• An LA-based couple has figured out how to do day trips to Las Vegas on the cheap.
• They book $39 roundtrip tickets through Spirit Airlines and pack a backpack for the day.
• Credit card rewards and loyalty points from free apps allow them access to hotel pools and airport lounges.

Ryo Furukawa was intrigued by the Mandalay Bay pool — or, the 11-acre "aquatic playground," as the Las Vegas-based resort describes its popular amenity.

It has a wave pool and a lazy river, neither of which he'd ever experienced.

He and his fiancé, Jenn Dinh decided to make a day trip out of it. It was a bit of a tall order, considering they lived nearly 300 miles away in Los Angeles, but they managed — and, thanks to a cheap Spirit flight and a handful of travel hacks, they did it on a budget.

Since then, the couple has replicated the low-budget day trip to the entertainment capital of the world four more times. They spoke to Business Insider and broke down the cost of their typical 16-hour trip to Vegas, which they can do for less than $100 per person, not including food.

Airport parking: $30 total ($15 each)

The couple typically flies out of the John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County. They drive themselves to the airport and leave their car in the lot.

Furukawa said the daily parking rate recently jumped from $20 to $30, and joked that he needs to "figure out another plan there."

Flights: $39 per person

Furukawa is a member of the Spirit Savers Club, a $70-a-year membership that offers discounts for him, the primary passenger, and up to eight additional guests on the same reservation.

"It paid for itself by just purchasing two tickets. We saved over $70 that one time," said Furukawa, who joined in the summer of 2024. For each subsequent trip, they've saved a couple of bucks.

"There's more savings when the tickets are more expensive — not as much savings when they're already cheap," he explained. But it bumps their ticket prices below $40.

Here's an example of a roundtrip flight for $38.60:

They typically depart SNA at 6:45 a.m. and arrive in LAS at 7:55 a.m. Their return trip leaves at 8:30 p.m. and arrives at 9:39 p.m. Spirit allows one personal item. They both pack a backpack.

Prices do fluctuate, said Dinh, but they've agreed on a cap: "If it's $50, we're not going to go. It has to be like 40-something or under."

Transportation in Vegas: $0 to $40 total ($20 per person)

Technically, the airport is walking distance from the Strip — and they've done the walk before.

"We only have one backpack each, so not many things to carry," said Furukawa. Though, "it's a little deceiving — probably three or four miles of walking."

While the active commute is free, and a nice option on a good-weather day, they prefer to save their legs. They've used rideshare apps and taxis — the taxi fare is set based on the part of the Strip you're heading to, making it easy to price compare with Uber and Lyft — but their favorite way to get around is by renting a car, which gives them more flexibility and the option to explore beyond the Strip.

On their most recent trip in January, they said the car cost a little under $40 for the full day — and they didn't have to top off the gas, either. They drove so few miles that, by the end of the day, "the meter was still past the full mark," said Furukawa.

Taking advantage of free activities and saving their food budget for LA

There's more to Vegas than pricey buffets, shows, and nightlife.

One of Furukawa and Dinh's favorite free activities is visiting the Conservatory at the Bellagio. It features displays that rotate seasonally. In January, they saw the Lunar New Year display; in late 2024, they experienced a holiday-themed display.

They've also explored Circus Circus, a hotel and casino (with free parking, they said) just north of the Strip that has an arcade with carnival games.

Vegas is a walkable city — particularly the Strip, which stretches a little over four miles — and they find themselves doing a lot of sightseeing on foot. They've also used the free trams that operate between Mandalay Bay and Treasure Island.

As for food, they consider themselves "spoiled" with the cuisine options in LA. They'd rather splurge on food at home and keep things simple and less expensive in Vegas. On their last trip, they spent about $20 on breakfast at a café off the Strip. They said it would have been double or even triple had they eaten on the Strip. For lunch, they spent about $30 at Taco Bell Cantina.

They're aware that buying food on the Strip can easily add up, but it doesn't hold them back from the occassional splurge.

They've done a classic Vegas buffet, which is "worth the experience if you have the time," said Furukawa. "Obviously, you want to stay there as long as you can!"

Travel hacks: Flexibility, credit card rewards, and free gambling apps

Flexibility will save your wallet. When planning their Vegas dates, Furukawa and Dinh prefer to take a day off from work and travel on a weekday. There's less traffic and fewer crowds, and it can be cheaper. They're constantly looking at Spirit flights, and if a cheap ticket aligns with a day when they can also land a free hotel room through rewards points — another hack of theirs — they'll jump on it.

