Well, here's the dirty little secret that the blogs never tell you and that usually gets completely overlooked here:

You are not going to get free trips to anyplace special by churning a few gift cards. It simply does not generate enough miles, unless you really scale it way up, and most people have neither the time nor patience to do that (or are smart enough to know it's not a good use of their time/money). "Buying" enough points for that trip to Bora Bora by churning gift cards is a sucker's play - do the math, you will see that "free" ticket costs a lot.

The way to get enough points to actually do something worthwhile is by getting a bunch of new credit cards. Given your life situation, that's probably not a wise option (or an option at all).

A little churning here or there, fine. Meeting minimum spend on a bunch of new credit cards, absolutely. But cranking through bricks of GCs is not a very smart way to fund adventures.