I want to thank Decomposed, again, for last-year's post, fitting an elliptic curve to the arc of the national debt and predicting disaster.
Although I expressed my doubts about the fit (and I think he did, too), I decided (to borrow a phrase from Pres. Truman) and "When there is something you should do, and you know in your heart you have to do it, the sooner you get it over with, the better off everyone is." (going from memory of a book I read 40+ years ago).
Anyway, I decided to stop procrastinating and play a "game" with myself: to seriously "pretend" I only had a year left to prepare; to try to get a bolthole (a minimal liferaft, I think I might have said) prepared before the end of 2023. Maybe something like what CTJ did whenever he set sail into the deep blue sea in search of Moby Dick?
I'm happy to say I've been acting on that vow, to a considerable extent! I won't claim that I've been QUITE as monomanical /panicked as I expect I'd be if I actually KNEW TEOTWAYKI was Jan 1, 2024. However, I have been refreshingly decisive.
In early Nov, I left Calif, with only a carry-on suitcase, expecting to be back "soon"...., and I haven't been back. Although I know I left behind my "job" and 99.9% of all my "things" I feel I have finally left CA pretty decisively. I am trying to get maint and yard upkeep, etc. established remotely. At some point I will have to go back and deal with something in person, but I am definitely putting that off...and in my heart I feel I am finally "out".
I have made massive commitments (signed contracts; spent a ton of money) to use up approximately all of my cash outside CA, probably before the end of the year, in exchange for real things and, especially, things which ought to cash flow and hold value. (That's what you do if you expect a currency collapse).
Now, I am trying to do this thoughtfully, and I do have a pretty detailed plan which was put together mostly over the Covid years), but I AM undertaking a major life change...and I confess to sometimes being a little worried about acting so "rashly".
I am planning to set up at least TWO modest safe houses in the July-Dec timeframe. Yes, I am going to be making use of some things I had half-assed arranged before Decomposed posted his chart (I've been concerned for year that the US was going down a bad path, but always second guessing myself enough to interrupt my own completion of major moves.)
Oh, I've redoubled my effort to learn Spanish. I'm doing targeted practice almost every day, listening to captioned TV shows, as one of my safe-houses requires that.
I'll leave it at that. Why am I posting this here? Hmmm. Well, I have a couple of reasons: (1) I might get a few of you to join the game or pick up your own pace (2) Posting that I am doing this makes it much harder to allow myself to stall out. I mean, I'm okay with next January coming and some of you maybe jeering that I did all that work for seemingly no currency crash. But I'm not okay with getting to next January and having to confess, if only to myself, that I chickened out again! ;->
I'll try to give a few updates through the year. And, yes, if for some reason I really stall out I will force myself to confess that, too.
"Life is nothing if not a daring adventure!" -Helen Keller
"Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us." -Anne Frank
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