In Vegas, use apps to earn free hotels, discounts, and rewards. Furukawa has discovered several apps that anyone can play for free, including POP! Slots, myVEGAS Bingo, myKONAMI, and MGM Slots Live.

Without spending any of his own money, he earns "loyalty points" for the time he spends playing, which can be redeemed for a comped room at MGM properties on select days (you still have to pay a resort fee, he said), discounted food or shows, and "Freeplay," a form of credit that allows you to play casino games.

"You can only redeem three rewards per about 30 days," he said. "I usually redeem 100,000 loyalty points for $25 myKONAMI Freeplay at three different properties. Most Freeplay on their app usually requires a minimum of a two-night stay, but this $25 Freeplay requires no stay."

On their latest trip, he said he was up $50 from Freeplay. It made the trip even more affordable.

Take advantage of credit card points and perks. One of their top hacks used to be using the Wyndham Earner Business Card, which allowed them to match earned Wyndham status to Caesars Rewards, which got them free parking and a waived resort fee. The Points Guy was also a fan of this perk, which is no longer effective as of January 31, 2025.

On their most recent trip in January, the couple booked a comped room based on their play. Thanks to their Caesars Diamond status, which was still effective at the time, they could park their rental car at Caesars for free and didn't owe the $54.95 resort fee. It allowed them a place to store their backpacks and leave the car for the day.

Another credit card benefit they have is Priority Pass, which grants them access to lounges in various airports, including the one in Vegas. They like to arrive at the airport early enough to get a free meal at the lounge before heading back to LA.

They said they're looking forward to the Capital One Lounge coming to the LAS soon.

The couple hasn't selected their next Vegas date yet, but at this point, the planning is minimal. "We just copy and paste," said Furukawa. "I pick her up, we go to the airport, park my car, and then get on the flight with our one backpack. It's a nice escape."

• Carmelo Camilleri credits his financial success to money lessons from his father.
• His father emphasized the importance of owning rather than renting and letting your money grow.
• The lessons helped Camilleri become a homeowner at 27 and are setting him up to retire early.

Carmelo Camilleri will never forget the time his dad yelled at him for buying Diet Pepsi at Walmart when it was on sale at ShopRite.

He and his fiancé were preparing to host his parents when they realized that they had forgotten to get soda the night before. They swung by the nearest grocery option, which happened to be Walmart, and word of the detour got back to Camilleri's dad.

"He actually yelled at me. He said, 'What's wrong with you? It's on sale at ShopRite,'" the Staten Island native told Business Insider. "I said, 'I know. You were on your way, and we were going to be late.' He goes, 'You could have gone there. We would've waited for you. It's OK. Get the cheaper price.'"

Camilleri says his dad is the reason he price-compares everything from gas to ground turkey — and his personal finance lessons are the reason the 31-year-old is a homeowner with robust savings and financial options.

"My goal is to have the option to retire at 35," said Camilleri, who has been working as a salesman since college and now runs a sales business. The path to early retirement would mean selling the business, he added, "so if and when that happens, I'll definitely have the opportunity to move on with my life."

Here are two money lessons from his dad that "put me in the right mindset," said Camilleri.

'Always own. Never rent.'

Camilleri lived at home with his parents for years after college, partly thanks to an early principle that his dad instilled in him: "Always own. Never rent."

In his mind, renting equates to throwing money away.

"You put a dollar in, that dollar is gone forever," said Camilleri. "When you're renting, you're building someone else's dream. You're building someone else's asset."

Living at home not only allowed him to save the majority of his sales income, which would eventually go toward a six-figure down payment, but it also meant he could be patient and diligent during the homebuying process.

"I was always going to buy a home. It was just a matter of when — not if," said Camilleri, who started seriously considering buying in 2020 and closed on a $670,000 five-bedroom in Brick, New Jersey in 2021. He paid $25,000 under the original asking price during a time when most homes in the area were going for above asking, he said.

"I probably spent a little over a full year looking. There were times when I would just stop, like two or three months at a time, because I wasn't getting anywhere — and I wasn't going to overpay," he said. "I wasn't willing to spend more than I would need to, and it's not that I financially couldn't do it — it's just not smart. I'm always looking for my money to grow, not the other way around."

Camilleri, who moved out of his parent's home and into his own at age 27, is proud to say, "I never paid a dollar of rent my entire life."

'Keep investing your money. Keep letting it grow.'

Camilleri didn't fully grasp his dad's second main money lesson — "Keep investing your money, keep letting it grow" — until he earned money for the first time.

He was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and landed a summer gig as a sales rep. In a two-month span, he made about $7,000 selling Cutco knives.

