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Today, we talk about the economic environment and its potential impact. As well as ideas for positioning yourself to be resilient if things get tough.
LFTN Spring Workshop, April 25-27, $500, Information
Sponsor 1: Agorist Tax Advice, AgoristTaxAdvice.com/LFTN
Sponsor 2: Holler Roast Coffee, HollerRoast.com
Livestream Schedule: @LFTN on Youtube
- Tuesday, 12:30PM, Tuesday Live with John Willis and Bear Independent
- Wednesday, 2pm: Interview Show With Anthony Parker, Real Estate
- Friday, 9:30AM: Homestead Happenings with The Tactical Redneck
Tales from the Prepper Pantry
- Menu from the pantry challenge
- Roasted chicken over onions and potatoes
- Two Roemertopf Roast Beefs over carrots, cauliflower, mushrooms
- Fresh saute: Zucchini, peppers, onions, garlic
- 1 crockpot roast beef with morels
- Lamb bone stew left over from LFTN 23
- Taco Salad with the rest of the lettuce (There is 1 salad left here and no more cheddar)
- Chicken Alfredo with milk not cream over heart of palm noodles and sauted veggies
- Holes I have noticed so far: Cheese, heavy cream, fresh veg
- What I would do to fill those holes
Weekly Shopping Report for Jan 2
Dollar Tree was first. The food coolers are still mostly full, but the drink coolers are now around half full, mostly with “standard” fare from Coca-Cola or Pepsi, which I won’t touch. The sad cooler with the compressor that can’t get going has been left empty. Other stock in the store is in good shape; whatever minor thing we’ve come in here to get, week after week, has typically been here. Ours is out of nasal decongestant though, although they have some allergy products and multi-symptom cold medicines; many of the latter contain acetaminophen, a liver toxin, so are never on our list.
Home Depot was next. There is still no tag on the rack of 2x4x8 studs, but a check online shows it is still $3.25. The cordless tool area in the front that is rather prominently featured just before Christmas has been almost entirely cleared out, and there is a lot of empty space there now; I’ll keep an eye on this on future trips.
Aldi was last. Stock levels are good. Produce isn’t mounded up, but there are no empty spaces. They’ve had plenty of canned cat food lately. We found everything we wanted. Staple prices were: eggs: $1.65; whole milk: $2.98; heavy cream: $4.69; OJ: $3.29; butter: $3.69; bacon: $4.25; potatoes: $3.99; sugar: $3.09; flour: $1.99; 80% lean ground beef: $4.49 (+).
Despite the growing escalation of the Islam vs. Civilization conflict in the Middle East, untainted regular gasoline remains at $3.699/gallon.
I went out again later to Food City for dry cat food and another case of seafood Friskies cans, and there was plenty of pet food in stock there.
Operation Independence
Holler Roast Finances 2022 versus 2023
Main topic of the Show: If Things Turn South in 2024
Why would I do a show like this? Because it looks like the 70s on crack out there!
What is impacting the economy and culture
- High Inflation (look up inflation for the past two years and come up with a cumulative number of 11% conservatively and 21% by some estimates) – has your income also grown by 11- 21%
- Real Estate, In migration, Out migration, and interest rates
- Current rate
- Selling now and buying the same cost home costs more
- Where people are going and impacts on those markets
- Housing scarcity
- Long term population expectations
- Boomers moving out of the workforce, into retirement facilities
- Move toward subscription society AKA renting your house not owning it
- War in Ukraine, War in Israel, War war war
- Election Year
- Technological advancement, AI, unprepared workforce, unrealistic expectations
- Number of government employees versus private sector employees – 17% and rising – by one single measure
- Medical industrial complex
- Obesity, diabetes, overall physical and mental health of the population – weakening citizens
- Aging and undermaintained infrastructure and infrastructure spending that doest address them problem
I could go on and on, but without worrying about any conspiracy, there are many things in play that can, and probably will, have a negative impact on our economy at a rather large scale. Any one of these things is painful, yet navigable, but all of them together paint a picture that has been causing either panic or denial among our community and beyond
So why haven’t we talked much about it? (Making decisions from a place of fear is a bad idea)
What could the negative look like? (Setting aside an alien or nuclear or pathogenic attack, because, really, how do you even wrap your mind around being ready for such things, we are mimicking Japan in the 80s, and can learn from that as well as the rebasing of our monetary system and high inflationary period in the 70s and 80s).
- Costs of things outpace income increases (This is already happening) (PANTRY CHALLENGE, FINANCE AUDIT)
- Jobs could become scarce (Currently, we are in a bizarre world where it is hard to find employees that are good AND hard to find a job that is good. Let’s talk about why.) Consequences of unemployment, return to a gig environment without any decent way to navigate it from a regulatory standpoint. In other words, the current environment of overregulation and overtaxation of every little thing does not play well with non-w-2 employees, but people are finding they must engage with the gig economy as a non w-2 employee to survive in a growing number of cases (GROW YOUR INCOME STABILITY).
- Gaining stability through home ownership or land ownership is increasingly difficult, though not impossible. Keeping hold of property in a world where it is taxed based on current market value will also be increasingly difficult. (THE WINDOW)
- Tangible assets and their value versus holding cash (RIGHT NOW YOU CANNOT SELL MANY TANGIBLE THINGS – THIS MAY CHANGE)
- Technological advancements leading to job loss, getting left behind (LEARN THE THINGS YOU ARE SCARED OF, INCLUDING AI)
- Necessary monetary rebasement – we’ve seen it before, it is a favorite tool of leaders, we expect to see it again. (IT IS AN ELECTION YEAR – MAY STAVE THIS OFF A BIT, OR EXPECTED PROSPERITY FROM TRANSITION MAY SPEED IT – ARE YOU READY? CRYPTO AND FROZEN ACCOUNTS STORY)
- Election year and division, violence, hijinks (SITUATIONAL AWARENESS)
- Health of our population, the medical industrial complex, and more (BE HEALTHY)
- Underrmaintained infrastructure and failures – electrical grid, etc (DECENTRALIZE AS IT MAKES SENSE
All in all, it looks scary but we’ve gotten through worse and will again. Building the life you choose with an eye toward community, diversification and LONG TERM success is so important.
Stockpiling will only get you so far, skills, health, resilience and underground networks are the strength in struggle.This is why we do SRF, LFTN and all the other events and meetups that seem so prevalent. This is why I am going to Lenoir City on a day when I could just use a stay at home break.
It is always good to “know a guy, or be the guy that people know by knowing a thing”
So what are you building this year? What will you learn? Who will you get to know?
Mention Our Social Networks
Make it a great week!
GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce.
Community
Resources
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Welcome to Living Free in Tennessee, where we talk about building the life you choose on your terms.
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Today is Monday, January 8th, 2024.
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And this is episode, what episode is it?
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845 of Living Free in Tennessee.
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And I think I am going to double check today.
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Yep.
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I just wanted to make sure the audio, we’re going to get an echo.
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I’m actually hearing an echo in here.
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So let me know if you hear a little bit of
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like echo on your end guys in the live stream i’m curious about that because i actually totally emptied out my studio room so now it’s all hard surfaces so i kind of suspect we have some sound bounce going on today but we’ll we’ll be uh oh good sound clear that’s good uh i may put some sound dampeners up i’ve been meaning to work on this studio for a long time so that being said what do you think of my black wall i have a black wall now
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and I painted that.
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I was supposed to get that done.
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Yeah, A-Rip here says a little bit of an echo.
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Sorry about that.
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We’ll have some sound dampeners in here eventually.
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I’m actually still painting walls on this thing, but I got my black wall painted this weekend.
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I was supposed to do it on the first of the year,
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But instead, I ended up going straight to the emergency room with the Tactico Redneck.
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And so it took two coats of paint, not a surprise.
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And it’s kind of fun to have this up and running and ready to go.
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I’ve got to get all sorts of other things going.
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We’re messing with lighting and all sorts of fun.
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So that’s just sort of a podcast innovation for the year.
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We’re going to talk about the economic environment today, which is not something I usually talk about on the podcast.
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and some of its potential impacts.
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And I’m bringing this up now because a lot of us are in a start the year outright sort of phase.
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So why not tap into that energy and use it to set yourself up for success, even if things do turn a little south.
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So the topic for today is
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What do we do if things turn south in 2024?
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Also ideas about positioning yourself to be more resilient through that.
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Because some change is coming.
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Change has been coming for a long time.
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Change has been happening.
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And we have a lot of interesting indicators going on right now.
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This is not intended to freak you the heck out, but if you’re freaked out and you come here, it might freak you out a little bit as we’re talking about stuff that’s happening in the economy, in the world economy, in the US economy, in our culture, with what’s going on in trends that I’m seeing.
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This is my hot take on it.
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And…
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I recommend if you’re a little worried about this and you are a podcast consumer, listen to the Survival Podcast.
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Go check out the Lots Project.
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Go listen to Two Chicks Homestead.
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Go listen to the Unloose the Goose After Party.
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John Willis is another good one.
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Listen to people who take a realistic take on things.
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how to weather things that go wrong.
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Because if you do that, it actually helps reduce the fear.
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And then you start making better decisions for yourself long-term.
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That being said, I think some bad stuff is in the works right now.
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And I think that we…
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I think it’s an impossible dream to think things always get better all the time.
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And it’s going through the harder times that make the better times so good.
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But the hard times don’t have to be dreary and awful and horrible.
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It’s how you…
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pivot when that happens.
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That makes a big difference.
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So we’re going to talk about that today.
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Of course, we have all of our usual homestead segments that we usually have.
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I have somebody in the comments saying 2024, you’re going south.
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The same thing we should have been doing, growing our own food, networking with my kind of people.
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Exactly.
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So, um,
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Okay, so let’s jump into the featured event of today’s show, and that is the Living Free in Tennessee Spring Workshop.
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We are selling tickets on January 20th for a three-day on-homestead workshop here at my homestead.
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I open up the homestead to y’all.
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We feed you food that we’ve grown here or sourced in the network.
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We do end up buying some commercial food, but most of the main ingredients of what we serve here is
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is basically practicing what we preach and cooking the beef that we source and using, you know, the mushrooms that we’ve gotten to, you know, thicken the gravy and all sorts of different things like that.
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And if we cannot grow it here, then we do our best to source at least some of it from offsite.
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I will do my best to get heavy cream from somewhere for the, this for the coffee this year.
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It’s the challenge I have is the local farm that I know that provides the milk doesn’t provide the heavy cream.
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But I know somebody else who makes really great heavy cream.
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So we might be able to tap into that source.
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But it’s been really fun watching that side of the workshop grow.
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This year, our theme is back to the basics.
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I’ve got Patrick Rorman coming out.
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to show us how to use a forge and how to make things with a forge and i believe if everything goes the way we plan he’s also going to let you do some of your own projects with a forge i’ve got carrie brown doing a wild edible walk we’ve got tool man tim john pugliano sean mills and i’ve got porterhouse coming all the way from california to talk about developing water sources on your land when you maybe don’t have one like you don’t have a ready spring he
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in a very rather arid environment,
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found a place on his property to develop into a spring that he thought might yield a spring.
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And he’ll talk about how he did that.
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He’s also going to share how he grew his YouTube channel, which I think is something a lot of y’all are really interested in.
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But this year we’re doing something a little different.
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It’s this.
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So tickets are $500, includes your camping, includes the food, includes all the sessions.
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I kept the price at 500 this year.
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I just made a commitment to do it.
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because with inflation, I was expecting the price to go up and I was like, we’re just gonna figure this out.
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And one of the ways,
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is that I’m gonna invite y’all to present at my workshop.
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I have four slots open right now for the spring workshop for presentation.
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So if you’re thinking, I really wanna go to the spring workshop and I have this sort of back to the basics thing that would work, it could be technology, it could be business, it could be homesteading, it could be lost skills like forging or anything of that nature.
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Tanning hides.
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If you’re like, you know, I really want to go there.
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I’ll give you a hundred dollars off your ticket.
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If you send me your idea and I ask you to speak, the way you do that is send an email to Nicole at living free in Tennessee.com.
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That’s N I C O L E at living free in Tennessee.com.
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Or go to livingfreeintennessee.com and then click on contact and fill out that form.
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And those emails come to me.
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I need your submission by the end of the day Sunday, like midnight Sunday, this coming Sunday, the 14th of the month.
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Because…
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Then you’ll know you’re coming to the workshop.
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And then we can set the foundation for ticket launch on January 20th, which is when tickets launch at 9 a.m.
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If you want more information on the Spring Workshop, go to livingfreeintennessee.com forward slash spring-workshop-24.
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I have not linked it to the workshop button.
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If you’re listening to this on the live stream, by the time that you…
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See here the podcast, though, you can just go livingfreeintennessee.com.
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Look under events.
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It’s right there.
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It has the information and the link is also in the show notes.
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OK, I also want to thank our two sponsors of today’s show.
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The first sponsor is Agris Tax Advice.
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Matthew Surse from AgrisTaxAdvice.com.
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of my show since I launched sponsorships.
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He’s also been a great supporter in the network and he has a really cool download of different tax write-offs that you can take for free in exchange for your email.
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And then he sends a weekly email that I find really useful.
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I read it every week.
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I look forward to it every week.
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Check more out at agorastaxadvice.com forward slash LFTN to get that free download and sign up for his email list.
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He also sent me some audio to play for y’all this week, which I will do, but not today, about some changes in tax code that if you run a business, you need to know about them.
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Really important.
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And I’m looking forward to running that segment as well.
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The reason I’m not running it today is I did not figure out technologically how to do that.
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So I will figure it out even if we’re doing tax day on Friday.
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That’s fine.
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Our second sponsor of today’s show is Holler Roast Coffee.
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Why not get freshly brewed coffee delivered straight to your door and start your day in luxury by supporting a craft roaster who you already listen to?
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That’s me.
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That’s right.
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Holler Roast Coffee is my coffee business that I started.
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I started roasting in 2010 or 2009, and I sold at the farmer’s market first.
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But I got really serious about this business in about 2017.
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And since then, we’ve grown and grown and grown.
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And it’s been a really great experience getting to know different people’s coffee preferences, answering questions over the years about coffee, and just having an awesome product that I know makes people smile when they have a cup of coffee.
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In fact, when I wake up in the morning, first thing I’m thinking is, oh, goody, I get to have coffee.
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Because at this point, I don’t get to have coffee in the day.
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It’s too late.
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Anyway.
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You can find out more at hollerose.com.
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Lastly, if you want to know what’s going on in the network, in the LFTN network, I do send a weekly email out on Monday called the Monday Mail.
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And it just talks about what’s going on here.
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It gives you the show schedule for the week, highlights the last week’s shows.
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And then we have area of network news where we talk about things we hear about going on in the network, highlighting other people.
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our events, like just sort of a calendar of these, like next couple of weeks, this is what’s going on.
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And it’s, it’s a, I, a lot of people have told me they found it useful.
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I share a recipe of the week in that.
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And we sometimes have a homestead tip.
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So that’s over at living free in tennessee.com.
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If you want to sign up for that.
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And I have a question in from the live stream already that I’m just going to handle right now.
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It’s from Survivalizer.
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If you’re taking questions, how would you market coffee shop in the metro area like greater Phoenix, Arizona area?
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Well, that’s a great question.
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Hopefully you have a coffee shop that you’re marketing.
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What I would do is get people really interested in making that a destination and then spread the word in any way possible on local community groups, on Facebook, on Nextdoor, that sort of thing.
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I would do some targeted advertising
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Facebook and YouTube in general, you have pretty good targeting.
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So I’d get some videos out and do some targeted advertising based on people who are nearby.
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And I think something that works really well for local venues is to have sort of a regular schedule of things you can come do.
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So a coffee shop lends itself to music, right?
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Or trivia or that sort of thing.
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So you can have some
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book readings, poetry readings, something like that might be really fun.
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But at the same time, just highlighting that the coffee shop exists, that the coffee is good and putting pictures up of those things on a regular schedule.
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I think that starts building the buzz.
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And if you can get people interacting with you, that makes it even better.
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That’s why Holler Roast does our mug shots, right?
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We’re not a coffee shop.
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We’re a
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somebody sends in that they took a picture of and we highlight it on our social feeds and sometimes it’s me and other times people answer with mugs and then we take their mug and we highlight that and it’s sort of turned into a game and that keeps the brand fresh in people’s minds.
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The key is how can you get people to know the coffee shops out there?
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Another cool idea, reach out to real estate agents and say, hey, do you want to sponsor coffee for people?
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They come in, they get a free coffee drink up to $2 for the hour of 10 to 11 a.m.
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And we’ll say this is paid for by name of real estate agent or name of company.
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And it raises awareness of the company, but it also brings people to your shop for that free cup of coffee.
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That’s something that happens here at the coffee shop that they do that I think works really well.
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They just work with different local realtors to sponsor coffee.
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And then at the same time, people see that they have the coffee shop, they come in, they try the product, they have an idea of what pricing is right.
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Those are ideas that just come out off the top of my head.
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Hopefully that helps your friends start their coffee shop.
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Okay.
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Livestream scheduled this week.
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Tomorrow, 1230, I’ll be live with John Willis and Bear Independent.
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Wednesday, 2 p.m., I have a really cool interview show with Anthony Parker about how to identify the right homestead property.
