Are You a Survivor?
That question is going to answered in the year 2020. Can you overcome the uncertainty and chaos associated with a global pandemic, Presidential election, mass unemployment and a melt down in the stock market? I hope we can. Oil is cheap if that is any consolation.
Timing is incredibly important in life, and so is luck. Now luck can be good or bad and examples are plentiful for each direction. For example, in April, 2019 I was laid off from my job at Kadant as a Tissue Process Specialist. Linda and I survived as I worked on getting another job. Unemployment would be $275 a week in Tennessee and I did not apply for compensation because I would have been forced to take work I was not interested and I would need to get a vehicle. Neither scenario was very interesting and I needed a lot of time to work on getting back into the paper making field. To make ends meet, I used 401K money and also the sold all stocks that I had been buying and selling the last few years. We managed to keep our lifestyle relatively normal by cutting out some entertainment, clothes, travel and eating out. The only reason that lifestyle was possible was the strength of the stock market. I burnt a lot of cash last year and if the market would have been doing what is happening now, I would have been broke.... nothing left. Timing is important to survival. Call it luck, I don't know, but my timing was really good in 2019. We survived with minimal damage.
In more recent weeks, timing has come into play again..in a big way. I took some work in Northern Virginia and started January 20. We were trying to close on a house here in West Virginia in early April and were in the process when the inspection of that home really threw us for a loop. We liked a lot about the modern house in Shepherdstown, but the crawl space indicated an issue with improper ventilation and mold issues with over lying problems with the structure itself. We bailed on that deal, and the mortgage rate for that house would have been 3.5% fixed for 30 years. That is a really great rate for fixed money. We made an offer on a house in Harpers Ferry and this one will close on April 2. During the week or so between deals, the Fed dropped the rate 0.5% and the mortgage market responded and the demand for mortgage money skyrocketed. But our timing was such that we beat the crowd to the bank window and got a new loan at an unheard rate of 3.125% for 30 year fixed. The following days the rate was back up into the 4's from the increased demand. Again, timing was everything. I have been through enough land deals and getting the right timing is just enormous and here we are again, on the right side of luck.
How is timing going to play out in the next few months?? Regardless, we need to think like you are going to be a survivor. Linda and I are moving to a new home in a two weeks and we think that will happen. The timing sounds a little scary, but we have all the financial stuff completed and it appears that everything will work out. If we needed to start on finding a house today and closing in 6 weeks--I have absolutely no idea how we could pull that off. As long as our movers show up and fill their truck with our stuff, we should get this move completed. Hopefully we continue our run of good luck!
Going forward, we will need to do what we can to keep everyone going. Share what we can in terms of love, food, daycare, clothing, money, housing, etc. There is going to be a lot of people not working and that just leads to trouble. Boredom and despair are just miserable situations to endure. We need to help keep them going if we can.
Once we arrive in Harpers Ferry, we will get a garden started asap to make sure we have something to eat if things really get desperate. We will hopefully create some connections in our new community and try to share what we can. It may be as simple as going out to eat and making sure your favorite store or shop does not close for good. It is going to more important than ever to care about your fellow man and woman, help them be survivors too. We have had an abundance of good luck in the recent year and I want to share that if possible.
Speaking of good luck, I now work in a toilet tissue manufacturing plant. Talk about great timing... there is more orders that we can handle flowing in daily. I don't want to rub it in, but life was been good to me in recent weeks. When we get through this current chaos, looking back at the timing of how Linda and I made it through, I think things will be much more clear and we will be branded as survivors. Good Luck to all.....
Timing is incredibly important in life, and so is luck. Now luck can be good or bad and examples are plentiful for each direction. For example, in April, 2019 I was laid off from my job at Kadant as a Tissue Process Specialist. Linda and I survived as I worked on getting another job. Unemployment would be $275 a week in Tennessee and I did not apply for compensation because I would have been forced to take work I was not interested and I would need to get a vehicle. Neither scenario was very interesting and I needed a lot of time to work on getting back into the paper making field. To make ends meet, I used 401K money and also the sold all stocks that I had been buying and selling the last few years. We managed to keep our lifestyle relatively normal by cutting out some entertainment, clothes, travel and eating out. The only reason that lifestyle was possible was the strength of the stock market. I burnt a lot of cash last year and if the market would have been doing what is happening now, I would have been broke.... nothing left. Timing is important to survival. Call it luck, I don't know, but my timing was really good in 2019. We survived with minimal damage.
In more recent weeks, timing has come into play again..in a big way. I took some work in Northern Virginia and started January 20. We were trying to close on a house here in West Virginia in early April and were in the process when the inspection of that home really threw us for a loop. We liked a lot about the modern house in Shepherdstown, but the crawl space indicated an issue with improper ventilation and mold issues with over lying problems with the structure itself. We bailed on that deal, and the mortgage rate for that house would have been 3.5% fixed for 30 years. That is a really great rate for fixed money. We made an offer on a house in Harpers Ferry and this one will close on April 2. During the week or so between deals, the Fed dropped the rate 0.5% and the mortgage market responded and the demand for mortgage money skyrocketed. But our timing was such that we beat the crowd to the bank window and got a new loan at an unheard rate of 3.125% for 30 year fixed. The following days the rate was back up into the 4's from the increased demand. Again, timing was everything. I have been through enough land deals and getting the right timing is just enormous and here we are again, on the right side of luck.
How is timing going to play out in the next few months?? Regardless, we need to think like you are going to be a survivor. Linda and I are moving to a new home in a two weeks and we think that will happen. The timing sounds a little scary, but we have all the financial stuff completed and it appears that everything will work out. If we needed to start on finding a house today and closing in 6 weeks--I have absolutely no idea how we could pull that off. As long as our movers show up and fill their truck with our stuff, we should get this move completed. Hopefully we continue our run of good luck!
Going forward, we will need to do what we can to keep everyone going. Share what we can in terms of love, food, daycare, clothing, money, housing, etc. There is going to be a lot of people not working and that just leads to trouble. Boredom and despair are just miserable situations to endure. We need to help keep them going if we can.
Once we arrive in Harpers Ferry, we will get a garden started asap to make sure we have something to eat if things really get desperate. We will hopefully create some connections in our new community and try to share what we can. It may be as simple as going out to eat and making sure your favorite store or shop does not close for good. It is going to more important than ever to care about your fellow man and woman, help them be survivors too. We have had an abundance of good luck in the recent year and I want to share that if possible.
Speaking of good luck, I now work in a toilet tissue manufacturing plant. Talk about great timing... there is more orders that we can handle flowing in daily. I don't want to rub it in, but life was been good to me in recent weeks. When we get through this current chaos, looking back at the timing of how Linda and I made it through, I think things will be much more clear and we will be branded as survivors. Good Luck to all.....
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