Balancing Prepping with Modern Day Investing?

Original post by Blstr88 on American Preppers Network

This is probably my biggest issue right now. I’m 26 years old making a good living at the moment, but I am constantly torn with spending my money on prepping or investing the money in modern day investments.

For example, I’m ready to buy a second property at the moment. Financially and mentally I am ready and have been looking. Part of me wants to buy a small cabin 3 hours or so north of me in the mountains as both a weekend vacation home and a “retreat” in case of any SHTF scenarios.

However, the other part of me really wants to buy a 2-4 unit building here in town and rent out the units. Ultimately I’d like to own enough rental properties to have enough income to sustain myself. Then I figure I can get a smaller job locally and not really need to rely on my job to live, mostly living off the rental incomes.

Unfortunately, the rental property idea isnt something that happens overnight. It’s something I’ll need to invest time/money in for the next 5-10 years. But if the SHTF actually happens, rental properties and rental income will become useless and I’ll wish I bought the retreat. However if I live the rest of my life, and no serious societal breakdown happens, I’ll wish I invested the money into rental properties…

It happens on day to day things too, do I put more into my 401k or use that money for food/clothing/ammo? If the world collapses, a 401k will be useless, however if 30 years goes by and everything is still ticking, I’ll wish I had been investing into that for the past 30 years to have a retirement…

Anybody else have conflicts like that? And how do you balance it?

I had only a few minutes but made this reply:

Plan and prepare for you and your family first. Know without doubt in your heart and mind that if tomorrow should fail for ANY reason that you have the means to support yourself and family without worry. A smart investor or gambler will lay there money down on a sure deal only after knowing that not all deals are sure. They are prepared for a loss and a loss will not disrupt there life or there next play. They will go home and have a nice dinner and enjoy there family because they are prepared.

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