[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PEAKINT', '
')Peak oil or not, there is never a guarantee of tomorrow.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'A')hem........I am 50, and am very busily trying to save for my retirement because i expect to live for another 30, or even 35 years. Maybe more. I do not expect our current retirement systems to last that long. Therefore, i need to save every last penny i can NOW, and not live today like there is no tomorrow. There will be a tomorrow. And a day after that. And a day after that. And a day after that, ad infinitum, or at least until the sun fries all life off this planet. I'm also trying to figure out how to actually earn some income after i retire, precisely becauswe i do not expect Social Security to be in place, and because my job's retirement plan may not be there, either. Therefore, everything that i will have access to in the future to suppport myself and my family is up to me to provide for myself, and that means planning ahead.

[Peak_Yeast]

I read Limits to Growth when i purchased it in a second hand book store when I was about 11-12 years old back in the early1980s.

I completely understood the meaning of it (still think i did) - and advocated to make private car ownership illegal for the next 20 years - and fought for renewable power and population reduction. - All women can get only 2 children was my idea back then. A lot wont use the 2 - so it becomes a reduction.

Today - I think I would advocate the BAU - The Burn-Exterminate-Destroy culture of humans. The faster we destroy ourselves the better for the rest of earth. There is no place for our civilisation here. There are just too many f.ckers that want Power, riches and dont care a whit about anything else but themselves - they need to be exterminated to progress from BAU. This will never happen from our own efforts.

Next best it to eradicate everybody - which is what BAU will do. But I try to keep my conscience clear - no traveling, no useless consumption, working to make my own food and so forth. And I will, of course, as everyone else - fight everyone until my last dying breath - when the BAU ends.

[Paulo1]

Peaknit,

I agree with your list of experiences and life's fleeting nature. I have been looking after my 2nd alzheimers parent these past 10 years, and believe me, if you want a wake up call try helping out someone with alzheimers or dementia. But those positions of yours are not mutually exclusive. You seem to think there are two extremes.....one path is drudgery and a stifled life for retirement readies, and the other is go for it and live life to the fullest.

I submit you can do both, and I am living proof. Plus, you can live hard and be responsible at the same time. My parents gave me life and did everything they could to start me out in life. You think I would abandon them to die in misery because they are old?

Have you ever cloud skied in an airplane, had lunch on a glacier, rode on the outside of a float plane (on a very hot summer day), fished in lakes never before fished in, and flown into pristine country for a private hunting trip? I did all of this stuff while paying bills and supporting my family, plus saving for retirement. Along the way I have done so many things if I listed them here no one would believe me. I have lassooed caribou, hunted cougars, backed away from stalking bears and and and. But building things out of wood and metal is my passion. I live to build and create.

Ibon, it sounds is still out there on the fringes. (I just read his response when I tried to post this and had a chuckle. A couple of weeks ago I got a call from a kid who needed some help with his math in order to graduate. I spent an afternoon helping him out and it was great.) Nowadays, my idea of adventure is taking my boat out (that I built) and fish by myself....year round off the BC coast. Occasionally, I ride my motorcycle and enjoy passing motorhomes at 160 km/hr. Or, I take my little antique trail bike out with my rifle and .410 shotgun and fishing rod. I spend the day in the middle of nowhere and have a good look around.

The bottom line is that there is no bank of Dad to pay your bills as you age unless you are a basement dweller still living at home. An adult goes forth and 'pays his way', or fish and cut bait as my Dad used to say. How you do it is only limited by your imagination and energy.

These days my wife and I do a great deal of gardening as we have a homestead (modern version) and grow most of our own food. It is beyond satisfying.

Best of luck as you move on.

regards

[Paulo1]

Good post, by the way. Lots of great responses.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'A')hem........I am 50, and am very busily trying to save for my retirement because i expect to live for another 30, or even 35 years. Maybe more. I do not expect our current retirement systems to last that long. Therefore, i need to save every last penny i can NOW, and not live today like there is no tomorrow. There will be a tomorrow. And a day after that. And a day after that. And a day after that, ad infinitum, or at least until the sun fries all life off this planet. I'm also trying to figure out how to actually earn some income after i retire, precisely becauswe i do not expect Social Security to be in place, and because my job's retirement plan may not be there, either. Therefore, everything that i will have access to in the future to suppport myself and my family is up to me to provide for myself, and that means planning ahead.

