Driving 'til they drop

Here's an interesting article I came across recently: "Americans Are Driving Their Cars To Death In Order To Save Money."

The article states: "Drivers across the country are increasingly holding onto their cars for longer than ever, with an increasing number hitting more than 100,000 miles in their cars, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The trend comes as drivers realize the savings to be had by simply not replacing their car every five years. ... [T]he average age of a car on U.S. roads has now risen to 12.5 years after six straight years of increases, reports the WSJ. In fact, cars over 10 years old now account for more than 40 percent of the cars on America’s roads. ... But why the sudden desire to hold onto our cars for longer? It all comes down to spiraling repair costs and higher insurance premiums for newer vehicles, according to the WSJ. What was once a simple fix on older models, can now require sensor replacements, new screens and all kinds of electronics fixes that can see the bill at your local shop rise and rise."

This is a subject near and dear to our hearts at the moment because we just finished with a lot of repair work for our older vehicles. Our 30-year-old truck, in particular, was giving us issues ... so many issues that we thought it was time to sell it and purchase a new (used) pickup.

(The photo above is the same make and model as our current, but it's a stock photo. Ours is far more beat up.)

A search through the used-truck market made us realize even a cheap used truck was virtually out of our price range. For the time being, we spent what was necessary to get our older truck to keep going for a few more years.

We know this is not something we can do forever, but man I don't like newer vehicles. Not only are they outrageously expensive, but the repairs are pricey and usually involve computer-driven failures such as sensors or chips rather than mufflers or transmissions. Nor do we like the "spy" technology being programmed into so many vehicles these days. That's why we cling to our beaters and drive them 'til they drop.

So our strategy at the moment is to keep our old truck repaired enough to use, while in the meanwhile saving what we can for the inevitable day when we'll have to purchase a new (used) vehicle.

As a secondary note, when I was thiiiis far pregnant with Younger Daughter (literally two weeks before she was born), Don and I went car shopping for a vehicle that would accommodate child car seats (up until that point, we both owned pickup  trucks). Understand this was back in 1998, and our monthly payments for our new (used) car was $100/month. To a couple of broke young parents, that was a lot of money ... but what was worse was the principle we owed on the vehicle never seemed to go down. Finally we sold my pickup truck and paid off the car, and vowed we would never put ourselves in auto-loan debt ever again. Nor have we.

That's why I found the above-linked article so interesting. Driving older vehicles just makes sense. Just ask our 1990 Ford F150 pickup.

YOLO living

Sometimes when I wonder whether to address a topic here on the blog, I go with "clusters." What I mean is, I'll see or read something and think, "Huh. That's interesting." And then, unconnected to the original source, I'll see something else on the same subject and think, "Maybe I should write something about this." Clusters.

Often, of course, the coverage is clustered solely because it's a topic trending in the news; and that's why I'm discussing today's subject: YOLO living.

YOLO, as I'm sure you know, is an acronym for "You Only Live Once." It's been trending lately as a rather despairing response to high costs of living and low wages, and the frustrations that people – especially younger adults – feel with an economy that's against them.

YOLO living is exemplified by reckless spending on unnecessary items (including travel) because, hey, you only live once. It's often referenced in contrast to the nose-to-the-grindstone attitude of earlier generations.

Consider, for example, this video about a young woman complaining about her $8 coffee while drinking $8 coffee. I can't embed the video here, so I transcribed it. She says:

"So as I'm sitting here, sipping this $8 coffee, I'm just wondering if I'm the only girl living in the delulu land, because I cannot afford this $8 coffee. I honestly can't afford s***. I can't afford my car, my house, groceries ... I mean, like, how can this coffee be $8 when minimum wage is literally, like $8? So excuse me while I just continue to live in the delulu land while I continue go get my coffees I can't afford, because I'm going to continue to live and dig myself deeper and deeper and deeper into a gigantic financial hole because it cost too much to f***ing live. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Bye."

Don is the one who brought this video to my attention by asking, "How much does coffee cost per pound these days?"

