Our annual Christmas tree decoration timelapse.

To make up for not sending out a Christmas card the past two years, I’ll be adding an update about our family here. Right now there’s a mix of finished sections and a few that were written a bit more quickly. If I haven’t finished it by the time you land on this page, I’m sorry - extra time has been hard to come by lately.

Hearing from You!

We’d love to hear from family and friends about what’s going on in your lives. Feel free to send me an email or drop a quick message in the form below to let us know what’s new and/or how we can be praying for you.

Family Members

Updates on all the McLendon clan…

Michael

We’ll start with the biggest change in our family - Michael, who arrived in March. Michael

Michael and his tongue

He’s a super-fun kiddo, great at bringing a smile to anyone’s face. It’s always amazing to me how for each of our children, once they’re here you can’t imagine the family without him. He loves mom and dad and all his siblings, and we all love him to the moon and back! He’s just recently started crawling and seems like he’s cutting a new tooth every day.

Michael on the hunt for a Christmas Tree

Lucy

Lucy Starting 8th Grade

WE HAVE A TEENAGER! Lucy turned 13 this October and started 8th grade this autumn - her 2nd year at West Bay Christian Academy. She gives mom and dad many reasons to be proud, from making National Junior Honor Society last year along with high honors at school to taking on new challenges like Scouts this fall. She continues to be a voracious reader, devouring books as quickly as she can pick them up. Back in the spring she ran on the track team at West Bay and just recently finished the cross country season there. She’s just getting started with basketball for what will be her 2nd season. She’s also active in the youth group at Grace Harbor.

Lucy has enjoyed getting into Basketball at West Bay

Lucy searching for the perfect Christmas Tree

Ethan

Ethan Starting 6th Grade

Ethan turned 11 in August. After finishing 5th grade at Hoxsie in Warwick, he started this fall as a 6th grader at West Bay Christian Academy. This year he played flag football in the winter, Little League baseball in the spring and fall, and ran cross country in the fall. He just started basketball with the boys team from West Bay - a new team sport for him. In his spare time he enjoys reading, Legos, Nerf guns, video games, and working Star Wars into any conversation he might be part of.

Ethan searching for the perfect Christmas Tree

Carolyn

Carolyn Starting 3rd Grade

Carolyn just turned 9 and is a 3rd grader at Providence Classical Academy, a new hybrid classical school that was inaugurated this year. She is active in dance and gymnastics and enjoys reading, crafts, and taking in the beauty of the world around her. She loves to play with Katie and friends around the neighborhood.

Carolyn searching for the perfect Christmas Tree

Katie

Katie Starting 1st Grade

Katie, our six-year-old, is a 1st grader at Providence Classical Academy. Like her sister Carolyn, she’s active in dance and gymnastics. She’s a blossoming reader and loves Legos and playing fanciful games with her older sister and friends.

Katie searching for the perfect Christmas Tree

Meredith

Meredith is a superwoman mother of 5 and wife of 1. She has obviously been extremely busy with the kiddos this year. She spends quite a bit of time shuttling them around from here to there and this fall has been teaching Carolyn and Katie during their at-home learning days. In addition to all this, she’s managed to be involved beyond the family, including attending a Bible conference back in February and helping lead a women’s Bible study at Grace Harbor. She’s an avid reader, always working to learn something new and has found time to read through books on Alexandria, education, and Rome among others this year. She also made a trip to Texas with Michael over the summer to introduce him to family there while I stayed home with the other kiddos. I’m bugging her to write an update herself to put here.

Meredith and her barnacle Michael searching for the perfect Christmas Tree

Ross

TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read summary) version…

I’m doing well, enjoying my job a lot. I’ve been pulling back on time spent on personal activities like Providence Singers and photography as the kids get more and more involved in their own activities. I did have a very exciting adventure with a buddy from college climbing Mount Baker in Washington State back in August.

Long Version

It has been a pretty full year for me. As the kiddos have gotten more numerous and older (and more involved in various activities), I’ve needed to scale back on the number of activites I’ve been involved in, although I still manage to find things to be involved in. Professionally, I’m wrapping up my second year as the product manager for Abaqus. I’ve been enjoying the role. One of the best parts of the job has been the people - from getting to work more broadly with a great group of incredibly capable people in the sturctures R&D teams at DS to having more opportunities to interact with customers as well as folks in the sales and marketing sides of our business, that part of the job has been very rewarding. I really enjoy the chance to present on what our developers have implemented, and I find this new role nicely combines the sorts of esoteric technical topics I worked with when I was a developer with opportunities to communicate and present to a broad variety of audiences, leveraging experience I’ve built going back to theater and choir days in high school.

Speaking of choir, one thing I have stepped back from is Providence Singers. I enjoyed singing with this wonderful group for six seasons, but with a baby coming and kids sports schedules encroaching among other reasons, I decided to hang it up this year. While I took that off, I did put on the job of assistant coach duties for Ethan’s Little League team back in the spring and had a blast with that. Additionally, I’ve gotten more involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)-related student engagements, whether it’s serving as the co-chair of the STEM committee at our office or helping to put on a telescope day at Carolyn and Katie’s school with some of the equipment I used for the eclipse earlier this year. I also continue to help out with sound and tech at our church and suspect I’ll be getting a bit involved in the Scout troop that Lucy has joined.

