Dear Survivor, OK, you know how I feel about your lazy cash sitting on its butt on your couch all day long. It’s time to get it up and moving. Time to get it working for you. Because summer’s over and chances are your cash is doing the same thing today as it was on the Fourth of July. Nothing. Not good. Don’t let inertia beat you down. This is your house. But how do you get your cash working when it doesn’t listen to you? Easy. Remember, I’m Your Survival Guy not your “let’s throw some money at this and see how it plays out” guy. Your cash is as precious as ever, even though it drives … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, What’s Your Survival Guy investing in right now? Bullets, beer, and Burgundy (the three Bs). What about gold you ask? I love gold, but we’ll save that for another day. For now, I want you to improve your chances of survival by the end of the weekend. How? Well, with all the above, what comes to mind? Barter. Yes, cash is king but partnered with any of the above, and you can elevate yourself to royal status. You do that by always sweetening the deal, so they have a reason to work with you again, and again, and again. In my conversations with you, you’re telling me how … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, Your retirement life is sacred ground. You know my favorite advice, to your dismay, is to work as long as you can and put off retirement. That doesn’t mean you need to give up your dreams. You just need to be creative. Can you do remote work? Wherever you choose to go, familiarize yourself with my Super States, rent for a year to make sure it’s a good fit, and downsize. Don’t worry the kids will visit. Bankrate.com just came out with its annual ranking of the best places to retire, and you won't be surprised by the top three. According to Bankrate.com, the best three … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, Your Survival Guy’s been watching lumber prices. I reported earlier this year that much of the increase was due to a bottleneck at sawmills. (There’s plenty of trees, just no excess capacity at the mills creating finished lumber.) Lumber futures reached a high of $1,711.20 per thousand board feet in May. Recently, July futures were down to $1,009.90, off 41% from the record high. Ryan Dezember reports in the WSJ: The rapid decline suggests a bubble that has burst and the question is how low lumber prices will fall. Even after tumbling, lumber futures remain nearly three … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, One of my best business experiences was serving fish and chips and scooping ice cream at Oxford Creamery in Mattapoisett, MA, where I grew up. I remember feeling anxious before each shift, knowing I’d be missing out on some fun with my friends, and knowing how slammed work would be. That was especially true on a Friday night when the fish and chips special (with fresh cod from the boats in New Bedford) was the best around. With the line out the door, I had no time to think about missing out on fun with my friends. Waiting on a group of hungry customers fresh off the … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, You’re telling me what friends are asking you the most. But first, let’s take a step back. You’ve been through a lot over the last year. Most of you stuck with me as we watched the world turn upside down. We lived to fight another day. Hey, I’m Your Survival Guy, not your "hope we make it" guy; what did you expect? You didn’t think I’d leave you behind, did you? You didn’t panic (maybe a little), you didn’t drop to your knees and raise your hands to the sky in despair (it’s OK, no one saw that), and you stuck to your plan (too scary not too). You made it through in your own … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, You might be looking for the best place in America to retire. You may enjoy owning firearms, paying low taxes, and being left alone. That's the definition of what I'm calling a "liberty retiree." Recently a liberty retiree, known as U, asked MarketWatch's Catey Hill where would be the best place for them to retire. Hill answered (abridged): To answer your question, I went right to the source: the Libertarian Party itself, where I had a lively chat with Dan Fishman, the party’s executive director, who had a lot of advice for you. He said that, while the Libertarian Party … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, In 2013, in contrast to the majority of the establishment media, Joel Kotkin wrote that America's future economic growth would be driven by what he called "four growth corridors," including "the Great Plains, the Intermountain West, the Third Coast (spanning the Gulf states from Texas to Florida), and the Southeastern industrial belt." Kotkin told readers of The Wall Street Journal that these growth corridors tended to be "generally less dense, more affordable, and markedly more conservative and pro-business." He continued: Overall, these corridors account for 45% of … [Read more...]

Dear Survivor, “In the 1600s a series of civilization-threatening plague epidemics gave birth to one of the most heavy-handed surveillance states in the Western world,” writes Annie Jacobsen in First Platoon. “In order to impose the rule of law, the government ordered the full-scale cataloging of people.” You felt like you were being watched because you were, especially by your neighbors. Historian Michel Foucault draws the parallel between the surveillance state during the plague, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and a prison called the Panopticon or “all seeing.” It … [Read more...]