Keep Our Service Free-Donate

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Creating a Resilient Life


Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 

Becoming Financially Resilient


Bubbles burst.

Negative developments can spark their own vicious cycle. The more components of a system that fail, the more at risk the remaining components become.

When they do, lots of people get hurt.  Jobs are lost, savings plundered, homes foreclosed on, and dreams are diminished.

Well, after the Dotcom Bubble and the Housing Bubble, here we are again: now nearly a decade into the Everything Bubble. And signs abound that it’s in the process of popping.

 
The #1 question we’re asked is: How do I avoid becoming collateral damage?

We counsel a few things. First everyone should immediately focus on living within or beneath their financial means, as those overextended and over-indebted will be the first casualties of the next recession.

 
Developing multiple streams of income is extremely important to financial resilience. There are many ways to do this: from owning businesses, income-yielding stocks and bonds, annuities, royalties, etc — or simply renting out part of your home on Airbnb or starting an Ebay side hustle. We especially like real estate as a vehicle for passive income given the tax advantages offered. 

 
Next, ensure that the financial wealth you’ve accumulated doesn’t evaporate when the current asset bubbles (yes, plural) burst.  If you’re money is in “paper wealth” like stocks, bonds, 401k’s or trusts, we highly recommend that you have it managed by competent professionals who understand the key risks.

 
And if you’ve got money sitting in a bank, like a savings account or a CD, then please do yourself a favor and explore opening a Treasury Direct account. You’ll likely find doing so will return you a (much) higher yield on your cash and safeguard it against a potential bank failure.

Sadly, in this era of unprecedented money printing and market intervention, all of us need to take some precautions around the prospect that the serial bubble blowers at the central banks don’t actually know what they’re doing.

Which is why educating yourself about what’s really happening, and why, is essential.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the financial and economic “information” out there is actually marketing copy and propaganda efforts designed to prevent you from figuring out what’s really going on.

History has shown us that those who don’t think for themselves will pay a high price.

The DotCom Bubble decimated the portfolios of those who had “invested” in ridiculous internet schemes that were clear and obvious money losers at every stage of their brief lifetimes.

The Housing Bubble forced investors to admit in retrospect that lending hairdressers from Las Vegas enough money to accumulate 19 homes was not a good idea.

But here in bubble 3, the Everything Bubble,  we have plenty of people “investing” merrily in companies that are burning $billions annually, owning trillions upon trillions of negative yielding debt, and living in houses that are even more expensive than the 20o7 housing bubble heights.

It’s so extreme that a company can put this statement right into its initial public offering (IPO) filing and still manage to find willing investors; “We have a history of net losses and we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future.” (That’s LYFT, by the way)

Can you imagine?  The stock price should have been slaughtered immediately.  Instead it went up like a rocket on the opening day of trading. It has since retreated somewhat, but “the market” still values this perpetual money losing machine at more than $13 billion.

Becoming Physically Resilient, Too


Money is for sure important. But simply having money doesn’t mean you’re resilient.

In fact, some of the richest people I know are also some of the most vulnerable.

Everybody should be actively working to make their home more resilient.  Some of the very best-returning investments you can make are in improvements like solar hot water, insulating your home, and otherwise finding ways to invest now and save later.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, now is the time to be putting your garden to bed, layering on the straw, and compost and grass clippings that will ensure richer soil for next season.  If you’re in the southern hemisphere, spring has arrived and it’s time to begin waking your garden up.

For those without a well-prepared homestead: a solid group of Peak Prosperity members and I are now actively exploring creating a new planned real estate community that will be optimized for resilience.

We don’t know exactly what this will look like yet, whether it will be something along the lines of an “intentional neighborhood,” people living in reasonable proximity to each other, or some a little bit bolder where each person brings a skill and we organize more fully around the idea of self-sufficiency.

It shocking how many people have reached out to me to express their interest in this project. So many folks are hungry for a better way to live.

Live Among Your Resilient Tribe


As humans, we all yearn to belong.  We all want to know that life matters, and that our own lives have meaning and purpose.

But at turbulent times like these, meaning and purpose take on additional importance.  They demand our attention.  The more out of balance things become, the more important it becomes that our efforts matter.

 

 Our political, financial, corporate, and educational institutions are breaking their promises to us. Rather than serve our interests, they are constricting them.

