Andy Hough

Weight Loss Bet Update 2 and Other News

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Earlier this year I bet $3000 that I would lose thirty pounds in six months. In the first month I lost twelve pounds. Another month has passed since then so now it is time to post my weight loss for the second month of the bet period. After doing so well in the first month I slacked off during the second month and that laziness is reflected in my results. I managed to lose zero pounds in the second month. That is better than gaining weight, but it certainly isn’t good. A month like the last one could end up costing me $3000.

For my first two months my average weight loss is six pounds a month. If I lost six pounds every month that would be a total weight loss of thirty-six pounds which would be good enough to win my bet. Even though my average for the two months is okay I know I need to do a lot better this month. I’m not going to be able to exercise all day like I did while hiking during the first month, but I can exercise a lot more than I did in the second month. There is also a lot of room for improvement with my eating. After returning from my hike I followed the Weight Watchers diet plan for a couple of weeks and it worked well for me. However, like most diet plans the Weight Watchers diet plan doesn’t work if you don’t actually follow it. Last month I barely kept track of my daily points and I know that most days I went over my allotted points. I’m back on the WW plan now. The fear of losing $3000 has been refreshed in my mind and I will be sticking to plan this month. I doubt I can lose twelve pounds like I did the first month, but I think a loss of at least six pounds is reasonable.

Other News

In other news I recently started a medical study that will pay me a total of $3000. That money could cover my expenses for about three months. I have different plans for this money though. I have needed dental implants for several years, but could not afford them. I’m earmarking all the medical study money towards getting implants. I need three implants and I will be getting them at the local dental school. They quoted me a price of $1200 to $1400 per implant so the study money will not be enough to cover all the costs of the implants. It will at least cover almost all of the cost and I can make up the rest from my savings or if I am working I can cash flow the extra cost from my paychecks.

I am supposed to start another document review job next week. The exact start date hasn’t been set yet so the job is still not a sure thing. The job is only supposed to last two or three weeks and I will be gone one week for my Las Vegas vacation. I’m lucky they didn’t care that I will miss the week due to vacation. That is usually a deal breaker for these short-term jobs. It would have been nice if the job had started a couple of weeks ago and finished right before my vacation. The nature of short-term jobs like these is that they don’t always come at convenient times so you got to work them when they are available. I’m doing fine on money. I haven’t dipped into my savings since my tax job ended in April although I haven’t added to my savings either. This month should be much better financially then May though.

During the last month I was really lazy. It is too soon to say for sure but, I think I might have figured out how to overcome my laziness. I’ve noticed that if I get up in the morning and write my 1000 words and/or exercise that I end up having a productive day. Or at least what I consider a productive day. On the other hand, if I decided to have a leisurely breakfast or put off my exercise and writing until later for some reason then I almost always end up not having a productive day. Although I tell myself I will take it easy in the morning and get to work in the afternoon that almost never happens. I guess it works like inertia. If I start off lazy I tend to remain lazy. If I start off productive then I tend to stay productive. I just need to be more disciplined in the morning. If I can motivate myself to work in the morning then the rest of the day will usually be productive with no more motivation needed. One month from now I will let you know how this worked.

May Income – $92.79

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Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Online Income

 $0.00
Interest

$3.37

Dividends

$0.00

Cash Back

$39.53

Amazon FBA

 $3.54

Sell Stuff

 $46.35

Total

$92.79

Yikes! My income for May was terrible.  A check I was supposed to receive from an advertiser didn’t arrive so I my online income was actually negative in May. To keep things simple I’m just going to subtract the loss from June’s income.  The check has been promised to arrive in June so I should have at least a little bit of positive online income this month.

Since I sold most of my dividend stocks and invested them in an index fund in my IRA my dividend income is way down.  None of the individual stocks I own paid a dividend in May resulting in $0 dividend income for the month.  I do have at least one stock paying a dividend this month. It won’t be much, but it is better than $0.

My income from Mr. Rebates was one of my largest sources of income this month. That income would have to be a lot bigger for that to be a good thing.  If you haven’t joined Mr. Rebates yet you can get a $5 bonus for signing up through my referral link and I’ll make a little money for referring you as well.
Mr. Rebates

I started a new experiment trying to make money with Amazon FBA.  As you can see, I didn’t do too well. If I hadn’t made the mistake of paying $40 for a professional seller account I would have done ok for the month.  I’m going to continue to try to make money with Amazon FBA, but I will keep the expenses down. I’ll try to make a little more from Ebay and Craigslist too.

My June income should be much better.  Of course, it won’t be hard to improve on May’s meager income. I worked 43.5 hours at a job in May and that paycheck will be received this month. I did some mystery shopping in May that I’ll get paid for this month. Also, I had an MRI for a medical study that I will get paid for this month.  If I make the study I should make about $1000 from it this month. Even if I don’t make the study I’ll still get paid for the MRI I took in May.  Although I didn’t make much money in May I did participate in endeavors in May that will pay me this month.

