Preps or Investing?
In some circles you can’t be a real survivalist unless you have cashed our every investment you have to buy a bunch of buckets full of wheat and extra pants. Clearly every dollar you have will just burn up in a hyperinflationary disaster so the only reasonable thing to do is to get it all out right now, fees be damned and turn it into good tangible’s like buckets full of wheat and lots of extra pants.
If you haven’t picked it up I am really not a fan of this strategy. There are so many reasons for this. First if you can’t see a reasonable (heck probably likely) chance that eventually you may get old and not be able to work consider the possibility that you are a fool. We could debate investment strategies (and will get there later) but fundamentally you need to be saving for your future. Buckets of wheat will not put gas in your car or pay property taxes in 40 years when you can’t work.
The thing about experts is that they tend to be a bit fixated on whatever they are an expert in. This makes sense as people don’t tend to get really good or attain significant status in areas they are ambivalent about. The amount of time a championship marathoner or powerlifter thinks is reasonable to spend exercising probably differs from most people. A guy who writes for Car and Driver probably puts more of his money into vehicles than most. An uuber gunnie might think a super custom pistol that costs 2k and a tricked out uuber AR that costs 3k and wears another 3k in accessories are totally reasonable. The point I am getting at is that as a sort of jack of all trades (vs just a gunnie or whatever) we need to look at the big picture. Looking at the big picture means we cannot always shoot the same guns as a guy who just does 3 gun tourneys or whatever. It should be pretty obvious that letting the guy from Car and Driver choose your carry piece is about as smart as letting some preparedness guru choose your investing strategy or the champion marathoner pick your next family vehicle.
Maybe more to the point a definite this or that mentality comes up here which I think is ridiculous. There are almost infinite ways you could spend your money so it certainly does not just come down to preps or investing. It is better to look at the big picture. You could invest $500 a month or have a boat with a payment. You could spend $300 a month on preps or have the big cable package and go out to eat a few times a month. The options are endless which is why this whole argument is kind of foolish to me.
Note that I am talking about taking money that was allocated toward longterm savings (in whatever form) and putting it into food storage or whatever kind of survivalist stuff. Folks who decide to go all contrarian/ hard money are a different sort of discussion. They may be right or wrong but this makes much more sense as they are still saving for the future but in a different way. I know some folks who are seriously contrarian in their investment plans. They keep liquid savings in PM’s and put the rest of their money into various things like specialized equipment for businesses or real estate or small businesses that earn money. It is worth noting that lots of “contrarian’s” mess up on the part where the point of getting something is that it makes you money. A NIB .44 magnum or gold coin tucked away in a safe does not get you interest or pay a profit. A lot that you rent out to somebody or a share of a local business can make a profit.
However tempting it is to raid your investments to get a jump start on preps I think it is dangerously short sighted. The world MAY end but assuming you do not take an untimely dirt nap you WILL get old. I cringe every time some survivalist blogger/ author/ expert recommends this approach.Taking a couple grand from your liquid savings to buy some basic stuff is not a terrible idea but cashing everything you have saved in your entire life out to buy some stuff you may never need is just not a smart thing to do. A far preferable alternative option is to leave your retirement money alone, cut some stuff you don’t need anyway from your budget/lifestyle and use that money towards your preparedness goals. It isn’t as fast or easy but you end up in a much better place. Personally I look at the two as entirely different streams of money for different purposes. My retirement account is for if things go just fine and our preps and stores are for if they don’t.
Anyway those are my thoughts on that. I am interested in hearing yours.
Pre 33 US Gold Coins and Pre 1899 Guns
Commander Zero wrote a great post on Pre 33 US Gold Coins and Pre 1899 Guns.
My thoughts are as follows:
A guy recommending pre 33 gold coins who conveniently happens to sell pre 33 gold coins viously has a obvested interest. The people who suggest going this route for gold almost without exception have some sort of financial interests in the mix. Also it comes at a sharp premium as much of this gold falls more into the collector area (particularly the slabed and graded coins in decent condition) than the bullion side. In other words the prices are far beyond a coins metal content.
