Frugality

Hiking the Katy Trail is a pretty cheap activity on a daily basis. However, since I’m hiking the trail both ways it will likely take over a month to finish the hike. Over that long of a time period even small daily amounts add up to a fairly substantial amount. There are several things I’m doing to try to keep the cost of the hike down while still enjoying the hike. These tips are specific to my hike, but some of the tips can also be applied to biking and other forms of travel.

The biggest potential expense for the hike is accommodations. This should actually be a rather small expense for me. The main way I’m saving money here is by sleeping in my car. I have converted my Ford Focus hatchback to a sleeper car in the back. This would be easier if I would have gotten a station wagon instead of a hatchback or if I were about half a foot shorter. There is barely enough room for me to lay down. The sleeping area still needs to be improved, but I have been getting full nights of sleep in the car. I’ll post a picture if I improve the sleeping area as planned this weekend.

Not everyone is willing to sleep in their car. Camping is another cheap option. The city I started from offered free camping in back of the city community center which included free use of the showers in the community center. That was a good deal. You can’t beat free. The city I’m in now has camping available for just $10 a night, but it doesn’t include showers so I’ve just been opting to sleep in my car.

The main two things I want from an accommodation is somewhere to sleep and somewhere to shower. The sleeping part is supplied by my car so I don’t need to worry about that. Showers are all I really have to worry about. After hiking all day in the sun a shower feels great. I’ve tried cleaning up with wet wipes and baby powder; they help but aren’t anywhere close to having a shower. A cheap place to get a shower besides at a campground is a local gym. The gym where I’m currently at only charges $5 for a day pass. That is a bargain when you’re dirty and grimy and really need a shower. I’m also a member of a national fitness center chain. The chain doesn’t have any gyms where I’m currently at but they do have some at towns I’ll be going through later in the hike. That will allow me to have a few free showers.

Sleeping in the car and taking showers at the gym save a lot of money, but sometimes one does want the privacy and luxury of a hotel room. I’m trying to keep the hotel room stays to once a week. After sleeping in my car for a week a mid-range hotel seems luxurious. I’m keeping the cost of the hotel stays down by using my free travel redemption from my Barclay Arrival Card. I should have enough points available to redeem for travel to make all of my hotel stays on this hike free.

The other major cost of the hike is food. Since I have to eat whether I’m hiking or not I don’t consider all of the cost of food to be a hike-related cost. I’m trying to keep the cost of food down by eating food from the grocery store and not eating in restaurants all the time. I haven’t done great on this so far as I’ve been eating fast food twice a day most days. I do at least usually get dollar menu items or specials. As a plus, I get free internet access while eating which does influence where I eat.

There are actually more ways I save money that I was planning on including, but this post is already long enough. How do you save money when traveling?

I’m currently hiking the Katy Trail.  It is primarily known as a bicycle path, but it can be hiked also. The trail is about 240 miles long.  I’m hiking out and back to my car each day which means I’ll have hiked about 480 miles if I complete the whole thing.

Since I’m hiking back to my car each night I can drive to get food or to find somewhere to sleep.  I plan on camping or sleeping in my car most nights to keep the cost of the hike down.  I will have an occasional hotel stay so that I’m not always roughing it.  My travel rewards credit card will reimburse me for the hotel stays up to about $350 so that shouldn’t add to the cost of the hike. I also plan on coming back to KC at least once to break up the trip.  My meals should be pretty cheap too.  I don’t plan on spending more for food on this trip than I spend when I’m at home.  I’m also doing some restaurant mystery shops to help keep that cost down.

Yesterday was the first day of my hike.  I hiked 18.2 miles which was definitely too far for my current fitness and fatness level.  It was cool and intermittently sprinkling when I hiked out and I felt good.  When I started back the sun came out and my energy level was quickly depleted.  When you’re doing an out and back hike though once you’ve hiked out you have no choice but to hike back.  The town I started from offers free showers and free camping to those using the Katy Trail.  I felt a lot better after taking a shower and getting some food and beverage.  The free campground was too brightly lit and too close to the highway noise for me to be able to get to sleep.  I gave up on sleeping in the campground and went to my car to sleep.  It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep, but I was tired enough to fall asleep anyway.  Now I know that I can in fact sleep in my Ford Focus.  With the back seats down I can just barely stretch all the way out if I lay diagonally.  I might spend a little money to improve the car sleeping situation.  Since sleeping in the car is a lot cheaper than a hotel I can justify the expense.

