Living Life in Rural Iowa

Saving money is always important. For most people, it is a part of every decision they make. 

With the economy in a precarious position, we all need to work on saving more money! Practicing good money-saving habits now will help you in the future when the money might be tighter than ever. The tips below will help you save more money and might even give you more ideas on how to save money in other areas of your life. 

With that said, here are 60 Ways To Save Money Today:

1. Eat up the leftovers in the fridge. It's just food!

2. Eat from your fridge first to use up the food that will go bad the fastest.

3. Do not eat out - unless you scored a free meal for yourself or your family!

4. Use your gift cards - saving them for some rainy day is wasting money.

5. Use coupons on things you buy.

6. Use your store loyalty cards. Load coupons and store specials on them.

7. Sign up for free samples and accept them when shopping. Free is good!

8. Use sites like Swagbucks to earn points for gift cards and …

Life changes in an instant. One day life is normal and everyone is going on their own merry way. The next day, you may have to evacuate your home in an hour due to wildfires or flooding. Your kids may have a life threatening illness or the new superbug. People may be starting to riot on the street outside your home. The electricity could be out for the next week. The water may be shut off for three days.

You just may never know what can happen today or tomorrow.

Yet, you will hear preppers say:

"I have a bug-out shelter", but there isn't anything in it.
"I have jars for canning and seeds for the garden", but haven't ever canned or gardened.
"I have a gun and ammo", but have never shot it.
"I have a tent and camping gear for survival living", but everything is still in the box and they have never camped.
"I have stuff for barter", but have never bartered or haggled with someone.
"I have supplies to have chickens and other livestock…

It has been two weeks again and time is flying! I mean to do this every week and hopefully I will again soon. I am lacking pictures for this post, but stay tuned and I will have more!

The clothesline is done! Rob finished that last week with minimal assistance from me. I love it because it is a little higher than the last one and it has a center support post. I can hang more laundry on it without the center sag that I had with the old clothesline. I hung laundry out all day yesterday and love it! I hope to have a post up this week about how we built it!

I have been spending a lot of time in the garden trying to stay ahead of the weeds. I haven't been entirely successful, but I am doing the best I can. Rob and Dane have been catching toads for the garden to help with the bugs. So far, so good! Before they started, my green beans and zucchini plants were getting eaten alive. We have managed to keep the rabbits out, but the bugs do not respect the fence!

Paige starts Driver's Ed thi…

One of our big projects this year became putting a fence around the garden. I was having a serious problem with rabbits and possibly deer. Never mind the dog that also liked running at full force through the garden. 

Since I live in a wide-open rural area surrounded by farmland, the critters don't have a problem finding my garden nor eating what I planted. I lost 22 tomato and 12 pepper plants to them earlier this Spring. It was time to end the free buffet. 

What we bought and used:
200' - 4' tall wooden snow fence
200' rabbit wire fence
3/8" narrow crown staples (we used an air stapler)
post hole driver
several 6' fence posts
5  - 8' landscape timbers
3/4" fence staples
2" x 4" green treated lumber
1" x 6" green treated lumber
12 gauge fencing wire
2" and 3" coated deck screws
2 barrel bolts
2 - 4" hinges
chicken wire fence
4 solar lights

Just some information before we launch into how we built the fence. My garden is 25' x 60…

We have the fence around the garden and the garden is planted! That, my friends, may be the best and biggest news of these last two weeks. Besides mowing, these two things have consumed most of our time. 



This has been a time consuming project and I will try to get a blog post up about in this coming week. However, one of my goals from last year has been checked off the list! We still have some work we would like to do on it before fall, but that can wait because we have other things to get done...

like the clothes line.
like the shop.
like sorting and organizing the tools so we know what we have and where to find it.
like building raised beds for the strawberries and whatnot. 
like moving the lilies out of the garden.
like transplanting the rhubarb.
like cleaning and organizing my side of the garage.
like a multitude of other projects. You get the drift. 

Rob has been a rock star during these projects. He is doing most of the work and is the brains behind the planning and designing of the proj…

Living by yourself has some perks. You get to make all the decisions. You get to do what you want to do. You get to decide where to live and how to live.

Living with others has some perks too. You generally have safety and security in numbers. More people to do the work helps get things done. More people usually results in smarter and better decision making.

However, have you thought about what would happen if you went from being a lone wolf to living in a group setting?

Many people have feelings one way or another about what is best for a survival situation. Many people believe that having a group will improve your chances of survival. Many other people believe that being alone will mean that you just have yourself to rely on and only need to provide for yourself.

Neither theory is wrong. For most preppers, it is a personal decision based on who you believe you can rely on, how close your family is, how reliable the people around you are, and if they believe the same things you do. Some…