Flat Broke with Two Goats

by Jennifer McGaha

Jennifer McGaha never expected to own a goat named Merle. Or to be setting Merle up on dates and naming his doeling Merlene. She didn't expect to be buying organic yogurt for her chickens. She never thought she would be pulling camouflage carpet off her ceiling or rescuing opossums from her barn and calling it date night. Most importantly, Jennifer never thought she would only have $4.57 in her bank account. When Jennifer discovered that she and her husband owed back taxes--a lot of back taxes--her world changed. Now desperate to save money, they foreclosed on their beloved suburban home and moved their family to a one-hundred-year-old cabin in a North Carolina holler. Soon enough, Jennifer's life began to more closely resemble the lives of her Appalachian ancestors than the life she experienced in her middle class upbringing. But what started as a last-ditch effort to settle debts became a journey that revealed both the joys and challenges of living close to the land. Told with bold wit, unflinching honesty, and a firm foot in the traditions of Appalachia, Flat Broke with Two Goats blends stories of homesteading with the journey of two people rediscovering the true meaning of home.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Audiobook, Biography, Biography Memoir, Book Club, Animals

10 pages, Audiobook

First published January 23, 2018

About the author

A native of Appalachia, Jennifer McGaha lives with her husband, five dogs, twenty-three chickens, and one high-maintenance cat in a tin-roofed cabin bordering the Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina. Her creative nonfiction work has appeared in Brooklyner, Toad Suck Review, Switchback, Still, Portland Review, Little Patuxent Review, Lumina, Literary Mama, Mason’s Road, Now and Then, and others. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, running, mountain biking, sampling local beers, and playing with dogs.

From: http://www.yourimpossiblevoice.com/je...

Reviews

[j e w e l s · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was the choice for my local library "Big Read". Though somewhat entertaining, I'm at a loss as to why the library chose this particular book. The author is a college English instructor, but her writing never rises above beginning blogger level. So many cliches! Positive events are "like winning the lottery!" Grueling ordeals are "like completing a marathon!" Ughhhhhh. Nobody asked me, but I would prefer actual literature to be read and discussed within libraries.

This is a kind of Riches-to-Rags cautionary tale. Jennifer's husband, a CPA, didn't file his own income tax for many years. Yep. You read that right. Jennifer was be-bopping around and had no idea of their precarious financial status. Listen, when the IRS comes after you, they don't mess around. The family of 5 lost their beautiful home to foreclosure and with no other choice, they were forced to move into a cabin in the woods. Their lives now revolved around spiders, snakes and shady Appalachian characters.

Eventually, they kind of pull themselves together and face their situation. They are huge animal lovers and realize they may have some natural talent with raising chickens and goats. This is the most enjoyable part of the book. Jennifer writes in detail about their naiveness and googling everything from what to feed goats to how to milk them. She is able to describe the animal's personalities and what they meant to them on an almost spiritual level. It is both funny and enlightening to read about the goats. I really loved that part of the book.

I think it takes a lot of courage to write your memoir when it involves so many of your own mistakes and I do appreciate the author for that. I just wish the final product was more evenly written and structured more professionally.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook.... read by Pam Ward

Financial mis-management has consequences!!!

Listening to this Audiobook was at times mind-boggling. It did hold my attention!
The author admittedly shared that her kids attended private schools,
she lived in a beautiful home, threw large decadent dinner parties, owned 5 dogs,
But....
Her ACCOUNTANT husband admitted ( one night in bed) that he didn’t have enough money LEFT OVER to pay their taxes for 4 years.
THAT TYPE OF FLAT BROKE COULD SEND PEOPLE TO JAIL!! THAT TYPE OF FLAT BROKE....leaves people with a BAD REPUTATION.....and next to impossible to get CREDIT again.

I understand their mistake...both Mr. and Mrs. McGaha. They both tried to live their American Dream and provide the ‘best’ for their kids. Even in modern days....there are still marriages where the man handles the finances, and the woman children
Jennifer was the type of mother who was ‘active’ with her kids. So even though she had a college degree with a teaching credential....she took care of the house, her children’s needs, the ‘spending’ for their family, while her husband was gone a lot working extra long hours to pay for their high fix expenses.
Besides the costs of private schools for 3 kids - where the tuition goes up every year- the Financial responsibility of caring for five dogs it’s not cheap.

So — yes - this family was FLAT BROKE — and this memoir is absorbing. The author admits she had idealized her life. She couldn’t distinguish from what was real, from what she wanted. THAT’S DANGEROUS....but she does tell us the truth!

I continued to listen to the trials and tribulations.....
Their solution was foreclosure.
Instead of their chic lifestyle they had been living ....
they would experience SHABBY-CHIC on “BROKE-GOAT-MOUNTAIN” in North Carolina.
She made goat cheese, yogurt and soap ,....had lots of hens and goats...

On the emotional side.... there was plenty, too. Blame,shame,anger, hope, fears, embarrassment, loss, grieving, friction & spousal threats, inner reflections, old memories of a first abusive marriage and feelings of Jennifer’s grandmother, growth and understanding, self acceptance and forgiveness.

At the core of this story ....Jennifer LOVES the people and animals in her life.
That can never be measured or go under foreclosure.

[Ileana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a frustrating read. At every turn, McGaha and her husband make cringe-worthy decisions. How do you owe a hundred grand to the IRS, lose your home to foreclosure, screw over two friends in the deal, then brag about how much you love to buy and drink (expensive) craft beer? Or talk about how much you respect how hard your grandparents and great-grandparents worked to raise their families in rural Appalachia while you wring your hands over your financial ruin, make few changes to curb your lifestyle, while exuding middle class white privilege and bourgeoisie? And then think your story is interesting or worthy enough to tell others? Ugh. I'm pissed I fell for it. My favorite parts of this book were the bits and pieces that I recognize from living in NC -- references to towns and places I love. But as for McGaha's story? I give it a thumbs down, and I give her a "bless your heart".