Pharmaceutical companies started out with the aim of saving and improving lives, but now, all of the major companies are guilty of major abuses.  Some have addicted millions to opiates. Others have bankrupted patients by jacking up costs tremendously.  All to make a few more bucks for their execs.

Big Ag is similarly complicit. It uses neo-nicotinoid pesticides because they are cheaper and more cost effective at the expense of killing off a huge percent of our  once-vibrant insect and bird populations.  All to make a few more bucks.

Jeffrey Epstein died under strange circumstances and now virtually nothing is happening on that “investigation.”  The rules of law and justice for victims are being gutted.  All to protect those in power [the Clinton’s top our list of suspects] who might be implicated were this to go to a trial.

It’s time for good people of impeccable character — like you — to recognize that the current system is neither sustainable nor worth preserving in its current low-integrity form.

Rather than deluding ourselves and squandering precious time waiting for the government to ‘”fix” things, we’re far better served taking our destiny into our own hands.  You’ve been given the tools to accomplish this for more than 10 years on this blog.
P.S.  I've just finished reading Judge Jeanne's new book, it nails it on the head of how the Left are screwing our nation and our POTUS.  I urge our subscribers to read it...


 

Yours in Freedom,

Bruce ‘the PoorMan’

PARTING THOUGHT

The larger the household, the more income it takes to sustain a middle class lifestyle.  And according to CNBC, the definition of a “middle class household” is extremely broad at every household size…

§ Household of one: $26,093 to $78,281

§ Household of two: $36,902 to $110,706

§ Household of three: $45,195 to $135,586

§ Household of four: $52,187 to $156,561

§ Household of five: $58,347 to $175,041

If you are single person and you are making just $26,000 a year, there is no way that you should be considered part of “the middle class”.

First of all, there is no way that you would be able to buy a home in most major U.S. cities these days, and home ownership has always been considered to be one of the key hallmarks of the middle class.

Secondly, $26,000 a year breaks down to just a little over $2,000 a month before taxes.  After paying for rent, health insurance and a little bit of food, there wouldn’t be any money left.

Some Americans don't think they'll ever pay off their debt
About 15 percent of individuals expect to be in debt for the rest of their lives, according to a new study from Northwestern Mutual, which included data from more than 2,000 adults.

Do you know where you stand?

 

More Free Resources:

33 Ways to Repurpose Old Household Items


Many of us just can't throw out things we no longer use. We save them because they may come in handy someday. This Old House says you can repurpose them in clever ways for use around the house.

 


 


 


 Recent Gallup poll says more Democrats now have a "positive view" of Socialism (57%) than Capitalism (47%)


How to start a neighborhood barter club

 



Here’s a bombshell analysis of one of the biggest breaking stories in the history of science and humanity.

The implications are almost beyond imagination.

Google has achieved "quantum supremacy" with a 53-qubit quantum computer, and its capabilities will double roughly every year.

The coming capabilities of quantum computing will almost instantly break all the present-day encryption involving:

- Cryptocurrency
- Military communications
- Banking and finance transactions
- Personal encryption, emails, hard drives, etc

In essence, Google will be able to read all the secrets and divert all crypto to itself. All military secrets will be exposed, including the secrets of the USA, which Google will probably share with communist China.


Read this second: A detailed analysis of how quantum computing works and its implications for humankind, which include near-total government tyranny worldwide.

 

A Final Note…

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.


You can’t Buy Life Insurance After You’re Dead-Prepare NOW for Emergencies. Resources-Solar Chargers back in stock-Grab one now as they go fast.  Our supply on eBay sold out in ten minutes! New:

Hydration Pack Backpack 900D with 2L Leak-Proof Water Bladder

*Available at our storefront – PLUS grab one of our popular emergency solar/wind-up/battery back-up power plants…

 

PLUS: We continually add new how-to books such as: The Ultimate SH*T Hits the Fan Survival Guide, SEAL Survival Guide, Sheep No More, and others!

 

Find self reliance goods at:

 

Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…


 

 

 

A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production

 

4 comments:

Walt said...

Sound advice [too bad so many want to live in a socialist cradle today]!

Bob said...

Loads of common sense and I am amazed at that story about google-I try not use them for anything & see you have a link to Duck here which I do use for searches and protecting privacy.

Dave said...

Outstanding info today!

RuthAnne said...

Extraordinary-the way the socialists are creating havoc in this country, I won't be surprised if their efforts [especially this impeachment bullcrap] ends in some kind of revolution as we are SICK n TIRED of these so-called progressive Communists.