What would you do if you got zeroed out tomorrow?

[AxelHeyst]

We all started our FI/ERE journey at some point with some set of perspectives, skills, knowledge, experience, and assets. We went through a journey and now, here we are, subtly or significantly different that the versions of ourselves that began the journey.

What if while you were out at the library tomorrow a rock fell on your house/shelter system, your transportation equipment was gone, all of your bank accounts were zeroed, any and all of your hidden stashes were plundered. If you have a job, the company you work for lays off all employees and goes bankrupt. If you run your own business it gets sinisterly closed out and all assets sold off. If you owned land you no longer own it. No insurance payouts. The object of the question isn't to cleverly get back what you had: it's gone. All you've got is a set of this-season-appropriate clothes, $500 in your sock, your phone and whatever your normal going-to-the-library EDC is. If you've got a family, same same for them, each member has $500 in their sock, lets say.

You've still got your important documents like birth certificate passport etc. Your credit rating is whatever it is now. You have bank accounts and credit cards, they're just empty.

To me the part that is interesting isn't the 'how am I going to get through the week/month' but rather 'knowing what I know now, everything that I learned in my ERE journey, what's my strategy?'

I thought this might be an interesting exercise to think through what parts of my current strategy I'm pursuing just because I thought it was a good idea one, two, five years ago, when I had a different set of skills and experiences. A significant chunk of my assets (broadly speaking) were generated doing things I'd very much not like to do again. What would I do to get those assets back... or do I even need those assets? I'll work up my answer in a separate post, just thought I'd get the question out there.

[7Wannabe5]

Too easy. You need to throw in a couple helpless dependents, some debt, a stalker ex-boyfriend, and some form of disability or disease to make it a challenge.

[AxelHeyst]

Not the point, but go ahead if you like. For myself I'm not (for this exercise) interested in 'how would I respond to X Y or Z calamity' but rather 'how differently would I run ERE on myself if I had to start over now?'

[7Wannabe5]

Gotcha. It would probably be something analogous to realizing that the planet is already one big permaculture project.

[Ego]

I used to cycle on a rural road down by the border and would frequently see people who crossed illegally as they hurried northbound through the canyons, carrying little more than water and a change of clothing, trying to avoid the Border Patrol. Often on those long rides I would play out in my mind what I would do if I were in their shoes.

When I began researching my immigrant ancestors, I imagined myself in their shoes. Fresh off the boat. Unable to speak the language. No job. The one thing they had was the address of a cousin or friend who they listed as the person who would provide them a place to stay.

So I guess the first thing I would do is think about friends or family I could count on. I have a half-dozen friends who have offered to put us up for as long as necessary when we do our transitions to or from the US. So far we haven't had to take them up on the offer as we always planned it so that we moved right into the next apartment management gig. But I guess in your scenario that is gone so I would hit up a friend.

At the swap meet I carry a lot of money and frequently loan people some cash if they want to buy something expensive but forgot to stop at an ATM. I can think of at least ten people I could count on to help me with a little cash to get started.

I have a friend who buys, fixes and re-sells used cars as a hobby. When I spoke with him two weeks ago he had thirteen vehicles for sale. He has a big property and understands the scrounger mentality so I would ask him to sell me a van and to let us live on his property in the van. He would be excited by the prospect of watching us rebuild from zero. He would trust us for repayment. The $500 would pay for taxes, title, insurance and gas.

I would then start earning by doing this. https://www.youtube.com/@EstiloDeVidaElDeLaTacoma

The first hours at the swap meet I would buy and then set up my booth to resell the stuff later in the day that I bought cheap in the morning. Slowly but surely I would pay off the van and rent a storage unit as my inventory grew. I would open an ebay store and begin selling the more valuable items there or on craigslist. I would apply for property management gigs if I did not burn bridges in the industry. Eventually we would be back to where we are right now, without the nest egg. That would slowly grow over the years as we are incapable of operating in the negative for too long.

The biggest change would be for Mrs. Ego. She could no longer be a kept woman (except for the two yoga classes a week she teaches). She would have to do something that generates income until we had the nest egg rebuilt.

