PP #13: Time to abandon ship?
Project: Pioneer #13, December 30, 2023 (Saturday 3pm)
We hope your holiday season has been wonderful! Giavana and I decided to forego gifts to one another this year, both breathing a huge sigh of relief over that decision. She won't have to pretend to love my awkward presents. We wanted to be more generous to our kids, and that’s what makes us feel good, as we already have all we need. We’re about experiences now, not “things,” as we’ve sold most of what we already had. We have Henrik, we have Red House, most importantly we have each other and little Pia. It was tense on Xmas morning as we eyed each other with that “don’t you dare” look.
Project: Pioneer is the live reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle, just at the start of winter. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. (Audio at this link, Apple, and Spotify)
Well, we did decide to take a mini-getaway just after Christmas. We headed to a quaint small town further up in the mountains for a couple of days. It was wonderful to get away for a bit. We were staying in a historic old hotel (huge whirlpool tub!) and spent time walking the lovely main street and journeying into the many small shops. I found a cool edition of Kerouac’s On the Road (which inspired my own Farawayer time).
There were no retail or restaurant chains anywhere in sight, which was very nice. It’s also that way in our new hamlet around Red House—amazing local pubs and eateries, no chains, just amazing inexpensive home-cooked grub. It’s a very common theme when small businesses begin with admirable goals—treat every customer special, create a wonderful experience, great products but then as the lust for more profit, for more growth take over, they lose the thread and become too big, too complex, and just like every other miserable experience. I always wondered, “Why not just stay small, run a great business, and make a good living?” That idea goes out the window if you want to go public, sell shares, as the monstrous greed of that environment demands growth.
More, more, more, never enough. “Honey, the Joneses have a new Beemer, they’re beating us, they’re winning, this is not acceptable!” We all lose out in the end. Those corporates push out small businesses, factory farms are replacing family farms. Why is a guy like Matthew McConaughey demanding $2.5 million per episode of a Yellowstone spinoff? Doesn’t he have all the money already to do anything he wants and make sure generations after him do as well? When is enough enough?
It’s all good for us lately, except the relentless rain! Every day, every day. We’ve broken the all-time historical record for December at almost nine inches and it’s still coming. Our biggest battle in Red House is moisture, as we’ve documented, so the weather has exacerbated that problem. At least it’s not snow and ice (so far!). I’ve been worried what will happen if/when we hit single digits, as Red House isn’t an all weather RV. We keep breaking climate records—once again this year the planet was hottest on record and we’re heading for disaster without question, and nobody seems to care.
In the last post, we focused on prepping. Please read it if you haven’t—there’s a great list of things to buy to get started. Whether by climate, civil/political unrest, war, solar EMP, asteroid strike, or some combination, it’s coming. Be ready. Any of those can cause a technological reset, and the devices (including vehicles) we rely on every day could become useless hunks of molten metal and plastic. That’s what happened with the EMP in 1921 (which caused world-wide fires and fried what telegraphs and electrical systems we had back then) and in 1989, and solar activity is up lately. We may go back to a civilization of small local enclaves, like the one Giavana, Pia, and I just visited in the mountains. Like the one we live in. Perhaps we’ll all form small tribes that are self-regulating and self-managed, as the Native Americans had. You have a beef? Take it up with the tribal council, the elders. Work it out. Regain respect for nature and one another, as they had until the white immigrants arrived and the genocide began. I wrote about a post-apocalyptic caste system in the all-ages sci-fi DroidMesh Trilogy (but it was on another planet, since this one was gone).
I hate to be the harbinger of doom and gloom, but I care about you and those you love. I don’t want anyone to suffer. I don’t want this to happen, and I always hope people will pull their heads out of the sand and not be like the oblivious Friends-watching girl in Leave the World Behind. Don’t believe me? Nobody saw a world-wide pandemic coming either, and so many died, so many were impacted. So many had their heads in the sand and listened to false propaganda. “It’s only a few people, it will go away by Easter.”
Just this morning Giavana and I were in a small, cramped coffee shop and one woman came in coughing, sneezing, wiping her runny nose with her hand and touching everything. Over a million dead and we haven’t learned a thing. No discipline, no respect for others. The next one will be far worse.
