October 2026 Newsletter

HABIT STACKING FOR A STACKING HABIT!

Happy October! The air is crisp and smells faintly of pumpkin spice lattes. This month I want to spend some time focusing on the foundation of points earning: habits. Whether you found a 40x triple stack or you are just getting 2x at the hardware store, habits got you there. Habits are work you complete regularly, with little conscious thought.

Making a routine habitual may take time but getting to the point that you maximize your points earning without excessive energy use is so worth it. As a devotee of James Clear’s Atomic Habits, I’ve used the tools outlined in his book to streamline the formation of habits, so the habits can streamline my life. One of strategies found in the book is the idea of habit stacking: taking an existing habit and adding a new routine to it so it soon becomes habitual as well.

Here’s an example: When I’m checking my credit card account balance to pay bills, I hit the offers page and activate my offers. If I’m activating offers I might as well stop by SimplyMiles and activate those offers as well (no bills to pay there).

I am taking something that I already do consistently, pay my bills, and just adding another beneficial task on top of it. I’m already logged into my account so it should take minimal time, especially if I have an auto-activation tool like Savewise Pro or CardPointers+. I just line up a desirable new activity (activating offers) with an existing habit (paying bills) and soon my brain puts the 2 together faster than creating a new habit from scratch.

Another example is setting up email alerts through a service like Savewise and making checking portals a regular daily part of your morning routine reading emails. Likewise, you could set your homepage to Savewise or Cashbackmonitor to get a look at your options while you get your computer up and running.

 We can set our lives so that maximizing earning doesn’t take any more time or thought than NOT maximizing. True, this will probably never beat the Amazon App in pure dopamine spiking convenience, but if you hide your Amazon app deep in your phone and replace it with Rakuten on the front page of your phone you’ll be faced with the decision of “save time at the cost of points” much less often, and soon you’ll notice that same day shipping isn’t all that, after all you got by without it for 98% of your life.

Change is always harder than standing still. If you set up your life so that the path of least resistance is going through your new habit, your new routine, it becomes natural very quickly. It’s hard to pick the wrong credit card when you have stickers listing all the multipliers on them right in front of you. It’s hard to forget to activate offers if you tell yourself its part of paying bills. It’s hard to avoid a portal if you place the app right where you already habitually go to first when you need to buy something.

COMING UP!

Rakuten’s Big Stack Event returns October 5–7, offering 10x bonuses at participating retailers, including Nike, Expedia, Macy’s and LEGO. Remember, your Rakuten earnings can be transferred to Amex Membership Rewards or Bilt points and can be used for valuable travel rewards!

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING NEXT

November brings the biggest shopping days of the year. It is not too early to start thinking about and planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Happy earning!

🗓️UPDATES🗓️

Mark your calendars for our next Live Q&A session on Monday, October 19th at 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET. Get all your questions answered. Here's the link to join. Don't miss out on attending live!

Kira and Shannon

JGOOT Earning Multipliers Experts