That is my plan for hiking the Katy Trail.  The hike shouldn’t cost me any more than what my usual daily expenses are and it might be even cheaper.

My car has been having a lot of problems the past few months.  I made it through August with no repairs so I was hoping that all of the issues were taken care of for a while.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  The passenger side window in my car came off track last week.  I was able to push it back up so the window isn’t down all the time, but I couldn’t get it to work again.

Some internet research suggested that taking the car to an auto glass  shop be the best solution.  The technicians would be skilled at taking apart car doors to get to the window and should be able to get the window back on track for only $25 or so.  That price was cheap enough that I didn’t think it would be worth my time to try to do the repair myself.  When I took the car to the auto glass shop I was informed that the power window regulator was out and the repair would be about $210 with a $125 of that cost being for a new regulator.  That was more than I was wanting to spend.  Now, doing the repair myself looked like it might be worth my while.

A little more research showed that I could buy a power window regulator for $67 online.  This would be a nice $143 savings from the quoted price.  I found some good instructions on how to replace the power window regulator in a Ford Focus ZX3.  The instructions weren’t quite thorough enough for a novice like me.  They glossed over how to take the door panel off.  A search on YouTube found a video on how to replace my power window regulator and it showed in detail how to take the door panel off.   I needed to find the instructions and video before attempting the repair.  I’m not exactly handy.  Nobody calls me “Handy Andy.”  The women don’t find me handy, but at least a few find me handsome. 🙂

Although I’m talking about car repair in this post, the same idea can be applied to other expenses.  There are lots of other DIY videos.  Even if you decide that you can’t do it yourself sometimes the video or repair instructions will inform you of a cheaper option.  For example,  when I was looking for instructions on replacing my catalytic converter a couple of sites suggested that a muffler repair shop would be cheaper than a general auto repair shop.  I already had a repair quote from my usual auto repair shop so I called a muffler shop for a price quote.  The muffler shop was over $500 cheaper.  That was a nice bit of savings for just spending a little time looking for a cheaper alternative.

I had to order the power window regulator online, which I did using Mr. Rebates in order to save a little money.  I’m still waiting for the part to arrive and will update this post after I receive the part.

****Update***

Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but I do now have a working window and I saved a fair bit of money.  It turns out that the part I ordered online wasn’t the correct part and I had to cancel the online order.  Since I’m leaving for a hike on Thursday I didn’t have time to place another online order and I also didn’t want to take a chance of ordering the wrong part again so I bought the part at a local auto parts store.  The regulator ended up costing $125 which was the same price as the auto glass shop was going to charge me.  I didn’t end up saving any money on the part.

I’m happy to report that I was able to do the job myself and now have a function power window.  The entire job took maybe 3 hours, that is including going to the auto parts store and back.  I did do the job at a very relaxed pace and I could probably do it in an hour if I had to do it again.  I saved $85 by doing the job myself.  Since I’m currently unemployed I think this was a good return for my time.   Now that I have this repair under my belt, I am more confident that I can handle future repair jobs and save even more money.

I’m generally an impatient person. If I had done the marshmallow experiment as a kid I would not have waited for the second marshmallow. The idea of that study was that those who were able to wait for the second marshmallow by using self control and being able to delay gratification one would have better life outcomes.* Being impatient and not delaying moves or quitting jobs has cost me a lot of money. One area where I usually can be patient is when making purchases.

For example, I wanted a Kindle Fire when they first came out, but the price tag of $200 was more than I wanted to pay. I decided to wait since I didn’t really need a Kindle Fire and also because I knew that the price would come down over time. Consumer electronics of this type have steadily been coming down in price so waiting was a pretty safe bet. Since the Kindle Fire first premiered they have come out with a second generation of Kindle Fires, that allowed me to pick up a refurbished first generation model for only $90. Waiting allowed me to get my Fire for less than half of what it would have cost me if I had purchased it the moment I wanted it.

Of course, I could have saved even more if I hadn’t purchased the Fire at all. This is another way that waiting to make purchases can save you money. Sometimes, when you delay making a purchase you decide you don’t need the item at all. There is nothing wrong with an occasional splurge, but waiting to make the splurge can save you money.

* I also found this followup to the marshmallow experiment interesting. This study questions some of the conclusions of the marshmallow experiment. It might become the basis for a future post.