Friday, November 28, 2025

November 28 - Making Black Friday Make Sense

November 28, 2025

Day 1,519 of the Adventure


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I don't know the exact origins of Black Friday. It feels like its origins began during my lifetime but google says it began in the 1950's when the Philadelphia police began using the term to describe the chaos of shoppers trying to get their Christmas shopping done the day after Thanksgiving. Whatever the exact origins, the phenomenon has grown to epic and extreme proportions over the years. Even to the point where people plunge themselves into months worth of debt in the name of capturing the perceived "bargains" of Black Friday. Ironically, the first known reference to Black Friday was attributed to the 1869 gold market crash when a pair of financiers attempted to drive up the price of gold causing the stock market to crash. 

Black Friday's do not tend to crash markets anymore, but they certainly create space for personal financial hardship. The trends for outspending personal household budgets have long been a dominant side effect of Black Friday mayhem. My personal aversion to being around large groups of hyperactive shoppers has always been reason enough to avoid the chaos of Black Friday shopping. Then again, my deeply entrenched sense of frugality also contributes to a general disdain for shopping of any kind. While we always try to provide some much-anticipated gifts for the grandkids at Christmas, that's pretty much the limit of the hold that Christmas shopping has on us. 

I watch family and friends succumb to the hype every year, Then, witness many of them experience the follow-up hardship of climbing their way back out of the hole they created for themselves just as the high cost of surviving winter begins to set in. Like everything else in life, most things work out better when a healthy and appropriate balance exists somewhere in between "all in" and "all out". Christmas shopping is one of those. Yes, in the spirit of giving and love and generosity, exchanging gifts with one another can be a thoughtful way to express ourselves. On the flip side, it can also be a source of hardship when an obligation motive is driving it. I would never want to see loved ones place themselves into a financially difficult position simply for the selfish benefit of me receiving an allotment of Christmas gifts at any level. Just keep it and keep as much financial peace in your life as possible. Let's get together for a meal, time together, accompanied by good stories, laughs and creating new memories.  

In the spirit of gift giving, I've begun to take a new approach. Leaning hard into the self-sufficient lifestyle we find ourselves in, I'm much more in tune to finding ways to extend those skills and abilities out to the rest of the family. This year, Black Friday catches us in the middle of food preserving season. It sort of feels like the back story of a prepper movie. In reality, it's just the nature of the seasonal routine in the backwoods as the warmer days of Autumn give way to more frequent cold fronts and more indoor activity. This year, our emphasis has been on finding new and creative ways to preserve meals for short, intermediate and long-term storage. Preparing and freezing soups, stews and casseroles works very well for short term use. It creates meals that are handy for reheating quickly if the mood or the weather calls for it. Canning and vacuum sealing sets the same food preps up for a little longer "intermediate" storage for up to a year to potentially five years. After that, most all of these meals can be preserved for up to 20-25 years by freeze drying. Anyway, with that said, food prepping has been front and center of our activities this Fall going into Winter. Some of the food preps themselves are finding their way into our gift giving, along with some of the "prepping tools" needed to expand that skill/ability for our family. One of the easiest and inexpensive methods for food preservation has been a new process of us this year. Vacuum sealing has become one of our favorite methods for preserving both dry goods as well as prepared meals. Over the next month or so, we plan to produce several videos on the ease of using vacuum sealing. The necessary equipment is easy to obtain and use. The results are quick and efficient. Essentially, it consists of a vacuum sealer, sealer bags and freezer molds. Freezer molds help if you want to seal liquid-based meals in convenient blocks (or shapes) for stacking in freezer compartments.  

This year, my Black Friday recommendation is to find ways to give a gift of increased self-sufficiency. It may not be as flashy as what you can go in debt for at a department store.......... but, your effort and thoughtfulness will almost certainly be appreciated in the long view of life. Especially when the life we are all trying to survive right now is ravishing our finances from almost every direction!

If you feel the same, make sure to stay in touch, check out videos and other resources we have to offer. Regardless of how you choose to connect up, we'd be honored to have you as part of the tribe.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: "Here's to having an excellent adventure and may the stopping never start!"

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

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Tuesday, November 25, 2025

November 25 - Is The Economy Stealing Your Dream?

November 25, 2025

Day 1,516 of the Adventure


In our part of the world, deer season ends today. It's the best opportunity for restocking the freezer with venison, our primary meat source for the year here in the backwoods. Meat, along with pretty much everything else, has become nearly a luxury over the past few years. The pinnacle of reality for this came for us last summer as we had just completed our monthly "main" shopping run for groceries. What had typically cost us in the $350 range for a general month's worth of "store food", hit a whopping $750. I was expecting to see the final tally in the $500 range and was shocked that the one shopping cart of provisions could actually hold $750 worth of food. Sure, it was as full as we could get it, but still. One Cart! Ironically, it did not include meat. We've become mostly self-sufficient regarding our meat staples. This day was my wake-up call that things were not improving and if anything, they were getting worse. 

