I’m (M30) trying to make some long-term financial decisions in a chaotic world and would appreciate input from a personal finance perspective.
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(1)For context, I’m working with an assumption that future economic conditions may be less stable and our civilisation might be in overshoot and come crashing at some point (meaning supply disruptions, higher volatility, geopolitical conflicts, heavy climatic threats -food, water scarcity, climatic refugess,wet bulb ares that exceed humans capacity for adaptation, the destruction of the habitat of our civilization's staple crops (wheat,maize, rice etc. ) – within 15 years ), bassically some sort of civilizational collapse.
I’m not asking whether that worldview is correct or wishing to debate it right now, even I am not 100% sure it will turn out this way, but I'm hoping you can suspend your current worldview for a bit, and see the world thorugh mine and then from that vantage point, the question becomes-what do you think it's sensible to do with your money in the meantine, before my timeline of 15 years, because in this trajectory of our world, ETF and chill seems a bit simplistic, the market going indefinetly up seems wrong, peak-oil-wise, also because of the assumptions of indefinite extraction in a planet with finite resources, energy blindness, externalising costs towards the environment and only measuring GDP and yield, feduciary responsabilities, fiat currencies, Glass-Steagel acts'- you name it, none of it is resilient.
But something can happen before my 15 year estimate, as we've seen with Iran , that can make even this planning within the framework of 15 years redundant, but it's too complicated to try to predict everything. As a side note, I don't think the effects of the already destroyed infrastructure and oil wells that were paused, plus the effect on fertilizer before the 2026 the growing season – are even felt yet, or accounted for, but I digress.
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(2) The money will be used to create a (I)somewhat self-sufficient homestead that's already in the making – which is a money pit (the wishlist is solar panels, heat pump's, root cellar, HVAC, geothermal greenhouses etc.) For example it seems my strategy should be to buy fast- while supply chains aren't yet significantly disrupted and I can still find some Victron inverter for my solar panels, before it's components that are built on 6 continents, with rare metals and the like- aren't totally disrupted by something happinng. So is a loan a good idea then, within this framework, in order to get the infrastructure in place fast if you think about uncertainty and volatility?
And if there's some money left, to use it to have some (II) savings as I don't think my generation will get any pensions at least in my country with it's demographic inversion and lack of 401k; (III) to invest further in my education and training and (IV) also to travel and enjoy life (a sort of hedge against this collapse worldview- in case it doesnt turn out as bad, that it only entails a dwindling of our life quality but not civilisational collapse as it were, then with this hedge I wouldn't have wasted this journey of being alive, only using my time sacrificing – as it were.
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(3) So we finally arrive at the financial planning:
- Income: – currently 4000-5000 RON ~ 800€ ~900$/ monthly (which is subsitence), with some plans to increase income
- Expenses: – Monthly expenses pretty much wipe my income out, the costs of my bussiness wipe out everything that remains, I'm breaking even most months- currently the goal is to change that.
- Assets: land + housing + savings: -Savings are realistically zero I have some money that I'm not taking into consideration ,are in low interest deposits which would be the taxes on income, health insurance, and the like from the revenue from my private practice.
- My family and I have 2 apartments (one which I still cant persuade my mom to rent), the homestead, a small piece of land (where me and my dad wanted to build a house then sell it), and another house in the country -side close to my city , could be a future investment – that i will inherit. Here it becomes apparent I need way more cashflow, as my assets are stagnant and are sitting and getting property taxed , but don't produce much money. A Chevy Cruze… which … don't ever by that car, it's a piece of shit design-wise, I have to fix and sell it; and an older Mercedes as a daily driver.
- Skills: Begginer Psychologist & Psychotherapist with 5 years in the workforce, trying to survive the global living cost crisis, corruption within my country, inflation, the economic effects of Covid, Ukraine, now Iran.
- If I find the surplus cash I want to take an electrician course or think of some other really future-proof job (the threats are AI and automatisation ,on the one hand, if society holds and having useless skills if society doesn't).
-TL;DR & Questions:
1) What would you do with your money in this framework?
2) From a conventional finance perspective, how would you balance:
3) What are the highest-return investments in terms of reducing future expenses rather than maximizing financial returns?
4) How would you structure liquidity (cash vs. assets) if access to credit or markets becomes less reliable?
5*) Are there ways to “hedge” this kind of scenario without sacrificing too much current financial efficiency?*
I need help planning finances under the uncertainty/volatility created by our modern collapsing world
byu/gillbeats inpersonalfinance
Posted by gillbeats
1 Comment
You’re actually thinking about the right risks, just don’t let the macro fear push you into over-hedging everything. Big picture, I’d split it into survival + optionality. Survival is making sure your monthly burn can’t hurt you, so either reduce fixed costs or keep a solid cash buffer. Optionality is where you still participate in growth, because if things don’t collapse you don’t want to lag for a decade.
On income, remote + globally relevant skills is already the best hedge you can have. I’d double down there instead of trying to outsmart macro. On assets, having everything tied to property + low liquidity is risky in a different way. I’d slowly rebalance toward more liquid stuff over time, not in one go. And honestly, full collapse scenarios are impossible to optimize for. If that happens, no portfolio structure really saves you, so better to stay antifragile than defensive everywhere.