Andy Hough

Hitchhiking – Frugal Transportation or Death Wish?

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During my recent hike I hitchhiked one time in order to avoid having to hike a section of trail twice. When I go hiking I often hitchhike into a town since that is usually the only way to get into town other than walking. I would guess not too many other personal finance bloggers hitchhike. It is frugal transportation since it doesn’t cost anything. People don’t usually ask or expect anything for giving you a ride. I did give one guy a little money on my own accord since it appeared that he was living in his car and probably needed the money. Most people don’t hitchhike or pick up hitchhikers since they are afraid of being raped and/or killed. That is a possibility, but I think it is unlikely. Serial is an interesting story of a killer driver picking up a killer hitchhiker that illustrates what many believe are the dangers of hitchhiking.

I’ve found that there are three types of people who will stop to pick me up. The first is older people. I think they give me a ride just because they are bored and lonely and want someone to talk to for a while. They often have pretty interesting stories and a little conversation in exchange for a ride is a pretty good trade. The second type is other hikers or relatives of hikers. People who hike understand that sometimes the only easy way to get to a town is to hitchhike and can recognize a hiker hitchhiker when they see one. I do give rides to hiker hitchhikers as a form of paying it forward for the rides I have received. The third type is poor people. I’m not sure why but the poorer a person is the more likely they are to give me a ride. These rides can be interesting since the drivers are sometimes under the influence, but I haven’t had a problem so far.

Even though hitchhiking is frugal transportation it is only something I do when I’m hiking. And I only pick up hitchhikers if they are at a trail head and I think they are hikers. I like to think that makes the process of hitchhiking safer, but I don’t really know. I think it would be interesting to hitchhike all the way across the country, but I probably won’t ever do that. Have you ever hitchhiked? Would you consider it?

Change of Plans – Back from Hike

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CAM00151I cut my hike short and have been back in KC since last Tuesday. The heat and humidity combined with my being out of shape made the hiking very uncomfortable and put me at risk of heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Despite drinking lots and lots of water I had a hard time cooling off. On the more strenuous days I was sweating so much that my fingers would prune up. Luckily, some of the days were fairly easy days and I spent quite a bit of time in trail towns along the way so overall I still had a good time on the hike. I also spent a lot more money than I planned, although it was still fairly cheap for a 9 day getaway. It seemed prudent to cut the hike short though since a strenuous (for me) section was coming up, the forecast was for more heat, and I was at a place where it was easy to bail from the trail.

I ended renting a car one-way from Harrisburg to KC. I drove a little over 1000 miles in 17 hours so I would only have one day of rental charges. I got an early start and was driving towards the sun so all but the last few hours were in daylight and I didn’t really get tired. Adding the cost of gas, the cost was about $150 to get home or about $30 cheaper than a flight would have been. Driving 17 hours to save $30 probably isn’t a very good deal but I didn’t check the airfares until after I rented the car since I assumed a last minute airfare would be much more expensive. Next time, I will know to check.

The plan was to stay here for a couple of weeks and then return to the trail with my car. I was going to park at different spots on the trail and complete the PA section of the trail with day hikes. Being able to return to my car every night would allow me to just drive to a nearby store or restaurant for food and water. This option would be more expensive than my initial hike plan but it would allow me to finish the PA section of the trail.

Those plans have changed since I will be starting a new job on Thursday. The trail will have to wait. I’ll be working on a document review project. This will allow me to save up some more money and since the project is only a month and a half long I’ll still be able to get back to the trail. Hopefully, it will be a little cooler by then.

June Savings Rate – 5.25%

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June was another bad month on my progress towards financial independence.  My SWR has increased to 59.41% from 55.15% the month before.  Some of that is because I am setting money aside for my hiking expenses and another reason is I haven’t been saving much.  And in June my investments actually lost money to make things even worse.

My goal is to save 50% of my income each month and I didn’t come close to meeting that goal in June. I made $1902.65 and managed to save $100. That amounted to a 5.25% savings rate.  My June expenses were once again too high.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. I have 20.19 months of living expenses saved now. I had my monthly expenses up to 24 months earlier this year, but the combination of higher monthly expenses and low savings has caused me to go backwards. I probably won’t be able to reverse this trend until I return from my hike.  My monthly expenses should go way down though so maybe that will help reverse the backwards trend.

June Income – $1902.65

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Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Online Income

 $780.50
Bank Bonus

$150.00

Dividends

$48.29

Cash Back

$78.96

Sell Stuff

$20.00

Jobs

$732.40

Mystery Shops

$92.50

Total

$1902.65

My June income was a little better than in May.  The online income was surprisingly strong.  I’m hoping that will continue while I’m hiking.  The bank bonus of $150 also helped out a bit.  I planned to sell a lot of stuff in June but I didn’t get around to listing much for sale and ended up only selling one item.  I can work more on selling stuff when I get back from my hike.  It was a decent month for income although I didn’t make much from my job. Having various sources of income is helpful.  Although my expenses were high in June my income was still more than my expenses so that was good.  I don’t expect to make a lot in July but hopefully my income will at least be higher than my expenses.

June Expenses – $1644.13

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

Household $376.78
Entertainment

$122.21

Transportation

 $867.86

Food

$94.73
Debt $5.00
Phone

$26.81
Health

$120.97
Electric

$29.77

Total

 $1644.13

My June expenses were much higher than I’d prefer. I missed my goal of keeping my monthly expenses under the minimum wage level of $1274 a month for the first time this year.

My food bill was under my $100 goal. Even though it was pretty low it could have been a lot better.  The total includes over 20 fast food meals.  The only reason the bill was lower than normal was because I ate a lot of the food I had previously purchased.

My transportation expense were the budget buster. I spent a little over $500 in repairs. I went ahead and replaced my catalytic converter which was a little over $500.  That was a lot less than the $1000 I was quoted at the first repair shop but still a lot more than I liked spending.  I also had my six month auto insurance bill which was about $200.  I’m looking forward to having transportation expenses of well under $100 in July.

I’m making a stretch goal of keeping my total expenses under $500 in July.  That will be pretty hard to do but it isn’t impossible.  My expenses should definitely be a lot less than they have been the last couple of months.