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flat Broke with Two Goats: A Memoir of Appalachia is about a woman and her husband
downgrading because of some bad financial decisions.
I felt this book should have been titled Whaaa or maybe Poor David.
The writing was good but the author doesn't accept personal responsibility
for anything that happened to her.

[Chris Maier · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most frustrating stories I've ever read. The author, and lead character stumbles through life and never seems to get any wiser as a result of her mistakes and flaws. She simplistically recites an unending series of pathetic activities and actions that are SO easy to fix it avoid. A train wreck from start to finish. Glad it's over.

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

How could you resist a memoir with the title Flat Broke With Two Goats? I couldn't and I don't regret it. Jennifer McGaha and her husband David were living an upper middle class life near Asheville, North Carolina. They had two kids in college and one in private school, a big house and two cars. But it turned out that they were spending way more money than they earned. The solution to their troubles was giving up their house and moving to a cabin in the woods. McGaha's memoir is a bit of a mishmash. She talks about her family backgrounds and her strong bond with her grandparents. She paints a vivid picture of what led to the financial disaster, and the tension it created in their marriage. She also gives some recipes and long descriptions of her experience with animal husbandry including a lot of information about mating goats. This isn't a flaw. She's a good writer -- good humoured and congenial -- and she is self-pity free. In fact, while there is some heartbreak and anger in McGaha's narrative, she is very much a glass half full kind of person -- making this an entertaining story of how she made the best out of a bad situation -- including writing this book.

Don't read Flat Broke With Two Goats if you're looking for a typical story about a family caught in a foreclosure precipitated by the 2008 financial crisis. As McGaha describes her new found hardscrabble life in the cabin, she makes reference to the "dishwasher" -- hardly true hardship.

And don't read Flat Broke With Two Goats if you're afraid of snakes. They make a few scary appearances in McGaha's life.

But still, McGaha has a good story to tell and I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

[Jennifer]

DNF at 40%
I can’t take any more of this author playing the repetitious role of victim...

[Annelies · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is good, the content is self-delusional.

[Kirstin Larson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is flat out insulting to people who have ACTUALLY suffered unanticipated, devastating disasters in their lives. It is hard not to judge the insufferable author, who excuses her own culpability and whines her way through her own personal tale of poverty, populated by private-school educations for her 3 children and 'snobbish' craft beers. In a world full of ACTUAL suffering and sacrifice, this book is a self-indulgent piece of crap. I seldom pan a book, but this one truly missed the mark for me, and I feel too outraged to be kind.

[Amy S · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was advertised by my local library as some kind of national book club thing so I checked it out.
I chose to finish reading this book but struggled to motivate myself. The entire thing just felt like a rambling monologue covering such various topics as; finance, family history, dream interpretation, farming/homesteading, construction, animal husbandry, online shopping, and goat ailments.
Looking for something meaningful and uplifting was difficult amongst the listings of all the challenges and failures with little gratitude or appreciation. The short mentions of thankfulness to the kind veterinarian and towards a sick dog were bright notes in a dull piece.
Between the recipes and the "educational" pieces on chickens and goats there was some mildly interesting narrative. Like with reading Moby Dick, if you skip every other portion or so the story is sort of there.
This kind of book makes me uncomfortable in the way it invites the reader to judge without being judgemental. I wanted to empathize with the writer's struggles but the entitlement over expensive foods and alcohol, private schools, and social activities that added up to insurmountable levels of debt, and then the ensuing confusion over the consequences of debt just frustrated me. The author admits her parents set an example of frugal living but her standards and requirements in life were not the same as those of her parents. Then there was the condescending chapter about a grandfather who worked a job in a paper mill (thus providing a solid life for his family) rather than being "true to himself" and living some kind of alternate "best life". That account just put me off entirely. Here she is writing about her failures while criticizing others for doing their best and patting herself on the back for quitting the job she needed to support her family and pay off her debts because... well, I wasn't clear on that part.
The last nail in the 'I'm-sorry-what-did-you-just-not-hear-yourself-say?' coffin was her complaints and dislike for government and law enforcement because they were obligated to enforce the consequences of the broken laws the author admits to having broken. The law people were just people doing their jobs and I'm guessing they found those jobs pretty unpleasant when dealing with the situations like the one the author and her husband had created.
Violence, descriptions of animals mating, swearing. Multiple adult themes.

I hope she makes enough on the sale of this book to pay off some of her debts and then actually pays them.

[Margitte · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reason why the rating stopped at 4 stars was that this memoir was too wordy in some places. A creative writing faux pas sometimes.

But overall it was a wonderful, inspirational read of a woman who had to come to terms with the consequences of living way above their means, and then came crushing down when things went seriously sour.

She blamed her husband, he was in charge of the finances, she said. Not mentioning that she was the one doing the spending, most of the time. Sending their kids to private school, living in a home that was perhaps too expensive, etc. The ringing alarms should have kept her awake when she needed too many credit cards to keep the lifestyle afloat, but how many people would want to admit that, right? Common sense should have delayed her upward mobility. She preferred, however, to blame her kind and caring husband who worked 18 hours a day to make ends meet.

There are many people in her shoes. I felt connected to her story, since we live through the same era and experience the same pains. Millions of people do. An economic correction brought many a billion down to earth. So in a sense, she's us. And we don't like ourselves in her. So we criticize ourselves, by criticizing her. Called projection. Poor Jennifer. We make her pay for our own sins, and she had enough of her own on her plate, as it is.

