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How to Practice Physical Self Sufficiency

6167660997_c9494888a5_zAs 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

Good Financial Habits Learned From Debt

Good Financial Habits Learned From Debt
Good habits that your debt can help you form.

It’s highly unlikely you’ll find anyone commenting that being in debt is fun.

For most of us, it’s seems like a never-ending uphill battle. We’re fighting for our lives. Our values. Our future.

It’s a huge challenge, especially when you’re facing six-figures of debt, and trying to balance paying for the necessities in life.

However, there are always lessons to be learned from difficult challenges, and debt is no different. Read more

The Best Sugar Cookie Recipe

13763235333_ef9f1426ca_zIt’s time for another of our favorite Christmas recipes.  Today we’ll be sharing THE best sugar cookie recipe in town.  Crisp, yet moist, buttery, sweet, but still light and delicious.  And as a bonus, I’m sharing one of our favorite frosting recipes.  I get regular compliments on this recipe, and you might be surprised at the ingredients in it. 🙂 Read more

What is the Best Binary Platform?

binary-optionsGiven the number of binary services in operation, investors who are starting out on a new trading adventure should carefully evaluate the strengths of the trading platforms that they will have access to upon signing up with a particular service provider. In this article we investigate some of the factors traders should think about when evaluating a particular binary platform.

Consider available option types

The investing technologies vary with respect to the types of options that can be traded from the dashboard. Types typically include traditional (or classic), but increasingly the tools include other exotic formats like pairs, 60 second, long-term and one-touch options. Any investment technology should be evaluated in part by the variety of types of investing that it accommodates. Greater variety of types generally implies that there are a greater variety of profit opportunities for you to capitalize on.

Consider security standards

Security is a vitally important aspect of financial technology, for two main reasons. First, you want to ensure that all trades are encrypted so that malicious software and unauthorized parties are unable to intercept the trades that when they are executed. Second, you want to ensure that your account details and funds a secured against malicious threats that may wish to steal your credentials (and ultimately, misappropriate your funds). Details of the security measures that are integrated into any technology should be communicated to prospective users of the technology. If a tool does not covertly convey security measures, you are probably better off moving on to another tool that takes user security more seriously.

Consider cross-device support

Service providers are increasingly making their technologies available on multiple platforms. In other words, they provide a cross-platform investing experience. Such cross-platform support generally enables investors to execute trades via web-based dashboards as well as on native applications (for mobile operating systems including iOS and Android). The strength of a particular tool should be considered on the basis of how important cross-platform functionality is for your particular use case. If you are content with trading that takes place exclusively within the content of a desktop web-browser, then it is probably not essential for you to downgrade a tool for its lack of cross-device support.

Consider the user interface

Different trading tools have different user-interfaces. Some are uncluttered and easy-to-use while others are relatively more cluttered and require more time to master. Most service providers enable you to gain exposure to the user interface for free, so you should be able to get a test-run with different interfaces to see what works for you before making a deposit. Service providers are less inclined to provide free handson access to mobile applications for people who are not yet customers, so you may wish to ask one of the support staff to provide you with a step-by-step walkthrough of those applications before making a deposit.

Conclusion

As illustrated above, what defines the ‘best’ tool depends in large part on the option types you want to trade and your user interface preferences. Regardless of how you trade, you want to make sure that the tool’s providers have taken measures to ensure your security, and you want to make sure that you can run the application on your preferred devices.

Preparing to Sell Your Home

If you’re planning to sell your home, there are several things you can do to streamline the process and help your home to sell more quickly. When we sold our last home, we had an accepted offer within a week. The home, although it had many great features, was nothing spectacular in terms of upgrades or special features. In fact, it was quite plain on the decorating front.

So why did our home sell so quickly? There were many factors:

Read the rest of this post over at Wise Dollar by clicking here.

How to Save Money

Strange Ways to Invest Your Money

How to Save Money

Investment strategies these days are quite risky to undertake especially that the erratic condition of the global economy creates an unstable market resulting to the skyrocketing of prices of all prime commodities. While mutual funds and stock exchange are not quite reliable, there are other ways to invest money that are uncommon to the majority of investors. Here are strange ways to make money out of your investments:

Renting a Cow

Renting a cow is basically investing your money on cows that will produce dairy products as well as meat products. The calculation of returns is at 5% per annum. Despite movement of the macroeconomic climate, you get the same percentage of ROI. This means that your investment earns in slightly small amounts but sure in returns.

