Frugality

With the recent cancellation of my Moviepass account I now have only 2 monthly bills. My rent and my cell phone bill are the only monthly bills I have.  Of course, I still have other expenses every month such as food and gasoline, but rent and phone are the only monthly bills I have.

My rent includes utilities so that eliminates having an electric, gas, water or trash bill. The city I live in provides free internet so that is another bill I am able to avoid. I also don’t have a home phone, choosing to have just a cell phone. When I first opted to have only a cell phone and no landline about 15 years ago people thought that was weird. Now I think that having only a cell phone is pretty much the norm. My cell phone is only about $25 a month. It might be possible to save a few bucks on that bill. Since I’m happy with my service and it will work for me when I’m in SE Asia for 2 1/2 months, I don’t think it is worth the trouble of switching providers and possibly not liking the new service for a tiny savings. If you were to sign up for Project Fi cell phone service through my referral link we’d both get $20 Fi credit after you’ve had service for 20 days. That would make my cell phone bill even cheaper.

My car insurance could be paid monthly, but I choose to pay six months at a time to save a few bucks. Technically, I also have a monthly student loan bill and health insurance bill. These are both $0 right now, so I don’t count them as monthly bills. I have been making voluntary payments on my student loan since I will eventually have to pay it. Next year when my payments are based on my 2017 income rather than my low 2016 income I will have a required student loan payment. I’ve been considering not renewing the IBR plan and just letting my student loan go back to the 10-year payment plan. If I do that the student loan will be by far my biggest monthly bill. My health insurance is $0 since ACA subsidies are covering the premium. I’m hoping I will be able to resume my employer health plan once I return to my job. That would give me another monthly bill, but since it comes out of my paycheck it doesn’t really feel like another bill.

For a little while I might be able to cut down my monthly bills even more. Since my lease is up right before I leave for SE Asia I am planning on moving out of my apartment. Then my only monthly bill will be my phone and possibly a storage space for my stuff while I’m out of the country. I will have to pay to stay somewhere while I’m in SE Asia so the money I save by not having rent will be spent on that.

I’m pretty happy with my current level of expenses and won’t spend too much energy trying to get them even lower. What I need to concentrate on now is developing more sources of income.

Last Sunday I moved into this tiny apartment. The landlord stated that it that measures about 150 square feet and I think that is probably about right. It is definitely a small apartment. I’m posting a couple of pictures to show how small it is. The first picture was taken while standing in the bathroom area and viewing the kitchen/bedroom/living room area. The apartment is still a mess in these pictures. I don’t own very much stuff, but it still took quite a while to get it organized and squared away in this tiny apartment.

The apartment is a bargain at $435 a month including utilities. The only thing I will have to pay for in addition to the rent is internet.  The city I live in has a good deal, where you pay a $300 installation fee and then have free 100mb internet for life. Even if I only stay in the apartment a year that will only be $25 a month. If I stay longer the internet gets to be more and more of a bargain. The drawback to the free internet is that customer service is lacking and they don’t appear to be in any hurry to get my internet installed or even tell me when it might be installed. I haven’t been posting much the last few months, but this month I have a reasonable excuse for not posting too much.  Once the internet is installed I plan to post on a more regular basis and hopefully revive the blog a little bit.

The apartment is a great bargain. You can’t find an apartment close to that cheap in this area of Kansas City. Of course, the apartment being that cheap means there are a few drawbacks to the apartment. The size would probably be the biggest drawback for most people. I’m okay with the size. I actually like living in small spaces. The biggest drawback for me is that it is a basement apartment which leads to it smelling musty and having more insects than I like.  I’m working on both of those problems. I’ve got some air fresheners to help the place smell better. I’m cleaning which will hopefully lead to fewer bugs. I think some of the bugs are here due to the last tenant being messy. The apartment was sprayed before I moved in which I think did significantly reduce the bugs. It appears the bugs were probably much worse before I moved in. If insects continue to be a problem after I have the apartment cleaned and squared away I’ll have it sprayed again. Although I’m complaining about the insects they aren’t that bad. It isn’t like the apartment is infested with cockroaches. There are just a few random, little insects coming into the apartment each day.

Another drawback is that the apartment doesn’t have a real kitchen. It just has a sink, cabinets, and a refrigerator. I’ve bought a hot plate and toaster oven and I think that will make it enough of a kitchen for me. It doesn’t have a lot of cabinet, but it is plenty for the few dishes I have.

