{"id":12186,"date":"2025-07-18T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=12186"},"modified":"2025-07-17T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:15:00","slug":"weekend-wisdom-dont-count-your-chickens-before-they-hatch-ms-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/18\/weekend-wisdom-dont-count-your-chickens-before-they-hatch-ms-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Wisdom: Don\u2019t Count Your Chickens Before they Hatch – MS Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: Today\u2019s post is a Friday guest post in a short summer series running on Fridays while I\u2019m traveling. Today\u2019s author is irieriley, a manufactured spend gigachad who’s been featured on the blog multiple times in the past<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most exciting parts of this hobby is the emergence of a new play. When you find something, especially if it\u2019s particularly lucrative, it\u2019s tempting to start scribbling some ballpark math on the back of a cocktail napkin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, you need to start planning what color of Lambo you\u2019re going to buy when you hit this play every day to the deposit limit for the next year straight. There\u2019s no way this play won\u2019t last forever, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, nothing actually lasts forever in manufactured spend (MS) and plays die without warning. For example, a growth stage fintech that lets you make \u201ckalls\u201d on election results will quickly wonder why they are paying so much interchange (and how \u201cdebit cards only\u201d didn\u2019t actually apply) to users that aren\u2019t profitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even archaic financial institutions founded in the 1800s will eventually have a Western region VP of accounting realize they\u2019re absolutely hemorrhaging money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowing that lucrative plays have a finite lifespan from the second they\u2019re discovered, here\u2019s my advice. Outside of very rare situations (i.e. causing a shutdown at Amex or your primary hub, and also, don\u2019t break the law, for obvious reasons), you will regret not going hard on a target vs. pacing yourself, trying to keep it alive long-term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may not be hitting it hard, but whales, miracle doctors, and their small army of players are, and you\u2019re collateral damage. Make your money, accept the shutdown because you aren\u2019t a profitable customer, and move on (hopefully with an increased balance that matches your napkin optimism).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I speak from experience on counting my chickens too early. 2 years ago, I did some napkin math on profit based on maximizing employee card slots across Amex charge cards for myself and P2, since we had been targeted for them a ton in the months preceding. Guess who has virtually never been targeted to add ECs since that exercise?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ended up making more money that year than my napkin math suggested, through entirely different plays. And yes, those plays are all dead now, too. But as my P2 loves to say, \u201cthere always seems to be a new scheme around the corner when you\u2019re sad about one dying\u201d. Stay frosty, my friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– irieriley<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Pictured: a whale opening the gullet to inhale 100k lbs of chicken, er, krill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE: Today\u2019s post is a Friday guest post in a short summer series running on Fridays while I\u2019m traveling. Today\u2019s author is irieriley, a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[178,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12186"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12189,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12186\/revisions\/12189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}