Your Survival Guy

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I Meant to Tell You My Recent “Survival Guy” Story

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You know from here, here, here, and here that bad stuff happens. More times than I care to admit, I’m involved. Dear reader, is there anything more enjoyable? I get it. But once the feeling of “thankful it wasn’t me” passes, it gets darn serious. “What,” you may ask yourself, “if that happens to me?”

The other weekend Your Survival Guy arrived at his cabin in New Hampshire with no heat. Hours earlier, glancing at my phone to check the indoor temp I turned up on the app (life’s a little too easy at times), I realized it hadn’t budged and was falling. Sure enough, the furnace was out.

Good luck finding help on a Friday night. Imagine Your Survival Guy bringing in loads of wood I had put away for the season the prior weekend and climbing back up into the cabin to light a fire. Outside was warmer than indoors. I thought about sleeping on the deck. The dog had run away. And everyone’s wondering why I’m so upset. That’s no way to start a weekend.

Be Intelligent: Join Dick Young & Get My Friday Email

Anyway, I got this email below from a long-time client. He’s the guy who can build a garage over the weekend. So can his two brothers and brother-in-law, all clients. Talk about feeling helpless. He writes:

When we talked earlier this week, I meant to tell you my recent “Survival Guy” story.

Two weeks ago, on Saturday night, after we watched UConn win its Final Four game (at about 11:30PM), we prepared for bed and discovered that we had no water. My guess was that our well pump died, but it was too late to do any troubleshooting.

Fortunately, I had 8 gallons of water stored in a rolling container, so I was able to fill a couple of buckets to allow toilet flushing and at least get us through the night and into the morning in civilized fashion. Our bottled water inventory provided what little potable water we needed.

Last summer, I bought a spare well pump and stored it on a shelf in the basement as a safeguard against any untimely failure of our in-service pump. Saturday night near midnight definitely qualifies as “untimely!”

That $700 expense proved to be most fortuitous.

Early Sunday morning, I contacted my brother and brother-in-law (you know both of them) and asked for their help to replace the well pump. They arrived at mid-morning, whereupon we pulled the pump out of the well and did the necessary electrical and plumbing work to disconnect the old pump and replace it with the new pump. We were back up and running by noon.

Several levels of forethought and preparedness, along with a bit of skill, saved the day.

Take care

Action Line: Being prepared is a mindset. And yes, it helps to have the skills to boot. Stuff happens. You don’t have to solve all of life’s problems alone. I’m here to help…with some of them.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.
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