Day 32 - Finances

I have been thinking about finances today.

To see how wealthy I really am, I take my total wealth, and divide by the number of years I have to spend it.  If I have a million bucks, and think I will die in 20 years, then I can spend 50,000 a year. If I think I will die in 2 years, then I can spend 500,000 a year. Cancer makes me feel rich.

But cancer also, makes much of my wealth unavailable. I have property in the US. To sell that property would require a long period of time. So that property wealth does me no good in the short term.  Much of my wealth, has no value because I will not be able to convert it into something like a Ferrari.

My largest single asset is my house in Pretoria. That asset was going to be the last thing I would convert into cash. Probably when I am old, and needed frail care, or an assisted living retirement home. If I live another 20 years, then I want to keep the house as my last reserve. If I am going to live another 2 years, it is probably not worth my time selling it, before I die. With cancer, long term assets have less value, than short term assets.

So if my time left is short term, I am not as wealthy as I had hoped. Some of my assets are easy and quick to convert to cash. I also have the advantage of not caring about the tax man. What is the worst the tax man can do in 2 years? If the tax man has something worse than giving me cancer, then, I would be worried.

If I have 2 years to live, I would like to have maximum cash now. It is to bad that most of this planning relies on knowing when I will die. If I know that I am going to get hit by a bus this afternoon, then there is no way I can spend, or enjoy, even 1% of my wealth before I die.

I heard today that: "More people die with prostate cancer than from prostate cancer. "
I wonder if that is the same with other cancers. I think some cancers act too fast, to give other types of death a chance. It would be interesting to know what percentage of people die with cancer, versus die from cancer.
Maybe that is where the saying "I am not dying from cancer, I am living with cancer. " comes from.