My personal opinion is that the whole thing is a lot of worrying for nothing. Let us just say that a totalitarian government appears and decided to get gold grabby to say hedge an unstable fiat currency. Seizing gold in big commercial vaults like the ones in New York would be practical. However finding the records from every company that sells precious metals seems like a bit of a stretch. I can’t see a SWAT style search and confiscation mission to find every single Krudgerrand or gold Eagle that has been sold. More to the point gold is, at least in my observation such a nitche thing that it is really not an issue. Even if it happened I can’t see a bunch of goons who are looking for gold coins seeing your pile of gold coins and accepting the explanation that they are collectible and thus exempt from confiscation.
As to pre 1899 guns to me it is much of the same. The kind of legal loophole they seem to exist in is not one I would be comfortable relying on as my only protection. That could be benefitial during current times in places that are not firearm friendly like New York City but I am not so sure about it. Cops and prosecutors tend to be pretty good at knowing obscure laws that work in their favor but not so good at knowing or following ones which do not work in their favor. Also it is important to note that these guns do not exist under FEDERAL LAW. While I am unsure of it I suspect just about anything more dangerous than a super soaker probably counts as a gun in New York. If there is any relatively recent case law on this I would be interested in seeing it. Maybe some felonious gangbanger in NYC was caught carrying an old Colt Peacemaker and got a pass because of this legal loophole but I really doubt it. Also we have ignored that these guns are very old and finding functional ones at reasonable prices might be problematic. Additionally the logistics involved would probably be a nightmare. If collecting old guns is a hobby you enjoy then pursue it.
However if one has some sort of dark scenario in their head about gun confiscation or whatever I would recommend that instead of getting some pre 1899 guns they move to someplace that doesn’t suck and buy some modern guns from private parties. A guy who lives in Alabama or Wyoming and bought an AR or an AK at a gun show is without a doubt better off than one who owns a revolver from 1892 and lives in New York City or Washington DC. Also revisiting the point from gold I can’t see gun confiscating thugs who are searching your home passing by a pre 1899 Mosin Nagant rifle, a Winchester 1897 shotgun and a Smith and Wesson 44 special revolver of the same era based on your articulate explanation of their unique legal status.
In closing I think that acquiring old gold coins (at collector, not bullion prices) doesn’t make sense and is really only hyped by those with a vested financial interest. As to pre 1899 guns as a way to discretely own viable firearms seems to have a lot of inherant problems and thus likely isn’t worth the hassle.
Thoughts?
Crazy Market and Appetite for Risk
I bought a little bit of silver about a week back. I was happy that spot was down a buck, since then spot is down another 9 dollars. I sure bet right on that one. It is probably a nice “dip” if you didn’t blow your wad a week ago like I did. Stocks are down significantly as well. I think it is pretty apparent that Europe is nowhere near done with its fiscal troubles and a Greek default is getting more and more likely.
I don’t know what will happen but we are probably in for a wild ride.
Interestingly I bought stocks awhile back. I do not regret that decision. On the long timeline I am looking at stocks are probably (more so in certain areas) a bargain. However in the short run I do not have a clue what is going to happen. Interestingly a co worker recently bought a bunch of stock on credit in the last couple of days. He figured they will bounce back and he will make some easy money. I wish the guy the best.
That got me to thinking about appetite for risk. There is of course a definite relationship between risk and reward or more accurately put potential for rewards. Also leverage (which we normal people call debt) lets you theoretically raise profits and when it works well it works very well indeed. However when it works badly things come crashing down like a house of cards. Instead of your plan going to heck, your plan goes to heck and now you have to service this debt.
