I took a couple of days off
Labor Day weekend is now behind us. In my area, that means that the kids are heading back to school. I know kids in other areas have been in school for a while now. I think some of my grand kids have been back for a couple of weeks. I didn’t write much over the weekend because there just wasn’t a lot going on.
I didn’t go to the beach or anything like that, because frankly, I don’t like crowds. But if you are into that kind of thing, this was a great weekend to do it. Weather here was wonderful, and I have to imagine that the beach was crowded as all get out. I didn’t just take long naps though. Technically, I was working but just not here on this page.
I have been reviewing my own personal finances and I am not happy. I am about to turn 71 and I know that coming up in my future are things called RMDs which I am deathly afraid of. I have also been reviewing our spending and it’s really sad. All those ads for “Rocket Money” got me thinking about what we spend on stuff, and though I haven’t signed up for that program, I forced myself to look at what we spend money on.
I am not really surprised at the result, I kind of knew where most of my spending was going, and it’s no surprise that I have to start cutting back on a few things. For the most part, you know what you spend day to day or even month to month. But what about all those things you pay for a year or 2 years at a time. When do they come due? Am I really using them anyway? You forget about them until all of a sudden they are being charged out of you account. I found one that I thought I had cancelled a few years ago and they are still charging me once a year.
So I have some clean up to do. Doing so much online is the problem. If they send you a bill and you have to write a check, you feel it more. Also, you can write cancel on the bill and send it back and you are done. Now you have to figure out where their website is, and try to remember you password to get in and go through the whole reset your password thing and hope you still have access to the email address they are sending your reset email to. It’s a mess!
Also I recently signed up for a credit card. I haven’t used one in years. I did everything on a debit card so I didn’t have to worry about a payment due date. Now I do, and it’s making me nuts. I did it for a couple of reasons. First, it will help my credit rating. I never thought about what my number was, but recently that’s starting to bother me. The other reason is that I get 3% cash back on gasoline and grocery purchases. These days, it’s a lot more than it used to be with the high gas and grocery prices! I will take whatever relief I can get.
The farmers are struggling too. With labor shortages because of immigration throwing people out of the country, and the weather that is either very dry or very very wet, they can’t get ahead. The president isn’t worried though. He just goes to McDonalds where they use Magic to get food. or something, after all the government just sold off a bunch of wild horses to slaughterhouses. I really hope those two aren’t tied together!
The War in Iran
Speaking of high gas prices, it doesn’t look like that’s going to get better any time soon. They have started going after each other over there, and it doesn’t look like there is any progress on anything resembling and ending. I have a hard time following it all because there is so much going on in the Middle East. Places I know nothing about, I mean there is Gaza which is still an issue though they don’t talk about it much. Then something going, and on in the West Bank (which is not a financial institution), and something Lebanon and Yemen too. It’s all erupting over there.
With all that happening, gas prices here have topped $4.15 a gallon, We are starting to feel the crunch of that in our grocery prices and other items. That with the Tariffs, that our president thinks are payed by somebody else, but we pay for, everything is sky rocketing up. Which is why I, like so many others, am looking for ways to cut back on what I buy. But our government is more focused on overpriced reflecting pool renovations and arches and ballrooms. We’re doomed!
The last thing I heard about Iran was that we sank one of their empty vessels and disabled two others that were hoping to get through the blockade. We did that because they had sent missiles to a couple of our bases, which they did because we did something else, etc. If we all just worked together, we could solve so many problems that real people have.
Oh, yeah, the stock market
The stock market was closed yesterday for the holiday. That means that today is going to be crazy. It hasn’t opened yet, and I am afraid to look at the pre-market! Not that it means much on a day after holiday. The talk of the town is that people are wanting to start separating themselves from the AI stocks. Not entirely, but they are playing down the data centers because people don’t want them in their communities. I don’t blame them. I don’t want one here either.
Personally, I like Elon’s idea of putting them in space. Use solar to power them, and the coldness of space to cool them and not take up farmland for the huge buildings.
It’s kind of funny that we used to have farms everywhere. Then they tried to centralize everything which was more efficient… for a while. It just doesn’t scale up very well, and when we were a global economy it all worked, but now that the US has cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, we shot ourselves in the foot. But that’s just me talking.
Anyway, today will be a watch and wait day in the markets. Everyone else is going to start off making huge moves, but I’m just going to sit it out. I think a big downturn is coming sooner than later, and I am just preparing to take advantage of it when it does.
