(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel. I'm Chris Hutchins, and normally you'll find me doing a deep dive on one of those topics myself, or talking to the world's best experts to learn the strategies, tactics, and frameworks that shape their success.

So, if you're new here, and you wanna get a good feel for the show, you can check out last week's episode where I shared my end of the year checklist for your money, your taxes, your points, and your miles, or the week before, where I talked to Bill Perkins, author of Die With Zero, about why you might wanna focus more of your time and energy on your life's net fulfillment than on your net worth.

At least from all of your feedback, that episode might've been the best one this year. Or finally, if you wanna go all the way back to the beginning, to episode one, it was an incredible episode with my good friend Lee Rowan, all about travel hacks. But for this week, with the holidays getting closer, I thought I'd put together a list of my favorite products, gifts, past purchases, and more, so that hopefully some of those might make good gift ideas for you or a loved one this holiday season.

And you should know that none of the products or services I put in this gift guide have paid me to be a part of the list. However, some of them are sponsors of all the hacks, but that should make sense, because as I've said before, most of my sponsors are here because I've reached out to them after already loving their products.

In fact, for any of the companies I'm about to talk about who aren't sponsors, I will certainly be adding them to the list of brands I should reach out to next year to see if they wanna work together, though Necker Island is probably a bit of a long shot, but we'll get to that later.

A great example of that is StoryWorth. After I decided to include them in this gift guide, I reached out to them, and they ended up wanting to sponsor the episode. Finally, while I normally create short links like allthehacks.com/viorey to make it easy for you, there would be way too many links for this episode, so I'm only gonna do that when there's a deal involved.

However, you can find links to everything I'll mention in the show notes, at allthehacks.com, or in the written version of this gift guide at allthehacks.com/gifts. And since some of the links, though definitely not all of them, are from sponsors or affiliates like Amazon, I would greatly appreciate you clicking those links to support the show, that is, unless you find a better price elsewhere, in which case, absolutely go there.

Okay, let's get into the 2022 gift guide right after this. Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be. I get it, life comes at you fast, but trust me, your friends are probably desperate for a good hang. So, kick 2024 off right by finally hosting that event.

Just make sure you do it the easy way and let our sponsor, Drizzly, the go-to app for drink delivery, take care of the supplies. All you need to come up with is the excuse to get together. It doesn't even have to be a good one. It could be your dog's birthday, that the sun finally came out, or maybe you just wanna celebrate that you got through another week.

With Drizzly, you can make hosting easy by taking the drink run off your to-do list, which means you can entice your friends to leave their houses without ever leaving yours. And since I know you like a good deal, Drizzly compares prices on their massive selection of beer, wine, and spirits across multiple stores.

So, when I really wanted to make a few cocktails while we were hosting family last week, not only could I get an Italian Amaro delivered in less than an hour, but I found it for $15 less than my local liquor store. So, whatever the occasion, download the Drizzly app or go to drizzly.com.

That's D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today. Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations. I love helping you answer all the toughest questions about life, money, and so much more, but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people in your situation, which actually gets harder as you build your wealth. So, I wanna introduce you to today's sponsor, Long Angle.

Long Angle is a community of high net worth individuals with backgrounds in everything from technology, finance, medicine, to real estate, law, manufacturing, and more. I'm a member of Long Angle. I've loved being a part of the community, and I've even had one of the founders, Tad Fallows, join me on all the hacks in episode 87 to talk about alternative investments.

Now, the majority of Long Angle members are first generation wealth, young, highly successful individuals who join the community to share knowledge and learn from each other in a confidential, unbiased setting. On top of that, members also get access to some unique private market investment opportunities. Like I said, I'm a member, and I've gotten so much value from the community because you're getting advice and feedback from people in a similar situation to you on everything from your investment portfolio to your children's education to finding a concierge doctor.

So many of these conversations aren't happening anywhere else online. So if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets, which is their minimum for membership, I encourage you to check out Long Angle, and it's totally free to join. Just go to longangle.com to learn more, and if you choose to apply, be sure to let them know you heard about it here.

