Apparently you hate money. If you didn’t, you’d be using Rakuten every time you shop on websites like Walmart and Target to save money.
They have paid me over $13,943 for things I was already going to buy for my one-person business:
They are also the reason this post is free to read. Sign up here and get $30 for free after your first use.
Rakuten isn’t just a newsletter sponsor, they are an important part of my one-person business that I’ve used for years.
The goal of this series is to hit $100,000 in a brokerage account as a byproduct of simply spending money.
By leveraging both Rakuten and Credit Cards, I believe you can rack up six figures over a multi-year period.
What you are reading today is my attempt at proving this.
(Even if I fail or take way too long to accomplish this, it is all free money so who cares)
You can read the last post here:
To get started, let’s take a look at our updated Rakuten balance:
Total Unpaid Points: 28,824 (Up from 18,219)
Cash Value: $317.06
Most people take Rakuten payouts in cash but I take them in American Express points because I get a 10% bonus thanks to the Schwab Platinum card.
Like the month prior, we hardly earned anything via Rakuten.
Roughly $120.
However, come Q4 we will see a huge jump in value so bear with me.
Here is how our Amex Points balance is looking:
Total Rewards Points: 291
Cash Value: $3.20 (up from $1.53)
As you can see, we don’t have much of a balance because I made a transfer to the Schwab account mid-month.
(We got a 80,000 bonus for hitting the sign-up bonus on the Platinum card)
Sadly, that $1,250 Amazon points balance cannot be transferred to Schwab.
If it could, this challenge would be a hell of a lot easier.
Here is how the brokerage account is looking:
Total Value: $5,953.43 (+$326.41)
Total Cash Value (all of the above): $6,273.69 (+$444.73)
So despite receiving a $880 bonus and making a bit of money via Rakuten we only grew $444 month over month.
This is due to market fluctuation in relation to what the balance is invested in at the moment (ETFs).
So like I mentioned last month, we are not making a ton of progress at the moment for multiple reasons:
This is the slowest time of year for purchase activity for my business
I could be manufacturing spend but I have been lazy
I use other cards for things I am buying that don’t apply to this venture (the Amazon one mentioned above)
Despite this, we still made a free $444.
I know a lot of people that could use that every month.
We will easily surge past $10,000 this year regardless of what the market does, so sit tight with me.
Also, it is probably time to sign up for a new card an earn another bonus but the offers out there aren’t all that enticing.
That’s it for this month.
If you have a question leave it below and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
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These resources will show you how make your first $1,000 on the internet using the same methods I used to escape the rat race.
What ETF are you investing it in? Total stock market?