[mathiverse]

With no stuff and no stash, I'd start the process off by moving in with a sibling with my SO who I could probably finally convince to do so given we would be in a financial emergency. Then I'd do my best to take advantage of the additional motivation towards cost cutting and increasing my efficiency in order to reduce how much I'll need in my stash this time around.

I'd also immediately get a part time job doing anything while I focus on getting another software job that is suitable.

My plan would be to find a sustainable software gig that (1) keeps me near my family this time (WFH or in office nearby) and that (2) I have a high probability of routinizing within twelve months such that I can be a top performer amongst my peers with only 1 - 2 hours of hard work and 1 - 3 hours of easy work per day so that I am left with time and energy for Renaissance activities. This is in contrast to my job choices when I was first starting out which were all geared towards making as much as possible as quickly as possible. I'm not confident of my ability to approach such a job in a more chill manner, so I'd rather not try that path again since I know where it leads and I didn't really like it. Even with a lower income, given a lower cost of living, I figure I'd be FI again in 2 - 6 years.

Since I've had about two years not working (with a four month work interlude last year), I realized transitions to new money-making things take a long time if I've been one tracking it for a long time. Right now, I'm taking a long time to transition to the next thing, but I can only stand that uncertainty because I have a big stash as a back up. If I were at zero right now, I'd be solving the lack of a stash problem with my tried and true career skills before doing anything new or uncertain.

Edit to add: If somehow this happened after I was already spending a JAFI or lower, then I'd consider more options. If I spent $5k or less before this happened and I knew how to do it again in new situations, then I'd probably get to FI via grad school with a stipend or maybe part timing on something interesting, etc.

[AxelHeyst]

First Week
I'd wait till the evening (it's warm here now) and then walk to my bff's house in town. I'd take a week to think and plan and schedule a chat with him to check in on my plans, so there isn't weird unspoken assumptions going on. During that week I'd cook meals (for the family of four), do the dishes, mow the lawn, etc etc per some of my How to Moochdock guidelines.

First Three Months
One way or another, an immediate goal would be to establish a year's COL cash buffer. It'd take two months of minimum wage work to get $5k or so. Let's say three months because I also would seek to acquire a decent bike, sleep system, some simple outdoor gear. Which makes me less dependent on crashing with friends.

So I'd find work as quickly as possible either in town here and lentil baby at my bff's place, or in one of the several other locations where I have friends I could crash with. Bonus points for finding a job that generates new skills and experiences, but whatevs.

The First Year
With a bit of breathing space carved out and a wider menu of options open to me (because of the $5k), my next focus is figuring out the shape I want the rest of my life to look. I know I want some kind of permanent place, somewhere, because I know I love building and making stuff and because I know I really value my own space. But I also know I can nomad for an extended period of time.

I'd consider finding a job doing BIM work in a HCOL area where I could hack a really low housing cost, and doing that for a year or two to get a chunk of cash I could put towards land/a fixer upper house somewhere.

But first I'd probably focus on finding the place I want to commit to. With Ft. Dirtbag a crater I'm not sure I'd stay in this general area. My bff is the biggest reason I'd stay, but he might move out of state and if he did I def wouldn't want to be here.

So with that in mind, I'd generate a list of places I want to look into setting as my new home base and look for workaways, parttime work, housesits, etc. I know if I workaway that drops my CoL to $100/mo and if the place is good I can meet interesting people and possibly generate opportunities.

I'd give myself a year to find a general location and make a call.

The Next Few Years
Having found the location, I'd want to get land or a place as quickly as possible. What the land costs and alternative opportunities are like would dictate my next move. This might be the appropriate time to spend doing a year or two of BIM full time work to build up a stash to buy the land/place and materials. Alternatively I'd find chiller, parttime work locally to continually fund the project of getting permanent shelter.

I'd seriously look into buying a wreck of a house that needs to be mostly demolished and more or less rebuilt. A door-frame reno (where you demo literally everything except for the front door, so it's a reno permit not a new construction permit) is attractive: I'd have fun on the build and would wind up with a place that is exactly the way I want it. I'd look for a place walking or at least biking distance to downtown, not far out in the boonies like Ft. Dirtbag.

Then I'm more or less back to where I am now.

