Interesting times coming, for sure. Hopefully not as bad as they could be.
I've been homeless, and I remember going days without eating so the Daughter could eat. The "bad old days". I remember very clearly. I hope to God I never see times like that again. One can talk about preparing and taking care of oneself until they are blue in the face, but there are times when circumstances are the driver - not you - and all you can do is react the best you can. I have watched people slowly die for want of medical care and decent housing, and never want to see that again. These were people who worked hard all their lives, did all the right things, were not frivolous, and for whom circumstances fell apart through no fault of their own. You can prepare all you can, sometimes, and it's not enough.
I regularly go down my risk-assessment protocols. Once the US border reopens and this settles down, I'll have to re-evaluate. Here the government is entirely more proactive. It's a freaking train wreck there. But all my funding is from the USA. If the exchange rate turns sour, I could be in a world of hurt here. Whatever income I had coming in would be steady in the USA. (Until SS collapses, or the pension fund implodes.) My medical would be covered, more or less, here - at least it would be to the same standard as everyone else got. I would need to be sure to move to a state that has Medicaid, so that if anything happened to my insurance or Medicare I'd get at least NHS quality healthcare in an emergency. If I lived in the USA I hopefully could have some land and a few chickens and a good garden. So I regularly have the urge to bolt, get a place there and get it paid off as quickly as I can so that I can scrounge if I have to to make ends meet. I've kind of been thinking like that for several months. I love it here, but in hard times my "risk" is worse than a local's here. I have hedged as many bets as I can and can only hope fate is kind to us all. Needless to say, I'm actually more afraid of getting caught up in a major economic depression (not recession) than Covid-19. Covid would be quick. It keeps me tossing and turning late at night.
My father used to tell me about life in the Great Depression - he was a teen then. How he had to go to the train tracks where the coal trains went around a bend to scrounge for any coal that fell off them to take home to help heat the house. And how a sibling with a serious illness was incapacitated for the rest of his life because they could not afford a doctor for a simple procedure. He was the most complete tightwad any of my friends had ever met - we saved string, we saved paper bags to use over, we re-used tinfoil, we saved everything. Mended everything. He drilled into us "want" was not the same as "need". And we ~never~ bought on credit. I remember as a child we would have bread and gravy for supper sometimes, because that was all there was. And he was always thankful to have it, so we never knew our situation. I used to get so mad at him when I was growing up. It wasn't until later I understood why he was as he was. I hope those times don't come again. That spectre really does frighten me badly.
The one thing I really do like about here, though, in all this that is kind of hit-or-miss in the States these days is that sense of community. The people who show up with the bags of food. We saw it in the South, the church ladies would take food to needy families. But it's not necessarily a wide-spread thing like it seems to be here. I think that'll do everyone here in good stead, in the long run.
Sorry, rambling. Not enough sleep. Be safe, be well everyone.
