I just happened to be in Honest Freddie Fontenot's Ford dealership, (sampling the free coffee and crawfish jabalaya), down here at Geezerville-On-The-Bayou, and dang if I didn't get caught and had to buy a new bubba truck. Actually, I been needin' one for about a year, now, but what with y2k on the horizon, I had determined not to make any big changes affecting the can where I got my money buried.

You see, Honest Fred explained to me that I could buy one with NO money down (crazy aint it?) So, even though I have been living an essentially debt-free lifestyle for about 15 years, I went ahead and signed my kids away, and got the thing.

My reasoning being that I could keep my reserve of cash (almost $247.00 now) which may be important in about a few months, and still get a new, smellin' good, truck now, and a dandy chicken house for later.

So's my question is; are any other fools out there making major decisions based on y2k scenarios? Any new mortgages going to gold? Any retirement plans going to farmland and seeds? Any major, "past-the-point-of-no-return", decisions? No need to tell fambly secrets, just food for thought.

-- Lon Frank (postit@here.com), February 27, 1999

Answers

We are really between a rock and a hard place. Our 10 year balloon on our mortgage comes due Nov. '99. (What to do...What to do.)

-- Eye on Y2K (bugscaresme@mellinium.com), February 27, 1999.

Eye on..

See if your banker can say "refinance". I know,...but desperate times call for desperate measures.

-- Lon Frank (postit@here.com), February 27, 1999.

Hey, Lon. Sounds like that "free" stuff worked just the way they planned. :-) My husband and my son BOTH just bought new trucks. We were debt free, also, but we needed to replace older vehicles. In our opinion, the chances of new vehicles being produced after 2000 are slim to none. We think they will eventually start making them again, but it may take awhile. Don't forget to stock up on oil, filters, wiper blades, etc.

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), February 27, 1999.

Dear Eye, don't sweat the balloon payment! Make your last payment in Oct. and forget the rest. The usual time required to foreclose on a home is 6 to 9 months. The year 2000 will put the Mortgage company in total chaos. They most likely will forget about you because nobody else has made a house payment either! They cannot foreclose on everybody, so don't sweat it!

-- Freddie the Freeloader (freddie@aol.com), February 27, 1999.