I only have one memory of my grandfather.
He was a poor Kansas farmer.
While I was born in a hospital just three miles down the dirt road from his house and spent the first two weeks of my life in a homemade bassinet in his kitchen, I didn’t meet him until I was seven.
It was a hot August night – just before sunset. We were sitting on Grandpa’s front porch. He was teaching me how to play gin rummy. And I kept getting distracted by the lightning bugs flickering off and on in the bushes just in front of the house.
“What do you want to do when you grow up?” Grandpa asked me.
“I want to be rich,” I said. “I want to have a big car and a big house, and a pool and a horse and…”
I forget the rest… It was a big list. But I remember my grandfather just sitting there patiently, listening to me as I rattled off all the things a seven-year-old could ever possibly want or desire for the rest of his life.
Grandpa smiled. “Those are all good things,” he said, “and I’ll bet you’ll have everything. But…”
Then he went on to tell me stories about what it was like trying to raise a family during the depths of the Great Depression (my father was the youngest of seven children).
I don’t remember the details of the stories very well. But I do remember the intensity on Grandpa’s face as he talked about the tough times he and Grandma went through.
“No matter how much money you have,” Grandpa said, “you can’t feed your family if there’s no food to buy.”
“Go ahead and get rich,” he continued. “But before you do that, learn how to grow a tomato.”
His advice hit home the other day as I noticed all the empty shelves at the local grocery store. That’s not something my generation has ever experienced – at least, not to a large degree.
We trade our stocks, flip our houses, post content all over the internet, and do any number of things to earn that weekly paycheck and increase the cash in our savings accounts.
We’ve always trusted that somehow, someway, all of the things we need to survive will be available when we need them – and we can just exchange some of our cash to meet our needs.
But that may not be true anymore.
Many folks’ savings accounts are smaller than they were before, thanks to a number of factors…
Prices are up on everything from gas to groceries. Because of global events, supply chains are still suffering from shortages.
Stocks are officially in a bear market. Inflation is causing the value of your dollars to go down.
Maybe this is a temporary hiccup. Maybe everything will be back to normal in a few months.
But maybe that’s what folks thought in 1929, too. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
However, I remember my grandfather’s face as he told me his stories. I remember how he went from being playful and light-hearted to being intensely serious. And his message lives deeply engraved in my brain.
My grandfather died penniless. But his family never went hungry.
My father kept a small garden in the backyard of the house where I grew up. Mom would complain that he spent so much time in the garden when he could just buy all the vegetables he needed at the local store.
Dad would ignore her politely. And he’d wink at me as I took the hoe and tilled the soil where we’d plant his garden every spring.
My dad had a good job. He worked hard. He could easily afford to buy whatever food we needed at the grocery store.
But he insisted on planting his garden every spring. He certainly could have spent his afternoons, evenings, and weekends relaxing inside the house, on the couch, or in front of the television. But he took far more enjoyment in hanging out in his garden.
He took a lot of pride in knowing he could grow a tomato if he had to do so.
While I could show you how to grow a tomato, I have something more relevant to the current market conditions…
It’s a simple but highly lucrative strategy that I call “penny options.” And it could help you make up some (or even all) of your losses.
These options are much cheaper than regular options, costing just a fraction of the price. Yet, the potential gains can be explosive.
For example, gains like 815% in 13 days… 900% in 31 days… even 941% in just 11 days.
If you want to learn how to trade these penny options, I’m hosting a special presentation on July 13 at 8 p.m. ET.
I want to share what I’ve learned during my 40-year career to help you take care of your family. It’s entirely free, and you can sign up right here.
Best regards and good trading,
|
Jeff Clark
Editor, Market Minute