I hesitate to say what is right or wrong for anybody. It depends almost entirely on what you are comfortable with. I’ve heard it said that if something will leave you up worrying at night you should not put money into it and that makes sense. There is definitely a human component there. I have some appetite for risk as I invest in stocks and relatively more risky areas like energy and in developing markets. However I do it with cash, cash that while it would not be ideal I can afford to lose. Worst case if I take a big hit (especially now while we are relatively young) we call it an expensive lesson and move on. Personally for me it is about a specific pool of money for a specific thing. Also since we have some of our bases covered by putting some money away for emergencies and not having debt we have more options and can afford to put money toward something with an element of risk. The money we need to feed ourselves if my income is disrupted is not sitting in some stock that might be wildly down (or up) at any given time.
Times and Money
Financial Preps for WTSHTF or Your Own Personal TEOTWAWKI
Preparing for the worst can be daunting. It is also easy to focus on putting back several rifles, cases of ammo and everything else that goes along with it (Now you need some optics, a safe, spare mags, lights, another safe, etc.), or other emergency gear that we could spend hours listing. Let’s face it – acquiring the cool gear is fun! It’s also one of the most often talked about topics in this community. People like their toys and that’s perfectly fine. But it’s only one leg on your stool. Food and medical preps are covered to a lesser extent but still fairly regularly. Something I feel that is of equal importance, though not near as fun to discuss, is financial security.
I think many people avoid the financial preparedness topic because it can bring you back to reality: sometimes it’s hard to find enough to go around. How can you pay the bills, buy your beans, bullets, band-aids and still find money to save when disaster seems to be looming over the horizon? You better make room for it. That EMP may happen tomorrow or your small town might look like “Jericho” (TV series) next week, but I guarantee you sometime this year your own personal TEOTWAWKI will happen if you don’t put some cash back now. It could be a transmission that starts slipping, a layoff, an ER visit – Murphy will throw something at you when you least expect it. So where do we start?
Rotate Your Stocks AND Your Priorities
Several thousand rounds of center-fire rifle ammo and several reliable battle rifles for you and the family is a noble effort, but not at the expense of everything else. Set up some sort of system where all of your goals are slowly being met. One example can be found below:
Discretionary Spending Schedule:
Week 1: Guns and Gear
Week 2: Medical Supplies
Week 3: Trip to the Local Sam’s or Costco for Food Stocks
Week 4: Cash, Savings or Silver/Gold
Rinse and Repeat Next Month
It doesn’t have to be as rigid as the above example. I grocery shop at Wal-Mart; I’ll throw a box of 9mm and something for the first aid kit in the buggy every week on the grocery trip. I also will put some money back every week to slowly build our reserve. There is no right way to do this, find something that works and stick to it.
So, you’ve got some money set aside for financial preps. What now?
Cash is (for now) Still King
The manager at your local grocer is going to be pretty darn reluctant to let you leave the store with a gallon of milk for a 1964 quarter. Sure he may exchange it for some cash in his pocket but I bet you’re not going to get the most recent spot price from this transaction. If the power is out from the ____ (insert your regional disaster of choice – hurricane, snow storm, earthquake, etc. – here), chances are that credit card is not going to cut it either. Cash still has its place in your safe. One week’s paycheck is probably a good start to get you through most bumps in the road, especially if you already have at least a few weeks of food and a good first aid kit (you do, right?). For larger bumps in the road…
Make a War chest
Not literally, but treat your savings account with the same passion as you would a chest full of sharp pointy battle implements. A lot of folks say aim for 2-3 months worth of expenditures (everything from the mortgage down to gas for you vehicle). My wife and I are taking it a step further and have set the bar at 3 months worth of income (big difference). This is going to take some people longer than others; that’s OK. As long as you are making progress then don’t get discouraged! If an emergency comes up one month and it cuts your war chest in half then look at it like this: Success! You took a hit on the chin and are still standing! Our strategy has another benefit; life is all about timing. Opportunities come and go; if a great deal comes your way on a piece of land or something else and you have the spare cash to jump on it, do it. Just don’t look for excuses to raid your war chest. Make sure it is a worthwhile investment. Then proceed to build your savings back up immediately. Get your savings built up and then start considering…
Silver and Gold
How much precious metal (PM) is enough? It all depends on whom you ask. Just remember, PMs aren’t an investment (well they can be, more in a minute), they are insurance. Investments grow your wealth. Over the long haul, PMs will simply store your wealth. Short-term plays on PMs can be done to turn a profit, but buying and selling coins is the least efficient way to do it. You might as well trade paper gold on the stock market, and that’s not why we’re here. I once read a very interesting article that stated that an ounce of silver today buys approximately what an ounce of silver bought 2,500 years ago (I believe their example was loaves of bread). Try that with any fiat currency in the world! (Well, you can’t – it never stays in circulation long enough) We want to hedge against inflation. PMs are our insurance against the failure of our currency. Whatever currency becomes the world reserve when ours fails, silver and gold will hold value in that denomination as well.