I had just been to the city for my once-a-quarter Big Shopping, so I knew precisely how much coffee costs. "I just filled up some bags with fresh-ground coffee at Winco for $8 a pound," I replied.

That's when he pointed out this video on the $8 coffee, and we speculated how many coffee drinks could be made with a pound of ground coffee. Short answer: a lot.

But hey, you only live once, right? Why shouldn't this woman enjoy her expensive coffee? Everyone deserves a little treat now and then.

The problem, I'm speculating, is the $8 coffee is not just "now and then," nor is it the only thing she recklessly spends money on. As she admits, she's "going to continue to live and dig myself deeper and deeper and deeper into a gigantic financial hole because it cost too much to f***ing live."

I sense her frustration. I sympathize with her frustration. But how will it end? The debt won't go away just because she's frustrated and angry and feel she deserves the occasional treat.

Now consider this article: "Economists are sounding alarm on 'YOLO' credit bubble." The author writes, "A growing percentage of Americans are becoming reckless with their spending, fueling what one economist calls a 'super duper' credit bubble. In a note to clients, economist David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research warned that Americans are taking on too much debt to buy things they really don't need. He calls these people 'YOLO spenders,' which refers to the catchphrase, 'You only live once.'"

The article goes on to document the amount of credit card debt people are taking on, reaching all-time highs, and points out the obvious dangers of splurging on credit when it can't be paid off.

YOLO spending differs from survival spending. In this economy, a lot of people are maxing out their credit cards simply to pay their bills. I get that. I totally get that. In the past, we had crushing credit card debt due to the economic reality of raising a family on a very tight income. It took many years to climb out of that financial hole. In fact, those debt years left me with something of a pathological fear of owing money.

That's why this YOLO spending strikes me as irrational to the point of madness. It's one thing to max out a credit card because you're desperately trying to keep your head above water. It's a whole different thing to max out on YOLO luxuries. These spenders must know a day of reckoning will loom, right? If you can't afford $8 coffees, maybe you should buy a pound of ground coffee for $8 and make your own beverage at home...?

While I understand – and sympathize – with the frustration expressed by the young woman in the video, I can't help but feel there are better ways to go about enjoying the small pleasures of life without digging yourself "deeper and deeper and deeper into a gigantic financial hole."

Debt is terrifying enough if it's incurred simply for survival. But debt incurred simply to live it up seems like madness.

What advice would you offer this young woman, besides not buying $8 coffees?

Silent depression?

I came across an article recently called "Lessons from the Great Depression" that recapped a memoir of that decade. This sent me down a links-leading-to-links rabbit hole about other wisdom from the 1930s. I thought it might be worthwhile examining and consolidating these stories, especially since so many economists and other experts are predicting something similarly catastrophic for America (and the world) in the upcoming year.

My parents were born in the middle of the Great Depression: My mother in 1931, my father in 1935. Mom was born in poverty in the bayous of Louisiana; Dad was born to working-class immigrant parents in Buffalo, New York. Both bear mental scars from that decade of their youth because of how their parents and neighbors coped with the hardships.

While people are stating unequivocally that currently we're not in a depression (largely on the basis that the stock market hasn't crashed in a suitably dramatic fashion), others claim we're already in a "silent depression."

This hit home after watching a short video comparing the costs of homes, rent, and income between 1930 and 2023.

"You're in a Silent Depression," says a man calling himself Wall Street Silver (Freddie Smith, a realtor based in Orlando). "When you compare the Great Depression to today, this is absolutely going to blow your mind. In 1930 during the Great Depression, the average home in America was $3,900. The average car was $600. The average monthly rent was $18, or $216 a year, and the average salary was $1,300 a year. Fast forward to today. It is $436,000 for the average home, $48,000 for the average car, and the average rent is $2,000 a month or $24,000 a year, and we have a $56,000 income for the average American right now.

"So if you look back to the Great Depression, the house was only three times the average salary. Now it is eight times the average salary. The car was 46% of the salary. The car today is 85% of the salary. And here's the craziest part. The rent was 16% of the average salary. It is now 42% of the average salary."