"At the time, I thought I was rich," he said. But before he had a chance to touch it, "The first thing my father said to me was, 'Don't spend it. Put it away.' And I said, 'What do you mean? I have this money. I should be able to use it.'"

His dad responded by teaching him about what happens when you overspend, accumulate debt, and incur interest. Rather than having compound interest work against him, he could take advantage of the phenomenon by investing his money, which he's been doing ever since. Most of his invested money is in the stock market, he said: "Obviously, nothing's guaranteed in life, but when you're investing in companies like Apple and Google, and using ETFs, these are long-term plays that are pretty much always going to pan out."

Camilleri, who refuses to pay for cable and subscriptions, buys ground turkey in bulk, and price compares gas using an app called GasBuddy, hesitates before agreeing that he's "frugal." At this point, his habits are ingrained.

"This is how I live my life. I get the best deals on everything, and I never buy at the first price. I'm always trying to negotiate. I'm always looking to get the best price I possibly could," he said.

His friends and fiancé say they don't think they could live like he does. They tease him about not being human. His response is that anyone can save and invest like he does and achieve financial independence.

"I am a human. I'm no better. I don't have superpowers," he said. "I just have a different mindset."

• After years of diligent saving, Carmelo Camilleri bought his first home at age 27 in 2021.
• He credits his savings habits to his dad, who also taught him to 'always own, never rent.'
• Thanks to smart negotiation and patience, he bought the home for $25,000 below the asking price.

The first time Carmelo Camilleri made a significant amount of money, he was 19 and had just wrapped up his freshman year of college.

He landed a summer gig as a sales rep and, within two months, made about $7,000 selling Cutco knives, he told Business Insider: "At the time, I thought I was rich."

His dad quickly shot down that notion.

"The first thing my father said to me was, 'Don't spend it. Put it away,'" recalled Camilleri. "And I said, 'What do you mean? I have this money. I should be able to use it.'"

His dad responded by teaching him about what happens when you overspend, accumulate debt, and incur interest. Rather than having compound interest work against him, he could take advantage of the phenomenon by investing his money.

It resonated and, from that point on, Camilleri adopted a new savings philosophy: "I just said to myself, 'If I make a dollar, I can only spend 10 cents of it at most.'"

That early money lesson, plus one more from his dad — "he taught me, 'always own, never rent,'" — led to Camilleri becoming a homeowner at age 27 when he purchased a five-bedroom in Brick, New Jersey in 2021. BI verified his ownership by looking at a copy of his mortgage statement.

"I was always going to buy a home. It was just a matter of when — not if," he said.

Saving up for a down payment: Living at home, using price comparison apps, and refusing to pay for subscriptions

Camilleri financed his home purchase with a 20% down payment, drawing from savings he'd accumulated throughout his early 20s.

He maintained the disciplined savings habits he established in college even as his income grew in his full-time sales role — and he avoided paying for housing for years. He lived with his parents in his childhood home until he bought his own place, meaning "I never paid a dollar of rent my entire life," he said.

Camilleri refuses to pay for subscriptions, which he considers "the biggest scam out there." He does have access to YouTube TV — his cousin gave him his login — and, "I jailbroke my FireStick," he said. "There's always a way to watch things for free."

He also refuses to pay top dollar for gas and groceries.

"If it's not the cheapest gas in the area, I'm not getting gas," said Camilleri, who uses the GasBuddy app.

As for groceries, ShopRite tends to be the cheapest option in his area, but if they raise the prices on one of his staples, like ground turkey, he'll shop around.

"If I see it went up 50 cents a pound, I'll take out my phone, and I'll start looking at other stores," he said. "I'll look at Stop & Shop, and if I see that it's 50 cents less or even 25 cents less per pound, I'm getting into my car, and I'm driving five minutes away. It's worth it in my head, especially because I like to buy in bulk."

At this point, his frugal habits are ingrained.

"This is how I live my life. I get the best deals on everything, and I never buy at the first price. I'm always trying to negotiate. I'm always looking to get the best price I possibly could," said Camilleri. That said, there's a time and a place to splurge, he added, pointing to his upcoming wedding. "I'm not being frugal when it comes to the wedding, but that's also because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Paying $25,000 under asking thanks to patience and smart negotiation

When Camilleri started seriously considering buying a home in 2020, interest rates were low, but the market was hot.

"At least in New Jersey, so many of the houses I looked at were going for $100,000 over asking price, $50,000 over asking price," he said. He wasn't willing to overpay, and living at home allowed him to be patient. "It's not like I had to move out."

