So what do we do?
I have a pile o kids, a mortgage with no equity, and 0 “extra” dollars per month. I don’t have any money to buy silver or gold with. I can buy a little extra food or ammo each month, but nothing much to write home about. What can someone who has blindly let themselves get hooked into the corrupt and apparently soon to crash system do to make it through the coming crisis?
First is risk assessment. The adults need to have a focused conversation either without kids present or with well-behaved kids present. You need to decide that it IS important to prepare and what you really should prepare for.
Could you lose your job(s)?
Are you dependent on money from Federal Government, any contractor of theirs, banking, real estate, stock market, construction, retail, transportation or any job that has people from that list as a significant proportion of your clientèle or your clientèle’s clientèle? (There is only one correct answer here. You are dependent on the continuation of the economy).
Could your food supply chain be interrupted? DC-Dopes attack Iran and the oil stops flowing through the straights of Hormuz causing fuel to hit $10 per gallon… earthquake. flood, volcanic eruption, false flag nuclear or biological attack. If you NEED (not want) to go to the the grocery store at all in the next month, you are risking the well being of your entire family.
Sure you are living hand-to-mouth. The FED has trained us by creating inflation that savings is for suckers. The USA has a NEGATIVE savings rate.. That means you aren’t alone in your inflexibility regarding the regular paycheck(s), you are simply normal (in the USA; not Asia, for example). But responsible adults have to THINK about what happens when the “hand” part of hand-to-mouth comes up empty.
Buying large quantities of beans, rice, wheat, powdered milk, canned fruit and vegetables, dried fruit and vegetables, toilet paper, canned meat and such does not cost MORE than shopping weekly or several times a week. Bulk buying is substantially cheaper because you buy from bulk stores and on sale. Shortly after beginning to fill a pantry, you find the cost per meal plummeting.
If you don’t own a wheat mill, buy one NOW. Wheat stores for years, flour has to be fresh and can be used in many, many ways. Wheat mills do not have to be “stones” or really expensive. Less than $200 could buy the most important tool in your pantry.
Speaking of wheat, forget all of the diets that North Americans have developed so they could eat and be merry without gaining too much weight. Plan your pantry to do the opposite. Do not buy empty calories. Look at the labels on those packages you habitually toss in your cart. More than half the store space is dedicated to non-food mascarading as food. Sugar and high-fructose-corn-sweetner do not represent good food, but money thrown away. Do buy those foods that your body likes – those pasta dishes that make your bathroom scale say nasty things to you will be your friends when food starts getting scarce.
Speaking of electricity, some worry that it will stop. I don’t expect the people delivering it to go hide in the woods, but I do expect it to get expensive. Take a good, hard look at your electrical usage. Walk your property with a check list separating the absolute musts from the really important, the important and the optional. Prepare to lose it all, but focus on being able to eliminate all but the musts. By all means, take this walk with the family. Children particularly need to understand that their portable radios are not on the “must” list.
Everyone in the family has to understand, or learn to understand that electronic toys are not necessities. Priorities must shift. Far easier to begin now then it will be when the paycheck abruptly stops.
Start filling coffee cans with every penny and nickel that comes into your possession. Producing pennies is approaching one cent each, while nickel production costs significantly exceed five cents each. They are about to disappear as the metal content holds steady while our paper currency inflates into nothingness. They will be useful in the barter economy coming. Same for pre-1965 US coins (see Northwest Territorial Mint or similar volume precious metal dealers for purchasing information).
Figure out how to do something really useful for others. I don’t mean financial planning, manicures, vacation bookings and stuff nobody will need. Knowing how to remodel some of these oversized homes or hotels or retail outlets into dormitories, kitchenettes or apartments will be useful. Getting another year out of clothing will be useful. Bicycle repair will be useful. Gardening, being able to teach gardening and converting “pretty” landscaping into edible landscape will be useful.
Get ready to do darn-near EVERYTHING for yourself.
Now that triggered an idea for getting the family to work together. Set up a tally-board for things each of you did to prepare for TSHTF… okay, this is a family thing, label it “The TEOTWAWKI Board” and start tacking up little notes as each of you, or together you make progress towards preparedness.
Take a trip to the thrift store. They are amazing treasure troves. Shoppers carry a different attitude than in the big box stores. The kids aren’t all acting out with demands for colorful gizmos – they are used to not getting junk. In fact the whole DISPOSABLE society you associate with in Wally World is simply not in the REUSABLE thrift stores.
DO NOT pay off debt. The Feds are now printing dollars at a rate to double their number annually. They can pretend to not know the effect and the complicit media can go along, but their printing press by itself will cut the value of your savings AND DEBT in half in the next year. Other countries who are storing vast amounts of dollars in their central banks (Japan, China, Germany… and the list is immense) are starting to exchange their dollars for more stable things. Great inflation is guaranteed. Runaway inflation is likely. Owing or owning a million dollars will be chump change when this gets rolling.
In the counter-culture of preparedness, paying off debt is a cornerstone. It is a good thing for sure, but it is not as important as beans-bullets-bullion. On the safe assumption of significant inflation, a good financial investment would be to CHARGE the purchase of food, emergency supplies and silver coins on a low-interest credit card. Make the payments without fail (or the low interest disappears) and use the silver coins to pay ALL of your debts when the dollar drops to 1% of its value relative to silver. Again, this isn’t as smart as being prepared already, but smarter than wringing your hands.
With inflation running at 12% annually, and reasonable expectations that the RATE has to go up, any interest rate below 12% is as if someone is paying you to borrow money – or – if you are the lender, you are subsidizing the borrower. (I know the government is not printing the true inflation rates, but plenty of private analysts are – and it is easy to see which story passes the smell test) Wikipedia and Inflationdata.com have some information, but the best I saw recently was at SeekingAlpha.com
When the money stops flowing or turns to dust, it won’t matter if you saw it coming or not. It will only matter that you were prepared (or not).
While it would be nice if your entire family embraces preparation right away, a RESPONSIBLE adult may have to take charge and act in a leadership role. This may take more strength in some cases than in others, but you need to look at your family and imagine what you will do if they are hungry and you are unemployed with few hopes.
If you have trouble conjuring up this vision or sharing it, there are plenty of movies and books that can help.