While I’ve had a few very focused photography endeavours this year like the eclipse and a few notable nights with aurora appearing in the skies over New England, I’ve generally gone out less for the purpose of photography. It’s not something I’m setting aside, but in the current season of life a larger balance of my time rightly goes to family as opposed to going out to catch as many moonrises, thunderstorms, and autumn landscape scenes as I used to (although I do find occasional opportunities to get out with the camera).

I did have one big adventure this year with Matt, a friend from college and husband to Meredith’s undergraduate roommate. We try to go do some sort of crazy outdoors thing every few years and this year we went with his brother-in-law to Washington to climb the Easton Glacier route up Mount Baker, one of the glaciated volcanos in the Cascade range. It was my first time traveling on a glacier and it was a blast. It was the most I’ve prepared for an adventure like this - as I get older I realize how much I’ve historically been able to lean on my youth for physically demanding tasks and how that’s not really going to be a viable option now and going into the future - so for this trip it was quite a few hours spent on the stair machine with a sandbag-filled backpack on my back as well as some training hikes up mountains to our north (including one up Mount Washington’s Tuckerman’s Ravine with Tim, another very good friend here in Rhode Island). Our Baker trip was with a group led by a team of guides since glacier travel was a first for all three of us, and it ends up there are quite a few hazards you can face like falling and sliding for thousands of feet, stepping through a snowbridge and falling into a crevasse, or getting lost on a large slope in the middle of a cloud. Thankfully our very capable guides were well-versed in all of these hazards and how to mitigate them, and we successfully managed the ~4500 vertical-foot ascent from base camp to summit in a weather clearing on our second day.

Heading up the “railroad grade” section towards base camp, the old lateral moraine of the Easton Glacer on Mount Baker

Mount Baker (or Kulshan if you prefer indigenous names) from the Deming Glacier side

Family Events and Outings

The year had a number of exciting family activities.

Travel to Texas

We made a number of trips back to Texas to see family. Thank goodness for credit card airline points.

• We kicked off 2024 in Texas visiting family over the New Year holiday.
• Meredith took Michael to Texas this summer to introduce him to grandparents and other family.
• We made a family trip to Texas before the school year started to get a little more time in with family.

Getting Outdoors

We love the outdoors and try to get the family out as much as schedule allows.

Ski Getaway

After a couple of good seasons learning at King Pine - a small ski mountain in New Hampshire - we felt it was time to stretch our legs a little bit and go for a somewhat larger ski area. So, we headed a bit further north and had a lot of fun at Bretton Woods over the February break. Lucy and Ethan are solid skiers who have mastered blue slopes pretty decisively, and Carolyn and Katie managed to work their way up to skiing a few blues with dad by the end of our trip this year. In addition, we greatly enjoyed the “ski club” at West Bay, where once a week for six weeks students and chaperones leave the school a little early and head to Wachusett mountain for an evening of skiing. We’re looking forward to what the coming winter brings in terms of opportunities to ski - hopefully more snow than we’ve had the past couple of winters!

Katie and Carolyn at the top of the lift at Bretton Woods.

Mount Monadnock

As I was getting warmed up for Mount Baker, I took a day off in the summer to bring Lucy, Ethan, and Carolyn up Mount Monadnock in southern New Hampshire. They did great, and I didn’t even end up missing anything at work because the Crowdstrike crash happened the same day! Being on the mountain with the kids sure beat sitting at my office staring at a non-functioning computer screen!

Heading up to the summit of Monadnock.

Mount Wachusett

After I got back from Mount Baker, we made a whole-family trip up Mount Wachusett. I was particularly interested in how Katie would handle a hike that gains 1000 vertical feet. She handled it like a champ!

Celestial Events

It has been a pretty stellar year for exciting things happening in the sky, and we’ve had a number of opportunities to get out and see some of them.

Eclipse Adventure

Originally planned to be a trip to Dallas, weather ended up making us shift plans last minute to rent an RV and drive it with Lucy, Ethan, Caroly, Katie, and a bunch of friends from church up to Vermont where we took in totality in Derby Line, literal feet from the Canadian border. Between the unparalleld spectacle of totality and the most epic traffic jam I’ve ever been in traveling back through the Franconia notch in New Hampshire, it was quite a memorable experience.

Aurora Chasing

We’re at a solar maximum which has yielded several exceptionally strong geomagnetic storms that resulted in aurora that were visible in New England. We had two opportunities - one storm in May that Ethan traveled with me to Rockport, MA to see (Lucy was at an out-of-town track event) and another in October that all the kiddos were able to take in under clear skies in Rhode Island.

Ethan taking a spectacular aurora storm in May

Comet

As if eclipses and aurora weren’t enough, we got a really nice comet back in October. I dragged the whole family down to Oakland Beach one evening after it became a good northern hemisphere target to see it first hand when it was bright enough to be spotted with the unaided eye, even in light-polluted Warwick.

