by Adam Dawson
Just a quick sidetrack from the debt and budgeting posts for today…
The next few weeks are going to be bedlam. We usually make one trip home during the holiday season to see our families in Indiana and Michigan. We typically drive to save money, to bring the dog, and to transport any gifts. It’s about 18 hours home. Although we’ve done it in one very long day, we like to split it into 2 normally. With my new job, however, my vacation plans got disrupted and the travel schedule is officially stupid insane.
Week 1 (Thanksgiving week): We leave next Tuesday to drive to my parents’ house in Indiana. We will arrive Wednesday night in time for Thanksgiving on Thursday. The weekend after Thanksgiving, I will be celebrating one of my best friend’s last weekend of bachelorhood on Saturday and Sunday while Emily goes to visit some friends in Indianapolis.
Week 2: I received word that I’m needed back in Austin for work on Monday after Thanksgiving. Thankfully my boss allowed me to expense travel back to Austin for meetings that week (an unexpected gift – gotta spend that end of year budget I guess!). So I will be back in Austin, while Emily spends the week visiting her family in northern Indiana. The aforementioned bachelor is getting married the following weekend, so I will fly back to Indiana Thursday night and we will attend the wedding over the weekend.
Week 3: I’m expected in California for meetings the following Monday, so after the wedding, I will fly out to California, and Emily will begin the long drive back to Texas. I would be extremely nervous about her doing this trip alone, so her mom agreed to come with her. Emily’s birthday is that week, so getting to spend a couple of days with her mom is a real gift since I have to be gone. After they get back to Austin, her mom will fly one way back to Indiana, because one of Emily’s friends will be visiting for her birthday over the weekend. I fly home to Austin on Friday, which is the same day Emily’s friend arrives, and the same day our roommate moves in.
Our holiday travel always wears us out but I think this will be a new record. Emily put it well when she said it would be more frustrating if I didn’t like my job or wasn’t doing well, but so far it’s going great. And they are being generous with me, so it’s hard to be too upset about the required travel. Had we known this is how it would shake out, we may have just made arrangements to fly home instead of driving. But here we are – it’s going to be a crazy few weeks! How on earth am I supposed to pack for this journey?!
Be safe as you travel. My 2 cents on your situation:
1. Don’t let the turkeys get you down! There are people in this world who are only happy when they’re unhappy.
2. If it were me, I would sell one or both of your rental properties. As you have seen, being a landlord has its perks with the monthly check but many downsides with maintenance and costly repairs. If you still like the idea when you are debt free/healthy emergency fund – go the landlord route then. I prefer to invest in REITs, its like being a landlord without tenants and toilets trouble.
3. Use the envelope system for eating out/entertainment. Put x amount of cash in an envelope at the beginning of the month. When the cash is gone, is gone until filled again at the beginning of the next month.
Best wishes,
Steve
I have wondered about REITs.
From a rental property, I expect 30% ROIC in a bad year and up to 50% in a good year. What kind of returns do you see in REITs?
For REIT returns, check out:
http://bonds.about.com/od/Investing-For-Income/a/Investing-For-Income-What-Are-Reits.htm
Rental properties with huge mortgages are a big gamble. REITs certainly have less return but are far safer. I would also encourage you to check out what Dave Ramsey says about rentals: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/where-does-real-estate-investing-fit-in-the-baby-steps/lifeandmoney_realestate/
If possible, pack your California bag as entirely as possible and put a list in the front of things you need to add to the bag, so you’ll be able to pull those out of the laundry, add your toiletries and go. The important part is to think through it now, while you’re at home and have access to your full closet. If you can make it through this without a trip to the department store, I will be impressed.
yeah, it will be a challenge. I have precisely 5 dress shirts for work, so I will need to launder and repack between each stop. I’ll try to remember to update on whether I ended up at the store.
More tips:
1. Make up a ‘house-leaving’ list to follow: turn off water to the house so a leaky pipe won’t flood you out, lock doors and windows, put valuables in a safe place, unplug as many electrical appliances as possible to reduce electricity use while you aren’t there and protect them from lightening strike, turn down the heat or turn up the a/c, take out the garbage, arrange someone to pick up your mail and check the house as often as your insurance requires (here it is daily during the heating season.) We find with the list we can leave and not be as worried about having forgotten something.
It may seem like overkill but once, on return from a trip and turning the water back on, the hose to the washer started leaking. And once, while home for only 24 hours before heading off again (so not everything was replugged in), despite being grounded, lightning did hit our tower and wiped out the things I had turned on (router, telephones, and a printer connected to the router.)
2. Take zip lock bags with you at all times when you travel. They can be used to keep leftovers, filled with ice from the hotel ice machint to keep food cold and used to be sick into if food doesn’t agree with you.
3. When flying, I travel with a Whole Foods Hot/Cold insulated bag. It is light so doesn’t affect my airline wieght allowance and means I can keep some food with me for lunches or light dinners. Most of our hotel rooms have fridges because I’m in charge of my travel arrangements (actually most have a full kitchen) but high-end hotels don’t and those are the places that charge $3 or more for a soda and $15 for breakfast so having milk and cereal in my hotel room is a frugal and more healthy way to start the day. (I also travel with plastic bowls and spoons.)
4. On business trips, bring a couple of envelops with you to keep your receipts. One for receipts yet to be logged, the other for receipts already entered into your expense form. It is a good practice to log receipts daily. Most employers want to see receipts and if you can’t produce one, you may be out of pocket.
5. Join frequent flyer programs. If flying for work becomes a regular thing, status with an airline is wonderful (a quiet lounge with free snacks and wifi while waiting for flights, free checked bags, priority phone numbers in case of travel interruptions, plus reward flights later on down the road.) Same is true for hotel programs, except in this case the rewards come sooner, include upgraded rooms, a welcome ‘gift’ of water and snacks (wonderful when you arrive after 10 hours of travel), and if a hotel is overbooked, you aren’t going to be turned away (or if you are, they move you to a nicer hotel.)
6. Pack a cooler for the road trip along with your meals for the first day. The second day too. Your food budget will take a huge hit over the next two weeks, minimize that hit as much as possible.
7. Meet up with friends in their homes. Take a bottle of wine and enjoy their company. There’s no need to meet at a restaurant or bar and blow your budget. It is easier to visit without the distraction of a restaurant around you.
8. If you are passing through states with lower sales taxes than your own while driving, stock up on taxable staples like toilet paper.
9. Use GasBuddy or another website to figure out where the cheap gas it. We just drove from OK to NM, through Texas and were shocked at a 50 cent per gallon difference in prices in one day. Knowing ahead of time helped us time our fill-ups (that’s almost $5 a fill-up difference.)
These are great. My favorite driving snack is a container of peanut butter and cut up celery.
Re: GasBuddy
You can even pre-plan your fill-ups! They have a travel planner om their website that maps out where the gas stations are. And the trip planner will calculate how much you might spend on gas.
It’s going to be “work hard, play hard” for you guys over the next couple of weeks