My personal goal would be to eventually (long term) have 1 year’s salary in PMs. I think an 80/20 gold/silver holdings ratio is reasonable, but do your own Due Diligence and find what is right for you. You will probably want to start with silver, but at some point you have to switch to gold because silver gets bulky quick. I’d recommend starting with Pre-64 junk silver and 5-10 oz. bars. If you run across a good deal on some silver eagles, buy them! I bought some silver eagles last week for under spot! How did I do it? I deal solely with a local merchant who I trust completely and him likewise. I can’t stress the importance of dealing locally. If I find a 1965 dime (no silver content) in my roll I bought from my local guy, he graciously exchanges for a silver dime. No questions asked. Try that on E-bay.
I won’t talk about gold much because if you invest in silver first, by the time you are ready to dive into it, you will be fairly savvy with PMs; you will have done extensive research, right?
Now that we’ve covered some financial ground, let’s see if we can change the way we look at our other areas of preparedness to save us some money.
Streamline Your Gear
I have approached my firearms purchases in a manner that reduces the amount of different ammo we have to purchase. We have multiple pistols and carbines serving multiples purposes chambered in 9mm. We have also chose to standardize 12 gauge and 7.62×39.
A case of ammo in any of the above 3 calibers has the immediate benefit of being utilized by multiple firearms. Stocking up is much easier and cheaper.
Of course we have other firearms that are not in our standard calibers, but we don’t stock ammo for them like we do for the standard calibers. In theory you would want not only the same caliber, but the same brand as well. I say “In theory” because this is a tough one. In practice everyone in the family will have different tastes so it may be hard to convince everyone that carrying Glock 19s is in their best interest when they cringe when they have to hold the ugly bugger. A good goal would be to aim for full uniformity, and settle for caliber uniformity.
Another cost saving measure is go out and buy a .22 rifle and pistol if you don’t already have one as soon as it is financially sound to do so. This will obviously save you countless money over the years.
This doesn’t simply go for firearms. Try to buy battery-operated equipment that takes the same size batteries. Once again, this makes stocking up much easier and cheaper.
Make a Budget
The word “budget” can strike so much fear in a man, you would swear Hessians had just breached the privacy fence and are now occupying the pool house. It doesn’t have to be so scary, however. Your budget can be as loose or strict as you like, as long as it serves its purpose. One of the main benefits of the budget is it forces you to think through your expenditures.
I create a simple budget on spreadsheet that first tallies our income for the month, and then deducts all of our estimated expenditures. This allows me to determine our surplus and project what our end of the month balance should be in our account. If we surpass our goal, I do a little dance and then try to determine where I’m overestimating. If we miss our goal, we take step back and determine what went wrong. I don’t subscribe to the Dave Ramsey School of budgeting (budget down to the very last penny) because to me it seems like a lot of effort for not much of an improvement over my simple system. It works for many people, so I’m not knocking it. Find something that works for YOU.
Trim the Fat
Often people tell themselves that they just don’t have the money to save (you may even hear them say this on their brand new iPhone). They’ll say maybe next year, or after the house/car/boat is paid off or the kids are older/grown/etc. – that’s procrastination. One day you may wake up retired and struggling to make it; let’s avoid that outcome.
