Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #127: The New 401K: How to Achieve Financial & "Social" Security

Transcript

Episode #127: The New 401K: How to Achieve Financial & "Social" Security · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The new 401k is building a relationship with people who know how to grow things, fix things, and build things.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I believe what I'm seeing around the culture are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who now realize maybe it's better to invest in a place and people than it is a nameless, faceless uh Wall Street, gold, silver, whatever, you know, where people and skill and and um and self-determination bring more flourishing to life than just being dependent on whether the stock market goes up and down.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, welcome to Beyond Labels.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Stina McCullough.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with Joel Salatin, our favorite farmer.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And today, Joel is going to talk about something that I heard him mention on Fox News Radio.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: He talked about how the farm is the new 401.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And this was his quote: the new 401k plan is living in communities with people who know how to grow things, fix things, and build things.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: That just resonated with me so deeply, especially given my recent move to a whole nother state, right?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Just to be part of a community that knows how to grow things, fix things, and build things.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought it would be a great topic.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Joel, you know, I was talking about this with my husband, and it's so fascinating because we've had this paradigm shift in the recent years with everything that's been going on.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I remember growing up, I and I think mine was probably the kind of the mainstream experience in America, where when you're thinking about setting yourself up for financial success, you know, and setting yourself up for retirement, you think of things like, okay, I've got social security, right?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've got um 401k.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes people have guaranteed pensions, but that's you know, that's few and far between now.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you would think of things investing in things too, like gold and real estate, things like that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And as I got older, I started to think, wait a minute, is Social Security even gonna be around by the time I'm ready to retire?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, so we found my husband just found this article and it says it's from the government, right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is from the government's own website.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's called the Future Financial Status of the Social Security Program.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: It says benefits are now expected to be payable in full on a timely basis until 2037.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: At that point in 2037, the trust fund reserves are projected to become exhausted.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: The government went on to conclude the future is uncertain in many respects.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: What is virtually certain is that the benefits that almost all Americans become entitled to and most depend on will be continued into the future with modifications deemed appropriate by their elected representatives in Congress.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I I'm reading this and I'm hearing you say what the new 401k plan should be.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, yeah, I I think it's really onto something here.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, Cena, uh, thanks for the vote of confidence.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yes, this is absolutely driving, you know, what I call the homestead tsunami.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's driving the um the the phrase that the the most common phrase I hear now from people is I just want to disentangle what we've had, Cena, for the last um, you know, numerous decades in our in our culture, uh especially ever since uh the the all the New Deal, the New Deal stuff of FDR, World War II.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um we've become an incredibly dependency-oriented country.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We've become, you know, the the one-room schoolhouse has turned into a major institution.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the um, you know, the family has turned the the the family care of elders has turned into nursing homes.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: The um goodness, you know, the the the letter and the um the local, I mean, uh forget it, uh local, local entertainment.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, think of Little House on the Prairie and how they the community would entertain themselves with spelling bees, they would have mock debates with, you know, I'm gonna represent this guy, you represent that guy, let's have a mock debate.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: They had they had um uh shows.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: People would write poetry uh or memorize poems and bring them.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: They'd have a community entertainment, you know, thing.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: We've now outsourced that to, of course, to Hollywood and now to China through TikTok.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the point is we we and certainly, certainly, it would be we'd be remiss to mention that we've out we we've um outsourced our our culinary and our kitchens to uh you know Nestle's and and and Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so this this whole kind of dependency idea has been uh I think a major a major lie that you can have you can have uh convenience freedom in your life um with dependency on something outside of you.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and the fact is that the more dependent you become on everything else for the for the kind of the foundational aspects of life, you don't actually become more free, you become more enslaved to the to those brands, to those themes, to those, to those things.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, uh we don't write letters.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now we do social media that you know uh the the Postal Service never opened our letters and censored them.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You could write whatever you wanted to to whoever you wanted to.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever censored it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can't write whatever you want to to anybody, you know.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: It it it runs through a filter of and so supposedly this um what what promised independence from the the the chores and the foundational aspects of life, um, you know, cutting your own, getting your own energy through cutting firewood, uh growing your own food through a backyard garden, uh, getting your own butter by churning cream, uh, you know, uh all of those things, those those quote unquote menial and sundry chore type tasks that we say, you know, confined people of old, the people who know how to do those things and still still enjoy those things, we're the ones who were not who did not uh have a meltdown when stores shelves were empty in 2020.