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas setting over Greenwich Bay with noctulescent clouds

Church Update and a Request - Grace Harbor

One of the things that we have been extremely grateful for in New England is our church, Grace Harbor in Providence. Each Sunday there is filled with wonderful Biblically-centered preaching, rich worship, and warm fellowship, and in it’s relatively short history we’ve had a significant ministry of helping equip other churches and pastors in New England. Over the 10+ years we’ve been members the church has steadily grown to the point where we’re at-capacity in our rented chruch facility in downtown Providence. Because of this, we recently purchased an old manufacturing space just west of downtown that we’ll be renovating into a space to gather. As part of this, we are undertaking a fundraising campaign to fund the purchase and construction. Our church would cherish your prayers for this effort as we work to grow God’s kingdom in New England.

April Eclipse Introduction

The exciting thing about the April 8 eclipse is that it’s passing through and near a lot of populated places in the United States. It’s a lot like the eclipse in 2017 (where I captured the data for the image above), except it passes through a different array of cities and totality will last a bit longer than the one in 2017. Here’s a map from NASA showing the path for the April 2024 eclipse.

NASA Map

What’s the Big Deal?

Note the dark-shaded path of totality. This is the path that the moon’s umbra, or complete shadow, will trace over the earth. These are the regions that will experience a total eclipse, and this is the path that you want to be in. Let me state very clearly - There is a massive difference between a partial eclipse and a total eclipse. If you are near the path of totality but not in the path of totality, you will only experience a partial eclipse.

If a partial eclipse is like watching your kid play Tecmo baseball on Nintendo, a total eclipse is like playing in game 7 of the World Series. They’re completely different experiences.

In a partial eclipse, when the moon partly blocks the sun, you…

• cannot view the sun’s corona
• might notice things getting a bit dimmer
• can do things like use pinhole projectors and eclipse glasses to observe the partially-blocked sun
• will need a solar filter to safely photograph the event
• can see weird shadows where the sun creates dappled light like shining through leaves
• likely wouldn’t know an eclipse was happening unless you were trying to observe it

Partial phase of the 2017 eclipse, photo through a solar filter

In a total eclipse, where the moon completely blocks the sun, you…

• can see the beauty of the sun’s corona
• will see the sky get dark
• can view totality with your naked eye
• can photograph totality without any solar filters (take them off during totality)
• can see stars in sky (note Regulus, the star in the eclipse photo from 2017)
• will experience nature freaking out around you as it thinks that night has suddenly come
• will probably be unable to refrain from exclaiming aloud how amazing a sight it is you’re beholding

Composite of the August 21, 2017 eclipse totality showing the corona and earthshine on the moon, no filter needed

Just to be perfectly clear about what we’re talking about - a total solar eclipse is the most incredible natural spectacle I have ever beheld. 2nd place isn’t even close. So, hopefully I’ve convinced you to do what you can to get into the path of totality, preferably in a spot where the sky is expected to be clear.

Where in the Path?

So where should you try to get to? Not everywhere in the ~60 mile wide path will have the same experience.

Close to the Centerline

Get well into the path rather than right on the edge. The closer you are to the centerline, the longer totality will last, and the darker the sky will get. The National Solar Observatory has a very handy website that includes a map that allows you to click on a location and see exactly when totality starts and ends, and how long it will last. On the centerline, totality will range from just over 4 minutes and 20 seconds in most of Texas to around 3 minutes and 30 seconds once it reaches Maine. It’s probably worth a little travel to get close to the centerline, especially if you’re right on the edge of it.

Weather

This eclipse is happening in April, which means weather is likely to have an impact. An eclipse isn’t particularly interesting if it’s obscured by clouds. You can’t control the weather, but you can plan around it. There are two phases to this - climatological and short-range forecasting.

Climate and Location

We know where the eclipse is going to be, and we know what the historical weather has been along those routes. Average climate data can tell us far in advance where the dice are weighted in our favor. For instance, in Dallas, it’s historically clear a little over 40% of the time in April, mostly clear or clear at least 50% of the time. Figure based on this that in Dallas, you’re probably looking at a little better than 50% chance that the weather will allow you to view the eclipse.

On the other hand, in Millinocket, Maine in April it’s clear just 20% of days, clear or mostly clear just 30% of days. So a viewer in Maine is substantially more likely to be dealing with clouds than one in Dallas, and have something closer to a 1-in-3 chance of having a clear view of the eclipse day-of.

Obviously, this isn’t a slam dunk. It could be cloudy in Dallas and clear as a bell in Maine on April 8 - that’s just the nature of weather and statistics. So forecasting becomes important.

Forecasts

A few days ahead of the eclipse, forecasting models should have some idea of where clouds are likely to develop during the eclipse. Check out the NWS Graphical Forecast to see sky cover predictions a few days out. Hopefully, you have a place that’s totally in the clear day of, but if you need to check short-range predictions, use a tool like the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) forecasts to see what clouds are expected to be 5-15 hours in advance.

