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I went ahead and bought a van.  It is a passenger van but I plan to modify it somewhat so that I can live in it.  I did have to go into debt to buy it which I didn’t really want to do but the vans I saw that I could purchase outright just were not very good.  After trading in my Camry I have a debt of $2750 on this van, a 2000 GMC Safari.  I would like to have that debt paid off by the end of the year.

Ever since reading Blue Highways: A Journey into America in high school I have wanted to take a road trip across the country and visit all the 48 contiguous states. I still probably won’t be able to do that this year due to limited funds and other obligations but I hope to make at least one long road trip and visit a few of the states I haven’t been to yet. I’ll keep you updated as my plans develop.

This post isn’t too timely since it has been almost a month since I returned from my hike.  But I need to write something since I’ve been neglecting the blog and this is what I have been wanting to write about so here it is.

My hike lasted two weeks and I ended up hiking about 130 miles.  The trip was quite a bit more expensive than I planned on it being and although I enjoyed the trip I now wish I would have just hiked on local trails to keep costs down rather than traveling to the Appalachian Trail.

My main mode of transportation to and from the trail was Amtrak.  Last year was the first time I ever rode a train and now that I have tried it I am a fan of train travel.  One of the main advantages of taking the train for this trip was that the train stopped in the town I was starting my hike at.  If I had flown I would have had to taken a bus or taxi from the airport to the train station and then taken the train to my final destination.  Logistics were much easier just taking the train.  The other advantage was that the train was cheaper.  The main drawback to the train is that it takes a lot longer but that wasn’t a problem for me.

On the way back there was a large gap between when the train arrived in Chicago and when the next train left for St.  Louis.  Rather than wait around in the train station all day I decided to try the Megabus.  It was only $14 for the Chicago to St. Louis trip.  That was about half the price of the train and much cheaper than flying or driving.  The bus was full and the seats are much smaller than on the train.  Combine that with the fact that they had the heat cranked up way too hot and I was quite uncomfortable for the beginning of the trip.  Once the bus was on the highway they finally turned the heat down a little and I got used to the close quarters the trip was reasonably comfortable.   The bus only had one scheduled stop plus a rest stop for the trip which was enough stops for me.  The trip took about six hours and that is about as long a trip I’m willing to take on the bus.  I’d take the bus again if the time and money savings were enough but I think it is definitely worth paying some extra money for the train.

The biggest cost of my trip was staying in hotels.  I didn’t plan on staying in hotels so much when I was planning the trip but I ended up staying in a hotel several nights.  I’m not as good at roughing it as I used to be.  I suppose that is a combination of being out of shape and getting older.  I’m hoping it is mostly due to being out of shape because I can get back in shape but I can’t get any younger.  On my previous hiking trips I didn’t stay in hotels nearly as much.  In addition to being younger and in better shape I couldn’t afford to stay in hotels then.  That is probably the other reason I’m not as good at roughing it as I used to be.

I’ve always enjoyed the hiking part more than the camping part but I do enjoy the camping for a few days.  On this trip I tried my new Eureka! Solitaire Tent and was quite pleased with it.  I camped all night in the rain and it managed to keep the moisture out which is better than any of my previous tents have done.  This gives me more confidence in passing up the shelters and just stopping wherever I want for the day.  My next gear purchase needs to be an air sleeping pad since my thin camping pad is no longer comfortable.  With that combination it should be easier to pass up the hotels.

I hiked from Harpers Ferry to the southern end of Shenandoah National Park.  There was beautiful scenery and the hiking was mostly nice.  There were a couple of days that it was uncomfortably hot but otherwise it was pretty good hiking weather.  I thought by hiking in March I could avoid the bugs but they were already out.  On the uncomfortably warm days they were swarming me.  They were still around but not bothersome on the other days.  I did get a couple of tick bites even though I took precautions against them.  I have felt more fatigued than usual since returning from my hike and will be seeing a doctor to make sure I don’t have Lyme disease.

One benefit of the hike was that I was able to get my weight under 220 pounds for the first time in a year or so.  Walking ten miles a day with thirty pounds on your back and only eating the food you carry does help with weight loss. I have been staying at about the same weight since I’ve been back from the hike but that won’t last since I’m no longer exercising and have returned to my normal eating habits.  I have to start exercising again and eating better so I can get back to losing weight.

Hiking is a cheap recreational activity if you do it right. On the days I didn’t stay in a hotel or go to town my only cost was the about $2 a day of food I ate.  On a longer trip I’d probably be eating more food but in the short term hiking kills my appetite.  If one can manage to keep the hotel and restaurant visits to a minimum it would be possible to hike for less than $5 a day.  That is easier said than but I do dream of trying it some day.

For now I plan on doing more local hikes and getting my hiking fix that way.

Somehow I managed to not write a post here all week. I haven’t been making progress on goals and I’ve actually gone backwards on my losing weight goal. I weigh more now than I did at the beginning of the year. The one positive this week is I did manage to run/walk 5k on the gym treadmill. It took me 42:23 which is a long way from my goal of beating 23:59 but it does at least give me a figure to improve upon. From my past experience in resuming running regularly after a long layoff I know that I should improve quickly for the first month or so but then the improvements will start falling off as my body gets used to running again.

