Andy Hough

Biking the Katy Trail

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"No Amish Allowed" Katy Trail Sign My plan for my next adventure is to bike the Katy Trail. Actually, my plan is to bike it both ways. This is a 237 mile long trail and it has been almost ten years since I last rode a bike so this plan might be overly ambitious. Unless I get a job before next Tuesday though I will at least be attempting an out and back ride of the Katy Trail.

I’m thinking it will take me about six or seven days each way to bike the trail. I’m guessing that I will be able to bike about 40 miles a day. Back in 2005 I biked 17 miles on the Virginia Creeper trail in about 2.5 hours with several breaks. The Katy Trail is also a relatively level, crushed limestone trail so I figure in a full day of riding I should be able to do about three times as much mileage. A bike ride from nine years and 35 pounds ago might not be the best basis for establishing my current bike riding ability though. My other thought is that I was able to hike 14 mile days on my recent hike. Biking should be at least three times as fast as hiking and 14×3 is 42 so that is another basis for my 40 miles a day estimate.

My method of biking the trail does allow me to scale back my daily mileage plan if it proves to be too ambitious. I’m going to ride out and back to my car each day. For example, the first day I might bike from the Clinton trailhead to Windsor and then ride back to the Clinton trailhead. The next day I would drive to Sedalia and ride from the Sedalia trailhead to Windsor and then back to the Sedalia trailhead. The trail has mile markers so if halfway through the day I feel like my initial goal for the day is too far I can note my current mile marker and turn around there for the day. Or if my initial goal was too easy I could push to a further mile marker before turning around for the day, but I doubt that will happen. This method will give me a lot of flexibility on how far I bike each day.

This method of biking will also help keep my costs down since I’ll be sleeping in my car rather than staying at a hotel at night. I’ll still stay at a hotel or campground some days since I won’t want to go more than a couple of days without a shower. This method will increase my gas costs since I’ll be driving each day, but overall the trip will be relatively cheap.

It is costing me a bit of money to get ready for this trip. I’m borrowing my girlfriend’s bike which has the advantage of being free. Unfortunately, it also has the disadvantage of being pink. It is also a cheap Walmart bike which might not be reliable for such a long ride. Since I’m riding back to my car each day it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to make any needed repairs or possibly find a replacement bike.

That is my plan for now. Since I’m returning to my car each night I’ll be able to continue blogging and I’ll keep you updated on how the plan works.

May 2014 Goals

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Since I’m back from my hike and currently unemployed it is a good time to set some goals for the month so that I’m not completely lazy. I’m only going to set two goals for this month and they are both pretty easy.  If these seem too easy after a couple of weeks than I will add another goal or two.

My first goal for the month is to exercise at least a half hour every day.  Now that I’m no longer hiking I need to keep exercising or I will stop losing weight or even start gaining weight back.  This goal will usually be met by walking, but I might also get some biking or running in this month.  It will also sometimes be completed by doing yard work.  This goal should be simple since I can just walk around my block a few times while listening to a podcast to meet the goal for any particular day.  Since I find walking and listening to a podcast to be enjoyable I don’t think I will have too much resistance to meeting this goal.

My other goal for the month is to write 1000 words a day Monday through Friday.  Since I’m unemployed I have lots of time to meet this goal.  I think it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to meet this goal each day.  I didn’t pay any attention to how long I spent writing today, but I am pretty sure it was less than two hours.  I haven’t done very well at writing goals in the past so I am looking forward to finally getting on the right track with writing.  My current writing streak is one day since I just started this goal, but I plan on keeping the streak going for a while.  I am giving myself weekends off from the goal, but I might go ahead and write on the weekend too if I feel like it.  I’m also giving myself one more out for this goal.  On days that I exercise for 4 or more hours I am excusing myself from meeting the writing goal for that day.  You might be wondering what I have planned that would lead me to exercising for 4 hours or more in a day.  The plan isn’t set in stone yet, but I will tell you about it in my next post.  A couple of hints: It isn’t a hike.  It involves a form of exercise I mentioned in this post.  Feel free to make a guess in the comments.

April Income – $3068.26

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Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

Online Income

 $343.86
Interest

$4.00

Dividends

$14.64

Cash Back

$24.16

Job

 $2631.60

Bank Bonus

 $50

Total

$3068.26

Note: This is an updated version of this post since the first one I published somehow included the information from last month’s income post rather than the new information I wrote for this month’s post. This will be my best attempt at reconstructing what I originally meant to post.

