Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

Money- it's the worst thing and the best thing in the world. For my big hike in the next few years I'm going to need $15,000-$20,000 saved up. That's right, you read those numbers correct. I mean it is a 6-month trip - which means you need to have 6+ months of bills saved up (health insurance, cell phone, that storage unit you will inevitable need), 6 months of student loan payments (because I have those), plus a few months of money for when you re-join the real world. For this journey on average a person spends $2000-$3000 on equipment- such as their tent, sleeping bags,boots, a backpack, and those are just the big things. Average spent on the actual trail is another $4000-$5000, on food restocks, a hostel for a night, laundry, a hot meal. I'm counting all this as worst case scenario-  meaning I pay for absolutely everything myself, and taking into consideration I may not have a job lined up for when I'm finished.

Now in the scheme of things, this is much cheaper than my normal cost of living- I won't be paying rent, or utilities and all those little monthly knick-knacks like netflix,birchbox, graze, the gym.. but it's obviously still a lot of money. And my goal right now is to save, save, save. Unfortunately I have some problems with this- I'm notorious for taking cabs, when I could take the subway- or pulling from my savings account to pay for a plane ticket instead of from my checking. Over the last year though I have made some improvements- I've have paid off 99% of the my credit cards- and have been much much better about paying my whole bill each  month instead of the minimum. Not only do I feel better about myself because of this but my credit score, which was trash, has gone up significantly- way fun being an adult!

Weirdly enough I have also been able to follow this interesting  52-savings chart I found on Pinterest -

 Every week for the last 47 weeks I have put away some money into a box in my room- I started with $1 the first week, $2 the second week and so on.. Sometimes I put multiple weeks in at a time and then don't put anything in for a few weeks. The weird thing is though that I do it, and I forget the money is there- so much so that sometimes I'm all like "uhh I wish I didn't have to go to an atm for some cash" when in reality a butt-ton of it is sitting 5 feet away from me! And when I do remember and "borrow" from it- I've always put the amount borrowed back in. Now, why I can't I just do this with  my bank account?!

Challenge for the rest of the month: DON'T TAKE A CAB!!! 

       (exceptions to the challenge- if I have to take one for work, if I'm carrying anything super heavy, or if it doesn't seem safe enough while I'm out late with  my friends)

      then... transfer money saved into my savings account- we will start the taxi cab saving operation at $0 saved so far. Updates to come.

And on that note- enjoy the music this week and link- up provided by the one and only,Whitney, over at I Wore Yoga Pants- you know you looks good  #backthatazzup