Financial Stability & Money (part 2)

There are just a couple of points that I didn't cover in the initial post that I thought I would clarify.

I failed to mention that our "emergency fund" is NOT kept in a bank. I don't trust any bank's solvency. In fact on payday, I take what is left from my previous pay (yes, sometimes I actually have money left over) and pull it out and put it in the "fund".

With the “fund”, we also work on increasing our "hard commodities", which are items that we know there is a market for.

While we are at it, I will also bring up precious metals. What we have we keep. What we find (in change etc.) we keep.
On our “team” we have differing opinions on precious metal and junk silver. DH & I, have strongly differing opinions. We have spent a lot of time discussing the issue. We worked out a compromise that works for us. He is more in favor of precious metals. I am old fashioned. He is my husband and he is the main bread winner and I trust him. Together, we established guidelines to follow. He is a good man and respected my opinion in these guidelines.
I am more in favor of increasing our “hard commodities”. While we still always discuss large purchases, we use a carte blanche approach to adding certain commodities.

Over the years, DH & I have had different opinions about the paying down the mortgage, I think he is finally starting to understand what I have been talking about and is now willing to apply more money to paying off the mortgage.

I also failed to mention, I do have one credit card. I use it for specific online purchases. As soon as I place on order, I immediately do to my bank online and pay that amount off. There is never a balance on the card.
Lastly, Peter Bendal Kear  had some excellent suggestions I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to read his thoughts.

"A couple things I would like to add. A bank is not a good place to store all of it keep an emergency fund on hand. Along these lines realize that paper and even hard currency will lose it's monetary value when the system crashes. One words about debt and bills which comes in 2 types IMO. Things like electricity, phone, food, etc. which are either the same or variable monthly charges can be budgeted for but hey if you don't pay and something is shut off be able to do without are not something to worry much about. Budget for them and well if you can't afford them or the system goes down be ready to do without. Other things like mortgages, car loans, credit cards, etc have a set monthly payment on a debt you owe. All of these things can be paid with 10% added to the payment (less or more is okay I make 20% on our vehicle) in order to pay them off and get out of debt quicker. This also has the advantage in some cases depending on your financial institution of being ahead in payments so that if you say had to stop paying for a time you would be covered. Now keep in mind secured loans are ones that they will take the collateral (home, vehicle) so in my mind part of prepping is making sure that does not happen thus the extra payments. Thing is if the system crashes who is to say I owe this and force payment as well so I guess I could put that same 10% into a savings but then what do I know my house is paid for and I am about a year ahead on my only vehicle loan."

If you missed the first part of the discussion click here -> Financial Stability & Money

Thank you all for your contribution!