Clever Dude posted about the pitfalls of working from home. I love working at home but doing so has giving me a license to be lazy. With no deadlines and money coming in despite my meager work output I haven’t been too motivated to get more work done. I’m thinking that a part-time job or some other regular activity outside the house might provide me with a spark. I definitely need to do something different.

American Debt Project posted Buy This, Not That: Jesse Pinkman’s Vehicle of Choice. I had to include this since it had a reference to Breaking Bad which is one of my favorite TV series. I could probably do a week’s worth of posts about money lessons to be learned from TV shows and I just might.

The Extra Money Blog is having a $1500 giveaway and more. Your odds of winning a blog giveaway are relatively good so you should give it a shot.

I participated in the Carnival of Personal Finance which was hosted by Money Qanda. I was the host of the Carnival of Retirement at My Retirement Blog.

I requested free review copy of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done because I know I could be much more productive with my time. I’ve researched different productivity methods on the web and read books like Getting Things Done but have not gotten any more productive. I was hopeful this book could change that.

A large part of this book isn’t about productivity techniques but about finding your focus. The idea is that once you find your focus or passion you will be more productive since you will be spending your time on things that are important to you. I agree with this ideas but I think that way too much of the book was spent on the subject of finding your focus.

In the part of the book that actually details a productivity plan the author talks about getting the right things done. One way to determine what is important is with the three-day rule. If anything has been on his calendar for three days he does one of four things. He either performs the action immediately, schedules a specific time to do it, puts it on his someday/maybe list, or just lets it go. On letting an item go the author explains that after a to-do item has sat on your calendar for three days you will sometimes discovering that doing the item just isn’t the priority for you that you thought it was and can be deleted.

The “18 Minutes” the title refers to is a plan for managing your day that should take eighteen minutes. You spend five minutes deciding what the best things to do for the day are and then take them off your to-do list and put them on your calendar for the day. You then spend one minute each working hour refocusing. This is to make sure you don’t get off track during the day. You then spend five minutes at the end of the day reviewing how the day went. The author states that if you make this process a ritual it will make it easier for you to get the right things done.

I can’t say that this productivity plan has made me more productive but that is because I have never tried to implement it. One problem I have with implementing the plan is that the various parts of it are scattered throughout the book and there is no recap of exactly what the plan is. I’m thinking that an ideal productivity book would be a very slender volume but since people wouldn’t want to pay much for a thin book productivity books have lots of extra content.

What I need to do is come up with my own productivity plan based on all the productivity tips I’ve read about and then actually do it. You might find “the post on productivity I wish someone else had written” to be helpful if you have struggled with productivity.

This book does have some good information on productivity and the plan could work for you. If you have read lots of other productivity books though I don’t think you will find that this book offers anything much different from the others.

This hasn’t been a great weekend. I had managed to go twenty years without getting in a car accident but now I’ve been in two this year. To make things worse this accident was my fault. I’m hoping the accident won’t cause my insurance rates to go up since this is my first at fault accident in my life. I’ll have to wait and see.

On the plus side we are spending two nights in Tunica since we were comped a hotel room for two nights. I was surprised to find out that they actually comped us a suite. It is pretty sweet with a couple of big screen TVs and a Jacuzzi tub. I’m not sure how much it would cost if we had to pay for it but I’m sure it is more than I would be willing to pay. Although the room is nice I’m not a big fan of Tunica. They haven’t had the poker games I like and it is in the middle of nowhere so you’re stuck eating at their overpriced restaurants. We’re able to use our reward points to pay for our meals but I would prefer to get better value for our points. I probably jinxed myself by posting how I make money gambling. I’ve lost more in the past two days than I have all year. I tried playing video poker and no-limit poker with terrible results. I’m still up for the year but I came out well behind for this two night stay. I’m going to be much more careful with my gambling in the future.

This month we have traveled to Kansas City, Chicago, Texas, and now Tunica,Mississippi. This has cut into my blogging time. To help keep my commitment to my Yakezie Team 2 members I’m linking to them in this link roundup.

My Multiple Incomes has a post about the best income streams. There are lots of good ideas in the comments.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job wonders “is college worth it?” The answer to that like many things is “it depends.”

Money Crush advises you to prepare for massive success. That is a good thing to prepare for.

Untemplater has tips to prepare for an un-templated lifestyle. I’ve lived most of my life “untemplated” but it is only the last few years that it wasn’t a struggle.

Retire by 40 hosted the Totally Money Carnival. Lots of good posts there.

Squirellers talks about blended families and inheritances. We had cases like this in law school and generally whatever the will says is how the money will be handled. A much worse case than what Squirellers talks about is when a spouse gets remarried but never changes their will and all their money goes to their former spouse.

101 Centavos has a career tip about right vs. wrong. The right thing can sometimes be a grey area.

Broke Professionals shares money tools for a simplified life. These tools can save you some time when managing your finances.

Everything Finance shares three things you need to start a home business. They may not be what you think.

Since I have more traveling to do tomorrow and a couple of Thanksgiving dinners to attend I probably won’t get a whole lot more blogging done this week but next week I should be home all week and hopefully get lots of blogging done.