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And then I’ve got Homestead Happenings at 930.
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With that, it’s time for our first segment of today’s show.
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And that is Tales from the Prepper Pantry.
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This is where we talk about storing what you use and using what you store.
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And if you listen to the Homestead Happenings podcast on Friday, you know that I’m doing a pantry challenge in January, which means I’m not allowed to buy things at the store.
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And I’m going to confess that I made a mistake this weekend and my neighbors were at Short Mountain Cultures and I was like, oh yeah, grab me some kefir water.
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And I realized that I’m not allowed to buy stuff.
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And just habitually when somebody’s there, because it’s a couple hour drive from here or an hour drive from here,
13:45.598 –> 13:49.399
I’m like, yeah, buy me a case of kefir water because that’s what I do on the regular.
13:49.419 –> 13:51.520
And it didn’t even occur to me I’m not supposed to buy anything.
13:51.660 –> 13:55.601
So I am not drinking my kefir water that I bought.
13:55.701 –> 14:00.742
What I am drinking is the total number of kefir waters that I had at the beginning of the month.
14:00.782 –> 14:03.463
And I’m actually letting myself mix and match flavors if I want to.
14:03.523 –> 14:09.985
But I had 12 kefir waters on January 1st, which is just a, it’s like a fermented beverage.
14:10.205 –> 14:14.166
And it’s something, I mean, I don’t drink a whole one at a time, but it’s something I like to have.
14:15.166 –> 14:22.090
uh, instead of like a cocktail because alcohol free and it’s delicious and not super high in sugar.
14:22.711 –> 14:28.294
And so the, I kind of keep some ferments around from time to time is short mountain cultures makes great ones.
14:28.474 –> 14:36.519
So, uh, I decided to separate mine from tacticals because usually we just have like, everybody just takes whatever kefir water they want.
14:36.559 –> 14:39.901
I’m like, well, tactical, since you’re not doing the pantry challenge and I am, uh,
14:40.541 –> 14:42.062
We need to segment the kefir waters.
14:42.163 –> 14:45.185
I know how many I have total for the month, and that is what I’m doing.
14:45.645 –> 14:50.109
Kefir water just tastes like a not very sweet, but kind of…
14:51.235 –> 14:54.297
a little bit sweet fermented fruit beverage.
14:54.497 –> 14:59.679
So it’s kind of, it’s like a less strong tasting kombucha drink.
15:00.000 –> 15:02.041
And it’s got a little bit of fizziness to it.
15:02.121 –> 15:07.864
It’s great over like, I just use my big whiskey rocks and I’ll pour in a six ounce glass.
15:07.904 –> 15:10.925
I’ll pour some over it and just drink that at night instead of a cocktail.
15:10.965 –> 15:17.588
If I feel like I need to celebrate the day with a mocktail, it’s one of them, you know, it’s a good mocktail sort of thing for me.
15:17.709 –> 15:17.969
So yeah,
15:19.391 –> 15:20.133
So that happened.
15:20.554 –> 15:23.322
I thought during this month for the Prepper Pantry.
15:24.363 –> 15:27.505
give you the update on how it’s going with the Pantry Challenge.
15:27.705 –> 15:31.507
And I took it a different, like I’m doing it a little differently than Dawn.
15:31.547 –> 15:35.029
She was like, okay, stock up guys so that you can do January.
15:35.649 –> 15:43.153
I decided I’m going to do January without stocking up and see how far we get because that does help identify weaknesses in the pantry.
15:43.173 –> 15:46.735
And of course the first week is the easiest week of the Pantry Challenge.
15:47.215 –> 15:52.838
So this is what I’m going to tell you what we ate last week as part of the Tales from the Prepper Pantry Challenge.
15:54.165 –> 15:55.826
uh, uh, January challenge.
15:55.906 –> 16:00.248
And the first thing is, uh, the goodness started laying eggs again.
16:00.308 –> 16:08.991
So I had taken out of the freezer, a two-year-old bag of frozen scrambled eggs that I prepared and had never used.
16:09.411 –> 16:14.814
And I, it defrosted in the fridge and I was like, well, at least we’ll have eggs and I’ll just cook one big egg.
16:14.834 –> 16:17.715
So I did like ham chunks, eggs, basil,
16:18.635 –> 16:20.096
and Parmesan cheese.
16:20.116 –> 16:28.098
And you’ll understand why Parmesan cheese when we get to my weaknesses area and just made a giant skillet of that that lasted for three breakfasts.
16:29.058 –> 16:30.999
But we started getting eggs.
16:31.139 –> 16:36.681
So I also started being able to cook fried eggs again, just like fresh fried eggs, which is awesome.
16:36.741 –> 16:40.562
It also means I’ll probably be able to do some deviled eggs next week.
16:44.023 –> 16:46.704
And the reason we have to wait till next week, by the way, is that
16:48.846 –> 16:56.615
When I discovered they were laying eggs again, they had been laying eggs for a while and I didn’t quite know where, how old the eggs were.
16:56.635 –> 16:57.936
So I’m cracking them one at a time.
16:58.677 –> 17:04.283
So now it’s like I have the ones I found all at once and now I’m getting like four eggs a day from our four hens.
17:05.177 –> 17:08.199
Also, the ducks have started laying eggs again and they are in duck jail.
17:08.319 –> 17:10.121
So hopefully we’ll get duck eggs again, too.
17:10.161 –> 17:15.865
And then we’re going to be like just covered up in eggs because I’ve got, I think, 40 or so ducks.
17:15.925 –> 17:16.325
I’m not sure.
17:16.565 –> 17:22.009
Somewhere between 20 and 40 ducks, some of which are female and most of which are female and some of which are male.
17:22.629 –> 17:26.972
So in addition to that, I’ve just been starting my day in the freezer.
17:27.967 –> 17:32.130
to decide what the next day’s meal will be, or pulling out several days at a time.
17:32.731 –> 17:38.856
We had roasted chicken over onions and potatoes that I did in the Roamer Top, which we talked about last week what the Roamer Top was.
17:38.876 –> 17:41.258
I did two Roamer Top roast beefs.
17:41.658 –> 17:44.100
And the reason I did them that way is I could cook them
17:44.961 –> 17:54.985
And three to four hours in that and have them just like pot roasted out really well, fall apart and still moist and delicious.
17:55.465 –> 18:00.407
So the pot roast beef was carrots, cauliflower and mushrooms.
18:00.447 –> 18:01.988
I am now out of fresh mushrooms.
18:02.068 –> 18:08.591
I have dried mushrooms, but I did have a few fresh mushrooms in the fridge before I started this, as well as a head of cauliflower.
18:08.691 –> 18:11.212
And I still have carrots in there.
18:11.232 –> 18:12.592
I did some fresh saute.
18:12.612 –> 18:13.513
So zucchini, pepper.
18:14.293 –> 18:14.653
garlic.
18:15.174 –> 18:16.655
I have garlic until the end of time.
18:16.875 –> 18:22.720
And then I had bought zucchini peppers at the store on the 30th.
18:22.760 –> 18:24.562
I think it was whatever day I went by.
18:24.602 –> 18:28.365
I think whatever day I flew home from California, we stopped at Aldi and I got some of those.
18:28.405 –> 18:29.886
So those were in the fridge.
18:29.926 –> 18:32.408
I also had broccoli in there for fresh satays.
18:32.828 –> 18:36.912
And my strategy here is we’re using that up first because it will go bad if we don’t use it.
18:36.932 –> 18:37.092
Right.
18:37.892 –> 18:40.655
I did a crock pot roast, which takes eight hours at my house.
18:41.375 –> 18:55.525
with uh morels so we have three roasts by the way that’s right but you haven’t seen the redneck eat like he he eats like one big roast for a family of four it’s like a serving for me and three servings for him that’s kind of how that goes
18:56.397 –> 19:03.502
And if there’s anything left at the end of the week, I just take all the tail ends and put them into the crock pot and make holler stew, which we did one time.
19:04.083 –> 19:05.744
I also did a lamb.
19:05.884 –> 19:10.367
What I’m referring to is the lamb bone stew from LFTN 23.
19:10.447 –> 19:11.048
Apparently.
19:11.588 –> 19:15.111
So we did lamb stew for the workshop food last year.
19:16.031 –> 19:21.332
And one of the things they used to make the bone broth was the ribs with the meat on it.
19:21.492 –> 19:26.594
And then they put them all into like they didn’t pick the meat off the ribs for the stew.
19:26.614 –> 19:27.894
They just made the bone broth that way.
19:27.914 –> 19:30.495
And then they use bigger cuts of lamb for the lamb stew.
19:30.755 –> 19:31.775
And I now know why.
19:32.115 –> 19:35.936
So then they just labeled it in my freezer that it was a lamb stew kit.
19:37.251 –> 19:42.534
And I assumed that meant it was just lamb and lamb broth.
19:42.714 –> 19:43.334
And I would add.
19:43.434 –> 19:49.757
So anyway, I took that out not knowing exactly what had happened because other people work in my kitchen during the spring workshop.
19:49.857 –> 19:52.338
I’m sure that Leo’s told me verbally what was going on.
19:52.439 –> 19:52.939
I don’t remember.
19:53.559 –> 19:58.624
So, so I made this, what I refer to as lamb bones too, because there were a lot of little rib bones in there.
19:58.664 –> 20:02.468
So, and I just didn’t know, threw it in the crock pot with some spices.
20:03.429 –> 20:08.795
And when I was stirring it, I heard clinking and I pulled out a bunch of ribs, but there were a lot of little tiny bones too.
20:08.835 –> 20:11.798
So we had to be really careful eating this so as not to choke.
20:12.338 –> 20:16.242
And this was just me trying to use up leftovers from my freezer.
20:17.305 –> 20:22.148
And to that, I added like a whole leg of lamb for big chunks of beef of meat.
20:22.268 –> 20:25.569
And then I have potatoes I grew in the garden last year.
20:25.589 –> 20:27.250
Yeah, I know potatoes aren’t keto.
20:27.270 –> 20:29.211
I didn’t put that many in and some green beans.
20:30.072 –> 20:34.374
And so that it was, it was okay, but the bones were annoying and
20:35.419 –> 20:41.743
We have one more serving of that left, but I’ve been trying to eat through that a little bit every day because it’s annoying to eat.
20:41.843 –> 20:45.706
And if I see another one of those lamb bone kits, I’m going to know what it is next time.
20:45.746 –> 20:49.308
And I might change my mind about how I cook with that.
20:49.468 –> 20:50.569
But I think that was it.
20:51.309 –> 20:55.313
So we also did taco salad and that was the day I flew home.
20:55.814 –> 21:03.802
So this was a little bit before the first, but the day I flew home, I think, yeah, the day I flew home from California, I really wanted to eat a homemade meal.
21:04.403 –> 21:05.724
And so I made taco meat.
21:05.965 –> 21:09.288
And then last week at the beginning of the week,
21:10.169 –> 21:13.412
I hadn’t pulled stuff out of the freezer for the week, so nothing was defrosted.
21:13.452 –> 21:24.340
So I took out I made more taco meat, basically, which I just mix like the ground beef with spices like garlic, pepper, cumin, maybe basil, maybe not.
21:25.046 –> 21:31.754
onion, and if I want a tomato-y flavor, I take like a half jar of my homemade salsa and throw it in there and simmer it down.
21:32.174 –> 21:33.836
So we turn that into taco salad.
21:33.876 –> 21:37.860
Of course, I don’t eat tortilla chips, so it’s just taco salad without the tortilla chips.
21:38.341 –> 21:41.645
I had some guacamole in the freezer in the little individual cups.
21:42.085 –> 21:48.728
That’s also left over from the spring workshop last year because they were supposed to be served with taco day and they forgot to serve them.
21:48.788 –> 21:54.811
And then at the end of the workshop, it turned out I had 60 individual size servings of guacamole.
21:54.871 –> 21:57.792
So I take out a couple at a time out of the freezer.
21:57.812 –> 22:03.334
And the key is if I’m going to do taco night, it’s really important to take those out at the beginning of the day.
22:03.394 –> 22:06.136
Otherwise, they’re not defrosted and then I still don’t use them.
22:06.216 –> 22:06.496
So yeah.
22:07.336 –> 22:08.958
That was a really good day.
22:09.018 –> 22:14.663
And I had, I had about three heads of lettuce around in my, you know, like kicking around in my fridge.
22:14.743 –> 22:19.268
So I still have one salad’s worth of lettuce left.
22:19.828 –> 22:20.949
That’s still good enough to eat.
22:21.029 –> 22:23.171
I do need to make that tonight or it’ll go bad.
22:23.892 –> 22:28.877
And I’ve been sort of eking that out because I really love fresh lettuce salads, particularly in the winter.
22:28.917 –> 22:33.602
And I do end up buying my lettuce if I don’t have my grow operation up, which it is not up.
22:34.223 –> 22:38.227
And it’s not going to be up because we are just in the middle of like redoing everything.
22:38.267 –> 22:40.709
Like my studio wall, I painted the wall behind me.
22:40.729 –> 22:44.894
I now the paint, the wall to my left has one coat of paint on it.
22:44.934 –> 22:46.475
That’s white, a white color.
22:47.396 –> 22:52.540
And I’m going to do a second coat of paint and then I can start putting all of the office things back on that wall.
22:52.560 –> 22:53.660
And then I’ll do the third wall.
22:53.700 –> 23:04.707
And I know that sounds like a weird way to paint your room, but I can like cut in a wall and paint a wall in half an hour or so, which means at nighttime when I’m like, what else do I have time for?
23:06.248 –> 23:09.630
Then I’m like, well, I can do 30 minutes on that and get it done.
23:09.711 –> 23:12.452
Plus then I don’t have to have all my furniture in the middle of the room.
23:12.492 –> 23:14.354
It’s kind of like it’s floating around the side.
23:14.394 –> 23:14.834
And yes, it’s,
23:15.984 –> 23:16.444
Cumin.
23:16.965 –> 23:18.466
Can’t make tacos without cumin.
23:18.506 –> 23:19.827
And I have a lot of stored cumin.
23:19.847 –> 23:26.371
I have two more giant containers of cumin because I buy one every time a workshop is coming because it seems like we go through so much.
23:26.972 –> 23:30.814
And for me, it’s actually good to use that up because spices don’t store well long term.
23:31.255 –> 23:31.395
Right.
23:31.415 –> 23:35.678
You need to rotate your spices through, which means you have to have a refill strategy for that.
23:36.338 –> 23:37.980
OK, the last thing I did was last night.
23:38.820 –> 23:47.146
I was at the pool and swimming right now happens late in the day on Sunday because it’s swim season and the swim teams are during the day on Sunday.
23:48.024 –> 23:57.667
So I started at 3.30 and I swam my laps and got booted from the pool at 4.30, a little before 4.30 because there was a swim meet and then drove home.
23:57.707 –> 24:00.747
But it’s a 45 minute drive home, which means that I got home.
24:00.807 –> 24:04.948
I mean, you get booted at 4.30, you get out the door by 15 minutes after that.
24:05.009 –> 24:05.709
I got home by 5.45.
24:06.289 –> 24:07.689
That’s quarter to six.
24:07.929 –> 24:08.950
We usually eat at six.
24:09.350 –> 24:12.490
And on my way in, I was like, man, I didn’t pre-cook a dinner.
24:12.571 –> 24:13.931
So like what’s for dinner tonight?
24:14.511 –> 24:15.972
And I realized what I could do.
24:16.012 –> 24:18.334
I have leftover chicken from the roasted chicken.
24:18.354 –> 24:20.936
I have a lot of Parmesan cheese.
24:20.956 –> 24:23.077
I have so much Parmesan cheese.
24:23.597 –> 24:25.719
And then I had butter.
24:26.119 –> 24:29.962
So I decided to make an Alfredo sauce, but I’m keto, so we don’t eat pasta.
24:30.022 –> 24:31.963
But I happen to have heart of palm pasta.
24:31.983 –> 24:34.885
And I was like, oh, I’ll just pour it over heart of palm pasta.
24:35.246 –> 24:40.129
Chunks of chicken will hide the flavor of the chicken because Nicole’s sauce doesn’t really like chicken, so she had COVID.
24:40.529 –> 24:43.451
Except for the American breast chickens, by the way, totally different flavor.
24:43.551 –> 24:44.092
I like those.
24:45.052 –> 24:50.253
And then I also had some fresh vegetables to use up the zucchini and the peppers.
24:50.313 –> 24:51.534
And I did a saute with those.
24:51.874 –> 24:53.374
And I put that all into a thing.
24:53.394 –> 25:00.996
I made my Alfredo sauce with milk instead of heavy cream, which is not the same, just so you know, but that’s what I had.
25:01.056 –> 25:04.337
So I cooked with what I have, like the cookbook I have, you cook with what you have.
25:04.797 –> 25:08.380
And I knew going in that like the sauce wasn’t going to thicken up right.
25:08.420 –> 25:10.081
Cause I also, I’m not going to put any flour.
25:10.101 –> 25:15.025
And I mean, you’re not supposed to put flour in an Alfredo sauce in my opinion, but some people do to thicken it up.
25:15.825 –> 25:17.466
And anyway, it was a little weird.
25:17.526 –> 25:23.691
Like the cream, the cream does meld better with the butter and the garlic and all that.