If you’re wanting to give yourself the best possible chance of seeing the eclipse, have plans to fly to one of a few different locations, pick one a few days ahead based on the forecast, and then try to have some flexibility to drive a little ways day-of. Obviously not everyone has that sort of flexibility, but this is the best way to make sure you’re not looking at very dark clouds overhead on April 8.

Safety (or “How to Not Go Blind”)

The first note for people who are in the path of totality - take off your solar glasses and solar filters during totality (and only during totality - put them back on as totality ends). If you wear solar glasses during totality, you’ll miss what’s possibly the most incredible sight you’ve ever seen.

Direct Observation

My oldest sporting a pair of reputable cardboard eclipse glasses in 2017

The only safe way to directly observe a partial eclipse (or view a total eclipse during the partial phases - before and after totality) is through appropriate solar filter material. Failure to do this can result in eye damage. Make sure you get filters/viewers/glasses from a reputable source. Thousand Oaks Optical would be one example - that’s where I’m getting solar filters for viewing and for photography. Look for viewers that comply with the ISO 12312-2 standard. Regular sunglasses, even especially dark ones are not adequate for direct solar viewing. Use these solar filters until the entire photosphere (the bright part of the sun’s surface) is completely obscured by the moon.

Bailey’s Beads - get ready to take those glasses off

If you’re in the path of totality, once the last little bit of the photosphere has passed behind the moon (you’re past the “Bailey’s Beads” phase shown above), that is when you should take off your glasses. At this point, you’ll be able to see the sun’s corona.

The inner corona and prominences during totality in the 2017 eclipse

Keep an eye on the time - put your glasses back on immediately as the photosphere comes back into view on the other side of the moon. There are some helpful apps out there, some of which will call out instructions about when to take your glasses off and put your glasses on again based on your location.

Indirect Observation

If you don’t have access to solar filters, there are any number of techniques to indirectly view the partially eclipsed sun. Again, don’t bother with these during totality - just look at the corona directly during that phase.

Using a card with a pinhole to project the partially eclipsed sun onto a piece of white paper.

Magnified Observation (Telescopes, Binoculars, and Cameras)

During totality, having a set of binoculars on-hand to view the corona and prominences close-up can be really cool. Just make sure you move them away from your eyes before the sun comes back out, after which point you’ll need to put the filters back on them.

If you’re using a camera or telescope or binoculars to direclty view the eclipse, any time it’s a partial eclipse, you must have a proper solar filter as the first optical element of your setup. In other words, the filter has to be on the front of the lens. If you put it behind the lens or on the eyepiece, you’ll likely melt the filter as well as rapidly burn a literal hole in your retina as the lens concentrates the powerful sunlight to a single point. Even if you use live view on your camera or have a mirrorless camera that shows a video feed rather than providing a direct optical path from the lens to your eye (which is a good practice for protecting your eyesight) you’ll burn through your shutter, scorch your sensor, melt your iris blades, or otherwise damage your camera and/or lens. Also note that a dark regular ND filter may not block the UV and infrared spectra that a proper solar filter would, which could allow invisible but extremely dangerous energy into your eye or equipment.

Logistics

If you’re in a place that’s nicely in the path, count yourself lucky.

If you live in a population center not far from the path, I’d argue it’s worth a trip. But be prepared for crowds. Plan a spot ahead of time. Give yourself plenty of time to get to your target destination on the path. And be ready for massive traffic jams on the way back. The eclipse ends at the same time for everyone. For reference, in 2017 it took over 8 hours to travel from Glendo, WY to Denver, CO after the eclipse - a trip which would normally just take 3 hours. Start the day with a full tank of gas, bring snacks, and set your expectations appropriately. Or perhaps make a plan to camp out somewhere and wait to leave until the next day. Despite being caught in a massive traffic jam with half of Denver trying to get back on I-25, I can say that it was undoubtedly worth dealing with the traffic.

Southbound I-25 from Glendo, WY heading to Denver after the August 21, 2017 eclipse

Think about where people in your vicinity will be traveling. As an example, I expect that major thoroughfares from Houston towards the path will experience traffic like this. I-45 SB from Ennis, TX will likely be gridlocked, as will EB US-290 returning from near Austin and possibly EB I-10 from west of San Antonio. Backroads might not be so bad, but they’re also smaller and not immune to clogging. If you’ve been stuck in hurricane evacuation traffic, that’s probably what you should prepare for. Similarly, in the northeast, I expect that roads from the major metro areas like NY and Boston which are a “day trip” from the path will very likely be clogged with huge numbers of people.

Photography

I’ve got an evolvoing blog post up on my photography website blog about photographing a total eclipse in the coming days. If this is your first time to see a total eclipse, consider whether it’s worth spending time during those precious 3-4 minutes of totality futzing with a camera. My suggestion would be that unless you’re really passionate about the photography thing, it’s best to just enjoy the moment. Total eclipses are very dynamic events, require somewhat specialized equipment to photograph well, and if you make it about photography you stand to miss out on (or dilute) what should be an incredible experience. That said, I didn’t follow this sound advice in 2017 and in retrospect I’m happy with that choice, but I’m also a huge photography nerd who enjoys highly technical challenges and I invested time putting together a plan that automated a lot to let me be very hands-off my photography gear during totality. I think for most people, leaving the camera in the bag or just pulling it out a few seconds to shoot a couple of shots on some auto mode is pretty good advice.

