minimum wage

January Review: Day 32 & 33

February 3, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 1 Comment

My current house sitting job ends tomorrow, so a good part of the day was spent cleaning the place to make it look better on their return. Washing, vacuuming, cleaning and all that fun stuff. While doing all that, I began to reflect what I was able to do the first month.

The only major expense I had was my health care premium which I will have every month. I managed to get through the month without spending any money on housing since most of the month I was house sitting at one place or another, and the few days that I wasn’t, I was spending time with family. Since I was house sitting and all of the owners said I was free to eat whatever I needed, I also had very little food costs. And while doing all this, I managed to visit:

I managed to get out to visit someplace almost half the days during the month which wasn’t quite and many as I hoped to, but still probably more places than most people living on a minimum wage budget visit in an entire year. I feel that I manage to get through the first month accomplishing the “well” portion of the challenge and hope to continue that in the months to come.

As part of the clean-up, I did head to the grocery store and buy some fresh fruit for their return which set me back $6.13

Day 33

I received some welcome news about house sitting. Upon the return of the owners, they asked if it would be possible for me to house sit for them a number of times in February and March because they had just rented a ski cabin. Since they are retired, they would be going up for the weekdays and coming back on the weekends. The time period is a little shorter than I’d prefer to house sit and I would have normally declined, but with the minimum wage challenge, everyday I can get free lodging is a day closer to winning the bet with my sister. For that reason, I accepted. I’ve also received a number of other offers from people that have heard about my willingness to house sit shorter periods than usual this year. My house sitting schedule for this year currently looks like this:

February 10 – 14
February 17 – 21
February 25 – March 1
March 13 – 21
March 24 – 27
April 1 – 5
April 21 – May 8
May 28 – June 3
July 27 – August 10
September 1 – 17
November 6 – December 7
December 20 – January 5 (2014)

There are some gaps where I will need to figure out how to fill in that time still, but I’m feeling more confident that I’ll be able to make this work without having to rent a place and be limited to a particular area. I knew I would have to be willing to make some adjustments that I would have rather not made (moving from place to place every few days really does take a lot of energy and I would rather not do it, but it makes financial sense within this challenge). It’s also something that even though I prefer not to do, I know I can do and still travel they way I want to. I’ll do a major reevaluation of this at the end of March to see where things stand there, but signs are looking positive that I can make it work.

I received an invitation from my dad to go over to his house for a Super Bowl party, so instead of heading back right away to have the car clutch looked at, I will head down to do that on the 4th. I usually don’t watch the Super Bowl. It’s actually a great time to do anything that you enjoy without a lot of people around because so many people are in front of their TVs. When I was younger, it was one of the best days to go skiing because the slopes would be empty in the afternoon with everyone watching. That being said, it will be a good time visiting with him and I’m sure there will be plenty of great food to eat (that won’t cost me anything).

Today’s & Yesterday’s Spending

Food: $6.13
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $0.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $6.13

Total Spending

Food: $27.89
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $485.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $531.89

(Photo courtesy of versageek)

I Want That: Day 30 & 31

February 3, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 1 Comment

I rarely get the consumer bug. Anyone that knows me well also know that if you want to take me shopping, chances are you’re going to have to drag me screaming and yelling the entire way. I rarely “lust” after any gadgets. Even my computer which I spend most days on is nothing more than a basic model picked up at Costco that gets the job done. Most of the things that I have which aren’t necessities tend to be gifts given to me by others because they think that I need it. In other words, I just don’t by a whole lot of stuff.

I’ve never owned a cell phone. I’ve never owned a digital music player. It’s been over 10 years since I have even worn a watch. So, you can imagine my surprise when I found myself saying “I want that!” upon seeing a $200 watch that caught my eye. This is especially surprising because normally if I decided I needed a watch, I would go the total utilitarian route. I would buy something that was inexpensive but dependable which would cost far less than $200. This is the watch that I want.

My sister told me that I was morbid for wanting a watch that says that, but it’s exactly for the opposite reason that the watch appeals to me. I actually think that the watch would make me more productive — something right there on my wrist reminding me that life is short and to make sure to utilize every minute that I have doing the things that are important to me. I can fully understand how this watch wouldn’t be something that many people would find appealing, but knowing myself and what motivates me, I think that owning it would help motivate me to do more of the things that I want to do.

