Frugality

First Cruise Recap

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cruiseship  In case you don’t already know, my girlfriend and I took a cruise at the end of October. I already shared the financial cost of the cruise in my Cruise Cost Breakdown post, in this post I am sharing my general thoughts about the cruise. Since this was my first cruise I can’t compare this cruise to any other cruises.  Any comparisons will be to other similar vacation options.

The Room

We had an interior cabin which was the cheapest option.  Several people had told me that the room would be really small.  The room was indeed quite small, but it was as big as it needed to be.  The size of the room was not an issue for me.  The lack of a window also was not a big deal.  I think a window might have actually been a negative since looking out through the window probably would have made me queasy.

The room was a little outdated.  It was apparent that the room fixtures hadn’t been changed out in a long time.  The TV cabinet was made to hold a tube TV and now held a flat screen TV.  The closet had been broken at some point and the repair job was rather apparent.  The king size bed was two twin beds pushed together.  The bed was very comfortable as long as you didn’t roll into the middle of the bed.  None of these things were a big deal and not unexpected given that this was basically a budget motel room.

On the plus side, the room was very clean.  Our room attendant was very friendly.  It was really nice to have a clean room when we came back from breakfast and to have the bed turned down and a new towel animal when we returned from dinner.  The shower was great.  I was a little worried that the shower pressure would be weak given that we were on a ship.  The shower actually had better shower pressure than our shower at home and the water was piping hot.   The endless hot water led to me taking even longer showers than usual which makes for some pretty long showers.  I do love my showers and the shower was one of my favorite parts of the cruise.

The Food

Whenever I mentioned that I was going on a cruise, previous cruise goers always talked about the variety and quantity of food available on a cruise.   The food on the cruise was okay, but I can’t say I was impressed by it.  Many people telling me about their cruises commented on how much they liked that food was available 24 hours a day.  That doesn’t seem like a big deal to me since if you live in a city with 24 hour drive-thrus and grocery stores you also have food available 24 hours a day. It isn’t too hard for me to indulge my food cravings at home anytime of day so the cruise didn’t seem like that big of a difference to me.  The main difference is that on the cruise you don’t have to directly pay for each meal.  The first night I wanted to get a late night snack around 11pm and all the restaurants were closed.  My free food options were self-serve ice cream or pizza. There was a long line for pizza so I chose to forego my late night snack.    The fact that I didn’t gain any weight on the cruise shows that I didn’t indulge anymore than normal.  Of course, my normal level of indulgence is pretty high so it might be hard for it to get any worse.

We did make it a point to eat in the dining room every night.  I tried to expand my palate a little by having a different item every night and only had my default burger one night.  The menu featured a different “exotic” appetizer choice every night.  The options I remember were frog legs, snails, sushi, alligator.  Since I’d had sushi before and didn’t like it, I didn’t try it again. Growing up in the Ozarks, I’d also had frog legs several times when I was a kid and didn’t have any desire to have them again.  I’d never had snails, but I still didn’t want to try them.  The only exotic appetizer I tried was the alligator.  It had so much breading and seasoning though that I couldn’t even taste any alligator.

The servers provided excellent service and also provided entertainment with a short song and dance routine towards the end of mealtime.  Even though eating in the dining room was a nice experience I probably would have been happier just eating from the buffet most nights.  My favorite meals were the cheeseburger and fries I had for lunch everyday.  I even liked the buffet burger better than the dining room burger.  I guess my unrefined palate just prefers the cheap food so I don’t really get an added value from the fancier food.

This post is already long enough so I will finish writing about my thoughts on my first cruise in Wednesday’s post.

Ways I’m Saving Money on My Katy Trail Hike

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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?

You Can Spend Less and Earn More

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There are two parts to getting ahead financially – spending less and earning more.  Some bloggers seem to think that you can either spend less or earn more.  This isn’t an either/or situation though.  It is entirely possible to be frugal and also be rich.   A couple of well known examples of very rich and frugal people are Warren Buffet and the late Sam Walton.  The book “The Millionaire Next Door” noted that frugality was a common trait among the profiled millionaires.    I’m not sure why some people think you can’t be both frugal and rich.  The definition of frugality is the practice of economy in the use of resources or the lack of wastefulness.  Even if you’re rich you shouldn’t want to be wasteful. Every year you hear tales of famous athletes who earned millions during their career and are now broke. This shows that even if you earn more you still need to pay attention to spending less.

Many blogs do focus more on one side of the equation.  This blog definitely focuses more on the spend less side of the equation than the earn more side.  Frugality is the area I have more experience with and expertise in so that is the main focus of my writing.  I think many focus on spending less because it is easier to do and quicker to put into practice.  Earning more usually takes some time to develop and many people aren’t sure how to earn more.

I would like to point out that I don’t entirely ignore the earn more side of the equation.  I have wrote about making passive income from sources such as dividend investing or Mr. Rebates.  I’ve also written about making money with alternative income sources such mystery shopping, medical studies, and blogging.

Both spending less and earning more are important. Neither side of the equation should be ignored.

Hiking the Katy Trail on the Cheap

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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.

 

 

Save Money With DIY YouTube Videos

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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.