Hytreks

Oh, For Fun

Category: About Us

  • Travel in the time of COVID-19

    Travel in the time of COVID-19

    Ok, let’s talk about COVID-19. As I write this, it is the summer of 2020, and we are in the midst of the second wave of the outbreak here in the United States. We have a patchwork governmental response that varies highly from state to state, and even city to city. Factual reporting on the pandemic is the exception rather than the rule, and non-expert opinions and anecdotes abound. Both fear and hubris are in strong supply. Infections and deaths in the US are higher than in many other countries, and some would argue higher than they should be in a first-world, developed nation with access to modern healthcare tools and techniques. In other words, it’s not exactly what we thought the world would look like when we started planning this trip several years ago.

    I’m sure some of you are thinking that it is irresponsible to be traveling around the country right now, others may be curious what precautions we are taking, so that you can plan a similar trip. I’ll share our opinions, tactics and techniques related to this topic, but please accept the fact that COVID-19 has different impacts in different parts of the country, and also on people with different health risk factors. The research on the virus is ongoing, with new details emerging frequently. If our knowledge about the pandemic changes, our plan will too. This is our take, it may or may not work for you, and I encourage you to plan and take actions that are best for you and your family.

    To set the stage, we started planning this trip several years ago, and the thought of a global pandemic contingency plan didn’t cross our mind back then. Our original planned departure was in March/April of 2020. As the impact and severity of the pandemic was growing and becoming known at that time, we pushed back our date. Eventually, and with much thought and contemplation (and a lot of back up plans), we decided to begin our journey in June. We made several changes to our original plans, but felt like it was still something we wanted to do.

    So first off, if you are not aware, we travel with a truck and a 30ft RV travel trailer. This enables us to greatly reduce (but not totally eliminate) contact with others. We have not been using airlines, we rarely stay at hotels and we cook most of our meals at or in the RV. Wherever we go, we strictly adhere to, or exceed all local regulations and laws for travel, masks and social distancing (Owen included). We avoid indoor public spaces where we are likely to encounter others whenever possible. We do curbside pickup for anything we can (groceries, etc), and plan ahead to minimize the number of orders/trips. If we must enter an indoor space with other humans, we always mask up, and keep the amount of time indoors to a minimum. We also wear masks outdoors if we are expecting to encounter other people (for example, when we visited Mount Rushmore or when we are on busy or narrow hiking trails).

    Family in masks in front of steam outside

    Next, I’d like to talk about societal inequality. Our family falls more on the risk-averse side of the risk spectrum (which I’ll talk about later), but traveling during a pandemic isn’t just about our safety. We represent a risk to the communities that we visit. Some of the employees who are working at establishments we patronize (gas stations, stores, etc) might not have the means or option to isolate at home for their safety. We are conscious of this fact, and try to be respectful to the local communities. This is a balancing act however, because many of the cities we are visiting have economies largely based on tourism, and from a financial perspective they have been especially hard hit by the shutdown or slowdown. We want to support these communities through economic activity, but not put them at undue risk from encounters with a family that has been traveling. In short, we try to recognize the risk we represent and balance our net positive/negative impact on the local community.

    The Risk Spectrum. We believe that, inside the bounds of a community’s laws and regulations, everyone’s behavior is largely governed by where they fall on the “Risk Spectrum”. On one end you have Risk Averse and on the other, Risk Tolerant.

    Imagine something like this:

    a diagram

    Each person may have different risk tolerances for different activities. For example your investing risk tolerance might be different than your COVID-19 risk tolerance. For COVID-19, Super Risk Averse might look like only leaving home for true emergencies, and having zero physical contact with other humans. The other side of the spectrum might be something like going to a small, crowded, indoor bar, filled with strangers, in a high case-count area, where no one is wearing masks.

    a diagram

    As for us, we are more towards the Risk Averse side of the spectrum, but not at the far edge of it. This means we venture out into the world, but avoid contact as much as practical and keep our distance. It means we do take Owen to outdoor parks and playgrounds, but we choose to leave if more than one or two other families are present. It means we do, on occasion, get together with small groups of friends or family if we are mutually comfortable sharing space and air with each other. It also means we choose to avoid most indoor establishments, and it means we are less social with campground neighbors and fellow travelers than we might be otherwise. We also choose to spend more time in places with lower population densities, and lower case counts. All of these choices are informed by our understanding and current knowledge about viral transmission, as well as each location’s regulations.

