Author: Laurie

June 16, 2015

36 and Mortgage Free: One Family’s Journey

On Fruclassity today, we’re sharing the story of one family’s journey to mortgage free.

Our guest today is Will, a colleague at the high school where I work. As a teacher, I find it interesting to see different people earning similar incomes navigating their finances in such radically different ways from one another. Will stepped up the ladder to become a department head a few years ago. He is 40 years old, and he and his wife Rachael, who have lived on a single income since their first child was born eight years ago, have been mortgage free for four years.

May 29, 2015

Savings Guru of the Week!

Hey, friends! The Frugal Farmer has been featured as Cell Phone City’s “Savings Guru of the Week”! Check out what they had to say about us in this post and learn more about our journey from suburbanites to hobby farm owners.

May 26, 2015

How to Practice Physical Self Sufficiency

As we work on redefining our mission here at the Frugal Farmer, I spoke earlier on how to practice spiritual (emotional) self sufficiency and how to practice financial self sufficiency. I also shared some important survival tips for everyday life. Today we’ll talk about the third part of self sufficiency: physical self sufficiency.

The Keys to Physical Self Sufficiency

Physical self sufficiency involves a couple of different aspects of preparedness: the self sufficiency of your actual body, and self sufficiency pertaining to the things you need to care for yourself and survive. Physical self sufficiency is equally as important as the other two elements of self sufficiency (emotional and financial), but encompasses different things. Read more

May 21, 2015

A Financial Do Over: Hindsight is 20/20

What Would a Financial Do Over Look Like for You?

A reader asked a question of me recently. The question was, “If you could go back in time to your early 20’s, what would you do differently to build a better financial safety net and grow your net worth faster?”

I thought it was a terrific question, so I’m putting it into a post today. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and having learned much about money and life over the last ~~25 years~~ 2 years and 4 months, I can think of a number of things I’d do differently if I could go back to my early twenties and have a financial do over of my finances. Here are some thoughts: Read more

May 18, 2015

Survival Tips for Everyday Life

A few years ago, I took a class that was instrumental in teaching me the importance of thinking “big picture” in everything I did. Part of what the class focused on was always being prepared for an emergency situation. There are some SHTF scenarios in which we have advanced notification, like hurricanes and the like. But many SHTF situations simply pop up unexpectedly, think: bombings, terrorist attacks, robberies, etc. Read more

May 12, 2015

Have People Lost the Ability to Think Big Picture?

Think BIG!

So often in life, I see people (myself included) making decisions that benefit them-short term but damage them long-term. It’s as if a majority of society has lost the ability to think big picture. This summer I’ll turn 48, which means 50 is just around the corner. There’s something about turning 50 that makes one evaluate life, and as such, I’ve spent the last few months really working on looking at every decision from a big picture standpoint. I want to live the second half of my life much more intentionally than I’ve lived the first, and I believe a good way to do that is to look at decisions from a big picture standpoint. What does it mean to think big picture? Here are some examples that have happened to me lately that have caused me to start analyzing the human mind and its seeming inability to think big picture. Read more

May 9, 2015

How to Practice Financial Self Sufficiency

This is part two of a three part series that bounced off of a post I wrote about the three parts of self sufficiency. I wrote about part 1, Spiritual (also called “Emotional”) self sufficiency here. Today we’ll talk about financial self sufficiency. Financial self sufficiency encompasses what we need to know and do to be free from financial stressors and potential financial problems that affect not just our personal situation but the world in general, especially in a SHTF scenario. Read more

May 4, 2015

How to Practice Spiritual Self Sufficiency

Practicing Spiritual and Emotional Self Sufficiency in Times of Crisis

Last week, I wrote here about the Frugal Farmer’s Three Rules of Self Sufficiency. From here we plan on breaking down each rule and talking about it more in depth. Today we’ll talk about how to practice spiritual self sufficiency.

Spiritual self sufficiency encompasses both “spiritual” and “emotional” self sufficiency. Many people ignore this vital key to preparedness. Read more

April 29, 2015

Take Care of Your Own Family First?

MINE!

In the nearly 3 1/2 years that we’ve run The Frugal Farmer, I’ve had a handful of people say, in the nicest way, that the idea of self-sufficiency seems to them, well, a bit selfish. I get that. I can see how it would be easy to gather the opinion from the self-sufficient lifestyle that it is a selfish concept.

However, in my nearly 48 years on this earth, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it’s best not to form opinions about things and people until you’ve looked/thought/researched big picture. Read more

April 27, 2015

The Process of Getting Financially Real With Yourself

I’m honored again this year to be a part of The Heavy Purse’s Financial Literacy Awareness Carnival. For more information on this spectacular annual event, you can check out this link to The Heavy Purse. The subject for this year’s carnival is Getting Financially Real. Dave Ramsey refers to this as “facing the man (or woman) in the mirror. Getting financially real is often the most difficult part of a road to debt free, and often the reason so many people stay broke for so long. Personally, we had tried to get out of debt several times prior to our “real” attempt in January of 2013. Read more