Andy Hough

COVID-19 Cost Cutting

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While my expenses were already low, COVID-19 and sheltering at home have led to my monthly expenses being even lower. There are just a few days left in this month and I’m on track to have my lowest monthly expense total in years. Here are some of the ways that COVID-19 has cut my costs.

My transportation expense is way down for the month. Since I’m no longer commuting and there aren’t to many places to go I’m hardly driving my car at all. The price of gas has also gone way down. The combination of less driving and cheaper gas will lead to my monthly transportation costs being cut almost in half.

I’m also saving a lot on entertainment. The movie theaters are closed so I’m no longer being charged the monthly bill for my Regal Movie Pass and I’m not purchasing any overpriced concessions. My entertainment mostly consists of YouTube, Netflix, and frequent walks in the park. My monthly entertainment expense is basically zero now.

Food is yet another area where I’m saving money. Since it is no longer an option to dine-in at restaurants my restaurant spending is way down. I’m making fewer trips to the grocery store and stocking up on cheap staples when I am at the store, which has lead to spending less on junk food. That combined with some of my favorite grocery items being out of stock has kept my grocery spending pretty low. When I do get a craving for fast food and visit a drive-thru, there are some great deals allowing me to get a meal for just $1 or $2 or even free. My food expense for this month will be one of the lowest totals in years.

I’m saving on travel since I can’t do any traveling. I canceled a couple of flights this month and got a refund of the taxes paid. I wish I were spending more on travel since I want to travel, but I will have to wait. I’m grateful that not being able to travel is the worst inconvenience I’ve incurred due to COVID-19. Many people are suffering and enduring great hardships so I can’t really complain about having to delay my travel plans for a while.

I’m also moving in with my Mom for a while. My original plan was just to stay there for a couple of weeks before I started traveling. That plan is obviously out the window. I already ended the lease on my apartment so I’ll be staying with my Mom until I can travel again. I’ll be paying some expenses there as a rent payment. That will help my Mom out and save me money compared to what I’d pay for rent in the city.

All of these things combined have lead to a large reduction in my monthly expenses. I’m not sure how long this will last, but I think my monthly expenses will be lower than normal for quite a well. How has the pandemic affected your finances?

March Income – $5872.19

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Here is a breakdown of my income for March.

Interest$8.85
Amazon FBA($0.32)
Federal Tax Refund$3219
Bank Bonus$100
Online ($8.76)
Dividends$22.52
Jobs$2530.90
Total$5872.19

My March income was higher than normal due to receiving my federal tax refund.

My Amazon FBA side hustle once again made negative income for the month. I didn’t make any sales and had to pay a small storage fee. Now isn’t a good time to be selling non-essential items.

Dividend income was up a little bit. Some of my stocks will probably cut or suspend their dividend over the next few months, but that hasn’t happened yet. If you sign up using my Robinhood referral link we will both get one share of free stock. Thanks to anyone who signs up using my link. Every little bit helps.

I had negative online income for the month. I paid to renew a domain name. I will be getting an Adsense payout this month so I’ll have my first profitable month of the year.

Job income was down a bit since I was off a couple of weeks from my full-time job as they transitioned everyone from working at the office to being remote workers.

March was a pretty good month financially. I had almost $6000 in income and less than $1000 in expenses. This month income will be down quite a bit since my tax job is still ending April 17th even though the tax filing season has been extended. I’m not sure if my full-time job will last all month either.

How was your month?

March Expenses – $972.10

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for March.

Household$15.28
Rent$450
Entertainment$19.89
Transportation$301.26
Food$139.60
Travel$0
Phone$30.07
Health$16
Total$972.10

My March expenses were quite low. I was easily able to keep my total expenses under my $1000 a month target. Working at home and sheltering in place made it easy to not spend money.

My only entertainment expense was my Regal Unlimited monthly membership fee. I was able to see several movies the first part of the month before they closed the theaters. My membership is suspended while the theaters are closed so I won’t have this expense this month. I probably won’t have any entertainment expense at all this month.

