[at-l] My Dream and Situation

[Allen Freeman]

2008/10/16 Georgiamountainwoman <gamountainwoman at yahoo.com>:
>
> I'm a single mom of a 19 year old who has flown the nest, and don't have
> gobs of money like you all seem to have.

Gobs of money? Hmm. You're right. I go home at night and roll around
in piles of cash we keep in the spare wing of the mansion. ;-)

I'll be 50 when I start my hike next March. I've been working since I
was 16, so have had 34 years to accumulate a little bit. I divorced
some few years ago and spent some years raising my daughter on my own,
so I know how the single parent thing affects your finances. But my
daughter is 20 years old and off on her own now. I remarried a couple
of years ago, sold my house in Connecticut and moved here to the
Boston area where my wife and I live in a condo she purchased at a
great price before Boston real estate boomed, so she owns it free and
clear. For the first time in my life I have no mortgage, no car loan,
no debt of any kind, and no child at home dependent on me. My wife has
a good job and enough income so that I can remove myself from paid
employment for 7 or 8 months and we won't end up in the poor house.
All that being so, I am going to seize the moment and take my shot at
a thru-hike while I can.

One of the advantages (!) to living in an expensive part of the
country is that the money needed to pull off a thru-hike in relative
comfort doesn't represent as big a chunk of a normal -- whatever
normal might mean -- budget for someone living and earning here.
-- 
~~~~~
Allen F. Freeman
allen at allenf.com
www.allenf.com