Free Range Life

Remote Workers, Don’t Get Left Behind – Here’s a Tip to Stay on Your Manager’s Radar

By Rachel Puryear As much as remote work opens up wonderful opportunities for lifestyle and family life, it has its tradeoffs. One challenge facing remote workers is how to remotely build rapport with your manager and colleagues, and participate in company culture. In-person work naturally offers spontaneous opportunities to bond and build rapport with managers…

How to Access Udemy Courses Online for Free

By Rachel Puryear If you’re considering a career shift, or you want to learn new skills and brush up on old ones; Udemy is an online learning platform where you can choose from many thousands of courses to help you accomplish those goals. Here’s a way to access this rich personal and professional development resource,…

From Riches to Rags: Lessons We Can Learn from Lottery Winners Who Went Broke

By Rachel Puryear Whether you like to buy lottery tickets or not, you have probably heard stories of lotto winners (and some mega celebrities) who quickly became fantastically rich, only to go broke within a few short years. Most people are puzzled as to how one could come into such ruin quickly following incredible luck…

For Your Next Road Trip, a Guide to Highway Rest Areas

By Rachel Puryear If you’re planning a road trip of more than a few hours, you might need to stop and rest somewhere along the way that’s safe, and preferably free. In that spirit, here’s your guide to the do’s and dont’s of highway rest stops. Rest areas are found every so often all along…

Easy Ways You Can Help Afghan Refugees Right Now

By Rachel Puryear Dear readers, when I first started this blog, I did so out of a strong belief in personal freedom. The principle that people should be empowered to live their lives on their terms, and also respect and defend others’ right to do the same; drove me to keep writing and building this…

Low-Income Americans Can Now Eat Better, Thanks to Permanent Food Benefit Boost

By Rachel Puryear The Biden Administration just announced that Americans receiving food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will soon receive a 25% increase in their benefits. This will be effective October 2021, and will automatically and indefinitely apply to all recipients of the SNAP program. Although food benefits through SNAP have been…

Reducing Pay for Remote Workers Will Present Interesting Legal Questions – Including Unexpected Complexities

By Rachel Puryear As many people who worked remotely during the pandemic will now continue to do so permanently, some tech companies such as Google are weighing cutting pay for remote workers. Naturally, this gives rise to a hot debate. The Employers’ Perspective: Google’s side of the argument is that they do and always have…

Nomadic Life Requires Rethinking What Success Looks Like

By Rachel Puryear Since the mid-20th century in the U.S., most of us have been brought up with a certain ideal of success: Big expensive house, luxurious car, stylish clothes, moving up the corporate ladder at a prestigious company. For some people, this model works for them. There is also, however, a dark side to…

Eleventh Hour Eviction Ban Extension – Who’s Covered, What They Can Do

By Rachel Puryear ** NOTE: This article is no longer up to date. The CDC’s decision to extend the eviction moratorium was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court subsequent to publication, but this remains up for the links to aid organizations. ** After the previous eviction moratorium expired on July 31, the Centers for Disease…

No Student Loan Payments Due this Holiday Season – the Freeze is Extended!

By Rachel Puryear Around the holidays, this is a favorite meme I often see circulating: I don’t think even Santa can pull that one off, but the Biden Administration did give student debtors everywhere a bit of relief that will make for a lot of brighter holidays – in the form of the student loan…