rewards and rights

REWARDS AND RIGHTS


While it is true that the vast majority of folks think they have a right to the good life, the middle class type of endless consumption, I don’t blame them. Most just have no idea anything else exists. Every TV commercial, every government tax structure, every government run school propaganda block of time, and nearly every neighbor, all are geared towards this life and you have no reason to think something else a bit more sane is out there waiting for you. My mom and I were never close, I think subconsciously I blamed her for coddling my sister and driving away dad, but the older I get the more I simply love her to pieces for the way she taught us by example. She quickly reverted to County Yuppie after her second marriage, but then, she could. Step dad has money coming out the wazoo. But prior to that she lived a frugal hippie existence and everything that lead me away from the Yuppie Scum of life, I just had to relearn what she already did in the Seventies. I had it easy. I’m thankful, believe me. I had almost no bad habits to unlearn. Most folks have to retrain themselves painfully. And the easiest way I can think of to do that is this simple observation. If you want to live rationally, with security and without debt, you must view the easy life as a reward, not a right. The standard cop out for people that want things easy is, I don’t want to be too old to enjoy life. That or, I want a wife and family and they want a middle class lifestyle. Sure, everyone WANTS everything. But remember, people in hell want ice water. Do they get it?

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We need to revert to the old school way of doing things. Hard work and sacrifice first, then luxury. The reason you did it that way was that when you get old, you can’t work very hard. People have it assbackwards today. They immediately get into debt for the best they can afford interest payments on, then they work until they drop paying it off. How enjoyable is working to keep a home from falling apart when the bank owns it? You don’t have an investment, you have a money pit. While it is true that a home was never intended as an investment, as far as returning cash money to you ( it is a consumer item, not a certificate of deposit ), it is an investment for retirement. Any idiot telling you you need X amount of money to retire is an charlatan. You need zero debt and as close to zero on bills as possible to retire ( I’m ignoring the possibility of collapse as we are talking about conventional living here ). Not even gold is as safe a store of wealth as is the ability to live on almost nothing. If I didn’t fear the die-off so much, I would be living in a temperate climate with a huge garden, chickens, fishing nearby and solar panels ( east Texas ). Living without a car, in a poor neighborhood to minimize taxes, you can live close to zero money ( you can do the same in a colder climate, perhaps a more arid one, but the up front cost to prepare zero heating and food cost are sky high ). If you are wondering why the majority of the population is crowded in the tropics, there is your answer. Very low costs associated with living without money. The tsunami, malaria and crowding costs are another matter of course.

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If you foolishly ( but we forgive you since you didn’t know any better ) got into debt for school, a house, a car and buying the old lady a diamond because you thought you’d get lucky, and that all turned out badly for you since Wall Street is eating itself to survive ( last banker in the stewpot wins! ), and, by the way, get that 401k cashed in before it turns into an IOU from Bernenke & Buddies and pay off your debts, now you must get out of your hole AND prepare for a terrible future. Being out of debt, with no car costs and almost zero housing cost, you can easily support a family AND prep on a minimum wage job. That is the reward. Getting there is hard work. But, if you cut up your credit cards, trash your credit score to remove temptation, never get into a payment plan of any kind ever again ( I won’t even touch cell phone or TV year long contracts ), you can live like a king the rest of your life. Invest in reducing your bills to nothing, with no debt, and several things happen. A lot less stress. You can do the work that interests you. You can easily prep every week ( to the envy of your Yuppie Survivalist buddies ). You can retire almost anytime. You can enjoy life. You may not think having the luxury to waste $20 is a big deal, your living standards revolving around 12 hour work days, SUV and McMansion, Starbucks every morning. But when $20 is 5% of your income, that is a bit more impressive. I’d wager a regular middle class salary that had a 5% unexpected bill come up would need to use a credit card to meet the need. They are so far in debt they can’t pay any emergency bills, so they get more in debt for it. Kind of like the federal government.

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All you are doing is changing the way you reward yourself for hard work. The conventional way is to get into debt to have luxury items immediately. The smart way is to wait for it, pay cash, and enjoy it without it representing a nagging worry of cost. This is not rocket science. It isn’t even really hard to do. It just needs an attitude adjustment. Now, why bring all this up? Because it is one of the few realistic methods of coping with continuing hard times. Even if you can’t enjoy the fruits of frugal living as well now as in times past, if nothing else, it will allow you to survive the collapse ( the economic collapse, not the die-off ) in style, compared to your middle class buddies in debt. Before, it was a nice alternate lifestyle option. Anymore, it is becoming a necessity.

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