    It’s also important to consider the emotional impact of traveling right now. While we might be seeing lots of new places, we are not seeing lots of people, at least not in the sense that we are able to make meaningful connections. Kristy and Owen are both very social people (me slightly less so), and limiting interactions has been tough. It is difficult to take Owen to a park, only to leave when several other kids arrive. Owen gets so excited to make new friends, and it is heartbreaking to feel like we have to discourage that right now. We talk openly with him about the pandemic, and while he may not grasp the enormity of it, he does understand what’s going on. As much as we don’t want social distancing guidelines to become his view of what’s normal forever, we take some small solace in the fact that pretty much all American children are experiencing the same thing. It’s still hard though. So we do zoom calls, and briefly chat with campground neighbors from 15 feet away, and just like everyone else, we try and make the best of it while staying safe.

    An additional element of our approach to traveling right now is staying informed on the progression of the pandemic. We frequently check case counts for the area we’re in, or are heading to soon. We adjust our travel plans if we are uncomfortable with the numbers. We acknowledge the fact that these stats are lagging indicators and may not tell the whole story for a region. We do our best to keep up with the current scientific consensus of viral transmission and prevention, and act accordingly. This is not always easy. There is a lot of misinformation out there, as well as well-meaning, but outright wrong opinions. So we take in news and information from a variety of different reputable sources and then we do our best to make an informed decision about our future plans and actions. We accept that traveling right now is not a risk-free proposition. We also believe that if our only view of the world is through the lens of the news media and social media, we would have a skewed view of reality, and so we choose to go out into the world, and see it for ourselves.

    Finally we have a lot of backup plans. Our travel plans are not set in stone, and we have the flexibility to quickly make changes. These plans range from simply avoiding certain areas to scrapping the trip and choosing a safe place to settle down and wait it out. We feel we have a variety of options available to us should our situation change, and this gives us the peace of mind and confidence to proceed with the trip.

    So that’s it! Well, not really, but that seems like a good place to stop for now. We always knew this trip would present us with unexpected challenges, and in that regard we were certainly correct. Our knowledge and approach to travel in the time of COVID-19 is continuously evolving, and as such, I reserve the right to update this blog post if and when our perspectives change!

    Owen in a mask on a rock
  • Wait, but how? (FIRE)

    Wait, but how? (FIRE)

    You may be wondering how it is that we are traveling all over the United States in our 30’s/40’s, without jobs. No, we didn’t win the lottery or recieve a million dollar inheritance. But we have been both lucky and privileged along our journey, and we’ve had the good fortune of receiving some financial gifts from our families. So, the short answer is we have achieved “FIRE” or “Financial Independence / Retire Early”. In this post I’ll give a little longer explanation of what that means, and how we got there.

    FIRE

    FIRE is a catchy name and acronym for a concept that has existed for about as long as money. The idea is to save enough money so that you are no longer required to spend your time working to support your lifestyle. In other words, you are Financially Independent. Once achieving that, quitting work and Retiring Early (anytime before traditional retirement age) is an optional path that you may or may not choose.

    The thing that is unique about the recent FIRE movement is the goal of achieving financial independence at an early age, like in your 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s rather than your 60’s and 70’s.

    There are a number of approaches to building up your savings in order to reach Financial Independence (FI). When considering a financial strategy, some people choose real estate investing, others entrepreneurship, and some aggressive saving and investing. There is not one single correct path, but for us, we chose that last one.

