I suppose everyone has taken their own personal approach to preparing for their future.
In my case my future being the time (now) when no one will ever hire me again full-time to do the only damn thing I know how to do (write/edit), and thus I’m cast out to survive on my own, or on what crumbs I might have squirreled away.
You might have noticed I avoid the big R word. I used to tell everyone I’ll never R because I’m a writer! I’ll always be writing!
Of course, silly me.
Somehow, I thought I’d always find someone to pay me to write or edit full-time, instead of treating it like a hobby. Who knew that life in media would digress to the point where they only pay writers hobby level anyways? Not to mention opting for AI created stories instead of hiring writers!
But God Bless TCI for at least allowing me to keep a hobby alive. I’m not a robot, although I have extreme difficulty proving that with some of the Captcha quizzes.
My bad. This isn’t specifically about my income, or lack thereof. It’s how I prepared for these times.
When I became a stay-at-home-dad because my wife and I decided that we would always have one of us at home to raise our daughters, we knew we would hit the R age at the disadvantage of having attempted to survive on one modest Liberal Arts salary for all those years.
So mentally we’ve been prepared for this.
The other interesting ways I’ve prepared is to accumulate t-shirts and sweatshirts and hats while on vacation, or at concerts, or free with a ride, and store them away for the future. I’ve just started digging into that pile pulling out my ’93 Tour DuPont t-shirt.
Same thing with fun stuff I accumulated while reviewing gear and/or cashing in at garage sales. I have three pairs of never-used cycling cleats, a handful of cycling jerseys never worn, two never worn smart cycling helmets, lots of socks, shorts, etc. I could probably open a store, if not an Etsy.
What really shows off my Boy Scout-ish preparedness is my box of inner tubes. Too lazy to patch them while living large, I’ve packed them away for those days ahead when I won’t have a budget for new tubes.
Ah, whittling away my time in the rockin’ chair on the front porch patching tubes. That’s livin’ the dream!
This week’s question: Do you have a box of old inner tubes for future emergencies or hardships, or am I the only nutcase out here?
Yes I have a box of tubes. But, maybe because I’m a Virgo, I patch them right away and add them to my time capsule of snakebites.
I’ll patch those tubes about twice a summer and extend the time between purchases.
If we’re talking more euphemistically, my “box of tubes” in the basement is probably not gonna be worth anything nor will it be useful. But I still have it.