25:24.091 –> 25:28.032
But I just put them all in one big cast iron skillet.
25:28.732 –> 25:31.813
It was a 15 inch cast iron skillet, served it up.
25:31.873 –> 25:35.914
And I was like, you know, you might want to eat this with a spoon because it’s a little watery.
25:35.974 –> 25:38.515
If you want the flavor of the sauce, it was delicious.
25:39.075 –> 25:40.755
It was totally delicious.
25:40.815 –> 25:52.298
Like I actually look forward to making that dish when I have heavy cream in abundance, because right now I have less than a quart of heavy cream.
25:54.029 –> 25:55.951
And the rest of the month to go.
25:56.071 –> 25:58.653
And I get, I’m allowed to have my farm subscription.
25:58.673 –> 26:01.616
So I get a half gallon of milk every week.
26:01.676 –> 26:04.639
And it has a little bit of cream on the top if I separate it.
26:04.679 –> 26:07.481
But other than that, that’s what I’ve got to work with.
26:07.541 –> 26:08.863
Plus my freeze dried milk.
26:09.503 –> 26:10.965
So I am like,
26:11.818 –> 26:16.444
At least I’m eking out the heavy cream because it’s ultra pasteurized.
26:16.504 –> 26:18.526
It’ll last until about the 24th.
26:19.207 –> 26:20.468
It’ll be gone by the 24th.
26:20.528 –> 26:21.209
Don’t you worry.
26:21.229 –> 26:23.051
Yeah, cornstarch, no way.
26:23.932 –> 26:29.819
But yes, cornstarch would also firm up that sauce if I’d wanted to, but…
26:30.720 –> 26:32.461
I’m staying off the grains this month too.
26:32.581 –> 26:35.083
So that was on the no list for me.
26:35.103 –> 26:37.365
That’s actually why I didn’t thicken it with flour.
26:37.385 –> 26:39.546
I don’t actually have cornstarch in the house right now.
26:40.727 –> 26:42.268
It turns out my cornstarch is missing.
26:42.308 –> 26:50.433
I’m actually going to unpack all the way before I confess that I have no cornstarch because there might be some somewhere in a box that’s packed up from the remodel.
26:50.794 –> 26:55.317
So that’s pretty much what we ate all week, which is not a terrible experience.
26:55.557 –> 26:56.758
It was healthier for us.
26:57.578 –> 27:02.461
I have lost two and a half pounds this week just by eating at home.
27:03.782 –> 27:05.783
And that’s not a bad outcome.
27:05.943 –> 27:11.566
So holes that I’ve noticed so far in my pantry are the usual holes.
27:11.746 –> 27:12.607
One is cheese.
27:13.826 –> 27:28.096
And this is because this fall I was so overcommitted to speaking engagements and travel and then deaths in the family and all of those things that happened that I did not make my usual bout of cheddar cheese.
27:28.516 –> 27:36.982
I usually order from the dairy extra gallons of milk and I make cheese a couple of times in the fall, right?
27:37.002 –> 27:37.102
Right.
27:38.150 –> 27:42.774
And that’s if anybody who knows Bradley, that’s it’s his dairy that I get it from.
27:42.914 –> 27:44.355
I’ll make cheddar cheese.
27:44.675 –> 27:49.699
I will make some goat cheeses, some goat cheddar cheese or a goat Parmesan cheese.
27:50.139 –> 27:51.320
And I get those already.
27:51.400 –> 27:53.782
And then I store them in the freezer if they’re done aging.
27:54.562 –> 27:57.404
Cheddar doesn’t I mean, cheddar is just better if it ages.
27:57.605 –> 27:58.625
Cheddar is better.
27:59.246 –> 28:06.131
But, you know, like the soft cheeses like mozzarella, I will store in the freezer and then pull it out, defrost it and use it.
28:07.378 –> 28:22.155
I don’t have that built up this time, and I certainly did not buy anything because this fall I was like, I’m not going to buy anything until the construction is done because it’s just more stuff right now in the way while we’re trying to get everything back together.
28:22.175 –> 28:27.141
Well, now we’re in the getting back together thing, so I could restock except for I can’t because it’s the pantry challenge.
28:27.842 –> 28:37.330
Heavy cream is always an issue for me because the local dairy I work with doesn’t, they’re just too busy to sell heavy cream.
28:37.390 –> 28:40.453
And then of course there’s a cycle with cows.
28:40.513 –> 28:43.596
Like this time of year is not the heavy cream time of year.
28:44.136 –> 28:47.860
When the grass starts coming up in the spring, then we get more heavy cream.
28:47.880 –> 28:49.361
And so it’s also seasonal.
28:49.841 –> 28:54.846
And I’ve always just sucked it up and put milk in my coffee for that instead of heavy cream.
28:55.569 –> 28:56.929
or I buy store heavy cream.
28:57.450 –> 29:03.051
I would like to get away this year from buying store heavy cream, but I really like heavy cream in my coffee.
29:03.432 –> 29:07.513
I don’t use that much, but over the week I use it.
29:07.713 –> 29:10.094
And so that’s an issue.
29:10.114 –> 29:15.436
I did discover you can buy shelf stable heavy cream, which is great for traveling.
29:15.536 –> 29:19.497
But at the same time, my whole goal is to source locally and to eat locally.
29:19.677 –> 29:19.757
And
29:20.336 –> 29:22.997
grow what we can, source from the network, that sort of thing.
29:23.457 –> 29:27.119
Freeze dried heavy cream, the fats go bad over time.
29:27.159 –> 29:33.081
So I’m actually going to try freeze drying some of the heavy cream and see if the consistency is good.
29:33.742 –> 29:39.844
But I freeze dry my milk and then I just reconstitute it with less water and it sort of behaves like heavy cream when I do that.
29:39.924 –> 29:41.465
So that’s been my workaround for that.
29:42.589 –> 29:46.254
And the other thing is that fresh vegetables are not a thing.
29:46.354 –> 29:49.118
Like I can go out and forage root vegetables right now.
29:49.258 –> 29:51.801
I’ve got radishes in the garden right now.
29:52.022 –> 29:57.589
And there are some greens starting to come up like watercress, which means we can do salads with those things.
29:57.829 –> 29:57.949
And,
29:58.530 –> 30:02.732
Stinging nettle is up, which means I can do a stinging nettle soup using up some of my milk.
30:03.552 –> 30:06.053
And stinging nettle soup is delicious.
30:06.253 –> 30:14.097
So that’s how I get fresh vegetables because at this time of year, without my lettuce grow operation going on inside, stuff’s not growing.
30:14.117 –> 30:16.137
I got Swiss chard in the aquaponics system.
30:16.157 –> 30:22.140
I actually need to water that today and then make sure it’s covered when it drops to 15 next week and hopefully it makes it through.
30:22.760 –> 30:30.043
So there are some winter greens coming on, but it’s not like the vegetable abundance with it we have all summer long.
30:30.143 –> 30:33.284
So that is just a weak spot in my pantry.
30:33.824 –> 30:39.906
That being said, I have plenty of canned goods and we have canned green beans coming out our ears because last year was a great year.
30:41.357 –> 30:42.618
a great year for green mans.
30:42.638 –> 30:42.938
Yeah.
30:42.958 –> 30:47.181
Storm roots resources says 2024 LF team foraging class is going to be better than ever.
30:47.682 –> 30:49.963
I know you’ve been finding new, new plants.
30:50.003 –> 30:52.085
I’ve been learning from you, Carrie, with your posts.
30:52.165 –> 30:57.109
So Carrie’s doing the wild foraging walks at living free in Tennessee’s 2024 workshop.
30:57.149 –> 30:59.170
So that’s going to be pretty darn cool.
30:59.731 –> 31:01.692
So those are the holes I’ve identified so far.
31:01.772 –> 31:04.314
I’ll let you know by the end of the month, what other holes are there?
31:04.954 –> 31:06.996
It’s interesting to see Don Gorham.
31:07.476 –> 31:26.723
ran out of hot sauce and I was like well do you have tomatoes do you have peppers do you have vinegar and she was like yes I was like that’s hot sauce so she made some hot sauce she’s like it’s not the same but it’s better than no hot sauce so I don’t use that much hot sauce so I you know it doesn’t it doesn’t like hurt my soul when I run out of hot sauce I just cook other things
31:27.918 –> 31:35.225
I think what I’ll do to fill the holes is really consider how much dairy, it’s like a big dairy hole.
31:35.245 –> 31:39.929
I need to think about that with the cheese making stuff because I love to make cheese.
31:39.969 –> 31:45.454
And the only way that’s going to happen is if I make time to make cheese, which means saying no to false speaking engagements.
31:45.934 –> 31:46.974
So there you go.
31:47.595 –> 31:50.535
I’m going to have to figure out the method for the madness.
31:50.675 –> 31:54.216
And then, I mean, I’ve already got the dairy source, so why not?
31:54.857 –> 32:00.678
And I guess the only other thing I wonder is who else is doing a pantry challenge in January.
32:00.718 –> 32:01.258
Are you doing it?
32:01.498 –> 32:02.299
Let me know how it’s going.
32:02.319 –> 32:06.620
Cause I’m curious how people are, are, you know, what you’re coming up with as you do this.
32:06.680 –> 32:10.261
I know when we did the pantry challenge a few years ago here, um,
32:11.822 –> 32:15.767
Clydesdale Homestead, she was like, we ran out of car nuts.
32:16.247 –> 32:17.048
I was so sad.
32:17.289 –> 32:18.830
And I’m like, what in the world are car nuts?
32:18.851 –> 32:24.617
She’s like, it’s the thing of nuts I keep in the car for whenever any child or I get hungry while we’re out and about.
32:24.978 –> 32:25.959
It’s the car nuts.
32:26.159 –> 32:28.302
So they stock more nuts now.
32:28.402 –> 32:29.463
That’s what they figured out.
32:30.284 –> 32:30.665
Question.
32:30.685 –> 32:30.845
Question.
32:31.869 –> 32:38.394
I’m going to be pulling a trigger on a freeze dryer, but if I freeze dried Skittles, what would be a good product to sell to help offset the cost?
32:39.174 –> 32:40.835
A-Rape here, know your market.
32:41.176 –> 32:44.078
Go out there on Facebook Marketplace and see what’s selling locally.
32:44.118 –> 32:47.200
Go hit a couple of farmer’s markets, see who’s selling freeze dried stuff.
32:47.780 –> 32:48.161
And then…
32:49.440 –> 33:14.775
find your niche so freeze-dried skittles and candies absolutely sell we’ve got a local couple here who are also doing just basics like freeze-dried tomatoes or they’ve made like chips out of um swiss chard and stuff like that that they season first and then freeze dry freeze-dried broccoli is delicious it i did it without adding salt without adding salt and seasoning it would have been better with salt and seasoning just as a crunchy snack so
33:15.835 –> 33:20.097
That is, that’s something I would think about, but it depends on your market.
33:20.177 –> 33:28.600
I know a lot of people in the prepper network have been really interested in doing prepper meals and grumpy acres farm does a great job with that.
33:28.620 –> 33:34.423
I’m sure they’d be willing to talk to you about what their experience has been like, but they’re also already serving our network with that.
33:34.463 –> 33:43.047
So I don’t know how big the demand is, but you never know, like get out there, start doing it and figure out what your, what your market is and go for it.
33:43.267 –> 33:43.467
Right.
33:43.487 –> 33:43.567
Yeah.
33:44.267 –> 34:09.685
so that’s what i would do and also use my affiliate link if you’re going to buy a harvest right like hit me up for that because that makes all of my days better when that happens like mike you know we i got i got a commission like i get that many commissions from harvest right sales because i’m not like trying to push an expensive freeze dryer on on anyone whose budget’s not ready for it and we’re going to talk about that later in the show but if you’re going to get one
34:10.888 –> 34:16.271
I get, like, it costs you no extra to use my affiliate link, and then that helps me do things here that are kind of cool.
34:16.931 –> 34:21.374
So I’m going to asterisk that survivalizer, and we’ll see.
34:22.234 –> 34:27.897
Okay, next up is a shopping report from Joe, which totally fits the topic of today’s show.
34:28.117 –> 34:29.218
Dollar Tree was first.
34:29.898 –> 34:38.421
The food coolers are still mostly full, but the drink coolers are now about half full and mostly with like standard brands like Coca-Cola or Pepsi.
34:38.881 –> 34:42.423
The sad cooler with the compressor that can’t get going is empty.
34:43.203 –> 34:44.904
Other stock in the store is in good shape.
34:45.244 –> 34:48.745
Whatever minor thing we’ve come here to get has been in stock.
34:49.923 –> 34:54.627
Let’s see, I’m gonna skip through exactly what he… Okay, Home Depot was next.
34:54.767 –> 35:04.695
There was no tag on the rack for the two by four by eight, but online shows it at 3.25 and Menards had a sale out where you could use a coupon and get two by four by eights for $2 each.
35:04.795 –> 35:07.277
So if you have a Menards near you, check that out by the way.
35:07.837 –> 35:14.423
Cordless tool area in front is rather prominently featured just before Christmas and it’s almost entirely cleared out.
35:14.463 –> 35:16.264
There’s a lot of empty spaces there now.
35:16.344 –> 35:18.386
I’ll keep an eye on it at future trips.
35:18.866 –> 35:21.328
Here are the stock levels at Aldi.
35:21.388 –> 35:26.372
Produce is not mounded up, but there are also no empty spaces.
35:26.473 –> 35:28.454
They’ve had plenty of canned cat food lately.
35:28.594 –> 35:29.775
We found everything we wanted.
35:29.895 –> 35:31.557
Staple prices are as follows.
35:31.897 –> 35:32.978
A dozen eggs are $1.65.
35:33.018 –> 35:34.019
A gallon of whole milk, $2.98.
35:37.411 –> 35:37.972
$2.98, guys.
35:38.012 –> 35:40.094
Remember when you could get a gallon of milk for a dollar?
35:41.154 –> 35:43.036
Heavy cream, $4.69.
35:43.096 –> 35:44.397
Remember when that was under $2 in 2020?
35:44.437 –> 35:44.837
Butter, $3.69.
35:44.878 –> 35:45.298
That’s come down.
35:45.318 –> 35:45.418
Bacon, $4.25.
35:45.458 –> 35:45.738
Potatoes, $3.99.
35:45.778 –> 35:46.038
Sugar, $3.09.
35:46.559 –> 35:46.699
Flour, $1.99.
35:46.739 –> 35:48.020
80% lean ground beef is $4.49, and that’s up.
35:48.080 –> 35:50.082
So that’s the shopping report from Joe.
36:02.752 –> 36:13.357
And oh, wait, despite the growing escalation of Islam versus civilization in the Middle East, untainted regular gasoline remains $3.69 a gallon.
36:13.537 –> 36:17.098
I went out again later to Food City for dry cat food and there was plenty.
36:17.118 –> 36:21.420
That’s actually something we’ll talk about a little bit going into this.
36:22.583 –> 36:24.625
Oh, hey, Sue Zoldak’s on.
36:24.645 –> 36:25.086
That’s right.
36:25.206 –> 36:33.435
In celebration of Sue releasing her annual Christmas gift to her customers, we’re wearing the Zoldak flannel shirt, plus it’s cold in my house right now.
36:34.076 –> 36:37.560
And I know I’m going to get in trouble for wearing your logo on my podcast, aren’t I?
36:37.660 –> 36:38.201
But I’m warm.
36:38.661 –> 36:39.261
And I’m happy.
36:39.822 –> 36:40.962
So there we go.
36:41.622 –> 36:42.103
That’s right.
36:42.183 –> 36:47.025
I was going to send you a picture of this in the wild, Sue, because I thought your staff would get a kick out of it.
36:48.386 –> 36:48.726
Anyway.
36:49.246 –> 36:51.067
OK, next up is Operation Independence.
36:51.087 –> 36:53.648
This is where we talk about the financial stuff.
36:54.629 –> 36:54.769
And.
36:55.749 –> 36:59.372
I’m just going to highlight one business unit a week for a while.
36:59.392 –> 37:02.274
I wanted to let you know how Holler Roast Finances did.
37:02.314 –> 37:17.366
So early on in the podcast, I would go through each business unit that we’re running and talk about like total monies in so that you can see how we’re cobbling together different revenue sources to transition from having a full-time job to building my own revenue stream.
37:18.106 –> 37:20.848
And this was interesting this year.
37:20.868 –> 37:23.530
Holler Roast Gross Sales…
37:24.631 –> 37:28.713
by the numbers were within a hundred dollars of what they were last year.
37:30.394 –> 37:32.875
And that looks as follows.
37:32.895 –> 37:36.096
At the beginning of the year, we were about 30% higher.
37:36.276 –> 37:39.158
And then over the summer, it dropped a lot.
37:40.242 –> 37:42.023
So it went below our usual.
37:42.503 –> 37:48.907
And then starting in September again, it went up with a particular spike around Christmas.
37:49.167 –> 37:52.268
So I think that’s an interesting data point.
37:52.549 –> 37:53.909
I would say that happened.
37:54.450 –> 37:58.352
If you look at how I was marketing Hall & Rose, there were like…
38:00.117 –> 38:05.219
Brand schizophrenia occurred for me starting in the spring, going through the summer.