And of course, there's the issue of unemployment. During the Great Depression, unemployment famously reached 25 percent. Now? Well, it depends on what sources you consult. Shadowstats (which uses the original metrics that were used to calculate such things) reports a current unemployment rate of, well, 25 percent.

Additionally, a frightening 62 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck (this being called "the main financial lifestyle among U.S. consumers") and 74% of Americans (understandably) say they are stressed about finances. Sadly, as one economist pointed out, "Because real wages have declined so much over the last three years, consumers have turned to debt to maintain their standard of living." Food pantries are struggling.

Tucker Carlson, in interviewing economist Stephanie Pomboy, noted people used to be suspicious of debt, but now the entire economy is based on that vice (rather than being built on real things, which are now outsourced overseas). But, though policymakers still have their blinders on regarding the dollar remaining the world's reserve currency, all that is changing ... and changing rapidly. Pomboy says, The demise of the U.S. hegemony is really upon us, and ... so many in Washington are just sleeping right through it as if it's not a reality."

As Ayn Rand so memorably put it, "You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."

If we are in a depression, it behooves us to learn from the last one. I've often wondered if people knew in 1928 what would happen in 1929, what could they have done to brace themselves? In light of the current situation, I think that question is just as pertinent today. What is the best way to brace for a looming or current economic depression?

To answer this, I drew advice from several pieces on the subject of "Lessons of the Great Depression" (here, here, and here) and plucked out some pertinent concepts. If nothing else, it strikes me that these pertain to current and future times as well.

• Diversify everything from investments to skills (generalists and jacks-of-all-trades thrived).

• Fewer bad things happen to those who are debt-free.

• Need less and waste less. Get lean.

• Multiple income streams are better than one solitary stream, no matter how large.

• Wean yourself off dependency wherever possible, everything from addictions to government aid.

• Tangible investments are often better than intangible investments. Livestock and gardens reproduce.

• Band together whenever possible (family, neighbors, church) to help each other out. There is strength in numbers.

• Belief in a Higher Power was a massively sustaining force for when people were at their lowest.

• "The situation at hand had the final say." People were forced to roll with the punches and adapt to their circumstances. No amount of anger, despair, or bargaining could change reality.

• Be generous. Personal circumstances can change in an instant.

• Always look for work. This doesn't (necessarily) mean you're working a second 40-hour-per-week job; but it does mean you're taking advantage of side gigs or odd jobs that come your way. Even unpaid "work" has its merits, as it teaches you skills, develops your reputation, and broadens your influence.

• The concept of "retirement" changed completely. People worked as long as they were able.

What other tips would you add?

Gradually, then suddenly

An interesting piece came out a few weeks ago on the Sovereign Man website entitled "We're done with 'gradually.' We've now reached the 'suddenly' part."

The article opens by discussing the mathematical concept of logarithms.

He also reviews "logarithmic decay": "The idea behind logarithmic decay is that something declines very, very slowly at first. But, over a long period of time, the rate of decline becomes faster… and faster… and faster. If you look at it on a graph, logarithmic decay basically looks like a horizontal line that almost imperceptibly arcs gently downwards. But eventually the arc downward becomes steeper and steeper until it’s practically a vertical line down."

Think of a river right before a waterfall.

The article states: "In fact logarithmic decay is great way to describe social and financial decline. Even the rise and fall of superpowers are often logarithmic in scale. The Kingdom of France in the 1700s infamously fell gradually… then suddenly. We can see the same logarithmic decay in the West today, and specifically the United States. The deterioration of government finances has been gradual, then sudden. Social conflict, censorship, and the decline in basic civility has been gradual, then sudden. Even the loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar has been gradual… and is poised to be sudden."

This mathematical concept is summarized in "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway (a book I've never read) on going bankrupt: "Gradually, then suddenly."

Right now, on the surface, everything seems fine. We just traveled to California to see my parents and spent days on the road without an issue. All of us are working our regular jobs without a problem.

But underneath, there are odd and uneasy undercurrents. There's a lot of stuff swirling around in the air: financially, politically, and legally. The Rule of Law has been suspended in many areas, and a lot of cities are descending into unlivable chaos. There is a lot of uncertainty regarding the future.

