Greetings. If anybody is left still checking back on me to see if I've posted anything new, I apologize for the lack of activity. This year has not been good for the family. My father-in-law passed away June 25th after a prolonged illness that began in March which required much attention. My grandfather who will be 99 September 9th has also been ill requiring still more of my attention up to this date. I am now guardian of his person. Also, Wednesday, I assisted my daughter in returning to college.
All of this is in between the full-time job. So, I've virtually attained no goals for myself this summer like I had planned. I have a garden but it is nothing like I had wanted or had planned. I'll be lucky to get much produce at all because I was so late in planting everything out. I've only managed to make it to the Farmer's Market once this summer because of my work hours and then also because of having to take care of or do things for others during the times the market was open. So, in other words, I haven't even been able to practice food preservation methods. But things are winding down a little now, and I am beginning to have time to catch up.
I have been able to track the stock markets these past 2 weeks. Yikes. I managed to switch over some funds and minimize my losses this week by switching 33% to a money market in my 403b. (It's not like I have tons of investments making tons of money, okay? I'm just practicing for when I'm rich! lol) In the 403b, one cannot withdraw what has been put into it unless it's needed for education expenses or extreme hardship circumstances. So, I just put as little in it as possible--despite it's growth in the last 3 years. I studied my prospectus, found the most peak oil-friendly fund offered (utilities & communications) which isn't saying much, and deposited 33% into it the past few years since learning about peak oil. It has rewarded me in small measures. It has been the highest yielding performance fund and only this week did it drop some...but not as badly as the rest. I also had about $700 sitting in some fund I don't contribute to anymore and just moved it over to my fixed, too. I had forgotten about it. No sense in having it sucked up when the markets yo-yo around like this!
Overall, I agree with many of the experts that it's not looking good long term. I'm not putting much "stock" in my funds (pun intended!). The most important advice I can give someone new to peak oil who is reading this post is to invest in the things you would need to live in a lower energy world. Any investments having to do with this fiat money system is probably futile. First think "get out of debt", and then secondly think "barter & trade"!
Although I'm still behind on reading my peak oil discussion board emails, I've had time to read some. Among them, I've found a few good websites that people have referred to on the discussion lists. The first link can be found on live journal by clickinghere. There are many different additional links found there as well. For those of you who like to mix your liberal politics with peak oil, click here.
Finally, I stumbled onto another live journal blogger who has written a little synopsis that I can relate to very much. Here it is, and it's title is called "Partying on the edge of the twilight zone".
Catching up. Partying on the edge. It's so difficult to try to have one foot in one world and the other in another.
