One Month Appalachian Trail Hike Plan

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Here is the latest plan for my one month hike on the Appalachian Trail. I’ll start by flying out of Kansas City to Philadelphia on Tuesday the 14th. From there I’ll take the bus to Delaware Water Gap, PA to get on the A.T. This town is on the PA/NJ border so when I head south from there I will be hiking through all of PA. It will be about 7pm when I arrive in DWG so I’ll probably just stay at the hostel for the night and begin my actual hike the next morning.

My plan is to hike to somewhere around US 50 in Virginia, possibly all the way to Waynesboro, VA if I end up hiking really fast. I haven’t decided how I’m getting back home yet but I’ll figure that out as I’m hiking. I like to keep my options open and not plan ahead too much.

I will have a guidebook with me and I’ll stay in a town about once a week or so to shower and resupply. When I hike I make sure I have enough food to get to the next resupply and that is about the extent of my hiking.

I’m going to try to hike for the whole month on a budget of $200. That will break down to roughly $100 for food and $100 for everything else such as hostels, showers, laundry,replacement gear, etc. I won’t be including the cost of getting to the trail or getting back home. If this budget proves to be unrealistic I will adjust it rather than make myself miserable trying to stick to the budget. Based on my previous hiking though I believe this budget is at least reasonably close what I will spend.

I should be able to get on the internet about once a week to update the blog and moderate comments and such. I will also have daily tweets about my hike as long as I have cell coverage. If that interests you be sure to follow me on Twitter. I hope you all will stick around while I’m hiking.

Book Review and Giveaway: 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget

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The writers at Wisebread have come out with a book titled 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget. As you might guess from the title this book is chock full of useful tips on getting more for your dollar. These ideas will help you have a nice lifestyle while being frugal. Frugality is about making smarter choices with your money not sacrifice.

The book reads like a series of blog posts. Which isn’t too surprising since the tips are mainly from posts at Wisebread. If you like reading blogs posts – and since you’re here reading a blog, you probably do – you should enjoy reading this book. The tips have been organized into several categories such as travel, food, health and beauty, etc. to help you find tips.

With over 10,000 tips the book doesn’t go into much detail on any of them. Most of the ideas are pretty simple though and don’t require a lot of explanation in order for you to be able to utilize the ideas. This book would be an excellent resource for anyone who is just getting started with being frugal. Even if you have been frugal for a long time such as I have you will likely find a few helpful tips in this book.

I’m giving away a copy of this book. To enter simply leave a comment on this post. Only one entry per person. The book will be shipped via media mail so the winner must have a U.S. address. The contest will close on Friday and the winner of the random drawing will be announced at that time.

June Investment Income – $76.49

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My investment income for June was basically unchanged from the month before. It went from $76.53 in May to $76.49 this month. Apparently my stock portfolio must have gone down a small amount. I might add a little to my stocks this month. If not then my investment income will only go up if my stocks go up.

Disclaimer: This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement savings, emergency fund, and any other money I consider permanent savings. What the total of my savings would earn at 6% interest for a month is my monthly investment income.

June Income – $3221.68

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Here is a breakdown of my income for June.

Online Income

$232.83

Interest

$82.63

Survey/Bonuses

 $103.00

Stock Dividends

$62.32

Ebay/Craigslist

$65.77

Medical Study

$2425

Cash Back

$250.13

Total

$3221.68

This was a great month for income. Since I’ve started tracking my income this is the first time I’ve made over $3000 in a month. The bulk of that was the $2425 from the medical study but I also made a solid $796.68 from other sources. My online income was a measly $232.83. This might seem ok but I’m on pace to make less online this year than last. The main cause for that is a severe decline in credit card affiliate income this year. Combined with dropping adsense on this site I have a lot of income I need to replace. I am looking at different ways of making extra online income. My experiment for last month didn’t work but I’ll keep trying different things.

I received a $250 check from my credit card company for accumulated rewards. That was nice but since they changed the reward program it doesn’t look like I’ll be receiving a check that big again. It was also a good month for dividends due to how the quarterly payment schedule fell. This month’s income will likely be down since the medical study is ending and I need to pay some taxes out of this month’s check.

June Expenses – $1093.06

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Here is a breakdown of my expenses for June.

Household

$410.75

Entertainment

$337.95

Transportation

 $122.79

Food

$20.04

Medical/Dental

$112.16

Phone

$34.59

Debt

 $80.00

Total

$1093.06

My expenses this month were higher than my goal of $1000. I also have a goal of having only $10,000 in expenses for the year and my pace so far this year is well in excess of that goal. Things should change in the second half of the year as I have some low cost months hiking and living in Guatemala.

The entertainment expense was high for June because it includes my round-trip ticket to Guatemala. I should probably create a new travel category rather than lumping my travel expenses in the entertainment category because they are inflating my entertainment expenses. I did great on food this month buying just three meals out and a couple of snacks. It helped being in-house for the study the last few days of the month and not having the option of buying any food. That will go up next month as I will be on my own for food the last half of the month.

Transportation expense should go down slightly next month as I won’t be driving half the month. I will have a bus fare though. Medical expense will be about the same since I have a doctor bill to pay. Household expense will go down since I won’t be home half the month. Overall I expect my expenses to go down by about a third this month and even more the next month.