Finances

So first all, just an update on the camp seat experiment: It worked great!

It got down to well below freezing, it was a bit windy (although very buffered due to the fence), and I managed to keep warm and sleep okay in the hammock. AND now I own a nifty little pad that I can use for all sorts of things.

Secondly, I decided to keep the blog around. I find it convenient to reference and share things.

So I've been doing a bit of thinking lately on personal finances, and I thought I'd share some of the ideas that I've had around saving for the future.

First off, inflation. Annual inflation rate is somewhere around 3% right now. When the $1.00 you put away today is only worth $0.97 tomorrow, it puts a new spin on the idea of saving. By just saving, you're really losing. In fact, you have to beat 3% just to break even. An annual raise of income could compensate for that, but you would actually have to save 3% more, rather than just spend 3% more. I know which side of the fence I'm on. =P

At 3% inflation, the .8% interest I'm earning with my savings account is worthless. Even my bank's money market account is only yielding 1.1%. My Dad pointed out to me the savings bank that he uses, and I was shocked to learn that they are paying 2.75%! EmigrantDirect is a "virtual bank", it's online only. They are FDIC insured up to $100k, and my Dad has used them for years without problems. A little more searching on the net, and I found this site. Apparently there are several online banks, that are paying upwards around 4%! I'll be moving my savings account soon.

Retirement accounts are also something I haven't given much thought to. 401k is a must, nothing beats employer matching. The contributions are tax deductible, and are pre-tax. Which means you have more to work with to gain returns on. Also each individual can contribute $5000 dollars (this year, as it differs by year) to an IRA. Also tax deductible. Deductions can really add up, it was the difference between me paying a few hundred dollars and breaking even this year. Retirement accounts are said to yield around 8% (with the caveat that it *is* still investing, you can still lose).

The last thing is whether to pay off your mortgage or not. The scenario for me was, if given a windfall of cash that would mean paying a good chunck of my principal at once, then doubling my mortgage payments for 5 years to pay off the remainder, should I?

For me, it would have meant that I would be putting every spare penny I had into making this happen, but the prospect of being 100% debt free in 5 years was extremely attractive. I ultimately decided against it. While it would have meant savings tens of thousands of dollars in interest over the long term, I would still be extremely cash poor for the next five years. If your house is your only investment, and you put all of your money into it, you may have tons of equity but you need to sell your house or take out another loan if you want to tap into it. What good is paying off your loan, if you just have to take out another loan if you need that money?

The best bet is to balance cash investments with home equity. Pay off the loan as fast as you can to reduce the interest paid to the mortgage company over the long term, but put as much or more into cash investments along the way. If they are yielding 9% or 10%, that's better than sinking the money into the home loan. That money is still relatively liquid, you can pull it out for emergencies or for home improvements that might actually raise the value of the property.

Mortgage interest is also tax deductible. 6% interest on a mortgage can effectively be looked at as around 4.5% when considering the money you get back on taxes. That's a really cheap loan. Debt is still bad, but when you have limited resources, you have to pick and choose your battles.

Camp Seat!

The real reason that I've spent all night finishing up going through my pictures of the trip, is that I'm actually procrastinating. But what better way to procrastinate, than to be getting something *else* done!

I managed to get buy a camp seat, to help with the problems that I encountered at the Great Sand Dunes. I ended up buying the Thermarest Lite Seat. The idea, is that it will provide me with the insulation needed for my feet/legs. And instead of buying the longer length sleeping pad, I'll have a nice multi-purpose inflatable pad.

But now I need to test it. And it's in the 20s outside right now, and snowing. So I've really got nothing better to do than blog... because otherwise, I need to go outside and go to sleep.

I only have one tree in my backyard that will support my hammock, but luckily I have fence post near by.
Hammock setup with snow tarp.

Long road home

Here's the completed route. The trip home took two days, we overnighted somewhere in Utah. By the time we had done all that we were going to do in California, home sounded like a good place to be, it was an awesome trip!

Vegas, it's still growing like crazy. Tons of cranes.

For some reason, I feel compelled to stay at the Mirage.