All that being said, I haven’t purchased the watch. Being on the minimum wage challenge, I recognize that this is a want rather than a need. I’ve lived the last 10 years just fine without a watch so even though I want it, it really makes little financial sense for me to buy it at this time. At some point I’m sure that I’ll get it (it has passed my one week test — most things that I want to purchase that aren’t essential I wait a week to see if I still want it. If I don’t, I have saved money and if I do, I know that I really want it), but that time isn’t now due to the current financial circumstances. Maybe I’ll ask for it as a gift or more likely, I will save during this year and purchase it when I feel more confident that it doesn’t have the potential to come back and financially haunt me (I think it would be a nice gift to give myself when I win this challenge, especially since my sister doesn’t like it). Even though I know I don’t buy much stuff compared to a lot of people, and that I could probably buy this now and get away with it, it’s still essential for me to recognize the difference between my wants and needs to make sure that I don’t get into trouble with my budget.

With the car having the clutch clicking issue and me deciding not to travel until I can get it looked at and fixed, the last two days have been spent at the house working on the computer (not exciting, but hopefully it has helped me get ahead enough in my writing that I can do a bit more traveling when the clutch issue is fixed). I have taken my daily walk to Annadel State Park which is only a mile away from the house and has a lot of nice hiking trails.

I feel pretty good about how the first month has gone. February is looking to be a bit more challenging with no house sitting jobs lined up, but I’m feeling more confident that I can pull this challenge off. While I know there will definitely be some challenges along the way, I have built a bit of a cushion this first month which means I can weather them as long as they aren’t too big. I’m looking forward to the challenges ahead.

Today’s & Yesterday’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $0.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $0.00

Total Spending

Food: $21.76
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $485.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $525.76

Bye-Bye $485: Day 29

January 31, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 7 Comments

Reality set in today as I received my monthly health insurance bill: a painful $485. That will be nearly $6,000 a year out of the $17,000 budget or about one-third of all the money I have. This makes it very easy to understand why most people on a minimum wage simply choose to go without medical insurance, and it’s certainly going to make my minimum wage challenge more challenging.

When I started this challenge, I looked at the different health insurance policies. I knew I was paying more than I had to and I wanted to see what else was available out there that might be at a more reasonable price point. Looking at high deductible plans, I could get insurance at about $150 a month. Still quite a bit for someone on a minimum wage, but two-thirds less than what I’m currently paying. Since I am relatively healthy, I could probably get away with a high deductible policy and have some extra money to spend on other things. The reality is that if I have any type of major health issue, I am going to end up losing this challenge no matter what type of health insurance I have.

Even though the savings would likely be much more, I simply wasn’t willing to change my current health insurance for this challenge. I also wasn’t willing to go without any insurance which is what a lot of people on minimum wage do. I personally view basic health insurance as something that is far more important to me than anything I could ever buy. I would give up my car without a thought before I would give this up (which may be something that I have to do depending on how things progress with this challenge).

Even though the health insurance is quite expensive, I feel that I can make the budget work. This choice means I’m going to have to give up a lot of other things I could have used that money for, but I weighed the options and decided that for me, this was the best action to take. What would have been your choice on health insurance in this situation?

To make matters worse, on my way home from Point Reyes yesterday, the clicking clutch came back, and this time louder than before. While I really would like to do some more traveling while I am house sitting, I’m wary that if the clutch goes out while I’m exploring, that could be a very expensive situation to try to resolve since I would be forced to get back to the house no matter what to take care of the dogs, not to mention having to get the clutch repaired in the middle of nowhere. For that reason, I’ve decided to cancel any more travel on this trip (it’s very disappointing that I couldn’t have it taken care of when I went in before travelling here). I’m not real happy about it, but it’s the financially smart thing to do. I will take it in and have it checked out as soon as this house sitting job is over. The good news is that I should be able to get a lot done on my writing over the next few days.

Today’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $485.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $485.00

Total Spending

Food: $21.76
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Health: $485.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $525.76

(Photo courtesy of Bill David Brooks)

Not My Best Moment: Day 28

January 30, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 5 Comments

If there were ever a reward for people who somehow seem to embarrass themselves on an ongoing basis, I would certainly be in the running to receive it. I kept up that tradition with flying colors today.

