Post economic collapse game plan
- Thread starter chrisjs87
- Start date
Becoming independent is like going back in time.
Our family spent a lot of years living in a 1759 home with a woodlot and a location with high ground water when children were growing up.
We always canned about 300 quarts from the garden and had 12 ducks, 12 chickens, 5 pigs, 12 sheep and one horse.
We used 5 cords a year from the woodlot.
The wool was traded for blankets and we tanned a dozen sheepskins a year.
Grapes, pears, cherries, apples walnuts and hickory nuts were picked and surpluses canned.
Our summer, golf, ski home was up north and had a caretaker.
We used VW vans for bulk and 2 MB for driving.
The composting from animals was arranged alphabetically and applied to just under 100 species grown in the garden.
To this day, we usually have up to 300 pounds of seed on hand.
Now in AZ it is all easier.
Citrus includes texas ruby, regular grapefruit, three kinds of oranges and tangerines. Carrots sometimes exceed two pounts each and we grow 365/24/7. Putting everything behind 6 foot walls with wine bottles secured on top was easy. The desert allows things to have water through collection and storage. I'm up 5" in storage the last 7 days alone.
Schedule 40 plastic runs as a dual systems everywhere. I have a couple of years of llama compost just maturing....
Anyone can live off the desert if you know how. So we have domestic desert plants that represent more than a family's continuing requirements.
We can cook with aluminum foil solar here just using cardboard boxes as collectors. There is no way a family could keep up with catching ground squirels, rabbits, havelinas. lizards and game birds like doves and quail.
With 10% humidity, here all you do is pour water on cellulosic fibre and let it convect through high ceiling homes. Our wall structures here have U factors that approximate 12 hours.... Every tree on our property acts as a 1 ton air conditioner in the summer. And we can heat homes here with water based solar collectors.
Electricity on a desert? think how easy it was to get off the grid.
Medically, we lucked out too. Being trained is nice. Having CERT requirements stored in garbage cans is nice. We can use Native American practices and all the meds are just a sort of a walk way on the desert. Have a headache.....chew a few of these leaves......
People problems....nobody lives in this part of AZ its all govt and state land and Indian reservations..........
Every cactus bears fruit and it does two things... makes sugar and makes alcohol.
You can also grow any cultural or recreational fiber or drug here too. Pima cotton will grow wild. We have 10 years of llama wool just waiting to be combed and spun in our spare time.
Gold and silver are available for the picking. My best picks so far are 22.3 oz/T for AU and 1500 oz/T for AG, neither are complex....lol... my peak in claims was 2.2 squ mi, not contiguous.
Our pool is painted black, has solar and gets filled in part with rainwater. I reverse cool it in the summer 6 months I could pipe it for heating/cooling and run the pumps on solar. Pipe and glue are on hand for repairs already.
we grow tomatos on 6x6 ww; they spread 15 feet each and provide shade for other plants.
I have a collection of historical tools.
Our family spent a lot of years living in a 1759 home with a woodlot and a location with high ground water when children were growing up.
We always canned about 300 quarts from the garden and had 12 ducks, 12 chickens, 5 pigs, 12 sheep and one horse.
We used 5 cords a year from the woodlot.
The wool was traded for blankets and we tanned a dozen sheepskins a year.
Grapes, pears, cherries, apples walnuts and hickory nuts were picked and surpluses canned.
Our summer, golf, ski home was up north and had a caretaker.
We used VW vans for bulk and 2 MB for driving.
The composting from animals was arranged alphabetically and applied to just under 100 species grown in the garden.
To this day, we usually have up to 300 pounds of seed on hand.
Now in AZ it is all easier.
Citrus includes texas ruby, regular grapefruit, three kinds of oranges and tangerines. Carrots sometimes exceed two pounts each and we grow 365/24/7. Putting everything behind 6 foot walls with wine bottles secured on top was easy. The desert allows things to have water through collection and storage. I'm up 5" in storage the last 7 days alone.
Schedule 40 plastic runs as a dual systems everywhere. I have a couple of years of llama compost just maturing....
Anyone can live off the desert if you know how. So we have domestic desert plants that represent more than a family's continuing requirements.
We can cook with aluminum foil solar here just using cardboard boxes as collectors. There is no way a family could keep up with catching ground squirels, rabbits, havelinas. lizards and game birds like doves and quail.