Camilleri's patience paid off after a year of house hunting. He not only avoided a bidding war — he landed on a price that was $25,000 lower than what the seller was originally asking. He paid $670,000 for the 2,300-square-foot home.

It was part skill and part luck.

"I'm literally negotiating over the phone and making sales all day long. It's what I do for a living. I understand how negotiations work," he said. "I knew they weren't going to accept my first offer, but I started about $50,000 under asking, then they came back with a little bit higher than I wound up paying, and then we found some middle ground."

He added that lowballing wouldn't work in every situation: "It really depends on the demand for that home. If there were 10 people bidding on the home, I'm sure it wouldn't have worked out in my favor. In this instance, I do actually feel like I might have gotten lucky because it is a beautiful home."

He locked in a 2.875% interest rate, which still seems surprising to him: "You don't get that in New Jersey."

Even though his rate was "a steal," he said, "if I had no other choice and I had to pay 7%, I would still do that every single time over renting."

The way he sees it, it's much more costly to rent than to own.

"When you're renting, you're literally building someone else's asset. You're paying 100% interest is the way I like to describe it — because you're literally getting nothing back: You put a dollar in, that dollar is gone forever," said Camilleri. "Even if the interest rate is high, it's still something you own. It's still something that will build in value over time and that you have control over."

• Dexter Zhuang achieved Coast FIRE by increasing income and reducing expenses.
• Moving to countries with a lower cost of living increased his savings rate.
• He believes that anyone can use a form of 'geo-arbitrage' to keep more of their income.

Dexter Zhuang achieved what's known as "Coast FIRE" — an offshoot of the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement that means he no longer has to add to his retirement savings — with a simple, two-pronged approach: increasing income and reducing expenses.

He negotiated raises throughout his tech career and experimented with a variety of side hustles.

As for the reducing expenses component, "geo-arbitrage" helped. This strategy, which became increasingly popular during the pandemic when remote work allowed employees to essentially work from anywhere, involves earning an income from a higher-payer country while living in a lower-cost country.

Zhuang, 33, started his career in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the US, where he worked as a product manager for Dropbox and growth-stage startups. He quit in 2019 to travel the world and experiment with the digital nomad lifestyle. It was his first taste of geo-arbitrage — he was doing remote consulting, charging the hourly rate he earned from his employer in the States while living in less expensive places throughout Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

In 2020, he moved to Singapore to work at a regional fintech startup. He explained that, while he was earning a lower salary in Singapore than he would have earned for a comparable role in the States, he ended up being net positive due to a lower cost of living and lower taxes.

In San Francisco in 2018, "my average expenses were about $6,422 per month," he told Business Insider. "Fast-forward to Singapore in 2022, my total monthly expenses were $4,945, on average, in terms of the USD."

These numbers don't take into account inflation, he noted: "If you adjusted for inflation, the San Francisco expenses would be even higher." As for taxes, "that was also lower for me in Singapore than in San Francisco, in terms of my effective tax rate."

Even though he was earning a smaller base salary, the cost-of-living difference allowed him to save and invest more of his total income and, ultimately, hit his Coast FIRE number sooner than he would have if he were still living in the Bay Area. Zhuang prefers not to share his exact net worth, but BI confirmed that he has accumulated six figures by looking at screenshots of his savings and investment accounts.

As of 2025, his cost of living is even lower. He and his wife moved to Mexico City in 2024, and their average monthly expenses are about $3,500, he said. His income is also less — he left the Singapore startup in 2023 after growing his side hustles to the point where they were bringing in full-time income — but has more flexibility and feels less pressure to earn a certain amount now that he can coast into retirement with his current portfolio.

How anyone can use geo-arbitrage to fast-track their financial goals

There are a variety of geo-arbitrage strategies anyone with flexible work can use to save more, said Zhuang.

He relocated from a higher-cost-of-living country to a lower-cost-of-living country but pointed out that it's possible to relocate domestically — either to a less expensive city or even a more affordable neighborhood within your same city.

"It's good for most people, especially families with kids, who would find a global move to be disruptive," Zhuang wrote in his newsletter Money Abroad.

Another option is working remotely for a global employer that offers competitive salaries regardless of an employee's location.

"As a hiring manager in the Asia tech industry, I saw wildly different salary ranges for people who were hired in Singapore (mature market) vs places like Indonesia (emerging market)," he wrote, adding: "To plug the gap, I've seen high-performing tech workers successfully petition their global companies to benchmark their salary based on the more competitive market (e.g. instead of benchmarking to Malaysia, use Singapore)."

Keep in mind that "the global tech talent market is still inefficient. If you're a top performer in an emerging market, look for companies that do benchmark their salaries globally."