This year in Sign-Up bonuses

I got a new job earlier this year, with a new job comes new monthly expenses a new direct deposits. 

The first Sign-Up Bonus (SUB) I was able to get this year was with Chase and their checking account, simply open the account, set up direct deposit, keep it for 90 days and they give you $200, after I got the bonus I immediately transferred it over to a SUB sinking fund

A sinking fun is just a alternative way of thinking about savings accounts for specific goals, each goal has its own savings balance, rather than pooling them all together, often this is done by physically separating the physical money into envelopes, I just keep a spreadsheet 

Next up was opening the Citi Custom Cash, when you spend $1500 over the course of 6 months, they give you 20,000 Citi Points, which can be redeemed for a $200 statement credit, since I spend more than $500/month on bills, I just put all the bills on that card. 
The order of events is a bit off here because I actually opened another credit card, the Citi Rewards+ two weeks after the custom cash, this one had a similar SUB, it was 25,000 Citi points after spending $1500 in 3 months, so in reality actually put all the bills on this card first, then the custom cash. Since they are both Citi cards the points are able to pool together

Still sitting in my citi account as points, I valued this as $450 more into my sinking fund or 650 total. When October rolled around I got an e-mail from American express, about their checking account, it read something like, anyone who owns one of their existing cards, which I do, can open the account before halloween, and if you setup direct deposit before some date in december, they will give you $250, so I signed up, switched my direct deposit over, and got the $250, now the sinking fund is at $900.

I threw out two more credit card applications, on the same day too, this is usually a bad idea, still I understood the risks and was willing to accept the worst case scenario, one card denied, the other got approved, the chase freedom flex, which has another SUB, spend $500 in 3 months and get $200 back, at the time of writing I haven't earned this one yet but I should get it before the year is over, topping the sinking fund out at $1100

I am very happy with this, I decided to splurge, I got a Pixel 8 Pro, the 256GB version, normally it costs $1060, after taxes it is a little over $1100, however I was able to get a discount from my carrier, GoogleFi, which essentially stated, keep my existing plan for four months, and they will discount the phone by $400, I was going to keep my existing plan regardless so this was a deal I jumped on it, $700 out of the sinking fund, without dipping into my normal savings budget or investments or increasing my monthly spend. The smart thing to do would have been dump the full fund into savings/investments, I am not a smart person however.

My pervious phone was a Pixel 3a, which is about 4 years/4 generations old, Since the Pixel 8 Pro is touting 7 years of updates, I intend to keep this phone for the full 7 years, until 2030, the remaining $400 is going to dumped into savings