The second picture shows the bathroom area. It has a vanity in the middle, a shower stall on the right, and there is a little toilet cubby on the left side out of view. The toilet cubby does not have a door which could be awkward if I ever had anyone over to the apartment. It did have a curtain rod across the entryway which I hung a shower curtain on so if anyone does come over and need to use the toilet they can have some privacy.

Although this apartment is a bargain it will end up costing me about the same as I was paying my GF for expenses while living in her house. Before anyone asks I will go ahead and say that my GF and I are still together.  Moving out has strained the relationship a bit. It might not have been the smartest move on my part. Time will tell. That is about all I have to say for now. If you have any questions about the apartment ask me in the comments.

I published my first blog post on Tight Fisted Miser way back on January 28,2007. It is hard to believe I’ve been writing this blog for over ten years now. I’ve been blogging even longer than that. My mostly abandoned Bank Bonuses blog was started back in December 2005. That makes me one of the longest running personal finance bloggers around.

This blog got off to a pretty good start when I first published it. I was able to attract a small amount of readers right away and my audience slowly and steadily grew for the first few years of this blog’s existence. Part of that was probably due to there being a lot fewer blogs around back then. I also wrote better and more frequent blog posts back then. I never kept track of site stats, but I think this blog’s reach peaked sometime in 2011. That was also my most profitable blogging year. I made about $20,000 from my blogs that year. I made just a little over $1000 from my blogs last year. My audience and income have both diminished considerably in the last few years.

The blog is still alive though. One of these days I will get back to blogging regularly and hopefully build the blog back up to where it used to be. It won’t be too soon since I’m working now, and then I’ll be in Europe, and then I’ll be hiking. But after I’m done with all of that I just might get the blog going again. In the meantime I will at least have my monthly income and expenses reports. I started this blog to show that being frugal allows you to have a decent life without earning a lot of money. And I feel like I’m still living proof of that. I hope to keep this blog going for another 10 years. To all who are still reading this blog, thank you for reading.

In order to keep track of my financial progress or lack of progress I have decided to calculate my net worth each month.

My net worth as of 11/1/2016 is as follows.

Assets
Cash – $3263 (-$447)
IRA – $23,212 (-$665)
Roth IRA – $10,281(-$169)
Solo 401k – 969 (-$19)
Car/Stuff – $4400 (-$100)

Liabilities
Student Loan – $130,775 ($594)

Net Worth = $-88,651

My net worth decreased by $1997 since the last update. That was the worst decline since I’ve started tracking my net worth. The decline was mostly due to a downturn in the stock market. My student loan interest continued to accumulate as well. I am making a large payment towards my student loan this month which will almost cover the monthly interest. If the market recovers a bit I should be able to reverse the net worth decline this month. If the market declines or stays flat then my net worth will likely decline since I’m not making enough money right now to add to my investments or pay much extra on my student loan.

I’ve been using Personal Capital (affiliate link) to help track my net worth. It keeps track of all of my financial accounts and my student loan making it pretty easy to calculate my net worth each month. It is free to sign up. If you would like to sign up I’d appreciate you using my link. All blog income, including affiliate income, goes to paying down my student loan.

Personal Capital

Last Saturday I won free fast food for a year for the third time. If you’ve been reading the blog a long time you might remember that I also won free fast food for a year from McDonald’s way back in 2007 and 2008. As if that wasn’t enough free fast food, a friend who also won free fast food with me moved away and gave me his free fast food pass. I was eating two free fast food meals a week back in 2008.

Before I stumbled upon this latest deal it had been a long time since I had discovered an opportunity for free fast food for a year. Last week I visited a Wendy’s that had recently opened after a complete remodel and they had a flyer advertising free fast food for a year to the first 100 customers the following day. I showed up the next day and after waiting in line for about an hour and a half I received my pass for free fast food for a year. This deal wasn’t quite as good as the McDonald’s deals. This deal from Wendy’s was only for a premium sandwich or salad while the Mcd’s deals were for an extra value meal.  Considering I like Wendy’s burgers a lot better than Mcd’s the Wendy’s deal is almost as good as the Mcd’s deal.

I know I shouldn’t be eating fast food since it isn’t healthy, but I still eat it frequently.  Since I’m going to be eating it anyway I might as well get it for free. If I get a $5 sandwich each week I will have saved $260 over the course of the year. I think it is worth standing in line for an hour and a half to receive $260 worth of food.

Have you ever received any similar free food types of deals?