Internet, home phone lines, cable TV, cell phones, new vehicles every five years, too much house, etc. are all traps people fall in. I won’t tell you to turn off all of your services and move to the hills, but do take a rational look at your expenses and determine what you can reasonably cut or downgrade to allow you to put back some money. One thing I do recommend that has saved me over the years is brown bagging your lunch. Learn to love it. In one year brown bagging can save you enough money to buy that AR you want (Or – several pounds of silver).
Prepare for TSDTWAWKI (The Slow Decline of the World as We Know It)
TEOTWAWKI has happened for thousands of years, but the sun still rises in the east and the birds still fly south for the winter. If you were born in 1910 in Germany and lived 70 years, I’d say you lived through several TEOTWAWKIs (Weimer Germany, WW2, a literal divided nation, etc.). Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers had it hard at times; but they raised families, grew old, and hopefully were able to enjoy some sort of retirement after decades of work. The world may not end tomorrow, but it may slowly change for the worse for the rest of your life. Don’t rely on entitlement programs in your retirement years. Stock up on beans, bullets, band-aids and bullion, but also contribute to your 401K (at least get your company match, if offered), sock away some cash, buy real estate – diversify. Do not over-leverage yourself in our economy, but at the same time don’t rely solely on tangibles as a store of your wealth.
A true survivor plans for all contingencies. His portfolio is as diverse as his options. He buys cases of ammo and rolls of old coins, but he also contributes to his 401K to at least get the match his company offers. He has several acres of land in God’s country somewhere far from the city lights, but he also strives to be debt free. He has the cash on hand to G.O.O.D. and the savings and insurance to come back and rebuild (and the larder to live on until then). He doesn’t know the future so he prepares for all outcomes; no matter what happens his family will have options. He also recalls that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and American affluence has been squandered slowly for a while now; there is trouble on the horizon, so he starts now.
Houses and Housing
I have been thinking a lot about the nature of this beast. I think sustainability and affordability are sure interesting. Something occured to me recently. We think about housing almost all wrong. The concept of a home as an investment is kind of a misnomer. I think houses (and to a certain degree all realestate) as a physical brick, mortar and wood structure are a good investment. Of course they aren’t going to go up 30% a year like they did in the run up to the housing bubble. However assuming you make reasonable choices house values will go up. Also in the meantime they can product income for you. Sort of like a stock that pays dividends you will do OK even when the market is flat. Where I think people go so wrong is that they lump housing in with the brick and mortar structures themselves. Housing is definitely a liability. Housing is a liability because you need, in some form or another, a place to live. To me the concept of purchasing some dirt and a structure isn’t about investing it is about a place to lay your head and keep your stuff. Paying off that place is about reducing your liabilities.
Affordability is so important and is something we seem as a culture to have lost. The smart money folks say things like a payment not more than one third of your income. I have also heard your high total amount shouldn’t be more than 3 times your total annual income. Our blog friend’s advice to ignore the loan people and get what you know YOU CAN AFFORD is sound. Personally I think being pessimistic is the key. Don’t think about the good months where you get some overtime or the great months where you get a big bonus but the bad months when you have a few down days and some unexpected expenses. Assuming you take the life of a loan to pay it off you are looking at between 15 and 30 years. While your income may grow and or inflation will make the true value of the monthloy cost lower a lot of bad things can and will happen in that amount of time.
Our Grandparents typically bought a home and stayed in it. Sometimes they got a really small starter home and upgraded after a kid or three to a place with more bedrooms. However the difference is that THEY STAYED THERE. Also though a house might have 4 or 5 bedrooms it wasn’t typically a gazillion square feet. A house payment which might have been a little tight when the kids are young and the parents are in their early 30’s (they got married younger) was comfortable 10 years later after Dad went from working on the line to being a supervisor or bring a teacher to a principle or whatever. Their payments got more comfortable because their incomes grew and there was some inflation. Conversely today people upgrade their house every time they get a raise and take out home equity loans to boot.
