aristide1 wrote:I'd love to strike up a serious conversation here, like we used to do routinely years ago.
1. Are weather extremes something you consider more often? In my case I have a gas boiler, but what good is that when the ignition and circulator pumps run on electricity? I'm actually quite happy my hot water heater is "old tech" with a pilot light, a thermocouple handles all it's needs, it runs as long as there is gas. How to handle a power outage? Especially a winter one. And to what degree? No pun intended.
2. Have you saved for retirement? Outside of Social Security, and perhaps a pension, there are IRAs and 401Ks. Over the last few years the stock market in general seems to be a rigged game, or at least a lot more volatile. I think we will see banks screw us again in our lifetimes. Going from stocks to bonds is still a paper holding. Do you consider having hard assets? Any kind. Real estate, art, gold?
3. Do you have any kind of food stash? Something that can hold you for a while? Or even just seeds, for planting a garden?
Feel free to add more? I hope we're just getting started.
Think of it as being prudent, not alarmist.
A
I don't visit much due to how quiet it got. That new sign up date is off by 4 or five years.. I still wished that original sign up was there. I actually disappeared after changing my nick for reasons of moving and new computer. I have been here since day one.
my retirement is disability, and still need to be right on the ball for my location and winters.
the average 90 day low is still at 1F and it is snowing right now, march 30.
110 inches of snow total, 3 feet packed.
I can drive my z71 pickup on top.
Being Not in my own building, this federal standard one had flunked the water once, and power several times..but prevails.
So, the greatest backup is the truck with a fuel injected v8. Standard tranny, as I have flunked automatics due to arctic conditions (and power steering as well).
my first 26F below was 27 years ago. It is not like the arctic of europe, my locale gets the real thing for days,dead silent. This year we got four of them...and it hovered there forever. 5 above seemed almost warm when the time came.
You do not wait for older to prepare here. I have been doing that since I was 15 (now 42). 42 here is quite old.
I still think they should give swaths of this land to the u.s. military, real training.
Glad to chime in this conversation, I talk once every couple 3 years.