[Lore]

Well, at the very least, you learned a new four letter word.

[C8]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PEAKINT', '
')
This is why I'm spending every penny I make and not saving a penny for "retirement" in CD/ IRA/401k/ mutual fund, index fund, etc etc

[Cog]

Just vote Democrat and you never have to worry about not getting your social security. I have been told this on this very forum.

[Dybbuk]

Not many here seem to be arguing the OP assumption that "spending money = happiness". The argument seems to be all about whether or not to defer said happiness.

This kind of thinking leads to a life of unbelievable emptiness. It's also the kind of thinking that got the world into the kind of mess that leads to most of the discussions on this forum.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

The OP should try being 45 with a prostate the size of a grapefruit and pissing blood for quarter of an hour every couple of hours to get things into perspective. . . you gotta have something in reserve or subscribe to some system to get by.

Cheers.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'I')f US society didn't spend millions keeping an 85 year old person alive, then nurses would lose their jobs and doctors wouldn't be able to play golf and buy yachts, and hundreds of golf pros, yacht sellers, fairway trimmers andmowers and sand trap rakers, yacht painters and yacht electricians etc. wouldn't have jobs and they would all starve.

[ralfy]

Part of investing in oneself is prepping.

[Cog]

Going to have to go with TIMO on this one. Like him, I'm my 50's and saving every dime I can for retirement. The stock market is a big part of that. After dealing with both my FIL's estate and my father's financial situation, I do not want to be a burden on anyone. I also want some financial freedom to do some things that I simply don't have time for while working.


Regardless of whatever doom scenario is the flavor of the month, you will be a day older tomorrow and will get old and die eventually. I prefer those later years to be as comfortable as possible.

[Cog]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cappinhook', 'I') think a lot people are missing Peakint point. I don't hear him asking for a handout at 65

[charmcitysking]

Great thread.

I'd share a lot of OP's sentiments. When I was 8 I woke up one morning to a dead mother (brain aneurysm) and when I was 18 I woke up one morning to a dead father (heart attack). No warning, no nothing.

This has reinforced the fleeting nature of life in my outlook and has undoubtedly influenced some of my more "irresponsible" decisions. But these life experiences have also formed a sense of altruism within me. My suffering has made me more aware of and empathetic towards others' suffering, no matter the cause.

As Omar Little said, "Every man got to have a code." I believe humans are more than just animals and that we all have a responsibility to each other.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Scrub Puller', 'Y')air . . .

The OP should try being 45 with a prostate the size of a grapefruit and pissing blood for quarter of an hour every couple of hours to get things into perspective. . . you gotta have something in reserve or subscribe to some system to get by.

Cheers.

[Pops]

I think "Prepping" as full time sport is really not a choice.

I'm pretty sure people either think about what's behind the wall switch and kitchen faucet or they don't, wonder about the next bag of groceries or just take them for granted, fret over the next rent check or blithely consider it tomorrow's business. Whatever it is, prepping isn't a shopping list; is isn't 1,000# of nitro packed wheat berries, a bunch of guns or what brand of bowie knife you want to buy next.

Preparing, for me at least, is an itch, a nag, a way of thinking about stuff that is more or less constant—how would this work/ how would I get/ what makes this tick/ what's the option for/ where would I go/ what happens if/ what happens if...

Happily I think about it less since not so many depend on me nowadays. I think dependents are a big part of the reason for planning. But I also think that a person who grows up listening to the old folks talk about this and that is the key to understanding that things can slip sideways in just a heartbeat. By and large, normal is unusual, if that was what you were led to believe I think you got fooled, LOL "Shit Happens" isn't a tagline thought up by a copywriter somewhere, it has been around a long time.

I don't worry about the medium or long term in the same way at all. I try to be as respectful as I can of the natural that's left and try to leave as little a mess as possible. But getting all worked up about the far future is pretty well off my radar. If I've learned one thing here, it is that predictions should go in the fiction aisle and the actuality of the future only shows up in the history books very much after the fact.

[Cog]

I still do the food preps and I like trying different things like starting fire without matches. But increasingly, I am doing more financial preps as I reach older ages. Recessions happen. Lived through several of them now and financial planning is as much a prep item as buckets of wheat.