A Deeper Meaning

What I like best about a total eclipse is what it tells us about the universe. The total eclipses we experience are incredibly unlikely. The sun is over 865,000 miles in diameter - more than 3x larger than the distance from the earth to the moon. The moon, by comparison, is just 2,159 miles in diameter - less than 0.25% the diameter of the sun. Then there’s the distance to each of these heavenly bodies. The distance to the sun ranges between 91.4M to 94.5M miles, and to the moon between about 218,000 and 248,000 miles.

It just so happens that these distances mean that the moon (which is much smaller but much closer) is very similar in its apparent size in the sky compared to the sun - sometimes slightly larger, and sometimes slightly smaller. This means that when the moon happens to pass in front of the sun on an occasion when it’s slightly larger in apparent size, its shadow just barely reaches all the way to the earth, tracing a path no wider than about 100 miles across the globe.

Then, there’s the orbit. The moon’s orbital plane is a bit skewed from the sun’s orbital plane. This means that we don’t get an eclipse every month, but instead only a couple of times a year when the orbits line up, and of those, total eclipses only happen about once every 18 months. This also means that eclipse paths tend to be scattered all over the earth - any given location on the earth will experience a total eclipse on average once every ~375 years.

What this all adds up to is that this incredibly unlikely combination of sizes, distances, and orbits give us this very rare and extremely unlikely phenomenon. The kicker, though, is that it also happens to be beautiful. I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s the most incredible natural phenomena I’ve ever beheld. And that’s where the rub for me is. There’s no reason that the moon getting in the way of the sun should be some magnificently beautiful spectacle in and of itself. But it is. And for me, that tells me that the unlikely combination of sizes, distances, and orbits have a purpose and design behind them, to tell us something of the goodness and majesty of the One who created them and put them in place.

For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 (CSB)

Post Matter

And for those who have gotten this far - back in 2017, I traveled to Glendo, Wyoming to experience the total solar eclipse with my father, my oldest daughter, and a good family friend. We pointed one of our video cameras at ourselves to capture our reaction to this spectacle, which was a new experience for all of us. Here is that video.

He must increase, but I must decrease.

On Sunday morning at Grace Harbor Church, Kevin preached a sermon from John 3:22-36, in which John the Baptist provides a beautiful model of humbly living for Christ’s glory. It was a very helpful reminder in a world that is driven so much by comparison, competition, and a desire for self-affirmation.

A penny saved is only a penny earned if you would have spent it in the first place, otherwise it’s just a penny not spent. - Me

Travel on a Budget

Since 2019, my family hasn’t spent much on travel. That’s not to say that we haven’t traveled. We’ve actually traveled quite a bit - several trips to Texas to see grandparents, a weekend adventure with an old college buddy of mine going down technical slot canyons and hiking in the Utah backcountry, and a family trip to Arizona and Utah over a week back in October 2021 to see Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon National Parks, in addition to a few more local trips around New England.

It used to be any time that we planned a trip with air travel, it was going to be at least $1000 - and probably more like $2000 - for tickets. That’s just life as a family of 6. But back in 2019, my buddy who I go with on yearly-ish outdoor adventures opened my eyes to the world of credit card churning. Since then, for all these trips we’ve taken (four full family trips by air plus a handful of individual trips), we’ve spent more like $1000 on airfare in total - for all the trips combined. And if I was really diligent about things, I’m pretty confident I could have gotten that number even lower.

What is Credit Card Churning

So what is credit card churning? In short, it’s the practice of regularly signing up for new credit cards to get their sign-up bonuses. It’s a great way to get airline miles and hotel points that go far beyond the 1-2% that many cards offer per dollar spent. It takes a bit of work, but it can definitely be worthwhile.

Is Credit Card Churning for You?

I have several questions I think someone should be able to answer “yes” to before I’d suggest they consider credit card churning:

1. Do you have a budget? Effective churning depends on knowing whether the dollars you plan to spend will be enough to satisfy the minimum spend requirements to get sign-up bonuses, and also whether the benefits a card offers are applicable to things you’d pay for anyways. If you don’t have a budget, it’ll be hard to know whether either are the case. If that’s you, get your financial house in order first. I use and highly recommend the zero-based budgeting tool You Need a Budget (that’s a referral link that will get you and me both a free extra month of YNAB if you sign up for a year-long subscription).
2. Do you pay your full statement balance on every credit card every month? If you carry debt on credit cards, churning is 100% NOT for you. You should instead work on managing your cash flow to pay off and close your credit cards. Never churn with money you don’t already have. Saving on travel this way will not get you out of credit card debt.
3. Do you currently spend money on travel expenses like airfare and hotels? Credit card rewards only really have value for you if they’re redeemable for cash or something that you’d be spending cash on anyways, like plane tickets you’d buy one way or another (although, I will say that having the points might mean you do more traveling than you might have done otherwise, which has its own value).
4. Do you have anything in your near-term finanaical future where dings on your credit score would be an issue? Overall, credit card churning has made my credit score go up as my utilization ratio has dropped, but each card you open will probably result in a hard credit pull which goes onto your credit report, dings you a few points, and could raise some red flags with lenders if you’re in the process of getting a mortgage or doing a refinance - in which case you may want to wait to get into this until that’s squared away.

