News lately RE: Inflation at new highs. What are your thoughts? Thank you in advance.

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I bought my first home at 19. I was working as a welder making $5.36 an hour. Had a wife and 2 babies by the time I was 20. Over the years since then I've owner over 15 properties. Many were houses, a farm, couple ranches, timber land, an apartment building, a couple high end view lots, bare land and now our current ranch. Every property has been paid for. When we bought this place there was only an old barn, which I gave away in exchange for labor. We built a house, barn, fur shed, solar system, several other outbuildings and all the infrastructure to raise and work cattle, and we paid this property off all out of pocket. All of our vehicles, atv's, utv, tractor, farm equipment, welder, boat etc are all paid for, and we just finished paying off our medical bills.
We funded our own retirement accounts and have put away an emergency fund to last several years. The wife "retired" early thanks in part to the china flu. Her company gave her almost a years income as her severance package, and she's just now tapping one of her investment accounts.
I learned at a very early age, thanks dad, to save and invest for the future, and never live beyond your means.
 
backandbeyond said:
An interesting thing I read once, let me look it up...
Here is one article, about one state.

" According to an article in The Literary Digest, a national news magazine, on a single day in April 1932 one-fourth of the real property in Mississippi, including 20 percent of all farms and 15 percent of town property, went under the auctioneer’s gavel and was sold to pay taxes. The sales, conducted by 74 sheriffs, included about 40,000 farms. Most of the property went to the state of Mississippi which already owned about one million acres. "
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Understand that was during the Great Depression and the reason so many people lost their farms was because THE BANKS LOST THEIR MONEY.
 
Gas prices here are crazy. Thankfully after stocking up last year, we don't have to buy much now, most food we have is still good. We bought local for our beef, canned most veggies from our garden. Our son moved out last summer, so our food bills went down significantly. We are downsizing, found a great piece of property. Plan on selling our home in the next month and paying cash as we go to build on the property - shop first, container for storage. Live in the RV for 2 years or so and save enough to pay cash to build a home.
 
DrHenley said:
Understand that was during the Great Depression and the reason so many people lost their farms was because THE BANKS LOST THEIR MONEY.
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Well that is what you get when you cower down to government edicts and when you trust other people with your money. Those houses and farms were taken in April 1932, well before the gold confiscation act of 1933. They should have kept their money in $20 gold coins at home, but they trusted banks even though there was plenty of pre-history of banks failing.

Personally I doubt those people had much money spare to begin with. Many of those farmers had taken on big debts in the good times to expand and buy more land, to buy a house in town as well. They were living high on the hog and were not prepared for the downturn. It's just like the housing bust in 2006 where millions have lost their homes because of the downturn. Some innocently sure, but how many took out Helocs and home equity loans to buy new cars and holidays OS. Greed is the undoing of many.
 
backandbeyond said:
Well that is what you get when you cower down to government edicts and when you trust other people with your money. Those houses and farms were taken in April 1932, well before the gold confiscation act of 1933. They should have kept their money in $20 gold coins at home, but they trusted banks even though there was plenty of pre-history of banks failing.

Personally I doubt those people had much money spare to begin with. Many of those farmers had taken on big debts in the good times to expand and buy more land, to buy a house in town as well. They were living high on the hog and were not prepared for the downturn. It's just like the housing bust in 2006 where millions have lost their homes because of the downturn. Some innocently sure, but how many took out Helocs and home equity loans to buy new cars and holidays OS. Greed is the undoing of many.
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The bust in 06 was mainly due to banks being forced to make loans to a certain demographic group who they knew would never pay the loan back.
Smart people did keep much of their money in gold, and they didn't trust banks.
Living above ones means is the undoing of many. I dont have much sympathy for people who do dumb things financially.
 
Kevin L said:
I own my own home with a mortgage that I'm paying off, and I own my car free and clear . . . although I only have about 1/3 of an acre.

Thank you for your concern, though.
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You can still do a small garden if you want with a 1/3 acre. I would be putting in edibles for landscape. Just my thoughts if you are very limited. Why did I think you were renting? If I remember right, you said at one time that you had limited storage which made me think you were living in an apartment or maybe condo/townhouse? And in a "community"??
 
Danil54grl said:
You can still do a small garden if you want with a 1/3 acre. I would be putting in edibles for landscape. Just my thoughts if you are very limited. Why did I think you were renting? If I remember right, you said at one time that you had limited storage which made me think you were living in an apartment or maybe condo/townhouse? And in a "community"??
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My house is in a 55+ community. I moved here 2 years ago, and was in a smaller place 2 years ago. I have been on this forum for about 4 years, so maybe that's where the misunderstanding came from.