For me, her epiphany came when she told her husband that she did not trust him. And he said he knew. But then she realized he did not trust her either(without telling her that) and so withheld the truth from her. Well, she had to put that in her pipe and smoke it. And she did. A painful experience. But it also changed who she was from there on.

Her experiences in her first marriage scared the living daylights out of me. Oy! What a blessing it was for her to marry David, the generous, hard-working man afterwards.

It is a truly great read. I loved her experiences with the remote lifestyle, the chickens, the goats, and their new-found discoveries of an old, but to them, new lifestyle out in the sticks. She was creative in learning new skills, exploring new possibilities such as making goat cheese and soap. I happily related to that, coming from a yuppie environment and living on a very remote farm myself. I had so much fun with Jennifer's experiences. Know all about chickens and their politics. They are a huge presence in my life with their distinct personalities and social interaction. Really funny. And yes, I stopped sending photos to everyone of every single chick being born after I realized how wacky it looked to all the loved ones. An epiphanous moment for me! :-)) Oh there are so many of those.

I loved Jennifer's honesty, or should I say, limited honesty, for it is a memoir after all. There are real identifiable people involved. But she provided enough information to lure the reader in, without throwing everyone around her under the bus. Honest but considerate.

One of her recipes involving goat cheese, included an hilarious account of how to get hold of the goats, how to get them to mate, how to separate the kids from the mother overnight so that Jenn an David can get milk the next morning, so that she can make cheese, so that... I really enjoyed that. Basically, she taught her reader how to add a dollop of humor to hardships, and it worked. She also taught her reader the magic of friendship between husband and wife.

We shared and introspective journey with a gutsy, courageous, and creative sister in this book. I applaud her for taking us along and bringing the fun into the daily challenges, restoring equilibrium in our own lives by doing that.

I can only wish her and her family well and hope they can conquer the IRS in the end. It's a constant never-ending battle for so many. Moral of the story: keep it simple, keep it real. I so agree with that.

Oh....and Jennifer....I think you are a STAR!

RECOMMENDED!!!

PS. This reviewer does not agree with me. However I so enjoyed his thoughts that I want to add a link to the review here.

https://misanthropester.com/2018/01/1...

[Bam cooks the books · Rating 2 out of 5]

**Big Library Read selection--April, 2018. I think I might be done with these Big Library Reads, picked by librarians from around the world. They are so often not to my tastes and leave me wondering why they were ever chosen.

In this memoir, Jennifer McGaha tells the story of what happened when her family lost everything in the Recession of 2008. Her husband David was an accountant who allowed himself and his family to fall more than $350,000 in debt: credit cards maxed, cars being repossessed, house in foreclosure, phone disconnected, power being turned off, summons to court for non-payment of bills, AND owing the IRS more than $100,000 in back taxes and penalties AND another $8000 to the state of NC! And this man is an accountant! His excuse for not filing income tax returns for four years? 'I didn't have the money.'

Jennifer, a part time adjunct college English professor with a master's degree, was somehow able to bury her head in the sand, ignoring all these problems, continuing to believe that 'somehow David always managed to fix things.'

The last straw though was when three IRS agents showed up at David's office and started garnisheeing their wages, freezing what little they had in savings. THEN they finally had to admit they had a problem, a very serious problem.

Instead of moving into a small apartment, buckling down on expenses, finding ways to earn more money and selling off possessions to pay off their debt, they decide to move instead to a ramshackle century old cabin in the backwoods of NC. Oh, the joys of homesteading. It was to be an 'adventure' and they would raise chickens and goats--'a new hobby, a distraction to help us forget everything we had lost.' What did they know about doing these things? Only what they could learn on Google. 'We had a barn and farm animals, but that in itself didn't make us farmers.' No duh!

How could they afford to buy these animals, feed them, build enclosures, yet worry about whether they could afford to pay a vet when things started to go wrong?

I'm coming to the conclusion that memoirs are just not for me. Granted, this was fairly well written, but I just could not get past the fact--all right, the judgment--that this couple, Jennifer and David McGaha, were spoiled rotten, privileged people who never really seemed to learn from their mistakes, and weren't growing in maturity or responsibility.

I'm pretty sure Jennifer must have written this memoir to earn some money--so more power to her for that. Hopefully, she'll pay back money she owes (like to all of us taxpayers) instead of starting any more exciting new hobbies. Hope she really likes that goat's milk soap! Seems like a lot of expense to go through to be able to say, "I made my own soap!"

[Devon Tutak · Rating 2 out of 5]

What is the Dewey decimal range for “white privilege”?

I read this book as part of the #BigLibraryRead, and am disappointed that the initiative chose a book that whitewashes poverty and shines a light on middle-class fiscal irresponsibility, instead of a book that addresses the systems that create real poverty (the kind where you can’t afford to buy and raise goats and drink craft beer every day). I hope next time, the #BigLibraryRead will choose a book that actually challenges readers.

[cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

The choice of this book for a 'Big Library Read' is confusing to me. How in the world was this book selected - from among all of the amazing writing about experiences across the spectrum of poverty and rural life - for an Overdrive-sponsored discussion? That selection is what brought me to read the book, and to holding INCREDIBLY mixed feelings about the memoir.

This book requires me to really embrace a both/and approach to reviewing -- not for the writing itself, but to tease apart the places where the author's self-claimed identity of 'flat broke' is beyond misleading and borders on offensive, while at the same time acknowledging that her writing about her Appalachian home, that deep sense of place and her descriptions of it, were so compelling that I dreamt of water running over rocks and lush green vegetation and the smell of wood smoke.