Is It Worth It?

There are four major factors to consider in deciding whether a signup bonus is worthwhile-

1. What is the bonus’s value to me? Something that gives me a $1000 store credit at Accordians-R-Us isn’t worth much to me personally. Something that gives me points I can use to get a variety of airline tickets that I’d otherwise spend $1000 for is valuable to me, to the tune of about $1000, because a few times a year I take my family on airplanes whether or not I have airline points. Sometimes it can be hard to know the exact value of credit card points or airline miles. To help with this, several sites offer helpful point valuation guides, but in many cases it’s important to know specifics as most credit card points can be redeemed in various ways that yield vastly different values. You need to have a good idea of how you’ll redeem your points to determine their value to you. Don’t just go with your gut on this - run some numbers and check on actual flight or hotel night costs with points vs. dollars to get a concrete idea of what an offer’s value really is.
2. Can I meet the minimum spend requirement? Most signup bonuses entail a minimimum spend requirement (MSR). This is some amount you have to spend on the card within a certain amount of time to get the bonus (for example, spend $3000 on the card within 3 months of opening it). Normally, MSRs are the limiting factor determining how much you can churn. Have a plan for how you’ll meet them. Here are some possibilities:
   • Everyday expenses - These are things like groceries, gas, and dining out that you’d normally use a credit card for. If you budget, you have a good idea of how much these will be.
   • Planned large expenditures - You’ve been saving up for a new TV, or you know it’s time for that new set of tires. A word of caution here - don’t let MSRs be the reason that you make a big purchase. Instead, let the fact you have a big planned expense coming up be the reason for opening a new card so that you can apply those dollars towards the MSR.
   • Bills - Many bills like cell service, internet, electricity, and household gas can be paid with a credit card. Sometimes utilties offer discounts when autopaying out of a bank account or charge additional fees for paying with a card, so weigh this against the value of the bonus.
   • Manufactured Spend (Advanced) - There’s a whole sub-genre in the world of credit card churning called Manufactured Spend where people buy fairly liquid (i.e., easily converted into cash) items with credit cards to meet MSRs and get credit card points with the intent of selling the items to recoup the cost. The ultimate example of this was a time some years back when the US mint sold rolls of dollar coins at face-value with no shipping fees and let people pay with credit cards. People would literally buy boxes of coins and then go straight to the bank and deposit them. I don’t do manufactured spending personally, and you probably shouldn’t either, especially starting out. I just bring it up for completeness.
3. Is the annual fee worth it? Most of the cards offering large signup bonuses also come with annual fees. Before I got into churning, I would dismiss any card with an annual fee outright. However, after doing this a bit, I’ve changed my criteria and now consider the following to determine whether an annual fee is worth it:
   • What is the value of the bonus vs. the fee? If you’ve answered question #1, you should have a dollar amount associated with the bonus. A card with a $150 annual fee offering a bonus that’ll get you airline tickets you would have paid $1000 for is probably worth it - it’s sort of like buying those same airline tickets for $150. Also consider that if the only thing that makes the fee worthwhile is the initial signup bonus, you should plan to cancel the card or downgrade it to a free card option before the next annual fee posts. This requires some organization and planning on your part, especially if the card account has to be open to use the points. It’s a good idea to keep a spreadsheet of cards you’ve opened to help stay organized.
   • What other benefits does the card offer? Some cards offer benefits that may offset the fee cost - things like reimbursement for TSA Pre or Global Entry, annual point deposits in your frequent flier account or free hotel nights every card anniversary, statement credits up to a certain dollar amount for every dollar spent with a particular airline or hotel, or reimbursement for subscription services you already pay for. If these benefits provide you with value, count them against the fee.
4. Is the current bonus higher than normal? Bonus offers change all the time. Do some digging and find out if what’s being offered at the moment is better than what’s normally offered. Each of the major banks place limits on how many bonus offers you can take advantage of (sometimes within a certain time period), so it’s good to try to make the most of each new card by leveraging larger bonuses when they’re available. This one isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, though. A bonus is what it is, and if it provides a good value, it may be worth pursuing even if it’s not currently the best offer the card has ever put forward.

If these four factors tell you that the bonus is worth it, and you answered yes to the first 4 questions of whether or not you should be churning, then it’s probably a good idea to sign up for the card.

What Cards?

There’s no universal answer for this, and because sign-up bonuses regularly change along with bank policies for taking advantage of them, it’s good to do some research into the current state of affairs. The Points Guy is a helpful resource. The Churn, Baby, Churn! subreddit is also full of helpful information. It’s easy to let analysis paralysis stop you from moving forward at all. Don’t let that happen, but do take a look at these few tidbits that will hopefully help you avoid major blunders that could lock you out of good opportunities.