I have been planting lots of prickly pear cactus around certain parts of my home (edible and medicinal qualities, and it can be fermented into an alcoholic beverage).
 
Thank you. And I've also grown tomatoes (although none right now), watermellon, cantelope, and spinach.

What I want to grow (but haven't) are sweet potatoes. I still need to do my research, as I hear that growing sweet potatoes can be pretty involved.
 
Kevin L said:
Thank you. And I've also grown tomatoes (although none right now), watermellon, cantelope, and spinach.

What I want to grow (but haven't) are sweet potatoes. I still need to do my research, as I hear that growing sweet potatoes can be pretty involved.
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Can you grow sugar beets there? I guess you could grow something pretty much year round there?
 
Danil54grl said:
Sweet potatoes are easy. Sprout in water, then bury root side down.
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Thank you.

I am now in North Central Florida, and the climate borders on tropical . . . so I think I could pull off sweet potatoes and sugar beets.

Sweet potato chips seem like a practical way to store healthy carbs for months without refrigeration.

I was going to experiment with the Asian/Hawaiian dark purple sweet potato, as it seems like it would have lots of vitamins and antioxidents.
 
Kevin L said:
Thank you.

I am now in North Central Florida, and the climate borders on tropical . . . so I think I could pull off sweet potatoes and sugar beets.

Sweet potato chips seem like a practical way to store healthy carbs for months without refrigeration.

I was going to experiment with the Asian/Hawaiian dark purple sweet potato, as it seems like it would have lots of vitamins and antioxidents.
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Once I went to the sons house a few months back, I brought sweet potatoes for the grand daughters to start in water. I put three tooth picks in the potatoes to hold it up on a mason jar filled with water to sprout. That has been his best crop this year so far. He told me he is done with the garden now. The sweet potatoes are now taking over and all he and the girls will have to do is dig up the treasures.
 
backandbeyond said:
And credit cards twice that.
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Credit cards are one of the worst things you can do to sabotage your finances. Who in their right mind would agree to the terms and interest rates from them if they actually took the time to think before signing up. I have and use a couple cards, but they have never not been paid in full each month nor ever been late. I would never agree to any kind of annual fees either. I do like the security of the credit company being able to intervene with any disputed charges and the higher daily limit than a regular debit card. As far as a mortgage, not many people can save enough for their first house and since the rates can be so low it’s really the only kind of debt I’ve ever considered as acceptable.
 
backandbeyond said:
And credit cards twice that.
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That maybe so, but nobody is being forced to use credit or take on a mortgage.
If used properly credit can be a useful tool. I've always taken advantage of 0% interest loans or 90 days same as cash. The trick is to always pay the CC or loan off before they start accruing interest.
 
Arcticdude said:
That maybe so, but nobody is being forced to use credit or take on a mortgage.
If used properly credit can be a useful tool. I've always taken advantage of 0% interest loans or 90 days same as cash. The trick is to always pay the CC or loan off before they start accruing interest.
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I dont use mine often but always pay the full balance at the end of the month. The last few years I have gotten notices on occasion threatening me of closing my account because I don't use. I will make a one time purchase and pay off just so I still have that account open.

Some people use their credit cards thinking it is free money at the time and max it out. It's not. Credit card companies get very well paid. I still have a house mortgage and paying it off as soon as possible. That is the only debt we have right now. I really would love to see that one crossed off the list of monthly expenses. Bank always gets their money first. We are on the down side though, thank God.
 
MOS0231 said:
Starting to see more message traffic about possible reinstatments of masks, social distancing, even some suggesting lockdowns 2.0.

If that last one happens, I would expect even more inflation.
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I agree, another lockdown, even limited, would kill any progress we’ve made. They just added more travel restrictions for Canada and Mexico. California of course added mask indoors again. The numbers of unvaccinated hospitalizations is getting ugly now, it’s likely going to trigger more restrictions again.
 
Brent S said:
I agree, another lockdown, even limited, would kill any progress we’ve made. They just added more travel restrictions for Canada and Mexico. California of course added mask indoors again. The numbers of unvaccinated hospitalizations is getting ugly now, it’s likely going to trigger more restrictions again.
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As someone who works in a hospital . . . it is getting bad.

I also wonder if the COVID casualty numbers reflect the suicides of over-taxed healthcare workers, as we did have a nurse kill herself.
 
Arcticdude said:
Yep. $3.73 here. I guess its OK if you're sucking off the government tit, or you make a lot of money.
Thanks Biden voters. I hope your happy with your choice.
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Yeah, I had one liberal try and tell me it was higher because they had to add the summer additive. I responded that, didn't they add that additive last year also? Never heard from her again?
 
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