The Sovereign Man's thesis is we can't tell where we are on the logarithmic curve. We could have a long slow slope ahead of us, or we could be teetering on the precipice. However, his conclusion is we are at the "suddenly" part.

What I get from this piece is the need to become independent, as much as possible, for all our needs. This isn't always easy or even possible (just ask my very elderly parents), but it should be the goal of everyone. The more independent we are of these swirling currents of unease, the better.

Just some random thoughts as I work on multiple writing deadlines.

Wise words from a reader

In response to my last blog post, "The Only Way to Survive 2023," a reader named Leigh chimed in with her two cents' worth. I found her words so wise – far better than I could phrase things – that I wanted to highlight them here.

She writes: In reading these articles, I notice a common denominator, which is basically (over-simplified, I suspect) that the alarms and cautions are related to embracing the current economic system, which relies on debt and the hope of wealth accumulation through investments. The ideas that debt can make us affluent, or that everyone has to be a millionaire before they can retire is a new one, within my lifetime at least. Growing up, it was explained to me that one strives toward their highest earnings in one's younger years: to buy a home, raise a family, and secure tangible assets. Once the children are on their own and the house is paid for, there isn't need for so much, and a smaller retirement income will suffice to be happy and comfortable. Now, this is foreign thinking.

My husband and I have never had the income to get caught up in the economic investment lifestyle. So honestly, people getting panicky over the state of the economy is something that makes no sense. Instead, we have "invested" in the land, tools, equipment, and skills to live a simpler lifestyle and become more self-reliant. Of course, I don't like higher retail prices and disappearing products. But because of our lifestyle, we can pretty much say "oh well" and shrug it off.

The biggest challenge is that learning how to be frugal also requires learning how to be content. And that it isn't a stopgap measure, it's a lifestyle. Unfortunately, contentment pretty is pretty foreign to human nature, which I suspect contributes greatly to people getting stressed out.

Yes!! This woman gets it! She explains things so clearly. Listen to her wisdom.

The only way to survive 2023

Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper had an interesting post on New Year's Eve: "The only way to survive 2023."

While the article was generous in explaining her recommended technique, she was able to sum it up in one word: Frugality.

Frugality, though it 's gotten a bad rap, is actually a deeply enthralling subject (at least, I think so). I decided to dig a little deeper into the mentality of frugal people and came across an article from a few years ago entitled "5 Reasons the Frugal Fare Well in a Recession."

Here are the things the author lists:

1. The Frugal Know the Importance of Consciously Consuming Media

What they mean is, frugal people don't succumb to peer pressure. They don't try to keep up with the Joneses, or with fashion trends, or buying the latest consumer electronics, or anything else advertisers do to lure us into parting with cash.

2. The Frugal Know the Importance of Counting Nickels and Dimes

What's the old line? Watch the pennies, and the dollars will take of themselves. (Butchered grammar, but you get the idea.) Basically, examine every expenditure, with two goals: One, is it really necessary? And two, is there a cheaper alternative?

3. The Frugal Know the Importance of Calculating the Long-term Cost of Purchases 

Essentially, examine every purchase to see if it meets one's long-term goal. If you're saving for a rural homestead, for example, it's not cost effective to eat restaurant meals, because eating out doesn't advance the goal.

4. The Frugal Know the Importance of Pursuing Goals

Having a goal to start with – whether it's getting out of debt, buying that rural homestead, or anything else worth pursuing – defines why you're being thrifty. It's not just thrift for thrift's sake – it's thrift to achieve a goal. In short, eyes on the prize.

5. The Frugal Know the Importance of Continuing to Create Wealth

This advice included not putting all your financial eggs in one basket, developing several income streams, and other ways to safeguard your money.

I found this advice refreshingly honest.

The benefits of adopting frugality before an economic downturn is you're already paddling a light canoe. When things get tough, you already know what it takes to tighten your belt to withstand the buffeting winds.

I have a feeling Daisy Luther is correct. Frugality may be the key to surviving not just 2023, but beyond.