The very rooted sense of Appalachia is the strength of the book, and is somehow also part of the frustration that I have - the author claims poverty, "flat broke" is a part of the title even, yet based on everything that the memoir shares about her life, she is NOWHERE near flat broke in a systemic way.

I understand that the foreclosure of their home in 2012 (and the underlying tax debt that caused it) was a dramatic shift in the financial health of their household, but people who are flat broke don't have anywhere NEAR the privilege that the author has. She is never near homelessness -- especially given the support system of family nearby and her earning power, not to mention the fact that she is not dealing with racism or other systemic oppressions / injustices at the same time.

She regularly makes decision to spend money on things that no one who is actually flat broke could afford -- private school for her high schooler, an MFA for herself, craft beer for every moment she needs a drink, the very spend ingredients for her homemade soap, and so many more examples. Yes, I imagine she and her family are experiencing financial instability, and a drastic decline in expendable income, but to claim actual poverty is a slap in the face to the millions of people in our country , Appalachian or not, who are routinely forced to choose between food and diapers, or between a visit to the Dr. and rent -- situations that never come near the experiences shared in this book, where even their farm animals and pets get veterinary care when needed.

All of that may have felt very different to me if the author had acknowledged any of it EVEN ONCE. A review on Misanthropester does a great job of summarizing how I felt :

"Although easy reading and clearly well crafted, the ultimate thrust of this memoir is petty and myopic–a bourgeois tale of roughing it where responsibility is never taken & the author is never able to see beyond her own nose. Nearly every meaningful moment is undercut by a skin-crawling, privileged point of view seeing working class existence as at once a burden and a novelty."

https://misanthropester.com/2018/01/1...

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

At age 16 my grandmother and uncle took me with them to West Plains, MO. I had spent a few years reading books about mountain people, and it is obvious that I still do, and so this was a chance of a lifetime. As we were driving down a road I saw a woman with a small herd of goats. I wanted to be that woman. My uncle called her a goat lady. I now buy goat milk from a friend of mine who doesn’t know that she is also referred to as a goat lady by me. So this book was right up my alley.

The author is an excellent writer, but the first half of the book wasn’t about goats, it was about her and her husband going broke in an upper middle class home during the 2008 recession, and I must say, that was a page turner. They had three mortgages, and unknown to her, her husband had not paid taxes in three years. The tax people were now after them, and they were more than just flat broke.

I was also disappointed when I read that she was not happy with her new home, the rented cabin in the woods, while I, on the other hand, was excited and filled with envy. The cabin needed fixin’ up. My husband and I have fixed up a few homes in our life, and we really miss doing this. It is enough just to keep our home in repair now that we are old. And I have always wanted to live in a cabin in the woods, but like she said, there was not enough light, and I love and need light.

So, I had hoped that she would love her new cabin, but she was used to fancy living, so in time she found a teaching job in another State, left her husband for a few months and found herself living in a caboose.

When they first moved to the cabin she complained about the mice, so she got a live trap to catch them. At last, I thought, she was beginning to sound like me, but I want to tell her that live traps don’t work, because mice breed too fast. I can’t begin to tell you how many I released at the river or at the creek in our city park. My final solution was getting feral cats, ones I had altered after they showed up at our door, and I have two house cats. Mice all gone. While I couldn’t kill the mice, the cats could.

I only had three cats at our old farm house in Creston, but that wasn’t enough. When we moved out I found dog kibble in one of my husband’s old cowboy boots. Jars go a long ways to storing food as mice can’t get in them. So, if the author reads this review, she will know to find some jars in various sizes. Sealing up cracks along the floor boards will keep those ring neck snakes out of the house that unnerved her. And putting stainless steel pads in cracks around the piping should keep out copper head snakes, but I am not certain, and I have never had a rattler try to get into our house although one of my cats tried to bring in a baby rattler back in Creston, and I had to kill one once. They are unnerving. Nothing will keep out spiders and other bugs. But an exterminator will get rid of brown recluse spiders forever, just hire him for two sprayings.

Next, they decided they wanted to have goats. I changed my mind after seeing a male goat urinate on his face over and over again. Stinking and disgusting male goats, although I love the friendly female ones. Then she raised chickens.

I found it touching when they did what they could to save their sick goats and chickens, which could have put them in the poor house again, as if they ever got out of it. The fact that they vowed to never kill what they were raising was also touching.

Then I loved how she put recipes in her book, one at the end of each chapter. I had made two recipe books when we lived in Creston, CA, but I put a diary at the end of the some recipe pages, and then I gave them away as gifts.

She made goat cheese and goat soap. I buy goat cheese and I buy my own goat soap, grate and melt it, and then add essential oils and pour it into molds. I even tried making goat yogurt, another recipe that is in her book. I bought a yogurt maker recently, and my husband took over the job, but after his making three more batches I told him that it was too much work, and we both laughed.

You will find her goat soap recipe in this book, but I don’t imagine that many who read this book will have the goats, so I will give you an easier recipe, but I don’t imagine that many will use this recipe either:

Homemade Goat Soap

2 ½ lb. goat soap bar
Essential oil
Food coloring, if desired

Cut the bars in 3 or 4 pieces so you can handle them better. Grate soap into a dish and push down. Microwave for 2 minutes. Mix with a spoon or whisk to melt any soap that hasn’t melted. Or you can melt the soap in a double boiler over water or use a crock pot. If using a crockpot, it takes 1 hour to melt.

Add essential oil and food coloring after removing from heat.

For Strawberry Garden Soup

Add strawberry seeds to the bottom of the soap mold or molds. Pour in soap and let sit over night before you cut the bars. You can buy these and other soap ingredients from Glory Bee.

