Our Surprise Big Family Goal For This Year is...

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Chase Freedom Unlimited. All opinions are my own.

Do you make goals with your family each year? Normally my wife and I will meet at the beginning of each year and talk through financial goals, large items we will need to purchase for our house, and sometimes other smaller personal goals. However, almost half way through this year, we have been motivated to create a goal for our entire family that we have never done before. The reason we didn't start at the beginning of the year is because it was a goal that we started to find more value in as the year has gone on.

We didn't put an exact number behind it so it is a different sort of goal for our family than we have ever set. This past week a box arrived in the mail that is the first step towards meeting our goal. Let's do an unboxing of sorts right now and talk about what our new goal is!

First out of the cardboard box is a fun custom lunchbox from Chase Freedom Unlimited! But what is inside the box? I know, it's like an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Keep scrolling!

I think my son was too anxious to look inside to remember to share it with everyone, but don't worry, more reveal photos are below. But first let's talk a little more about our family goal. This year my wife and I were talking about how some of our best family memories were not necessarily of things we bought, but of experiences we shared. We reminisced about time together that we've spent as a family over the past couple years, and about how our kids were ALWAYS bringing up memories from them.

These memories revolved around healthy kids meals and fun lunches that I made for them, events around town together, being with extended family, and visiting new places as a family. So we thought. Why not make some more experiences a family goal? But what would this look like exactly?

We boiled it down to the fact that many of these memories happened on trips we took together! These happened on day trips, vacations, and traveling out to the West Coast to see our relatives. Why had we never thought of this before? So...drumroll please...our big family goal is to travel more together with our kids. We want to share experiences and build memories with our children that will last until they are parents. But the truth is we need help making this happen. This is when we found the perfect solution: the Chase Freedom Unlimited card.

We told them about our goal and they came up with the perfect solution. The Chase Freedom Unlimited card. On this blog before we've talked about how responsible use of a credit card can help you get places and that's why I'm so excited to partner with Chase Freedom Unlimited to share our Always Earning journey! This cash back back credit card is going to help us build lifelong memories this year and we want to share our experience with you along the way!

How does it do that? Easy, the Chase Freedom Unlimited card gives me 1.5% back on every purchase we make. This is how we are going to use it to reach our goal: we will use it for our everyday purchases and then pay it off each month. It will help when I go to the grocery store to buy supplies for my kids' lunches, when we need supplies for back-to-school, or when our dog needs a new bag of food. This way we get cash back that we can use to save more money for our family travel trips and to reach our goal.

Our plan is also to use it for those smaller purchases that need to be made for our trip. Do we need sunscreen? Put it on the card. Fill up the car to head out of town? Put it on the card. Not only that, but when we are traveling as a family, we can use the card to pay for our expenses, get the cash back, and actually be saving for our next family trip! Throughout the rest of this year we will also be sharing with you about where we are going, how we are getting there, what we have learned along the way, and also some fun recipes that I will be creating to celebrate our trips.

But guess what? We already started on our goal! As soon as we received our box in the mail, we were off. Where did we go to first? I can't tell you that because you will find out in my next blog post, but I will give you a small hint. Check out the photo of my son and me in front of a famous statue that stands near one of the largest metro areas of the United States! That is all I can tell you for now, but you can keep checking back to find out all about our first family trip. And remember to check on the Chase Freedom Unlimited card to start meeting your goals for this year.