About the Founders

About Fruclassity’s faithful leaders, Laurie & Ruth

Laurie (The Frugal Farmer) and Ruth (Prudence Debfree), have a lot in common:

• We are both in debt and trying to get out of it.
• We both have a history of poor money management – a history of financing our lifestyle with debt.
• Each has a husband who is/was the main breadwinner of the household, and who suffered a loss of income just at the worst time – in the thick of raising a family.
• Each had a wake-up moment and got psyched to turn things around.
• We both got kick-started on our road to debt-freedom by reading Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. We continue to read books and blogs about personal finance.
• We have both embraced a lifestyle of greater frugality.
• We both blog about the ups and downs of our progress in debt-reduction.
• We are both Christians, and we recognize the spiritual side of money management. (And we both have many friends of other faiths or no faith.)
• We both love to engage with others who are trying to make their way to financial health.

There are also differences between the two of us:

• Laurie and her husband have four children still living at home. Ruth and her husband have three children – one all grown and on her own, two still at home.
• Laurie lives in the U.S. Ruth lives in Canada.
• Laurie and her family homestead. Ruth and her family live in the suburbs.
• Laurie home-schools her children. Ruth is a teacher who works in a high school library.
• Laurie’s husband works for a company. Ruth’s husband is self-employed in a home-based business.
• Laurie and her family live a more intensive frugality than Ruth and her family.

The similarities and differences between us have combined to form a rich online relationship that challenges and motivates each of us. We are so excited about hosting this site together and inviting you to join in the discussion: To share your experiences, observations, discouragements and victories. To find a safe place to ask your questions, share your struggles and to get the motivation you need to navigate your path to financial fitness at a time when too many of us are in very bad shape. Let’s take this on together!