Again, that's longangle, A-N-G-L-E, .com. (upbeat music) Okay, so the first section I'm gonna do is home and food, and I'm gonna start with the Breville Tea Maker. This has been in our kitchen for over a decade, and it gets used daily. If you brew loose leaf tea, it makes the process so easy, letting you dial in the temperature and the brew time, and automates the rest.

And if you also brew coffee, it's a fantastic water kettle where you can set the exact temperature, though I imagine there are much cheaper kettles out there if you don't wanna make tea. Next, trade coffee. Based on the smile that shows up on Amy's face every time she opens up a box from Trade, I am really confident that this would be an amazing gift for anyone who loves coffee.

Every delivery, they'll get a new curated bag of coffee beans from the top independent roasters all across the country. And best of all, you can get up to $50 off gifts at allthehacks.com/trade. Next is the Coravin. There are plenty of nights where Amy or I, and probably both of us, wanna have a glass of wine with dinner, or after the kids go to bed, but we don't really wanna finish an entire bottle.

So we used to either skip the wine altogether, or just end up drinking the entire bottle even though we didn't need to. But then we got a Coravin as a gift, and it's changed the way we drink wine. It's a device with a small hollow needle that you can stick through the cork of a bottle of wine, and it lets you pour out the wine, and replaces the space that that wine took up with argon gas, which keeps your wine fresh.

So you could pour yourself a half a glass, or a glass of wine without ruining the bottle, and drink the rest of it days, weeks, or even months later. And if you really wanna splurge, my dad got a plum wine dispenser as his retirement gift, which is like a supercharged Coravin machine, where you can put two bottles of wine in, and it taps them just like a Coravin machine would, and turns it into a dispenser.

It is amazing, but really expensive. Okay, the next one is one of my favorite things. If you've ever been to Japan, you've probably been fortunate enough to enjoy a Japanese toilet. If not, there's a heated seat, heated water bidet, and so much more. And despite that some of those toilets can cost thousands of dollars, you can actually just get the seat to attach to your current toilet for less than 500.

I love the Toto Washlet C5. We have one in our house, but if you wanna save a little money, you can get the less expensive Washlet C2, which we just put in the bathroom we renovated. And if you have a Costco membership, it's on sale right now through Costco.

Okay, I feel ridiculous recommending a $40 hand soap, but the Aesop soap we have in our house has gotten more compliments from house guests than just about anything else in the entire home. Not to mention, if you haven't used your $50 Amex credit for sacks, you can use that to make Aesop soap free, which is exactly what I do because I don't think I could actually spend $40.

But when it comes to gifts, I think it's the best hand soap out there, and I love it, and it would make a great gift. Next is Whiskey River Soap, who makes a snarky candle for just about any situation you could ever imagine. I've given these to guests who've come on the podcast.

I've given them to random friends, colleagues. They will put a smile on almost anyone's face, and they are one of my go-to gifts if I'm not spending too much. Definitely recommend them. You've probably seen them in the newsletter before. And in the spirit of food, I have talked about the Paprika app a lot 'cause I think it's the best way to organize recipes and your family meal planning, but for an app, it's a bit pricey.

It's $5 on mobile, $30 on desktop, and you have to buy it for every platform you use it. But I actually think that it could be a really interesting gift because not only could you give someone an amazing app, but you could preload it with all of your favorite recipes and share them to whoever you give the app to.

So it's not only a great app, but it would also be a curated list of all your favorite foods. And finally, the Ooni Pizza Oven. So we love making pizza at home, and a few years ago, we gave an Ooni coda to a family member at Christmas, and it was a huge hit.

Not to mention, it gave us an amazing family activity one night during the holidays, and we were making pizza all night long. Definitely makes a great gift for someone. Next section is tech gear and clothes. So I'll start with Viore. They make the most amazing performance apparel. It's ridiculously comfortable, and seriously, Amy and I probably wear it every single day.

My favorite is the Sunday Performance Joggers, but you really can't go wrong with anything they make, and you can get 20% off your first order at allthehacks.com/viore, V-U-O-R-E. Next is the Blunt Umbrella. We bought our yellow Blunt Classic Umbrella six years ago, and it still works as well as it did the day we got it.

