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 some debt, they’ve done a fantastic job of paying it down over the years. Now, they’re ready to get serious...
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 is not related to homestead life, but I’m going to be LIVE at the Bigelow Library in April! Actually over...
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 ready (“ready” might be too strong a word… ) to tend some animal babies. I’m still on the fence about...
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 help determining where they should move, what types of jobs Will should pursue, if they should buy a house and...
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 reading this article and instead go look at this panda who traded her baby for an apple… I mean, maybe...
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 to college in a few short years. Matt is concerned about their ability to afford college, plan for retirement and...
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. Nothing moves quickly out here, which I am on board with, as everyone who has ever emailed me can attest...
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 approach failed. And it didn’t fail just once. It failed every single one of my resolution-making years, which was probably...
Evidently February is a short and boring month. We didn’t buy anything interesting or story-worthy or unusual. So instead of talking about what we DID buy, I’ll talk about what we didn’t buy. Advertiser Disclosure: Frugalwoods partners with CardRatings for coverage of credit card products. Frugalwoods and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers at no extra cost to you. Here’s a boring (but important) explanation of how Frugalwoods makes money. The credit card links in this...
January 2021 We are in the season of snow every day. Maybe a lot, maybe a trace. There’s no forecast to tell us what’ll happen: we look outside, we bring in more fire wood. It dips into single digits every night and still, we go outside every day. We hike, we sled, we cry (mostly the kids; sometimes me), and we love the cascade of monochrome. There is no beauty more distilled than fresh glitter...
