more alpha strategy 3

MORE ALPHA STRATEGY 3

Buying the crap out of everything you use as regular consumables ( soap, toothpaste, socks and underwear, razors, etc. ) can be a survivalist strategy ( I try to have five years of everything. I still need to work on that toilet paper, but almost everything else I've nailed ). It can be an inflation fighter ( mainly, the last few years, that was just buying meat on sale to get my grocery bill down to insanely low levels ). But, as pertains to many of us, this is also a retirement plan. The more crap you own, the fewer bills you have, and the less money you need for retirement.

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I've always laughed, my entire life, every time some slack jawed idiot makes a claim that “you need a quarter million dollars to retirement” or something similar. What kind of toads asses has he been smoking? I don't know about you, but my retirement is NOT going to be about taking a cruise ship to Greece and buying a Cadillac to drive around the grounds of my mansion. I've seen enough of the world in the military, enough of the US trying to find a spot to settle ( and most of those travels were by Greyhound and a duffle bag, with just enough rent money until I could get another minimum wage job ).

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I'm glad I traveled. It eliminated any illusions that people are different anywhere else. Granted, cultures are different, but no matter where you move to, you are a stranger. So you might as well live where home is. I won't be living in a place I have to worry about the property tax or the utility bill, and I won't be driving because I won't bail out the bankers through their insurance subsidiary, nor can I repair my own auto transportation. I can with a bike, and with a bike I shall stay. I get too old, I can upgrade to an electric assist for the hills.

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I have no bills other than food, and the odds and ends such as shoes, pants and bike parts I can stock deep on. By stocking those, I eliminate needing much of any retirement savings. True, I pay the NOL to stay in town, my share of the electric, water and Internet. It is only twice what I would pay for a cell phone unlimited plan for Internet ( I'm figuring $50 for that-the $30 plans all seem to have small print limits ). Worse comes to worse I can get by on just food money. To get down to this amount, I've spent many years hoarding. The whole time, I was just stocking for the apocalypse, but now it is coming in handy for retirement.

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Not that I'm living off the seed corn. I use something, I usually buy two to replace it. That scatters the cost over time. But if the economy went, I'd have ample supplies to live off of for many years ( all but food, which I can live off of for six months without touching the apocalypse food ). I'm also seeing an Alpha Strategy saving off of those items. My two each stocked front and back bike wheels were $20 and $35. Now, $35 and $55. Bike tubes have doubled in price, but that doesn't really count since they are going back to thicker tubes.

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( A hat tip to the minion who pointed out the flat resistant bike tubes that are, finally, not scams or rip-offs or over rated. They are the Armour Tannus brand, HERE ) The thrift store has been my good friend. It took years but I finally found enough slacks ( jeans are made for crap, and look silly on old dudes ) to be stocked up for the rest of my life on those. I have several lifetimes of wool sweaters. Probably enough shoes for twenty years, but I keep buying those ( the generic Crocs, the plastic clogs. Look silly, but oh so comfortable, a relief after working on my feet on concrete for thirty years ).

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All my shirts come from the thrift store, the polo/golf type. Usually donated in great shape as the colors and patterns are loud and the stated sizes run way too small. I have decades worth of those. For Christmas I only ask for clothes. Socks, underwear and sweatpants. Those should be good for a minimum of five years, hopefully ten. As a kid, I hated clothes. I want cool stuff, dammit! Now, I want clothes so I don't have to pay for them myself.

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I get paranoid and uncomfortable if the toothpaste tube or the bar of soap I just opened doesn't get replaced immediately. I want to always have five years on hand. My razors I stocked up on while they were ten for a buck at the dollar store. I have at least thirty years worth, and that is even if I don't resharpen them. For the accursed heartburn, I have at least five years of apple cider vinegar. I don't know how many dozens of bottles of antacid I've stocked, but it should outlast the vinegar. Yes, most of this is just for the apocalypse. But I can, once my income drops, also live off this if I must.

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I have so many books, both reference and mass entertainment paperback, that I could go the rest of my life without buying another. That calculation might get skewed if circumstances change, such as if I'm bedridden or in a hermitage without a TV signal ( I think I have enough movies I'd only have to repeat each one once a year ) snowed in. But I keep going to the library book sales for nickel/dime paperbacks ( the repeats can be barter or worse case, toilet paper-although it seems sacrilege even for romance or Tom Clancy ghost written books ).

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None of this was done expensively, obviously. Most is stuffed in one bread van and a small sixteen foot RV. I don't organize, I pile. I can get exponentially more in my limited dry storage. That might offend you more anal compulsive stockpilers, but as needs must. I never gave much thought to retirement, focusing on generations long dark age. Now, as my strength and stamina take a beating ( still exercising six days a week, I just can't dig ditches. At least not in a reasonable time frame ), and the economy honest injun this time looks like its almost toast, retirement takes on new urgency. And it worries me naught.

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Now, granted, I'm preaching this to the people supporting my writing. Don't think I ever forget that. But I'm not pissing away that income on hookers and blow. I keep investing towards the day that income follows the economy, so I can go on writing far past the adequate compensation point. You know me-I'm going to write until the moment it becomes impossible. I did spend seven years writing with all profits going to reference books only. All I need is enough food money, worse case.

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I don't have much money, but I need hardly any. Alpha Strategy stocking goes a long ways making that happen. When I start finally pressure canning meat, even the food money need goes away, or at least drastically reduces. Yes, granted, you need to replace what is used. But that is in good times. Just like my “use one, buy two”. The day you'll need to start drawing down the Alpha Strategy goods, at least you'll have that, as scary as it is not being able to replace items. But isn't that what you'd do with retirement money in the bank, anyway?

( .Y. )

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