries, took the practice tests, and found the broker’s exam to be a breeze.

My advice is that if you’re studying for your real estate salesperson’s license or your broker’s license, spend the extra money to get the Exam Prep. It saves time on st

Chase was running an all-time high bonus on the Chase Ink Business Preferred card of 120,000 points & an all-time high referral bonus offer of 40,000 when you referred that card to a friend.

Our original plan was to get one card for me and one for my wife & then refer as many people as we could.

What we didn’t know at the time is that Chase would approve both me & my wife for TWO of the same card in a short period of time.

We just finished hitting the 4th welcome bonus, so here’s how all the points stacked up:

My wife referred me to the card = 40,000 points

We hit the welcome bonus on my 1st card = 120,000 points

I referred my wife to the card = 40,000 points

We hit the welcome bonus on her 1st card = 120,000 points

My wife referred me to my 2nd card = 40,000 points

We hit the welcome bonus on my 2nd card = 120,000 points

I referred my wife to her 2nd car

Everyone was unsure whether or not the merger would make it all the way through or if the Department of Transportation would object.

About a month ago, AMEX was offering a 20% transfer bonus on points transferred to Hawaiian Airlines, one of their travel partners.

Travel Hackers online were discussing whether or not Hawaiian Miles would transfer 1:1 to Alaskan Miles if the merger went through. Hawaiian Miles are not worth much and easy to earn, but Alaska Miles are very valuable and very hard to earn.

Alaska Airlines is part of the One World alliance, so you’re able to book American Airlines flights at great point redemption rates.

This potential merger provided an opportunity for Travel Hackers with many points to put some at risk by transferring to Hawaiian, hoping Alaskan would honor the points if the merger were to go through. But no one was sure, so it was definitely a risky play.

I