With 10% humidity, here all you do is pour water on cellulosic fibre and let it convect through high ceiling homes. Our wall structures here have U factors that approximate 12 hours.... Every tree on our property acts as a 1 ton air conditioner in the summer. And we can heat homes here with water based solar collectors.
Electricity on a desert? think how easy it was to get off the grid.
Medically, we lucked out too. Being trained is nice. Having CERT requirements stored in garbage cans is nice. We can use Native American practices and all the meds are just a sort of a walk way on the desert. Have a headache.....chew a few of these leaves......
People problems....nobody lives in this part of AZ its all govt and state land and Indian reservations..........
Every cactus bears fruit and it does two things... makes sugar and makes alcohol.
You can also grow any cultural or recreational fiber or drug here too. Pima cotton will grow wild. We have 10 years of llama wool just waiting to be combed and spun in our spare time.
Gold and silver are available for the picking. My best picks so far are 22.3 oz/T for AU and 1500 oz/T for AG, neither are complex....lol... my peak in claims was 2.2 squ mi, not contiguous.
Our pool is painted black, has solar and gets filled in part with rainwater. I reverse cool it in the summer 6 months I could pipe it for heating/cooling and run the pumps on solar. Pipe and glue are on hand for repairs already.
we grow tomatos on 6x6 ww; they spread 15 feet each and provide shade for other plants.
I have a collection of historical tools.
Hmm cool. I would love to have a small rain catchment system but its actually illegal here, something about "you don't own the water that falls on your property in the form of rain", a california thing.
Arizona seems much more sensible about such things.
I've decided to try a couple of lemon trees in large pots this year. We'll see how it goes, I'm in the desert but am up at 3000ft so its 50/50 chance they will make it the first year.
One lemon re was enough for us...we have two and give lemons away. One of my honey do's this week is making lemmonade...lol...
We're at 1500 feet so we don't get frost too often. The only time it matters is when blooms are on. Get "bloom set" and that really helps out regardless. Most citrus yield gets lowered just because the blooms don't set. We had a bee problem here but it seems to be over at this point.
In AZ there is one settlement that has just about everything. It is on a side of a broad valley and the water is artisan The land use there is so productive. Most people do not realize that the land here is just arid and if suppied with water it is really productive. They have snow melt from the peaks that perks slowly all year round; it rises to the surface along a strike and ofrms artisan pands and lakes that they entrain to the growing areas.
For sunlight growing reasons a lot of foreign companyies come here and grow veggies. We are very remote from the possibilites of deseases spreading.
AZ has very few poor since the state has such a positive balance of trade. So many people here put their life savings on the back seat and just drive here and spend money the rest of their lives.
First off, you have to decide how likely you think dislocation is, now, in the midterm, and in the long term.
You need to think about how severe the dislocation will be, too. No shooting that I'm aware of in Iceland, not yet, anyway. Argentina, you have an increase in street violence, but not total civil war. LA/Rodney King riots, and post Katrina New Orleans are the closest I've seen to "mad Max" scenarios in recent times.
Answers to the above two questions give an idea of how you approach the most important question of preparing of all, opportunity costs. It can be very difficult to "repatriate" cash currency withdrawn from the system, and more difficult yet if that cash is converted to seedstock, a large wind turbine electrical system, driven water wells, etc. Cash and physical assets forego interest, dividends, and gains. On the other hand, cash in the bank wasn't much good during the great depression. Balance the response and preparation to the threat level, with opportunity costs firmly in mind.
You can find ways to mitigate opportunity costs, putting your assets to work double or even triple duty. My new well set me back $2500, plus another $1200 for a heavy duty handpump installed on the old one, but the iron from the old well was ruining my clothes, plumbing, and fixtures, so I was able to "offset" much of the cost as loss prevention in the long term.
Once you formulate answers to these questions, you can begin to plan your actual preparedness structure from a logical point of view.
Unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot know in advance how a collapse will go. Massive deflation and you're stuck holding gold, you're in trouble. Massive inflation and you're holding currency, same deal. Total chaos and you are sitting on both cash and PMs, with no food or water, again, you're in a world of hurt.
Diversification applies to preparedness as well.
I can't stress this enough, so I'll just repeat it.
Diversification applies to preparedness as well.
