Prophetic Warning

[Earthling]

The subject of debt was covered again in General Conference this month. I picked up "we warned you - did you listen?" It has amazed me to look around at people I consider stalwarts who did not listen at all. A good friend of mine that was financially very well off used her home as a line of credit for whatever they wanted to buy (over 200K of debt). She said they could pay it off easily with their investments. Guess what? The investments totally died and he was laid off. He is already at retirement age so no future ability to earn much. Of course her husband thinks I am an "alarmist".

Picked up this quote in a Meridian article. : Just more than ten years ago President Hinckley challenged us in general priesthood meeting: ?I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage? (October 1998 General Conference).

Wow. God gave us ten years to apply that counsel. In contrast, the people of Egypt (of whom President Hinckley spoke!) had only seven years.

[signseeker]

Amen, earthling! Maybe cuz their delivery is not "strong" people sort of blow it off.

[still_waiting]

We're debt-free except for the mortgage, which has about 5 years left. We just have not been able to wipe it clean with the income we have, no matter how we've tried. Our preps situation is satisfactory since we've been continuously at it for 40 years. There have been some members we've tried to help on their way with preps but they don't seem to get it. I think they are adherents to the proposition that "The Lord will provide to the faithful", or may be even the "I'll come to your place if I need something" crowd (and there are more members in that camp than you might think).

[Noahs ARK]

We got our house paid off a couple years ago and have been chopping away at the credit card debts we accrued after my husband became disabled. Slowly...and I mean slowly, we're getting there but it's going to take at least 2 more years. Gah.

We have a lot of home projects that have been put on hold (except for new windows which we really needed) until those bills are paid off.

[mirkwood]

4 more years and the mortgage is paid off. About 1-2 and the last set of braces is paid off. Then we are completely debt free.

[iggy]

My car is paid off. :001_smile: We are taking 1/3 of that payment to pay extra on two credit cards, and the last third goes to the food budget so we can buy a bit more for long term storage. Husband has inherited gas/oil/mineral rights on some land in CA. An oil company is drilling on it - when it comes in, he will get 6% of the money it makes. So, when the "Well Comes In", we are paying off the two credit cards, and then buying from 5 to 500 acres (depending on what we can get in this area) and building a home on it. We want enough land to grow our own food, and some animals for food. AND have enough land around us to buffer us from people.

[DMGNUT]

Iggy, are you still on the central Oregon coast?
I ask because as the wife and I are in Idaho now, and I still drive a truck, I make regular trips to the lumber yard (Georgia Pacific) in Toledo, OR (which is about 7 miles inland from Newport, OR).
Usually pick up steel at the Cascade Steel yard in McMinnville, OR to bring back this way.

And to stay on topic with this thread, the wife and I are debt free except for the house we have in Chandler, AZ (which is being rented out to our kids and some of their friends, and will continue to be rented for the next few years... until they're done with it, and then we can sell it... :coool:) We currently have about $65,000 equity in it, but at the rate the principal is being paid down, it should be closer to $80,000 in equity when we sell it... and that's with no appreciation on the value of the house, which has been going up at about 3.5%/year in that area, so hopefully the equity will be even higher.
However, we just bought (or rather we're in the process of buying) a home in the Boise area... so we just opened up a whole new can of worms there... When the time comes, we'll probably dump a bunch of the equity from the Chandler home (when it sells) into this one, and see how far that goes (and maybe refinance, if interest rates are still low, for really, really low payments), but with no other bills or car payments, the house payment isn't bad at all.

[iggy]

Iggy, are you still on the central Oregon coast?
I ask because as the wife and I are in Idaho now, and I still drive a truck, I make regular trips to the lumber yard (Georgia Pacific) in Toledo, OR (which is about 7 miles inland from Newport, OR).
Usually pick up steel at the Cascade Steel yard in McMinnville, OR to bring back this way.

And to stay on topic with this thread, the wife and I are debt free except for the house we have in Chandler, AZ (which is being rented out to our kids and some of their friends, and will continue to be rented for the next few years... until they're done with it, and then we can sell it... :coool:) We currently have about $65,000 equity in it, but at the rate the principal is being paid down, it should be closer to $80,000 in equity when we sell it... and that's with no appreciation on the value of the house, which has been going up at about 3.5%/year in that area, so hopefully the equity will be even higher.
However, we just bought (or rather we're in the process of buying) a home in the Boise area... so we just opened up a whole new can of worms there... When the time comes, we'll probably dump a bunch of the equity from the Chandler home (when it sells) into this one, and see how far that goes (and maybe refinance, if interest rates are still low, for really, really low payments), but with no other bills or car payments, the house payment isn't bad at all.