38:05.599 –> 38:09.140
And then Sue, who’s in our live feed right now, reached out and she’s like, are you okay?
38:09.180 –> 38:10.681
And I was like, I’m not okay.
38:10.981 –> 38:15.563
And then she helped me like calm the heck down and start focusing again.
38:15.583 –> 38:17.543
And then sales started again.
38:18.084 –> 38:18.444
So yeah,
38:20.372 –> 38:26.417
the proof is going to be in the pudding going into this year, but it was not my goal to have a flat line on my company.
38:26.457 –> 38:28.279
I like my company to grow every year, right?
38:28.479 –> 38:30.441
But at least I didn’t lose, right?
38:30.461 –> 38:35.785
I mean, that’s my bright side of the thing, but that’s how our finances looked this year.
38:36.706 –> 38:40.089
And number of orders were identical.
38:40.729 –> 38:41.930
So the same number of orders,
38:43.126 –> 38:44.728
almost exactly the same revenue.
38:44.848 –> 38:50.174
And I had one big order come from a customer who usually orders in November this month.
38:50.194 –> 38:54.379
So there was one person I know who delayed just because cashflow was a little weird for them.
38:54.439 –> 38:58.484
So I’m going to keep, um, I’m going to keep my eye on
38:58.524 –> 38:58.684
that.
38:58.764 –> 39:00.405
Sue’s like, folks, she was not okay.
39:00.826 –> 39:06.030
Sue, I’ve not gotten my mug yet, but I do know UPS was here today and I just haven’t been down.
39:06.090 –> 39:08.592
So I’m, I’m excited because I saw what it was.
39:08.632 –> 39:09.653
I saw the big reveal.
39:10.153 –> 39:14.917
For those of you don’t know, like customers of Sue get this really cool Christmas gift every year.
39:15.017 –> 39:19.921
One year she gave him hollow roast coffee with a mug and she’s done like tea with a mug.
39:20.001 –> 39:21.923
Last year was chocolate chip cookies with
39:22.603 –> 39:23.644
I can’t remember what that came with.
39:24.104 –> 39:25.164
Was there a mug with that too?
39:25.184 –> 39:25.985
Which mug was that?
39:26.425 –> 39:26.665
I don’t know.
39:26.685 –> 39:30.807
My favorite one is still the black one with the red, like that big coffee mug.
39:30.827 –> 39:35.530
But I like the little espresso trios too, because those are perfect for bone broth.
39:36.030 –> 39:38.171
That’s what we serve bone broth in here as well.
39:38.831 –> 39:41.292
So yeah, I’m super excited.
39:41.312 –> 39:43.874
Yeah, I really appreciate you reaching out to me on that one, Sue.
39:44.798 –> 39:50.001
Okay, so that’s what’s up with us on the Operation Independence side of the show.
39:50.061 –> 39:56.784
With that, it’s time for the main topic for today, and that’s what to do if things turn south in 2024.
39:57.284 –> 40:01.666
A lot of you are wondering, like, why is Nicole Sauce doing a show like this?
40:02.407 –> 40:03.327
And I’ll tell you why.
40:03.547 –> 40:08.370
It’s beginning to look a lot like 1971 out there.
40:09.550 –> 40:13.733
It looks a lot like the 70s, but a little bit of 70s on crack,
40:16.303 –> 40:19.964
is cause to take a good hard look at that, I think.
40:20.644 –> 40:29.746
Now this is just my analysis and I’m interested for those of you who hear me say things and are like, I don’t quite agree, like shoot me an email because I want to keep this discussion going.
40:29.766 –> 40:35.667
But this is just my brainstorm on the plane when I was, yeah, she’s looking it up.
40:35.707 –> 40:36.607
It was delivered today at 1230.
40:36.908 –> 40:37.568
That’s right.
40:37.848 –> 40:41.509
I was frantically getting my citations ready for this show at 1234 today too.
40:44.088 –> 40:47.669
It’s beginning to look a lot like the 70s show.
40:48.349 –> 40:54.030
And what was happening in the 70s is there was rebasing of the dollar.
40:54.631 –> 40:58.371
We had inflation happening at a quick rate.
40:58.451 –> 41:01.052
It was hard to find a job for a lot of people.
41:01.492 –> 41:05.173
My grandparents saw the real value of their retirement income.
41:05.353 –> 41:09.036
in the period of a year get cut in half, which was really hard for them.
41:09.056 –> 41:10.757
They thought they were going to have to go back to work.
41:11.077 –> 41:13.058
They figured out how not to, though.
41:13.438 –> 41:19.162
I have an uncle who made a ton of money during this time by making the right decision because interest rates went up.
41:19.723 –> 41:27.588
So there’s a lot of things kind of happening turbulence-wise in the economy and in society that are interesting.
41:28.368 –> 41:28.529
And
41:30.116 –> 41:31.680
a lot of people are alarmed about it.
41:32.102 –> 41:37.597
And I’m not going to say you shouldn’t be concerned, but I am going to say when we make decisions from a place of fear,
41:39.127 –> 41:41.568
we usually make the wrong decision.
41:41.628 –> 41:44.269
And that’s usually driven by short-term fear.
41:44.289 –> 41:47.071
So we’re like, ah, there’s war in Israel.
41:47.731 –> 41:49.212
Ah, the world’s gonna end.
41:50.032 –> 41:52.593
And yeah, Beth Emily’s saying, I remember the 70s pretty well.
41:53.334 –> 41:59.056
Well, if you take the world’s gonna end approach, then it does for you.
41:59.136 –> 42:02.578
You can make your own world end just by making the wrong decision.
42:02.638 –> 42:07.100
And my favorite example of this is somebody I know who sold everything they owned
42:08.873 –> 42:22.702
and moved into the country away from everything and did not have a job for several years because they thought that our economy was going to crash and that they would need to live off the land because where that went in their head was living off the land.
42:23.703 –> 42:30.967
And a couple of years later, they had no more money and they realized they had to go do something to build money.
42:31.007 –> 42:36.611
And they started by sofa surfing and had to rebuild their whole life because they’d gone all in on the fear.
42:37.884 –> 42:41.126
So today, please, with me, do not go all in on the fear.
42:41.687 –> 42:45.429
But let’s talk about some of the stuff that I’m seeing anyway.
42:45.449 –> 42:48.071
And you can tell me what you see as well.
42:48.171 –> 42:51.874
And the first thing I see is that we’ve had a lot of inflation in the last few years.
42:52.654 –> 42:54.576
Things cost more than they used to.
42:55.196 –> 42:57.838
And I started poking around at numbers for that.
42:57.938 –> 43:00.960
And a conservative estimate is like 10% to 11% since 2022 January.
43:01.000 –> 43:01.481
So it’s two years.
43:05.834 –> 43:11.158
And and some people are throwing out numbers that they can justify as high as 21 percent.
43:11.798 –> 43:21.065
That means that it’s somewhere between, you know, you spend a dollar and it’s worth 90 cents now and you spend a dollar and it’s worth 80 ish cents now.
43:21.145 –> 43:25.888
And I am doing my you know, like I have a math teacher in the comments who’s like, that’s not exactly right.
43:25.988 –> 43:28.110
I know we’re just doing general numbers here.
43:28.510 –> 43:29.831
She’s going to go with me on this, I’m sure.
43:31.053 –> 43:48.343
And that’s because here’s the thing about inflation is there’s the official numbers and you can come up with 10.37% or whatever it is that it caught, you know, like this bottle costs 10.37 more than it did in January of 2022, right?
43:51.805 –> 43:55.687
But what are they looking at?
43:56.590 –> 43:56.830
Right.
43:57.611 –> 44:02.977
Are they like when you look at the consumer price index, they’re looking at like things have changed.
44:03.077 –> 44:05.019
Like, are they looking at what we buy every day?
44:05.059 –> 44:05.840
Not necessarily.
44:05.900 –> 44:07.902
And that’s where those higher estimates come up.
44:08.262 –> 44:12.086
So in different sectors, things have increased in price more.
44:12.186 –> 44:15.570
And I think the shopping report has really helped us see that.
44:16.030 –> 44:18.873
What’s interesting, though, at the same time, some things have gotten cheaper.
44:19.924 –> 44:27.268
In January of 2022, I think a 2x4x8 was somewhere between $8 and $12.
44:28.048 –> 44:28.689
And now it’s $3.25.
44:31.470 –> 44:33.911
So there’s two sides to that coin.
44:34.391 –> 44:37.073
I’m throwing that out there so you just have context for that.
44:37.133 –> 44:43.076
But we all know when we go to the grocery store right now, we feel keenly that prices have gone up.
44:44.222 –> 44:51.663
And it’s especially stark to me at the grocery store because I don’t go to the grocery store most of the time.
44:52.304 –> 44:55.224
And so when I do go to the grocery store, I haven’t been there in a long time.
44:55.244 –> 44:57.685
So I didn’t see things eat up over time.
44:58.265 –> 45:05.426
What I saw was that all of the sudden, a bundle of groceries that would have cost me $75 are $125.
45:05.466 –> 45:06.626
And that’s literally the leap in some cases.
45:10.367 –> 45:12.151
And that’s partially because of what I buy.
45:12.592 –> 45:18.203
At the same time, it’s sort of like the shrink inflation is the new term for this.
45:18.263 –> 45:20.949
Like things get smaller, but they cost the same price.
45:21.820 –> 45:27.762
But then you have to buy more numbers of them, which I find annoying, because I have everything worked out by its size.
45:27.842 –> 45:29.722
And then they change the size and it pisses me off.
45:29.982 –> 45:31.143
They did that with coffee.
45:32.023 –> 45:44.107
When I first started roasting coffee seriously in 2017, the the one pound bag of coffee became the 12 ounce bag of coffee for most coffee roasters, we still ship 16 ounce bags.
45:45.047 –> 45:45.167
And
45:46.471 –> 45:51.134
I get a little annoyed when I go to the store and I see the 12 ounce pound of coffee, right?
45:51.174 –> 45:55.237
It’s now called a bag instead of a pound, but that’s the thing.
45:56.217 –> 46:01.761
So your income, has it grown by 11 to 21%?
46:05.183 –> 46:10.847
So I see a lot of people who have not kept up income-wise with what happened inflation-wise.
46:11.267 –> 46:12.408
And there’s lots of reasons why.
46:12.428 –> 46:14.089
I actually don’t care why.
46:14.109 –> 46:15.430
I care that right now.
46:16.201 –> 46:17.362
So, yeah.
46:17.842 –> 46:21.624
A. Ray Pierce says, September 2020, I had to rebuild my old chicken coop.
46:22.225 –> 46:22.965
A 2x4x8 was $9 a board.
46:22.985 –> 46:23.825
Never was I more upset.
46:28.687 –> 46:39.219
Well, I built Taj Mahal when lumber was at a premium and I bought it October 2021, I think, or it was October 2020.
46:39.479 –> 46:47.368
I don’t remember which time, but I bought it well before the contractor could come because it went even higher by the time they started building that.
46:48.249 –> 46:49.530
So there you go.
46:49.990 –> 46:53.492
The second thing is real estate is really interesting right now.
46:54.072 –> 46:57.875
We have states where people are moving into like Tennessee.
46:58.275 –> 47:03.098
And so we’ve seen $50,000 houses rise in market listing value to $250,000, which is five times more than they were a year ago.
47:03.198 –> 47:03.758
That’s a year.
47:11.431 –> 47:13.773
That’s significant growth.
47:13.833 –> 47:18.857
Now, they’re closing at $2.29, so they’re not selling at top dollar quickly.
47:19.457 –> 47:25.682
And in the last one month, the real estate listings have gone down by about 10% in price here.
47:26.623 –> 47:27.944
So that’s happening.
47:28.124 –> 47:37.030
Out-migration, places where people are leaving, things are staying on the market longer, but people have not necessarily admitted their houses aren’t worth as much unless they really have to sell.
47:37.371 –> 47:38.632
So you’re seeing sort of this…
47:39.685 –> 47:40.867
It’s inflated here.
47:40.947 –> 47:42.129
It’s deflating there.
47:42.209 –> 47:43.932
Things are on the market for a day.
47:44.032 –> 47:45.755
Things are on the market for six months.
47:46.155 –> 47:46.796
It depends.
47:46.876 –> 47:48.118
It’s very, very regional.
47:48.198 –> 47:49.661
Real estate has always been regional.
47:50.222 –> 47:52.365
But all in all, there was a big…
47:53.678 –> 48:09.647
increase in real estate markets starting in 2020, probably before 2020, but from 2020 to 2023, as people realized, you know, like some companies have just let people work from home and people want bigger homes so they can do that.
48:09.828 –> 48:13.310
Or they realized it doesn’t matter where they live so they can move to where they want to be.
48:14.226 –> 48:16.488
But interest rates have now gone up.
48:17.229 –> 48:21.953
So interest rates are no longer at the 2%, 3%, 4% that they were to get your mortgage.
48:22.153 –> 48:23.615
This is mortgage interest rates, right?
48:24.496 –> 48:38.369
And that means that if I sell my house right now and I want the exact same value house, it costs me more to buy that house unless I have moved locations and there’s a redefinition based on that.
48:38.929 –> 48:39.310
That means…
48:39.950 –> 48:48.956
If I’m in my house and I want to move to another house of equal value in a different place nearby for whatever reason, it costs me more to do that.
48:49.016 –> 48:53.700
I’m probably just going to hang on to what I have rather than have to go through all that fuss.
48:53.820 –> 48:56.522
And then at the end of the day, have a higher payment every month.
48:57.418 –> 49:03.342
Selling now, I’m sorry, where people go impacts this a lot.
49:03.763 –> 49:05.324
There is housing scarcity.
49:05.444 –> 49:12.369
Amazingly, we haven’t been able to build houses as fast as the demand comes, which is also driving prices up.
49:12.809 –> 49:18.793
Some places there is not housing scarcity, but I look at Nashville, for example, and we don’t have enough housing there.
49:18.833 –> 49:19.934
The rental markets are up.
49:20.254 –> 49:21.415
The housing market is up.
49:21.735 –> 49:23.056
People keep moving in.
49:23.076 –> 49:23.136
And
49:25.555 –> 49:32.744
with our population, as people get older and want to move out of mom and dad’s house, that’s more people needing houses just naturally.
49:33.424 –> 49:35.387
And the question is, where are they going to go?
49:36.708 –> 49:43.236
However, if you think about long-term population expectations, we are not having as many kids as we used to have, which means maybe,
49:43.556 –> 49:44.857
population goes down.
49:45.177 –> 49:46.577
Where else have we seen this happen?
49:46.857 –> 49:48.078
We’ve seen this happen in Japan.
49:48.418 –> 49:49.718
We’ve seen this happen in Europe.
49:50.018 –> 49:56.181
We’ve seen people get paid to stay home to raise their children because they know they need more people in the workforce.
49:56.741 –> 49:59.262
Otherwise, the economy is impacted by that.
50:01.697 –> 50:04.901
So boomers are getting older, guys.
50:04.961 –> 50:07.363
So boomers are using our medical system more and more.
50:07.403 –> 50:09.085
They’re moving out of the workforce.
50:09.526 –> 50:11.788
They are moving into retirement communities.
50:11.848 –> 50:15.151
That actually opens up houses for sale, which is kind of cool.
50:16.032 –> 50:16.293
But…
50:19.045 –> 50:24.368
at the same time you got to be able to afford the house and they’re still getting some pretty top dollar for their homes.
50:24.448 –> 50:38.915
Now, as that increases, as more boomers go that direction and we’re kind of getting to the, the glut of that right now, it might be that, that actually might cause some houses to become more affordable for a little window there.
50:39.135 –> 50:44.157
Um, because Gen X is not as big as the boomers, but then we got people coming behind us that there are more of.
50:44.197 –> 50:48.079
So it’s just, it’s a lot of, a lot of movement, um,
50:49.099 –> 50:56.486
There is a move in our society towards more of a subscription approach or rental approach rather than owning things.
50:56.526 –> 50:58.127
There is a push for that.
50:58.647 –> 51:01.090
If you look at software, for example,
51:02.463 –> 51:13.335
It makes more sense for Adobe or Canva or any of those to get a monthly subscription from a financial and planning standpoint than to sell me a tangible piece of software.
51:13.355 –> 51:15.116
I’m holding up a rock, right?
51:15.237 –> 51:16.338
Which is a tangible thing.
51:16.378 –> 51:19.181
Like in the old days, we got a DVD with a program on it.
51:19.221 –> 51:21.383
We put it on our computer and that was that.
51:21.403 –> 51:22.905
And you owned it until the end of time.
51:23.585 –> 51:24.506
Well, subscriptions…
51:25.407 –> 51:29.529
make more sense financially and allows them to keep things up.
51:30.169 –> 51:46.275
What’s happening now is it’s not just like rental markets like I have, where it’s sort of more entry-level people rent from me, but there are experiments happening with high-end single-family home neighborhoods, none of which is owned.
51:46.335 –> 51:47.055
It’s all rented.
51:47.075 –> 51:47.135
And
51:49.904 –> 51:56.148
That actually removes an amount of stability through home ownership that has traditionally been a financial boon.
51:57.069 –> 52:08.316
The fact that I have this asset that I’m in, and at this point, my house is an asset and not a liability, it means I can pull money out of it if I need to, or I can sell it if I need to.