Historically, short term problems far outweigh longer term dislocations. You can get a leg up on logical, efficient preparation by identifying your needs, and by prioritizing them in terms of how long a critical threat takes to develop.
At the top of any threat list , you want to consider thirst, and security, and hypothermia. A desperate group of people can kill you within seconds. Not so likely, not today, anyway, but very quickly lethal if your number comes up.
Go without water three days, and you go down, period. You may very well be alive, but you will not be functioning. If you have to struggle to find potable water, you will devote hours poer day to the task, hours you will not be able to use to address other problems.
Hypothermia can take you out within a couple hours. Tough guys need to remember 6 SpecOps guys training in Florida who died at ambient air temps of 56 degrees F.
In longer term dislocations, you're going to need food, light, transportation, quite possibly electrical power, and medical treatment. Babies and children impart their own set of needs.
Diversification is the key to effective preparedness.
You're going to have to look at storage space, and how to avoid turning your home into a warehouse.
At some point after a dislocating event or series of events, you will need to trade for things you don't have, or can't make yourself. Early on, vices, tobacco, liquor, spices, batteries, and day to day necessities might form the basis of informal trade. The gun guys seem to think any new currency will be based on ammunition, but those guys tend to have large stockpiles of their own. Gold has maintained high values for milennia, but you'll need to make change unless you want to spend an ounce for one roll of TP.
Speaking of TP, you're going to have to look at waste management, and also to the morale of your people. Foul your drinking water with untreated human waste and you have missed the diversication equation by lightyears. Epidemics almost always follow dislocating events.
In a dislocating event's aftermath, your highest risk of injury might come from your own family. Leadership includes much attention to morale, and morale can depend on the smaller luxuries. Back to advance preparation here.
This post is long enough already, so I'll close with additional detail on some of the higher priorities, those that can kill you the fastest.
Security.
Guys who fight for a living use sidearms to break contact, or to get to their rifles. Shotguns may be helpful for the untrained, but in theaters of war, gather dust. Not too shabby for small game, though. The ubiquitous AR-15 uses Nato standard ammunition, and spare parts are easy to come by. The AK-47 variants have a rep for better reliability, at the price of significantly degrades accuracy.
Most battlefield fights are decided by accurate, high volume, aimed fires, not Hollywood style full auto mag dumps. Aimed fire intrinsically implies training, on the range, and you can't begin to know how much you don't know until you seek professional level training offered by firms like EAG Tactical, Magpul, etc.
A secondary, or backup, sidearm in a battle standard caliber, either 9mm or .45 ACP is a solid choice. The smaller size offers you the ability to keep a lower profile (concealed carry) but again, no soldier reaches for his pistol un less his rifle is inop or empty.
Surrounded by growing food, good water, and like minded neighbors, controllable access roads, proficient in security, close enough to major pop centers to obtain the unusual items to meet needs, but far enough away to avoid gangs, desperation, disease and fire is, IMO, the best place to be. Clear lanes of fire out to 300 yards or more makes security threats work to get to you.
Water.
In many areas water is easy to find, but clean drinkable water is not. You can filter, you can treat, or you can boil. Filtering microscopic organisms is comparatively slow, and filters themselves tend to clog. Sand filtration in nested containers can clear cloudy or dirty water at high volumes, but will not address biological of chemical contamination.
Treatment can be via commercial tablets (small, easily portable) or thru standard chlorine bleach, 5-6% sodium hypochlorite, NO perfumes or additives. 8 drops per gallon for clear water, 16 drops per gallon for cloudy. Liquid bleach breaks down over time, and under UV light. Powdered pool bleach lasts longer. Treatment takes more time for colder water. ideally, let the treatment stand 8 hours before consumption. Minimum, 30 minutes.
Boiling uses fuel, not my ideal solution. In Sherwood Forest, maybe. Most pathogens die well below 212 degrees F. Full boil for 5 seconds, done. Unless you run your water heater at 212 degrees now, any more is overkill.
A well with a quality handpump and spare parts will be a gold mine if SHTF. Even if you share water for free, the time you save meeting your own every day needs, will put you ahead of every survival curve you can construct.
Heat.
Firewood looks good near a forest, but you have to cut it, split it, and store it. I expect firewood to go short supply very quickly after major dislocatio (along with the game that lives in wooded areas now.)