Advice for a financial crisis

There has been a lot of chatter in the news lately about an impending financial crisis. Predictions for this economic downturn run the gamut from "mild" to "catastrophic." In response, I've seen a few articles on how best to weather such a crisis. Most of these advice pieces are "meh" (along the lines of "stop drinking so many lattés"-style of guidance). Others are downright insulting (such as this condescending piece of work on how to handle inflation if you make less than $300,000/year – which, by the way, is approximately 96% of Americans).

But once in a while I come across an article that has some meat to it, such as this one: 10 Things Not To Do When The Next Great Depression Strikes.

This piece focuses on Big Things. This list includes:

• Don't panic

• Don't quit your job

• Don't take your job for granted

• Don't buy anything on credit

• Don't become a cosigner on a loan

• Don't switch to an adjustable-rate mortgage

• Don't make investments that aren't secure

• Don't upgrade your lifestyle

• Don't keep your wealth in cash

• Don't defraud your creditors

(You can go to the article to read details for each of these bullet points.)

But even this advice, as meaty as it is, doesn't universally apply. Much of the advice assumes an upper middle-class lifestyle at best. Not everyone can afford a mortgage, adjustable rate or not. Not everyone has surplus money for "investments." Not everyone has "wealth," whether it's in cash or anything else.

So to this advice, I would add more. Consider:

• Diversify your income stream.

• Reduce your expenses.

• Try an all-cash lifestyle (where possible) to keep track of spending (some people prefer the "envelope" system – whatever works)

• Reduce debt; or at the very least, try not to incur more.

• Cultivate (or pick up) side gigs; who knows these might develop into a decent income stream.

• Go frugal frugal frugal. Shop in thrift stores, buy in bulk, cook from scratch, etc. You know the routine.

Since the economy is on most peoples' minds these days, I thought it might be useful to solicit everyone's advice and experience. What advice would you give to weather a financial crisis, either personal or national?

A year of testing

What follows is a stream-of-consciousness blog post on the events of 2020/2021 and general preparedness. Forgive me if I lurch from topic to topic without much logical progression.

It was almost exactly one year ago that Older Daughter and I took a quick trip to Seattle so she could interview with a nanny agency.

We returned home optimistic about her job prospects. Naturally we had no idea – none whatever – of what lay in store for the rest of the year. First the pandemic hit, then the economy tanked, then Seattle disintegrated into a hot mess of anarchy, then riots broke out all across the country, then shortages of everything from toilet paper to canning supplies occurred, then ... then ... then ...

We – the Lewis family – also had a lot of changes during 2020, not least of which we moved away from our beloved home of 17 years and settled into a new and smaller place. Older Daughter peeled off and got an apartment on her own and is working two jobs. Younger Daughter deployed for six miserable months (no shore leave for any of the sailors) and is now land-based at her overseas duty station (until her next deployment, of course).

If the last year has done nothing else, it has tested a whole lot of people. That testing is still going on today, everything from the hundreds of thousands of small business either closed or struggling, to the current catastrophic situation in Texas (and to a lesser extent, Oregon).

As a result of the myriad issues America has faced in the last year, being prepared is more important than ever. I think we can all agree on that. What's questionable is whether it's possible, since so many people are struggling financially. (For those in compromised financial straits, Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper and its sister site The Frugalite writes a lot about this issue. Her material is well worth reviewing.)

So when I saw an article this morning on Natural News entitled "Fifteen HARD lessons I learned from the 'Texageddon' blackouts and collapse of critical infrastructure," I read it with interest.

I often get impatient with Natural News because it tends toward the "We're all gonna die!" mindset, but this one was fairly good. The bulk of the advice is in the form of a podcast I didn't bother listening to, but here are the 15 points synopsized down. My comments are italicized and (in parentheses).

• Survival is very physical. Expect to exert a lot of physical effort. (Agreed. We had a massive windstorm and subsequent power outage back in 2015, and it was very hard work indeed to maintain livestock, water, etc.)

• Culture matters. Don't end up in a community without morals or ethics when it all hits the fan. (Easy to say, not necessarily easy to do. Not everyone can afford to move.)

