Financial preparedness is a big part of prepping that is often overlooked. We preppers think often about our food supply, water supply, heating supply, medical supply, etc., but sometimes leave out the importance of preparing financially for when the SHTF. Financial preparedness covers a variety of aspects depending on the particular SHTF scenario, so today I’m going to go over some basics of financial preparedness that can cover a variety of SHTF situations.
Financial Preparedness 101
The steps you need to take to cover financial preparedness depends on the individual SHTF situation. Read more
One of the things that I think scares people off from pursuing a goal of debt freedom is the fear of failure. Often times, a debt load seems so big and the journey to rid oneself of that debt seems so long that it seems pointless to even try. That, my friends, is how Fruclassity is different, because Fruclassity understands that success is about consistency.
Our debt story goes like this: Rick and I had been in and out of debt for our entire 16 year marriage. Without any role models and without any personal finance education, we simply had no idea what we were doing. We thought that wealth was about the accumulation of “stuff”, so we set about to having the “stuff” that seemingly “rich” people deemed we should have: new cars, a big house, etc., etc. We’d get in debt and pay it off, get in debt again, and pay it off again.
In February of 2010, Rick called me at home (I’d been a stay-at-home mom since 2004) to tell me he was being laid off. In six weeks, our one income would be gone. Surprisingly, it didn’t worry me – much. It should have: after all, how were we to feed our family of six on no money? We made it through his 7 months of unemployment with Unemployment Insurance and by draining our savings and selling our fishing boat. No biggie, right?
Good morning, friends! I talked a bit earlier in the week about how the Debt Snowball plan was really helping us to accelerate our debt payoff, but there was a very vital piece of information regarding our payoff victories that I left out: the important part that an accountability partner has played in our recent victories.
Aside from keeping Rick abreast of our situation, I really do all of the money management stuff here myself. Rick has absolutely no interest in discussing the joys of budgeting, investing, and building wealth like I do – in fact, he finds it quite tedious and boring. Praise God for the personal finance blogging world so that frugal weirdos like me have someplace to go to share our obsession of all things personal finance. 🙂 Read more
It’s been forever and a day since I’ve done a debt payoff and spending update, so I thought today would be the perfect time. If you read our 2014 summary and 2015 goals, you’d know that we switched to using the Debt Snowball at the beginning of the year. We started 2013 with a HUGE debt load, and wanted to begin by paying off the highest interest cards first, because mathematically it just makes sense. However, when 2014 brought Polar Vortex hell heating bills, a laundry room remodel after our laundry room flooded (twice) and the “need” for a new TV (our former 15-year-old tube TV – the only TV in the house – died), we got extra discouraged with our debt payoff plan. Read more
I had the privilege this week of reading Robert Kiyosaki’s latest release, Second Chance. Kiyosaki, of Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Cashflow fame, made a huge impression on me several years ago when I read his first book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Since then I’ve read several of his books, including a recent release he co-wrote with Donald Trump entitled Why We Want You to Be Rich.
Why You Need a Second Chance
One of the things I truly enjoy about Robert Kiyosaki’s books is that, aside from his revolutionary ways of viewing and teaching personal finance, it’s evident in his writings that he truly has a heart for seeing people succeed. Second Chance was no different; Robert’s hope for this book is that it revolutionizes the way people view money, wealth and how to go from being poor to being rich. The book isn’t just about money, it teaches people Read more
If you’ve been following the blog the last couple of weeks, you’ll know of the changes we’ve made here in our diets. The Macrobiotic way of eating and juicing lifestyle have made profound impacts in our health, our focus and our overall energy levels and performance. Gone are the days of tired, lethargic people trudging through the workload with frequent visits to the couch. Our energy abounds now, Read more
Hey friends! We’re honored to feature this article from money-saving expert Andrea Woroch. Andrea is sharing with us today some ways in which we can trick ourselves into saving money. Thanks, Andrea, for these great tips!
Saving money isn’t easy, and it’s clear Americans are having trouble doing just that. A recent report revealed 28% of consumers feel less comfortable with their savings compared to last year, and 24% have more credit card debt than cash stashed for emergencies. With the average U.S. household credit card debt at approximately $15,600, it’s time to take action.
If you’re having trouble breaking a poor spending habit or can’t stick to a savings plan, trick yourself into stashing more dough with these 7 clever strategies. Read more
I’ve been talking lots lately on the changes we’ve experienced here at the Frugal Farm as we’ve began juicing and looking more seriously into things like a macrobiotic lifestyle. As a family of self-confessed foodies, this is a HUGE change for our family. I grew up in a family where cooking and feeding others meant love, as did sharing a good meal together. Nothing gave me more pleasure than to cook a wonderful meal and follow it up with a gooey-chocolatey dessert. I love seeing the joy on the faces of friends and loved ones as they delve into my Turtle Cake or my “secret” Chocolate Chip cookie recipe. But a funny thing happened on the way to the dessert bar: we began to not care for the emotional and physical ups and downs that came with a processed food, sugar-laden diet. The funny thing is, we really did eat much less sugar and processed foods than most Americans, but what we were eating still affected us, both emotionally and physically. We figured being stressed out and bounced around like a ping pong was normal life. Then we learned that it wasn’t. Read more
Well, since we began our un-frugal practice of juicing at the beginning of the year, we have, quite by accident, delved into a world of clean eating. Before our juicing experiment, we had a pretty balanced diet, compared to most Americans, that is. We balanced eating processed food with eating whole foods, kept sugar to a minimum and always drank plenty of water. We liked our balance. It felt like we got to have our cake and eat it too, so to speak. Read more
Hey, friends! Check out our guest post over at The Plutus Awards today:
We launched The Frugal Farmer near the end of December 2012. Earlier that month, we’d come to the realization that our debt had gotten WAY out of hand. For the first time in our lives, we sat down and calculated our debt numbers and our debt-to-income ratio. It was not pretty.
It was a time of great change in our lives; we’d recently sold our mini-mansion in the suburbs in order to buy a small hobby farm.
