Chapter 16: The Abby Interlude

We had a conference call with Whittling Wealth Management scheduled up next as the last order of business for the day, this was to cover current project statuses, proposals and new requests on my part. Sonya and I each dialed in, and after thirty minutes of catch-up conversations we all got down to business. David chaired the meeting and ran his team through their paces.

The Real Estate manager led off the show and told me that 70 percent of the bids we’d put in had been accepted and that I was being sent the overall information with comments and recommendations on all parcels to make final decisions. If I closed them all I’d have almost fifty thousand acres of land with multiple homesteads. The numbers were well below our budgeted amounts. Mind you that most of that land was only useful for grazing, hunting, fishing or collecting snow; but it was exactly what I wanted.

Investment review was up next and I got a quick update from various specialists in moving money around the markets; I had a very conservative approach so that wasn’t an exciting update. The legal update followed, and that was the least exciting of all. Once all of the initial financial moves were complete we’d only have a meeting like this for large changes, otherwise I’d just get a quarterly report emailed to me to keep me up to date; this suited me just fine.

The last order of business was new requests from me and I had a doozy. I told them I wanted to buy precious metals, well the investment guys immediately sounded off on how that was a bad idea right now, blathering about this and that.

I let them go on for a moment before I dropped the bomb, “I want $250k of gold and silver and I want to take delivery immediately.”

The uproar was magnificent and I simply sat back to enjoy the show; the show lasted for a pretty good while. I should have made popcorn. Sonya was simply stared at me.

I regretted not making this a video meeting.

David finally got control of the situation on his end and proceeded to explain to me on every aspect of why they thought this was a bad decision; I let him talk until he was finished.

I reminded him that I had always been a little bit of a “prepper” and waved to Sonya to speak up. Sonya did join in going on about some of the things I’d ordered. I finally cut her off.

I made it clear that I just wanted a small fraction of my wealth on hand and safe from hackers and the like; I also explained that I knew how to hide what really amounted to a medium sized bag of coins.

David sighed and resigned to the fact, I was the client, it was my money and I would get my way.

Surprisingly one of the investment team jumped in and pointed out that those coins were a rip-off and I should avoid them. Damn, somebody was paying attention back there.

She opined that she could get me 1 oz. gold and silver nuggets at just over current rates saving me almost 20% over the coins. Give that lady a raise I thought.

My next question was forthright, “When and where can I have them?”

“I’ll email you the information tomorrow when I close the trades and I’ll arrange delivery with Sonya.”

Dang, give that one a raise and a bonus.

We then said our pleasantries and closed the meeting. I had my emergency cash on the way and was feeling a lot better. Sonya however demanded full disclosure, I assured her it was nothing strange and would cover all the details with her in the morning.

Sonya wasn’t backing down so I finally just looked at her and snapped, “Sonya, I’m going to get cleaned up and go out on the town. I need to get away for an evening and have some fun – this has been non-stop for the past few weeks!”

She sat back in her chair taken fully aback by my outburst.

I continued on, “You have family that you really need to talk to and you have a vehicle to go out if you want to do that; you are now officially OFF DUTY!”

With that I turned and went to my tent to grab my on-the-town clothing and get ready to go. It was time to paint this town red.