Be Prepared Channel: November 2010

Welcome to another installment of the be prepared channel. Today is a quick update on what is happening and a reminder of some things we have talked about in the past. For those that are wondering what happened to the podcast I had pretty much suspended the podcast while I was in the farmstead/homestead search and the time I had available to do the podcast vanished.

Well the latest update is that we have decided to suspend our search for a farmstead/homestead. A couple of things have influenced this decision. The jobs market for both my wife and I have suddenly gotten very unstable and we don't know what is happening with either one of our jobs at the moment and probably won't have clarification until April so we are putting everything on hold until we know what is happening.

The next thing I wanted to tackle was that I still had lots of unfinished business to resolve with our home in CO. With the housing market still in decline and home values falling the valuation of my home has pretty much wiped out what equity I had in the place. I wanted at the very least to be able to have enough equity in the place that if we were forced to sell the home that we would be able to do so and cover realtors and closing costs and possibly have a little bit of money to work with. That situation just continues to decay so now there is pressure to get the balance paid down on the home so that we have that buffer once again. It was my mistake a few years ago to do what everyone else was doing and taking money out of the house to payoff other debts. This left me with a home loan that was maxing out the actual value of the home. So I started paying that back down over the last two years since I lost my mind and did that. I thought I had paid it down enough that I had some equity once again in the house, but the housing market has erased any equity I managed to restore. So it is crunch time. I tell you this story because I am sure there are others out there like me that went crazy and have been kicking yourself in the backside ever since. I know I have. It was about the same time that I woke up again and started back on this Be Prepared lifestyle. Sometimes it just takes a reality check to wake me up and I need to make sure I get my own "checkup from the neck up" on a frequent basis to make sure I am on the right track. While I really wanted to get this farmstead and homestead off the ground I now realize that I needed to finish this business first. Sadly I spent a bunch of money in the farmstead and planning that hasn't panned out which is money that could have very easily have put me back where I needed to be with the house in CO. As they say hindsight is 20/20. So now it is regroup time and time to get the basics in place for whatever is coming with the job market.

Next thing I wanted to touch on is low interest rates. If your lucky and smart enough to have already paid off your home and own it out right congratulations. If you have not and still have a home loan it may be worth your while to consider refinancing at these low rates. We don't know how long the money masters can continue to fool the world into buying our debt and keeping the rates at incredible low rates so if your considering refinancing you should get that done. You can lower your monthly payments significantly which will allow you to put that additional money to work either as extra principal in your mortgage, or building up your emergency cash reserves. Do waste time, just go get it done if it is right for you and your financial situation. If you don't owe that much more on your mortgage it might not be a great idea to throw the money in closing costs and fees down the drain for the lower rate and payment. If your balance is high and your time horizon is much longer then it probably makes good sense for you to look at refi. I am starting the refi process now so I can lock in those lower rates and payments. I want to make sure that even if I end up with a job mowing lawns, flipping burgers, and walking dogs that I will be able to keep the house payments made and lower monthly payments are all part of that equation.

So with all this restructuring and prioritizing this means that I plan to resume the podcast in December as I bring my focus back to preparing our home here in suburbia for what is unraveling at this point with our economy. I will share with you some of the steps I will be taking to convert our little home and lawn into our own mini homestead. So I hope you will tune into the podcast as I work to get back on track with regular podcast episodes.

Lindsey William predictions:
Early in the year I talked about a gentleman Lindsey Williams and the predictions this man was making based on information he was being given by those insiders in the know, the money masters, the elite. Most of what Lindsey told us about devaluation of the dollar was right, the activities in Iran and middle east have come true, pretty much all that Lindsey said has come to pass. Our currency has in fact been devalued over 40%. A couple years ago Lindsey told us that oil was going to $150 back when it was $30 a barrel. Then when oil hit 150 he told us that they would drive the price down to 50. It happened. Now Lindsey says that the game is on and that we are going back to 150-200 barrel in 2011. He says there will be some sort of middle east crisis and other circuses to keep us entertained while deals are being struck by China and Russia. Russia is now the worlds largest energy producer and they have struck deals with China now and the world powers are aligning and the global power structure is shifting. The only reason you and I don't see it even more price inflation than we are seeing now is that the Chinese have a peg to our dollar and since most of our items on the shelf. If you buy groceries, or energy you are starting to feel the pain at the grocery store and gas station. But be forewarned that won't continue. So we will keep you posted on some of the specific predictions from Lindsey, but one of the alarming things he stated was about a lady who was offered a job in the Obama administration working for Janet Napolitano who was told to go home and make sure they have 6 mths of food and water in their home for their family. This is a very ominous piece of guidance that I would strongly urge you to pay attention to and get busy if you haven't already.

The Wall Street Casino:
Well I think Jesse Ventura is a little cheesy, and sometimes a little over dramatic, but this episode of his show Conspiracy Theory has a lot of factual information in it and may be an eye opener for those of you who have not been following the non-mains stream media, or my blog. If you haven't taken anything I have said seriously maybe it is time to give it some thought. The time is running out. So sit back and enjoy this episode of Conspiracy Theory: