Blogging Away Debt Blogging Away Debt follows real people on their journey to debt freedom — with tips on the debt snowball, budgeting, cutting expenses, and staying motivated.

by Emmily Schulze

Hey y’all! I want to start a short guest blogger series, so I invited a couple friends and family members to share their perspective on debt and budget issues.

As I mentioned in one of our very first posts, our friends and family are all over the map as far as income, debt, and attitudes towards money. Each influences me in their own way, each has their unique perspective and way of dealing with money. I lean on them to teach me and counsel me when I want to stick my head in the sand. *Side note here, did anyone see New Girl? Nick has a box where he puts all the things he never wants to deal with (mostly bills). Another side note, googling this episode brought me to this dangerous article: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/americans-selling-hair-kidneys-eggs-financial-woes-report-article-1.1486316

Without further side notes, here’s our first guest, my dad, Mickey. He teaches high school drafting, does architectural work, referees basketball, and owns an extra summer lake home they rent out for additional income. He’s a pretty busy guy! Amazingly, he’s always made time for my sister and I and now all the grand kids.

And here’s what he had to say:
I have a love-hate relationship with our money. I love the fact that it brings me the opportunity to share, give, and enjoy material things, but I hate the struggle and confinement that comes from having to earn money. This struggle is more complicated as I approach retirement, I realize that our lifestyle has to change and that we must now live a life of conservative spending or I am obligated to continue to work on a year to year basis. As of today, the joy that I receive from the pleasures of money far outweighs the hardships of teaching 100 high school kids everyday. So for now, it is all good: I love my job, earn a good salary, enjoy spending our excess, and feel healthy and productive.

Most of our money that we earn is spent on major purchases. Visiting our children and grandchildren in Texas is a huge priority for us. We travel 4 or 5 times a year from Indiana to Texas by air, rent a car, stay in a rented house, and purchase numerous items for our stay. We chose to be generous during our week long vacation and love blessing our children with luxuries that they normally can’t afford. A $2500 vacation times 4 or 5 can be a huge budgetary expense on an annual basis. For example, this year we chose to fly our children home for a week and it was cheaper for us than to visit Texas again. Our other major expense usually involves something for our lake homes. Roofs, decks, floors, windows, all seem to be a non-ending need for each of our lake homes. This year, our major purchase was to buy a pedal pontoon boat (Paddle Qwest). This pedal pontoon was the best purchase that we have made in years because it allows us to enjoy the beauty of the lake, talk without interruptions (no cell phones), exercise, swim, and makes for a great venue for entertaining friends and family.

We have tried to be a living example for our children of managing our finances responsibly. We have an affordable debt (mortgage only), save a percentage of our income, and resist the urge to borrow money as much as possible. We make it a priority to support our local church, give to those in need, and to be flexible when opporutnities arise unexpectedly.

by Adam Dawson

We’ve had some great success lately gettin’ thrifty with it!  Thanks in part to Austin’s first Trader Joe’s opening, and some meal planning, bulk cooking, and at-home activities, and some good ol’ country ingenuity.  Here’s one story of a recent win.

Since we got the goats in July, they’ve been without a proper shelter from the elements.  Not only do goats hate rain, but it can make them sick.  So, after several rounds of cleaning their, um, fertilizer, off of our back deck, where we let them ride out the storms, I decided it was high time they have a shelter of their own.

I thought about making a simple lean-to out of used pallets from craigslist. But finding the pallets, buying/transporting them, figuring out how to attach them in a shelter-like way, seemed like a project destined for difficulty and maybe failure. And I really didn’t want to spend money on any part of this project, like pallets, or hardware, or any kind of tool I don’t already have.

I went out in the back yard to see what might be out there.  I found a length of woven wire fencing about 10-12 feet long, rolled up.  I was able to unroll it into an arch shape, but getting it to stay in place was tricky.  I found a utility hook in the shed that I attached to the side of the shed and hooked onto the fencing to hold the top in place.  A couple old wooden stakes were laying around that I used to hold the sides down.  And I remembered I had an old tarp in my trunk that I could use as a roof.  I attached the tarp to the fencing with various hair ties, nylon string, and some twine that I found laying around.

So, it’s not pretty.  It looks a little redneck.  But we had a pretty good storm and the ground under the shelter was perfectly dry. I’m super proud of this project because the out of pocket cost of this goat shelter was precisely $0.00.  And I can say it’s because of the support and accountability of this community that I didn’t go for an easier route that would have cost some money.

So our goats are safe and dry, and now Emily is saying she’s ready for chickens!