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: We were the ones who didn't have a meltdown uh when fertilizer prices jumped 400% when Putin invaded Ukraine.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're the ones that that at the end of the day, we're actually at liberty and freer than the people who were told, well, you just trust us to take care of your food, take care of your kids, take care of your energy, take care of all those things.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as there's beer in the fridge and NFL is on TV, life is good.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of that was just put your money in the stock market, get your 401k, uh, don't worry, we'll take care of retirement.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so people didn't build strong families, didn't build strong relationships, didn't build those, those personal relationship type things that that upheld uh you know elder care uh and and and personal what you know uh affirmation and and gave, for example, elders uh a reason to live.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because I've got I've got you know kids asking for my advice.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, all of those things kind of went by the wayside, and we developed a culture instead that said, hey, go as far away as you need to from home to get a good enough job to make enough money, to put enough money in the bank so you can put your parents in a nursing home when they get old.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that was kind of the you know, free yourself even from any responsibilities, any filial responsibilities, any fiduciary responsibilities.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Give the government to give your money to the government, and the government will take care of you.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't have any fiduciary responsibilities.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and we've essentially bought in over the last, you know, uh seven, eight decades, basically since World War II, we've bought into this notion that we can free ourselves from all this mediocrity and menialism of life and be freer.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are in 2024, and we're actually feeling way more enslaved by a system that appears to have nefarious agendas.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, you know, you won't own anything and you'll be happy.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we realized, wow, this was a trick.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: This was really a big trick.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now I want to go back.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had a I had a real uh bite a story here.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when Dave Schaefer and I did down at um the the Homestead Festival in Tennessee last summer, Dave Schaefer and I, he's the founder of Featherman Plucker.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: He and I were doing a chicken chicken processing demonstration down there.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: We had, I don't know what, 300 people in front of us uh to watch us, you know, butcher a couple chickens, show them how it's done.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh on a on a whim, he asked the crowd, he said, he asked, all right, how many of you when you were 16 thought you would ever be interested in how to butcher a chicken?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in a crowd of 300, Cena, only two hands went up.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Only two hands.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: What which tells me that this entire uh this entire sense of being captive by a questionable agenda or being enslaved to a system that might not have my my best interest at heart, it doesn't come early on because you think you're invisible.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, you know, you're not thinking about the future.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you hit your mid-30s, you hit early 40s, and and your kids are getting older and you don't like what they're seeing on social media, you don't like what they're coming home with from school, you and you're and and you're concerned about uh the the Fed and the economy and and all the war and all this and you're concerned, and then suddenly the the store shelves get empty.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, you have the you have these aha moments where you realize, oh, you know, maybe I need to take charge of some things.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I need to take charge of some of the these foundational things in my life.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what's entail in this whole idea of the new 401k is building a relationship with people who know how to grow things, fix things, and build things.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I believe what I'm seeing around the culture are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who now realize maybe it's better to invest in in a place and people that that have these skills and and and emotional spiritual responsibilities to each other than it is a nameless, faceless uh Wall Street, gold, silver, whatever, uh that at the end of the day um bring meaning and and and flourishing to life.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, where people and skill and and um and self-determination bring more flourishing to life than just being dependent on whether the stock market goes up and down.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember about maybe 10 years ago, one of my coworkers, yeah, I was working in an office, you know, had a little cubicle and everything.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was very proud of it.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I was I was working there, and I remember a coworker of mine was getting ready to retire, and um, he couldn't because uh his 401k had plummeted, right?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: The stocks he had invested in weren't doing well.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we actually had to delay, keep delaying his retirement until the stock profile improved, like until the stock portfolio improved.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that was one of my first wake-up calls where I was like, wait a minute, I may not be able to dictate when I want to retire.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like that may be externally controlled.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so that was one of my wake-up calls.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but like you're saying, more recently, I had this realization that okay, while I've while I've been trying to set myself up financially for retirement at some point.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm nowhere near retirement, but you know, I was raised by accountants, and this is what we think about is you know, setting yourself up for the future, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I have all these things, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've I have the 401k and a different, you know, diversified portfolio, if you will.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: But what I realized more recently is that while I've set myself up for financial security in some ways, there is that other realm of social security.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I mean the real I mean the social security the real the real social let's call it let's call it uh relational security.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: A relational, yes, relational security, right?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like creating that community, creating that tribe of the people who can grow, fix, and build things.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and that's the thing I wanted to say too.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um, I love the direction you're going with this.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in independently, my husband and I have been going in this direction too, given what's been happening.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think we don't need to put the pressure on everybody that, like, in order to achieve that, you have to be a farmer, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can get into a community where there's some people who farm and there's some people who are good at fixing, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like plumbers.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're always gonna need plumbers, right?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: People who can build houses, things like this, uh, things like that.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we need herbalists.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, like that's that's my strength that I bring to the table is making herbal remedies.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't have to get out there and do farming, quote unquote farming, if you don't want to.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of this.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm using it as an umbrella term for finding a community of like-minded people who want to become more independent.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but don't overwhelm yourself thinking that we're saying every single person needs to go out and buy farmland because even that's super expensive right now.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's other things you can do to contribute to a community, even if it's just being the one that up the lifts people up, right?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: You need that spiritual person.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, this is the misnomer.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: When people hear me say that, they think, oh, he wants everybody to be a farmer.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, not at all.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, when I and I and I purposely say people know how to build things, fix things, and and grow things, because uh if we say grow is the farmer, um, then the other two are craft, skill, their their knowledge, their their information, and um and and goodness, uh, you know, I'm certainly glad everybody's not a farmer because I kind of like my tractor, I like uh, you know, uh, I like electric pumps, you know, I I like to buy things that you know people make.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it makes my life much, much better.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's not the the point.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: The the point is to to to build these networks and these collaborations and these um the these communities where you're more interactive.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um now a lot of times that may mean uh getting out of a big city.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't have any, I'm not I'm not um whatever, reluctant to say, you know, if the wheels fall off of society, you don't want to be in a big city.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh um I I I I'll just say that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your exit strategy.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh John Bush is gonna do a a two-day seminar here at the farm in this summer called Exit and Build.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh one of the things that they're pushing is intentional communities, where a group of people buy 200 acres and share it among, you know, uh uh 20 or 30 families.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, th those come with their own problems.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh these are it's it's not easy, you know, it's it's difficult.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're now, you know, agrihoods, they're called agrihoods, you know, where uh people um intentionally buy, you know, a lot connected to a farm, where they're like there's a farm in the middle of you know of a group of housing.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's co-housing.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's, I mean, these things are all and and I I'm in favor of all of them.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, all of them have strengths and and and weaknesses, but but the fact that there are so many people now searching for something besides just a condo in Manhattan, I think is a very positive thing uh for the culture that that that the that the pinnacle, the pinnacle of human existence is not just walking around with the highest fashion clothes in a highfalutin condominium in New York City.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: That that there are now many, many, many people who are saying, huh, no, the pinnacle of life is actually having a garden out back, growing my own food with a pantry full of canned or freeze-dried, you know, food, not being dependent on the grocery store except for maybe toilet paper and Kleenex, and and uh uh uh having having a guy down the road uh that knows how to you know um fix my chainsaw and the guy down the road knows how to fix a light socket and another guy uh or maybe a you know a gal down the road knows how to weld something if it breaks, um, somebody knows how to make a bookshelf if I need one.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those kind of things are becoming kind of the new, you know, the new fashion statement.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, Dave Ramsey, anybody that's that follows Dave Ramsey, the economics, you know, economic guru, you know, he says that the um, you know, the the paid-off mortgage uh is the new status symbol of you know uh of America.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's all about you know getting out of debt and all that stuff, which you know I appreciate.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I would suggest too that there's almost a new um a new could could there be a new fashion statement?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: The new fashion statement is hey, let me show you my pantry.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that could be a fashion statement.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the new the new uh kind of uh uh um whatever, you know, elite, I mean, the people who actually have culinary skills, who know how to work in a kitchen, that's that's a new elite skill, a new elite thing.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh people you know don't know how to do food prep.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so everybody that now does podcasts on home cooking, on home butchery, on home gardening, on home woodworking, everyone that does that, they are their their attendance is full, they continue to grow.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'm I'm thrilled to see it because I I do think it reflects a new awareness and a new appreciation uh of these kind of things.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Mike Rowe, uh dirty jobs uh has, you know, um has come to the fore.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: That and that's an exciting thing.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: That is very exciting.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think it's been a wake up call for a lot of us, you know, the because it's easy to take things for granted and think they're always gonna be there.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it's just like your health, right?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to take your health for granted.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then when it's gone, it's like, whoa, oh my gosh, like I broke my leg.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, I didn't realize how much I actually use that leg or your back, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, if you've ever suffered for a back injury like me, you're like, oh wow, that back is so important, you know?