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.
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.
Now vs. Future
I have a constant struggle between now and the future. I tend to focus on whichever one is easiest to deal with at the moment and that is usually to my detriment.
For example right now I am constantly thinking about my hike that won’t start for two months. Instead of doing school work I am spending my time reading people’s trail journals and browsing trail forums. I still have a lot of work to do for school and I’m spending too much time thinking about my hike. In this case I’m living in the future and ignoring my now. Although I am ignoring the part of my future where I graduate.
Usually I think more about what is happening now and ignore my future. I know that eating fast food and drinking soda all the time is going to cause me health problems. I enjoy eating my fast food and drinking soda now though and any future health problems still seem remote. This is the same way I used to be about my savings. It was much easier to spend the money now than save it for some future time. Now that I do have some money saved though it is comforting to know it is there in case I need it.
I need to spend more time analyzing my motivations for my actions and come up with a better balance between what I do for now and what I do for the future.
February Investment Income- $51.69
My investment income for February went down to $51.69 from $53.58 the month before. With the market continuing to slide my portfolio balances are getting smaller and I expect to have another decline in investment income this month. I’m not putting any money into my retirement savings now because I prefer to keep my money liquid until I start making more money. It is unlikely I’ll add any more money to my retirement savings until I return from my hike which will probably be sometime in October. Until then the only way I’ll see any increase in my investment income is if my portfolio actually regains some value.
Disclaimer:This is not my actual investment income. To get this figure I first add up my retirement accounts, 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.
February Income- $721.47
Here is a breakdown of my income for February.
|
Online Income |
$367.68 |
|
Interest |
$25.04 |
|
Bank/Other Bonuses |
$87.60 |
|
Survey/Half |
$2.39 |
|
Stock Dividends |
$4.11 |
|
Cash Back/Mystery Shop |
$4.65 |
|
Medical Study |
$230 |
|
Total |
$721.47 |
My income for February was down slightly from the month before. I had a big dropoff in online income but much of that was from increased expenses since I renewed a couple of domain names for three years. My online income for this month will probably be about the same.
Only one of my stocks had a dividend payable in February. My dividend income will go up this month since I have several stocks that will be paying dividends.
I won’t have any medical study income this month which will probably result in a lower income total this month. Hopefully, I can replace at least some of that income. Overall, I am pleased with this amount of income since it is all alternative income. Now if I could make this much in passive income every month I would be really pleased.