I took the red pill many years ago.  I always had questions rattling around in my mind about this or that, but Building #7 definitely had me questioning many other "events."  Growing up in the United States of (should be for) America, we have been taught that we are free.  I do not for one second think that is the case anymore, however much we are more free than other places around the world, but I still do not believe we are truly free.  Alas, true freedom is the goal towards which I think, dream and labor.  The four elements I am focusing on to create more freedom would be purchasing land, growing food and advancing my crypto and precious metals holdings.

I suppose I should elaborate and, at the same time, not sound like I am crying about our difficult lives when we do have it pretty good here.  I am almost 50 and at this age I question why exactly it is "normal" to give approximately 70% of the best years of my life working, in most cases, for someone else and to also pay a pretty significant tax burden.  Most parents these days both work full-time to support their lifestyle.  Please do not get me wrong I believe work is good, but when I think about working 40 to 80 hours a week for 60 years of my life, well what did I really work for exactly?

The answer is money, but money is more likely the problem.  These days, I try to work to live, not live to work.  We are not poor and we are definitely not rich.  We live a pretty comfortable life.  The bottom line as I see it is this, money spends many people and I want not to be a slave to money for the rest of my life.  Robert Kiyosaki explains that being an entrepreneur is the way go, do not be an employee or self employed as those tax designations pay the most.  At this point, moving towards being more free would include being paid in crypto for the work that I do.  I am certainly trying to make that happen and this community has been extremely helpful with so much great information.

Precious metals is also a big part of my strategy to be more free.  As far as I can tell, most people fall into either the crypto camp or the precious metals camp, not usually both.  There are reasons I see to be entrenched in both crypto and precious metals.  Investing in precious metals is a hedge against inflation, which is getting pretty bad right now.  The main reason I am investing in crypto is because it is definitely the future of finance and I want to be ahead of the curve.  Everyday, more and more fiat money is moving to crypto, but overall the mass migration from fiat to digital has not happened, but I think that it definitely will.  We crypto freaks will be positioned ahead of that curve and be very happy and possibly rich, because of it.  Big picture, the over-arching reason to invest in both would be diversification and with US fiat on the ropes, ripe for a knockout punch, trading fiat for crypto and precious metals makes good sense and good cents.

Precious metals and numismatics have become an obsession, like crypto, for me.  Precious metals are real money as I see it, in fact the oldest money on the planet.  I really like silver in any form whether it is constitutional silver or bars or rounds to stack.  I do like all silver coins but I have always liked the fifty cent pieces like the Ben Franklin and JFK halves.  Certainly, the silver dollars like the Peace, Morgan, and Eisenhower's are great as well and the most popular gold and silver American Eagles are beautiful.  I try to spark an interest with numismatics in my daughters but to no avail.  Someday, the accumulation of silver tooth fairy gains will win them over to the numismatics side and I will continue to push for them to learn about crypto as well. 

With the way inflation is hitting us in the US right now, I think one of the most important things we can do is grow as much of our own food possible.  Last year, I starting using the grow system that uses IBC totes to grow veggies and herbs utilizing worms and fish.  I really did not do too bad for my initial year and it is really cool when you see those seeds sprout, but it takes patience to see the process through to the table.  Squirrels raided my crops a bit so this year I will incorporate nets and move my IBC totes away from our deck.  Furthermore, I will be switching to a hydroponic system this year and I will add the proper lighting to grow veggies and maybe flowers in our garage in the winter months.  Our big picture is to get some land, build out a homestead, grow our own food and have animals like chickens and pigs, among other animals.

To tie this all together, buying land to homestead and grow our own food, in addition to increasing our cryptocurrency and precious metals holdings will all contribute to our overall plan for more financial freedom and more overall freedom.  In addition, we plan on teaching our children hands on, at home, about homesteading, precious metals and crypto.  Of course, we will teach our daughters what the state requires them to learn, but there is no doubt in my mind that teaching our daughters how to be more self sufficient and grow wealth with precious metals, land ownership and crypto will be well worth it.  While implementing this roughly five year plan, we can hopefully build out our own reality and gradually increase our freedom along the way.  Plus, I cannot wait to have an atv, motorcycle and maybe even a snowmobile!  May everyone in the whole world get more free in 2022!