Funding Treasure Hunts

Recovering treasures from sunken ships and exploring valuable resources from shipwrecks underwater are what funding treasure hunts is all about. If you are willing to invest your money on this kind of product, you will have to buy shares at a marine merchant that is a company that earns profit through salvaging goods from sunken ships and shipwrecks. Time is a consideration in this investment in order to double the amount of your shares.

Betting Against Congress

For individuals who are skeptical in their views about politicians, there’s the so-called CEFFX or Congressional Effect Fund, which is an investment platform that allows investors to put their money into interest-bearing domestic securities. The calculation of returns is dependent status of the congress whether it is in-session or out of session.

Collecting Wine

Collecting vintage wine is another bizarre method of investment. In here, you should be willing to invest your money antique wine purchase. A collection of vintage wine in the cellar can be a part of your personal assets. The older the wine gets, the higher its value. This goes to show that vintage wine appreciates over time where the price of each bottle can double in just a few weeks.

Collectible Coins

The principle behind investing in collectible coins is like that of buying vintage items in a pawnshop. You have to wait for a long period of time before your investment to double or triple in amount. The value of collectible coins is dependent on its metal content. Usually, the oldest coins obtain the highest metal value therefore these are the best coins to buy. It is recommended to take caution in this investment strategy because risks are involved when it comes to scrutinizing the authenticity of each coin.

Any of the investments obviously sounds odd but it is their peculiarity that makes them enticing to try. Before choosing your medium for investment, study the system first and think about its return of investment (ROI). An intelligent analysis will help you put your money in the right product. If you are considering an investment that will never fail despite the market crash, it is always safe to invest in gold. Its value increases over time and merchants are readily available to transform these into cash.

Read also:
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0136-investing-collectible-coins
http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0910/6-weird-ways-to-invest.aspx

Book Review: Achieving Debt Freedom

I didn’t think I could find two awesome books on Debt Payoff in one week, but alas, it has happened!!!!  Last week I reviewed our friend Shannon’s book, and this week I had the pleasure of reviewing yet another new, exciting and super helpful book on fighting your way out of debt: My friend Hayley over at Disease Called Debt has published Achieving Debt Freedom: Defeat and Embrace the Debt Rollercoaster – How to Recognize and Overcome the Emotions Linked to Paying Off Debt .

Having read pretty much every personal finance book on the face of the earth, I’d become quite bored with the many books out there that give the same ol’ , same ol’ advice about debt: figure out what you owe, budget, and use extra cash to pay off the debt: blah, blah, blah.  Don’t get me wrong: these books are amazingly helpful, but for people like me who’ve read them all and yet are still needing motivation to continue on the road to debt free, I needed something, well, different!  I found it last week in Shannon’s book, and now here it is again in Hayley’s book!

The two things that I really loved about Hayley’s book is that it worked hard to define well why we get in debt in the first place, and why we stay in debt!!  She also sprinkles her light-hearted, witty humorous style throughout, making the book a fun as well as an educational read.

Achieving Debt Freedom tackles the emotions behind our debt, and that’s a great thing because when we can learn to define and conquer our emotions regarding debt, then we can truly be successful at paying off our debt.  Money and debt may be emotional, but that doesn’t mean we need to let our emotions rule over us, and Achieving Debt Freedom shows us in clear and easy steps how to identify and overcome the emotions related to our accumulation of debt, and how to become debt free as well, all in simple, easy-to-follow steps.

If you are in debt, or if someone you love is in debt, Achieving Debt Freedom is the perfect gift to help them gain control over their finances again. I highly recommend it.

A Plutus Award, A Versatile Blogger Nomination and a Big, Hearty Thank You!

