Welcome to a new week here on the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. I’m your host Ashley Micciche, co-owner of True North Retirement Advisors, an independent financial advisory practice managing $340 million in client assets. I’m a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor, and I started this podcast because I love helping people just like you gain clarity and make a plan for the retirement you envision. 

The theme this week on the podcast is: Prepping For Emergencies in 2022

[diaper panic of 2020 story]

Even though the existential crisis of the early days of Covid is long gone, and we’re all still here, the world, as always, is a very uncertain place. We have the uncertainty of the war in Ukraine and the unpredictableness of Putin, continued supply chain issues, the highest inflation we’ve seen since I’ve been alive, and with Biden even saying recently of food shortages: “It’s going to be real”. 

After my diaper panic of early 2020, followed by the civil unrest in my own city of Portland, OR, and now the war in Ukraine, my eyes have been opened to the vulnerabilities of the life of ease and comfort and the things we all take for granted every day - food, clean, running water, personal safety and security, and a reliable power grid that provides electricity & heat. 

Why am I focusing on this topic and what does it have to do with retirement exactly? Well, a lot I think…what good is it to have a plan for retirement and cash in the bank, if you don’t have enough food, water, Plus, prepping costs money and it’s easy to go out panic buying and waste a lot of money on items you may not really need or that aren’t really a priority. 

I find that prepping is much like politics and religion in that’s it’s a divisive issue. Half of you right now are nodding in agreement because you have your bug out bag ready to go. The other half of you are about to shut me off and accuse me of being an end-of-days zombie apocalypse prepper. 

The main problem when our human nature collides with an emergency is that we are generally pretty terrible at preparing for things. But the good news is that you’re probably better than most at preparing and thinking ahead, since this podcast is about preparing for your future retirement and you care enough about that to listen to me and this podcast. 

If you’re going to plan for the future and set aside resources for your retirement, I am a strong believer that those resources should include the real and practical items you might need if things don’t go according to plan. 

So this week, I’ll talk about how to prioritize your prepping and spending money on the things that will have the biggest impact on helping you and your family prepare for everything from a weather-related emergency like an earthquake or a tornado, to a prolonged grid-down scenario. 

You can go crazy and waste a lot of money with your preps, so I’ll help you determine where to allocate your time and resources in building up a reasonable stock of emergency supplies for you and your family. 

I hope what I have to share with you this week will help you make smart and thoughtful decisions with your retirement, and your family’s safety. And while I am careful to not lead you astray, personal finance is not an exact science. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for everyone, so I encourage you to disregard anything I say that may not be helpful for you, and to consult your own financial, tax, and legal advisors regarding your own individual situation. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche...and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast.

----------

>>> Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2DI2LSP

>>> Subscribe on Amazon Alexa: https://amzn.to/2xRKrCs

>>> Visit the podcast page: https://truenorthra.com/podcast/ 

----------

Tags: retirement, investing, money, finance, financial planning, retirement planning, saving money, personal finance