Andy Hough

October 2013 Goal Reset

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I set a goal of having a new post on Tight Fisted Miser and BankBonuses.com every day of this month.  I’ve already missed a couple of days so I’ve already missed that goal. Rather than just abandon the goal I am going to slightly modify the goal.  The new goal is that I will write 31 posts for Tight Fisted Miser and 31 posts for Bank Bonuses this month.  This will allow me to have a bad day and still meet the goal.  I need to get ahead on my writing so that I will have posts to go live while I’m on the cruise.  Plus, it is good to have extra posts for those days when I just don’t feel like writing.  Since I’m not working this month it should be easy to get this many posts written.  When I do have a job I always think I’ll get so much more done when the job is over.  The reality is that I barely get any more writing/blog work done when I don’t have a job than I do when I am working at a job.  When I have all the time in the world to get my writing and blog work done I can always think of something I’d rather do at the moment and put off the writing until later.  This often results in the writing being totally skipped and pushed to the next day.  I need to get out of the procrastination habit and develop a writing routine.

I’m also adding another goal for the month.  I’m setting a goal of making $500 from mystery shopping and selling stuff this month.  Most of the income should come from selling stuff.  I’ve been meaning to sell my comic book collection for years.  I did manage to sell a small part of the collection last year and made about $200.  If I get serious about listing all my comic books for sale I should easily make more than $500 from the remaining comic books.  I’m going to try a combination of Ebay and Craigslist.  Most of the comics are late ’80s Marvel comics. If you’re interested in buying any comics let me know.  I will have an update after the month is over to share how I did on this goal.

 

 

How to Make a Bed in a Ford Focus Hatchback So You Can Sleep in Your Car

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carbedfront Sleeping in my car during my recent hike along the Katy Trail kept me from spending hundreds of dollars on hotel rooms.  A Ford Focus hatchback is better than some cars for sleeping, but it is far from ideal.  Even with the back seats folded down there isn’t a big enough sleeping area to lay completely stretched out.  Maybe you could stretch out if your were five feet tall, but for most people the area is going to be too small.  Another problem is that the back seats do not lay down completely flat which creates a big hump in the middle of the sleeping area and also makes the sleeping area slanted rather than level.

My solution to these problems was rather simple.  I went to a home improvement store and had them cut me a piece of plywood to fit the sleeping area.  I got the wood cut so that extends a few inches past the back seats and thus lengthens my sleeping area.  With the piece of wood down in the sleeping area you can no longer feel the hump.  To make the sleeping area level I took a couple of the scrap pieces that were cut off my piece of plywood and stacked them under the lower end of the sleeping area.  After adding a mattress pad and my camping pad I have a reasonably comfortable bed in the back of my car.  The cost was only $9 and change since I already had the camping pad and sleeping pad and they can be used for other purposes. I have to lay diagonally to be able to stretch out which is no big deal.

In order to have some privacy I have static cling limo tint on the back windows and put a sun visor in the windshield.  The tint looks terrible, but it works well for my purposes.  I also have a piece of plastic that I hang behind the front seats for additional privacy.  This system has worked well for me so far and nobody has ever bothered me while I’m sleeping.  I’m probably going to sleep in my car again when I go to the Financial Blogger’s Conference.  I will drive away from the downtown area though so I’ll be less likely to be noticed and/or bothered.

Have you ever slept in your car to save money?  Would you?

September Savings Rate – 43.3%

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September was a good month for saving.  I made $2304.71 and saved $1000 for 43.3% of my income saved.  This was below my goal of saving 50% of my income, but I am still on track for the year.  I lowered my SWR to 49.28% from 52.2% the month before.  I’ve finally gotten my SWR back below the 50% mark.  Although it is still a long way from my goal of a 4% SWR it is good to see progress.

The 4% SWR translates into having 25x your annual expenses in savings or 300 months of expenses in savings. Once I reach that point I will consider myself financially independent.  I have 24.34 months of living expenses saved now.  It is nice to have two years of living expenses in savings.  I’m now basically at the same point I was at the end of April.  I hope I’ll be able to make more progress the rest of the year.  October will probably see me go backwards again since I won’t be making much money and will be spending quite a bit for our cruise.  I’ll have to really step up my earnings and decrease my expenses in November and December to make up for October and end the year on a good note.

Halloween Cruise

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My girlfriend and I are going on a 5 day cruise Halloween week.  The cruise won’t be Halloween themed although I assume that their will be some type of Halloween festivities. It will be the first cruise for both my girlfriend and me.  It will also be my girlfriend’s first time out of the country. I think it will be a lot of fun.  Although I have had a lot of time away from home hiking it has been a long time since I’ve had a real vacation so I’m really looking forward to this trip.

This plan came about after my mother inquired whether we would want to go on a Christmas week cruise.  We could afford the Christmas week cruise, but the airfare basically doubled the cost of the trip.  One of the drawbacks of living in the middle of the country is that it is a long way to any ocean ports.  Driving would take about 13 hours which is more than I like driving and wouldn’t have given us much spare time before or after the trip.  We decided that the trip just wouldn’t work for us.

However, when researching cruise prices I noticed that cruise prices for the end of this month were less than half of what they were for Christmas week.  The savings allowed us to book the cruise and buy round-trip air for less than the price of just the cruise for Christmas week.  The cruise and airfare together are only costing us about $550 each.  There will be more expenses such as gratuities, airport parking, airport shuttle, and activities which will add another $200 or so.  It will still be a fairly cheap vacation.

Even though the trip is fairly cheap it will make it quite a bit harder to meet my goals of saving 50% of my income and keeping my expenses below $1274 a month.  I still have some bonus money from my travel rewards card that I will use to pay for part of the trip.  I want to pay for the trip out of money earned rather than dipping into my savings.  My current plan is to ramp up my mystery shopping and selling stuff this month in order to pay for the rest of the trip.  That will be a challenge since I haven’t come close to earning that much from these sources.  I’ll keep you updated on my progress.

Do you have any tips on saving money on a cruise or any other tips to make the cruise more enjoyable?

September Income – $2304.71

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Here is a breakdown of my income for September.

Online Income

 $293.84
Interest

$2.10

Dividends

$54.96

Cash Back

$24.89

Job

$1928.92

Total

$2304.71

September was a decent month for income.  Although my job ended in early September I still received two paychecks for the month, although one was only for a week.  My alternative sources of income didn’t contribute as much as usual.  Online income seems to be stuck at a low level and I’m not currently doing anything to change that so it will probably remain there.  I didn’t do any mystery shopping in August since I was busy working and had overtime available.  I will have mystery shopping income for October and I’ll probably get around to selling some stuff too.  Cash back is a nice extra source of income that mainly comes from Mr. Rebates.  October won’t be a great month for income since I don’t plan on getting a job during October and my alternative income and passive income doesn’t come close to the income I make from jobs.  I’ll look for a job in November.  My tax job starts in January, but I need to make money before that if I am to continue my 50% savings rate.