Last night I finally slept without having nightmares, in fact it was just the opposite and now my mid is running in high gear.
My dream: I had finally accumulated enough funds to make my move to Alaska, in fact I had more than enough because I had won the lottery. Hey it's my dream laugh if you want! Anyways after arriving I set out tofind 5 large parcels of land that were remote yet close enough to towns to make the drive in a day to get the supplies needed for my projects.
I was going to build self sustaining outposts large enough that others could come and prepare for the shtf that we all knew was on its way.
These places were not for myself and my family but for other like minded thinkers who believe that being self sustaining is really what life and living is all about. I won't go into anymore detail but wanted to put it out there because it really was an awesome dream. Imagine-like minded people working together and surviving when the world comes to an end.

Friday, February 3, 2012

For the almost 8 years that I have been working for my current company, my wife and I have been faithful to not use credit cards. We developed a plan to pay them off, one at a time, devoting $900 each month to the task when the minimum payments would have been about $550. The extra $350 each month went directly to principal on the targeted card. When that card got paid off, we put all the extra money into the next targeted card. I later discovered that Dave Ramsey practically patented “my” idea—he’d been peddling the technique for several years before I came up with it. The only difference was that I targeted the highest interest rate cards first while he advocates targeting the lowest payoff amount cards first. My way is faster, but he learned a long time ago that most people do better his way—which has a built-in “reward system” of experiencing the joys of paying off your first card sooner. I learned in college that this is an example of behavior modi...

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I am new to blogging so please bear with me. Our family is desperately trying to sell our real estate and finally get to Alaska where we have yearned to go for 20 years. I fear that sh!t will hit the fan soon and I want my family where we can survive and thrive without outside (or minimal) purchases. I have been called many things throughout my life hippy, prepper, etc. because I have always strived to learn how to get by without modern conveniences. In my single days I lived for 2 years with no electricity and pretty much ate what I could produce on my own so I know while it is work it is well worth the satisfaction of knowing what you consume.
People often ask me what I fear-in a nutshell I have watched our country go from bad to worse in the last 20 years. Our government keeps taking more and more of our freedoms and is sneaking in chemicals into our food source to experiment with our bodies. I don't like being a guinnea pig and I don't like being controlled.
I homeschool my...

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Friday, January 27, 2012

We continued to make minimum payments to the credit card companies each month while our family breathed a little easier. The company that I worked for got absorbed by another company, and then that one was absorbed by a larger company. This was the life of contracting. The big fish ate the smaller fish. With each take-over, I got a small cost of living increase. It was never really a raise—none of us got raises. This went on for 5 years. Over those 5 years we had made headway on our debt on occasion, but there were “emergencies” that sprang up that “required” more credit card use. I remember one such emergency when we took the family to Disney World. We were obviously still undisciplined.

Contract work has its stressors. The contracts that I worked were open for rebid frequently. When those times came, we all got very spiritual and prayed that things would go well. “Well” meant that you still had a job next month. With no actual raises in 5 years, I...

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

While attending college on the GI Bill, I applied for, and during my junior year, received VA Vocational Rehabilitation. The program paid my tuition, books, fees, and a subsistence allowance, and because my major upon the award of Vocational Rehabilitation was in Psychology, it did so through the completion of a Master’s degree in Counseling. The program pays up to the minimum occupational level of your chosen field. In my case, that equated to a Master’s degree. I also worked 25 hours a week at the college but for the VA on a work-study program earning minimum wage (non-taxable). All in all, I got many more times the $1,200 that I paid for my education. I cannot complain for what the program provided for me and my family, but there were times when I wasn’t able to pay all of the bills. To protect my credit and my ego, I used credit cards to pay utility bills, and from time to time, other credit card minimum payments. More debt!

Around the time that ...

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