April was a pretty good month for income since I received three paychecks.  Unfortunately, those were my final paychecks from my tax job which is now finished for the season.

Online income is still decent, but my affiliate income has completely dried up.  I’m not sure if I will make any affiliate income this year.  Affiliate income and blogging income are no longer a priority for me though.  I plan to experiment with a couple of different ways to make online income this year.  More on that when my plans come closer to fruition.

My income from dividends,Mr. Rebates , and other alternative sources of income remains small.  However, since I’m able to keep my expenses so low this small source of income still amounts to about 10% of my expenses which I think is a significant contribution.

My prospects for income this month aren’t so good.  It appears unlikely that I will get a job and receive a paycheck before the end of this month.  I do plan on selling some stuff this month, but I haven’t done too well at that yet.  I’m not too worried though since I have plenty in savings and I am confident I will be able to bring in a decent income again soon.

April Expenses – $1336.35

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for April.

Household $417.73
Entertainment

$28.04

Transportation

 $440.70

Food

$191.76

Travel

$28
Student Loan

$106.00
Phone

$26.81
Health

$56.31

Total

 $1336.35

 

My April expenses were higher than I like.  I spent $380 on repairs for my car or I still would have made it under the $1000 level for the month though.  My food bill was a lot higher than normal due to eating out while I was traveling for my hike.  My actual travel expenses were low at $28 since I was able to get most of my expenses reimbursed by my Capital One Venture card, my Southwest Visa card and my Barclaycard Arrival™ World MasterCard® – Earn 2x on All Purchases. That isn’t bad for a 12 day trip with 2 hotel stays, 1 hostel stay, a commuter train ride, two taxis, an airport shuttle, and a plane ticket. This was also the first month that I had to start paying my student loan which keeps my fixed expenses higher than they were.

I think May should be a lower expense month.  The transportation expense will go back to normal and everything else will remain about the same as in April. The only exception to that would be the entertainment expense which will go up in May since it was artificially low in April due to using some gift cards and being gone on my trip for half of the month.

I think I could have a good shot at getting my yearly average monthly expense below $1000.  I do plan on having some dental work done though which will likely ruin my chance at having the lower expenses.  The dental work has been put off for a while though since I couldn’t afford it the past few years. It is more important to get my teeth healthy now than to keep my expenses below the $1000 level. Even with the dental expenses I think I will have respectably low expenses for the year.

My $3000 Weight Loss Bet

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If you have been reading this blog for a while you probably know that I’ve been wanting to lose weight for years, but have never had any success losing weight.  I even had a $500 weight loss challenge a few years ago where I promised to give away $500 if I didn’t lose 40 pounds by the end of the year.  I didn’t even come close to losing 40 pounds and ended up giving away the $500.  Apparently, the fear of losing $500 wasn’t enough to motivate me to lose weight.

Despite my past results I am once again making a bet to motivate myself to lose weight.  This time I have upped the ante. Since $500 wasn’t enough to motivate me to lose weight I am now betting $3000 that I will lose 25 pounds in six months.  The bet was made with Healthy Wage.  I wrote about Healthy Wage a couple years ago.  They are a company that allows you to make weight loss bets. If my weight loss bet is a success they will pay me $3600.  That would be a profit of $600 for me since the $3000 is just a return of my own money. I’m thinking that the fear of losing money and the reward of winning money will get me to lose weight.  Since I had to pay the $3000 upfront I’m also motivated to get my money back.

I’m starting my hike tomorrow which will be my main method for losing weight.  I’m thinking that once I have my weight loss jump started by hiking I will be able to continue to lose weight when I return to everyday life.  Since I can’t hike forever I do eventually need to get in the habit of eating better and exercising more when I’m at home if I’m going to be successful at losing the weight and keeping it off.  I will give updates on my progress (or lack thereof) during the next six months.  Check back in six months and hopefully you will be reading a post about me winning this bet.

*** If you are interested in making your own Healthy Wage I’d appreciate it if you would let me refer you to Healthy Wage since I’ll get a $20 bonus for everyone I refer to Healthy Wage.  Just leave a comment stating you want a referral email and I’ll send one out as soon as I can. Thanks.