Transportation expense was for $77 of gas, $1 for a car wash and $223 for six months of liability insurance. The insurance bill wasn’t due until later this month, but I decided to go ahead and pay it since my expenses were so low.

My travel expense was $0 for the month since I can’t be sure when I’ll be able to travel again in the current situation. I’ll be canceling a couple of plane tickets this month so I might have travel income rather than travel expense this month.

My food expense was about $20 lower than the previous month and the lowest it has been in a long time. Not being able to go out to eat saved me a lot of money. I’m also well stocked with groceries so this month’s food expense should be even lower.

My phone bill was normal. It will usually be in the $28-$35 range and I expect it be in that range this month.

My health expense was $16 for a dentist visit. I was supposed to have another visit which was canceled due to the pandemic. I’m not sure when I’ll be back to the dentist. I do have a doctor’s appointment this month since I have to physically see the doctor before they will give me a refill on my blood pressure medicines.

Household expense was $9 for laundry and $6.28 for a pair of pants, safety pins, and a pill splitter.

This month I should easily keep my expenses under $1000. Assuming I don’t have any big, unexpected expenses like a medical problem or car repair. How was your month?

My Coronavirus Update

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Before I get to how the Coronavirus has affected me, I want to acknowledge how lucky I am. Nobody that I personally know has gotten sick or died from the virus. My sympathies go out to those who have truly suffered during this crisis.

The virus is affecting me financially. I was laid off, as was everyone else, from my full-time job. They have completely closed the office for an indefinite time. This was a bit of a surprise, as one day we were working like normal and the next everybody was told not to come into the office. I was planning on quitting this job in April, but missing out on a little over a month’s pay will hurt my finances.

Luckily, I have been working a second job and that job is still going strong. It is only 15 hours a week, but luckily I have arranged my life that my monthly expenses are less than my earnings from my part-time job. I’m also lucky that I can work my part-time job from home. The part-time job was supposed to end in April. Now that the tax filing deadline has been extended I’m not sure when it will end.

Another thing working in my favor is that I have saved a few thousand dollars for my trip to Asia this Summer. That money may end up being my emergency fund to live on for the rest of the year instead.

I had two trips planned for this year. My first trip was going to be a hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail at the end of April. The flight for that trip hasn’t been canceled yet. I doubt it will be safe to hike by the end of April, but for now I’m just waiting to see how things change. The airline hasn’t offered a refund or free change on my flight yet so I’m not going to cancel the flight ahead of time in hopes that they will eventually offer a refund or free cancellation for my flight.

My second trip was going to be a trip to Asia. The plan was to fly to Japan at the beginning of June for a few days, then fly to Thailand with a layover in Singapore. This trip appears unlikely to happen. Singapore isn’t currently allowing any foreigners to transit through their airport. Thailand is requiring foreigners to have a certificate of good health before they are allowed into the country. It isn’t really possible to get that certificate right now since doctors have much more important things to attend to right now. Neither of my flights for this trip have been cancelled by the airlines yet. Again, I’m not going to cancel the flights ahead of time in hopes that the airlines will eventually offer a refund or free cancellation for my flights.

The stock market plunge has hit my retirement savings hard. I haven’t looked at my balances for a couple of weeks, but I know they are even lower than when I last checked. Right before the stock market started to tank, I added $4,000 to my IRA in order to increase my tax refund. That ended up being bad timing. I’ve added $200 to my taxable dividend stock account this month to try to buy some bargains. I want to add more, but I also want to conserve my savings. I have a little over $1k left to max out my IRA contribution limit for 2019 and I’m undecided if I should contribute the additional $1k. Since the filing deadline has been extended until July 15, I have a few more months to make up my mind.

As an introvert the social isolation hasn’t been that big of a deal for me. My two main activities outside of the home, other than work, were to go to the movies and to eat at a fast food restaurants while reading my magazines. Neither of those activities are an option now so I’m just staying home and watching Netflix and YouTube for my entertainment. My annual trip to Thailand basically fulfills my physical and mental needs for social interaction for the year. If I’m not able to go this year, I’ll have to figure something else out so I don’t get depressed.