• Convergence of two "black swan" disasters can wipe out your best plans, even if you have successfully prepped for any one (standalone) disaster. (Agreed. I've always maintained preparedness doesn't make you immune to disaster; it just gives you a fighting chance.)

• Some of your preps will FAIL. It's difficult to consider all possible scenarios, so count on failures striking without warning. (Agreed.Three is two, two is one, etc.)

• You need LAYERS of preparedness and "fall back" systems that are very low-tech and require nothing more than the laws of physics (gravity, chemistry, etc.). (That's why I've always preferred low-tech options for preparedness.)

• No one is coming to help you. In many situations, no one can get to you even if they wanted to.

• Containers (buckets, barrels) are extremely important. Have lots of pre-stored water and fuel at all times.

• Bitcoin and crypto were all completely valueless and useless during the collapse, since they all rely on electricity. Gold, silver and cash worked fine, on the other hand. (Yay, at last someone gets it! I've always thought tangible assets were the way to go. Personally I prefer the "stock" market such as cattle and chickens.)

• You will likely experience injuries or mishaps due to new, unusual demands on your work activities. Practice safety and be prepared to deal with injuries yourself.

• Having lots of spare parts for plumbing. Standardize your pipe sizes and accessories. I have standardized on 1″ PEX pipe and all its fittings because PEX is very easy to cut, shape and rework. Plus it's far more resistant to bursting, compared to PVC. (I take exception to this. We should all have "lots of spare parts" for plumbing? Really? Why not just have an extra house you can keep in your back pocket for any spare parts you need? What happened in Texas was unprecedented, and the whole plumbing issue is vastly more complicated than just what's under your sink. In other words, while spare plumbing parts are great, this is a "hindsight is 2020" recommendation that seems a little too pat and smacks of blaming the victim.)

• Investment in food is always a good investment, as prices will continue to climb. No one ever said during an emergency, "Gee, I wish I had less food here."

• You can't count on any government or institution or infrastructure to solve anything. Usually they just get in the way.

• You MUST have good lights and many backup batteries, or you will be sitting in the dark. You'll need a good headlamp (I use the PETZL Nao+) and some good 18650-battery flashlights such as Nitecore. (I'm also a big proponent of kerosene lamps.)

• Guns and bullets are not needed in some survival scenarios, so balance your prepping. Don't put all your money into ammo and fail to cover other important areas like emergency first aid. (Totally agree! There are too many "Rambo" preppers out there who think that because they have a bristling arsenal, that's all they need to be prepared. What are they going to do – shoot their way into a closed convenience store to steal what they need whenever the power goes out?)

• Think about what are stores of energy: Wood, diesel, gasoline, propane, water elevation, etc. Survival is a lot about energy management. (Agreed. To a minor extent, we're facing that now in our new home. We're still without the backups we need to stay comfortable during a grid-down situation.)

Anyway, that's about all the rambling musings I have at the moment. Sorry to sound so incoherent.

Meanwhile, if you're in Texas, Oregon, or any other location affected by the recent storms, please let us know how you're doing and how you're coping.

Cheery news

Well THIS was certainly a day of cheerful news (not!):

• Citi: World economy seems trapped in ‘death spiral’
• An Update On The Waiter And Bartender Recovery
• All U.S. Job Gains Since December 2007 Have Gone To Foreign-Born Workers
• Tech-stock wreck destroys $529B this year
• Chicago Stock Exchange Says It's Being Sold to Chinese-Led Group
• World's Biggest Containership "Hard Aground" As Baltic Dry Crashes Below 300 For First Time Ever

Ever had the urge to just -- hunker down?

U.S. debt ceiling visualized in $100 bills

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. How about $16.394 trillion of them?

Here's a fascinating link showing what the current U.S. economy is, using $100 bills to illustrate.

"United States owes a lot of money," says the article. "As of 2012, U.S. debt is larger than the size of the economy. The debt ceiling is currently set at $16.394 trillion and approaching rapidly."

Here's ten thousand dollars:

Here's a million dollars:

And a billion.

