We’re back! After a quiet season dealing with a major health journey, Aaron and Julia (The Canny Couple) are officially relaunching the podcast as Living Dirt Cheap. In this episode, we share the “why” behind our name change, a candid update on Julia’s battle with New Daily Persistent Headache (NDPH), and how our frugal systems literally saved us during our hardest year yet.
We’re shifting our focus from pure homesteading to the bigger picture: Practical Frugal Living. We’re talking real-life budget breakdowns and how to build a life that costs less without feeling deprived.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
• Why “Reliance” is now “Living Dirt Cheap”
• The health scare that paused our content and what we learned about financial margin
• Our 3 pillars for 2026: Money Systems, Food Savings, and the Frugal Mindset
• Why the garden and canning are still in our “frugal toolbox”
What this podcast is all about:
• Real-life budgets from a debt-free, one-income family
• Frugal Living Tips you can actually stick with
• Grocery and pantry strategies to cut your food bill
• Using homesteading (gardening, canning, preserving) to support living on one income.
• Mindset and contentment when no one around you lives this way
If you’re tired of money stress and want simple, realistic budgeting and how to save money strategies for a normal family, this podcast is for you.
Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or you’re looking for a fresh, debt-free start for 2026, welcome home. Let’s build a life that costs less, one small change at a time.
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We are a debt-free family living on one normal income in rural Southwest Virginia without feeling deprived. After paying off all our debt, we realized real freedom didn’t come from earning more; it came from needing less on purpose. We treat our home as an asset and use traditional skills to solve modern money problems.
Join us each week as we share the practical financial strategies, frugal habits, and "inflation shields" that allow us to live a rich life on a small budget. If you want to escape the rat race and build wealth, you're in the right place.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
On this week's episode of Rural Reliance, Aaron and Julia share how they handled their 2024 goals and how they are approaching 2025 differently. With a laser focus and determination, you can reach your homestead or frugal objectives as well.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Trends come and go, but traditional homesteading is here to stay. In today's episode, Aaron and Julia share what they do a bit differently on their homestead and how it works best for their family.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Did you meet your financial goals for November? Today, Aaron and Julia share what went right and wrong with their November budget and how they go into the winter months with a clear financial plan.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
As a mom and perfectionist, Julia understands that feeling of wanting to control as much around her day to day life as possible. But this is an unrealistic and unreasonable expectation we put on ourselves. Today, she shares her strategies to embrace and handle the chaos that comes with life.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Frugality is about more than saving money, it is also about spending money on the items or experiences that bring you joy. Julia shares her own personal struggles with how she handles spending money on larger purchases without feeling regrets afterward.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Aaron and Julia have shared how they have grown in their frugal homesteading journey over the years. Today, they discuss how to really merge homesteading and frugality to build an effective homestead with cost efficiencies in mind.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
The holiday season is busy and expensive enough without adding decorations to your growing list of purchases. Today, Julia shares her top tip, and a little hard love, on how she saves the most money when creating a holiday atmosphere in her home.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Dreams and goals on the homestead, or in life, can get expensive if you are not looking at the complete picture. Today, Aaron and Julia discuss what they do when they are looking to make a change or addition to their growing homestead to ensure that it is a good fit and that it actually makes financial sense.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
The days for big deals are almost upon us and if you are not careful, you can end up spending way more than you anticipated. On this week's episode of Rural Reliance, Aaron and Julia share their tried and true tips for maximizing their savings for shopping these big deal days.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Everyone's homestead dream is a little bit different, and Julia is no exception to that rule. On this week's episode, she discusses what she wants from her homestead journey and how she hopes to get there.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
On this week's episode of Rural Reliance with the Canny Couple, Aaron and Julia share how their budget was for October. With several successes and failures, they show that consistent budgeting and frugal experimentation will help you reach your financial goals.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Change can be empowering, even if it is a simple change to your working pantry. On this week's episode, Julia shares how she is shifting her focus for her family's food storage to create a sustainable, easy system that works for her whole family while creating a less stressful environment in emergency situations.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Holidays are a joyful and stressful time of the year, and can be extremely expensive. There are ways to manage the costs. Today, Aaron and Julia share what they do every year to help keep their overall holiday spending on budget including food, gifting, and decorations.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Projects in themselves can be overwhelming and daunting. Trying to save money as well can feel impossible. Today, Julia shares her approach to project planning to ensure functionality, durability, and cost savings in the short term and the long term.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
What is happening this fall on your homestead? Today, Aaron and Julia share what their fall focus is and the long list of goals they hope to accomplish to start pushing the growth of their homestead.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Being a mom comes with struggles no one can understand until they experience them themselves. Today, Julia shares her personal struggles with being a mom as well as how she powers through them.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Aaron and Julia's preps were put to the test several days ago, and today they share how they handled the experience. They discuss on this episode of Rural Reliance how their current systems worked in an off grid system and where they need to make some improvements.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Working with your partner and being on the same page financially is one of the keys to a successful relationship. Today, Julia shares why financial awareness of your household is so important as well as providing key steps to start taking now to begin understanding your finances together.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244
Its that time of the month again. Join Aaron and Julia as they discuss where they failed and where they succeeded with this months budget on the homestead. There are lessons to learn from your financial failures and successes.
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The Canny Couple is a small homestead family in rural Southwest Virginia. We work every day on being more self-reliant by living a frugal homestead lifestyle. We live a simple, debt-free life. We hope to achieve our goal of self-sufficiency by reducing our costs, merging frugality, homesteading, traditional skills, and modern enhancements into our everyday life.
We hope you will join us as we continue to forge our homestead, where we work hard, live simple and enjoy life.
Visit us at https://linktr.ee/thecannycouple or email us with questions/suggestions at thecannycouple@yahoo.com
The Canny Couple
PO Box 464
Duffield, VA 24244