    In 2015 we made a choice to pursue FIRE using the principles outlined in the blog post The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement by Mr. Money Mustache. The basic idea is that “savings rate” is key to achieving FI, and optionally RE. In other words, how much of your income are you saving and investing versus spending. The higher that number is, the faster you will achieve financial independence. This may sound obvious, but most of the financial industry will tell you that your retirement nest egg should be calculated based on your income. When you take a little time to think about this, it makes little sense. You need an investment portfolio (or sufficient cash flow), that will support your living expenses. Expenses are often related to income, but they don’t have to be! The trick to reaching FIRE is to widen the space between your income and your living expenses, and invest the difference wisely.

    After Kristy and I discussed these ideas, and agreed to pursue this approach to our finances, we began to implement a series of actions and changes to optimize both our expenses and income. While Kristy and I had both been financially “aware”, we had each made our fair share of financial mistakes. Luckily, we did make a few good choices along the way too, so we were in an ok place to begin with. The changes we made did not happen all at once, but rather took place over several years and compounded upon each other. Some of them were big, others small, but all in service of the goal of achieving FI. The Aggregation of Marginal Gains post from the folks at ChooseFI does a nice job describing how multiple changes over time can lead to big outcomes.

    Expenses

    Here are a few of the more notable items that have contributed to our success in controlling and reducing our expenses:

    • Financial Tracking – Once a month I produce our family financial report. We track all of our income, expenses and investments meticulously. I believe that fiscal awareness, and more importantly, a shared financial reality with Kristy, has been a major factor in our success.
    • Cost of Living Areas – Kristy made a conscious choice to move from the super high cost of living city of San Francisco to the lower cost of living area of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. She even nabbed herself a promotion and salary bump for moving to a corporate job in the process.
    • Housing Costs – Before meeting me, Kristy bought a townhome that was well below what the bank said she could “afford”. We still live in that townhome today. We chose not to move to a more expensive home when we were each promoted, or when Owen was born. I wasn’t quite so savvy in my real estate purchases, but that’s a topic for a different post.
    • Vehicle Costs – Several years ago, I was in a relatively minor car accident, but the insurance company deemed my Hyundai Sonata not economical to repair. Rather than buy another vehicle, we decided to just be a one car family. That was in 2017, and we still only have one vehicle to this day. The savings from reduced insurance, gas, etc has been substantial.
    • Food & Dining – Good, healthy food, and social time with friends and family is important to us, so we optimized for this. We spend deliberately, but not restrictively, on food and dining.
    • Debt – We committed to being a debt free family. Step one was eliminating all “consumer debt” as fast as possible (credit cards, car loans, etc). When we got married we agreed to manage our finances jointly, and with our powers combined and a laser focus, we knocked this out quickly. Step two for us was to pay off our mortgage. This isn’t for everyone, and the math might say otherwise, but for us it was the best thing for our family. Since Kristy had made a great decision with the house she bought, we were able to pay off our mortgage in record time. The feeling of freedom and security is indescribable.
    • Practice – We “practiced” big financial changes. For example, when we decided that Kristy would stay home with our son Owen after he was born, we “practiced” living on only my income for about six months. We invested 100% of Kristy’s salary during that time. This made the transition to one income totally seamless, with the added bonus of super-charging our investment contributions.

    Income

    So what about income? Through a combination of hard work, luck and privilege, we were able to achieve higher than average incomes. I chose the route of Information and Digital Technology at large corporations. Kristy chose to be a rock star Executive Assistant, working with C-Level executives (Chief Marketing Officer, etc). Both of us made conscious choices in our careers to pursue additional responsibilities and actively develop ourselves, so that we could achieve promotions and/or higher salaries. We also both independently made the decision to uproot and move to a new state in search of better career opportunities, which paid off for both of us. All of these choices contributed to us achieving higher than average salaries, which we then turned around and invested.

    Any financial windfalls we received, we invested. Both Kristy and I received bonuses, promotions and other unplanned financial boons during our journey toward FI. We would celebrate these modestly, and invest the remainder in either debt payoff or in our portfolio.

    Investments

    And how about investments? Here is the high level overview of our investment strategy.

