If you start in Georgia in spring you could pick up dropped gear and food at shelters or hostel hiker boxes. Make your own alky stove, use a kitchen saucepan for a pot. Eat lots of rice and beans, canned goods just outside of towns. Now would be a good time to hit the Florida Trail. Do you know how much a bus or tain ticket from Maine to Florida costs? That $1000 is about $700 after you subtract a bus or train ticket from it.