Gas prices remain comparatively low, I just paid $2.49 per gallon.
I have found Korean cigarettes for $3.30 per pack. I would still save a lot if I quit but it is my only indulgence.
I have found that this lifestyle has made me feel more in touch with the world. Not with the technical world and its people but the earth itself. Each day is a new day and I set about trying to survive, to find some way of making a little money maybe. I hear the coyotes during the night and often see them in the early mornings and I feel more akin to them. Yet, as I see people going off to their jobs, en masse, I feel less like my own kind.

I have always wanted to live this way. When I was about 18 a college teacher asked the class to write where we saw ourselves in 20 years. While most of the other students wrote about their career hopes and family I wrote that I saw myself as a 'gentleman of the road', travelling around with all my belongings on my back.

This video is of some recent finds after a storm passed through.

Well I am still surviving!!

I have found that without a job to take up the bulk of my time I can get a lot more done. Or not. It is my choice.

I do not have a regular income but my expenses are down to: phone, storage, gas, cigarettes and food.

Food is not a big issue as my wife, who is disabled, qualifies for aid but still does not get actual money.('food stamps' they used to call it.)

The streets are paved with gold in the form of plastic bottles and soda/beer cans. Each morning, before sun-up I walk around some basketball, tennis and baseball courts gathering up quite a few recyclables. I take my dog with me and she is always pleased to find a bottle to carry back.

Treasure hunting is still my biggest source of income though. I have been finding quite a large number of gold rings during my low tide hunts.

I have sent two lots off to the smelters recently, netting me $1200. I am about to send some more off which will cover my vans registration and a new annual beach pass.

I have decided to start working on my larger RV. (currently in storage due to a broken windshield) It has been off the road for almost a year and looked in sad shape 'till I washed it. I had been planning to junk it and get another one but I figured out how much it would cost for a new shield, fridge, upholstery etc. and found it would be about the same as getting another used one that I don't know, and don't know what issues it might have.

I got a call from my brother just before Christmas to let me know my father died! That was a tough one.