Author: Laurie

November 14, 2016

The Power of Debt Freedom: Brian’s Story

Hey, friends! I’ve got a great treat for you today! My friend Brian from over at Debt Discipline has graciously agreed to share his personal story with Frugal Farmer readers. Brian and his family paid off over $109,000 in credit card debt in just over four years! As a token of my thanks for Brian sharing his story, I wrote a post on his site explaining how we got our kids on board with our own journey to debt freedom. If you want to read our post over at Debt Discipline, you can click here. But for now I hope Brian’s story will encourage you to never give up on your own financial goals. Welcome, Brian! Read more

November 10, 2016

How to Build a 30 Day Emergency Food Supply Fast and Cheap

If you haven’t gotten on board with the whole prepping thing yet, now might be a good time. Less than 24 hours after it was announced that Donald Trump had been elected president, the protests are starting.

This is the kind of thing we are talking about when we talk about situations rising up quickly where you may not be able to – or be comfortable – leaving your house.

This is the type of scenario that has preppers everywhere begging with readers to at least have a small stockpile (7 days or so at the least) ready to go.

In an ideal world, a minimum of 30 days for a stockpile is best. Today I’m going to share how you can maximize your money and use as little of it as possible to build yourself a quick storehouse for an emergency type of situation. Read more

November 7, 2016

How to Start a Blog in Four Easy Steps

So, I haven’t been talking much on the blog about my blogging income, but since it’s increasing at a pretty decent rate I don’t feel I can keep this secret gem to earning extra income a secret anymore.

When I started this blog in January of 2013, I had not one clue about blogging or technical stuff like how to set up a blog. In fact, I hadn’t even read a blog until the end of 2012. I really was in the dark ages.

I always hoped to start making money online; after all, I’d heard these great stories about people doing so. Read more

November 2, 2016

7 Prepping Moves You Need to Teach Your Kids Today

When you’re working to be a good prepping family, it’s often easy to focus on what you’re doing for your kids in the area of preparedness and forget about what you need to be teaching your kids in the area of preparedness.

We work hard to be good prepping moms and dads that make sure our kids have food supplies, water supplies, heating supplies etc. so that they’ll not be left un-cared for if the SHTF.

Yesterday while working with our 10-year-old son to clear the pasture of horse poo, I realized that we’ve got some work to do in the area of teaching him to not just be the recipient of our prepping work, but to have the capacity to know what he needs to do on his own in the case of a SHTF scenario.

It was a small situation really, Read more

October 31, 2016

5 Financial Truths You Need to Face Up to NOW

This post isn’t for all of you, but I’d be willing to bet that if it’s not for you, you know someone that it is for. If you’ve got your finances together but know someone who desperately needs to get theirs together, please consider sharing this post with them if you think it will help them.

Every once in awhile I feel a desperate urge to issue a wake-up call with those struggling with paycheck-to-paycheck living. Today is one of those days. Read more

October 31, 2016

Dealing With Spousal Abuse

In honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I’m republishing this post about my ordeal with domestic violence. If you’re suffering with domestic violence in your home, please don’t give up hope and please go to a safe place, such as a battered women’s shelter, as soon as possible. You are not alone!!

Here we go again. I’m feeling led by the Lord to share intimate details of my past life, which I’m none too happy about sharing ;-), but I know that a large part of my purpose here is to help and encourage others, so for that purpose, I will share.

Today I want to talk about the Ray Rice incident. Let me start off by saying that I have no personal knowledge of the situation or their relationship other than what we’ve all seen on TV. But when you hit a woman so hard that you knock her clean out, that is a serious danger sign in my opinion. But I digress: this post is not about the Rice incident specifically, but about the dangers of spousal abuse.

I spent four long years in an abusive relationship, Read more

October 26, 2016

Is Life Insurance a Need or a Want?

This article was sponsored by SelectQuote, but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

When we started working to pay off our consumer debt, we began by going through every single line item in our budget. The goal was to determine which expenses were truly value expenses in our life, and which were merely temporary, feel-good expenses that were hindering our ability to become debt free. Read more

October 24, 2016

Want Something More? Then Do Something DIFFERENT!

Our financial life started to change when we got sick and tired of being sick and tired. When we finally figured out that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

For years and years we tried and tried to increase wealth and decrease debt but it was a constant fail. Why? Because we were doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.

My friends, life just doesn’t work that way.

If you want something different, you’ve got to do something different.

My friend “B” is a perfect example of this. Read more

October 19, 2016

16 Things You Might Not Have Thought About That Need to Be In Your Prepper Stockpile

We’ve been working to learn how to be prepared for disaster scenarios now for four years, and it still amazes me that I am constantly learning about new things that need to be in a sufficient stockpile.

I’ll read somebody else’s prepper article, or I’ll have an experience in my own home that sets off that “Eureka!” light bulb about something we need to have that we don’t have. Like the time a couple of summers ago when we lost power. Read more

October 17, 2016

We Feed Our Family of Six on $450 a Month and They Aren’t Deprived OR Starving!

One of the biggest expenses families have is the cost of feeding them. There are many articles on the Net about “starving” families that are forced to spend a “measly” $12 to feed their families at the local fast food joint in order to survive, thereby affecting their health.

When we started cutting costs in 2013 in order to pay off our debt, we started with our grocery budget. By continually tweaking our techniques, we’ve learned how to feed our family on less than half of what the average family spends.

Friends, I’m going to share today how we feed our family of six on about $450 a month and they eat well and have full tummies. Read more