I think the way to look at housing and homes both as an investment and a place to live needs to be adjusted. The housing boom is over and while prices may rise they aren’t going to be the idiot proof investment they have been for a decade or so. Think more about securing your families ability to well, not be homeless, than making a profit.
Write a post on your site/blog/forum elsewhere online about how you use ammo cans. Here is a shell you can use if you want.
” Lucky Gunner partnered with TSLRF to put together a contest. The goal is to come up with the most creative way to use ammo cans. I use ammo cans to _____________________. The prize is a half case of free ammo! See the full details here.”
If you paste that shell into your blog or website or favorite forum then add in what you use ammo cans for and you will be good it go. You do not need to use the above shell. I just wrote the shell out to make it as easy as possible for you to enter. For a qualifying post you just need to be sure you link to ammo cans and TSLRF in your post!
b. Copy the link to your post and add it to the comments section on this post. You can also email a link to your entry to me. This enters you into the contest.
c. The contest will run until 14 November. After the contest has closed, I’ll do another post w/all the qualifying entries. Our readers will get to vote on which post was the best (either entertaining or most informative) via a survey. Folks who enter can tell their readers/ friends and family about the survey and they can vote in favor of your entry – so be sure and spread the word!
d. Based on the poll results, the winner gets their choice of 500 rounds of ammo from Lucky Gunner. See full details here.
New Rules For Your Money And Debt
I stumbled onto an article today and when I went to post the thing I saw it was already up here. It brought on some thoughts. I think these coming years may not significantly reward good behavior (saving, etc) but will absolutely punish bad behavior. As Mayberry put it when you borrow money you are gambling that you will be able to pay it back. In bad times like this income disruptions are more common than normal. That means debt is a really bad gamble. It will seriously punish folks whose obligated expenses are too high. I wrote about this over at Keep It Simple Survival. Here is what I said One thing I’ve seen with different folks I know is that if an individual or family hits a bump in the road (job loss, etc) the ones with the fewest obligations fare best. They have the maximum ability to adjust their lifestyle to living with their new (if just temporary) reality. They have a few lean months then when a job is replaced are quickly back to normal.
A family with modest housing costs (rent or mortgage) and the usual food, fuel, etc but no debts can circle the wagons and live real cheap. However a family with big housing costs, two car payments, personal loans, a home depot credit card, a visa, etc can’t. These folks usually get some stuff repossessed and have their credit trashed, possibly even losing their home. While their income is down they often get so far behind it is difficult to get caught back when they do replace the income.
It isn’t popular or flashy but living well below your means should be the rule of these times. Lets say you make 40k and can live decently on 25k. That gives your family 15k to save, invest and prep with when things are good. It also means that if things get rough you can find a job earning a lot less and still make it, if just for awhile.
Medical Insurance and the Fundamentals
Wifey and I were talking last night about our worries, concerns and all that stuff about what is going on with Walker. One thing that occurred to me is that we aren’t worried about paying the bill. That is because we aren’t going to have a bill because we have good insurance. Not so long ago I was laid up myself with the pneumonia and it could have been a real problem for us.
We have good insurance through my job and it is one of the real benefits. Some jobs offer insurance and others don’t. I do suggest you consider that as a piece of the overall compensation for a job. Sometimes particularly when you look at the military the numbers are a bit deceiving.
I am not saying everyone should have X or Y type of medical insurance or even needs necessarily medical insurance at all. Certainly I don’t think people should be forced to purchase coverage any more than they should be forced to floss or eat vegetables or save or exercise even though they are smart choices. However I am saying that if you can possibly afford it you are foolish not to have a serious plan for dealing with the costs of medical issues which may come up. Particularly if you are active or your family has a woman of child bearing age it is foolish not to plan for this scenario. A lot of folks talk about all of this self healing herbal stuff. I think that is great but matter of fact it doesn’t replace being able to get legitimate medical care for serious illnesses and injuries. When I was laid up with pneumonia all the herbal tea and st johns wort in the world wouldn’t do what IV antibiotics did. A nice salve of naturally occurring elements will not replace an x ray and a cast in healing a broken arm.
