I just don't know what to do. I hate to say it but I have to stay employed. I have a family to take care of and a wife that won't leave her aging mother. If I sold my house I would be just on the + side (maybe $20K-$50K profit) but I have nearly nothing in the bank and 2 401k's and 2 IRA's. If it were just me I'd cash out all of the retirement money (pay the tax) sell everything and find a nice secluded area in North Texas or some other "Red" location, find an under the table job busing tables or short order cook or something to try and stretch what ever $$'s I had. I just don't know.
Do what you always have done: The best you can. No where is "safe", and you don't have to earn nothing. Stay employed. Just cut back where you can. Look for ways to milk the system for income. Can you get money for the govt to pay for her mother's care? Can you then hire your wife to do it? Earn less, and you qualify for more. That study they did a while back showed a family 4 on welfare working 40 hours a MONTH at minimum wage could have the equivalent take home pay of a family with a 60K income. The IRA and 401K are no longer safe. You should cash them out regardless. Put the money into buying preps. Guns. Ammo. Long term freeze dried food. Water filter. Fuel storage. If you have any left over buy junk silver or 24k gold chain. Maybe pay down the house. Maybe. Chances are in the end everyone will squat and ownership will be relatively meaningless.
I have the opposite problem-- My prep is largely done and I have a pretty good chunk of change in the bank after the sale of my house in town. I need to do something with the money. In an ideal world, I would buy a second, larger property, with other like minded individuals with their own large stake to put down. Getting a second place and prepping it makes sense from a redundancy perspective, but really its hard to maintain two places. Add in livestock and a greenhouse and its near impossible, unless you can go back and forth easily, or have a second group helping to maintain the second locale. With my little stake already in the ground here in Colorado, I don't really want to give up all I have done, nor get too far from it - or town - I plan to work in some capacity up til the collapse. Moving to TX or TN would take me outside of a rational range to get back to the prepped home. I could try to sell it, but I would certainly loose money over what I have put in.. My company pays to have me in this region, so a move would probably mean job loss as well. If a state actually left the Union, I would consider doing all of that, but Red don't mean Red. The liberals will go to anyplace successful. They are in WY.. , they are moving to TX and you can bet they will be migrating to SD soon. Soon as their disastrous policies being to affect them, they move to get away from the effects, and then vote to implement them all over again. The Fed will continue to reach everywhere - even in the the Red states.
Seclusion isn't always the best either. Our property is where everyone can see our business, and on the main road in/out of the subdivision. If the community here bands together that is a good thing. If it doesn't my security is going to get to be very tough, that is if security is needed - I don't expect roving Mad Max gangs up here. However defending the place against a SWAT team isn't going to be feasible.
We are gonna have to with the decisions we have made and make do the best we can with them.
