Andy Hough

Keeping Urges From Becoming Splurges

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My method to keep urges from becoming splurges is to give in to my urge but in a controlled manner.  This makes my urge go away but doesn’t have the same negative consequences as a full-blown splurge.

Here is a recent example.  I’ve been a little depressed lately and being depressed makes me want to gamble.  This doesn’t make much sense because I lose money when I gamble which makes me even more depressed.  Irrational as it is, the urge to gamble exists and has to be dealt with.  My solution was to take $100 to the casino and gamble it away.

It does suck to waste $100 like that but I know if I ignore my urge I’ll eventually give in and go on an unplanned bingge – which would likely cost me much more than $100. After losing the $100 my urge to gamble was gone and my mood has gradually started to improve.

This method has worked for me for years.  After going backwards the past couple of years the time between giving in to my gambling urge is gradually increasing again.  This is probably because now that I’m with my GF I’m much less prone to depression.  If you want to try a variation of this method for your own urge please note that it only works if you know that you will only give in to the urge as planned.

Search and Win Gift Card with Swag Bucks

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Swag Bucks is an online portal dedicated to helping you earn digital dollars called “Swag Bucks”, which can be redeemed for exclusive swagbucks.com merchandise. There is a variety of merchandise but gift cards are what I’m most likely to use my Swag Bucks for. You can get a $5 Amazon.com gift card for 45 Swag Bucks which seems to be one of the better deals. It takes a different number of Swag Bucks to earn a same denomination gift card depending on the retailer.

This is somewhat similar to the Moola.com search and win that I used to participate in before they ended it. The Moola deal was good while it lasted and I’ve made a couple bucks this month from my referrals participating in the deals they still have. I’ve just started Swag Bucks and I’m hoping it will work at least as well as Moola for me. It does have the recommendation of other bloggers I read.

The best way to benefit from a program like this is to have referrals because you also earn points when your referrals earn points. If you would like to give this a try just sign up using my Swag Bucks referral link.

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Finding Affordable Health Insurance

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One of the challenges of retiring early or being self-employed is finding affordable health insurance.  I’m very frugal and don’t spend a lot of money but I wouldn’t go without health insurance to save money.  The risk is too great.

I currently have private health insurance and pay a little less than $70 a month.  This is a good deal for someone who is 41 years old and overweight.  It is quite a bit cheaper than my student health plan and it provides more coverage.  The deductible is $5000 but I’m not too concerned about that since I rarely visit a doctor.  If I do need to visit a doctor I can visit the student health clinic for free.  The purpose of  health insurance for me is to keep me from being wiped out financially if I suffer a serious injury or illness.

My insurance is cheap but as I grow older I’ll need to find more ways to keep the cost down.  One option is to raise my deductible to $10,000 but I’m not going to do that until I have more savings.  I could also open a Health Savings Account or possibly deduct some of the health insurance cost as business expense.  I need to do more research on these.  Right now I probably won’t owe taxes anyway so a Health Savings Account is of no benefit to me.

I found my health insurance online through eHealthinsurance. eHealthInsurance offers the largest selection of health plans. Compare & Apply Online, Free instant quotes, Best prices, and Live help!

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November Income Challenge Update

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My goal for November was to do something every day to make extra money.  I’ve already fallen behind but if I do two or three things some days I’ll be able to make an average of one a day.  Here are some things I’ve done so far to make extra money:

  • Opened checking account for Bank Bonus
  • Online Survey
  • Associated Content article
  • Brokered ING Direct links
  • Added Adsense back to this site
  • Medical Study
  • Opened bank cd
  • Invested in stock

Some of these things will be done on multiple days.  I won’t be doing thirty different things to make extra money.  The rest of the month I’ll be concentrating on writing articles for Associated Content and eHow.  It would be nice if I could estabish these as recurring sources of extra income.

A $500 a Month Retirement Budget

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Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme recently posted an example $500 a month retirement budget.  It is displayed below.

  • Rent $200-250
  • Health insurance $75 (get the cheapest possible and stay healthy!)
  • Food $50-75
  • Transport $0-$75
  • Utilities $25-100

I found this very interesting because I’ve been making over $500 a month in alternative income lately.  If I could get my budget down to $500 a month I could “retire” and live off my alternative income.   Here is one possible budget.

  • Rent $250
  • Health Insurance $70
  • Food $75
  • Transportation $25
  • Utilities $80

It is possible to rent an apartment for $250 in some areas.  I think there are even some place in KC that rent that cheap but I wouldn’t want to live there.  A better alternative is to move to a small town or live with a roommate. The health insurance is what I actually pay now.  The food budget would require a little more self-discipline on my part.  I used to spend about $100 a month on food and if I were to cut out fast food I could get that down to $75 or lower.  The transportation cost is for an occassional bus or giving a friend gas money for a ride.  Ideally I would live somewhere I could walk to most places I needed to go.  The utilities expense of $80 would include a phone.  This amount would vary somewhat but an average of $80 seems easily achievable.

An alternative would be to live in Guatemala (or any low-cost country) for part of the year.  Or to spend several months hiking.  Both would allow me to live on about $300 a month.  A possible budget would be.

  • Rent $100 (if hiking would be for hostels, hotels, showers, etc.)
  • Food $75 (would probably be more while hiking)
  • Health Insurance $70 (this would be the same although I could consider going without in Guatemala since health care is so cheap there.  I wouldn’t want to take the chance of being uninsurable upon a return to the U.S. though.)
  • Miscellaneous $55 (entertainment, postage, gear replacement, transportation, etc.)

The $300 budget would allow me to spend a little extra when visiting the U.S. or not hiking.  Some of the difference would have to go airfare to get to Guatemala or transportation to and from the trailheads but the savings would more than make up for this amount. These budgets might seem a little extreme but based on my experiences living in Guatemala and hiking long distances I’m confident that they are feasible.  I’m planning on doing a $200 a month hike for several months next year.

For now though these budgets are just musings but after I get out of law school they could very well become reality.