My car has 223,000 miles and hasn’t had too many problems until recently. I just replaced my clutch yesterday at a cost of $440. This is on a car that is worth maybe $1000. I’m not sure how much I should spend on the car at this point. Before I took the car to the shop I told myself I wouldn’t spend more than $500 on it and the repair came pretty close to that. There comes a point when it is better to quit repairing an old car and get a new(to you) one. I’m not sure what that point is but I do not plan on making any more repairs to my car. I’m hoping to replace it with a van this summer so I’m not even sure that I should have fixed it now. I could get by during school without a car if I had to. I’d just prefer to get a little more use out of my car.
Month: February 2008
Four Nights Lodging in Cancun for $37.41
That is what I paid for my four night stay in Cancun. My lodging also included a free continental breakfast. I was able to spend so little by staying in a hostel. A hostel is a great way for a solo traveler to save on lodging expenses. I couldn’t have stayed even one night in a hotel for the price I paid for four nights in the hostel. It is also a great way to meet people from other countries and cultures.
The hostel I stayed at on this trip was the Soberanis Hostal. It is a little different than most hostels because it is primarily a hotel with a few rooms set up hostel style. It doesn’t have kitchen facilities that you can use to prepare your own meals llike many hostels but I didn’t consider that a big drawback. It was located downtown but it was only a ten minute 65 cent ride to the beach. If you’re going on a trip I recommend considering a hostel as a lodging option.
Patience and Self-Discipline
These are the personality traits I need to develop if I am going to accomplish my goals. These have always been a problem for me. I am thinking of this now because I probably shouldn’t have taken the trip to Cancun. I was able to go for fairly cheap and it had been a long time since I had traveled internationally but since I’m not actually making much money now I probably should have waited until I could better afford it. I don’t have much patience in delaying things I want to do. I could be semi-retired by now but every time I work and save up some money, I end up quitting and living off my savings until there gone. If I could just change this habit I believe I could be retired in 5 to 10 years and not have a job to quit.
These traits are a problem when it comes to losing weight as well. I want to lose weight but I don’t want to quit eating junk food and I only exercise when I feel like it. When I do manage to eat better and exercise the weight doesn’t seem to come off fast enough and I end up going back to my normal habits. I’ve managed to lose 20 pounds or more 3 times but it was always accomplished by situations that I can’t replicate in my daily life. I just need to keep my future goal in mind and keep after it every day.
Save Money on Airfare
The biggest expense you can save money on when taking a vacation is airfare. One way to cut costs is to fly on a chartered airline. They usually have special fares that are much lower than regularly scheduled airline´s fares. On this trip I was able to purchase my flight to Cancun for $229 including taxes. The next lowest price I could find was $449. That is a significant difference.
To be able to take advantage of these special fares it helps to be flexible on your travel dates and not need to plan too far ahead. I booked my flight two weeks before leaving. The company I used is Worry Free Vacations. They serve seven cities primarily in the Midwest. There are other charter companies that serve other regions. A look through your Sunday Travel section will probably enable you to find what companies are in your region.
Save Money with a DVD Exchange
The following is a guest post from Jacob of
Early Retirement Extreme. I am on vacation this week and will be having guest posts while I am gone. If anyone else wants to submit a guest post please email me.
When I was a student I saved a ton of money and time by not having a
TV. Instead I just watched DVDs on my laptop. Now one might think that
this could be pretty pricey in terms of buying or renting DVDs.
However, this was not the case as I joined a “DVD exchange” that had
been started by one of my fellow grad students. The basic idea is that
everybody provides a list of the DVDs they own. These lists can either
be collected in a central database, or simply sent around via email or
a mailing list. One thing you can count on is that your friends
probably share the same taste in movies and series as you do, but that
you may not own exactly the same DVDs. For instance, I own all seasons
of Startrek TNG while my wife owns the entire ten seasons of Stargate.
Conversely, friends of our owned all of Babylon 5 and Black Adder
(welcome to nerd central). So instead of all of us getting a couple of
DVDs at a time from netflix or pursuing the impossibility of getting
them from blockbuster or each paying $50 or more per season at the
store, we simply borrowed them from each other. My recommendation is
that the entire network somehow agrees on how to properly treat a DVD
(like fine optics!) and how long one should generally keep a DVD (not
more than a week!) before handing it back. Surprisingly not everybody
is into sharing, but there is also many people who think it’s a great
idea but who haven’t thought of sharing. Therefore if you are starved
for home entertainment just make a list of your DVDs and start putting
out feelers.