NG and propane are good after quakes, less disruption than electrical heat, but re-supply will be a continuing concern. A propane or NG generator will run far longer than gas or diesel, simply because tanks and supply lines are larger.
There is no perfect solution. Perhaps a windmill in the long term, and in the medium term, making the next furnace replacement a geothermal unit will cut uncertainty about as far as possible.
Insulation is "free heat".
One final thought before closing. Dislocating events follow predictable timelines, within finite limits. First a period of rapid, chaotic, and unpredictable change, followed by a longer period of adjustment to a new order of environment. After the chaos, you'll need to adapt to a new world. You will need to sustain yourself and your family and your choices will be limited to what you can make, trade for, or have stockpiled. You need some skills that may be useful in a very different social order than we now enjoy. I expect the risk of further dislocations to be higher after a major disruptive event, not lower. Get off the stockpiled goods, and secure them for long-term storage, as soon as possible, you may really need those things later on down the road.
You need to think about how severe the dislocation will be, too. No shooting that I'm aware of in Iceland, not yet, anyway. Argentina, you have an increase in street violence, but not total civil war. LA/Rodney King riots, and post Katrina New Orleans are the closest I've seen to "mad Max" scenarios in recent times.
Answers to the above two questions give an idea of how you approach the most important question of preparing of all, opportunity costs. It can be very difficult to "repatriate" cash currency withdrawn from the system, and more difficult yet if that cash is converted to seedstock, a large wind turbine electrical system, driven water wells, etc. Cash and physical assets forego interest, dividends, and gains. On the other hand, cash in the bank wasn't much good during the great depression. Balance the response and preparation to the threat level, with opportunity costs firmly in mind.
You can find ways to mitigate opportunity costs, putting your assets to work double or even triple duty. My new well set me back $2500, plus another $1200 for a heavy duty handpump installed on the old one, but the iron from the old well was ruining my clothes, plumbing, and fixtures, so I was able to "offset" much of the cost as loss prevention in the long term.
Once you formulate answers to these questions, you can begin to plan your actual preparedness structure from a logical point of view.
Unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot know in advance how a collapse will go. Massive deflation and you're stuck holding gold, you're in trouble. Massive inflation and you're holding currency, same deal. Total chaos and you are sitting on both cash and PMs, with no food or water, again, you're in a world of hurt.
Diversification applies to preparedness as well.
I can't stress this enough, so I'll just repeat it.
Diversification applies to preparedness as well.
Historically, short term problems far outweigh longer term dislocations. You can get a leg up on logical, efficient preparation by identifying your needs, and by prioritizing them in terms of how long a critical threat takes to develop.
At the top of any threat list , you want to consider thirst, and security, and hypothermia. A desperate group of people can kill you within seconds. Not so likely, not today, anyway, but very quickly lethal if your number comes up.
Go without water three days, and you go down, period. You may very well be alive, but you will not be functioning. If you have to struggle to find potable water, you will devote hours poer day to the task, hours you will not be able to use to address other problems.
Hypothermia can take you out within a couple hours. Tough guys need to remember 6 SpecOps guys training in Florida who died at ambient air temps of 56 degrees F.
In longer term dislocations, you're going to need food, light, transportation, quite possibly electrical power, and medical treatment. Babies and children impart their own set of needs.
Diversification is the key to effective preparedness.
You're going to have to look at storage space, and how to avoid turning your home into a warehouse.
At some point after a dislocating event or series of events, you will need to trade for things you don't have, or can't make yourself. Early on, vices, tobacco, liquor, spices, batteries, and day to day necessities might form the basis of informal trade. The gun guys seem to think any new currency will be based on ammunition, but those guys tend to have large stockpiles of their own. Gold has maintained high values for milennia, but you'll need to make change unless you want to spend an ounce for one roll of TP.
Speaking of TP, you're going to have to look at waste management, and also to the morale of your people. Foul your drinking water with untreated human waste and you have missed the diversication equation by lightyears. Epidemics almost always follow dislocating events.
In a dislocating event's aftermath, your highest risk of injury might come from your own family. Leadership includes much attention to morale, and morale can depend on the smaller luxuries. Back to advance preparation here.
This post is long enough already, so I'll close with additional detail on some of the higher priorities, those that can kill you the fastest.