It's also so incredibly wind-resistant. I haven't tried their travel umbrella, but it looks like it's gonna rain this week in London, and I really wish I had one with me. Okay, I know all of you aren't starting a podcast, but I wanna suggest a USB microphone, because when I first bought one for the podcast, I ended up actually starting to use it for all my remote work meetings, and I got such good feedback from my colleagues on the audio quality.

I remember someone saying, "Wow, your audio sounds so good. "It makes everything you say sound so much more believable." And then a few of those colleagues actually bought a microphone themselves. So a great starter mic under $100 that I used for the whole first year of this podcast was the ATR2100X, but if you want something a little better, you can get the Shure MV7, which is what I'm actually recording on right now.

And if you need an arm to mount it on your desk, there are a bunch of cheap ones for $20 or $30 on Amazon. They work, I used them early on, but the Rode PSA1 is so much better. Okay, next, the M2 MacBook Air. It is hard to think of a purchase I made in 2022 that was better than upgrading my laptop to the new M2 MacBook Air.

It's so fast and having 14 plus hours of battery life is absolutely incredible. I honestly can't imagine what it would be like to go back to a computer that I have to charge every three or four hours. Sure, it's probably more expensive than anyone's planning to spend on a gift this holiday season.

However, maybe if you have a business and you need to get a few more expenses in before the end of the year, this could be a really great upgrade. But in line with the theme of work, with so many of us working from home, one of the luxuries that I really, really appreciate is having a standing desk in my home office.

They used to be so expensive, but Uplift makes some really reasonably priced desks and they're so well-built. I know because my desk is an Uplift desk and I love it. Also, I know some companies will even reimburse you for some home office equipment, so definitely worth upgrading if you can get it for free from your employer.

Last in this list is Gooder Sunglasses. They are my new favorite sunglasses. I got a pair from Wealthfront as company swag and they were so good that I've since bought more for me and Amy and asked them to be a sponsor of the show. They're 100% polarized, they're lightweight, stylish, comfortable, and best of all, they are only $25.

My favorites are the OGs, but they have so many different styles and what seems like an unlimited selection of colors. And you can get free shipping and a 30-day money-back guarantee at allthehacks.com/gooder, G-O-O-D-R. Next is Health and Fitness. So I know I've mentioned my Oura ring a lot, but it is the one thing that I am always wearing every day to track my sleep, my workouts, my heart rate, and HRV.

And the Gen 3 ring also tracks blood oxygen levels. I've used up all my referrals, so I don't have a link for you, but if you know anyone who has an Oura ring, you can use their link to get an additional $50 off. Next is the Eight Sleep Pod Cover.

This is an expensive purchase, but traveling just isn't the same now that we've been spoiled by our Eight Sleep Cover at home. It not only tracks your sleep, but it also automatically heats and cools your mattress in line with your sleep cycles to help improve your deep sleep and improve your overall sleep quality.

It also warms up your bed right as you're getting into it, which given that every night in London it's been below freezing, would have been a really nice thing to have over here. You can use my personal referral link for $200 off at allthehacks.com/eightsleep. And next is InsideTracker. So I think you all know that I love getting data on everything, and that's totally true when it comes to my health, and I've been a huge fan of InsideTracker since I started using it earlier this year.

They take your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking activity, and they provide a personalized health analysis and action plan for exercise, nutrition, and supplementation, and I think they do a really good job, and I'm really excited that they're a sponsor of the show, which means you guys can all get 20% off at allthehacks.com/insidetracker.

Going back to sleep for a minute, and you could argue that I should probably put this in the learning section that'll come up next, but since good sleep is so important to your health, I'll put it here. And that is the book "Why We Sleep" by Dr. Matthew Walker.

It is my favorite book on sleep. It really is a collection of so much knowledge on the topic. I've been trying to get the author to join me on an episode of the podcast since I started, but the book is so good, it's really everything you need about sleep.

Last in this category is a Peloton. Amy and I love our Pelotons so much, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to work out at home, even if you're not a cyclist, which I am certainly not and never have been. It is such a good workout that gets even better when you have friends to compete with.

I don't think I've ever been able to push myself as hard as I could when I'm trying to either beat my friends' records or even my own personal record. If you want $100 in free accessories, you can use my referral code. It's just allthehacks.com/peloton. Next category is family and kids, and there's a lot in here which is probably indicative of the new stage of my life.

