The sixth chapter of Your Money or Your Life deals with frugality. The original version contains 101 frugality tips. I understand that the new version doesn’t have these tips but has a more general discussion on frugality. This wasn’t an area where I really needed any help but I enjoy reading other’s frugal ideas. And I guess a few people enjoy reading my frugal ideas or they wouldn’t be reading this blog. Since the orginal version of this came out there are now tons of blogs and sites dealing with the topic of frugality. If you want to read more about frugality after reading this chapter of Your Money or Your Life there is plenty of material out there to read.
Frugality
Hiking on $200 a Month
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while than you probably already know that I plan on doing a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail starting in May. The trail is 2,178 miles and goes through 14 states starting at Springer Mountain in Georgia and ending at Mt. Katahdin in Maine. The trail will take me about five months to hike.
The cost of hiking the trail used to be pegged at about $1 a mile. Reading forums about the trail most people think that figure is now too low and consider $3-4,000 to be more accurate. My plan is to hike on $200 a month for a total of $1000 for the hike. This is much cheaper than most people hike but I live much cheaper than most people when I’m not hiking so I should be able to do the same on the trail. I have hike about a 1000 miles of the trail so I know what to expect. Hiking on $1000 is doable but it will not be easy.
My expenses will be broken down roughly to $100 a month for food and $100 a month for everything else. Hostels, motels, laundry, showers, gear replacement, entertainment, and such will comprise the everything else. The gear I start the trail with and my transportation expenses to and from the trail heads will not be included in my $200 a month budget. My GF will visit me a few time along the trail and expenses for those visits will not be included in my budget either. I think $200 a month is a realistic budget but if I find it isn’t enough or it is making my hike no fun I will increase the budget.
I will also have expenses back home such as my health insurance and cell phone but these will not be part of my hiking budget. I plan to still tally my total monthly expenses and will post those when I’m able. I expect my overall monthly expenses will shrink significantly.
I should be able to get on the Internet once a week or so and will update my blog then. I am going to keep track of everything I spend on the trail and will post those expenses. I will also repost some of my old posts and hopefully have some guest posts to keep new content on this blog. Hopefully, most of you will find my trail journey interesting enough to keep reading.
More Extreme Frugal Housing Options
Continuing where I left off on yesterday’s post here are some more extremely frugal housing options. They are not quite as frugal as the previous options but still much less expensive than average.
One option would be to buy a small house in a small town. In the town my mom lives in it is possible to buy a small, old home for less than $25,000. I’m sure the same is true for many areas of the country. You could even buy a house for less than that here in Kansas City. The house might not be inhabilitable and the neighbord wouldn’t likely be one you would want to live in though. I think this could be a viable option if I could find the right small town.
Another option would be to rent or buy a large house and rent out all the rooms individually. My best friend has lived in houses like this on a few occassions. It definitely kept his rent down. He lived in the SF Bay Area last year and was only paying $400 a month for a room. This option doesn’t really appeal to me though because I value my privacy too much. There is also the occassional hassle of roommates that are late paying rent, are messy, and such. The cost savings are not worth the drawbacks to me.
A less extreme option would be to rent a small house or apartment. There are small rental houses across the street from us that are only $600 a month. That would be just $300 each for my GF and me. The drawback to this option is that those rents will eventually increase. I would only consider this option as a temporary measure while preparing to transition to one of the other options.
It looks like the RV option is the most popular among the readers so far. It isn’t really a good option here though since lot rent would be almost as much as renting a house or apartment. None of these options will happen until at least next year but I like to have some options in mind.
Extreme Frugal Housing Options
The number one expense for most people is housing. If you can make a significant cut in your housing expenses than you will most likely have a significant reduction in your overall expenses. There are several extremely frugal housing options that I am considering for the future.
The first would be to live in a van. I’ve done quite a bit of research on this and it would be possible for me and I think I would actually enjoy it. I don’t think I could convince my GF to move in a van with me though. Living in a van probably works better for one person. There are other possible problems with living in a van such as having to worry about breakdowns, finding a place to park, going to the bathroom, etc. There are solutions for all of those problems though and the advantages of reduced housing expenses and freedom of living in a van would more than offset the problems for me. It isn’t likely to happen for now though.
Another option would be to live in an RV. It seems to be working pretty well for Jacob. It would provide more room than a van but I still don’t think my GF would go for the idea. Especially since she has two dogs that would take up a lot of room. I’m not sure that there would be nearly as much savings here in KC when comparing renting a house or apartment to renting an RV space as there is in Jacob’s area. I don’t really like driving large vehicles either. It could just stay parked but I would prefer to be more mobile. Living in an RV is a possibility but not one of my favorite options.
Living off the grid in a place like this simple cabin is yet another possibility. As long as I had Internet it would work for me. I don’t like the idea of staying one place all the time but I do like the idea of having a home to come back to after traveling. Depending on the location of the cabin I would travel to avoid the worst cold of winter or heat of summer. Then enjoy the cabin and the outdoors the rest of the year. This option would take a little more planning than the first two options but it would provide a permanent home. It would possibly be even cheaper than the first two options and provide a better quality of living. This is my favorite option right now.
There are some more extreme frugal housing options but I have to go and this post is long enough already. I will write about the other options later.
Eating for Free
There are lots of opportunities for for free food. For example, I receive two free meals from McDonalds each week, I could attend different presentations at school where pizza or other food is served frequently at school, I can receive free meals for doing mystery shops, I often see food for free or better after coupons at sites like MoneySavingMom, IHOP and Denny’s both had free meal promotions this month, and there is the occassional candy dish as well. With all these ways to get free food I considered trying to go a month eating only free food. I decided against it though because I knew I would be too tempted to eat my GF’s food. She probably wouldn’t be real happy with us not going out to dinner for a month either. I still believe it is possible to eat only free food though. It probably wouldn’t be a very good diet but you would receive enough calories.
I used to eat well for free when I worked at the casinos when I lived in Nevada. Almost all casinos serve their employees a free meal with varying degrees of restrictions on how much and when you can eat. When I worked at the more generous casinos I would come in before my shift and have breakfast, have a quick sandwich lunch during my shift, and then have dinner after my shift. I only spent money on food during my days off or for an occasional snack or beverage after work.
Anyone have a free food story or tip they want to share?