Wandering Money Pig - A journey of early retirement and FIRE (financial independence retire early)

  Pauma Valley Country Club, Pauma Valley, CA Carlito and I have been best of friends since we met in 8th grade.  We got to hang out often, sleeping over at each other’s place over weekends, exploring New York City, and playing outside, like all kids did way back when.   Carlito was always an intelligent, smart, and a thoughtful person, able to keep up his studies, getting really good grades, while still finding time to play with us (there were always 4 amigos growing up).  He got into good schools, and eventually got a law degree, which proved to be a great move, which I’m really happy about. He’s currently working in South Korea working for a big corporation as a high ranking executive, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.  Despite being apart the past decade, we’ve been keeping track of each other, fully aware of what each of us is up to these days. I miss him greatly, as it’s been over 2 years since I saw him, but that’s life.  Sometimes, we don’t get to decide how things work out,

Sycuan Casino Resort (hotel lobby) During the planning phase of my wife and myself’s cross country road trip going from North Carolina to California, one of the stops we added to our itinerary was Los Angeles.  My wife’s friend from college lives there, and it made sense to stop by to say hello. It was while we were planning that trip to Los Angeles that we thought of spending 2 days nearby, in San Diego.  I found out MyVegas Rewards has in its list of companies Sycuan Casino Resort , offering 2 free nights during the midweek. I researched the distance from Sycuan Casino Resort to Los Angeles, and it was definitely a doable distance at around 2 hours.  I went ahead and reserved the 2 free nights from 1/15 - 1/17, thrilled that we got free stays using MyVegas Rewards ! *** Click here if you’re interested in reading about MyVegas Rewards.   Long story short, we didn’t get to visit Los Angeles this time around.  We had spent 4 days in bustling Las Vegas just prior to going there, and w

We got this room at Sycuan Casino Resort for free using MyVegas Rewards! Like most people, I’m always looking for bargains and deals when it comes to hotels.  Because of that, I usually search multiple websites like Booking.com , Expedia.com, Priceline.com , as well as hotel chain websites like Choice Hotels , owners of hotels like Sleep Inn, Quality Inn , and Comfort Inn . During my wife and myself’s 2 1/2 month long cross country trip going from North Carolina to California from November 2022 through February 2023, we really maximized our use of these resources to book our stays.  I found out through trial & error that when booking a  Choice Hotels  offerings for example, it is usually better to book directly through their website vs. booking through a third party travel site aforementioned.   I also use multiple apps to save money on meals at places like  Chick-Fil-A, Chipotle, Subway , etc.  The main goal of using these apps is to earn loyalty points to score freebies like a di