• Most banks limit how many bonuses you can receive from their cards in a given period of time. Some banks consider all the credit cards you’ve opened in a period of time. For instance, Chase bank has many popular cards and enforces a “5/24” rule. In other words, they won’t approve you for a card if you’ve opened 5 or more credit card accounts in the past 24 months. Many other banks have similar rules, but don’t consider credit cards from other banks, so it can be good to start with the Chase cards and move on to others once you’ve reached 5/24 with Chase.
• Often times you’ll be limited to a single card in a card family. An example of this is that once you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve card, Chase won’t approve you for the other card. Similarly, you can only have one Chase Southwest card from the three personal cards they offer. The business cards offer some avenues around this (they also don’t count against the Chase 5/24 limit, and you might be surprised as to whether you’d qualify for one), as well as some hit-or-miss methods like the “Modified Double-Dip”.
• Cards generally have limits on how often you can receive a bonus. In some cases, it might be once every 48 months for a given card family. In other cases, it might be once ever for life. This is one reason it’s good to apply to cards when they offer higher-than-normal bonuses. Thankfully, there are lots of cards out there, so don’t fret that limits on bonuses are going to bring a quick end to your churning career.
• If you’re married, you and your spouse can both make use of sign-up bonuses. It may be beneficial for you to both sign up for cards as separate individuals rather than getting one card and then adding your spouse as an authorized user.

Referral links

These are some cards with bonuses that I’ve found valuable. For full transparency, the links I’m posting here are referral links that will give me points when somone uses them to sign up. My hope is that if you’ve found the info in this post useful, you’ll know whether it’s a good choice for you to sign up for a card, and if you do, me getting points is just icing on the cake. Note that card benefits change regularly and I’m not updating this post as they do, so do your own research.

• Chase Sapphire Preferred This card earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points. These points can be redeemed for a number of benefits. The best value from these points generally comes from transferring them to any number of airline partners.
• Chase Southwest Cards These have been some of the best cards we’ve gotten. Note that bonus points you get with these cards count towards Companion Pass (where a designated person can fly with you for free). In some cases, it may be possible to get Companion Pass by just getting two of these cards and receiving the bonuses (perhaps by getting one business card or by pulling off a Modified Double Dip)
• Chase United Cards If you regularly fly United, these can be good cards to get United Miles. Some of them also offer a limited number of United Lounge passes each year.
• Chase World of Hyatt Cards Hyatt Place hotels work well for our family with their larger rooms and pull-out sofa beds, and this card’s bonus has funded quite a few stays at these hotels over the past few years.
• American Express Platinum Card This is a permium card with a hefty annual fee (nearly $700), but at the time of this post it offers a large signup bonus (100,000 AMEX points that can be redeemed with a variety of travel partners) and it also offers a number of benefits that may apply to things you already pay for, like $240 a year towards various streaming subscriptions (including Disney+), Uber credits each month, a Walmart+ subscription, the cost of a standard CLEAR membership ($189 a year), up to $200 of fees with a selected airline, and $200 of certain hotel bookings. You also get access to Centurion lounges which are quite nice (but sometimes crowded). If not enough of these things check your list to make the fee worth it (it is a very steep fee), then you can use this link to check out other AMEX cards as well that have lower or no fees (including cards with Delta, Hilton, and Marriott)

Wrap-up

Hopefully now you have some idea of what credit card churning is and whether it’s something that could save you money or make it easier for you and your family to travel. I’ve tried to hit the major points to help you answer those questions, but there are a lot of things I haven’t covered. Definitely check out some of the links I’ve included if you want to learn more.

• The Points Guy
• Churn, Baby, Churn! subreddit

December 2021 Data

Towards the end of November in Rhode Island as people headed indoors, Delta continued its spread and Omicron started to quickly take hold (really taking over through December). This led to a precipitous rise in cases, hospitalizations, and (sadly) deaths in December 2021. That month, there were 146 COVID-19 deaths in RI. The RI Department of Health reports COVID deaths, along with the monthly breakdown of deaths by age and monthly totals for breakthrough deaths (COVID deaths of people who have received two vaccine doses). They also report weekly vaccination data - including vax rates - broken down by age, which opens up the ability to perform a base rate analysis of COVID deaths for a given month.

Of the 146 COVID deaths in December 2021, 56 of those were reported to be breakthrough deaths (deaths of people who have had at least two vaccine doses), leaving 90 that I classified as “unvaccinated”.

Methodology

The first step of my analysis involved calculating the base rates for each age group that deaths were reported in. If the vaccines were to have no bearing on whether someone dies of COVID, then you would expect the breakdown of deaths to match the vaccine prevalence (i.e., if 100 people were to die of COVID in an age group that was 70% vaccinated, and vaccines have no relationship to COVID deaths, then you would expect for about 70 of the deaths to be vaccinated people and 30 to be unvaccinated).