Again, all we see going on around us exactly is why our small family is doing what we’re doing. How’s it going? Really well! Each day is a carefully choreographed ballet as we wake and switch Red House from night mode to day mode. Space is tight. We need a bigger boat (to keep quoting the line from Jaws). We’re already looking around, but this will involve removing the skirting and winter wrapping if we do it before spring. Spring will be easier, as we won’t have the bulky coats, bedding and other winter gear in our way. We’ll be able to open the windows, get fresh air flow, see outside, enjoy sunlight when we’re inside. We’ll be able to spend most of our time outside, work from the picnic table during the day and use our firepit to relax each night (can’t now due to proximity of the big propane tanks).
The RV upgrade will be a big project. We have to consider whether Henrik can tow something larger. We’ll have to sell Red House (which will be very sad!). In the meantime, we’ll be looking at other models and floorplans.
Oh, and the other morning as I was walking Pia, I saw a neighbor couple load out and leave before dawn. Our small upper enclave of RVs now has two vacancies out of seven. This life isn’t for everyone.
For now, though, we head into the abyss of January through March. Ugh. I’m not a winter person. Giavana’s tolerance for cold is notably down in recent years. This happens as we get older and our metabolic rate slows, and our skin and fat layers thin. We enjoy this lifestyle, which is why we’re looking to upgrade rather than bail. But I hope the future is a place where we will do like others, and hitch up and head to warmth around this time of year. Maybe, someday, we’ll have a nice small cabin by a lake somewhere, our rest-of-forever home. I dream about that! Until then, we’ll take it day by day, ticking off the parade of events that march us toward springtime—New Years, Super Bowl, Valentines, St Patty’s, then finally Easter, the time of rebirth and renewal, the edge of beautiful springtime.
We also used our health care plan free benefit to join a nearby small fitness place. In addition to being able to exercise, we can now use it to take showers! Our Red House shower is fine, but cramped, and this helps take the pressure off our systems and workload at home. Giavana had suggested joining the most expensive free exercise program ever, aka “mall walking.” I didn’t fall for it. I dislike shopping about as much as winter!
It’s the end of the year, and many folks are once again making vows to put their financial house in order. Savings rates were way up during COVID, of course, but now it seems people have reverted to their sloppy money habits. Savings accounts are down, credit card balances are way up (not good at these interest rates!). Don’t blame it on inflation (which is now below historical norms). Corporate profits are through the roof, so there’s your culprit. It doesn’t have to be that way. Fight back, for your families!
If you’re buying things on credit (other than perhaps a house) you’re buying stuff you can’t afford, and paying way more than you should for those things. If you have someone else managing your money (Edward Jones, Ameriprise, Fisher, et al or any investment advisor) you are likely funding their retirement and financial independence, not your own. The dirty secret of investing and doing our own financial planning is that it’s not hard to do on your own, and simplicity always wins over the long haul. Stay away from complex, risky products like annuities, indexed universal life (IUL), and other forms of permanent life insurance.
In 2007, the awesome Warren Buffett challenged the top investment advisors in the world to a ten-year, million-dollar competition. Each would pick their best portfolio of investments and try to top ol’ Uncle Warren (who still lives in the same modest home he bought in 1958 for $31,500 and still drives his old 2014 Cadillac). What did Buffet invest his chunk in? A simple, inexpensive S&P 500 index fund. Same thing that’s probably one of your 401k choices. Of course, he walloped all of the high-priced “experts,” and gave the million to charity.
Start using a tool like Simplifi to monitor your monthly cash flow and net worth and also set savings goals without much effort. Cut up those credit cards (except one for emergencies) and have a simple, pure money flow each month of income minus expenses equals savings and investing for that one month. Stop chasing points, miles, rewards. It’s a fools game and a lot of work. Use an excellent, inexpensive tool like pralanaretirementcalculator.com to map out the rest of your financial life. It’s not hard. I always mention the book Kiss Your Money Hello (and Financial Stress Goodbye) because it’s all in there, even the part about digging out of debt if that’s your first step. Be financially independent. Give yourself the option to retire early or do something you love instead of the hamster wheel.
What’s next? 2024! I’m a big fan of even numbered years :-) I’d like to do a post focused on my take on faith, spirituality, and the after-life, so that’s coming soon. I’ll close with a quote from John Steinbeck’s wonderful book, The Grapes of Wrath. It’s all about the lack of empathy, compassion, and rampant greed. Please share this post on your socials!
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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