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's easy to take things for granted.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I think there are many of us that part of the wake-up call was not just that we're so dependent, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Dependent on others, dependent on the government, dependent on the food industry, uh, the industrialized food industry itself, but also this realization, perhaps maybe even on a subconscious level, that there's not a lot of feeling of being safe when you're dependent on somebody else, right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: That that's not a space of safety.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And safety is a like a fundamental, um, it's like a fundal fundamental need of the human condition of all animals, right?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you look at a lion, well, he'll go around and mark his territory and then he'll come back and and rest, right?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: But they but they mark first, they mark their territory, right?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Designating this is this is my area.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now I feel safe.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've marked it, I'm I'm resting.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And for me and many others who I've spoken with, that's a big thing, is like all of a sudden we it was like the rug was pulled out from under us in in a certain to a certain degree, because we didn't realize at our core how unsafe we really felt.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like it wasn't something on the conscious level.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, I think that's what really, regardless of anything that happened, you know, um, on the conscious level, that was a big revelation for me, is that subconsciously it was this feeling of not feeling safe, like even in my own home.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't, I didn't have a great sense of safety because it can just be taken from you.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: All these things can be taken from you.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then what are you gonna feed your kids?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, on and on, and about medical care with shortages of now what am I gonna do if my kid gets sick or whatever?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, that was a big revelation because as I've mentioned before on this podcast, the ultimate root cause of all sickness is fear.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought, well, that's part of no wonder why, as a society we are getting sicker and sicker.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just all of the physical toxins that we're being exposed to, you know, glyphosate, the heavy metals, you know, GMOs, all those things, um, grass chemicals, I would say.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just the physical toxins that are the obvious one, it's really the toxin of fear.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why I love this what you're doing, this idea, this mindset that you're really promoting, because it takes the fear away.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like not only that you are are you and yourself are now taking charge, you have more skills, you know.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you can trust yourself more in the event of whatever may happen, but there's less fear when you have found a tribe, right?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: When you know you have people that have your back.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so so I would suggest, Cena, I would say that in a in a uh a big macro sense, these fears, fears of fears of crime, fears of being attacked, fears of the economy falling apart, um, fears of of um the the medic the medical establishment.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all these fears make us want to flee.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: That that's a natural thing from fear, right?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You want to you want to flee from fear.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that is actually a kind of a self-preservation thing.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's good.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you see something that's uh that's getting ready to attack you, it's good to flee, but you can't flee forever.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can't flee forever.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I feel like much of the last several decades in America, we've been fleeing from practical um um foundational aspects of life, our food, our energy, our relationships.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've been fleeing from that into some uh um uh you know uh oz that doesn't exist.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this this this somehow you can have all this health, wealth, and happiness.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and it comes it comes from a a city fied, industrialized, um bank-oriented, you know, uh um outfit.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and now so so we, you know, we fled our chores and our backyard chickens and our gardens and our kitchens.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: We fled all that because we've got we were painted with this fear.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh if you do that all the time, you're not you're not gonna be successful, you're not gonna be fashionable, you're not gonna be part of the you know, the the the inner the inner class.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and we fled to to go somewhere, but we found that somewhere was not very satisfying.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and now we're wanting to flee from that back to something that's real, something that's practical, and and so fleeing from that um nefarious fantasy is a good thing, but somewhere you have to stop.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's where by faith, then we flee by fear, but we embrace by faith.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we when we finally settle in a place or a situation with relationships, with new skills, with new confidence in in, yeah, if things fell off tomorrow, I'd be fine for six months.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Dave Ramsey again talks about you know you need a six a six-month uh emergency financial fund.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me tell you what, um, I would much rather have a six-month emergency food uh stockpile than an emergency financial stockpile.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I would encourage our listeners to have both, okay?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But but uh in in the real in in you know if you really sit down and meditate on a little bit, you'd much rather be able to eat than have than have um you know money.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so so as we as we as we then turn and flee from what we don't want and we embrace what we do, we move from that fear to that faith.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that is where the when I say the four the new 401k is relationships with people who know how to grow things, build things, and fix things, that is where we flee from what we're starting to be concerned about in insecurity, instability, and and unsafe.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're now coming to a place where we stop and we put down anchors and we put down uh roots into a new pair a new paradigm, which is not throwing out technology, but it is embracing, it is embracing historically normal living.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I write about this in my book, folks.