See this link for the full impact of the visuals. And this, my friends, is our current debt ceiling, $16.394 trillion. I had to seriously shrink the illustration in order to get a screen capture of it, but suffice it to say each of those stacks towering over the Statue of Liberty consists of dense cubes, each cube of which is a billion dollars.

This is not good.

What if a financial crash happened this fall?

A couple of days ago, Don and I were discussing the myriad projects, improvements, and tasks we want to accomplish. We kept piling on more and more until we realized it was necessary to write them down in order to keep track. Within five minutes, the list had 26 items, and we're keeping it handy to add to it as more ideas occur to us.

As usual, it's always a factor of time and money to figure out which of these projects we'll accomplish, and in what order. Our next step is to divvy the list into A, B, and C categories, with A projects having the highest priority (either because they're important, or because they're cheap or easy to do) and C having the lowest priority.

Then yesterday we had an interesting conversation, a friend-of-a-friend exchange. We heard of a financial "insider" who said she expected the financial system to crash this fall. Of course lots of people are making predictions about the economy, and while this insider seems well-placed to have solid information, her prediction is just that: a prediction.

But it did provide fodder for an interesting mental exercise.

Let's just say, for the sake of argument, this person is correct and America will experience an economic collapse this fall. What would you do?

I sometimes like to ask people this hypothetical question: If your great-grandparents had known in 1928 what was waiting for them in 1929, what could or should they have done to brace themselves for the impact of the Great Depression?

Well here we have the exact same scenario -- except, of course, we're looking into the future instead of harvesting wisdom from the past. But they say those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

So -- if you knew an economic collapse was going to happen five or six months in the future, what should or would you do to brace yourselves for its impact?

And more importantly, will you follow through and do these things?

It's called SAVING

Hey guess what! Don't open a savings account or you could be accused of "hoarding" your money!

Yes that's right. A frugal virtue handed down for centuries is now being vilified by the Federal Reserve. According to this article: "A paper the central bank branch published this week blames the low level of money movement in large part on consumers and their 'willingness to hoard money.' The paper also cites the Fed's own policies as a reason for consumers' unwillingness to spend."

The Feds seem genuinely bewildered that people living in an uncertain economy don't want to blow every last penny on useless consumer items and would rather stash their spare cash in a savings account (or under the mattress for that matter). "So why did the monetary base increase not cause a proportionate increase in either the general price level or (gross domestic product)?" economist Yi Wen and associate Maria A. Arias asked in the St. Louis Fed paper. "The answer lies in the private sector's dramatic increase in their willingness to hoard money instead of spend it. Such an unprecedented increase in money demand has slowed down the velocity of money." [Emphasis added.]

In days past, this "hoarding" of money would be termed a "savings account" and every child from five years old and up was encouraged to have one. Smart adults socked away (oops, "hoarded") a percentage of their income for rainy days, emergencies, and retirement. But now that's bad! Baaaad!

The unspoken implication, of course, is those greedy evil middle-class Americans who insist that it's wise to have a cash reserve Just In Case are the ones responsible for taking down the economy by "slowing the velocity of money." In case you didn't get the point, the article added, "The reason that inflation hasn't kept up with gains in the money supply simply has been that people are sitting on cash rather than spending it."

Surely it can't be the government's fault that our economy is teetering on the edge of another great depression. No, it's Joe Sixpack's fault for "hoarding" his money. Gosh, how awful.

Folks, I urge you to do your patriotic duty and empty your savings account! Don't be a hoarder, be a spender! Give a single-handed boost to the economy and ensure that you too will face disaster if you lose your job! Wheeeee!

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme....

I've been planting.

It's far too early to plant anything directly in the garden -- around here, June 1 is about the earliest we can expect to get things in the ground (and sometimes even that's not a guarantee) -- so a lot of stuff has to be started indoors.

We have a tiny greenhouse (a retrofitted shed) that I've tried using over the years to get seedlings started, but it has two problems: heat retention, and rodents.

Let's face it, unless it's heated, a greenhouse won't retain heat in cold temperatures. If nights drop below freezing, so does the greenhouse. So that's one problem.

