From The Survivalist Blog – Survival Children

Survival Children - Non-Fiction Writing Contest Submission by Joshua Steve was content. He was a pretty happy man. As he lay in bed considering all that he had accomplished in the past four years he smiled. Sure, it took a while to get Stacy on board, but once he had, she had taken to prepping with eagerness. Steve lay [...]

A rather frightening story, but it highlights the importance of prepping your children.

From Get Rich Slowly – Talking About Money with Family and Friends

What does a blogger’s spouse do while the blogger is out of town? Hang out with other bloggers and their spouses, of course! While Chris Guillebeau was off playing with the tigers in Thailand, his wife Jolie spent some time with Kris and me. Last Friday morning, we picked peaches (and then Kris and Jolie canned them). In the evening, the three of us had dinner with Erica (from erica.biz) and her husband Richard. As you might expect, the conversation had a tendency to stray toward personal finance. Because I’d just published my article about life in the third stage of personal finance, we talked a bit about that. Third stage frugality “How does frugality work when you have more money?” Richard asked. I was confused. “What do you mean?” I said. “Well, when your income increases, how do you stay frugal when your expenses go up? How does frugality scale?” “Ah,” I said. “Well, frugality works pretty much the [...]

Here’s something you need to learn how to do.

From Get Rich Slowly – The Joys of Home Canning

This guest post from my wife is yet another installment in her ongoing quest to grow and preserve food for our household. Making jam makes me happy. Okay, that’s only partly true. I’m also happy making jelly, preserves, and syrups — and I’m pretty darn pleased with conserves, marmalades, and most things pickled. No matter that I could never eat everything I make — even with J.D.’s help — the mere process is somehow satisfying to me. So, I madly preserve whatever I can lay my hands on each summer, then spend hours inventorying and organizing the jars, finally doling them out like precious jewels on special occasions to friends and family. Competitive canning Last year, I steeled my courage and submitted a few jars for judging at the county fair. I was pleased as punch when my gingered dilly beans won a blue ribbon, and vowed to enter more preserves this year. As I made my batches [...]

From Get Rich Slowly – How to Replace Six Vital Documents

This post is from GRS staff writer April Dykman. Could you produce your birth certificate, car title, or an old tax return at a moment’s notice? You’re supposed to store vital documents in a fireproof box or keep them in a safe-deposit box, but how many of us actually do that? We may not need these papers often, but when we do need them, we really need them. You need vital documents to sell your car, travel overseas, apply for a job, get through an audit, refinance your house, and more. The good news is that if you’ve lost important pieces of paper, you can replace them — and it might be easier than you think. Here’s how to replace six of the most important documents in your life. Birth certificate You need a birth certificate for everything from enrolling in school to getting a marriage license (if you don’t have a passport). To replace one for yourself or your [...]

From Get Rich Slowly – Why Are Interest Rates So Low Right Now? (and Where Should You Put Your Money?)

I’ve been plowing through my e-mail lately in my never-ending quest to reach inbox zero. As a result, I’ve been answering tons of reader questions. And when I can’t answer them (or when I think a colleague can do a better job), I try to refer the question to somebody else. Over the weekend, for example, LP wrote: I’m a college student and have started saving up and setting aside money, and I feel that the time has come to consider a high-yield savings account, a certificate of deposit, or something similar. It would appear to me that in the time that’s passed since you wrote articles on these types of things (and also helpfully comparing some, thank you), the interest rates have dropped from 4-5% on average to 1-2% on average. Why is that? Is it the economy? Should I sign up for interest rates this low, or should I wait and hope that they increase? Though [...]

From The Simple Dollar – Garden Tips: Saving Seeds and Starting a Seed Exchange

Several readers have written to me requesting information on saving seeds from their garden, which is an awesome frugal practice. Fall is just starting to tiptoe into the picture here in Iowa, and for us that means that the gardening season is starting to wind up. This year was actually a very uneven year for [...]

From The Simple Dollar – Review: The Art of Barter

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance book or other book of interest. A while back, I wrote a post called “Askers, Guessers, and Personal Finance” that proposed that bartering and negotiation are much easier for some people than for others, depending on their personality and the culture in which they were raised. [...]

From The Simple Dollar – Frugality and Organization

Save everything. Buy in bulk. Find second uses for everything. These are all powerful frugal tactics and they’ll all save you money. I’ll give you five examples. 1. Got an old t-shirt that’s worn out? Toss it into a “scrap cloth” bin and save it for times when you just need a big piece of cloth to [...]

Some great tips

From Survival Blog – Running a TEOTWAWKI Training Weekend, by Skynome

First, a little bit of background. In August of 2009 a co-worker gave my husband the novel “Patriots”, he started to read it and told me that I would enjoy it, my response? “Pssh! It looks like more conspiracy theorist paranoia, no thank you” Then in November of 2009…

Wouldn’t it be nice to know if your preps are going to pay off ahead of time?

From The New Old School – make your own pectin

Get ready for a SERIOUSLY old-school skill. When you make jam or jelly, you need something to make it jell. Most folks use commercial pectin–a product extracted from fruit–usually powdered (although liquid pectin is available). But. BUT. What if it was doomsday and there was no pectin in the stores? WHAT WOULD WE DO????? The [...]