Video Link Here (Is The Economy Stealing Your Dream?)

For us, this new reality probably doesn't hit as close or as hard as it does for others. About four years ago, we began an intentional move in the direction of a more self-sufficient life. We're not as far into it as we plan to be, but we're a lot further along than many of our friends. For us, the thought of greater independence in the areas of energy, housing, food and life in general became a priority following the attempted shut-down of our business by the government during the Covid pandemic. (Don't get me started on that!) Between supply-line disruptions, the government printing and burning through money like there was no tomorrow and the general financial squeeze we began to experience, to me, the handwriting was on the wall. It told me that the going was about to get tough. Not the kind of tough that happens and then it's over. It felt like we were crossing a new threshold that we'd likely experience for a long time. One that, in fact, we may never return from. Am I right or absolutely positive about this? No, not completely, but since its beginnings, I've become more confident in the long-term nature of this new economic reality. A reality that seems to be slowly stealing the American dream from nearly everyone I know. It manifests itself in the uncontrolled rise in prices of everything from food to fuel, rents and mortgages, interest rates, insurance rates, and on and on. If you have not personally felt the economic squeeze in your life, I applaud whatever you're doing to avoid it. 

Oddly enough, while the economic and even world conditions are forcing our life dreams into oblivion, for me, they opened a new door to dreams I'd never found the time or courage to pursue. The dreams of a more independent, self-sufficient, back to the land, basic life. One based on the abundance of a life lived closer to our own terms, pace and values. A life where we were less encumbered by the decisions of others and more directed by our own choices of direction. The moment came in the sobering realization that things were changing and I could choose to be run over by the change or go all in on an alternative pathway. With that decision made, we immediately began looking for a footprint of land we could begin this new journey upon. Our canvas became a twelve-acre slice of the Missouri Ozarks. Fully raw land, untouched by human hands and ready for a transformation into our dream of a backwoods, simple life. My wife is always quick to remind me that simple does not translate to "easy". This is true. Most of what we've done to this point has not been easy. It's been fulfilling!

We've transformed the wildness into "partially civilized". We have a cabin to live in as we are now four years in and have finally begun to build our permanent house. We've built a garden area and now have two years worth of experience in living off of and preserving the abundance of it for future use. We've become largely energy independent, and completely independent from a "heat energy" point of view. Our monthly grocery reliance on the "store bought" supplies is now back under $300 and actually closer to $200. In fact, in four relatively short years, we've essentially reversed the economic "creep" upward and have forced most of it into our submission. Easy? Not necessarily. Satisfying and meaningful? Absolutely! That's just a small summary of our story, but the important question is, can it become your story. If this even resonates with you, and perhaps it doesn't, but if it does, where is the starting point?

I've always said and believed that no one ever changes until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of the change. This is true in this area of life as well. Our commitment is a simple one. Improve our personal quality of life while helping guide and encourage others to do the same. We've learned what it's like to overcome the fear and anxiety of choosing a new life path. We've had to search hundreds of pieces of land to find the one that uniquely fit our dreams and goals. We've opened up raw land and have built the basic infrastructure necessary to live comfortably on that land. We have close to four years of harvesting the abundance that's available on our twelve small acres. All this and more is now making up the foundation of our life. We pay attention to the news trends more for strategic decision making than we do for what it does to feed dread into our lives. We've gone from a life of trying to cope with keeping our head above water to actually feeling like we are out-maneuvering the economic avalanche that is continually trying to overtake us. There's a sense of empowerment to this life. One that is almost addictive. It feels as if some level of control and direction has been wrestled away from other forces, government comes to mind. 

Again, if any of this rings true or sounds like a viable game-plan, the question needs to be asked. Is It My Time? If the answer is yes, then welcome to the journey. Everything we have to offer is connected to our blog, YouTube channel and website for free. Some of it, we've transposed into books that consolidate it into one resource for a modest cost. An example of that is our "Back To The Land" book available on Amazon which takes 30 steps to starting your Back to the Land YouTube playlist and makes it available in book form. 

Regardless of how you choose to connect up, we'd be honored to have you as part of the tribe.

Carry On

Adventure Quote: "Here's to having an excellent adventure and may the stopping never start!"

Resources

Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.

YouTube Channel: The Campfire Trail
YouTube Channel: Life of Treasures

Our Books
Treasures of Life - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Treasures of Life 2 - Daily Devotional by Shelley
Back to the Land - Planning your Back to the Land Roadmap by Martin
Wealth Creation - Principles of Wealth Creation by Martin

Please Consider Subscribing to our newsletter in the upper right corner of this page.
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