Yes I am still living on the Central Oregon Coast, in Waldport actually. Newport is approximately 22 miles north of me, so Toledo is maybe 7/8 miles to the east.
Am sending you my home and cell #, call me the next time you make a delivery and Hubby and I will meet you for a meal. OR if you need to stay overnight, we have a nice guest bedroom you can use.

Edited to add: DMGNUT you need to empty out your stored messages. Had to send you an email via the forum 'cause the message wouldn't go through.

[DMGNUT]

Sorry about that... I'm terrible at computer stuff.
But I'll go see what I can do (or have the wife help me do). :cool (2):

Done... I think I have room in my message thingy now.

On a side note, I'd love to meet you and hubby sometime, but it might have to be later on (once the wife and I are actually settled into our new place) and we can schedule a trip over there.
Usually when I'm over there in my 18 wheeler, its almost impossible to find somewhere to park the thing, and I'm usually under some kind of time constraints.

Going between Lincoln and Newport (on a side note, big rigs are not allowed east of Toledo on 20, so I have to come in on 18 north of Lincoln, and come down 101 to Newport), anyway... I saw a few warning signs that said something about being in a Tsunami surge area.
What's that about, and it begs the question... how high above sea level are you guys?
I know the coast is down right beautiful, but is it safe, being that close?

[iggy]

Sorry about that... I'm terrible at computer stuff.
But I'll go see what I can do (or have the wife help me do). :cool (2):

Done... I think I have room in my message thingy now.

On a side note, I'd love to meet you and hubby sometime, but it might have to be later on (once the wife and I are actually settled into our new place) and we can schedule a trip over there.
Usually when I'm over there in my 18 wheeler, its almost impossible to find somewhere to park the thing, and I'm usually under some kind of time constraints.

Going between Lincoln and Newport (on a side note, big rigs are not allowed east of Toledo on 20, so I have to come in on 18 north of Lincoln, and come down 101 to Newport), anyway... I saw a few warning signs that said something about being in a Tsunami surge area.
What's that about, and it begs the question... how high above sea level are you guys?
I know the coast is down right beautiful, but is it safe, being that close?

Well yes there are lots of areas along the entire west coast that are tsunami areas. We live in a safe zone. Actually, in the next block is a helicopter emergency landing area. We are more likely to get flooded by extremely high tides made worse by gale force winds coming off the ocean. These occur often in the winter months. Most of the town of Waldport is in tsunami zone. They moved the schools up out of town. We needed new schools anyway, our old ones were plagued with mold, moss, and all of the insulation was that bad stuff. So, they built three new schools up out of the danger areas. Then they burned the old ones down. THAT was a sight to see. Stunk the entire area up for nearly a week too.

Hwy 20 is under construction between Eddyville and Corvallis any way. It is open during the day, and closes after 7:30PM. They are blasting out a mountain. You have to show proof that you live along that stretch for them to let you through. On my way home after taking a friend to Seattle, I delayed too long at dinner and ended up having to take Hwy 34 home from Philomath. I call it the Hwy from Hades! I also hate a certain stretch of Hwy 101 too. The road keeps breaking up/ One of these days, they will put pipes through underneath to give the streams, run offs and creeks a safe way to get to the ocean. Dimwits!

All I need is to clean out my shed, insulate it, put up peg board instead of sheet rock, toss the metal shelving unit that has bent in the middle and put together my space age super plastic shelving units [can hold up to 700 pounds], get my three 55 gallon water barrels in the shed, fill them up and I will be somewhat set for any flooding. No, I do NOT want any bottled water. Most of that stuff is not really good to drink. I filter my water now. City water has way too much chlorine. Hubby loves the taste of it, I hate it. He says it tastes way better than Casa Grande AZ water. Well, yes it does. I filtered Casa Grande water too. The great thing is, when I fill up those barrels, I won't have to add bleach to them. :wink (2): I bought bottled gallon water - for the jugs. I fill them with tap water. Oh, the next major, major purchase is a generator. So when the lights go out, we can keep the fridge and freezers cold and just maybe the microwave and electric roasters working too.

So, when you get all moved in and have time to vacation - you have a place to stay on the Oregon Coast. Hubby and I are old fuddy-duddies. We don't fish, crab or hike. BUT you are more than welcome to stay with us and go do all of those things. One of the men in the Branch owns a boat. He keeps pestering hubby about taking him out ocean fishing or even bay crabbing. If you and your wife would like, I can ask if he will take you two out. If not you can crab off the docks in town. Our bay Dungeness Crab is the best ever. Even tastes better than Alaskan King Crab. At least I think so.

[DMGNUT]

All that sounds totally cool, but I've never been much of a seafood person... unless it was deep fried and I could dip it in ketchup.
I'm not much of a hiker or fisher either, and I've never tried to crab.
But I've always loved the ocean... just never trusted it.
As I mentioned in the email, we need to do some things too, but once those things are done, we're open for guests as well.