Schools, restaurants, bars, and small businesses have all shut their doors. People are being self-quarantined. Music festivals, concerts, and sports have all been cancelled. The Dow has dropped about 34% in the past few weeks from 30,000 to 19,900. Many people have lost their jobs or soon will. People are panicking. Toilet paper has been hoarded and shelves are empty in many stores. What the hell is going on?
As long as grocery stores and liquor stores remain open, and the water doesn’t get turned off, I think we’ll be alright. Living in Chicago gives me some anxiety about the worst possible scenario, like people braking in and taking all our toilet paper. But, I’ve got my baseball bat and my White Belt Jiu Jitsu skills to protect me and my girlfriend.
We need to be especially strong these days. People are going nuts. I blame CNN and social media. I never imagined things being like this. But, now we know how much control the government truly has on us. We may soon face even more governmental control. This reminds me of 1984 and Farhenheit 451.
I’m optimistic about this whole situation. At least people will be better at washing their hands after using the bathroom.
This is like a mini zombie apocoalypse. The Doomsday Preppers look like God damn geniuses right now. I do kind of wish I was more prepared. Having an arsenal of weapons, ammunition, and food storage would make me feel better. I’ve got my baseball bat and Instacart for groceries, so things aren’t so dire. Hard liquor would probably be a great bartering tool if everything went to all hell.
The stock market may continue to go down. But, this seems to be a great time to buy. I just read The Simple Path to Wealth, by JL Collins. He recommends buying VTSAX and holding it forever. VTSAX is a total stock market index fund through Vanguard, so you’re buying a piece of every company in the market (mostly S&P 500 companies). If you bought today, you would have a 34% discount on the market. You could wait a little longer, but you don’t want to wait too long.
This is a golden opportunity to make money in the market. People are running scared. This is the time to run straight ahead into the fire. I’ve set up auto-deposits every paycheck, which will continue investing in VTSAX while this crazy train keeps running to the bottom. Once the market recovers, I’ll be sitting pretty on a pile of cash and shares I bought for cheap.
Seeing how crazy all of this has been so far, it’s not hard to imagine something like this or worse happening in the future. This gives me motivation to continue saving money and building wealth so I can retire early.
Everyone is pretty much living the same life right now. Celebrities and multi-millionaires can’t really enjoy their money right now, unless they own a private island or have a yacht to live on. This is definitely a social equalizer of sorts. Obviously some people have it much worse right now if they just lost their job.
American society has been very present-minded when it comes to money. Now, people are freaking out because they don’t have any money saved up. This is life happening to us. Always be prepared for the worst.
Dave Ramsey recommends having 3-6 months of living expenses saved up after paying off debt. Once you have your emergency fund set up, then you can start to invest. If you have your emergency fund in place, I would suggest putting any extra money into VTSAX. This is the perfect time to invest. And, your monthly expenses should be lower because everything is closed. All of my beer money will be going into the market. This could be a blessing in disguise if we choose to perceive it that way.
If the Coronavirus ends up killing us all, then it really doesn’t matter what you do with your money. But, if we DON’T die, we might as well play the game and see what happens.
Photo credit: https://hdwallsbox.com/chicago-apocalypse-apocalyptic-wallpaper-102560/
Nomad Max 