Continue reading I’m Still Alive; also, join the 7th Annual Uber Frugal Month Group Challenge! at Frugalwoods.

Brian and Michael, both 34, live with their two cats in central Connecticut. Michael works as a project coordinator for a state behavioral health agency serving young people and has a side job as an advocate and disability leadership coordinator. Brian is a quality assurance manager for a state-run hospital. The couple’s been together since 2013 and looks forward to celebrating their 10-year anniversary in November. While Brian and Michael have achieved a lot, they feel as though their debt and lack of home ownership is holding them back. They’d like our advice on how to unlock this next level of adulting and, crucially, how to be permanently debt-free.

What’s a Reader Case Study?

Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of Frugalwoods send in requesting advice. Then, we (that’d be me and YOU, dear reader) read through their situation and provide advice, encouragement, insight and feedback in the comments section.

Continue reading Reader Case Study: Yearning For a Debt-Free Future at Frugalwoods.

Last weekend was ye olde county fair here in Vermont and, of course, we were on the scene to cuddle cows (if you’re Kidwoods) and look askance at cows (if you’re Littlewoods). The county fair also provides a panorama of consumerism. So much to buy, so little time! Annoying, but a fantastic opportunity to practice money management with our children, currently clocking in at ages 5 and 7. Lucky for us, the county fair isn’t the only venue where we’ve been able to broach the thrilling topic of money with our kids lately.

Kidwoods + cow

Annoying Instances of Kid-Directed Consumerism We’ve Come Across Recently:

• Museum gift shops: WHY DO THESE EXIST???
• The Scholastic Book Fair: again, WHY?!?
• The County Fair: I’m less outraged at this one, but still mildly annoyed

Our Solution?

Continue reading Why I Let My Kids Go Into Debt at Frugalwoods.

As you may have noticed, things look different around here! Turns out, there’ve been some advancements in web design in the nine years since I started Frugalwoods. No one will be surprised to hear that the old website was looking a bit, well, old. And so, I hired an incredible designer who created a brand new look for good old Frugalwoods! I also hired a–GASP–professional photographer to come to my house and take my picture since, unsurprisingly, I too have changed quite a bit in the intervening nine years. Nothing worse than a headshot that looks like it was taken nine years ago… I’m very happy to have new photos that actually look like what I look like now, at age 39. Words you never want to hear “you look NOTHING like your headshot.” Ahem. Moving on…

While the site looks a lot different, the core elements remain unchanged:

• The blog is still here–its just not the sole focus of the home page anymore
• The blog archive is also still here–all 734 posts dating back to blog post #1 written on April 9, 2014
• There’s a new section about my Financial Consulting business, which makes it a lot easier (I hope) to hire me
• I have BUTTONS now, like this one:

Hire Liz To Help You With Your $$$

• There’s a very handy–and quite dandy–place to sign-up for the FREE Uber Frugal Month challenge, which you can do at any time

This transition to the new site is also why I didn’t post much in the last month.

Continue reading Welcome to the NEW (looking) Frugalwoods! at Frugalwoods.

Kat and her husband Jay live in the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan where Jay is stationed as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. They are childfree by choice and have an adorable dog named Sadie. Although they’re just 29, they’ve been diligently saving, investing and planning for the date when Jay gets out of the military.

Their goal is to reach financial independence by that deadline, which is now five to eight years away. Kat would like our help determining if this is a reasonable goal and, if not, advice on what they should do to make it feasible.

What’s a Reader Case Study?

Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of Frugalwoods send in requesting advice. Then, we (that’d be me and YOU, dear reader) read through their situation and provide advice, encouragement, insight and feedback in the comments section.

For an example, check out the last case study. 

Continue reading Reader Case Study: Stationed in Japan with the US Marine Corps, Hoping to FIRE at Frugalwoods.

A menace wall in our home is gone! Longtime readers may recall that we’ve embarked on a slow, years-long renovation process, which we kicked off with a wall removal.

This erstwhile wall awkwardly divided the kitchen and dining room from the rest of the downstairs and, to make matters worse, had a weird, low archway door for egressing. Not great. Everyone who came into our home said, “why do you think they put a wall there?”

I will tell you why.

When our house was built–circa 1991–the builders utilized this wall for the following fairly crucial items:

1. Load-bearing. It supports both the floor of the second story and also, a large amount of the roof load at intersecting roof angles (which means it takes a lot of snow load).
   1. They put the archway in to conceal the triple-ply 2×12 header
2. Plumbing.

Continue reading A Wall Removal And Other June 2023 Expenses at Frugalwoods.

Laura and her husband Ethan are from Philadelphia, PA, but have been living in Hanoi, Vietnam for the past two years. Ethan teaches English literature at an international school and Laura is earning her Master’s degree in public health. They’ve loved their time in Vietnam and plan to be there for at least another year, but are less certain of their plans after that.