I usually take showers a bit late. My normal routine is to get up in the morning and work a few hours on the computer cleaning stuff up from the night before and placing on new content. Once I have accomplished all the basics that need to be done, I can officially start my day and take a shower. This means I usually jump in somewhere around 9:00 am – 10:00 am most mornings.

Today was one of those days. I ended up jumping in the shower at 9:45 looking forward to going out and doing a bit of exploring once I was washed and ready to go. When I got out, I could hear some weird noises in the living room and immediately knew that the dogs were up to some kind of no good. Not wanting them to ruin furniture or break something, I decided to go out and scold them since they obviously assumed I wasn’t around and they could get away with what they were doing. I walked briskly out the bathroom door, rounded the corner to the living room and shouted, “What are you doing?!” in my best “I know you’re doing something bad” voice. It was at this exact moment that I instantly learned that it’s never a good idea to walk around a house where you are house sitting completely naked.

As I finished my sentence, a woman with cleaning supplies turned around startled to look directly at me, and I could see the complete shock cross her face. In the next instant she points the spray bottle of some toxic substance that she’s holding in my direction like a gun, and lifts a desk duster over her head with the other hand like a club. I instantly realize that I’m going to be a headline in the newspaper: “Naked man blinded by Pledge and then beaten to death by hand duster by angry house keeper.” Not wanting this to be the way that I die, I placed my hand in front of me indicating “one second please” and quickly backed around the living room corner while attempting to cover my manhood the best I possibly could.

Apparently the owners forgot to tell me that they have a cleaning lady come in once a month (who has her own key) to do cleaning and dusting, and I learned a very important lesson that I hope never to repeat again…

After that incident, I had absolutely no problem getting out of the house as quickly as possible to do some exploring. I decided to go to Point Reyes National Seashore since I hadn’t been there in a long time. There are beautiful views, beaches and a light house (with 308 steps down which isn’t bad, but then you have to come back up) that are all well worth visiting:

There are also a number of dairy farms that are still run on the land:

Point Reyes is part of the National Parks System so the gas could be written off as a business expense which was an advantage for the minimum wage challenge. It’s also one of the many national parks that doesn’t have any type of entrance fee all year round, so there was no issues on that front. Unfortunately, I left the house so quickly that I didn’t make myself a lunch (the financial cost of embarrassment). I thought I might be able to make it the day without buying food, but that didn’t end up being the case. I did stop at the store to buy some fruit and snack bars to hold me over until I got back which put me back $3.24.

Today’s Spending

Food: $3.24
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $3.24

Total Spending

Food: $21.76
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $40.76

(Top photo courtesy of Toms Bauģis)

Dull Razor Blades: Day 27

January 29, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 4 Comments

One of the risks which comes along with traveling from house to house to house is that sometimes I forget things. I have plenty of razors (TIP: I get them for free from drug stores — every time a razor company comes out with a new model razor, you can almost always get them for free. Since the company makes their money on the razor blades, they want to get as many people using the razor as possible, thus give them away at greatly discounted prices which end up being free when you add a coupon. Keep an eye open for a new razor launch and you can easily get enough to last you a year) and make an attempt to extend their life as much as possible, but I forgot to put in a new one in my bag and ended up coming on this house sitting job with an older razor that was getting dull. I had a few choices:

1. I could go out and buy a cheap disposable razor.

2. I could suffer through with the dull razor blade for a week.

3. I could go without shaving for a week.

4. I could find another solution to the problem.

Since it was a stupid mistake on my part, and even though the disposables are fairly cheap, I didn’t want to waste money on buying one with this minimum wage challenge going on. I would rather not shave or shave with the dull blade since it’s only a week. The problem was that the blade was dull enough that it was nicking me and not shaving very close and while I could go a week without shaving, I really don’t look very good when not shaving (and I certainly wouldn’t be able to get another date looking that way). I decided to opt for the fourth option.