The second problem -- rodents (specifically, mice and chipmunks) -- we thought we had licked two years ago when we fitted the entire inside with hardware cloth over every crack and crevice.

However I learned the hard way it didn't work. Last year I started many seedlings in the greenhouse, only to come out the next morning and find the seeds had been dug up and eaten. Grrrr.

So a greenhouse was out. We decided the only viable option was to start seedlings in the house. Next problem: where to put them. Flats of seedlings, as you know, take up a lot of room, and we can't just put them any old place -- they need sunshine.

I'm not talking about just starting a tomato plant or two. I want a proper garden, something that can feed our family. The whole purpose of transitioning to a tire garden is to be in a position to produce nearly all our fruits and vegetables.

There's a legitimate financial justification in this interest. Take a gander at this jaw-dropping graph from ZeroHedge showing how food prices have jumped a staggering 19% in 2014. Yikes.

With that in mind, I wanted to plant hundreds of seedlings... which then begs the question, where to put them? After a bit of thought and research, we made two purchases that we feel falls under the "tangible investments" category.

The first item was a lot of 1000 two-inch seedling pots off eBay. I had a number of three- and four-inch pots I've collected over the years, but those pots were too big for planting individual onions or even corn.

The second item was an industrial-strength wire shelving unit on castor wheels. This, we felt, would offer the maximum amount of storage with a minimum amount of space. We found the best price on eBay. Six shelves, 48 inches wide, 18 inches deep, 72 inches high, with wheels.

Owing to a shipping mishap, the delivery of this shelving unit was delayed by a couple of weeks, but at last the UPS truck drove up.

A couple of other smaller purchases included two dozen inexpensive gardening trays (10x20 inches) for about $1.79 each, and a couple large bags of potting soil from Costco (4 cubic feet, $10).

Knowing how anxious I was to get the seedlings started, Don took time out from work and we assembled the unit right away. It went together very easily and required no tools (except a rubber mallet to tap things into place).

While sometimes the quality of items purchased off eBay is questionable, this unit exceeded all our expectations. It's solid as a rock and very sturdy.

Don had some concerns that the wheels would be cheap and flimsy, but they're not.

The dimensions of the shelving unit were important since they fit four flats per shelf (the flats hang over the edges one inch on either side, not a big deal). This means I can fit 24 flats on this shelving unit. To appreciate how useful this is, imagine the logistics of trying to find room for 24 flats all over the house, taking up every available window space.

Then I pulled out my seeds and got to work.

The two-inch pots were purchased specifically so I could fit them 50 to a tray...

...which they did very nicely.

By the way, a few years ago I bought these little gizmos called Seed Spoons for some ridiculously low price ($1 each or something).

They're simply plastic sticks with a seed scoop at either end (I have two spoons, thus four scoops). The scoops are in various sizes.

When you're dealing with very tiny seeds, it's so much more efficient to plant one seed using a seed spoon than to waste seed by planting too many and "thinning" them later on.

All day long I potted seeds. At the end of the day I had 484 seeds planted as follows:

100 red onions
100 yellow onions
18 paste tomatoes (two varieties)
18 eating/canning tomatoes (two varieties)
18 Brussels sprouts
20 broccoli
24 oilseed pumpkins (we're trying an experiment)
28 watermelon (four varieties)
12 cantaloupe
16 honeydew melons
15 cascabella peppers
10 cayenne peppers
20 thyme
20 oregano
10 sage
10 rosemary
10 cumin
10 parsley
25 basil

And remarkably, there's still room on the shelving unit for 500 corn plants! (Planted 50 to a tray.) I won't plant the corn until about May 1.

The advantage of having the shelving unit on wheels is it allows us to move it from window to window to take advantage of both morning and evening sun. We can also move it outside when it comes time to harden off the plants.

Of course this doesn't count the veggies I'll plant directly outside when the weather permits. These include:

Potatoes
Beans (pinto, Jacob's cattle, Calypso, green)
Peas
Lettuce
Spinach
Carrots
Breadseed poppies (for seed -- another experiment)

So the old song will hopefully come true this spring.