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: This ain't normal.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: It it embraces that historical normalcy with the blessing of high tech.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can, if we can somehow in our lives go to a place of relational confidence skill with the technology that we have, that ends up being a better place than um than either going back with no technology or just going forward with all the technology and and no and no historical relevance, you know, in normalcy.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh be both those extremes are are problematic.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we can if we can somehow uh bring our technology with us to a return to historical normalcy, um, we're gonna have the best of both worlds.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a good place to be.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that that feels that feels safer, that feels safer than about anything else you can find.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I that really resonates deeply with me.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when I was talking about it with my husband about like where we're gonna put our money and whatnot, and I mentioned about the farm being the 401k, and he did say something that was really interesting for me.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: He was saying that usually when you get to retirement, if you've taken care of your shelter, right?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like your home's paid off, usually the top cost, your top expenditure is food.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's like, you're basically converting the retirement dollars into food that you're buying from a store, right?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's our 401k.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're taking, we're converting that retirement money into food that we bought from a store.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Versus if you start investing now into one of these communities or specifically into learning some farming skills, right?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're taking some of the money even that you would have put into 401k, and you're investing it now in your ability to grow your own food, which can benefit you now and you know, right in a huge return in dividends moving forward throughout your life.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you can pass that skill on to your kids and grandkids and whatnot.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that was an interesting perspective.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I was also really excited because that led to a discussion just this morning before this podcast that I was sharing this with Joel, that you know, our regular listeners know that I've wanted to homestead for a while and my husband does not.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, when there's when there's opposing viewpoints, it makes it a little hard because I can't do it all myself, right?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I homeschool, I run a company, like add homesteading to that, and my plate is overflowing.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I certainly don't want to be overstressed and get sick again, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we're building our house and uh our you know, on our new land.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: And several months ago, he agreed to help put in fruit trees, right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: That was a huge win for me that he's gonna actually help me do fruit trees.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: First time ever that he's wanting to do some kind of farming, homesteading project with me.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he would help me previously on my gardens, but that was out of obligation because I was like, I can't pull all the weeds.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Can you please help me?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: So this was the first time that he like initiated, like he bought into it that he wants to do fruit trees too.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: So this morning, as we're talking about Joel's, you know, get a community where you grow things, fix things, and build things together.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Donnie actually said for the first time that he would consider getting chickens.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was telling Joel, I was like, I wore him down, like right.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my trick.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wear the other person down before they wear you down.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that that that's uh uh Cena, I don't think we should do marriage counseling.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: If that's our if if that's our our best marriage counsel, wear the other person down.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: We probably should stay in our lane here and not and not uh not diverge over into um into marriage counseling.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh you mentioned that in in retirement the biggest expenditure becomes food, you know, assuming your car's paid off and your and your homes paid off and that sort of thing.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in in modern times, the other thing that is almost eclipsing food is healthcare.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, so now now you know we don't have the the community doctor that came around.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have this this, you know, you get old and then you and then you die.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have we have this this uh you know death by a thousand cuts, you know, um slowly uh uh and and that and that's a lot of what we're about is to try to, yeah, we're all gonna die, we're all gonna die sometime, but let's have a vibrant life right up until you know the last, and then, you know, and then then you're gone.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and and that that is actually the way historically, traditionally, and and you know, indigenous uh societies, uh, you read about their you know death experiences, and they're more like that.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're not they're not you know six-year chronic things.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're um you know, uh up to the last month, and then boom, you know, and it's it's not that long a deal.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I hope this has been encouraging to everybody and some food for thought, maybe some uh good discussions for marriages as you wear each other down on whichever one.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because usually in a relationship, one one is is a saver and one is a or one is a more a nester and one is a little more uh whatever, um, you know, not flamboyant, but um, you know, spontaneous.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so, you know, those kinds of characteristics uh usually come out.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully this will stimulate some good discussions about about where to invest, and um even investing in some vocational courses, you know, to learn how to fix a small engine or you know, those kinds of things.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those those are very barterable skills, but I think what they do for you is they actually they actually give you confidence to reduce some of this this um this dependency that that we feel, you know, in a in our in our time, in our modern time.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again for listening to another Beyond Labels podcast, and we look forward to visiting with you again next week.