Andy Hough, Author at Tight Fisted Miser

How Little Could You Live On?

May 19, 2022February 14, 2008 by Andy Hough

J.D. at Get Rich Slowly recently had a post “Extreme Personal Finance:America on $10 a Day.” It was about a man who lives on about $3,700 a year. I found it interesting that some commenters couldn’t imagine living on anywhere close to that. Some didn’t think they could live on that much for a month. Although somewhat odd the man does seem to be quite content living on that amount.

It makes me wonder how little I could live on. There have been many years that I’ve lived on less than $10,000. It was pretty simple to do because I made less than $10,000. Since I avoided debt I couldn’t spend money I didn’t have leaving me with no choice but to live on what I made.

If I were free from the expenses associated with earning an income I think I could live quite comfortably on less than $10,000. If I were to spend six months hiking the Appalachian Trail and the rest of the time in Guatemala I think it would be fairly easy to live on $6000. That does include paying for health insurance. That year would probably be much more enjoyable than the present one too.

How little could you live on?

Underwear That Pays

August 19, 2009February 8, 2008 by Andy Hough

After doing some calculations I have determined that my new underwear will pay for itself. I normally do a very small load of whites every week. This isn’t my preference but I only have enough clean underwear to last a week. I often wear pants or sometimes shirts more than once but not underwear. Even a miser has his limits.

The math works like this. A load of laundry costs me approximately $1.50. I was able to buy seven pairs of underwear for $5 at Target. I used a Target gift card I’d received for Christmas making the purchase free to me but I’ll stick with the $5 figure. Now that I have the additional underwear I only need to do a load of whites every two weeks. That makes a savings of $1.50 every two weeks. In eight weeks I’ll have saved $6 which is a dollar more than the underwear cost me. That makes it underwear that pays for itself.

Get up to 50% Return with Saver’s Credit

February 7, 2008 by Andy Hough

Using the Saver’s Credit you may be able to take the credit of up to $1,000 (up to $2,000 if filing jointly) if you make eligible contributions to a qualified IRA, 401(k) and certain other retirement plans. Here is a table showing what your credit would be depending on your filing status and income.

Single AGI	Head of Household AGI	Joint File AGI
0-15500: 50%	0-23250: 50%	0-31000: 50%
15501-17000: 20%	23251-25500: 20%	31001-34000: 20%
17001-26000: 10%	25501-39000: 10%	34001-52000: 10%

As you can see it would be pretty hard to end up in the 50% bracket. I haven’t gotten all my tax information yet but I believe I would end up in 20% bracket coming close to getting to the 50% bracket. I won’t qualify though because I was a full-time student for 5 months of the year.

Another thing to keep in mind is if you don’t owe any taxes than this credit won’t do you any good. You can’t get a refund of the credit itself. The best it can do is reduce your taxes to zero which should result in an increased refund.

I’m thinking I’ll probably credit for the credit for the 2009 tax year. I’ll be attending school less than full-time in the spring semester. With attending school and then studying for the bar there is a good chance my income will be low enough to qualify for the credit. Depending on where my income ends up I could use a traditional IRA to lower my AGI enough to qualify for a higher percentage credit.

If you don’t make a lot of money and you contribute to a qualified retirement account make sure to determine whether you qualify for this credit.

January Savings/Debt Repayment Percentage

February 6, 2008 by Andy Hough

My savings/debt repayment percentage for January was only 3.7%. That is quite a drop from the previous months percentage of 55%. The drop was because I didn’t make any debt payment and made only the minimum $50 contribution to my IRA. Until I receive my student loan money I’m not going to make any debt payments or extra contributions to my IRA. This is to make sure I have plenty of money on hand for living expenses and any unexpected expenses. Once I have my student loan money I plan on paying down my private student loan and maxing out my 2007 IRA contribution.

January Income

February 5, 2008 by Andy Hough

Here is a breakdown of my income for January.

Job Income	$1104.36
Online Income	$191.62
Surveys	$5
Interest	$14.92
Total	$1315.90

My income was down quite a bit because I only worked half a month due to returning to law school. I did manage to increase my online income a bit. Since I don’t count any money made as income until I actually receive it there will be quite a bit more money that was earned in January that will be reflected on February’s income. In fact I’ve already made more this month than in January. With no job income I need to keep increasing my other methods of income.