Frugality

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.

It can cost a lot of money to die nowadays. The average funeral cost in the United States ranges from $12-15,000. There are a few ways to cut that cost. It is possible to save thousand on funeral costs, perhaps even eliminating them completely if you look at different options for your final arrangements.

One way to cut your costs is to donate your body to science. If you qualify, you can donate your body through an organization such as BioGift. The donation process takes approximately four weeks to conclude. By this time, the family or next-of-kin will have received the cremated remains, and any requested certified copies of the death certificate. There is no charge for the cremation or death certificate. It is doubtful many people are donating their bodies to science just to save money. If you are considering a making a gift of your body anyway though the savings is an additional benefit.

Cremation is another way to significantly cut the cost of final arrangements. A direct cremation can easily be done for less than $1000. You have to be careful though. If you add services, a fancy casket, and a cremation niche than the cost could be as much as a traditional funeral. Even if you don’t need a casket you could be charged as much as $125 for an alternative container that is just a cardboard box.

If you decide to go with a traditional funeral you do not need to buy a casket from the funeral home. You can buy your own casket online or even at Costco. This can amount to a savings of thousands of dollars. The FTC requires funeral homes to accept third party caskets without charge.

The law requires funeral homes to give you written price lists for products and services. You should compare the prices of several funeral homes for the services and products that you want to find the best deal. You should also remember that you do not have to buy a package. You can buy just the services you want. The FTC has lots of tips on shopping for funeral services that can help save you money. Your final arrangements do not have to cost your loved ones a fortune.

My first instinct is to say that it does cost more to eat healthy. The question isn’t as simple as it may seem though. You can look at the cost per calorie of different types of food and see that 100 calories from celery or broccoli is a lot more expensive than 100 calories from a candy bar or potato chips. It is easy to categorize candy bars or broccoli as healthy or unhealthy but many foods are harder to categorize.

Most people don’t eat exclusively healthy food or unhealthy food. You can’t just compare the food budget of a person who eats healthy food and a person who eats junk food and conclude which diet cost more. There are wide variations in the budgets of people who eat healthy or unhealthy. Some healthy food eaters may only eat organic produce from a botique farm while another healthy food eater might get most of their vegetables from a low cost supermarket. Some unhealthy eaters might eat mostly pasta and sandwiches while others eat mostly ready to eat convenience foods. One blogger insists that fresh food is cheaper than processed food and supports her argument by stating that her food budget is lower than her friends who buy processed food. A grocery list posted on her site though includes cereal, peanut butter, canned meat, mac and cheese, and cheese puffs. I would consider all of those to be processed foods rather than fresh food. It is clear that different people have different ideas of what is fresh or healthy food.

My food budget has been about $100-$125 for many years. This consist of both groceries and fast food and the food would mostly be considered unhealthy. This food budget is lower than what most people spend on healthy food. It is also lower than what most people spend on unhealthy food so you can’t really draw a conclusion from just my food expenditures. I think that it does cost a little more to eat healthy. That being said I believe that I could eat a healthy diet on a $100-$125 food budget with some careful planning.

Even if healthy food does cost a little more I doubt that is the reason people don’t eat healthy food. I think most people eat unhealthy food because they like it and it is what they are used to eating, not because it is cheaper. What do you think?