    1. We roughly subscribe to the 4% “rule”. Put simply, this means that on average, and in the long run, a broad-market, U.S. based, stock-heavy portfolio will return around 7-10% annually. So, if you can arrange your annual expenses to be 3-4% of your portfolio, you have a high probability of outliving your money. There is a lot of nuance to this, and a few exceptions, but that’s the idea. We also bake in some flexibility to our plan.
    2. As for investment strategy, we generally agree with J.L. Collins and his Simple Path to Wealth. We invest in low-fee, broad-market, domestic index funds, preferably Vanguard’s VTSAX or whatever S&P index fund is available in a given investment account. While we were in the accumulation phase (still had income coming in) we invested as much as possible as soon as possible, and we plan to leave it there “forever” (or until we need to sell it to pay for living expenses).
    3. We prioritize funding tax advantaged accounts like 401k’s, HSA, and IRA’s. Whenever possible, we max these out before funding taxable investment accounts.

    That’s the gist! I may cover our investment strategy in more depth at some point, but if you were curious about our approach, the above should answer most questions.

    Disclaimer: The above investment strategy has worked for us so far, but we might change it at any time. It may or may not work for you. For the most part, I believe you should educate yourself and manage your own money, but if you are not comfortable with that, talk to a professional!

    Financial Planning for Travel

    And finally, the actual trip! We have been planning this grand RV adventure for several years. To maximize enjoyment and minimize risk, we decided to build up our cash savings. The cash savings we accumulated will fund the majority of the planned expenses for the trip. Additionally, we have rented out our townhome while we are away. The rental income will help offset expenses while on the road. Ideally, we won’t need to sell any assets (stocks) to fund our planned trip.

    Are you still with me?

    Whew, that was a lot! If you made it this far, kudos to you, here is a fun picture of Owen caring not at all about money as your reward.

    Owen on a big yellow chair
    Owen on a big yellow chair

    Feel free to leave us your questions in the comments, and we’ll try to answer them…when we are somewhere that has internet and we feel like answering comments rather than hiking 😉

    P.S. This post title is a nod to the fantastic Wait But Why blog. If you haven’t already, go check it out 🙂

  • The Hytreks Family Story

    The Hytreks Family Story

    After growing up in Arizona, Kristy spent time in Texas, Colorado and California before moving to Minnesota to further her career and lower her cost of living. Ben was raised in Colorado, and moved to Minnesota in 2006 for improved career opportunities as well.

    Fate brought Ben and Kristy together in 2012. Both of us had worked at Best Buy / Geek Squad in both Colorado and Minnesota, but our paths had never crossed. Once we got in the same room together, it was pretty much love at first sight and we were engaged and married within the next few years.

    The wedding ceremony was held outdoors in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado…in March. The snow let up just in time to complete the short hike out to the dock on a frozen lake for a beautiful outdoor ceremony. Thus began our love affair with the National Parks.

    Ben and Kristy wedding at Sprague Lake
    Ben and Kristy’s wedding day at Sprague Lake

    Born a few years later, Owen makes every day more interesting and brings his own uniquely adventurous spirit to the family. He has taught us patience, love and kindness in ways we never considered. He continues to bring fresh energy and joy to our family every day.

    In 2015 Ben was gifted a book from his brother that eventually led him to discover the concept of FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early)  through the likes of The Mad Fientist  and Mr. Money Mustache. More on FIRE in the the Wait, but how? (FIRE) post, but suffice it to say, this approach to personal finance set us on a path less traveled.

    Some time in 2017 we started talking about doing an RV road trip to visit all the National Parks in the United States. We set an audacious goal for both of us to “retire” from full time corporate work before Ben turned 40 in 2020 and leave on a 12-18 month journey. A few short years later, and much to our own surprise, we executed that plan!

    As I write this in June of 2020, we are just beginning our epic RV Adventure. 2020 threw us a few curve balls, and we delayed and amended some of our plans, but we are officially on the road, and loving it so far. This story is just getting started, so stick around to find out how it unfolds!

    Kristy, Ben & Owen