[ertyu]

seems like most people's answers come down to, "i'd leverage my social networks until i get back on my feet and take it from there"

[loutfard]

We're both out of a job, with no home and 1000€ in cash across the two of us. Hard to imagine, since I'm tenured and my wife works at a rather stable employer that has been in business continuously since the early 15th century. I assume the homes we own just disappear into thin air, together with the loans on them and the land underneath. Same with my retirement money. In the real world, this would pretty much mean the country is bankrupt and not functioning anymore, but I get that's not the goal of this thought experiment. It's just our assets that have magically disappeared. Let me try.

My wife and I agree this is an emergency. We do not spend any cash at all unless absolutely necessary.

We fall back on social capital a lot. We take the train to my parents.

My parents offer us the top floor of their large home. They insist on us not contributing a single cent for food and shelter. Furniture, clothing, laptops and two Brompton folding bicycles suddenly appear from friends and family. We have quite a few friends visit. My parents insist on giving us 5000€.

I file the paperwork for collecting our unemployment benefits. Healthcare is universal and mostly free, so that's covered too.

While brushing up our resumes and looking for jobs, we do some maintenance and minor improvements around my parents' home and garden. I immediately start working short term evenings and Saturdays in my sector of experience. I go to work by folding bicycle and train. My wife does the same, except during the day.

A week in, a friend asks me to come work at his employer in the tech sector. I might not have the perfect credentials, but he trusts me and my learning abilities. It takes a bit longer for my wife, but she signs a contract to start a new job by the end of the month, starting two weeks later. We get to work by folding bicycle and train.

A few months in, we realise we actually like where we are living. Further away from the city center where we used to live, but things do work out here. We'd like to make this situation a bit more permanent and discuss more long term living arrangements with my parents. We agree to make some old age accessibility improvements to their house. We also make some small privacy improvements for both my parents and us, and some improvements to what's become our apartment. All diy.

Six months in, we've grown into our new jobs. I set up a small side business.

It's the end of the year. Financially, we end the year with 50k€: 5k€ in our joint bank account and the rest invested. Professionally, we've grown into new jobs. Relationally, we've grown closer to my parents. Some of our friends and acquaintances have faded a bit because of the physical distance. That's life.

[DutchGirl]

First, I would have a really good cry and perhaps a panic attack.

I have learned a lot during my "first" ERE journey that I could indeed use again, now. For me the most important things I learned are:
1. That it is even possible for normal people like me to reach FI status. (Mind-blowing at the time! Before I assumed you'd have to win the lottery or marry rich, also I assumed that you had to be a millionaire to be able to quit working)
2. That forums exists online where I can meet people who are interested in this. A valuable resource of information, and a place to share your struggles and progress. Also: blogs - for their information and for their free entertainment value
3. That I personally can be very happy with relatively little.
4. ...But also that I personally can easily spend too much/more than is necessary. In my case it helps to budget, to track my expenses, to track my progress (debt repayment / net worth) and to know in which areas of life I tend to overspend. To generalize this: be aware of your personal pitfalls and know that there are many many tricks and tools to improve your financial behaviour, some (not all) will work for you, so you should experiment and then keep using the tools that work.
5. That you can research cheaper options for your cell phone plan, insurance, utilities etc.
6. That specific pension plans exist in my country that give tax benefits, I should use them as soon as I have some excess money.
7. That after building an emergency fund and after funding those pension plans I should start investing in low-fee index funds/ETFs with low-fee brokerages. I'll make a very simple investment plan of what excess money will go where.

I also now know much more about which safety nets exist in my country, how to do the paperwork, and also how food banks and secondhand stores work etc. Oh, and I also am a much better cook now than when I was 18

So in short, the first phase would be stabilizing/making sure I have a roof over my head, food on the table, and a job. Second phase would be the real rebuilding which would first mean paying off any debts incurred in phase 1, then building up an emergency fund, then starting my retirement accounts and finally starting to invest in a taxable account. During all of this time I would use my knowledge of cooking, safety nets, budgeting etc to keep costs low and I would track my progress in a very entertaining journal on this forum.

[Quadalupe]

Related: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/07 ... -up-broke/

[Quadalupe]

A very interesting question @AH! I'll write my own plan later, but first some abstract thoughts/observations.

