Tight Fisted Miser

I Bought a Van

May 19, 2022May 23, 2012 by Andy Hough

I went ahead and bought a van. It is a passenger van but I plan to modify it somewhat so that I can live in it. I did have to go into debt to buy it which I didn’t really want to do but the vans I saw that I could purchase outright just were not very good. After trading in my Camry I have a debt of $2750 on this van, a 2000 GMC Safari. I would like to have that debt paid off by the end of the year.

Ever since reading Blue Highways: A Journey into America in high school I have wanted to take a road trip across the country and visit all the 48 contiguous states. I still probably won’t be able to do that this year due to limited funds and other obligations but I hope to make at least one long road trip and visit a few of the states I haven’t been to yet. I’ll keep you updated as my plans develop.

The Homeless Experiment

May 14, 2012 by Andy Hough

Due to developments that I do not wish to discuss on this blog I am no longer living in my apartment. If you are a long time reader of this blog you might remember that at one time I dreamed of living in a van down by the river. So I am looking at my current situation as a chance to actually live that dream. I might end up not liking it but it should at least be an interesting experience.

it has been harder to find that I like in my price range than I anticipated. In the meantime I am sleeping at various different places. I have camped out a few nights, slept in my car a couple nights, stayed at a friend’s a couple nights, stayed at my mom’s a few nights, and even slept in my storage unit a couple nights. These are all a lot better than actually being homeless but they aren’t great. I’m hoping I find a van soon or I’ll probably break down and rent an apartment for a short term. This was going to be a longer post but the admin for this site has been down all day and now the library is about to close. There will be more posts on this topic soon.

April Income – $1579.14

May 4, 2012 by Andy Hough

Here is a breakdown of my income for April.

Online Income	$1299.78
Interest	$2.12
Stock Dividends	$34.72
Cash Back	$97.52
Sell Stuff	$145
Total	$1579.14

As you can see my online income took a big hit. It will probably be even lower this month. If I could keep it around the thousand dollar level I’ll be happy. I did a fair amount of mystery shopping during the last half of April but I won’t receive that income until later this month. I got a start on selling stuff last month and I plan to sell a lot more stuff this month. After this month I probably won’t have much left to sell unless I buy stuff to resell. I might do that since I’m looking at ways to increase my alternative income and passive income. I definitely want to have a higher income than this but I can do ok at this income level if necessary.

April Expenses – $2428.55

May 3, 2012 by Andy Hough

Here is a breakdown of our expenses for April.

Household	$520.88
Entertainment	$51.72
Transportation	$793.35
Food	$458.76
Interest	$50
Student Loan	$71.87
Cable/Internet	$65.38
Phone	$120
Electric	$71.85
Health	$224.74
Total	$2428.55

April expenses were lower than March but still a little high. Most of that was due to various expenses (registration,insurance,tax,maintenance) involved with buying another car. I also had to start paying my student loan and incurred a one time interest expense. My expenses for May will be much different.

April 2012 Blogs Report

May 19, 2022May 2, 2012 by Andy Hough

My blogs have taken a big hit in the past couple of months and now I need to build them back up. In order to keep track of how my various blogs are doing I will now be doing a monthly blog report. It will detail how much traffic my blogs are receiving and whether traffic is increasing or decreasing. I will also thank those that sent me traffic.

For April my blog traffic numbers are:

4,083 visits for Tight Fisted Miser which was a 33.95% drop from the month before.
2,445 visits for MyRetirementBlog.com which was a 26.53% drop from the month before.
2,281 visits for InvestorzBlog.com which was a 18.74% drop from the month before.
1,928 visits for BankBonuses.info which was a 26.91% drop from the month before.

The drop in traffic was mainly due to Google sending me much less search traffic. I can’t make Google start sending me more search traffic again but I will try to write more posts and avoid links they don’t like.

I’m also going to try to get more direct traffic. The plan for that is to participate in more blog carnivals and leave more comments. I also need to contribute articles more often to US News My Money Blog. And be more active in the Yakezie forums as well. If I am consistent in implementing the plan it will work but there is a lot going on this month so I’m not sure how well I will do. We will see when I do next month’s report.

Here are the top 10 referring sites to TFM last month.

Thanks. If you are wondering about number 9 it is a German site that lists the top earning blogs. I’ll be falling down on that list now but at least I’ll still be on it. Hope everyone has a great month.