Small Scale Life Podcast

What is Whole30? Julie and I have been talking a lot about it recently in the Small Scale Life Facebook Group and on Instgram.  For many of you, our focus on Whole30 came out of the blue, and you are scrambling to figure out what we are up to this month!  Don’t worry, friends!  In this post and podcast episode, I discuss developing a healthy lifestyle at Small Scale Life, what is Whole30, what we are doing here at Small Scale Life this month and provide resources for Whole30.

You might feel that you have blown your health and fitness resolutions and goals for 2020, but we can always rise and start again.  It is what you have been waiting for:

Welcome to the Health and Fitness Renew You Part 2!

For show notes and important links, please click on this link to go to the article titled "What is Whole30? How to Reset Your Body and Mind" on smallscalelife.com!

It is that time of year again: it is time to make My 2020 Garden Plan! I have been looking at my snow-covered garden and getting the itch to grow something, taste something fresh and make some delicious pickles, relish or salsa.

Who is with me?

This long slog from January to April in the northland really gives a gardener cabin-fever, but it is these quiet, cold nights where we come up with new ideas and our garden plans for the new season. It is also almost time to start growing those seedlings!

If you are new to gardening, you might feel overwhelmed. Maybe you want to grow everything in that shiny seed catalog! Maybe you just don’t know where to start.

For veteran gardeners, you are probably so used to growing the same stuff that you don’t think about it too much. You might be curious how other gardeners “DO IT,” and by that I mean creating a 2020 Garden Plan. You can get your mind out of the rain gutter now!

In this podcast episode and post, and I am going to talk about the following:

• Looking Back at 2019

For show notes, pictures and links, head over to Small Scale Gardening site for more information!

The one year anniversary of the record-setting Government Shutdown happened on January 25th, 2020. The anniversary came and went without fanfare by most, but for those of us who were impacted by that particular Shutdown, we remember it all too well. Last year, Julie and I breathed a sign of relief as the Shutdown ended and we realized that we had enough money in our Emergency Fund to survive.

This weekend, I toasted Julie as we took a few moments to remember where we were and how far we have come in a year! We have a fully funded Emergency Fund with 6 months of expenses, and Julie and I got there even after going on a trip of a lifetime to Hawaii (which was all paid in cash).

Of course, we didn’t start out that way. No, dear Lifers, we did not. We were horrible with money, and Julie and I were in survival mode and living on the edge. It was not the way to operate a household budget and certainly injected a lot of stress and uncertainty in our lives.

It took a lot of time, but we finally came to our senses and started following Dave Ramsey’s babysteps. I have to give Julie a lot of credit for getting us going and getting us to where we are today. Good job, Jules!

You might be asking: “That’s great, but how do you start your $1000 Emergency Fund?”

Well, dear Lifers, you are in luck. We are talking about The Saving Problem, defining an Emergency Fund, discussing our experience and giving you 9 Tips to Start Your $1000 Emergency Fund.

For more information and show notes, go to the article titled "9 Tips to Start Your $1000 Emergency Fund" on smallscalelife.com.

*Also make sure to download the FREE Budgeting Bundle on smallscalelife.com as well! Start your journey to becoming financially free today!

Welcome to the Small Scale Gardening Podcast on the Small Scale Life Network!

Why is Small Scale Gardening important?

You might be new to gardening, a grizzled veteran of many summers or new to this Small Scale Gardening platform, and you might be asking that very question. After all, what can you really do with a small garden? Can you grow anything in a small garden? What is the point? After all, bigger is ALWAYS better!

Au contraire, my friends!

In this post and episode, I am defining Small Scale Gardening, and I discuss why it could be a game-changer for new gardeners; veteran gardeners; older or physically challenged gardeners; and renters. This post and podcast episode will serve as a framework for future gardening projects, articles, podcast episodes and videos.

Let’s begin!

For more on this topic and to see the show notes, please go to the corresponding article on Small Scale Life titled "Why Small Scale Gardening?"

It is New Year’s Resolution time. Everyone makes them; most people break them. We discussed New Year’s Resolutions last year about this time, and you can read or listen to my article titled Four Tips for Keeping Resolutions here. What if you took a different approach to your 2020 New Year’s Resolutions? What if you focused on your mindset and approach to life rather than diet, healthy lifestyle, finances, or some other resolution? What is if you adopted some or all of 12 Unique New Year’s Resolutions from a Caldera in Hawaii?

You might be asking: what is a Caldera and what can I learn from it? You might be wondering if old Tommy Cakes drank too much or smoked something funny over in Hawaii. Trust me, my friends, I am completely sober and drug-free, and I will explain everything if you stick with me.

