Announcements

I was recently given a free copy of the book, “Frugal Isn’t Cheap” to review.  I do agree with the title which is why I agreed to review the book.  The subtitle is “Spend Less, Save More, and Live Better” which I agree is something frugality helps you achieve.  After reading so many personal finance books it is difficult for me to review new personal finance books since most of the information and concepts are stuff I already familiar with.  The author gives the usual personal financial advice, but makes it more interesting by using personal stories to help illustrate the various concepts.  This book would be a good choice for anyone who wants to learn more about frugality and personal finance.  If you already know a lot about those subjects then this book could serve as a refresher.

I’m giving away my review copy of the book.  If you would like to enter the giveaway for the book all you need to do is leave a comment on this post.  The usual rules apply.  Only one entry per person and you must have a U.S. mailing address.   A winner will be chosen at random next Tuesday, October 15, 2013.

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?

I don’t know how people who work full-time and still manage to get several quality blog posts up every week. My hat is off to those of you who do that. My job is physically easy and mentally easy yet I’m still exhausted at the end of the day and don’t want to do anything but rest when I get home. I don’t have the mental energy to do any research for a blog post or to even think too much. The best I can do is just dump what is on the top of my head like I’m doing now.

There is only one more week at the job. I’m looking forward to having free time again. I’m hoping to make good use of it. This current job is very boring but it is easy and pays well so I’m hoping I’ll get future assignments at this job. My employers are very laid back and let us listen to music or podcasts while we’re working. And I manage to sneak in a little blog reading on my cell phone as well. I really shouldn’t be complaining about this job.

One of the reasons I’m so tired at the end of the day might be because I am so out of shape. I do plan on hiking again once my job is complete. This time I’m going to hike in Missouri. This will keep my cost down. Also, it will allow me to easily come home for a couple days if I want a break. I’ll post more details about this hike once I’m actually hiking.

For those bloggers out there who work full-time and still manage to regularly blog, how do you do it? I’d love to hear any tips or suggestions.

I cut my hike short and have been back in KC since last Tuesday. The heat and humidity combined with my being out of shape made the hiking very uncomfortable and put me at risk of heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Despite drinking lots and lots of water I had a hard time cooling off. On the more strenuous days I was sweating so much that my fingers would prune up. Luckily, some of the days were fairly easy days and I spent quite a bit of time in trail towns along the way so overall I still had a good time on the hike. I also spent a lot more money than I planned, although it was still fairly cheap for a 9 day getaway. It seemed prudent to cut the hike short though since a strenuous (for me) section was coming up, the forecast was for more heat, and I was at a place where it was easy to bail from the trail.

I ended renting a car one-way from Harrisburg to KC. I drove a little over 1000 miles in 17 hours so I would only have one day of rental charges. I got an early start and was driving towards the sun so all but the last few hours were in daylight and I didn’t really get tired. Adding the cost of gas, the cost was about $150 to get home or about $30 cheaper than a flight would have been. Driving 17 hours to save $30 probably isn’t a very good deal but I didn’t check the airfares until after I rented the car since I assumed a last minute airfare would be much more expensive. Next time, I will know to check.

The plan was to stay here for a couple of weeks and then return to the trail with my car. I was going to park at different spots on the trail and complete the PA section of the trail with day hikes. Being able to return to my car every night would allow me to just drive to a nearby store or restaurant for food and water. This option would be more expensive than my initial hike plan but it would allow me to finish the PA section of the trail.

Those plans have changed since I will be starting a new job on Thursday. The trail will have to wait. I’ll be working on a document review project. This will allow me to save up some more money and since the project is only a month and a half long I’ll still be able to get back to the trail. Hopefully, it will be a little cooler by then.

Although I’ve had plenty of time, I have hardly written at all the past couple of weeks. I just haven’t felt like writing. I do have some stuff I want to share though so I’m just going to put everything in this post.

I had been having pretty good luck with my cars for the past year. I never needed a major repair on my van while I owned it and hadn’t needed a repair on my Focus since I bought it in November. My luck didn’t last. My car broke down last Saturday. Luckily, it was near home and right by a car repair shop so we were able to push it into the repair shop parking lot. The repair bill came to $443 for a new ignition coil and spark plugs. That seems high to me but I don’t really know what it should cost. The car had been running rough every once in a while for the past month or so and I had been planning to have it looked at but hadn’t done so. Procrastination might have cost me a little extra money on this repair.

My car cost me even more money the next day. I renewed my tags online and had received my tags in the mail. When I went to put the tags on though I noticed they did not match my license plate. After calling the license bureau and being told I was number 55 in line, I went to visit the local fee license office. The people there were very helpful and determined that the office that had issued my plates prior had screwed up. Apparently, I have been driving around for the last six months with plates that don’t match my registration. In order to get this fixed I had to buy new license plates at a cost of $25. I will be applying for a refund since the license office screwed up and I don’t believe I should have been stuck with the cost of new plates. I will admit I was partially at fault since I never checked to see that my registration paperwork actually matched my plates.

There was one final repair to cap the car costs for the week. The fan in my car has never worked properly. It only worked on the highest setting and when I tried to use the A/C the fan wouldn’t work at all. I decided I might as well get that fixed too since the A/C would be nice to have during the summer. It cost $122 to get the fan fixed. Unfortunately, now that the fan is fixed I find out my A/C doesn’t actually work. It has been cool this week and I’m going hiking the beginning of July so I’m not going to fix the A/C. I feel like I’ve spent more than enough on the car this week. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get the cost of this car down to 17 cents a mile like I had with my Camry. At least my cars costs are a lot less than what a new car would cost.

I’m not sure if I have announced this before but I will be going on a long hike on the Appalachian Trail starting on July 1. My job hours are being cut way back next month so I’m taking that as a sign to go hiking. I’m taking a plane to Harrisburg, PA, taking a city bus to the trail from there and then hiking north. I will hike until I don’t feel like hiking any more. That is usually only 2 or 3 weeks but I’m hoping I’ll hike further this time. I need to lose weight and a long hike will help with that. Also, since I’ll be giving up my apartment and quitting my job it would seem kinda silly to have all that upheaval and only hike a couple weeks. We will see.

The next month will be spent getting ready for the trail. I don’t need to do much planning for the actual hike. I already have all the equipment I need and since I have done several other hikes I am pretty comfortable with just showing up and hiking. Most of my preparation will be getting rid of stuff in my apartment and getting my finances in order. I plan to sell some stuff, donate some stuff, throw away some stuff, and store the rest. I’ll be paying my bills ahead of time, canceling what can be canceled, and trying to spend as little money as possible. There will be more updates as the hike date draws closer.