52:09.076 –> 52:27.965
so you know that’s happening i i wrote down in my notes mortgage default rate but i did not look up what that is so we’re not going to talk about that right now because i’m not going to guess at what that is survivalizer says subscriptions feels like trying to manage salary cap yeah and what happens with that is the price keeps going up right but at the same time you know why they do it like
52:28.425 –> 52:32.888
If you’re smart with your business model, you’re figuring out how to get memberships and subscriptions as well.
52:32.908 –> 52:44.717
Like Holler Roast Coffee exists today as it is fairly predictably because I have a number of customers who love the coffee and they buy this package of coffee once a month or once every quarter.
52:45.990 –> 52:51.932
That’s been instrumental to the stability and success and planning capacity of hollow roast coffee.
52:52.493 –> 53:04.498
So it’s not necessarily a bad thing to build into your life, but, and definitely a great thing to build into your business, but there’s a risk there of not having the tangible thing.
53:05.898 –> 53:10.320
And, you know, you can buy property now and own property and,
53:11.401 –> 53:15.982
and then use that as a foundation for future prosperity.
53:16.902 –> 53:24.844
But I also know people who have built their entire prosperity by never owning property, by always renting, because they’re like, I never have to fix anything.
53:25.244 –> 53:28.025
So I just choose a place and the landlord has to deal with it.
53:28.105 –> 53:29.785
So it kind of depends where your focus is.
53:30.725 –> 53:33.586
And I’m throwing that out there, but that’s what I’m seeing in the real estate market.
53:34.226 –> 53:39.407
There’s a war in Ukraine, in case you didn’t know that, and a war in Israel, and there’s war, war, war, war, war.
53:41.078 –> 53:41.839
Lots of war.
53:43.302 –> 53:51.054
It’s interesting to see the federal reaction to war and wanting and calling for more intervention
53:52.316 –> 53:53.797
as we go into an election year.
53:53.897 –> 53:55.298
And I think they’re related.
53:55.318 –> 53:57.299
I think they’re related.
53:58.059 –> 53:58.679
That’s just me.
53:59.139 –> 53:59.960
It’s an election year.
54:00.400 –> 54:07.203
So right now, the president’s going to be starting to campaign to be reelected.
54:07.323 –> 54:10.765
And then the other side is going to try to get their guy in.
54:11.465 –> 54:15.748
And then, you know, third parties are going to mess around the edges and not really do much.
54:16.708 –> 54:18.049
And it happens every four years.
54:18.973 –> 54:22.775
This is a cycle we see every four years and we nerd out on it.
54:22.895 –> 54:39.261
I mean, like Sue and I nerd out on it a lot, but if you look at trends of an incumbent running for office, what does best for an incumbent is if the economy is actually doing better or if there’s an imminent threat they have to defend against.
54:39.281 –> 54:43.923
So we have to keep that guy in because they’re the guy necessary to make it happen, right?
54:44.787 –> 54:53.610
So with the election year, I’m expecting to see lots of interesting hot takes on war, on the economy and all sorts of other things.
54:53.650 –> 54:55.351
But there’s an opportunity in there, too.
54:55.411 –> 55:01.053
But with that, it’s more communications pitting us against them, us against them, us against them.
55:01.093 –> 55:10.616
I happen to know Sue Zoldak, who is I don’t know if she’s still in the comments, but who was in the comments, organized a group of people who work in political communications and
55:12.349 –> 55:25.112
across all spectrums to share best practices through networking to get over the divisiveness rather than to just, you know, assume that because that person works for a Democrat, I can’t ever talk to them again.
55:25.152 –> 55:26.852
And we’ve really walked away from that.
55:27.712 –> 55:35.234
I, you know, I mean, I think in politics there’s always the name calling and the, the shit tossing and all the things that we do and the us against them.
55:35.254 –> 55:36.574
But again,
55:38.954 –> 56:00.368
The communications environment that I see is that it’s gone beyond friendly debate or even some tense debate into vilification of people and dehumanization of people who don’t agree with you from both sides.
56:01.629 –> 56:03.411
And I’m actually not okay with that.
56:04.551 –> 56:06.573
I am willing to talk to somebody
56:08.038 –> 56:17.002
who is not of my political standpoint, because I will end up learning something from them and they will challenge me.
56:17.762 –> 56:18.843
And that’s a good thing.
56:20.704 –> 56:22.965
And maybe I’ll challenge them and they’ll learn something.
56:22.985 –> 56:23.745
And that’s a good thing.
56:23.785 –> 56:25.726
Or maybe they haven’t thought about it from that perspective.
56:25.766 –> 56:30.488
Maybe we’ll realize what we’re fighting about isn’t even all that important in the big picture.
56:32.375 –> 56:34.056
but it’s so knee jerk now.
56:34.496 –> 56:36.356
And it’s so like all in or all out.
56:36.476 –> 56:47.819
I know a family where one of the family members has decided to undergo a different, become a different gender.
56:48.700 –> 56:49.880
And that’s hard on a family.
56:49.900 –> 56:51.821
I know, I know several families where this has happened.
56:51.841 –> 56:54.321
It’s hard on a family because you, you love each other.
56:55.762 –> 56:58.463
But there are all sorts of opinions about that topic.
56:59.243 –> 56:59.463
And I,
57:00.811 –> 57:04.453
It is an adult member of the family who’s decided to do that.
57:04.493 –> 57:06.214
So it’s completely their decision.
57:07.054 –> 57:29.125
The part that’s alarming to me about what I’m hearing from this family is that when the person who is undergoing gender reassignment talks to anybody and that person disagrees with them, they get really mad, call them a right-wing extremist and stop talking to them.
57:30.578 –> 57:36.241
And that means that you have stopped any like ability for people to ask questions and learn about it.
57:36.281 –> 57:41.785
Because if asking a question is construed as, you know, I’m against you.
57:41.805 –> 57:50.010
And then you read into this, this entire list of, I assume these are all your opinions now from here, you’ve stopped all discourse.
57:51.291 –> 57:55.053
And, and it has caught, I mean, it’s tearing that family apart.
57:57.774 –> 58:17.664
we can’t do you know like i’m more liberty focused most of the people most of y’all are liberty focused we can’t do that same thing back where we assume just because somebody asks us something about what we think you know what gun rights are that they’re all of these things you know on the left agenda because when we start talking we discover
58:18.795 –> 58:46.610
yes this no that yes this no that and we humanize it and it becomes a person and we realize it’s a complex person with different opinions and we have some similarities and some differences and oh my goodness suddenly it’s not us against them and that discussion is the discussion that is the most dangerous to people in power who are controlling because if we get along then how do they get us to vote one way or another based on on how they communicate about things
58:47.455 –> 58:54.517
That’s, you know, that’s so in the election year, this ramps up technological advancement.
58:54.717 –> 59:00.479
Today, I saw on Facebook an advertisement for artificial intelligence that can manage my calendar for me.
59:00.939 –> 59:05.560
Now, I already use a calendar tool to set appointments that I may actually stop using.
59:06.581 –> 59:08.101
But I use a tool right now.
59:08.141 –> 59:12.642
So people can just set it on my calendar when I’m trying to make an appointment with people.
59:13.403 –> 59:14.163
That’s hard to make.
59:15.492 –> 59:18.014
But this is like, hey, just tell me all your priorities.
59:18.094 –> 59:20.855
I’ll just deal with your calendar and you’ll never miss another appointment.
59:21.856 –> 59:28.060
Well, I don’t know if that works as advertised, but if it does, somebody like me could benefit from that.
59:30.621 –> 59:35.965
We have copy being written by ChatGPT that is working for people.
59:37.426 –> 59:41.410
We have images being made, you know, like headshots.
59:41.530 –> 59:47.756
Sue Soldak was on in December talking about like, if you don’t have a headshot in a suit, like use AI to make your headshot into a suit.
59:47.896 –> 59:54.282
Like we’ve got that capacity and the workforce is mostly unprepared to deal with what this means for their job.
59:55.843 –> 01:00:02.389
And at the same time, there are unrealistic expectations about how fast this is going to come in and what it’s going to change.
01:00:02.469 –> 01:00:02.689
Right.
01:00:03.090 –> 01:00:03.270
So.
01:00:06.090 –> 01:00:08.471
that’s, it’s an interesting time.
01:00:08.511 –> 01:00:22.399
And I’ve been, I’ve been reading more about, you know, when the industrial revolution was happening, what, what that 10 to 20 year period was like when things were really moving forward and what happened to the people who were left behind and why were they left behind and, and how’d they get through that?
01:00:22.419 –> 01:00:22.920
That’s it.
01:00:23.260 –> 01:00:31.825
If you want to go do something proactive and you haven’t filled up your nonfiction reading list, like go start reading some things about that.
01:00:33.228 –> 01:00:35.049
because we’re right there again, right now.
01:00:36.911 –> 01:00:49.780
I started looking this up and I did not find a good solid number and I would have had to spend a lot more time making my own number, but the number of government employees versus private sector employees is rising.
01:00:50.321 –> 01:00:55.565
There are not more of them than there are of us, but it’s rising.
01:00:56.858 –> 01:01:03.344
And the more that that happens, the more important it is to keep government programs that maybe we shouldn’t be keeping.
01:01:05.125 –> 01:01:06.747
Just something that’s happening.
01:01:07.527 –> 01:01:11.050
The medical industry is not okay.
01:01:12.131 –> 01:01:18.697
Anybody who’s been involved in anything medical in the last five years knows that it’s been coming for a long time.
01:01:19.697 –> 01:01:24.461
And every time we try to fix it with a federal law, it seems to make it worse.
01:01:25.744 –> 01:01:27.346
And it’s just not okay.
01:01:28.267 –> 01:01:33.412
If you have not read the book by Peter Attia, or I don’t know if that’s Attia, I don’t know how you say his last name.
01:01:34.264 –> 01:01:36.366
I should probably go look that up on a video, huh?
01:01:36.987 –> 01:01:37.988
It’s called Outlive.
01:01:38.388 –> 01:01:40.490
He talks about he frames it this way.
01:01:40.711 –> 01:01:52.263
Medicine 2.0 is the current like medical industrial complex that we’re operating in right now, which did great for my grandparents is doing OK for my dad.
01:01:52.323 –> 01:01:55.105
I think it’s going to totally fail me, though, by the time I need it.
01:01:55.885 –> 01:02:11.368
um and then medical medicine 3.0 and his core premise is medicine 2.0 jumps into the time of crisis and fixes it so like if your arm is broken and your bones sticking through the skin medicine 2.0
01:02:13.874 –> 01:02:17.836
Stops the bleeding, puts that back together and makes it so you can use your arm again.
01:02:17.876 –> 01:02:22.558
And that was not something we necessarily knew how to do 200 years ago, right?
01:02:23.519 –> 01:02:28.681
If you have a heavy infection and need to fix it, they give you antibiotics to overcome that.
01:02:28.741 –> 01:02:36.645
Before we had antibiotics, it was medicine 2.0 that figured that out, created the medicine and then figured out how to implement it.
01:02:37.515 –> 01:02:51.062
medicine 2.0 looks at the cancer patient and figures out that if we expose them to chemo, that we can, you know, kill all the cells so that the new cells can come back in theory, and then they don’t have cancer, or maybe it goes into remission.
01:02:52.063 –> 01:03:05.830
And his theory is, you know, sometimes you need that approach, but for, for these long developing diseases, like heart disease, dementia, and Alzheimer’s cancer and metabolic disorders, like
01:03:07.153 –> 01:03:09.155
our friend, the insulin one.
01:03:09.556 –> 01:03:10.717
Diabetes, couldn’t think of the word.
01:03:11.017 –> 01:03:14.702
Sometimes when you’re live on the internet, you forget words.
01:03:15.162 –> 01:03:17.625
And today, the word I’m going to forget is diabetes.
01:03:17.845 –> 01:03:24.312
Those four happen based on, a lot of it’s on choices you make over time.
01:03:25.414 –> 01:03:25.534
And
01:03:26.798 –> 01:03:39.643
you don’t get treated for diabetes until you go over a certain line in blood testing, at which point they’re going to say, okay, change your diet and maybe use insulin or other medicines to like control this.
01:03:40.624 –> 01:03:43.865
And then, but you spent 30 years developing it.
01:03:44.505 –> 01:03:50.588
And so his thought is with medicine 3.0, we should be looking at the trends that lead to these four, uh,
01:03:51.448 –> 01:04:01.415
big nasty diseases that happen in our older years so that people’s end of life can be healthier longer, that your decline is shorter when you die.
01:04:02.255 –> 01:04:17.065
And, um, and that means prescribing things like exercise and maybe some, maybe some drug interventions and some other things much earlier before these diseases get defined as diseases.
01:04:17.085 –> 01:04:17.905
And, um,
01:04:19.886 –> 01:04:22.547
So that’s what I thought medicine was doing.
01:04:22.607 –> 01:04:30.169
When I was a teenager, my doctor was advising me on how to manage stress, how to get better sleep, you know, nutrition, exercise.
01:04:30.369 –> 01:04:33.449
And yes, giving me antibiotics when I had strep throat.
01:04:33.509 –> 01:04:36.790
Yes, ripping my tonsils out when I had it so many times.
01:04:37.030 –> 01:04:39.471
I just had tonsillitis all the time until they took them out.
01:04:40.651 –> 01:04:46.713
And that may or may not have been the best thing to do, you know, in hindsight, but that’s what they knew to do then.
01:04:48.033 –> 01:04:54.334
But he was more of a health advisor rather than a script and out sort of doctor.
01:04:54.694 –> 01:05:06.617
And in my lifetime, as the managed health systems have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, the care I get is usually a script and out.
01:05:08.297 –> 01:05:08.738
And that’s it.
01:05:08.838 –> 01:05:11.341
And it’s like maybe a follow-up call, are you feeling better?
01:05:11.501 –> 01:05:17.990
But it’s not looking at me as a person and sort of helping me coach through good health.
01:05:18.050 –> 01:05:20.073
And I wish that’s how it was.
01:05:20.093 –> 01:05:22.596
I have found doctors who do that now.
01:05:23.317 –> 01:05:26.901
So I have that now, but I had to even define that I was looking for that.
01:05:26.981 –> 01:05:29.383
Well, most people aren’t going to go that deep.
01:05:29.483 –> 01:05:40.614
And as a result, we have obesity, diabetes, overall physical and mental condition of our population in the US is, if you look at it 20 years ago to the day, it is down.
01:05:41.943 –> 01:05:45.224
We are weakening as citizenry.
01:05:45.364 –> 01:05:47.504
We are weakening because we eat like shit.
01:05:47.804 –> 01:05:48.965
We sleep like shit.
01:05:49.485 –> 01:05:51.165
We don’t take care of our mental health.
01:05:51.265 –> 01:05:52.906
We don’t take care of our communities.
01:05:52.946 –> 01:05:54.366
We don’t take care of each other.
01:05:54.946 –> 01:05:58.587
And we distract ourselves with entertainment so we don’t have to think about it.
01:05:59.407 –> 01:06:01.968
That’s where we’re at.
01:06:02.068 –> 01:06:06.729
We’ve got kids who have type 2 diabetes by the time they’re 8 years old.
01:06:06.789 –> 01:06:11.230
And that is caused by obesity and the wrong habits.
01:06:12.503 –> 01:06:13.303
That’s a problem.
01:06:14.084 –> 01:06:20.226
Because if we need to call on our citizenry to do something hard, to do something physically hard, they can’t.
01:06:20.846 –> 01:06:23.828
A lot of them just cannot right now.
01:06:24.228 –> 01:06:25.508
And it’s totally avoidable.
01:06:26.889 –> 01:06:27.589
But here we are.
01:06:29.050 –> 01:06:32.251
And then we have aging and under-maintained infrastructure.
01:06:33.351 –> 01:06:39.354
And it’s funny, because when you watch a road get built now, it takes 7,000 years to get it done right.
01:06:40.783 –> 01:06:46.265
And I know why, because I’ve seen what the contracting process looks like for the people who build that.
01:06:46.305 –> 01:06:49.906
Like I’ve seen all where all the bloat is in that process.
01:06:50.766 –> 01:06:57.669
And then what they build doesn’t last even as long as what was built, you know, in five years in the sixties.
01:06:58.529 –> 01:06:59.109
Interesting.
01:06:59.189 –> 01:07:00.510
Is it because we’re harder on the roads?
01:07:00.550 –> 01:07:01.950
Well, we’re probably harder on the roads.
01:07:01.970 –> 01:07:04.071
We have more volume, but at the same time,
01:07:06.132 –> 01:07:12.197
We don’t have an expectation that what we’re building has to last a long time because there’ll just be another contract to redo it.
01:07:12.678 –> 01:07:17.182
Well, OK, so then let’s look at the electrical grid like it’s aging and and stressed.
01:07:18.383 –> 01:07:19.905
And what happens if it goes out?
01:07:20.345 –> 01:07:21.126
Then you don’t have power.
01:07:21.146 –> 01:07:23.969
If I don’t have power, I can’t stream to you today, right?
01:07:24.590 –> 01:07:26.412
So that’s just under-maintained.
01:07:26.452 –> 01:07:29.675
So I could go on and on with lists of all of the things.