If using wooden molds you need to line the molds with butcher paper so the soap doesn’t seep out. Find information on line. Or use the author’s method of lining loaf pans with parchment paper, which sounds so much better because my molds always leak.

For five lbs. of soap I used 1 drop of red food coloring and that gave it a light pink color tinged with brown due to the strawberry seeds. I used 1/8 t. strawberry essential oil for Strawberry Garden Soap, but it wasn’t enough oil. For my Renaissance Vanilla/Sandalwood soap I used only 10 drops each of Vanilla essential oil and Sandalwood essential oil. It still wasn’t enough. I will double both each time to see what happens. I have also used Harvest Pumpkin essential oil for my soaps.

It is much easier to get the soap out of the mold if they are left to cool overnight.

Spices and powders to use in bottom of mold/molds: Beet powder makes soap pretty-gives it specks, French pink clay, ground cloves all spice, cinnamon, coriander, and/or nutmeg. Poppy seeds are an exfoliate as is ground pumice, strawberry seeds or coffee grounds.

Where to buy products: GloryBee Foods http://www.glorybee.com/ 1-800-456-7923
Mooseberry Soaps 585) 348-9022 http://www.mooseberrysoap.com/

Orange/Mocha

1 T. orange essential oil
1 1/2 t. cappuccino or coffee fragrance oil
1/2 t. chocolate fragrance oil
Coffee grounds for bottom of mold

Note: I am really grateful that I got to read this NetGalley book, because it was such a great story.

[Sassa · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a difficult, tiresome and frustrating one to navigate. I should say I am one who applauds anyone who has the ability to put pen to paper but I am disheartened this book was chosen for the global Big Read Library selection. Why? My six reasons: 1. There is only so much detailed animal husbandry one can take in a memoir. I now know more about the vulva of a goat than life in a cabin in the Appalachians. 2. The financial irresponsibility of two educated adults is appalling. Foreclosures and years of unpaid IRS taxes do not mean you can opt out, raise hobby goats and chicken, make yogurt using bought yogurt, drink wine and craft beer, and read for hours in a barn while waiting for the goat vulva to get just right. 3. Not just fowl language but plenty of foul language. Profanity, profanity. 4. Redundant. Redundant. 5.Everything that goes wrong is the fault of the husband. Argh. 6.The recipes were not always practical.
I cannot recommend.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jennifer and David McGaha did not pay their Federal and North Carolina income taxes for four years. David did not tell Jennifer about this for all of those four years. He was a professional accountant and part-time real estate agent, and she an adjunct teacher mostly working part-time at private schools despite her Masters degree. They had three kids - Alex, their daughter, and Aaron, their oldest son, were in college, and Eli, their youngest son was a senior in high school, when their home of eight years was foreclosed on.

‘Flat Broke with Two Goats’ describes the years of the McGahas’ life before, during and after the foreclosure. To me, they were living a life of privilege before the financial crash of 2008, and why not? David was earning a six-figure income. Both were college educated, and she was an attentive mom raising three kids on a wonderful elitist country farm with a slightly rundown house they were fixing up. The kids were in good private schools for most of their lives since the McGahas could afford it, right?

Then one night David broke the news. Two IRS agents came to David’s office. They owed more than one hundred thousand dollars to the Feds, and eight thousand to the State of North Carolina. In the months that followed, their van was repossessed, the phone was disconnected and the power was turned off. Wages were garnished. She did not have a teaching license or an education degree. She could not do a secretary or receptionist or a store clerk job because of how she dressed and the jobs required an organized and detail-oriented skill set. They worry night and day about money, something I know about, too, gentle reader, if not the other things she describes.

So, what do they do? David takes over a restaurant for an accounting client, hoping to make it profitable despite having little cooking expertise. He continued to work as an accountant, but many of his clients, mostly real estate and construction clients, had stopped coming. She continued her work as an adjunct teacher, while attending her book club. They kept their six animals - five dogs and a cat. They tried to live normally as elite eastern seaboard Americans do for many more months, until they couldn't.

Then David found a house. A hundred years old, it is an extremely weathered beaten-down house owned by a family of one of David’s cousins. It is on fifty-three wooded acres in North Carolina. It is heated by a wood boiler, and water is piped in directly from a nearby creek. She waffles a bit - who wouldn’t? We are talking about dark and lonely rural country, readers - snakes, mice, opossums, 🕷 bugs, all over the kitchen and the carpet - all coming into the house at night, no hot water, and long dirt roads, and distant and strange neighbors who answer their doors with shotguns. It is as primitive as rural people can live, not counting shacks or tents. She finally agrees.

As the months go by, they acquire chickens, then goats, although they knew nothing about raising them. They learn, and so do we. Funny little anecdotes are told in this memoir.

The couple are all good for now, more or less, four years after moving to their still dilapidated home. But it feels like Jennifer McGaha is a little, well, unhappy, to me, as a rural goat and chicken owner. She signs up for an MFA degree, and then writes this supposedly wryly amusing book about their adventures and life choices, with recipes between chapters. She looks relaxed tending her animals in her photos, but I can't help but feel she is a fish out of water in that house.

I did not like the choices author Jennifer McGaha makes according to her memoir. I cannot imagine making the choices she made for myself, nor do I understand her reasoning that she was partially at fault for their tax situation under any circumstances. True, no one is perfect, sh*t happens, when life hands you lemons it is best to smile and make lemonade after grieving your losses. But the result of the monumental betrayal, and to me it was a betrayal, of her husband destroyed their lives. She sees it as an honest mistake anyone could make, as do many other reviewers. Not me. To me, he betrayed their partnership, and he lied to her for four years about it. His ‘mistake’ robbed her of some possible choices she would have preferred making I think, closing many doors she had had hopes of opening, I suspect.