Medical bills are, if memory serves me correctly, the biggest leading cause of bankruptcy. To spin in in a way that may seem important to the beans and bullets crowd it is really hard to carry around all your beans and bullets in the car after you go broke trying to pay medical bills and end up homeless.
I recall an analogy used by some smart financial type. He described priorities like building a house. The foundation was insurance and your emergency fund. The main floor is retirement planning, paying off your home and investing. The roof was stuff like college funds for kids, charitable donations, etc. The point is that if you try to skip steps you do not have the proper foundation (pun intended) and at the slightest tremor or storm the whole thing will fall down. You could weave preps in there at every level. Maybe the basement would be a real basic 2-4 weeks of food, gun with some ammo, water filter, etc. Real basic but good enough for a power outage or hurricane. The main floor might be a lot more food, heating and lighting plans, alternate shelter plans, a couple more guns with a good amount of ammo, clothing, etc. The roof might be precious metals, barter items and even the coveted off grid retreat complete with alternate power plans.
Survivalists far too often focus on statistically unlikely events instead of realistically and likely ones. For example this year and the one before, and the one before that we have not tapped into our food storage for anything but getting something we forgot at the store for a recipe. We haven’t used our medical supplies for anything but normal occurrences nor the rifles for anything but fun at the range. Our cases of ammo have not been opened and deployed in anger. We have however over the course of the last couple years made a few trips to the hospital. So which is more important? Personally I would say medical coverage though it is simplistic to say the two are mutually exclusive. The point isn’t to say you need this or that but instead to talk realistically about how to face life’s little challenges. Taking care of the basics like medical coverage and emergency savings before most other stuff just makes good sense.
Thoughts?
What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?
The biggest thing was that I ordered an ACOG from Idaho Preps. Been planning and saving to purchase an optic for some time. Hadn’t thought I would be able to afford what I wanted but the good folks at Idaho Preps reached out to me and were able to make it work. Really happy that at the end of the day I was able to get one.
I also opened up a ROTH IRA. We had been saving for awhile and this week we signed up for an account and all that stuff. Pretty psyched about the whole thing. Made a few bucks so far which is just cool.
Picked up a few odds and ends of canned and staple stuff at the store. Stocking up a little bit but probably for the most part just rotating what we already have. Sometimes the stores on post have weird super cheap sales for no real reason. I guess they get too much of something or their stocks are getting old or whatever and so they sell it for half price. This week they have Natural Light Beer for $3.25 a twelve pack which is half the normal price. I got 4 of them to stash away as a beer reserve.
Been looking at ammo as my inventory of 9mm isn’t quite up to my own standards. A case of Federal hollow points is pretty darn tempting and would put me in a good place. I’ve got to save a few more bucks before I can seriously consider that purchase. Really can’t complain because I just ordered a sweet rifle scope.
A very solid week for me. What did you do to prepare?
question of the day
I have noticed recently that I talk about money, finances, investing and such on here a lot more than I used to. Maybe because our finances are starting to reach a point where we actually have a bit of money but anyway. Does this topic interest you guys? Or is it just something that you skim past to get to the other posts you actually might like.
I can think of 3 potential options:
1) Basically no change at all from the current plan.You like the talk about money, finances, budgeting and such and want me to keep things the same as they are now.
2. Don’t totally get rid of it but tone it down some. I could restrict those conversations to (lets say) not more than once a week.This way it would still be around but wouldn’t hog the whole show.
3. Scrap it entirely. You think I should take the whole topic elsewhere. Maybe just shelve it, maybe another venue or whatever so long as I get it off TSLRF.
It goes without saying that I can do whatever I want but I do seriously want your input. I don’t try to please everybody all the time as it just wouldn’t work. However there is no point in me going to the trouble to write a whole subject of posts you folks don’t enjoy. If this isn’t a topic that in some way is resonating with you folks I can either just save the energy or try to find an audience it would resonate with.
Anyway please do let me know what you think.
Total Survivalist Blog 