Security.
Guys who fight for a living use sidearms to break contact, or to get to their rifles. Shotguns may be helpful for the untrained, but in theaters of war, gather dust. Not too shabby for small game, though. The ubiquitous AR-15 uses Nato standard ammunition, and spare parts are easy to come by. The AK-47 variants have a rep for better reliability, at the price of significantly degrades accuracy.
Most battlefield fights are decided by accurate, high volume, aimed fires, not Hollywood style full auto mag dumps. Aimed fire intrinsically implies training, on the range, and you can't begin to know how much you don't know until you seek professional level training offered by firms like EAG Tactical, Magpul, etc.
A secondary, or backup, sidearm in a battle standard caliber, either 9mm or .45 ACP is a solid choice. The smaller size offers you the ability to keep a lower profile (concealed carry) but again, no soldier reaches for his pistol un less his rifle is inop or empty.
Surrounded by growing food, good water, and like minded neighbors, controllable access roads, proficient in security, close enough to major pop centers to obtain the unusual items to meet needs, but far enough away to avoid gangs, desperation, disease and fire is, IMO, the best place to be. Clear lanes of fire out to 300 yards or more makes security threats work to get to you.
Water.
In many areas water is easy to find, but clean drinkable water is not. You can filter, you can treat, or you can boil. Filtering microscopic organisms is comparatively slow, and filters themselves tend to clog. Sand filtration in nested containers can clear cloudy or dirty water at high volumes, but will not address biological of chemical contamination.
Treatment can be via commercial tablets (small, easily portable) or thru standard chlorine bleach, 5-6% sodium hypochlorite, NO perfumes or additives. 8 drops per gallon for clear water, 16 drops per gallon for cloudy. Liquid bleach breaks down over time, and under UV light. Powdered pool bleach lasts longer. Treatment takes more time for colder water. ideally, let the treatment stand 8 hours before consumption. Minimum, 30 minutes.
Boiling uses fuel, not my ideal solution. In Sherwood Forest, maybe. Most pathogens die well below 212 degrees F. Full boil for 5 seconds, done. Unless you run your water heater at 212 degrees now, any more is overkill.
A well with a quality handpump and spare parts will be a gold mine if SHTF. Even if you share water for free, the time you save meeting your own every day needs, will put you ahead of every survival curve you can construct.
Heat.
Firewood looks good near a forest, but you have to cut it, split it, and store it. I expect firewood to go short supply very quickly after major dislocatio (along with the game that lives in wooded areas now.)
NG and propane are good after quakes, less disruption than electrical heat, but re-supply will be a continuing concern. A propane or NG generator will run far longer than gas or diesel, simply because tanks and supply lines are larger.
There is no perfect solution. Perhaps a windmill in the long term, and in the medium term, making the next furnace replacement a geothermal unit will cut uncertainty about as far as possible.
Insulation is "free heat".
One final thought before closing. Dislocating events follow predictable timelines, within finite limits. First a period of rapid, chaotic, and unpredictable change, followed by a longer period of adjustment to a new order of environment. After the chaos, you'll need to adapt to a new world. You will need to sustain yourself and your family and your choices will be limited to what you can make, trade for, or have stockpiled. You need some skills that may be useful in a very different social order than we now enjoy. I expect the risk of further dislocations to be higher after a major disruptive event, not lower. Get off the stockpiled goods, and secure them for long-term storage, as soon as possible, you may really need those things later on down the road.
Wow, nice first post. You are obviously not new to preparedness and have put a lot of thought into the subject.
A few posters on ET take the attitude that preparedness is useless because it will only make you a target to have all of your supplies stolen. You articulated well the fact that any collapse is more likely to be partial with either food shortages, water supply disruptions, power outages or bank holidays; but not necessarily all at the same time or for extended periods of time.
A friend of mine lives in New Orleans and related his experience following Katrina of standing in lines for hours at a time to get bottles of water for his family. He has an inground swimming pool and could have drunk that water had he only prepared by purchasing an inexpensive water filter.
We had a power outage for several days due to heavy ice a few years ago and my family would have had to leave our house like other neighbors if it were not for the fact that I had a generator, 30 gallons of stored gasoline, a wood stove and several cords of firewood. There were no reports of violence or stolen generators or firewood that I heard of.