To me, what he did was the same as if he decided to drive home while dead drunk from a party and then had a deadly accident. Yet she ends up feeling as if she had some responsibility in his decision to not pay income taxes for four years, and not telling her for four years. On top of that, well, she ultimately decides to stay in the marriage and live like a pioneer, and like Ruth from the Bible: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” Or something like that, although she does not speak of religion at all, gentle reader. She could have gone to her grandmother’s house. Or her rich parents’ house, which was upscale and three stories high. Or to her brother’s house in Florida.

So I have a dilemma. How does one write a fair review of an autobiography written by a brave living author when in reading it all I kept thinking was things like:

How could she be so stupid in staying with her husband when she could have left him as she had backup resources? Omg, he tells her he hid the fact he did not pay their income taxes for four years, and she thinks she shares the blame for not asking questions. Oh hell no! he was a gd accountant! Of course that would be his responsibility! He hides something that gd important from her? He didn’t even give her chance to try to fix it. Everything was ruined by the time she had learned what he had done! On top of that, he continues to habitually hide or fail to disclose important events to her.

She describes a bad first marriage she had before she married David. She was an abused wife, but eventually she left, barely escaping with her life. However, she does seem to be trying to say she made mistakes, too, so both David and Jennifer are not perfect people. Life happened, she is saying. The scales with which she is measuring their errors are not the same, imho.

Many reviewers dislike Jennifer as a person. Many have expressed their impression of her as being a whiner. They think she blames other people for her problems.

O _ o

No. Not. I see a person raised as an upper-class child of privilege struggling to make sense of the train wreck she suddenly found herself in as an middle-aged adult. I think she was frozen, which she admits (we all do flight or fight or freeze when in trouble) and unable to move past her class expectations. I think this book is an effort to make some money and maybe try to make sense of what happened to herself. She knows everyone expects her to smile and pull up her bootstraps, including her. Maybe she is, but I got a sense she is still trying to understand why the Universe let this happen when it clearly was not something which occurs to people of her class. To me, it is all about the bad husbands with serious character flaws. I do not think her anecdotes of her life funny or charming. They make me shudder.

Others do not like the style of writing in the book, or the architecture. It looks to me like she is following MFA-recommended Good Practices in writing a memoir. I have read many such following this pattern. But maybe the story of her disaster, for some of us readers, rings too loud, drowning out the supposed charms of learning to exist in a new rural life of deprivation and "the rewards of simplicity" after having been evicted from the upper middle-class.

Anyway. I do not know exactly how to rate this. Bravery: five stars. Writing: three stars.

Oh well.

[Yukari Watanabe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book because of Big Library Read.

It's a hard memoir for me to rate. On the one hand I liked McGaha's writing, but on the other hand I disliked McGaha's thoughts and actions.

McGaha had a perfect upper-middle class American childhood. She never needed to worry about money. She was so used to be taken care of by someone else, and she still expects it. That I think is a major reason why the couple got into the financial ruin.

If you are from financially less fortunate family, you lean to live within your income. McGaha knew very well that they didn't have money, but she let her husband take care of the money matter completely. I think her husband didn't want to disappoint his princess. That's why he never told her anything. I felt sorry for him rather than feeling sympathetic to McGaha.

McGaha's attitude towards animals also felt typical spoilt upper-middle class brat. You don't feed organic yogurt to chicken when you are "flat broke". You don't ask your husband not to kill rats while you ask him to get rid of them. McGaha irritated me so much that it became a chore to finish this memoir.

[Leanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started out loving this book, then I was bewildered, and finally I was bored. I enjoy stories of people who survive and thrive during trying times but I was completely thrown by a woman who knows nothing about her finances. Then goats, goats and more goats.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intrigued by the title, I chose this book with only a passing glance at the marketing blurb. I assumed Flat Broke with Two Goats: A Memoir of Appalachia was in the genre of books by and about people who had willingly left the city or suburbs to pursue their dream of homestead living. It's not -- and that's what made it so much more interesting.

Jennifer McGaha and her husband had lived in the Asheville, NC area their entire lives. In the years leading up to the 2008 financial collapse they had overextended themselves -- a "dream" home they couldn't really afford, 3 kids in private school, European vacations, etc. On top of this, McGaha's husband hadn't been paying the couple's income taxes for years. After a reckoning, the couple's home went into foreclosure and they were put on a payment plan with the IRS. Having very limited options, they moved to a semi-finished cabin in the Appalachian hills owned by a family member.

McGaha is a talented writer. The book is full of honesty. It's a story of her time in the woods, but it's also a story of a marriage, owning up to one's failures, foregiveness, how we define "home," and why some people can move cross-country for work and others choose not to.

4+ stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Una Tiers · Rating 3 out of 5]

The goats and chickens are the best part of the book. The author lives with her head in the sand. She never grows up.
So one star for the goats. another for the chickens and one for clear writing.
I will be more careful with library picks for books.

[Stephanie *Eff your feelings* · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a “How-not-to-do” book, this gets 3 stars.

Whilst I feel the same way about animals as these two people do (love them in equal measure as human beings, if not more), I found myself angered by every single decision they made, and every decision was a poor one.

Jennifer McGaha and her husband David were living a comfortable life in a nice home, when it came to light that David, an accountant, had failed to pay their taxes for five years. Apparently David sucked as an accountant........ He prepared other people’s taxes for a living!

Of course, they stopped paying their mortgage because it was clear that they would the house. So they stayed there until they were foreclosed upon. All their stuff was piled into the garage which they then broke into (by breaking a window) and taking what they wanted.

