Cool and wet.\u00a0 Damp at a minimum.\u00a0 Misty rain most of yesterday with occasional downpours depending on where you were.\u00a0 Where I was it rained pretty much non-stop, just slacking for short periods.<\/p>\n
Spent the day getting ready then driving north to look at a property.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s pretty much what we expected, and we’re making an offer on it.\u00a0 It’ll be another house that sold “before it was ever listed.”\u00a0\u00a0 We only learned about it through a friend.\u00a0 Meatspace and tribe came through.<\/p>\n
I expect there will be a LOT of things to share about the process and the work.\u00a0 This is intended to be a ‘weekend’ or vacation home, but will also function as a retreat if we need it.\u00a0 I hate to think ‘bug out location’ because you don’t get much use from a bug out place if things go well.\u00a0\u00a0 It does give us somewhere to go if we need to go, and that has been a major prep that was missing from our capabilities.<\/p>\n
It’s also supposed to be a financial move to get something real instead of a rapidly inflating currency.\u00a0 Our timeline is long.\u00a0 If the world somehow manages to not go to helI in the next year or two, it will be a fun place to go on summer weekends and lakefront property always finds buyers, if there are any buyers at all.<\/p>\n
Which brings me around to the title of the post (which most of the time is an opportunity to sneak in a joke or quick hit commentary,\u00a0 or is totally unrelated to the post, which is a tiny little joke in itself) and relates to CommanderZero’s post today.\u00a0\u00a0 How do you know when it’s time to pull the cord and bail?\u00a0 ESPECIALLY when that moment hasn’t come despite looking like it was imminent any number of times, and when the consequences for NOT going can be dire.\u00a0 I’ve mentioned in other contexts that ‘if you think it’s time to leave, it’s probably too late…”\u00a0 And I’ve mentioned that it helps to set trigger points so that you don’t have to second guess yourself.<\/p>\n
But specifically, how the heck can I be willing to spend the money on this place after a day, and seeing it for only a couple of hours?\u00a0 Weeeeelllllll……\u00a0 because we’ve done lots of thinking about it before hand.\u00a0\u00a0 We have been looking at lake properties for three years.\u00a0\u00a0 We feel like we’ve got a pretty good understanding of the current pricing and current demand.\u00a0 We’ve been looking at houses for a lot longer than that, and have a lot of confidence we can evaluate the condition and potential of the property.\u00a0 We had the money in place, and although we had to revisit that, another year of putting money aside for the purpose made the pot big enough, as it turned out.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s still a stretch, but my wife agrees that time is getting short, the money we had saved was losing value every day, and we’re not getting younger, and the kids aren’t either.<\/p>\n
I had a similar situation with my replacement truck.\u00a0 By the time this one came up, I’d looked at a lot of trucks, knew a good price when I saw it, and knew I needed to act swiftly.\u00a0 The house we live in took only a few minutes to convince us this was the house for us, mainly because we’d looked at more than 60 and rejected them.<\/p>\n
And in the case of my truck, along with our previous ALMOST purchase of the prepper retreat, we were ready to change our minds if the information or our needs changed.\u00a0 The first truck I almost bought, I didn’t understand the warranty situation.\u00a0 Once I did, we bailed on the deal.\u00a0\u00a0 With the great looking property with all the animal protein, and smokehouse, and artesian well… once we understood where the flood line was, and that the property was unbuildable for the most part, and that we wouldn’t ever be able to sit on a dock watching the sunset, we bailed.<\/p>\n
Be ready to move when the opportunity presents itself.\u00a0 But be ready to stop moving if things change, or you change.<\/p>\n
Finally, in answer to CommanderZero’s question, when do you head for the hills and burn the bridges and boats behind you?\u00a0 I’ve got a rule that none of my prepping can be irrevocable<\/strong>. Even if I decide to head for the hills I’m going to do my best to not burn the bridges behind me.\u00a0 Because I make mistakes.\u00a0 Lots of them and all the time.\u00a0 And I believe that “there is ALWAYS another way.”\u00a0 Searching for and finding that way made my career.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Those two things make me strongly biased against the dramatic exit…\u00a0 and so far it’s worked for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The other thing that works for me is stacking up the preps, because it gives me choices.\u00a0 Give yourself some, and stack up your own preps.\u00a0 You know you wanna….<\/p>\n <\/p>\n nick <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cool and wet.\u00a0 Damp at a minimum.\u00a0 Misty rain most of yesterday with occasional downpours depending on where you were.\u00a0 Where I was it rained pretty much non-stop, just slacking for short periods.<\/p>\n Spent the day getting ready then driving north to look at a property.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s pretty much what we expected, and we’re making an offer on it.\u00a0 It’ll be another house that sold “before it was ever listed.”\u00a0\u00a0 We only learned about it through a friend.\u00a0<\/p>\n