So first, I wanna talk about Love Every. We have had a subscription to Love Every since our first daughter was born, and I love their products. Every few months, they have a subscription that'll send you their award-winning Montessori-inspired toys to your home with a guide for exactly when and how to use them to help your child learn and grow.

And all their toys are designed by child development experts, they're well-built, and they're sustainably made. If you want $20 off your subscription, you can go to allthehacks.com/loveevery. That's my personal referral code. Next is StoryWorth, who is sponsoring this episode, but was on the list before I even connected with them.

If you have ever wanted to capture all the stories and memories from your loved ones, this is a great gift. Every week for a year, they'll email your loved ones with a single life-related question like, what's the bravest thing you've ever done, or what's the farthest you've traveled? And then after the year is up, they compile it into a hardcover book with stories, memories, and even photos that you can pass down for generations to come, and you can get $10 off at allthehacks.com/storyworth.

Okay, a few cybersecurity things in here that I think are really important for family. First, Delete.me. It is crazy how many websites are out there sharing your personal data, your phone number, your home address, your relatives' names, your email, your birthday, and it is so much work to try to get them to take it all down.

I know, because I tried to do all that work myself, and it just wasn't worth it. So I started using Delete.me, and they found stuff I couldn't even find myself. They do it all for you. They remove all of your info from hundreds of data broker websites, and while it might not be the most exciting gift in the world, I think it would be an amazing gift for anyone who has never done it.

Not to mention, you can get $20 off all Delete.me plans at allthehacks.com/delete.me. And next, if anyone in your family is not using a password manager, I would recommend giving them a membership gift to 1Password. Until a few years ago, my parents were using the same passwords for so many different websites, so I actually gifted them a 1Password membership and helped them set it up, and since then, I feel so much more confident about their cybersecurity practices.

Another gift we actually gave my dad this year was an Aura photo frame. Now, digital photo frames have been around for years, but I've never found one that works as well as Aura. It is so easy for you or anyone else in your family to share pictures with the frame that you give someone.

Between my and Amy's family, I think there are four or five Aura frames in different homes, and it's been so awesome for everyone in the family to be able to share photos with everyone's frames and have them just pop up in our living room. The next one's a bit of a strange one, but it's the Nugget.

I'd say it's like part furniture, part toy, but all around, it's one of the best purchases we've made for our kids. It's almost like a bunch of foam blocks that you can stack on top of each other. We use it for story time. We use it to make a slide down the stairs, to build forts, and a lot more.

It looks from their website like they might not arrive by the end of the year if you order now, but I'm still including it on the list because I think it would make an amazing gift for any young kid. Okay, I love escape rooms, so I think they would make an amazing gift for anyone.

Amy and I have probably done at least 50 together, and we try to find the best room we can in every city we visit. So if you're looking for a fun activity for your family, or even a good gift as a gift card, I can highly recommend an escape room.

There isn't an easy way to find the best room in a city other than just searching, looking on Reddit, but I did find one site that I linked in the show notes that seems to have pretty good rankings in different cities if you're trying to find the best one.

But honestly, of the 50 rooms we've done, we've probably only ever done one bad one, so I'd optimize more for doing it than trying to find the best. And along the same lines of games, I wanna talk about board games, because I love board games, and I think they make amazing gifts.

So I thought I'd share some of my favorites that I think you should all check out. I left a few of the obvious ones like Catan off the list, but if you're listening and you have any suggestions for me, please send them my way, because I love collecting new awesome board games.

So the first one I'll mention is Coup. This one's a bit hard to explain, but it is the first game we pull out when friends are over, we take it traveling with us, and if you've ever played a game like Werewolves or Mafia, you will definitely love it, but it does require a bit of bluffing.

You can play with two to six people, the package is really small so it's easy to travel with, and games are quick. Next is Ticket to Ride, and maybe I should have excluded this because I know it's such a popular game, but Amy and I love it so much, I thought it's worth a mention.

