May 12, 2021
Cattle Panels And Other April 2021 Expenses
April was prep month. Prep for the garden, prep for the chickens, prep for the summer, prep for the bulk food orders. The Chicken Coop! Mr. FW began construction on the chicken coop for our twelve chicks, which arrived last week (peep peep!). We also rounded out our chick supplies with a 50lb bag of…
May 6, 2021
This Month On The Homestead: Starting Seeds and Picking Flowers
April 2021: The End of Sugaring Season Final maple syrup count: we made 19 quarts this year! Our sugaring season is over, thanks to the weather warming up, the trees starting to bud out and–crucially–the fact that we ran out of the filters we use to sift sediment out of the syrup. We boiled sap…
April 21, 2021
How We Buy Cheap Prescription Glasses Online That Fit
Did you know you can buy prescription glasses online? You can! And did you know they are WAY cheaper than glasses bought in a store? They are! Buying glasses (and sunglasses) online is one of those super easy to implement frugal substitutions I love talking about. A frugal substitution is when you find the same…
April 14, 2021
Reader Case Study: Breaking the Cycle of Financial Instability
Kayla and her partner Lauren live in Charlotte, NC with their two dogs and one cat. They both work in banking–at the same bank, in fact–and are feeling settled in the home they bought in 2019. Very soon, they plan to have children, which has them reflecting on their financial priorities. While they still have…
April 6, 2021
This Month On The Homestead: A Patch of Grass, A Gallon of Maple Syrup and Some Lambs
March 2021 Grass! Grass! In March, we found a patch of grass and stomped around on it for five hours straight. It snowed again a few days later and stole away our grass patch, but we were warmed by the memory of our early spring reverie. Join Me on Zoom on April 28th Ok this…
April 1, 2021
Baby Chicks And Other March 2021 Expenditures
We’re getting chickens. When we moved to our homestead in May 2016 with a six-month-old Kidwoods, we made a pact to not get farm animals until our human animals were more self-sufficient. Littlewoods was born in February 2018, which restarted the human baby self-sufficiency clock. Now that our human babies are three and five, we’re…
March 29, 2021
Reader Case Study: Military Family Prepares for Civilian Life
Kate and her husband Will lived the military life for the last decade. Will, who is currently an Army Officer, begins his transition to civilian life this summer. The couple–along with their cat Oliver–live in the Seattle metro area, where Kate works in higher education. With this huge change on the horizon, they’d like our…
March 25, 2021
The Easiest $486 I’ve Ever Made: How To Use Cash Back Credit Cards To Your Advantage
Content warning: I am talking about some EXPLICIT credit card rewards today. There will be actual numbers, real percentages and even specific cards discussed. If you’re a person who doesn’t do well with credit cards, if cards encourage you to spend more than you can afford and go into debt, I want you to stop…
March 19, 2021
Reader Case Study: Three Kids, Two Engineers and One Dog
Matt lives in a suburb of Boston with his wife Laura, their three kids, and their yellow lab Waffles. Matt and Laura both work as engineers and share a love of outdoor recreation–skiing, hiking, kayaking and camping. Their oldest child is a freshman in college and his siblings–ages 16 and 14–will each be headed off…
March 11, 2021
This Month On The Homestead: Tapping Maple Trees and Tapping Into Self Care
February 2021 = Maple Syrup Prep! It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Well, it’s the best we can do while it’s freezing cold and snow’s covering everything because… we tapped our sugar maple trees. Yep, walked around and lightly struck each tree. Maple syrup coming soon: by which I mean in a month….
March 8, 2021
We’re Spending 1,000 Hours Outside in 2021 (maybe, we’ll see how it goes)
I don’t think I’ve ever kept a New Year’s resolution. Ever. In my frittered youth, I made impossible, vague and numerous resolutions. I’d resolve to “lose weight, achieve inner peace and volunteer more,” all in the same year, with no specifics, no action plan and no accountability. I think we can all see why this…