01:07:29.795 –> 01:07:33.359
This is just non-conspiratorial shit that’s going on.
01:07:34.200 –> 01:07:37.883
And I don’t even need to worry about conspiracy theories just with that list.
01:07:38.924 –> 01:07:40.726
There are many things in play here.
01:07:40.886 –> 01:07:40.946
And
01:07:42.086 –> 01:07:44.768
Many, many, any one of these could pop, right?
01:07:44.828 –> 01:07:48.671
It could suddenly accelerate or something could happen to make it worse.
01:07:49.012 –> 01:07:53.235
Like 2008, when we had the big old housing, the mortgage implosion of 2008.
01:07:54.156 –> 01:07:54.676
Remember that?
01:07:54.696 –> 01:08:00.521
Remember the years after that were kind of hard, but they weren’t impossible, were they?
01:08:01.161 –> 01:08:05.184
Any one of these can have a negative impact on our economy on a rather large scale.
01:08:05.465 –> 01:08:10.789
And multiples of them happening at one time can get really painful.
01:08:12.163 –> 01:08:27.434
Um, it, it’s just, this is why when we do our, our, our living free in Tennessee workshop, when we do the self-reliance festival, when I have conversations like this, usually we end up with somebody who comes on and it’s like, what am I going to do?
01:08:27.494 –> 01:08:28.715
I don’t have any savings.
01:08:28.795 –> 01:08:29.716
I live in an apartment.
01:08:30.176 –> 01:08:31.237
I can’t grow food.
01:08:31.597 –> 01:08:32.418
How am I going to eat?
01:08:32.538 –> 01:08:34.619
And, and legitimate question.
01:08:34.639 –> 01:08:38.682
I’m going to cough.
01:08:40.603 –> 01:08:41.464
Wrong pipe.
01:08:42.313 –> 01:08:47.417
Um, we should just do a moment of silence.
01:08:51.320 –> 01:08:54.542
That moment of silence is so the audio podcast does not have to hear me cough.
01:08:55.143 –> 01:09:02.308
Anyway, it’s a legitimate question to ask because if food prices double again, what are you going to do?
01:09:02.328 –> 01:09:04.449
You’re going to have to choose between your power and your rent.
01:09:04.469 –> 01:09:07.832
I’m going to have to choose between your power and your food.
01:09:09.025 –> 01:09:11.706
Are you going to have to move in with six or 10 people?
01:09:12.606 –> 01:09:15.246
Like, what are you going to do?
01:09:15.286 –> 01:09:16.767
It’s not a picture you want to think about.
01:09:18.027 –> 01:09:24.128
But if you don’t think about that as a possibility, then you don’t get ready for it maybe happening.
01:09:24.168 –> 01:09:31.210
And there are ways that you can hedge just by taking small steps every day to build that.
01:09:31.690 –> 01:09:31.850
So
01:09:35.794 –> 01:09:43.137
I set that foundation of what I’m going to call toxic toxic toxicness because.
01:09:43.157 –> 01:09:49.500
I think it’s important to pay attention right now, and it’s a wake up call for us.
01:09:50.000 –> 01:09:52.541
It’s it’s looking a lot like 70s on crack.
01:09:52.601 –> 01:09:56.643
It’s looking a lot like Japan in the 80s, really for us.
01:09:57.746 –> 01:10:20.515
and you know there wasn’t mass die-offs in japan but there was some you know it’s it’s not easy there it was it was super not easy in in the 80s and what we need to do is acknowledge that this exists go outside and cry because it could have been avoided wipe our tears stand up
01:10:21.678 –> 01:10:25.039
and start thinking, okay, well, so what does this mean?
01:10:25.399 –> 01:10:26.339
What does this mean for me?
01:10:26.659 –> 01:10:28.200
What does this mean for my community?
01:10:28.500 –> 01:10:30.300
What does it mean for those around me?
01:10:30.840 –> 01:10:32.321
What does it mean for my children?
01:10:32.601 –> 01:10:33.841
Like, what does this mean?
01:10:35.821 –> 01:10:46.904
And to do that, we need to set aside the fear of nuclear war, lab-developed diseases that could wipe us all out,
01:10:48.129 –> 01:10:56.096
EMP attacks, aliens coming down, zombies coming out of the ground, and just look at those things.
01:10:58.618 –> 01:11:01.960
What could happen as a result of that list?
01:11:02.040 –> 01:11:08.626
And let’s start with the cost of things you need could outpace the amount of money you’re earning.
01:11:10.087 –> 01:11:12.329
It kind of already is for a lot of people.
01:11:13.523 –> 01:11:15.105
And it has been happening.
01:11:15.185 –> 01:11:15.645
And you know what?
01:11:15.686 –> 01:11:19.189
People have still managed to take care of themselves.
01:11:19.289 –> 01:11:28.118
So part of that is why when Dawn said, let’s do the pantry challenge in January, I was like, sure, let me see how my pantry is working.
01:11:28.438 –> 01:11:33.864
And that’s because I view my pantry as a regenerating thing, not as a stockpile.
01:11:35.162 –> 01:11:37.883
Because your stockpile only gets you so far.
01:11:38.503 –> 01:11:39.844
Eventually you have to replenish it.
01:11:39.884 –> 01:11:41.445
So how are we replenishing that?
01:11:41.845 –> 01:11:53.830
And then the second thing you can do if your income is not keeping up with inflation is do a financial audit and see where in the heck your money’s going.
01:11:54.730 –> 01:11:56.291
Where are you spending your money?
01:11:56.331 –> 01:11:58.072
And is that the best place for it to be?
01:11:58.132 –> 01:11:59.833
What subscriptions have you signed up for?
01:11:59.933 –> 01:12:01.313
Including the one to my podcast.
01:12:01.353 –> 01:12:02.894
Like if it’s not serving you well,
01:12:04.124 –> 01:12:04.524
Kill it.
01:12:05.245 –> 01:12:05.645
Kill it.
01:12:05.665 –> 01:12:15.131
I like to just change credit card numbers every so often for those subscriptions and then get all the reminders so I can really choose what I’m doing.
01:12:15.211 –> 01:12:18.793
I’m actually doing a subscription audit right now because…
01:12:19.898 –> 01:12:29.365
I’ve used a lot of tools in the last year to help video production, to help graphic design, all this other stuff and scheduling posts on social media.
01:12:29.425 –> 01:12:30.325
And I don’t need them all.
01:12:30.365 –> 01:12:33.027
And I haven’t necessarily been disciplined about canceling those.
01:12:33.067 –> 01:12:36.270
So do a financial audit and see where your money goes.
01:12:37.270 –> 01:12:49.059
At the same time, now is a great time for looking for opportunities to make more money, whether that be at your job, figuring out how to increase your income at your job or by changing jobs or
01:12:50.302 –> 01:12:54.727
Start in that side hustle or if you’re in business, like look for other revenue sources.
01:12:55.708 –> 01:13:02.877
Look for ways to increase your revenue because if your revenue, if your income outpaces inflation, then you don’t care about this one.
01:13:03.476 –> 01:13:04.136
You just don’t care.
01:13:05.157 –> 01:13:13.343
Then the next thing that happens is if people can’t afford things, then you don’t find the things you need in the store because the store can’t sell the things so they don’t have them.
01:13:14.123 –> 01:13:15.124
That can happen.
01:13:15.944 –> 01:13:16.505
That can happen.
01:13:16.525 –> 01:13:18.846
It can become harder to source things.
01:13:18.926 –> 01:13:27.852
We’re actually super blessed to live in a world where we can talk to people all over the world and find things we want, even if they’re not like immediately where we are.
01:13:27.992 –> 01:13:30.154
It’s actually it makes living in the country a lot easier.
01:13:30.854 –> 01:13:44.544
Because I can get the exact metal SodaStream water bottle I want that made me choke earlier without having to go 300 miles to buy it at the store.
01:13:45.384 –> 01:13:47.926
I could just pay some shipping and get that, right?
01:13:48.407 –> 01:13:51.669
I think the other thing that might happen with this one is that
01:13:52.912 –> 01:13:58.014
things that are for sale used will start selling more than they have been.
01:13:58.774 –> 01:14:02.475
And you might be able to source some interesting things used if you need them.
01:14:02.656 –> 01:14:04.476
So that’s, that’s another one.
01:14:05.156 –> 01:14:06.377
Jobs could become scarce.
01:14:07.397 –> 01:14:11.379
I know somebody who just got laid off from their company, um,
01:14:13.812 –> 01:14:20.898
And they did a lot of layoffs and they basically laid off their entire at home workforce and just kept the people in the office.
01:14:20.938 –> 01:14:29.526
Now that may not be the best decision for that company, but clearly at the root of that, they also needed to reduce the number of people they had on staff.
01:14:30.747 –> 01:14:35.811
And we’re kind of in this bizarre world where it can be really hard to find the right employee.
01:14:36.892 –> 01:14:37.093
Right.
01:14:38.013 –> 01:14:39.695
But it’s also hard to find the right job.
01:14:41.480 –> 01:14:47.804
And I think part of that is some leaders have analysis paralysis out of what to do next.
01:14:48.485 –> 01:14:55.289
Some companies have allowed themselves to become over-bureaucratized and they’re just not good at sourcing talent in the right way.
01:14:56.089 –> 01:14:56.730
But also…
01:14:59.537 –> 01:15:18.572
positions are not necessarily being replaced as people age out of their jobs, because if I’m seeing that my revenue was flat, that doesn’t mean everybody else’s was, but I’m hearing reports from other companies that their revenue is flat or, or negative, like negative when compared to the year before.
01:15:19.093 –> 01:15:21.855
And then that means you can’t support as many employees, right?
01:15:21.875 –> 01:15:21.915
Um,
01:15:23.624 –> 01:15:28.228
But then there are people like me and other small business owners who are like, hey, I really want to hire somebody.
01:15:28.268 –> 01:15:29.710
This is the salary.
01:15:29.770 –> 01:15:33.233
And people are seeing like, this is the starting salary at this large corporation.
01:15:33.253 –> 01:15:35.735
And this is the starting salary at this place.
01:15:35.816 –> 01:15:37.757
I’m not going to go there because they’re not paying me enough.
01:15:37.837 –> 01:15:39.099
I’m just going to stay unemployed.
01:15:40.340 –> 01:15:43.583
Eventually, staying unemployed is not a good strategy, though.
01:15:43.703 –> 01:15:45.184
Eventually, people start working.
01:15:45.244 –> 01:15:45.305
And
01:15:47.535 –> 01:15:49.056
That’s where you got to go.
01:15:49.377 –> 01:15:52.179
My W2 employer just laid off their customer care department.
01:15:52.499 –> 01:15:57.483
30 people gone with no warning along with the sales department with no recordable sales for 2023.
01:16:00.326 –> 01:16:04.769
I would fire my sales department too if they hadn’t sold anything in 2023.
01:16:04.809 –> 01:16:07.832
A whole year of no sales, that’s bad.
01:16:08.753 –> 01:16:14.177
That is, I mean, like it might just be time to toss in the flag or you really hired the wrong people.
01:16:15.942 –> 01:16:31.866
I think also the consequences of a lot of unemployment and a lot of what people are trying to do right now is that a lot of people are trying to tap into the gig environment, like Uber or whatever, or starting a side hustle.
01:16:32.727 –> 01:16:37.668
And there’s no really awesome way to navigate that from a regulatory standpoint.
01:16:38.548 –> 01:16:41.790
Just from, you know, like the income tax, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:16:42.490 –> 01:16:49.333
It’s a pain in the butt to be a 1099 employee, which is not an employee, like a 1099 contractor.
01:16:49.373 –> 01:16:54.775
Like you have to you have to pay your full unemployment tax when you file your taxes.
01:16:54.795 –> 01:16:55.656
You have to track things.
01:16:55.676 –> 01:16:56.696
You track expenses.
01:16:56.776 –> 01:16:57.697
That’s a pain in the butt.
01:16:58.537 –> 01:17:05.040
And our society is not like it’s set up for the W2 environment, like super smooth.
01:17:05.541 –> 01:17:10.843
The 1099 world for people who’ve never had to do that before is hard.
01:17:10.863 –> 01:17:21.189
And right now, people who want to do that have to figure out how to navigate the gig economy as a non W2 employee.
01:17:21.529 –> 01:17:27.412
And then the health health care, like the health insurance market is not super awesome.
01:17:28.300 –> 01:17:29.521
in that situation.
01:17:29.601 –> 01:17:39.026
And so then some people are just staying at crap jobs just to keep that not need to do the tracking and to keep whatever health insurance they have.
01:17:39.926 –> 01:17:42.247
And it keeps them out of being a more productive thing.
01:17:42.607 –> 01:17:42.808
Right.
01:17:43.008 –> 01:17:46.129
Or moving to a company that maybe doesn’t have to provide health insurance.
01:17:46.149 –> 01:17:48.531
So they don’t like health insurance is a big one there.
01:17:49.051 –> 01:17:49.231
Right.
01:17:51.128 –> 01:17:57.913
I think to grow your income stability, though, it’s super important to be more in control of where your money’s coming from.
01:17:57.973 –> 01:18:02.956
That’s why Operation Independence is something we talk about every single week.
01:18:03.076 –> 01:18:18.025
Because if an entire sales department and customer support department can be laid off with no warning at all, like, do you think you really matter in that situation if you are the best customer service provider at your company?
01:18:18.065 –> 01:18:18.546
No, you don’t.
01:18:19.006 –> 01:18:19.286
You don’t.
01:18:20.410 –> 01:18:24.453
So I really think having other ways of making money is a great idea.
01:18:24.613 –> 01:18:38.702
And if you are ready to go for it and start your own business, when we have this instable market, it’s actually, and if you start a business now and do well now, you’re probably going to do well forever because you’ve made it through the hard times.
01:18:38.822 –> 01:18:46.968
So don’t necessarily shy away from starting a business because you hear this, like things are a little weird out there right now.
01:18:47.048 –> 01:18:49.990
Well, in the weird is the opportunity.
01:18:50.830 –> 01:18:52.311
In the weird is the opportunity.
01:18:52.971 –> 01:18:54.411
Grow your income stability.
01:18:54.471 –> 01:19:02.954
Have relationship-based businesses where your loyalty and your customer loyalty actually matter.
01:19:03.894 –> 01:19:09.716
You don’t necessarily need to go be like Home Depot who serves everybody to be successful.
01:19:10.908 –> 01:19:14.452
if you get the right 100 customers, that could be successful.
01:19:15.013 –> 01:19:21.580
As long as they say successful, you say successful, which means, you know, right now you might want to be like, okay, how can I, how can I get a 20% buffer there?
01:19:21.600 –> 01:19:22.801
Get 120 customers just in case I lose 20.
01:19:22.841 –> 01:19:22.981
Right.
01:19:23.061 –> 01:19:23.101
Um,
01:19:29.272 –> 01:19:39.340
I think gaining stability through home ownership, which was key and fundamental for me in my 30s, is harder right now for people.
01:19:39.380 –> 01:19:42.222
People complain like, you had it so easy.
01:19:42.282 –> 01:19:45.424
You got a house because you’re a Gen X and blah, blah, blah.
01:19:45.825 –> 01:19:47.586
I didn’t get a house till I was in my 30s.
01:19:48.187 –> 01:19:49.988
And it was not an expensive, nice house.
01:19:50.088 –> 01:19:51.469
I had to remodel the whole thing.
01:19:51.869 –> 01:19:57.614
I managed to get it through hook and crook and determination.
01:19:57.634 –> 01:19:59.095
And it was not easy.
01:20:00.245 –> 01:20:04.548
But I will grant you that it’s probably not easier right now.
01:20:05.469 –> 01:20:09.211
It’s an unrealistic expectation to think you should have a house at 22.
01:20:11.533 –> 01:20:12.913
If you can, that’s great.
01:20:14.094 –> 01:20:19.318
But no matter what, I think it’s difficult to…
01:20:20.842 –> 01:20:24.064
justify paying for it at the higher interest interest rates.
01:20:24.104 –> 01:20:27.507
Cause we’ve gotten so used to having two, three, 4% mortgages.
01:20:28.247 –> 01:20:32.450
But I remember in the eighties when my dad was happy about his 11% mortgage.
01:20:33.871 –> 01:20:37.593
So he just kind of factored that in into the whole cost of the thing.
01:20:38.734 –> 01:20:45.058
And there’s a lot of creative ways to save up that, that we just weren’t doing back then.
01:20:45.098 –> 01:20:46.980
Like the entire nomad movement was,
01:20:47.791 –> 01:20:52.793
you can really reduce expenses by simplifying in that way and save a lot of money.
01:20:52.833 –> 01:20:59.095
And then suddenly if you are in a cash position, when there is a deal, you don’t have to worry about the mortgage.
01:20:59.215 –> 01:21:00.676
You just buy the thing, right?
01:21:01.516 –> 01:21:11.980
Or if you’re in a heavy cash position and have somewhat stable income, when interest rates drop a little bit, then Hey, yeah,
01:21:14.406 –> 01:21:15.828
you’re in a good place, right?
01:21:17.110 –> 01:21:23.739
I think keeping hold of your property long-term, so long-term view, keeping hold of your property in,
01:21:25.498 –> 01:21:31.724
in a market where your property tax increases based on the market value of your home makes it harder.