For each age group, I figured the ratio of COVID deaths for that age range that one would expect under this “no effect” assumption given the vaccine rate reported for that age group. It’s important to note here that the vaccination rates reported by RIDoH appear to be unrealistically high. I suspect this is in part because of inaccurate counting and individual attribution, and also because RIDoH uses population distribution data from 2018 for their rate calculations. For instance, RIDoH reports vaccination rates for people age 70-79 which would mean 99% of this group is vaccinated. While I suspect in our state the rate is very high for that age group (>90% doesn’t seem unreasonable), 99% seems like too much. Therefore, I introduced a factor I could use to proportionally scale back the reported vaccination rates and varied that factor to see how much the calculated values changed for various realistic vax rates. I performed two sets of calculations, one with rates scaled back 5%, and another with rates scaled back 15%, to figure high and low estimates and get an idea of how sensitive my final calculations were to this quantity that includes some uncertainty.

Based on this base-rate analysis, if vaccines had no relation to COVID deaths, one would expect unvaccinated people to make up between 24 and 37 of the 146 deaths, and vaccinated people to make up between 109 and 122. However, only 56 of the 146 deaths were vaccinated individuals, and the other 90 were unvaccinated. COVID deaths skew strongly toward the unvaccinated, with unvaccinated people making up 2.5-3.8x more COVID deaths than you’d expect if vaccines had no effect. On the other hand, vaccinated people made up about half as many COVID deaths as you’d expect if the vaccines had no effect.

The impact of the vaccines

These calculations also let us ask some additional questions of the data.

• How many of the unvaccinated people would have died if they experienced COVID deaths at the same rate as the vaccinated cohort (preventable deaths)?
• How many vaccinated people would have died if they experienced COVID deaths at the same rate as the unvaccinated cohort (prevented deaths)?

Based on the range of vaccination rates considered, the data suggests 71-79 of the 90 deaths among the unvaccinated would have been prevented if that group had experienced deaths at the same rate as the vaccinated group. In other words, it seems like about half of the COVID deaths that occurred in Rhode Island in December 2021 would have been prevented by universal vaccination.
The data also shows that if the vaccinated groups had experienced COVID deaths at the same rate as the unvaccinated group, 212-405 more COVID deaths would have occurred. In other words, without vaccines, the number of COVID deaths in Rhode Island in December could have been in the 350-550 range. (this figure is more sensitive to uncertainty in base vax rates).

Higher values of the base vax rate tend to predict more avoidable deaths and more prevented deaths. Here are my calculations, if you want to have a look.

Also, for a good discussion on why vaccines seem to drive down COVID deaths even when their ability to prevent infection seems to wane over a relatively short timeframe, I highly recommend reading the article that I find has made made the most sense of the pandemic of anything I’ve read: Novelty Means Severity: The Key To the Pandemic.

Feb 8 Update - January 2022 Data

The February 8 data update from RIDoH included the monthly data regarding age distribution in COVID deaths and breakthroughs to perform this same sort of analysis for January.

• In January 2022 there were 243 COVID deaths, 113 of which were breakthroughs.
• If the unvaccinated cohort had died at same rate as the vaccinated, there would have been 138-154 deaths (about 100 fewer).
• If the vaccinated cohort had died at same rate as the unvaccinated, there would have been 490-726 deaths (about 250-475 more).

All of this is to say, if Omicron had hit before there were vaccines available, January would probably have seen the highest number of COVID deaths of any month in Rhode Island, especially considering that this analysis doesn’t take into account the impact that vaccinations have on reducing hospitalization and transmission along with the compounding effect that even higher case counts and dramatically higher hospitalization numbers (in hospitals that for several weeks were stretched extremely thin) would have had on the number of COVID deaths. As I look at the data, it seems the “mildness” of omicron comes as much from the widespread protection provided by vaccines as it does from any intrinsic lower virulence of the variant itself.

Also - I was speaking with a doctor friend recently who is well-connected with RIDoH, and she suggested that perhaps the vaccination rates reported by RIDoH for the elderly may not be as severe an over-estimate as I’m thinking. I still think that 99% is a little high for 70-79, but my “high” estimate for this group is under 95%. If it is higher than that, then numbers skew even more favorably towards the vaccine reducing COVID deaths.

Based on what I’m seeing (a sustained daily drop in cases of 7-8%), I’m making a prediction. I predict that the “weekly cases per 100k people” metric - one used by CDC and RIDoH to gauge community transmission - will drop below the “High” threshold of 100 (as defined by the CDC) before the end of February. I’ll also be so bold to say I think this is a conservative prediction based on the current trend.

Follow along with the charts below to see how I’m doing (same data, 2nd chart plotted with the horizontal axis in log-scale).

A few notes - the red exponential projection is a decrease of 8.5% a day starting from the value reported on January 16. The yellow trend is based on the average day-over-day change from the past 7 days projected from the recently reported data. In the most recently reported data, the dynamically-calculated average day-over-day change for the past 7 days has been:

If you want to see the sheet with the raw data (that automatically updates from RIDoH’s sheet as it updates) you can see it here.

In case you’re interested - the 8.5% daily drop projection hits the following thresholds on the following days:

Things are changing very quickly. I hope that Governor McKee, Dr. McDonald at RIDoH, and school boards and school administrators are preparing now to let us get the most out of the lull in COVID that is rapidly approaching. It’s too soon to say what things will look like in 6 months, but the next 2-3 are looking very promising right now.

The cleanup…