This thought exercise can be done for two reasons:

1. To stress test the tensegrity/tensile strength of your Web of Goals (WoG). How robust is your lifestyle design? How many hits can your WoG take before it collapses?
2. To stress test your own skills matrix. When you are on your own, without a support network, will you manage to get back up again?

In both cases, you can chose to either start with nothing and add assumptions until you succeed (whatever succeeding is in this case), or remove state variables from your current state until you'd fail. The first is akin to forward feature selection in statistics, the second to backward feature elimination. See https://quantifyinghealth.com/stepwise-selection/

In your example, you've chosen a form of backward feature elimination. You have eliminated financial assets, housing and income generation. You have not eliminated health, skills, employability and social capital. So most responses (as ertyu noted) will leverage those features.

It might be interesting to also play with these variables. What if all your friends and family are gone and whatever you did in your old job doesn't get you a job anymore (see Figure 2.2 on page 28 of the ERE book)?

Would it be possible to also define some kind of metric of how resilient your WoG/you are (akin to the Income Robustness (IR)/IR2 score?). Maybe the amount of 'hits' you can take? Also, for measuring successful adaption, you could look at Maslows Pyramid, or at the concepts mentioned in chapter 6 of the ERE Book (Things, Shelter, Clothes, Health, Transportation, Services, People).

[Seppia]

Fantastic thread with already a lot of great answers.
Topic like these are the reason why I hope Jacob never gives up on the forum: for all the occasional drama, there is always one or two threads per year that make this place so unique.

This scenario is a bit too easy for me as I come from a family of frugal people with a couple extra small apartments that we could use and enough money to help us during the transition, so I will think about what we would do if also both our extended families (parents and siblings of both my DW and I) suffered the same fate

[J_]

I often thought about being zeroed out onetime.
So I have a set of cloth for the season, next is food and potable water (there are plenty empty plastic bottles for free and a tap in the library). Wild plants to eat for vegetables those are edible raw). Next is beans/lentils, I would buy cannned firs, until I have a possibility to heat/cook. But for the most I would use my $$$ as an emergency fund.
For shelter I look for (abandoned) little boats which are all around here (some half sunken by rainwater). And making them float, habitable and movable with a sail or oars.
And then explore bartering labour for food/things or money. Use my practical skills (I am a handy man, wide diversified).
And visit/discuss with (new) friends about future.

[7Wannabe5]

Since approximately 7 degrees of separation on average will take you across the entire social network (and associated remaining personal $$ stashes), you can only rationally imagine such a “crash” out a couple degrees of separation into your own personal circle without having to describe the situation as a general collapse.

This is kind of what I mean by recognizing that the planet is one big permaculture project. The general economy just rides on top of that.

[Scott 2]

+1 @quadalupe

The extent to which the family constraint reaches is what makes this hard. Senior parents, less able siblings, dependents, etc.

Tech job is over powered. Given the circumstances, I'd pool familial resources and suck it up until everyone is on financially stable footing. Momentum and a newly enhanced fear of financial insecurity would keep me there.

The transition would see me using consumer debt, government programs and charity. Dense housing near a food pantry. Thrift / used housewares. Medicaid. SNAP. Internet / phone subsidy. I'd save all my energy for opening that tech money spigot. Social capital is going towards the same, not getting burned on a bed or food.

If tech is gone, I'm in for a bad time. Realistically, it's a scramble for the best paying office job I can get, coupled with retooling for marketable skills. This is not hustle time. I want to clear thousands per week, ASAP.

[Henry]

I live in the US so I'll just cash my government bailout check.

[IlliniDave]

I wasn't far from there in the aftermath of my divorce, so much would be a repeat. I'd have to work longer than the 13 additional years I did both because I'd likely have a substantially lesser paying job, and all my accrued retirement (savings and benes). Assuming SS vanishes as well I'd have to work until I croak, and if I couldn't work that long then I'd have to get on public aid until I did. I'm old enough such a black swan would be too much to recover from.

[7Wannabe5]

This is also why some of the children I teach will stay stuck in social islands of poverty and illiteracy.

Lately, as I simultaneously teach the underprivileged children very basic skills while studying fairly advanced topics myself, I’ve been thinking more about transmissions of capital that can last for multiple generations without a battalion of lawyers.

[OutOfTheBlue]

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