01:21:31.744 –> 01:21:39.091
And that means that into retirement, you need to be thinking about how do I make more and more money to pay the stupid taxes so I can just stay in this thing that I own.
01:21:39.151 –> 01:21:41.854
I actually think property taxes are criminal.
01:21:42.474 –> 01:21:44.516
I probably think all taxes are criminal.
01:21:44.536 –> 01:21:49.141
Well, those are particularly difficult because when you’re at your physically weakest point,
01:21:50.222 –> 01:21:53.603
they keep raising the price on you to force you out of your house, I guess.
01:21:53.704 –> 01:22:03.308
Like that’s kind of a crappy thing that they do there where it’s based on market value rather than if you’re going to tax, then just lock us in at what we bought our house at.
01:22:04.201 –> 01:22:04.741
right?
01:22:04.801 –> 01:22:06.382
That’s how we’ve budgeted.
01:22:06.742 –> 01:22:09.024
Those taxes aren’t designed to keep me in my house.
01:22:09.064 –> 01:22:13.946
Those taxes are designed to bring money into the local government.
01:22:13.986 –> 01:22:21.830
And in some cases, they are designed to push you out of your house so somebody else with more money can buy your house and then they’re participating in the economy.
01:22:22.511 –> 01:22:24.672
So that being said,
01:22:26.825 –> 01:22:33.870
I strongly suspect and a lot of other people strongly suspect we may see interest rates go down for a time this year.
01:22:34.551 –> 01:22:41.395
And when that happens, that makes properties more accessible from a mortgage payment standpoint.
01:22:41.415 –> 01:22:50.162
And that means if you are in a position to buy because you’ve been a good little aunt and you are saving your money and you have a property you want,
01:22:51.002 –> 01:23:16.818
you can take advantage of that but don’t just hear this and then wait if you find the right property at the right price for you you don’t necessarily need to wait for that window but i do think that window’s coming and i think a great way to hedge um a time when things are increasing in value and interest rates are kind of they’re higher i’m not going to call them high yet because they’re not high yet compared to what i’ve seen in my lifetime um
01:23:18.439 –> 01:23:30.085
A balance of being in a cash position to be able to buy and having tangible assets that are appreciating because of inflation is a good balance to have.
01:23:30.125 –> 01:23:37.509
I mean, that’s kind of like the diversification approach so that when you see an opportunity, you can take advantage of an opportunity.
01:23:37.529 –> 01:23:42.032
And if what you have is your time to invest, then when you see an opportunity, invest your time.
01:23:43.712 –> 01:23:48.933
Don’t start talking yourself out of investing your time because this might happen or that might happen.
01:23:49.013 –> 01:23:53.134
If it’s really something that you want, invest your time in it.
01:23:53.214 –> 01:23:55.794
Eventually something, it may not go the way you planned.
01:23:55.814 –> 01:24:01.395
And in fact, it probably won’t go the way you planned, but it will go somewhere instead of nowhere.
01:24:01.495 –> 01:24:04.036
And right now, the worst thing you can do is go nowhere.
01:24:04.196 –> 01:24:11.237
If you just stand here and go nowhere and stack cash and then inflation’s happening and your cash is worth less and less and less,
01:24:12.581 –> 01:24:16.663
I mean, it’s not bad to stack cash, but you’re not going anywhere.
01:24:16.943 –> 01:24:17.443
Go somewhere.
01:24:18.143 –> 01:24:21.605
Choose somewhere to go and go there, right?
01:24:22.605 –> 01:24:23.545
Tangible assets.
01:24:25.106 –> 01:24:26.326
Tangible assets are awesome.
01:24:26.346 –> 01:24:31.848
Like if you bought real estate before all this inflation happened, before real estate went up in value, you’re not unhappy right now.
01:24:34.049 –> 01:24:41.032
I know somebody who cashed out of the Portland, Oregon market, 5 to 10x on each property that they had purchased before.
01:24:43.208 –> 01:24:45.430
because it went through that peak.
01:24:45.450 –> 01:24:47.813
I actually looked at what my house was worth over Christmas.
01:24:47.833 –> 01:24:48.513
It was really funny.
01:24:48.974 –> 01:24:52.998
Somebody did an awesome kitchen remodel on it, totally upped the value of that house.
01:24:53.078 –> 01:24:55.320
And it sold for about double what I sold it for.
01:24:55.380 –> 01:24:55.981
Am I sad?
01:24:56.041 –> 01:24:57.582
No, because I sold it 10 years ago.
01:24:58.283 –> 01:25:03.408
But if you’ve been hanging on to that as a rental for 10 years, you’re not sad when you sell it at a higher price.
01:25:03.829 –> 01:25:09.434
It’s come back down in value since that peak, but it’s interesting to look at those things, right?
01:25:09.754 –> 01:25:14.259
So tangible assets can be really great during times of inflation, but beware.
01:25:15.635 –> 01:25:29.192
there’s some volatility that we’re seeing here right and that means that you you got to know the right thing or you have to be you have to not go all in on one thing like that’s in in general if you go all in on one thing that’s the easiest way for it to bite you um
01:25:30.954 –> 01:25:57.260
right now we cannot sell very many we many very tangible awesome things are hard to sell i have listed on facebook marketplace right now for 300 a 350 bed frame and a 350 mattress together as a package deal new in the box because i was going to put a king-size bed in my room and i decided i wanted a queen-size bed and it was too late for me to return them
01:25:58.660 –> 01:26:02.022
And so I have them and I’m like, well, I should sell these.
01:26:02.142 –> 01:26:11.548
And less than half of what you would buy, these same exact things today that are selling today, no interest at all for purchase.
01:26:11.908 –> 01:26:15.991
In fact, they are going to an auction house tomorrow because I’ll just get what I get for them.
01:26:16.371 –> 01:26:18.772
I certainly don’t need them here in my life, cluttering up my world.
01:26:19.893 –> 01:26:25.897
And conversely, I had a daybed in my office.
01:26:27.364 –> 01:26:34.647
that has been here for a long time that I paid $50 for 10 years ago and I just sold it for $50.
01:26:35.247 –> 01:26:37.929
And people were all over my butt for that.
01:26:38.309 –> 01:26:40.490
Like they wanted it so bad.
01:26:40.650 –> 01:26:46.932
And it was just like the first person I talked to who said they could come, showed up when they said they were gonna show up, they got it for 50 bucks.
01:26:46.972 –> 01:26:49.434
And he was like, thank you so much for selling this to me.
01:26:49.494 –> 01:26:51.274
I really needed a bed and blah, blah, blah.
01:26:51.294 –> 01:26:52.455
So learn from that.
01:26:52.495 –> 01:26:53.235
That’s my market.
01:26:53.275 –> 01:26:54.496
Your market’s gonna be different.
01:26:55.356 –> 01:26:57.537
So you see which assets actually mean the most.
01:26:57.737 –> 01:27:11.625
It’s the, the ones that the cheap ones right now here that may turn around though, because my bed deal for somebody who’s looking for something a little nicer and brand new, and then realizes it’s going to be a thousand dollars for that.
01:27:11.705 –> 01:27:16.448
Like, let’s say that’s worth a thousand dollars in six months and I can get 500 for it.
01:27:16.568 –> 01:27:19.229
And I, you know, let’s say, well, let’s say, let’s, let’s do it this way.
01:27:19.730 –> 01:27:21.171
Let’s say I bought it for 300 for me today.
01:27:23.001 –> 01:27:28.724
and I hung on to it, kept it new in the boxes, and it’s worth $1,000 new retail, and I can get $500 for it.
01:27:29.104 –> 01:27:29.604
I’ve just made $200.
01:27:29.665 –> 01:27:43.972
The example I have that’s a real story is my dad started a winery in Oregon when I was a kid in the 70s, and he bought, I think they were tobacco sticks, but some sort of holds to plant up thing.
01:27:44.732 –> 01:27:49.355
And he was able to buy a semi truck full of those used from another farm.
01:27:50.415 –> 01:27:51.156
And he bought them,
01:27:52.034 –> 01:27:53.855
and spent the next two years using them.
01:27:54.595 –> 01:27:59.956
Meanwhile, inflation is happening and he sold them for more than he, he sold what was left for more than he bought it for.
01:28:02.477 –> 01:28:05.458
That was a tangible asset, but it was something that was useful.
01:28:06.018 –> 01:28:09.679
And if you just go out and spec on that all the time, you may or may not be right.
01:28:09.799 –> 01:28:15.761
But, um, it’s, we’re at this weird time again, where nice things are not selling.
01:28:18.562 –> 01:28:19.523
but they probably will.
01:28:19.763 –> 01:28:22.544
There’s probably going to be another window where that happens.
01:28:24.806 –> 01:28:30.989
The technological advancement is leading to job loss and getting left behind.
01:28:31.069 –> 01:28:35.992
So if you’re in a job and you get replaced by artificial intelligence, you’ve lost your job.
01:28:36.892 –> 01:28:46.478
You need to be the person in that scenario who knows how to use artificial intelligence to do your job, who knows how to make the self-driving truck
01:28:48.990 –> 01:28:56.539
who knows how to do the computerized, whatever report analysis knows how to leverage that into many reports.
01:28:56.960 –> 01:29:02.587
If you’re that person, you have, you stand to actually make more money at that job.
01:29:04.272 –> 01:29:06.713
than you ever have before because you know how to do it.
01:29:06.793 –> 01:29:12.754
And you may even be in a position where your bosses don’t know what the heck, but you do.
01:29:13.455 –> 01:29:16.735
And that’s a great position to be in from a negotiation standpoint.
01:29:17.096 –> 01:29:21.117
And I know a lot of y’all are like, artificial intelligence is evil and I don’t want to learn it.
01:29:21.197 –> 01:29:22.477
Learn about it first.
01:29:23.457 –> 01:29:25.158
Learn about what that really is.
01:29:25.398 –> 01:29:26.718
Learn about how it works.
01:29:27.679 –> 01:29:29.719
These are things we’re scared of because they’re different.
01:29:31.560 –> 01:29:32.900
Learn the things you’re scared of.
01:29:34.622 –> 01:29:36.842
Learn the things you’re scared of and then make your decision.
01:29:37.583 –> 01:29:41.163
But don’t just make your decision because some personality told you it’s good or bad.
01:29:43.224 –> 01:29:44.264
Do it yourself, do the work.
01:29:45.104 –> 01:29:49.165
Because if you do the work, you’re gonna be okay.
01:29:50.545 –> 01:30:00.027
Our monetary system’s feeling a little bit fragile and there’s lots of fear about us going to a CBDC, centralized digital currency, basically.
01:30:02.967 –> 01:30:07.068
That means the central bank, CB, digital currency, is running it.
01:30:07.849 –> 01:30:14.011
We have been operating on the same monetary system like electronically for a really, really long time.
01:30:14.031 –> 01:30:17.552
And it’s totally outdated and it sucks and it costs a lot of money to do it.
01:30:17.772 –> 01:30:19.333
And I don’t see this not happening.
01:30:20.444 –> 01:30:26.429
And I don’t know what that’s gonna mean for our dollar in the US, but it’s gonna mean something.
01:30:26.469 –> 01:30:29.511
It may mean that we are no longer the international currency of choice.
01:30:30.552 –> 01:30:31.953
I won’t be surprised if that happens.
01:30:33.054 –> 01:30:39.499
And then if that happens, look at what happens to other countries where that has happened, right?
01:30:40.340 –> 01:30:42.201
That means our dollar isn’t worth as much anymore.
01:30:45.464 –> 01:30:46.545
This is a favorite tool.
01:30:47.802 –> 01:30:49.644
of leaders, a rebasement of our dollar.
01:30:49.664 –> 01:30:53.488
So rebasing the dollar probably is going to happen.
01:30:53.528 –> 01:30:57.471
I can’t guarantee it’ll happen, but it sort of looks like it’s going to happen.
01:30:58.412 –> 01:31:06.240
That’s a favorite tool of leaders to stave off a big crash so that they can stay credible and stay in power, right?
01:31:07.561 –> 01:31:09.043
But it hurts when it happens.
01:31:09.123 –> 01:31:10.724
It really hurt my grandparents in the 70s.
01:31:12.934 –> 01:31:15.195
And in that is opportunity.
01:31:15.615 –> 01:31:16.455
Are you ready for it?
01:31:16.515 –> 01:31:18.255
Are you ready for the CBDC?
01:31:18.936 –> 01:31:20.176
Are you ready for what that means?
01:31:20.216 –> 01:31:21.696
Have you figured out how you’re going to use that?
01:31:21.756 –> 01:31:22.637
What it might look like?
01:31:22.677 –> 01:31:28.498
So rather than gloom and doom, they’re going to control us with it, which is a valid thing to discuss.
01:31:28.758 –> 01:31:30.259
Like how can it be used to control me?
01:31:30.339 –> 01:31:30.539
Okay.
01:31:30.559 –> 01:31:32.559
What does that mean in my interaction with it?
01:31:35.360 –> 01:31:39.721
Ask yourself, how can I use that to my advantage and what alternatives are there?
01:31:41.789 –> 01:31:43.191
Am I just going to go all in on gold?
01:31:43.752 –> 01:31:46.515
Am I going to finally get off my butt and learn about how Bitcoin works?
01:31:47.276 –> 01:31:48.037
Maybe get some of that.
01:31:48.518 –> 01:31:49.960
But Bitcoin is the CBDC.
01:31:50.000 –> 01:31:50.621
I don’t think so.
01:31:50.641 –> 01:31:52.783
I don’t think so.
01:31:53.925 –> 01:31:55.607
There’s no central bank in Bitcoin.
01:31:56.809 –> 01:31:59.752
That’s the first two letters are pretty important in CBDC.
01:32:01.252 –> 01:32:03.333
And if you’re like, man, that’s something new I got to learn.
01:32:03.373 –> 01:32:04.654
Yeah, we got to learn new things.
01:32:04.694 –> 01:32:06.455
Like I’m gonna learn how to tan hides this year.
01:32:06.495 –> 01:32:07.115
That’s my plan.
01:32:07.775 –> 01:32:10.077
I want to tan at least one rabbit hide this year.
01:32:10.617 –> 01:32:13.598
And I know that’s not a new cutting edge tech thing.
01:32:13.618 –> 01:32:17.460
But I’m also going to go check out that calendar tool because I’m interested in how that works.
01:32:18.001 –> 01:32:21.563
And I’ve I’ve been learning how some of those tools I learned how Bitcoin works.
01:32:21.803 –> 01:32:22.083
I took
01:32:23.291 –> 01:32:27.193
I took Vin Armani’s class on cryptocurrency because I just wanted to understand it better.
01:32:27.734 –> 01:32:29.415
And he teaches you how to code.
01:32:30.095 –> 01:32:32.196
And I’m never going to need that, I don’t think.
01:32:32.336 –> 01:32:34.638
But I learned how to do it, right?
01:32:35.318 –> 01:32:41.502
And that helps me identify deeper what stability is in the crypto world and what it isn’t.
01:32:42.162 –> 01:32:47.687
And I have a lot of good friends who’ve gone even deeper into it than I have, who’ve taught me lots of stuff.
01:32:47.767 –> 01:33:00.619
Like having that community around all of these things really helps me because when one person learns something, then, you know, somebody else, you know, you guys know I’m making shorts through artificial intelligence, right?
01:33:00.639 –> 01:33:03.161
Like all the shorts you see that are snippets from the podcast.
01:33:03.221 –> 01:33:04.242
Yes, we edit those.
01:33:04.623 –> 01:33:05.243
But first,
01:33:06.144 –> 01:33:13.246
This entire live stream is going to be analyzed and it’s going to say these, this is where your like peak engagement was.
01:33:13.306 –> 01:33:15.026
These topics seem really interesting.
01:33:15.086 –> 01:33:20.448
I can say, look for these keywords and it’ll make a bunch of little videos and then we can refine them.
01:33:21.168 –> 01:33:27.709
And that saves me, that saves me 60 hours of editing every week already.
01:33:27.869 –> 01:33:29.710
Just that, just that.
01:33:31.028 –> 01:33:37.011
Um, so, you know, back to the Bitcoin thing, like learn if you have not, if you’re resistance, I get it.
01:33:37.051 –> 01:33:40.353
Like, just don’t like go out and base your whole life on it.
01:33:41.153 –> 01:33:42.133
Go learn how it works.
01:33:43.134 –> 01:33:49.177
Go learn how security works in, in, in that world and, and see, you know, what you think.
01:33:49.357 –> 01:33:57.861
And if you see a rabbit trail where you think you can get rich quick through investing in blah, cryptocurrency run, just run.
01:34:00.216 –> 01:34:02.657
It’s probably not true in that situation.
01:34:03.378 –> 01:34:04.878
So, okay.
01:34:05.559 –> 01:34:13.804
With the election year and the division being ramped up again, we may see rioting and violence and hijinks.
01:34:14.664 –> 01:34:18.427
We’ve already had protests at the LA airport apparently would shut it down.
01:34:19.027 –> 01:34:19.807
I had no idea.
01:34:19.827 –> 01:34:21.949
I was flying that day out of Southern California.
01:34:21.989 –> 01:34:23.670
Luckily, I wasn’t flying out of LAX.
