I am marigold growing genius superstar! Just kidding. Kind of. All right, so recently, I told you how I had been completely unsuccessful with my marigold-from-seed attempt (uhhh-gain!), but this week one finally flowered. I let my fingers do some walking over the interwebs and found I’d been doing marigolds wrong. Today, I’m admitting my faults and promising a new day for marigolds on Burton Farm! How I’m remedying what I’ve been doing wrong with my marigolds: Because marigold seeds are so feathery and paper thin, I have always scattered…
Year: 2016
It Never Seems to Rain on the Mountain
It was supposed to rain yesterday. The weatherman had been promising “rain on Saturday” all week. After a hot, dry day with the boys, I figured it wasn’t coming. I screwed the hoses back together, pulled the heavy out to the garden and noticed for the first time the heavy, dark rain clouds overhead. “Nope,” I thought. I’m already out here now, so it’s getting watered. I started watering the garden. It needed the water yesterday. I bet my neighbors (if either of them see me) will think I’m nuts.…
Net Worth & Debt Payoff Progress – June 30, 2016
Oh, June. June. June, June, June. So glad you’re gone. I’m reminded of those “Black Eyed Peas” lyrics, “Let’s get ignorant. Let’s get hectic,” except it wasn’t nearly as fun as they suggest. I knew I shouldn’t have told you how much life sucked there for a minute, because you know what? After I hit “post,” lousy things kept happening: Prime example: While I was investigating an on-the-job accident, I dropped my phone, shattering the screen. I put packing tape on it to keep the shards from falling out. It’s not an…
How to Get Your Life to Stop Sucking
Let me tell you all the ways my life sucked in the span of just FIVE days: 1. I got a speeding ticket Friday. I’m pretty sure he gave me a ticket for the guy in front of me. There’s no way I was going that fast. Guess that’s just life. Oh, I was speeding, all right. But not that fast. That’s $222.00 that won’t be going to debt destruction. Every Dollar Goes To Work? Huh. That’s $222 that is going to work for the local officials. 2. I got a sunburn Saturday…
Garden Update: June 19, 2016
I know. I know. It’s important to get in your garden every day. At least, every other day. Not just on weekends. Ashamedly, I’ve only been a weekend gardener and it shows. I hand-weeded around our small plants this weekend in the blistering hot sun, but still only covered about 30% of the garden. And there are still weeds in the walkways. Ugh. Every day, Erica. Get out there every day. How do you motivate yourself to just do it? Something Different and Exciting Happened Though… But yesterday, instead of…
Debt Ruining Your Life? Why High School’s Responsible
We demand that school teaches our children about sex and driving and argue how to explain the beginning of the universe. Why don’t we have a class in high school that teaches basic personal finance? I’m not talking about economics. Even if it’s an elective, I believe we need a class at least available to students who want to learn how to manage money in a responsible way. We need to teach them how to avoid the consequences that result from bad money management. This course could change the courses…
Garden Update: June 12, 2016 – Two Steps Forward…
It appears that the Irish Spring Soap Helped. In hand-weeding this weekend, I only saw one little pile of golden nuggets, instead of many. So, that’s great. What does this mean? It’s going to take a bar of soap each week to cover half of the fence line to keep rabbits out of our garden? Maybe I’m cheap, but that seems like too much for me. It’s supposed to rain all week, but when it stops, I’m going to sprinkle some hair clippings from my hairdresser’s floor. We will see…
Get Paribus and Get Your Money Back!
Have you heard about Paribus, yet? Oh my gosh, I’m so excited I get to tell you about this app! If you shop online and aren’t sure you are getting the best prices, but you want to save money, this is the app you need. If you buy products online and don’t want to hunt down the best deal between several sites, you have to get in on this. Even if you’re like me and you’re SURE this app couldn’t possibly sniff out a better deal than you, you’re going to…
Our First Turnips & How to Get Rid of Rabbits
So. Here are the first three turnips that were planted willy nilly in the garden. They’re the first crop to come up. Since it’s my first time growing turnips, I wasn’t sure what to look for, but two of these were busting out of the ground a half inch, so I thought we were good to go. We didn’t eat the leaves since they’re pretty holey and really, who wants to stink up the house for eleven scrawny, holey leaves? The pigs were really excited about them, though. I tossed the tiny…
How Can You Save Money? Here’s 9 Easy Ways
Here are 9 painless ways to save money or pay off debt. They just require a little bit of mental energy. I promise, you’ll be surprised at how much you can save or pay off quickly and some of you can see results as soon as your next paycheck. 1. You set a budget for X amount of dollars… When you come in under budget for the month, what happens to the difference? Usually, you just absorb it into your budget. Now what would happen if you were to transfer the difference to savings (or the…