It's two to five players, you can play as a family, and unlike some of the other strategy games that I also love, this one does not take hours to play, which has recently become a requirement for games in our house. I hope it's not too soon to talk about this next one, which is Pandemic Legacy Season One.

It is such an interesting game, I love it because it's so different. It's a cooperative game, meaning everyone that's playing it is on the same team and they win or lose together, but Pandemic Legacy, unlike Pandemic itself, is really more like a choose-your-own-adventure book. You can actually only ever play the game once, you level up characters, it's almost like an RPG game, but in a board game style, and it's so good.

Two more great ones if you're looking for two-player games are Jaipur and Splendor. Amy and I really love playing both of them, though we have a lot less time for games as we used to. If you have a big group, I really love Codenames. It's great for groups and can be played quickly, and if you're looking for a game to play with a team at a work event or an offsite, I think Codenames is great and we played it a lot at all the companies I've worked at.

Bonanza is also a fun game that we end up playing around the holidays with family because you can have up to seven players, you can play under an hour, and unlike a lot of games, it's really easy to learn the rules. Finally, two I don't have, but that are really high on my list.

One is Seven Wonders Duel, which is the two-player version of Seven Wonders, which is a game we have and love. I've just heard so many good things about it that I wanted to put it on the list. Also, a game that I didn't know anything about until researching this episode yesterday was Wingspan.

I don't have any interest in birdwatching, but it seems like everyone in the last few years is saying that this game is at the top of their list, so it's something I definitely wanna check out. If anyone listening is in my family and is looking for a last-minute gift idea, here it is.

Okay, the next section of gifts is all about learning. If anyone in your family loves to learn, especially learn about money, about travel, about optimizing life, you should obviously recommend that they check out this podcast or the All The Hacks newsletter, but another gift when it comes to learning that I think is great, and I can say that with a firsthand experience of giving it as a gift to my father last year, is a membership to MasterClass.

I could literally spend hours, if I had the time, watching all the classes they have. There's literally a class for anyone, whether it's related to business or cooking or life or music or even skateboarding. And right now, you can get two memberships for the price of one at allthehacks.com/masterclass.

Moving to a few books, which I could probably have a huge list from so many of the awesome people I've interviewed, so there's probably a little bit of recency bias here, but I have to start with Die With Zero. This book and the interview I recently had with Bill Perkins had such a huge impact on the way I think about life and money that it has to be on the list, and I highly recommend it.

Next is The Two Hour Cocktail Party. Not only could you actually use this book from Nick Gray to host an amazing cocktail party during the holidays, but I think it would make a great, fun gift or stocking stuffer for anyone. Next is Vagabonding. I've gifted this book more than any book in the world because it had such a huge impact on our lives.

It's actually the book that led to Amy and I traveling around the world for seven months, so it's hard not to suggest it to anyone who likes travel. And finally are any of the Death & Co cocktail books. If you know anyone that likes cocktails or likes books that look great on your coffee table, then all of the Death & Co books would make fantastic gifts, but my favorite is Cocktail Codex, which basically breaks the entire world of cocktails down into six root cocktails that once you master, give you kind of the knowledge and skills you need to translate those root recipes into hundreds of different drinks.

Last is a Cozy Meal Cooking Class. So we've booked a pasta making class, a donut making class, and we even did a family Iron Chef challenge all through Cozy Meal, and none of them have ever disappointed. So if you want a fun gift for someone that lives in one of the cities they operate in, or you live there and you're looking for a cool activity to do over the holidays, I would highly recommend checking out what's on Cozy Meal.

Finally, the last category for this episode is travel. I don't have too many travel gadgets, but now that we have kids and we end up checking bags on every single trip, I always make sure to keep an Apple AirTag in every one of our checked bags. Fortunately, I haven't had to use them to locate a lost bag, and honestly, I hope I never have to, but it is so comforting to be able to see that your bag made it on the plane, or when you get to your destination, see that the bag's coming, or even just know that your bag is on route to the carousel so you're not sitting around waiting, wondering what's going on.

Next is the Stokke JetKids Bed Box. This was an amazing gift to our daughter from my parents earlier this year, and it's so awesome. It's a little suitcase with two extra features that make it the best for flights. First, your kid can actually ride the suitcase, which means you can cruise through the airport.

