ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Why a grandmother from Wisconsin is going to the global market every week —and why you might want to come along.

I am not a financial professional. I am not an economist, a trader, or an analyst. I am a 75-year-old retired granny living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and like a lot of people my age, my husband and I have a modest nest egg we cannot afford to lose.

A few years ago, when we all endured the pandemic, I realized that every time I tried to understand what was actually happening in the global economy, I came away more frightened than informed. If you don’t believe me, just ask my broker. He’s on my speed dial. 

So I did what I’ve always done when something confuses me. I went online and tried to learn about it myself.

I built a simple dashboard of fourteen economic indicators, each one chosen because it measures something real: the price of oil, the cost of shipping, the fear level in financial markets, the health of credit. For each one I established thresholds and gave it a status of Normal. Watch. Stress. Crisis. Not to predict the future, but to know, each week, where we actually float on this ocean of ever changing waves. Not where the headlines say we are. Where we actually float and how bumpy is the ride.

And there’s another thing I watch too, that I’ll talk about less , only when it really matters. It’s the deep water far beneath the surface, miles below my fourteen indicators. It’s been growing there for decades, 29 years, actually. The U.S. debt is a problem too large and too old to dodge much longer. No amount of metric tracking will protect us from that storm. The best we can do is see it clearly so we can live well inside it until the sun shines again.

I made this for myself first. Then I thought perhaps you needed it too. I offer it freely, because that is what neighbors do when times are hard and the news is loud and nobody can quite make sense of it alone.

To build it I collaborated with two AI partners, Lumen, from Anthropic, and Aurion, from OpenAI. They helped me find the right indicators, establish the thresholds, and translate the data into plain English each week. I write the narration. They run the numbers. It is a genuinely new kind of collaboration, and I find it remarkable.

Every week I go to the market, the big, complicated, global one, and I count what’s still standing. I write it down. I bring it home to you.

One important thing: this is not investment advice. I am not qualified to give it and I wouldn’t presume to try. This is one diligent person’s attempt to read the room, in plain English, for anyone else who is tired of being frightened by things they don’t fully understand. Make your own decisions. Talk to a real financial advisor about your specific situation.

So, if you just want to know whether the foundation is holding — I’ll be here every week. — Mary, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

lifeat240.com  •  Granny Goes to Market • Mary May