I spent the last two years trying to pay off every debt I have except the two-something percent mortgage, now less than six figures to pay off. I see no reason to pay it off when I make more than my mortgage interest on investments.
i’m very close to being able to live off my Social Security and the interest on my savings. Not living large, obviously, but food, shelter, utilities, and occasional dining and vacations are covered. So we’re talking inside cabin berth carnival cruise instead of first class airfare and a Viking European river cruise. We’re talking pasta dinners at home instead of lunches at Clancy‘s and Herbsaint.
Having lived a life where food and shelter was not always a thing, I will be extremely fine having those and dumping most of my streaming entertainment and cable - and getting back to reading more - which I unconsciously abandoned doing at some point and need to go back to.
Which is all to say, I urge all of you optimists to take this very seriously and start hunkering down, saving money and preparing for some hard times ahead. Those of you with Obamacare or Medicaid for your health situations need to be even more cognizant of this, and depending on your medical situation moving to a Third World country that has OK medical care that you can purchase cheaply there might be an option.
Once things get really bad I do not expect them to recover anytime soon.
A lot of us have begun to understand that brisket sledge is an actual thing. Once you accept that reality, the next step is thinking about what happens when you fall off the ledge.