Posted on 11/13/2012 2:54:29 PM PST by bayliving
Ok, I come here looking for help and advice.
BJ’s, Costco or Sam’s Club. Pallets of canned ham, canned beef, canned pasta, canned soup, canned vegetables that are at least one year away from expiration. It is cheap. It doesn’t look weird to buy large flats of cans. They are easy to stack for storage. You save money over freeze dried while building up stores. It is easy to rotate by using up each layer of the flat. Buy what you’ll eat, then eat some while putting the rest back in a storage location. Canned items also overwhelmingly save effort, since much of it can be eaten without cooking or requiring additional water, a major issue if utilities are shut down.
Lighters, and smokes.
www.providentmetals.com
And Chew! Here in my part of the Redneck Redoubt a gift of chewing tobacco can earn you a friend for life, if he is out! It stores fairly well and it’s 1/3 the costs of pre-rolled cigs. While not a dipper myself, I can see chewing tobacco as something pretty useful in a crunch type situation for trade or to help those unfortunate souls who are suffering nicotine fits. Now a serious prepper would order some tobacco seeds, but I’m not that serious ;)
I have a lot to look over and some very good approaches to "prepping" for what I see as some very bad times ahead...
Food before silver if your budget is limited.
My fave is www.waltonfeed.com
They sell grains, powdered milk, etc. in #10 cans and 6 gal. pails. Some of the stuff will keep for several decades unless you open it.
I bought a grain mill and make my own 8 grain flour with grain mix from them. Along with a bread machine that means top quality, very healthy bread. Keep your flour in the fridge to prevent spoilage (no preservatives).
I also eat a lot of their organic brown rice which I keep in the freezer.
You will save enough money in a year to pay for a pallet of food from them. A few hundred dollars will provide enough basics to feed a family for a year.
I am with the others. If $4000 is all you have, then buy food. Everyone has to eat and food will be the ultimate barter good. Buy bulk bags of rice, pasta and lots of cans of tomato sauce, and don’t forget multivitamins.
An ounce of gold is very compact and has tremendous purchasing power but would be useless in a barter situation as how would anyone make change for a $1700 bar of gold?
Coins, preferably of US mint of pre-1964 vintage, are 90% silver. They are easy to recognize, come in small enough increments which makes it reasonable to barter, and are easy to acquire (APMEX for one) any amount from one at a time to sacks of a specified face value, priced at current spot price for silver content.
If your looking for a hedge against hyperinflation either gold or silver bullion is preferred over junk coins. Know your dealer, fake bullion (loaded with tungsten) is out there.
Regards,
GtG
Gold and silver make you a target (especially for the ruling elite). Seeds, fertilizer, sprayers, garden tools, and food storage equipment are a much better investment. Put in a chicken coop if you have room.
The best investment is to insure that you live among trustworthy people. I moved a few years ago from Suburban DC, to that small community in Kentucky where I grew up. Not much going on here, but I’m surrounded by people I’ve known all my life, and can trust in a crisis.
For an 80 day supply why not buy stuff you normally eat at the grocery. Set up a spreadsheet noting when the item was bought, what box it is in, and what the expiration date is. After you get to the point where you have six months worth then look at foods that have a shelf life of at least a decade. There are lots of foods in buckets that are not too price. Look at Emergency Essentials, the Survival Mom, efoods, and Capt Daves. Don’t just compare prices, compare calories per day. BTW, for $4,000 you can buy more than a year’s worth of regular food.
google selco bosina shtf. Guy has a survival blog from living in Serbia during the war. One of his comments was how even cash money quickly becomes worthless. If he had spent his money on candles, toilet paper, etc. BEFORE the crisis he would have been in great shape to trade. Although he did mention how early on in the crisis he payed $50 for a loaf of bread.
I recall one of his blogs where he talked about how the women would prostitute themselves for a tin of spam.
note: some people don’t think he is real. However, all of the accounts seem VERY believable, and probably have/do occur in such extreme situations.
Focus on water first. Food grade buckets to collect water from a nearby source, garbage cans for rain water, water for washing. Water filter, like a Berkey for purification. Water storage such as 55 gallon food grade barrels. If you have your own well, try to get an independent power source to run the well.
Oh, one other thing, if you are going to spend 4 grand on “survival”, set aside a few hundred for books/library fines. Why? Knowledge beats gadgets/stuff in the long term.
Get the old reader’s digest Back to Basics, Country Living, etc., browse survival blogs for other good books. Books on gardening, canning, a few simple trades/repair books. Then PRACTICE!
Most people in America today couldn’t sprout a seed to save their lives. Even if they got lucky and somehow grew a garden after SHTF, could they preserve their harvest?
The fact that you are even thinking about the future puts you ahead of most, so best of luck and hope to see ya on the other side!
I had a question on canned food expiration dates, my Spaghettio’s are “Best by 10-21-10”, can I still eat them? (I didn’t ever consider having to rotate stock, but never considered some voters were really continually that stupid and the fraud.)
Here’s my search result;
http://www.foodreference.com/html/tcannedfoodshelflife.html
Canned food has a shelf life of at least two years from the date of processing. Canned food retains its safety and nutritional value well beyond two years, but it may have some variation in quality, such as a change of color and texture. Canning is a high-heat process that renders the food commercially sterile. Food safety is not an issue in products kept on the shelf or in the pantry for long periods of time. In fact, canned food has an almost indefinite shelf life at moderate temperatures (75° F and below). Canned food as old as 100 years has been found in sunken ships and it is still microbiologically safe! We don’t recommend keeping canned food for 100 years, but if the can is intact, not dented or bulging, it is edible.
In a well-run supermarket, foods on the shelf will be rotated on a regular basis, so there is continuous turnover. Each canned food manufacturer has a unique coding system. Some manufacturers list day, month and year of production, while other companies reference only the year. These codes are usually imprinted on the top or bottom of the can. Other numbers may appear and reference the specific plant manufacturing or product information and are not useful to consumers.
Laterday saints are stocking 2 yrs food....good instructions there..http://lds.about.com/od/preparednessfoodstorage/p/foodstorage.htm.
Silver is historically 15 to 1 with gold so it should be at 114.98 today..if it were following historical trends...
If it is truly a SHTF event, Banks will be locked up tight in the first few hours making "safe" deposit boxes of little value. Insurance companies will probably be swamped with claims as well and I would have doubts as to any help from that avenue.
Invest in a good safe, bolt it to the basement floor, and keep your own council as to what you do or do not have on hand. You might consider building a false wall in front of the "stash".
Regards,
GtG
There is also http://ferfal.blogspot.com/
He documents events during the economic meltdown in Argentina, coming soon to a nation near you!
Wrote a book on how it went down and how people are trying to survive now, but his blog is free with some interesting observations. You don’t have to agree with everything, but it is interesting. Pretty horrific economic collapse tale. Could it happen here? I am beginning to think that the econ collapse scenarios is by far the most likely SHTF event we will face in the next five years.
But I ain’t ruling out mutant zombies.
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One thing I would highly recommend is don’t tell anyone what your doing ever - even immediate family members outside of your spouse and kids and sometimes not even them. I have seen them turn crazy abscessed when I showed them some precious metals (only a small amount) and they told everyone. Keep things to your self.
Ditto for alcoholic beverages. A good supply of whisky and wine might help you in bartering in a crisis. Keep it well-hidden.
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