In fifty-six years on the planet, I've never experienced the feeling I got a few days ago and continue to have. Let me give a little background of my view regarding money.
In my childhood, I handled money by permission, permission, only. The allowance I earned came with a number of designated destinations, per parental mandate. They didn't make me pay for food or pitch in on gas money, but about a third was designated for Sunday School and that much also went to my savings account, so that left me saving for the high end dime store desires. As I got older, there were more complex arrangements made, but to be honest, in the back of my mind, I had no intention of handling money the way my parents did . . . and once I was an adult, I haven't.
I trusted the wrong person, once to make a deposit, and after that fiasco, I never repeated that mistake. I had a husband with an addiction problem, and I learned to navigate that financial dilemma. By the age of 25, I planned to be debt free by 40, so I developed some pretty good spending and savings habits, even a few investment plans. From 25 on, my husband made decent money and took care of responsibility, but we didn't share the same goal. By the time I met Messiah at 36, my attitude about money changed again. Savings wasn't really my focus. I simply did not spend money on something I didn't need, and my needs were diminishing rapidly. By 40, I was debt free, and when that happens, life can become really inexpensive. Of course, before 41, I had a high maintenance kid come home . . . so having tasted how inexpensive life could be, I had enough savings to cover that.
Since that time, I've remained debt free and maintained my attitude of saving what I don't spend, and that's what changed this week. It began last week, but became almost urgent this week. I felt a real constraint to see what needed to be purchased to bring everything up to non-dependent status on the system, and divest of paper money. I knew this day was coming, when money in the bank would not be security for hard times. I started counting my pennies and checking into nonperishable business supplies, as well as perusing Craig's list for everything from goats to tiny houses to other sites for good batteries and wind and solar items.
I've had this feeling twice before. The first time was back in 2006 when I felt the need to divest of my stock holdings, and I did, thankfully before the crash. The next time was when when gold was skyrocketing. I told this individual that the gold market was being driven by fear in buyers and it was not a sustainable market. I recommended that they divest of gold, stop buying and divest of what they had bought through the recent surge. I stated clearly the beginning of August 2011, "The relative price of gold between silver and platinum should be around $1300.00, and the current value was being inflated. Sell while you can get over $1800.00 an ounce because it's going to start dropping." Gold began to drop later that same month. It spiked once in early September, then dropped fairly steadily to where it sits today, just over $1300.00 and ounce. This is not to take us on a tangent of precious metals, but the same feeling I had about gold in 2011 is what I have about federal reserve notes, now.
Many with pension plans and 401Ks were affected by the stock market and bank fiasco. Not all of us were personally affected by the inflated value and decline of gold, but the loss of the value of the dollar will affect us all. I'm going to conclude this article to order reusable canning lids before Shabbat.
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