01:34:24.130 –> 01:34:25.251
I should have had an idea.
01:34:26.451 –> 01:34:28.533
And that goes back to situational awareness.
01:34:29.383 –> 01:34:33.465
Having an idea when you’re traveling in particular what’s going on is very helpful.
01:34:33.905 –> 01:34:45.350
I’m blessed to have a wonderful community of folks in y’all and in the SOE network and in the TSP network who are fairly aware of what’s going on.
01:34:46.111 –> 01:34:54.975
And after Self Reliance Festival last March, there was an active shooter in Nashville and folks knew I was leaving.
01:34:55.475 –> 01:35:00.137
They knew I was leaving Camden, Tennessee and maybe driving through Nashville home.
01:35:00.897 –> 01:35:06.780
And the minute it happened, I had three people reach out to me and say, active shooter here in Nashville.
01:35:06.800 –> 01:35:07.340
Don’t go there.
01:35:07.740 –> 01:35:09.921
I had a speaker being driven to the airport right then.
01:35:09.961 –> 01:35:15.063
I said, hey, person driving speaker route around that part of the city.
01:35:15.103 –> 01:35:16.204
Just don’t even go near there.
01:35:16.224 –> 01:35:17.444
It was nowhere near the airport.
01:35:17.484 –> 01:35:18.865
Just get to the airport the other way.
01:35:19.765 –> 01:35:31.834
And don’t go sightseeing in that part of the city right now if you’re going to do sightseeing because we don’t need this person like hurt or you don’t want to get stuck in a situation where you can’t get out and then you can’t get to the airport, right?
01:35:31.854 –> 01:35:33.355
There’s all sorts of reasons not to go there.
01:35:34.936 –> 01:35:37.058
That helps me whenever I travel.
01:35:37.498 –> 01:35:39.780
A lot of, you know, there’s some people who know where I’m going.
01:35:39.860 –> 01:35:40.941
They know how I’m getting there.
01:35:41.421 –> 01:35:43.943
And then if they see something happen, they reach out to me.
01:35:43.983 –> 01:35:46.145
And that makes a huge, huge difference.
01:35:47.839 –> 01:35:51.825
as to whether I end up in the middle of a riot or not.
01:35:53.828 –> 01:36:00.218
And if you remember Ferguson, Missouri, I ended up in the middle of one of those on accident once.
01:36:00.258 –> 01:36:02.141
And that’s when I learned I needed a better system.
01:36:02.947 –> 01:36:03.467
Don’t be me.
01:36:04.267 –> 01:36:06.908
Learn from that story and stay out of it.
01:36:07.128 –> 01:36:08.348
Just stay out of it.
01:36:10.269 –> 01:36:15.190
The best thing you can do with the declining health of our population is not be part of the problem.
01:36:15.850 –> 01:36:16.791
And this one’s hard.
01:36:17.151 –> 01:36:20.672
Toolman Tim has started a telegram group called Camp Hope.
01:36:22.252 –> 01:36:29.636
And it’s just a bunch of people who want to be healthier, who are encouraging each other, coming up with ideas around bad habits.
01:36:30.417 –> 01:36:36.060
And if something goes wrong, because when you change your lifestyle, some days you don’t.
01:36:37.717 –> 01:36:43.859
And then if you let yourself get down on yourself about that, you don’t again, and you don’t again.
01:36:44.579 –> 01:36:49.701
And the key to good health is making the best decision for you.
01:36:49.721 –> 01:36:59.764
The best small decision, like drinking water instead of coffee every day, all day, one decision at a time.
01:36:59.924 –> 01:37:05.126
It’s the little, it’s the cumulativeness of the little decisions that make a huge difference.
01:37:06.121 –> 01:37:07.962
Like, did I walk my dogs today?
01:37:08.062 –> 01:37:09.223
No, because it was cold this morning.
01:37:09.323 –> 01:37:11.584
Am I walking them the minute I stopped this live stream?
01:37:11.864 –> 01:37:13.105
Yes, because the sun’s still up.
01:37:13.825 –> 01:37:15.246
And I knew that going in today.
01:37:16.527 –> 01:37:20.669
So skipping the walk could happen.
01:37:22.590 –> 01:37:25.651
And sometimes when you skip the walk, you skip the walk the next day.
01:37:26.152 –> 01:37:27.652
And then you skip the walk the next day.
01:37:27.692 –> 01:37:30.494
And next thing you know, you skipped all the walks all month.
01:37:32.145 –> 01:37:34.206
That’s not how you take control of your health, man.
01:37:34.967 –> 01:37:35.908
You got to take the walk.
01:37:37.068 –> 01:37:43.833
And having a group of people who you care about, who care about you, helping you stay on task is great.
01:37:43.913 –> 01:37:46.114
And forgive yourself if you stumble.
01:37:46.134 –> 01:37:48.696
Because it’s not if you stumble, it’s when you stumble.
01:37:48.816 –> 01:37:51.438
Even the most fit person in the world stumbles.
01:37:52.879 –> 01:37:55.981
There’s that day where they’re like, man, I just didn’t go to the gym today.
01:37:57.489 –> 01:38:00.590
that’s three reasons why you need to go to the gym tomorrow.
01:38:00.670 –> 01:38:04.452
If going to the gym is your thing, um, figure out it.
01:38:04.652 –> 01:38:07.853
So the, the medical industrial complex, not being awesome.
01:38:09.234 –> 01:38:17.777
Hey, it doesn’t mean every, every medical intervention is terrible for you, but the fewer of them you can have, the better off you are, right?
01:38:17.837 –> 01:38:21.038
Because one leads to another leads to another and it can cascade.
01:38:21.959 –> 01:38:25.260
Uh, so being healthy is how you, you change that.
01:38:26.664 –> 01:38:31.489
being healthy is how you weather the latest flu without having to go to the hospital.
01:38:31.529 –> 01:38:36.034
And then they didn’t like doing, and then you didn’t get exposed to a different flu while you were at the hospital.
01:38:36.054 –> 01:38:46.466
Like I was at the hospital of tactical on the 1st of January, which is really not, I mean, it’s kind of looking back, it was entertaining to be there, but there was, it was not the, um,
01:38:48.325 –> 01:38:49.447
the height of society.
01:38:49.487 –> 01:38:50.429
We’ll just put it that way.
01:38:50.449 –> 01:39:00.227
There was a lot of people who’d had a lot of fun on New Year’s Eve and we were there for a different reason, but I also got exposed to every flu under the sun, I’m sure.
01:39:01.179 –> 01:39:03.780
And we are now seven days later so far.
01:39:03.800 –> 01:39:04.861
I haven’t gotten sick.
01:39:04.881 –> 01:39:05.621
Hopefully I don’t.
01:39:06.121 –> 01:39:22.568
I immediately went into extra immune system boost after that because I was like, okay, we’ll just, we’re going to do the zinc cycle for a while and do our best and make sure we’re getting plenty of sleep and not pull, you know, sometimes I get really interested in something and I read about it way late into the night.
01:39:22.628 –> 01:39:22.768
Nope.
01:39:23.068 –> 01:39:24.268
I have not done that this week.
01:39:24.308 –> 01:39:25.629
I’ve been really, really careful.
01:39:26.249 –> 01:39:30.760
because I really don’t want to get sick and staying peak health every day makes a big difference.
01:39:30.881 –> 01:39:33.588
And then as far as the under maintained infrastructure,
01:39:34.990 –> 01:39:36.512
Part of this is choose where you are.
01:39:37.192 –> 01:39:39.334
Based on where you are, this is better or worse.
01:39:39.634 –> 01:39:42.216
Know where the problems are as best you can.
01:39:42.236 –> 01:39:51.804
And then if you’re in an area that’s susceptible to problems, figure out if you can work your way, be prepared for it.
01:39:52.185 –> 01:39:58.029
And, you know, the one that I see happening, like seems less and less stable here is our electric grid.
01:39:58.069 –> 01:39:59.531
Like power used to go out here.
01:39:59.551 –> 01:40:00.992
It goes out here all the time now.
01:40:01.974 –> 01:40:03.335
Well, now I have to be ready for that.
01:40:03.395 –> 01:40:04.596
And how do I get ready for that?
01:40:04.636 –> 01:40:21.949
Well, we spent a lot of, I’ve been investing heavily, effort, time, money in being less reliant on systems from outside the hauler so that we have a decent situation when they don’t work.
01:40:22.833 –> 01:40:25.916
And that means that my water is heated by the sun in the summer.
01:40:26.437 –> 01:40:31.101
I actually figured out I might be able to heat some of my water at my wood stove in the winter.
01:40:31.221 –> 01:40:34.445
And then that means less need for propane to heat the water.
01:40:34.845 –> 01:40:36.186
Do I have propane to heat the water?
01:40:36.267 –> 01:40:36.527
Yes.
01:40:36.747 –> 01:40:37.328
Am I using it?
01:40:37.708 –> 01:40:37.968
Yes.
01:40:38.849 –> 01:40:39.149
Right.
01:40:39.770 –> 01:40:43.353
But I use less of it when those other systems are up and running.
01:40:44.113 –> 01:40:52.820
And if those systems go away, it reduces the number of days I would have to boil water somehow to take a bath or to clean dishes or whatever, do laundry.
01:40:54.541 –> 01:41:08.192
The other thing is that we are fast approaching a world where having some of your stuff on solar and in battery storage makes financial sense over buying it from the electric company.
01:41:09.305 –> 01:41:10.979
And that’s, that’s a decision you have to make.
01:41:11.040 –> 01:41:11.504
Like for me,
01:41:13.984 –> 01:41:18.907
pulling some stuff off of the grid has made sense in favor of solar.
01:41:18.927 –> 01:41:25.410
And we just happen to have Sean Mills from Hack My Homestead, who is a whiz at figuring this stuff out.
01:41:25.470 –> 01:41:35.414
Now, my motivation for bringing systems off grid into solar here was for more stability when the power goes out.
01:41:35.474 –> 01:41:40.437
So like right now it is cheaper for me to buy the power from the electric company than to buy the solar system.
01:41:41.448 –> 01:41:47.835
But that solar system will pay for itself in five years based on the electrical savings that I have.
01:41:48.635 –> 01:41:49.977
So it just needs to last for five years.
01:41:50.017 –> 01:41:56.003
And that’s in part because you get a 30% tax rebate on solar systems at the federal level, tax rebate.
01:41:56.043 –> 01:42:01.248
That means 30% of the cost I put into that goes off the taxes I owe to the federal government.
01:42:01.709 –> 01:42:03.390
That’s pretty awesome, right?
01:42:04.291 –> 01:42:08.874
And I saw that option and I took advantage of it.
01:42:08.974 –> 01:42:11.696
And it just it kind of made the finances make sense on that one.
01:42:11.736 –> 01:42:14.398
Well, things are getting like solar panels are getting cheaper.
01:42:14.498 –> 01:42:15.959
Battery storage is getting cheaper.
01:42:16.019 –> 01:42:17.320
We know more about how to do it.
01:42:17.640 –> 01:42:21.923
The thing about that, guys, if you make that decision is you are putting time into maintaining the system.
01:42:22.884 –> 01:42:25.785
Just know that, you know, you got to know what you’re getting into.
01:42:25.885 –> 01:42:30.946
So it doesn’t always make sense to have the solar water heater if you’re not going to be able to maintain it, for example.
01:42:31.466 –> 01:42:39.688
But it is a way to increase your resilience against just things that are not being maintained the way they need to.
01:42:40.088 –> 01:42:41.609
So, I mean, that’s kind of my view.
01:42:41.649 –> 01:42:49.571
If things go south in 2024 at an accelerated rate in any one of these things, the best thing we can do
01:42:51.338 –> 01:42:59.062
is increase our ability to navigate it through knowledge, through resilience, through flexibility.
01:42:59.302 –> 01:43:01.484
I think it looks scary right now.
01:43:01.924 –> 01:43:07.707
And it has looked scary for a number of, it looks so scary and it’s looked scary for so long that people are numb to it at this point.
01:43:07.747 –> 01:43:08.888
They’re in denial, right?
01:43:09.408 –> 01:43:13.290
But we have gotten through worse than what any of this could lead to.
01:43:14.070 –> 01:43:14.831
And we will again.
01:43:16.081 –> 01:43:19.845
The thing we need to do is build the life you choose with an eye towards your community.
01:43:20.045 –> 01:43:23.048
Like have a real community, have real relationships with people.
01:43:23.528 –> 01:43:28.053
Have a Sue Zoldak who’s willing to reach out to you and say, are you okay when you’re not okay?
01:43:28.073 –> 01:43:30.595
Because they can see it because they follow you enough to do it.
01:43:30.915 –> 01:43:32.217
And then diversification.
01:43:33.834 –> 01:43:36.155
We don’t know which of all of these things will pop.
01:43:36.195 –> 01:43:41.617
We don’t know which skill we need, but what we can do is not put all of our eggs into one basket.
01:43:41.637 –> 01:43:45.178
Because if you drop that basket, most of those eggs will crack, right?
01:43:45.918 –> 01:43:49.259
Long-term though, look at your long-term success.
01:43:49.359 –> 01:43:51.660
Focus on building your long-term success.
01:43:52.260 –> 01:43:57.342
And then the little pops that happen are less of an impact on you.
01:43:57.722 –> 01:43:59.123
Stockpiling only so far.
01:44:00.103 –> 01:44:02.284
Stockpiling gets you through some things, right?
01:44:02.344 –> 01:44:05.945
Stockpiling all of the things and the long-term food storage, all of that.
01:44:06.045 –> 01:44:07.026
It’ll get you through some things.
01:44:07.446 –> 01:44:09.407
Hopefully you like how that long-term food tastes.
01:44:10.067 –> 01:44:16.910
But skills, health, resilience, financial stability, underground networks,
01:44:18.442 –> 01:44:20.262
Those are the strength in any struggle.
01:44:20.943 –> 01:44:23.303
That’s what gets people through for realsies.
01:44:23.843 –> 01:44:33.065
And that’s why we do Self Reliance Festival and the LFTN Spring Workshop and all of the other events and meetups like the Lenore City one that I’m going to next week, right?
01:44:33.605 –> 01:44:38.046
That’s why we’ve been pushing so hard on that because that gives you your underground network.
01:44:38.106 –> 01:44:45.708
From that, you learn the skills, you have somebody there to encourage you to get your health under control, who can give you new ideas of ways to be resilient.
01:44:46.661 –> 01:44:49.783
It’s all part of the underground network.
01:44:52.104 –> 01:44:55.306
And it’s always good to know a guy, right?
01:44:55.746 –> 01:44:57.007
It’s always good to know a guy.
01:44:58.208 –> 01:45:01.530
It’s also really good to be the guy that everybody knows.
01:45:03.271 –> 01:45:13.497
And with that sort of double-edged approach in a community, sometimes you are the guy, sometimes you know the guy.
01:45:15.256 –> 01:45:17.738
If you have that, that’s your strain.
01:45:18.238 –> 01:45:19.719
So what are you guys building this year?
01:45:21.160 –> 01:45:22.521
What are you planning to learn?
01:45:24.663 –> 01:45:28.626
Who are you going to get to know and how well are you going to get to know them and how are you going to develop trust?
01:45:32.489 –> 01:45:35.931
Because that’s how you navigate 2024 or pretty much anything else.
01:45:35.971 –> 01:45:37.432
Like the answer isn’t really different.
01:45:38.273 –> 01:45:40.915
It’s just that we have some very specific things we can work on.
01:45:43.254 –> 01:45:47.135
Well, I know one way you can get to know people is join the Living Free in Tennessee communities.
01:45:47.175 –> 01:45:49.336
And we have a pretty active one on Telegram.
01:45:49.936 –> 01:45:55.298
It’s LFTN group, at LFTN group on Telegram, t.me forward slash LFTN group.
01:45:55.878 –> 01:46:00.379
We have a pretty active one on MeWe as well, me.com, Living Free in Tennessee.
01:46:00.819 –> 01:46:02.520
And of course, we have a Facebook group.
01:46:02.880 –> 01:46:08.662
There’s all sorts of ways to interact with us, come to events, like check out stuff, get to know us, just doing that.
01:46:09.622 –> 01:46:12.685
Helps you start, get to know people, have somebody you can run stuff by.
01:46:13.125 –> 01:46:16.668
If you need to get your health in order, join Toolman Tim’s Camp Hope.
01:46:18.289 –> 01:46:19.630
Do whatever you got to do guys.
01:46:19.770 –> 01:46:21.011
Cause I know you have it in you.
01:46:21.091 –> 01:46:22.272
Otherwise you wouldn’t even be here.
01:46:22.292 –> 01:46:23.653
You wouldn’t have stayed here this long.
01:46:24.628 –> 01:46:29.271
Anyway, if you like the show and want to support the work I’m doing here, you can do it in two ways.
01:46:29.391 –> 01:46:32.132
One, get your coffee at hollaroast.com.
01:46:32.212 –> 01:46:34.073
Two, come to one of my events.
01:46:34.574 –> 01:46:43.158
Check them out, livingfreeintennessee.com forward slash spring hyphen workshop hyphen 23 and selfreliancefestival.com.
01:46:43.198 –> 01:46:46.200
With that, guys, go out and make it a great week.