May Expenses – $1089.97

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for May.

Household $420.12
Entertainment

$201.88

Transportation

 $64.05

Food

$134.63

Travel

$22.50
Student Loan

$106.00
Phone

$26.81
Health

$113.98

Total

 $1089.97

 

My May expenses were pretty low, but I didn’t quite make my goal of keeping my expenses under $1000 a month.  The main budget killer this month was my entertainment expense.  The main reason for it being high was that I included the purchase of my bike and bike accessories as entertainment.  My bike only cost $15.  Buying a helmet, car carrier, bike tools, and a spare tube added quite a bit more to the total cost though.  If I follow through and ride my bike regularly this will be money well spent.

The health cost was a little higher than usual because I had a dentist appointment. I might have another dentist appointment this month which would keep this expense category high.  I plan on having a lot of dental work done so this will be an expensive category in the coming months.

My transportation cost was unusually low. My only transportation expense for the month was gasoline. The gas expense was kept down by using cash back from my credit card. This month I have to buy six months of insurance and renew my car registration so this category will go way up.

My expenses this month will probably be up slightly since I have an over $200 car insurance bill to pay. I’m also taking a three day vacation in Las Vegas. Most of that vacation has already been paid.  If I don’t do well at the poker tables though, the vacation could get a lot more expensive.

Katy Trail Bike Ride Bust, Weight Loss Update, and Other Stuff

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tardis portapottiMy plan to bike the Katy Trail did not work out as I had hoped. I started my ride last Tuesday and on that day biked a total of 19 miles in five hours. That is very slow for biking on a mostly level path. Just doing that amount wore me out. It was mostly overcast and windy, but I was still sweating and had to take a lot of breaks. Once the ride was over and I saw how long it took me it was obvious that either the bike (borrowed from my girlfriend) or me wasn’t up to the challenge of riding the Katy Trail.

I ended up getting a hotel room that night since it ended up being too cold to sleep in my car as I had brought my summer sleeping bag expecting warmer temperatures. Also, my legs were really hurting me and I thought sleeping in a comfortable bed rather than a piece of plywood in the back of my car might help ease the pain. In over 1000 miles of hiking on the Appalachian Trail I never took a pain reliever due to aching muscles, but on that night I had to take some aspirin to reduce the pain so I could sleep.

After taking the next day off to recover I tried the trail again on a rented bike. I figured this would show me whether it was me or the bike that made the previous ride so difficult. It didn’t take long to realize it had been my bike that was causing the problems. I rode 13 miles in 2 1/4 hours on the rented bike. It was much easier and much more enjoyable riding on the rented bike.

Since I didn’t want to rent a bike for long enough to ride the entire trail I came up with a new plan. I decided to return to KC and buy a better bike. I was lucky that there were lots of garage sales on the weekend and I ended up buying a Trek mountain bike for $15. It is a bit beat up and rusty from being in storage for a long time, but a test ride has already shown that it is much better than my girlfriend’s bike. I plan to return to the Katy Trail at the beginning of June.

When I took a day off after my bad biking day on the Katy Trail I got very lazy. I didn’t do any writing and I ate lots of bad food. This resulted in me gaining two pounds and getting out of my writing habit. After seeing my weight gain I’ve once again started eating better and exercising everyday. Today is my first day of getting back to my writing. I plan on having a long streak of days that I meet my exercise and writing goals.

April Safe Withdrawal Rate 39.23%

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I didn’t put any money into savings in April and I did not take any money out of savings in April leaving me with a 0% savings rate for April. I could have made a token contribution to savings in April, but since my future income is uncertain I decided not to add to my long-term savings. It makes more sense to keep the money in my checking account now and I can transfer it over once I have a steady source of income again. I don’t want to transfer money to savings and then have to take it right back out again.

My SWR rate for April was basically unchanged at 39.23% compared to 39.05% the month before. My goal is to get the SWR down to 4% so the lower my SWR is the better. That goal is probably many years from being met. 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 30.59 months of living expenses saved which is basically unchanged from the 30.72 months of living expenses I had saved last month. I calculate my safe withdrawal rate by dividing the average of my trailing twelve months of expenses by my total money saved. When I don’t add any money to my savings the only changes to my SWR and months of living expenses saved are from my investment performance and the average of my trailing twelve month’s of expenses going up or down. My investments stayed about the same in April, but my monthly expenses were a little higher than usual causing the average of my trailing twelve month’s of expenses to go up. That average going up caused my numbers to be slightly worse than the month before.

I won’t be adding any money to my savings in May either because I still don’t have a stable source of income. I’m hoping that my investments perform well and I can keep my monthly expenses fairly low so I can improve my numbers even though I’m not adding to my savings. To make significant improvements though I’ll need a steady stream of income so I can put more in my savings. I’m hoping I will get another job this month or early next month.