Overall, things are not that bad. Although the Coronavirus has negatively affected me, I think I’m better off than most. How are you doing?

The Coronavirus and my 2020 Plans

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This post was originally planned in December and was going to be about my planned around the world trip for Summer 2020 and my other plans for 2020. I procrastinated so long on writing this post that current events have made the plans I was certain of in December 2019 to be rather doubtful now.

Last November I found a flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo for just 16k Delta Miles. That is a great bargain since the price is usually at least double. It was too good of a deal for me to pass up. Since I already had plans to hike on the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) right after the end of tax season I booked the ticket to Japan for the first week of June, giving me a little over a month to hike and prepare for my Japan trip. Since I was planning so early I was able to select a bulkhead seat for just $40. On a transpacific flight having the extra legroom that you get with a bulkhead seat is easily worth $40. My plan at that time was to buy a cheap ticket from Japan to Thailand leaving after about a week in Japan.

I had over 60k in Virgin Atlantic miles from a credit card signup so I started looking at my options to use those miles to get home from Thailand. The drawback to using Virgin Atlantic miles is that they tack on huge fees and surcharges from most destinations. After doing some research I discovered that I could fly with them from Hong Kong to London for just 22,500 miles and about $40 in fees. That gave me the idea to make this trip an around the world trip and I booked that flight leaving in early September.

Later I booked a flight from Japan to Singapore in business class on Japan Airlines. After a six hour layover I continue on from Singapore to Bangkok in Cathay Pacific business class. I was able to book both of these flights as one business class ticket using 30k American Airlines miles I had from another credit card sign up bonus. I thought this was a fantastic deal since it would be my first time experiencing long haul business class and I’d get to experience business class on two different airlines with highly rated business class. Additionally, I’d get to enjoy the business class lounge in Tokyo and Singapore. I also wanted to see Singapore Changi airport since it is a tourist attraction itself.

When I booked the first two flights I hadn’t even heard of the coronavirus. When I booked the third flight the coronavirus was in the news, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal yet. Now it is a pretty big deal and might derail my travel plans for the Summer. I’ve delayed booking any more flights or hotels. It is still over two months before my trips begins so perhaps the situation will be better by then. I still plan on going on this trip as long as travel as still allowed to Japan and Thailand and the spread of the disease isn’t significantly worse there at that time. By the time I leave the coronavirus might be a bigger concern here in the U.S. then in the countries I’m visiting.

Although many airlines have announced fee waivers for ticket changes, none of them have extended the fee waiver to June yet. If I do decide it is unsafe to travel and have to cancel my trip I’m hoping they will have extended the fee waiver by then. All I can do now is wait and see what happens.

If I do cancel my Asia trip, I intend to extend my hiking trip. Instead of going one month, I will hike for two months. If I hike for two months, that should be long enough for me to finally finish hiking the A.T. I’d be pretty happy if I accomplished that. Also, if I cancel my Summer Asia trip, I intend to make an Asia trip in Winter instead. It would be nice to be in sunny Thailand while it is freezing back here in Missouri.

My other plan for 2020 is buying a house. My mom wants me to buy a house with her. She would basically be giving me the 1/3 of the house that I’d one day inherit now. I’d have a small mortgage to get me from being a 1/3 owner to a 1/2 owner. This would be a great deal for me financially. There are still a lot of details we need to figure out. We were planning to do this in the Fall after I returned from my trip. If I end up canceling my trip, we will buy the house sooner.

Although buying the house would be a good deal for me financially, I’m not 100% certain I want to do it. One reason for that is that I don’t especially want to live in that small town or even in Missouri. I’ve been wanting to live somewhere warmer, like Florida, for several years, but have never made the move. Buying a house would ensure that it would be a long time before I made that move. Another reason is that my mom can be rather bossy, and I can see her unilaterally making all the decisions regarding the house and coming up with lots of projects around the house for me to do. Overall, I think the positives of buying the house outweigh the negatives, but I’m going to think about it some more before making a final decision.

That is my 2020 plans for now, uncertain as they are. What are your 2020 plans? Would you visit Asia this summer?