The rest of Nevada looks like this. There, I just saved you a trip.

Utah, your choice: White rocks, or red rocks.

Peaks of the Rockies, Brrr

This house has an observatory! /jealous

Home!

Experiences, Part 3

Cold camp. Fires are nice, hot food is nice. But do you need them? If you bring a stove, you need to bring fuel. If you bring a stove, well you need to bring food to cook. Canned food, dehydrated food, eggs, meat. By simply eliminating your stove, you eliminate lots of stuff. No stove, no pots and pans, and don’t need oil. Not keeping perishables that need to be on ice before they are cooked, like meat? Don’t need a cooler or ice. What to eat? Granola is a good source of carbs. It’s dense, thereby compact. Hard cheeses and nuts are good sources of fat and protein. Dried fruits are vitamin and mineral rich. Hard dark chocolate has a higher melting point and makes for a good snack. My kefir experiment has gone really well, so provides all the goodness of milk without needing to keep it cold, and it’s a good source of bacterial slime! Anyhow, there is food without fire if you’re willing to sacrifice a bit. Incidentally, I do still carry a nice portable stainless steel pot with a latching lid and collapsible handle. It makes a good container and wash pot. If I did make a fire, I could cook something if needed, or heat some water up.

Orbitz, etc. If you are going to stay in a motel, reserve the room online using one of those travel services. You often get automatic discounts, compared to whatever rate you get by walking in. It’s pretty easy to park in front of a motel with wifi, and do this. We would often find a motel with wifi in their parking lot, I would find the best food in town and the nearest Starbucks while Bev would book a room from her own laptop. Not to mention being able to compare prices and read user reviews about where you might be staying.

The camp seat. I came across this while in an outdoor outfitters place in Dallas. I was looking to buy a longer/larger sleeping pad than the shoulder-to-hips Thermarest pad that I currently have. This pad is great, but my legs and especially my feet were freezing when sleeping in sub-freezing temperatures in my hammock. The camp seat is just like a Thermarest pad, but for your butt. It’s thick, and much softer than a regular sleeping pad, but it’s still inflatable and rolls up. This reminded me of my friend Igor telling me about the insulating foam pads they would wear strapped to their backs while hiking in Russia. The foam pads would be strapped with elastic cords to their lower lower backs to add extra cushion against the weight of their packs. But when they sat down, they would simply slide the pad under their butt. Genius!!! The camp seat is not quite the genius foam pad, but it’s quite a bit more comfortable, and it rolls up out of the way. Ever since I passed up buying the camp seat, there were countless times that I wished I had it. Sitting on cold ground, hard rocks, or wet marsh. It would make a nice pillow. I could also slide it under my feet to get my legs off of the floor of my hammock and insulate my feet from the cold. This way I wouldn’t have to buy a bigger bulkier sleeping pad, and I would have a multi-purpose “chair”.

Los Angeles

We stayed in LA for three nights with Bev's grandmother. Had a great visit with her, visited my brother Steve and his wife Lisa as well. Also had time to spend relaxing at the beach, and exploring the town! It was great weather, a heat wave in the 80s and 90s.

Bev's Grandmother

Skyline of downtown LA

Venice Beach, I can't get enough of the ocean.

My theory that sand will work as sunscreen.

Sunset Strip

Hollywood Blvd

New Mexico to California

This wasn't according to plan, but that's the nice thing about not really having any plans. The first idea was to drive through Tuscon to visit a friend of mine, then up to Snowflake, AZ to visit Aaron and Christi. This all fell through to various circumstances, so ended up just making for California. It's a long drive, we broke it into two long days, overnighting in Tucson.

If you find your self in Las Crusas, NM... this is place for Mexican food!

When you have so much nothing, wind is a bad thing. This dust storm closed the highway for over an hour, making us stop in Tucson rather than Phoenix.

Sunset at Tucson

This was an awesome Italian place, a good local place if your in Tucson.

Phoenix, lots of palm trees there.

Haze... windmill farms... is it CA?

YES!!!