They moved into a delapidated cabin in the woods of North Carolina, infested with snakes, spiders, and wasps and they promptly order some chicks that would grow up to be several types of fancy hens for eggs. Now this is just a guess, but, wouldn’t fancy hens cost more than the not so fancy type? Do fancy hens lay better eggs? Wouldn’t your first move to be to secure your home from dangerous creatures that may cause death to you and your beloved dogs? Cheap plywood to block up holes and some bug spray ... some traps.... I don’t think that would cost that much. Then buy yourself some ordinary hens. Speaking of the chicks, some got sick and they spent money on antibiotics and other things to try and save them (which I get, I really do. I know myself, so I wouldn’t put myself in that situation if I couldn’t afford the proper care.)

Meanwhile, the dogs were left to roam the area free to run hither and dither and put themselves in all sorts of mortal danger. Snakes, coyotes, cars, poisonous plants....you name it. There was one story in the book where the dogs took off, over the goddamn mountain, she went a looking but didn’t find them. They later came home covered in burrs and a sticky brown stuff.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!! You profess to love these pets but you can’t put them on a lead when they are out, or build a fenced in area like you did for all your goats?

Speaking of goats, the entire reason they decided to do the goat thing is to get milk from them, NOT to eat them (again, I get it). To get milk from a goat, said goat has to have babies, then said goat has to cooperate with the milking part. When and if the goat decides she ain’t gonna put up with your BS anymore.... no more milk, but now you have four goats to feed and vet. Sell a goat or two you say? Oh hell no, that would be too hard on the mama goat and the goat family (I get it...I do. But I’d sell a goat or two, cry a bit and move on.). So, the goat numbers end up at eleven or so by the end of this book. Sigh. But, Jennifer finally got to make her goat milk soap with lavender and organic oatmeal, so it was all worth it.

This book made me want to slam my head against the wall, but I did learn what not to do in a financial crisis.

[Aurora · Rating 2 out of 5]

this lady was an idiot. I'm sorry. I couldn't bring myself to care about her even the littlest bit. It not cute or empathy-worthy to dig your head in the sand in regards to your finances. She deserves everything that happened to her. How do you just not know if your husband filed taxes over the past few YEARS?! It's not like tax season is a big secret. Also x after he proved himself untrustworthy with bills in the first place, why did she continue to leave him in charge of things like car payments, mortgage payments, electric payments, etc. Why didn't she step up and at least work with him on these things. What the hell?!

[Lormac · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh man - this book was a button-pusher for me. Can't wait until book club to unload!

The author and her husband live beyond their means, and soon end up in debt. Despite the electricity being turned off occasionally and some one showing up to repossess her car, the author does not collar her husband and ask the questions that need to be asked. Maybe that's because if she knew their financial position, she would need to discontinue chairing the silent auction, attending Longaberger basket parties, and vacationing in Paris, Barcelona, San Francisco and the Florida Keys with their three children. Or maybe that's because if she knew, she would have to remove her three children from private school and send them to (mimes pearls-clutching) public school!! Or maybe that's because if she knew, she would have to get another job to supplement the annual $10,000 salary she was pulling in as an adjunct professor. But of course, then there would be no book. From here on - spoiler-alert!!!


Once the ugly truth is making so much noise that she cannot ignore it any longer, the author gets down to business of attempting to make a change. But not really. The author gets a job that, given the fact of the amount of the tax lien she quoted, and the amount of the salary she would earn at the new position, could have probably paid off the lien in two years. But noooooooo.....she takes up a flirtation, and causes her husband to demand that she return after just one semester of full-time work. After that, she just dawdles along on the adjunct salary, supplementing with workshops, until she decides she really needs to earn some money. Yay, you may say! Finally our girl is going to pull on her boots and get to work!! Well, I suppose that's true if you think that taking out another loan so she can enroll to get her Master of Fine Arts in English on the internet will generate the hundreds of thousands that her family will need. Sigh (and head-banging against wall).

During this entire time, no one mentions the words "bankruptcy filing." Instead, we are treated to the story of how they used a sledgehammer to break into their former house when the lender changed the locks. You see, in an effort to deny the fact that this is no longer their home, they had been moving out "gradually" and had failed to clean out all of their belongings, even after six months from their relocation. Sigh.

Meanwhile the author and her husband spend their time ordering chicks for $500, and buying various goats for $650. This apparently makes them feel like farmers, getting in touch with their Appalachian ancestors, and generates quite a few colorful ancedotes about dying chickens, goat copulation, and goat bladder surgery (eeek).

The capper for me was the author's incorporation of her ancestors who also lived in the North Caroline mountain area. While this was, generally, a nice idea, and I can see how the author thought that she could make the book about her attachment to the land of her forefather (and foremothers), but she couldn't resist carrying on about it. I nearly lost my mind as she explained how at times she whispers the name of her great -great grandmother (the one who, as the author explains, was part Native American and the daughter of slaves) as a mantra as she goes about her daily chores. "Calllllllie, Calllllllie, Callllllie." Oh, God, no wonder the goats are screaming. I am sure Callie is watching from the great beyond, muttering, 'Let the damn goat die and cook him up for dinner, if you are out of money, you twit."

Finally, the last straw was the recitation of the alcoholic beverages the author enjoys. I cannot recall one instance where she just drinks iced tea, or lemonade. It is always a glass of Merlot, a Nicaruguan rum, a hot toddy, or, always and forever, a craft beer. At some point, I decided that the way the McGahas were going to work their way out of debt was earn money from brewers by name-dropping one craft beer or another in this book.

PS By the way, the title makes no sense. Yes, they are flat broke, but they start out by buying 3 goats and never have less that that... so , where's the two goats part coming from? Why not "Flat Broke with Some Goats?" If they can't tell the difference between 2 and 3, it may explain their money problems in the first place.

