Meet minimum spending, lose weight, win cash

What is HealthyWage?

I made (and won) a bet on my weight loss with a company called HealthyWage (if you sign up through my referral link, both you and I get an extra bonus. The amount changes depending on a deal they have going). It’s available to residents of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Australia, and most of Europe and Asia. I funded the bet with a new credit card which helped me meet the minimum spending required to receive a sign-up bonus. I lost 25 lbs, won cash ($828 more than I wagered), and earned 40.000 credit card points in the process.

What is minimum spending?

• The easiest way to earn a lot of credit card points is to receive a lot of credit card sign-up bonuses.

• To get a lot of sign-up bonuses, one needs to meet the conditions set by the credit card company. More often than not, one must spend a certain sum of money in a given amount of time, for example, $4000 in the first 90 days of card ownership.

• If one’s regular, everyday spending is low because one is smart and lives frugally, one needs to find creative ways to use the said credit card to fulfill the minimum spending requirement.

The Short Version

• Get a credit card with a great sign-up bonus.
• Create a HealthyWage account by clicking here and you and I both get a boost when you sign up for your first wager. You’re welcome and thank you.
• Play with the Personal Challenge calculator. Adjust the weight you want to lose, months, and dollars to maximize your rate of return. Find the sweet spot.
• When you see HealthyWage ads claiming winnings of up to $10.000, keep in mind that this sum includes the money the person wagered. The actual winnings are just a percentage of that.
• Pick an achievable goal. There’s no way out once you make the wager. You either lose the weight, or you lose the money.
• Fund your bet with a new credit card that requires minimum spending. You can pay the whole bet at once or in monthly installments.
• Be sure to pay the credit card off in full each month so the interest rate doesn’t eat up your bonus.
• Make the wager and submit your first weigh-in video. You’ll need a scale, a phone, a HealthyWage app, and, ideally, a friend or a full-length mirror.
• Lose the pounds in the specified time frame.
• Submit your final weigh-in video on time.
• Wait for verification and specify where you’d like your cash to be sent. I asked for a paper check (see pic below)
• Enjoy your hard-earned money, new figure, and credit card points

Detailed Version

Play with the Healthy Wage calculator

First, go to HealthyWage. Put in the amount of weight you would like to lose (at least 10% of your current weight). Decide how long you wish to take to reach this goal (6-18 months). Choose the amount you would like to put towards your bet each month ($5 – $995/month). The maximum total wager is $10,000. Answer questions about your height, weight, and motivation, and sign up with your email address to see the possible winnings.

Once your initial wager has been calculated, you can play with the numbers. Find a sweet spot – the amount of money you are comfortable spending each month, the weight loss you know you’ll be able to easily achieve, and the amount of time you need to get there. You can adjust these amounts as many times as you like. Just click on Calculate Another Bet. You can take weeks or months tinkering with it and not ever make a bet at all.  No credit card is required to play with the calculator. If you have questions, they have an extensive FAQ section and a quick email support team.

Make a bet and meet the minimum spending

You can go for the highest return on investment as my husband and I did, by pledging to lose quite a bit of weight in a short amount of time. Remember, if you don’t achieve your goal, there’s no way out. You will lose all of your money. We lost the weight we pledged we would. I got 52% ROI and he managed a whopping 117% (see the details below). Another strategy would be to reach minimum spending on as many new cards as possible.

You could set a long time frame, high monthly wager, and low weight loss goal, to maximize the spending. Again, don’t ever make your total bet higher than 10k, and keep in mind that your money is locked in HealthyWage until the end of the wager. Don’t spend more than you can comfortably pay off every month. Otherwise, your credit card’s interest rate will diminish any bonus points you might be getting. Always pay your cards in full, every single month. 

This is what our wagers looked like as we were testing the waters:
I bet $265/month for 6 months that I’ll lose 25 lbs. It covered half of the required minimum spending on my new card. I went for the biggest ROI. My total bet came to $1590 ($265 x 6 months) and at the end of the challenge, I got a check for $2418, which amounts to a lovely 52% interest. Mark agreed to lose 50 lbs in 6 months. He bet $120/month for a total of $720, not as large a sum, in case he didn’t manage to lose the weight. But 6 months later and 50 lbs lighter, he got a check for $1560, which represents a 117% return on investment. He more than doubled his money in 6 months.

Lose the weight

Before you contemplate the wager, be sure to have a weight loss plan that works for you. If you lose the pounds you pledged in the time frame you specified, you’ll get back all the money you bet, plus the winnings. If you don’t lose the weight, there’s no way out of the bet.

Collect the money

Any of these strategies will give you a much better interest rate on your money than any US bank can ever offer. I emphasize again, that you can lose it all. It’s a wager. But, unlike a bet in a casino, the outcome is under your control. If you still have some weight to lose after this wager, you can make another one. Your starting weight needs to be the same as, or lower than, your ending weight in the previous bet.  

Keep in mind

• You need to have the cash to pay the credit card off in full each month. Your bet money is tied up until the day you get your check after you win. Otherwise, the interest you pay on the card wipes out your hard-earned bonus.
• Have a new card lined up and switch the “payment method” on the HealthyWage website after you meet the time or monetary limit for the minimum spending.
• Set realistic goals. If you don’t lose weight or can’t keep up with the payments, you’ll lose all the money. There is no way to back out of this bet so don’t bet more than you’re willing to lose. I made a Spreadsheet (link) to track my weight loss. You can use it to track yours.
• Don’t wait until the last few weeks to lose the weight, spread it out evenly. You’ll increase your chances of keeping it off.
• Bet less than 10k total or your return will be negative.
• If you use this link, you’ll get an extra $40 – $100 added to your prize (depending on their current deal), and so will I (thank you). Once you have an account and find the idea is worth sharing, you can generate your own referral links to send to your friends.

So there you have it. Set a realistic goal, lose weight, meet minimum spending on credit cards, and earn good interest on your money. Win-win-win.

If you’re new to the world of credit card bonuses (in the US) and want some simple steps to get started, have a look at the post Make an Easy $1100, or How to get started with Credit Card Bonuses.