I grew up in rural Maritimes in Canada. We were dirt poor, but this is how we survived, until Dad finished his uni degrees (paid for by summer jobs). He was gone the whole semester. Worked in logging camps and surveying (a lot of it under the table). My mother and grandmother raised 6 kids from infant to 12 years old basically by themselves.
The boys were older and had trap lines and fished. We all helped in the garden. Gram had a berry patch on the farm. And we had lots of extended relatives who kept us supplied with milk and eggs. In between all that, the men would hunt and fish and share the resulting catch.
The way to make the informal economy work best is to build community around you. Get out and get involved!
ETA: I shouldnāt forget Gramās and Momās contributions. Gram raised Angora bunnies, spun and sold knit baby booties etc. she also took up weaving to sell.
Both she and Mom cooked everything from scratch. Mom and Gram put up food every fall as wellā¦over 300 canning jars full! I recall a lot of trading with friends, neighbours and relatives.
They knew where the best wild berry patches were! We kids would go help pick (and eat our fill!). We were guaranteed blueberry pies at Thanksgiving. Also apple pie (apples from our own tree) and pumpkin pies (pumpkins from our garden).
Gram and Mom also sewed and knit everything we needed. I do not remember a store bought piece of clothing until we moved west when I was 10 years oldā¦after Dad got a government job. Wellā¦maybe panties. They were store bought.
On top of that, Gram worked part time to support the family while Dad was in school. Mom had her hands full with 6 kids, the garden, trading babysitting for any appointments we kids had.
It really took everyone contributing something for people to survive, let alone thrive.
Question regarding this that may or may not be relevant (since I do not have EU citizenship)ā¦how do you use this account? Just to hold Euros/other currencies? I assumed there was debit card access or something like that abroad, but when I actually click through to open an account it specifically says:
I was looking at this for some travel later this year and then recent events made me look a little closer for other reasons, especially since have some money left from my 6mo account rebalance that could be put here, but if I donāt have an easy way to get it out Iām not sure itās worth it.
I hold foreign currencies, I only spend abroad with transfers which I can do from there. (currently just euros)
XE has a multiple currency debit card, but I am not sure if Americans are allowed to get it because of what a pain in the ass it is to have us as customers
I have a friend who moved from the US to Slovenia and he uses Revolut and convinced me to give it a try. I need to finish the ID verification to set it up but it seems like an interesting idea.
N26 has/had a bad reputation regarding data security. They had a breach fairly early in their existence and people I know from the banking industry are warning. And a lot ob scam cases. And yes, like Hollaynia said, the limits are different. Fun fact, I have accounts with 4 banks in Germany due to the limit of 100k as secured amount. This is especially important for banks in the EU outside Germany. Revolut is founded in Lithuania. They have a License for the German market though.
Revolut account opened and funded (to a very limited extent, anyway, since Iām just at the testing stage), but the specific currency I was interested in for travel is not showing up as an option when I go to do a transfer despite being clearly advertised on their site. The big currencies seem to be there which works from the whole āback upā perspective, but for travel it seems to have gone from 150+ advertised to about 25 that I can actually access so Iām waiting for a response from support.
My ex husband and his wife are thinking of moving to rural Italy, where they actually have a study travel business and could buy a house outright. He thinks we should go, too. They donāt want to invest any more money in the US, especially because they can no longer afford to live anywhere blue.
Parts of the idea were tempting, especially because they are our primary support network and they probably are moving one way or another. Ultimately we decided it is probably not our most likely path to familial prosperity so weāre going to pass.
But like, part of me definitely wants to have a third floor apartment in a picturesque little town with them underneath and our soap shop or whatever on the ground floor, yāknow?
Very nice! I wasnāt exactly prescient (not that it was mythical orb magic telling us things were about to go badly wrong!) but I sold a good bit of VTI in two chunks over November / December. In my case, I was going on 5+ months of unemployment and just wanted a much larger cash cushion. But yeah Iām liking when I sold a lot. (VTI was right around $300 then. $243 or so as of this morning.)
If we donāt retire flr a good 20 years it will be fine
The NY stock exchange survived the depression and 2 world wars.
RIGHT?
Iām also investing in other things for new lumps but decided to keep my VRGO going.
As a family we have almost 200k of money investing (how? Why?) and now I feel like weāre approaching needing to research ethical investing. 16-35 year old me would be so ashamed of my haphazard get rich maybe investing