In this 160th Episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, I am going to briefly discuss our wonderful trip to Hawaii, define a Caldera, discuss the 12 Unique New Year’s Resolutions from a Caldera, and walk through a practical application of these Resolutions in your own life.

[For show notes and other links, please see the post titled Unique New Year's Resolutions from a Caldera by clicking on this text.](simple living, minimalism, homesteading,)

Happy New Year, Lifers! 2019 is now in the rearview mirror, and I have to say it was an interesting year here at Small Scale Life. I am writing this 2019 Year in Review to wrap up the year and close this chapter in the history of the blog and podcast.

I have to say: what a year it was!

In this post and podcast, I am going to talk about three major topics of Small Scale Life in 2019: Health and Fitness Renew You, Financial Freedom and Gardening. I will also share 2019 Year in Review: Top 10 Podcast Episodes and Top 10 Blog Posts of 2019. I will finish this post by talking about what is on tap for 2020.

For more links to the podcast episodes and articles on Small Scale Life, check out the show notes on Small Scale Life by clicking this text!

There is nothing like putting together or receiving Do It Yourself (DIY) Christmas Gifts. This is a special gift that someone made with you in mind. At the same time, if you create a DIY gift, you are using your resources (time, skills and materials) to create something special for friends or family. It can be a great experience when it all turns out! Yes, I am not including Pinterest fails here!

If you want to buy something from a company or vendor, time IS running out, friends! If you have been following Small Scale Life, you know I recently posted an article titled Holiday Gift Ideas from the Small Scale Life Community. This was an opportunity to provide links to folks who we have met through Small Scale Life, and it felt good to give folks from our community the exposure.

So what happens if you miss the shipping cutoff (which is around December 18th or so)? Well, wait no longer! It is time to pull out one or more of these 11 DIY Christmas Gifts for family and friends on your list! We also included 4 Bonus DIY Christmas Gifts that would be excellent, but they take some more time, planning and materials that might not be available with 8 days before the big day.

For the show notes, please go to the article titled "11 DIY Christmas Gifts" at Small Scale Life. Please click the text to go to the show notes.

In this podcast, I am going to talk about my November travels, and then we are going to talk about the future of Small Scale Life. As a Life Alchemist, I am mixing together equal parts of my own content, content from people in our community, content I find interesting and some good old fashioned fun.

For more information and the show notes, check out smallscalelife.com.

SMALL SCALE LIFE SHOW NOTES: https://www.smallscalelife.com/giving-thanks

SMALL SCALE LIFE COMMUNITY: https://www.facebook.com/groups/smallscalelifepodcast

As we close in on our 100,000th download of the Small Scale Life Podcast on our current host Fireside, I wanted to get some bonus material out to our Lifer Community. This is one of those pieces of content.

I took a great kombucha class on Saturday from a gentleman who's great tasting kombucha got me interested in making the drink back in late October 2018. Taking the class highlighted the need and importance of mentoring. Often we start projects or efforts and get lost in the complexity and minutia. What if we got a mentor in our area that experienced some of these same challenges? What if we learned from and perhaps improve on that experience? We might save ourselves a lot of money, energy and time by connecting with a mentor, listening to their advice and executing on that advice.

That mentor could be a young person or an old person. Whomever it is, they have been there and done that, and they probably know the right way to do it for your local conditions. They might know a shortcut or two and what pitfalls to avoid.

As you make those connections in your area, make sure you stop talking and listen. The mentor with the knowledge and the experience is there to help you, but you need to be still and hear what they have to say. There is a lot of noise in this world, and chances are we have bumped into a mentor or two in our daily travels. Stop, look and listen means more than just being cautious around railroad tracks, Lifers!

Also part of this podcast, I talk about the most current News from Around the Bend article and some of our picks in that article. I also talk about the most recent posts on Small Scale Life, the Simply Canning School with Sharon Peterson and of course our FREE buget bundle. Get them while they are hot at[** smallscalelife.com**](smallscalelife.com)!

Life for all of us gets crazy and out of control. We are on the run and go, and it can feel like we are getting out of control and stressed out. It is when we are out of control that we find ourselves making snap decisions that can cost us in the long run. Our Lifer Community on Facebook has been providing some great tips and ideas for saving money all year. In this episode of the Small Scale Life Podcast, I am going to discuss 10 Kitchen Thrifty Thursday Tips from our members, and hopefully you can use some of these tips to take back control of your life and budget while saving some money in the process.

Topics in this podcast episode include the following:

For more information and links, check the show notes in the article titled: https://smallscalelife.com/10-kitchen-thrifty-thursday-tips.