Chaparral, NM

Just a couple hours outside of Carlsbad is El Paso, and near it, just over the New Mexican border, is Chaparral. There's not much to say about Chaparral, but my Aunt and Grandmother live there, so we stayed two nights. Had a great visit with them, I so rarely get to see them.

Grandma and Aunt Carol

Sweetie

A GIANT plant!

Lucky!

Wilbur =)

Experiences, Part 2

Pack light. Then pack lighter. On this trip, I took two sets of clothes. The clothes that I normally wear, and the clothes that I wear when I'm washing them. You might notice that I'm always wearing the same clothes in my pics. Nothing cotton. It's all wicking, quick drying, and light weight. I can wash my clothes in a sink, or in a pot. They dry overnight in a hotel room, or in the car. I use Dr. Bronners soap to wash my clothes, myself, my hair, and my dishes. Convenient. I also took a light pullover, a wind breaker, and silk long underwear. That's it for clothes. I may look the same all the time, but I don't have a suitcase of clothes for a three week trip, and I'm good for all weather conditions. Clothes/toiletries/computer stuff all fit into a small gym bag. All my backpacking stuff fits into my backpack. Aside from food, that's really all I have with me. The less stuff you have, the less worry/hassle it is to pack/unpack it, move it, and carry it with you.

In the same vein as packing light, don't take books with you. When I was preping my pack for my trip, and weighing things, I found the four or five small books that I wanted to take with me to be one of the heaviest things I had. I took them anyway. I didn't read any of them. During the day, I'm driving or hiking. At night I'm sleeping. If I did want to read before going to sleep, reading takes light. Light sources are heavy and bulky to pack. I've got a great headlamp, super small, super light, but I'm not going to waste its battery on reading. I've found audiobooks on my iPod superior in every practical way for fun reading. I can "read" while driving, I can "read" in the dark, I carry hours and hours of books with no weight, my iPod's battery is non-essential... if it goes dead, I don't care. I have a tendency to carry reference books as fun reading, though. It's lacking there.

State parks are actually cheap motels. Not having "camped" at many park campgrounds, I hadn't really realized this before now. But from anywhere from $8 to $18 dollars a night, you can sleep at the park. Many have running water, electrical outlets, bathrooms, and showers. It's hard to find decent motels for less than $80 a night. Decent meaning you won't feel worse in the morning for having stayed there overnight. If the weather's right, sleeping outdoors with fresh air and quiet can be far more restful than sleeping on a bad bed, or having noisy neighbors, or staying someplace that reeks or smoke/cleaning chemicals. One of our "camp" spots even had wifi, can’t ask for more than that.

Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns was pretty awesome. If you're ever in the area, it's a must see. They have two "trails" through the caverns that are self-guided, as well as several guided tours. The guided tours range from walks to semi-difficult crawls with headlights, etc. These tours need to be arranged ahead of time, for anyone that might want to go, so call ahead!

We only had the afternoon, and didn't call ahead, so we just did one of the trails. But we were not dissapointed! The trail we did started with an elevator ride down to the bottom (we took the easy way). 75 stories straight down.

One of the interesting facts about the elevator is that it was constructed in the 1930s. They blasted simultaneously through the rock from the top and bottom, and when they met in the middle, they were almost perfectly connected. I have no clue how they would accomplish that in the 30s.

Carlsbad Caverns is located in Carlsbad State Park, which doesn't look much different from the rest of New Mexico:



Just kidding. The State Park actually looks like this... which is practically a forest for New Mexico:

Nice view of what must be the entire state of New Mexico and West Texas.

Here are some of the better pics that I took in the caverns. It really was quite impressive. The trail we were on was only a mile and a half, but it was packed full of some of the most amazing cave structures I've ever seen.

This was some crazy ladder that was made with wood slats threaded through rope, going down into what looked like a bottomless pit.

One thing that I couldn't really capture was the sheer immensity of the cave. In all directions, floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The vastness was dizzying, and played tricks on the eyes. What would look like a "big" rock, would turn out to be three times the height of a man. When it's set in the middle of a such a gigantic room, it's difficult to tell. 75 stories underground. I tried to take a picture that might offer some perspective... I circled a couple of people that stood against the light in the distance.