Ultimately, they know they want to return to the US in order to be closer to their families, have children and buy a home. Laura is concerned they’re falling behind on retirement and won’t be able to afford a house once they move back stateside. Join me today as we help these ex-pats chart a stable future!

What’s a Reader Case Study?

Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of Frugalwoods send in requesting advice. Then, we (that’d be me and YOU, dear reader) read through their situation and provide advice, encouragement, insight and feedback in the comments section.

Continue reading Reader Case Study: Ex-Pats in Hanoi, Vietnam at Frugalwoods.

A question I’ve been getting a lot lately: “What happened to your dog???” I get this question via email, through blog comments, on Instagram, Facebook and in person. It’s taken me awhile to put together my response because it’s a painful one. But today, I’m ready to share.

The Tail of Genevieve (aka Gigi) the Hound

Gigi showed up emaciated and covered in scratches in our friends’ yard in late September. They (and we) tried to locate her owner, but she came with no tags and no one responded to our advertisements with her photo. We took her to the vet to scan her for a microchip and she didn’t have one. Our theory is that she was a bear hunting dog who got lost from her pack and couldn’t find her way back to them. Our friends kept her at their home for a few days and then planned to take her to a shelter as they already have a dog and can’t keep a second.

Continue reading The Tail of Gigi The Dog at Frugalwoods.

Anna is a 35-year-old special eduction teacher of middle school students with severe and profound disabilities. She lives in rural Illinois and is currently working on completing her master’s degree in education. In the future, she’d like to move into a different teaching position that’s hopefully more lucrative since she doesn’t make enough at her current job. To make ends meet each month, she works a part-time retail job and receives financial assistance from her parents. Anna envisions a debt-free future and would like our help charting a path to get there.

What’s a Reader Case Study?

Case Studies address financial and life dilemmas that readers of Frugalwoods send in requesting advice. Then, we (that’d be me and YOU, dear reader) read through their situation and provide advice, encouragement, insight and feedback in the comments section.

For an example, check out the last case study. 

Continue reading Reader Case Study: Special Education Teacher In Debt at Frugalwoods.

Yes indeed, we’ve welcomed a hobbit into our home. Mr. FW is a well-known lover of The Lord of The Rings books and the main reason he wanted to have children was to one day read the series with them. He’s been working Kidwoods up to The Hobbit by having her first read the Fern Hollow books (by John Patience), next the Redwall series (by Brian Jacques) and finally, last month, she began reading The Hobbit to him.

To facilitate this love of literature, we purchased a gorgeous, illustrated, hard-cover copy of The Hobbit (affiliate link). Normally, we buy zero new books–they all come from the library or a yard sale, but this was a special one Mr. FW wanted to gift to Kidwoods.

This is now their daily afternoon habit–she sits in his lap and reads him books.

Continue reading The Hobbit And Other May 2023 Expenses at Frugalwoods.

Sam and Riley are a married couple living in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada along with their dog Bisky and two cats, Theodore and Greta. Sam works as a plasterer and Riley is a social worker at a local college. The couple, both age 36, hope to have a child soon and are wondering how to balance that new financial responsibility alongside their current goals of finishing up a Masters of Social Work (Riley) and changing careers to become a sprinkler fitter (Sam).

Additionally, they bought their first home in June 2022 and are still settling into the realities–and expenses–of home ownership. Sam wrote that they feel like a lot of things are up in the air at the moment and said, “We have so many ideas for ourselves but need help creating plans to execute them. We want to do all these things as soon as possible to increase our incomes, pensions, and employment options, while also having a child soon as we are both already 36 and feeling the pressure on that front too.” Join me in my 100th Case Study today as we help Riley and Sam plan for their future!

Continue reading Reader Case Study: Plasterer and Social Worker in Manitoba Plan for a Baby at Frugalwoods.

One of the driving forces behind the birth of Frugalwoods was our desire to leave the city and buy a homestead in the woods. That happened in May 2016 and let me tell you, we had A LOT of preconceived notions about what it would be like to live rurally, some of which turned out to be true and some of which… not so much. It’s easy to gloss over the specifics when you’re dreaming about moving to the country. It becomes very much about the specifics when you lose power and water for a week in the dead of winter thanks to an ice storm. It’s those specifics–those powerful details–that have shaped our lives out here.

A gargantuan assumption was that we’d grow all of our own food.

Before so much as starting a single tomato plant, I nurtured an idyllic vision of us growing all the fruits and vegetables we could ever want each summer.

Continue reading We’ll Grow All Of Our Food! And Other Misconceptions I Had About Rural Life at Frugalwoods.