Category: The Road to Debt Free

Ok, this is where the rubber meets the road.

April 4, 2015

You Can’t Afford This Debt Mistake

Happy Saturday, Frugal Farmer readers! Today we welcome a guest post from new-on-the-scene blogger Anum Yoon, who blogs over at Current on Currency. Enjoy!

Imagine you’re a fresh college graduate, with all your hopes and dreams ahead of you. “I’m going to have the most awesome life ever!”, you think. With that in mind, you manage to land a cushy job worth at least $60,000 per year. All signs are pointing in a positive direction.

But then, reality hits you in the face with Thor’s hammer. You remember, with a jolt, that your credit card and student loan debts combined are totaling $50,000. Read more

April 2, 2015

Why Do You Care?

So much of the reason Rick and I are in the debt mess we’re in today is because we spent too many years caring about what other people thought of us. We cared what they thought about the clothes we wore, the house we lived in, the cars we drove, the activities our kids were in, etc., etc., etc. Caring too much about what other people thought lured us into making spending decisions that weren’t in line with our real values, and the result was a ridiculous amount of debt. I believe that this mindset is a dangerous and destructive mindset in America that no one like to admit to or talk about.

When we lived in the suburbs, it felt like a constant world of competition. It felt like everyone was caught up in the web of keeping up with the Joneses, and we were too. It was “normal” in our community. We wanted, like everyone else, to be the best, have the best, look the best.

When we moved out into the country, there was a major league paradigm shift. No one really gave a rat’s arse about what we had, what we looked like, what we wore or what we drove. The first two neighbors that came over to introduce themselves came over in generic brand jeans and t-shirts. One was on a lawn tractor, looking not at all “proper” for a first introduction. The other was driving a expensive Mercedes SUV. Read more

March 23, 2015

Debt Freedom: Success is About Consistency

Success is About Consistency

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?

Read the rest of this post over at our new site, Fruclassity.

March 19, 2015

How to Choose the Right Accountability Partner

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

March 16, 2015

Debt Payoff and Spending Update

The Road to Debt Free

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

February 23, 2015

How Moving From the Suburbs to the Country Changed our Lives

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.

To hear more about our story, click here:

February 18, 2015

Un-Frugal Confessions

Un-frugal Confessions

It’s confession time, friends. I’ve developed a habit over the last six weeks that’s not so frugal. Over the course of the last six weeks, this habit has cost our family roughly $288.57. I was so ashamed of this “splurge” that I didn’t even share it with my debt payoff accountability partner. I shared on Grayson’s site a while back the dangers of the “I Deserve” mindset.

Since our commitment to Gazelle Intensity however, I’ve developed a bit of an “I Don’t Deserve” mindset. Debt payoff can be a difficult taskmaster. It’s difficult to know where to draw the line between gazelle intense debt payoff and living life in a way that maximizes value-based priorities. Read more

February 9, 2015

Motivation: Words of Wisdom From Paul Milligan

Hey, friends!! This is a post I wrote about two years ago that has some information that was super motivating and helpful to Rick and I as we began our “getting out of debt” journey. Since this post continues to inspire our growing readership, I thought I’d run this again. Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Monday, all! I’m feeling led today to share with you some tidbits from the financial teaching that motivated us to turn our financial life around. As I’ve mentioned before, we’d been terrible at managing our finances for most of our marriage. We knew it, but just couldn’t seem to find the willpower to do anything about it. Read more

February 5, 2015

10 Things I Never Pay For

Getting Things for Free is Like Putting Money in the Bank!

Today I’m sharing 10 of the things I never pay for here in the Frugal Farmer household. Adding all of these items up, I’m certain that we save thousands of dollars per year, all of which can go toward more value-based spending purchases, like paying off debt. Check out our list and see if there’s anything here that you currently pay for and can start finding ways to get for free. Read more

February 2, 2015

Movin’ Out

Rather, I should say “We’re” movin out. Or, to put it more aptly, we’ve already moved out. Out, away from the rat race, from the temptation to keep up with the Joneses. This Billy Joel classic is one of our family favorites. We played it constantly as we were preparing to ditch our suburbia home for life in hick country, and the song still brings the temptation to flip the bird to rampant consumerism to this day. Read more