But the most unique feature is that it turns into an elevated platform that can extend the chair your kid is sitting on all the way to the seat in front of them, giving them an entire lie-flat, first-class experience. And while over 50 airlines have approved it, almost all the major domestic carriers, Delta, American, JetBlue, Southwest, Alaska, United is notably the exception and say they don't allow it on board, though I have heard that it's not always enforced.

Another one which we just bought for our trip to Europe that we're on right now is the BabyZen Yoyo Stroller. It has been awesome. It fits in the overhead compartment. It feels really sturdy. It's easy enough to pick up even when your kid's on it and you have to walk up and down the stairs at a metro station, at a subway station, and it really holds up value.

In fact, if you look for a used yoyo stroller online, they're not that much cheaper than buying them new. So as long as you take reasonable care of it, I think that you'd be able to get back most of your money in a couple years. Another travel thing is Away luggage.

Amy and I each have an Away carry-on suitcase and they are fantastic. I don't know if they still have the option for the integrated battery, but I would skip that. But other than that, it's a fantastic suitcase and it happens to be Wirecutter's top pick for a hard-sided carry-on.

And if you want $20 off, you can use my referral link at allthehacks.com/away. And then any of the bags that Dagny Dover makes would make an awesome gift. I think Amy's given Dagny Dover bags as gifts to friends and family more than any other gift. Her favorites are the Landing Carry-All and the Dakota Backpack.

And if you want $20 off, Amy's referral link is allthehacks.com/dagnedover, D-A-G-N-E-D-O-V-E-R. And finally, the last one, which is a crazy one, but it popped up in my Twitter feed and I thought I had to include it, which is a week on Necker Island. So if you're not familiar, it's Richard Branson's private island and they finally opened it up and you can book a week with points.

So if you happen to have 1.7 million points burning a hole in your pocket, you are now able to book your week on the private island for free with points. I'm sure it would be a fun adventure. I'll link to a page in the show notes if you wanna read about it.

But realistically, I don't actually expect anyone listening to do this. However, if you do, please let me know how it goes. I am dying to hear about it. So that's all the gift recommendations I have, but there are three things I wanna talk about to help you save money when you're doing any of your shopping this season.

The first is making sure you use cashback portals. I always like to go to cashbackmonitor.com to see what the best way to earn cashback or points is when I'm shopping online. However, some of the sites that are listed there are a pain to set up, so more often than not, I end up just using Rakuten because it's easier and they let you earn Amex points instead of dollars.

So if you haven't signed up for Rakuten, you should definitely check it out. And right now, you can get $30 free after your first purchase if you go to allthehacks.com/rakuten. The next is finding promo codes, but also using live chat. So I feel like it's gotten so hard lately to find a working promo code to use online.

I used to go to RetailMeNot, and almost every code would work, but now it seems like every time I try to find a code, they all fail. So the tactic that I use now is if a site has a live chat, I just message them and ask for a discount.

I tell them what I'm looking to buy, and more often than not, I end up getting some kind of discount. Or even one time, someone said, "I can't give you a discount, but if you search online, "you can find a referral link to get a discount," like a lot of the referral links I've been sharing here.

So if you can't find a discount and there's no live chat, maybe go to Twitter and search Twitter for the name of the brand and promo code or referral, and you might find people sharing their promo codes and their referral links online. Finally, and I've talked about this before, is getting gift cards.

So most online retailers don't qualify for bonus points on your credit card. I could always use my VentureX and get two points per dollar, but whenever I'm shopping online, I always try to see if I could go buy a gift card for the retailer somewhere where I'd earn more points.

My two go-tos are buying them at grocery stores where I can get four points with the Amex Gold, or buying them on Amazon where I can get 5% back with the Amazon Prime card. Or you might actually get a better deal going to a site like Card Cash, where you can buy discounted gift cards from people who are trying to get cash for their gift cards 'cause they're not actually gonna use them.

(upbeat music) So, those are my three favorite tips for saving money shopping online, cashback portals, promo codes in live chat, and gift cards. That's it for this episode of All The Hacks. I hope this helps you find some good ideas for gifts this holiday season. So thanks for listening and see you next week.

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