I started this blog many years ago in response to the 2009 financial crisis. At that time, the economy had tanked and everybody was trying to live on the cheap as best they could. Well, thanks to the coronavirus, it looks like we’re heading into tough times again. So, I intend to try to revive my efforts here to help you through the difficult times that lie ahead.
My personal circumstances have thrown me into what I call my “hermit-like” existence. My finances are almost non-existent and my only social contacts are tenuous connections to old friends from my pre-retirement life in California, and the three surviving members of my immediate family back here in Minnesota – my sister, my cousin and his wife – wonderful people all, whom I don’t deserve and for whom I thank my lucky stars every day.
But despite how gloomily I portray my life, I’m generally happy and content. So, between my current circumstances and my incredibly fortunate childhood, I feel I have some insights into dealing with tough financial and emotional times. Mostly, I just think that I can help folks get through a couple of days or weeks when if feels like the world is crashing down on you. All it takes is a willingness to try something you either haven’t done before, or something you’ve done before that you didn’t enjoy. I’m going to try to help you get past the obstacles so that you can find some contentment, if not joy, in staycations in Minneapolis, MN and around the country!
I apologize for not posting in so long, but I’ve been going through a rough patch. I ask for your patience while I indulge myself by writing such a long story here. But there are many people I want inform about my situation and to apologize for being so irresponsible. I also feel a compelling need to tell my story to anyone who’ll listen.
For most of my life, I’ve neglected my health, purposefully avoiding doctors, and I’ve reached an age where it’s caught up with me. For the past several years, I haven’t really been able to put in more than an hour or two of productive work at a stretch before needing to get away from the computer, so my businesses have really suffered. This, in turn, has meant that my financial situation deteriorated from what I whimsically called being “independently indigent” to “borderline destitute”. I’d been rationalizing a lot of my problems by blaming some complications in obtaining a clear title to the family home in south Minneapolis, which I technically inherited in 2007 and needed to secure a loan. I was emotionally considering the house as my financial backstop and, having recently reached the qualifying age, I intended to get a reverse mortgage to pay off my bills, invest in my businesses, start eating decent food again, and get myself back on track financially, physically, and yes, emotionally. Being persistently poor wreaks havoc on the self-esteem.
There’s also a small backstory here that’s the impetus for my writing this. In 2016, I screwed up sending my Christmas cards – which is to say, I never sent them. I signed, stamped and addressed them, put them in a small bag and put it in the trunk of my car along with some packages that had to go to the Post Office. Well, once in the Post Office parking lot I got so flummoxed in getting the boxes securely in my arms that I forgot the bag of cards. That is, until I discovered them again around Valentine’s Day. It was obviously too late to do anything about it, and there’s really no card-worthy holiday for friends and extended relatives that would allow me to make a belated amends. So, this year I was determined to get them out early and include a note of apology in each one. Like so many of my fellow procrastinators love to say, I had a plan!
In early 2017, to alleviate my financial situation and get my life back on track, I started to actively pursue the reverse mortgage. That process turned into a nightmare of continuous stumbling blocks that took nearly a year to complete. While some of them were my fault, many felt like the universe hated me. For example, one of the things the bank required was a valid driver’s license. Unfortunately, my driver’s license had just expired and there was a problem with getting it renewed. You see, sometime around the fall of 2016 I developed a cataract in my left eye and I didn’t think I could pass the eye exam. Further complicating matters was that another thing the bank required was my Social Security card. Well, I hadn’t seen my Social Security card since 1969, so I started the process of requesting a new one. It turned out that Social Security also required a valid ID like a driver’s license. So it became a matter of some priority to get my vision issue resolved.
Since my failing vision was also giving me headaches at the computer, making it nearly impossible to get any substantial amount of work done as well, I capitulated to the idea of having cataract surgery. Thanks to Obamacare, this was my first foray into using medical insurance. I was fortunate to find an eye clinic “in network” just a stone’s throw from my house, even though I wasn’t driving myself. The initial consultations went pretty much as I’d expected, except that my surgeon required a pre-surgical physical exam. Being very overweight for most of my life, I hadn’t needed to see a doctor for decades because I was all too aware of the state of my health. However, I’d had to see a doctor in 2009 following a bad fall off my back steps. I somehow managed to injure my left foot on the way down and my left hand when I hit the ground and I had to see a doctor about the pain and numbness. Given my not having seen a physician for almost twenty years, the doctor gave me a basic physical exam which included a blood pressure test and a diabetes test. So, fast-forward to 2017 again, I already knew the precarious state of my health, except that my new “primary physician” immediately put me on meds for high blood pressure, which was another slap in the face on my path toward accepting the fact that I really wasn’t 35 years old any more and I needed to finally get serious about my health.