I had heard that you could extend the life of disposable razor blades from week(s) to month(s) by simply running them across the your jeans when they started to get dull. I’m not sure why I have never given it a try up to this point (I think because I always had an abundance of razors, it was never an issue, but I really should know better than create more waste than needed and I’m ashamed of that). This gave me the perfect opportunity to try it out (here’s a video on how to do it)

It worked surprisingly well, and now I’m even more ashamed that I hadn’t gone ahead and tried it sooner. I think that if I hadn’t let the blade get quite as dull as it had, it would have worked even better. Even so, I won’t have any problem making it last the rest of the week now and this is something that I will turn into a habit. If you don’t do this already, give it a try. I think you will be surprised and if you only have to replace blades monthly instead of weekly, you can save quite a bit of money if you do buy your razor blades.

Today I couldn’t get outside because the owners had someone coming by to repair a table and I needed to let the worker in. Apparently, a glass lamp shade had fallen from the second story onto a beautiful dining room table scratching and denting it all up. It had already been taken to the shop to get repaired, but it needed to be buffed and polished. The worker ended up spending 4 hours doing it (I never knew how much time and effort it took to do that). I don’t know how much it cost to get the table repaired, but it couldn’t have been cheap. It made me realize that is another expense I avoid not having my own place (no need to repair or replace broken furniture).

Since I stayed in the entire day, I was able to get a decent amount of work and writing done. With finding a solution to the dull razor problem without buying a new one, I had another no spend day. The plan is to get out to do a little exploring tomorrow.

Today’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $0.00

Total Spending

Food: $18.52
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $37.52

Next article: Day 28: Not My Best Day

(Photo courtesy of Mr. T in DC)

Car Repair Failure & Golden Gate Bridge: Day 25 & 26

January 28, 2013 By Jeffrey Strain 3 Comments

Why is it that when there is something wrong with a car, whatever seems to be wrong with it miraculously resolves itself the minute that you bring the car in to get repaired? Today was the last day I had before I needed to head back up north to house sit, so I thought I better find out what the clutch clicking noise was, as well as get the oil changed and tires rotated. Of course, when I brought it in, the clicking noise was nowhere to be heard. I spent 30 minutes trying to get the car to make the clicking noise in the clutch, but to no avail. I’m sure that the mechanic thought I was nuts yelling at my car to make a noise that it’s not supposed to make and I shouldn’t want to hear.

My gut tells me that it’s not the last I will hear of the clicking (although I’ll be perfectly happy if I’m wrong) so I decided to pass on the oil change and tire rotation as well. I’ll see if it comes back as I’m planning a couple of drives while house sitting, plus I have the drive up there. Either way, I’ll need to take the car in for an oil change and a tire rotation after this trip and I can make another attempt to figure out the issue if the clicking does come back by then.

After the car fixing failure, I decided I needed to work outside the house, but I wanted to test one of the other alternatives to the coffee shop. I opted for the library which worked out better than I thought it would. The hours are a bit short (it closes at 6:00 pm most evenings) and the most difficult adjustment was that it was too quite. I like background noise when I’m working and there just isn’t a lot of that in the library. These aren’t deal breakers and I think I can still work effectively there, so I think I’ll make that my first default choice when going outside to work from now on when visiting my mom.

The next morning I needed to head up north for the house sitting job. It was overcast and drizzling when I left, so the plan was to drive directly to the house without stopping, but as I drove north, the weather began to improve (a bit strange since the opposite usually happens). By the time I hit the Golden Gate Bridge the sky was blue and no matter how many times I cross that bridge, I have to stop when the sun is out. It had been quite some time since I had actually walked the bridge, so I decided to do that:

For those that have never walked the Golden Gate Bridge, when you reach the center part of the span, there are a number of suicide prevention help signs (with emergency phones below) to discourage people from jumping. It’s a jarring reminder with all the amazingly beautiful scenery from the bridge:

The two days were good to my finances as both were no spend days since I ended up skipping the car upkeep until I get back again. This puts me in a great position to get through the first month spending less than $50 which will give me a much needed emergency fund cushion going forward. I certainly have no complaints about how this minimum wage challenge has been going thus far…

Yesterday’s & Today’s Spending

Food: $0.00
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $0.00

Total: $0.00

Total Spending

Food: $18.52
Car: $0.00
Housing: $0.00
Travel: $0.00
Misc: $19.00

Total: $37.52

Next article: Day 27: Dull Razor Blades