[Lydia Wren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Spoiler alert. Snark warning.

I read this on audiobook. The first third of the book is a loooooong, detailed story of financial woe. "We spent all our money living high on the hog and spoiling our children. We didn't pay our creditors and also failed to pay taxes for years and years, even though my husband is an accountant. We shafted our friends and now skulk around avoiding them. Poor us. We are so sad that now we are going to have to pay our share, and can no longer live in the luxury to which were were accustomed, that is, unless we can get out of our obligation to our fellow countrymen." It's not exactly the kind of story that endears one to the narrator.

I listened to a lot of it, hoping and hoping that soon we would get to the goats. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and skipped ahead. Normally I would have just given up and filed it under "Don't bother" but, GOATS! There was a promise of goats and I didn't want to miss them!

Don't expect to find any tips for frugal living here; the author and her husband continued to eat out in restaurants, buy Starbucks, and drink craft beer all the time they were "broke." Still, if you can stick it out, there are plenty of goats named after country music stars and some dogs and snakes as well. The second two thirds of the book were pretty entertaining but frankly, I'm surprised that this book was selected as the title for the Big Library Read. Some people always seem to come out on top, no matter how badly they behave.

[Laura Ann she-her · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have to say, this memoir just didn’t do it for me. While I found certain aspects and chapters entertaining, I found much of it flat. I never really felt invested and the ending, for me, was utterly abrupt. Also, it’s my humble opinion this particular memoir would have been vastly enhanced with a smattering of pictures, of the property, certainly of the goats and even the chickens. I can’t decide if I wanted to know more or less about her children. This is the first time I’ve been disappointed by a memoir, I wouldn’t recommend.

2.5, e-book

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book about losing it all but also about owning up to your part. It's also about grief and rebuilding. I found it to be very beautifully written. It kept my interest well all the way through and there were tears more than once, a very moving story. Thanks for reading. A copy was provided by NetGalley for my review

[❀ Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://ayearofbooksblog.com/2018/04/...

I love to “read” audio books when I am driving and the library has a great selection to borrow from. At the top of the listing was Flat Broke with Two Goats: A Memoir of Appalachia telling the story of a couple who had defaulted on their home after neglecting to pay 4 years of taxes. With $4.57 in the bank, they had to move to a dilapidated cabin in North Carolina. This book was permanently available as it is the book chosen for the global Big Library Read taking place from April 2 to 16th.

As the couple slowly paid their debts and reconciled their relationships they were joined in the cabin by mice and even poisonous snakes! They navigated many challenges set amongst the beautiful landscape but it was hard to think of their creditors losing out while the author, Jennifer McGaha and her spouse still had cell phones and enjoyed craft beers. While the author struggled to accept her role in their situation she pointed the blame right at her husband although she had only been working part-time and certainly would have been part of the decision to live above their means and send their children to private school. At the risk of sounding judgemental, the couple continued to make bad financial decisions spending more on veterinarians and the purchasing and care of animals than they likely saved by being self-sufficient.

While I struggled with the description of the couple’s experiences, I did enjoy the stories of the goats. Having growing up with goats (Ebony and Ivory), I know what troublemakers they can be! I remember them as escape artists, debarking a tree and wreaking havoc in my dad’s meticulously tended flower beds. I think I am still traumatized by the goat breeding experience as a tween… who knew how disgusting billy goats can behave??? Despite the education in goat relations, it was fun to watch the birth of triplets and learn that baby goats must have springs in their feet. I am grateful for living in the country with a menagerie of goats, horses, cats, dogs and chickens… although my brother might still have nightmares about the rogue rooster chasing him to the bus stop! Through my own country experiences, I can certainly reflect on the author’s learning curve and remember the gross-tasting goats milk, thin yogurt and home made oatmeal soap that my mother made!

Overall, it was an easy “read” or, shall I say listen. I appreciate the author’s honesty in telling their story and hope that the couple can use some of the proceeds of their books to make amends to their creditors and teach their children to avoid similar mistakes. I also hope that readers will gain a new appreciation the personality of goats and the importance of living simpler in a time focused on more stuff!

Addendum –I try very hard to be balanced and truthful in my reviews but got a negative comment from this author and was subsequently blocked from her twitter account due to my review. That seems like an odd response from someone who is trying to sell books but maybe speaks to some of the decisions described in the book. I would guess that her publisher would not support this kind of response but after reading a few other reviews on Goodreads am thinking that she might feel particularly sensitive due to many posts with VERY strong feelings about her experience and decisions.

[Jeimy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This memoir is all over the place. It starts when the author discovers her husband has not been paying taxes, goes back to chronicle how they met and how physically abusive he was during the early days of her marriage, and then speaks of their decision to allow their house to be foreclosed. Thankfully the couple found a farm where they could live relatively cheap. It here that the couple--still

This memoir is a cautionary tale for people living paycheck to paycheck about the domino effect of letting some bills fall too behind. However, I had major issues with it. The first is that it does not feel like "a memoir of Appalachia." The second is that nothing feels resolved. Although there is mentioned of their continued economic woes, and their still massive debt to the IRS, but there is nothing to explain the plan they have for the future.

When I read a memoir I expect the author to learn something and grow. This was just about her experiences. If you want to read a great memoir about acquiring a farm, I suggest Hit By a Farm by Catherine Friend.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this memoir to be well-written, with lots of sharp observations, funny moments, and smart backstory woven into it. With that said, I also found the author frustrating, starting with her not filing tax forms for 4 years (who does that?). The IRS frowns on that, and she paid the price by downsizing her lifestyle to become a homesteader in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina while paying off her tax debts. It's not a fun time. She tells you everything (and more) you want to know about how to raise goats.