“I do not expect to survive the chaos undamaged, but I do intend mitigate the damage by eliminating debt and buying real assets as paper dollars become available to me.”
What you have written makes sense to me. Can I ask what do you classify as “real assets”?
My plan is to make different decisions with the next dollars that become available and direct them towards a variety of assets can be physically held and used. The money that becomes available above my expenses in retirement would less often go into the Charles Schwab account.
The first things I think of are food, consumables, supplies, consumer durables, and tools. As the summer ends all our shelves, cabinets and the tool shed are fully stocked with items we use, and we have programs to rotate the items. We purchased for long term storage a year supply of food for one person. We also have cases of very good red wine, which of course in a natural for people living in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. (Be sure to eliminate any deferred maintenance on a house or cars.)
A home is a real asset, provided there is no outstanding debt. In general the absence of debt is constitutes real asset. Buy for cash upgrades to the home, which retain or enhance its valve. Replace an old roof, gutters, and drains. Update the landscaping. Soon we are going to have our driveway resurfaced with a Concrete Technology product. In every case the improvement needs to make it one of the best houses in the neighborhood without adding features properly belonging in other more affluent neighborhoods.
When countries look to define their wealth in substantive terms they consider natural resources, and the gold and silver they have in their vaults. I decided that gold was too expensive when it hit $800 per ounce, but I determined to buy one gold coin every time I gave blood regardless of the price. I go three or four times a year, and the shop I do business with is just a few blocks away. If I had the money I would buy rural property, and grow trees or grape vines.
In a time when my wife and I, and our two son’s families enjoy material prosperity, it is difficult to remember that our Christian faith is our really real asset. All of us try to keep saying that whatever reasonable steps we may take can, in a significant way, be overcome by unforeseen events. In the new True Grit movie when Mattie Ross is about to join Rooster Cogburn to go after Ned Pepper she says, “I am in the hands of the Maker of all things and I have a fine horse”. I think that sound bite sums up a shelf full of theology writings.