Plutus-logoThe-Versatile-Blogger-Award-300x200It’s been a crazy week/weekend here at The Frugal Farmer!! First, on Friday, my dear blogging friend Hayley over at Disease Called Debt nominated me for the Versatile Blogger award.  What a fun treat that was! The goal, it seems, of the Versatile Blogger Award is simply to spread the word and share some love about other bloggers that have impacted you.  As are the rules of the award, first, I’ll tell you 7 random facts about me, and then I’ll nominate my own 7 bloggers for the award.  Here are my 7 random facts:

1.  I was an incredibly shy, awkward kid.  A far cry from my current self, who probably cares far too little about what others think and am anything but shy.  🙂

2. I HATE mushrooms.  They’re evil, and I will never eat one again.  I think it’s the texture; that and the fact that really, people – they’re a FUNGUS!!  Eeewww!!  When I was young, my dad would routinely try and “hide” mushrooms in meals so that he could secretly get me to eat them.

3.  I’m this weird combo of drill sergeant/mushy wimpy mom with my kids.  On one hand, I shower them with lots of hugs/kisses/words of encouragement, often so much that I send them running.  But they are so awesome that I just can’t help myself!  Then there’s the drill sergeant side of me that let’s my kids get away with very little and pushes them to be and do their best always.   I’m sure they think I’m Jekyll/Hyde some days. 🙂

4. I couldn’t care less about fitting in.  Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.  One of the great things about getting older is that it helps you to realize that it really doesn’t matter what others think, but instead, that you can truly live with yourself and look yourself in the mirror each day. For me, that has a lot to do with whether or not my actions would be acceptable to Jesus Christ, and it’s now the only gauge I use when it comes to fitting in.

5. I have a dry, sarcastic, silly sense of humor.  If you peeked through our windows, you’d often find me singing loudly or quoting movie lines that fit in with our conversations, and I’ve taught our children to do the same.  Sometimes this is witty and funny, other times it’s a bit awkward, but I’d rather laugh than be serious.  It’s more fun. 🙂

6. Even at 47 years of age, I wouldn’t hesitate to beat the crap out of someone who threatened my children’s safety.  The kids have now, after so many years, gotten over the embarrassment of me chewing some lady or guy out at Walmart because they drove too fast in the parking lot and put my kids in danger. 🙂   I am fiercely protective of them.

7.  I love you – I really love you!!!  My growing relationship with Jesus Christ has put an immense love in my heart for the human race.  Even if I don’t know you, I love you and pray for you often, that you would have a blessed and awesome life.  I have a serious empathy and compassion for the human race.

And my 7 nominees for the Versatile Blogger Award?  I”m picking some “newbies” because there are so many awesome newbies out there:

1. Deb and Al at Saving the Crumbs

2. Amy at Debtgal

3. Myles over at Myles Money

4. Taylor at Tipping Scales

5. My friend C over at Romania Experience

6. Steven from Even Steven Money

7. Raquel from over at Practical Cents

If you’ve already been nominated/completed your tasks for the Versatile Blogger Award, you can simply ignore my heartfelt nomination. 😉

Now, onto my other BIG news: Saturday night, as the fam and I sat around, eating our grilled sirloin steaks (farm-raised, grass-fed, for the low, low price of $3.50 a pound, I might add 🙂 ) and homemade chocolate mousse, I stopped in the office to check email and found that my Twitter account had been inundated with messages.

Turns out our little piggy here at The Frugal Farmer won the Plutus Award at FINCON for Best Green/Sustainability PF blog!!!!  I cannot tell you how happy that made me, and how blessed I was by not only the nominations and the win, but by all of the well-wishes from those keeping up with these types of things.  It truly made my entire weekend.  Thank you so much, to all of you for reading and supporting our efforts here.

Fall is on its way, officially as of tomorrow, which will be followed by winter.  So soak up some sun and play outside before the next Polar Vortex sets in!

 

 

Saturday Morning Ramble: Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

DSCN2948Is it just me, or are the weeks flying by at warp speed? Here at the farm we’re hosting Rick’s extended family annual picnic today.  This is our second year hosting the annual gathering, and we just love being able to share the peace and quiet up here with everyone.  One of the other things I love about hosting this event is that it gives us the motivation we need to get this place spic n’ span clean. 🙂

Lest you think we’re going over budget, our total spend for the family picnic is Read more