opportunity cost 2 of 2

OPPORTUNITY COSTS 2

What have you given up to be a prepper?  Don’t count your buckets of wheat or rounds of ammunition and come up with a dollar figure.  That makes this question moot because all of us have hobbies or allowed luxuries that are probably in the same percentage of spending in relation to income.  If you CAN answer this question by performing the above, you have no opportunity costs.  You are just a Prepper Lite, one of the posers that has a few weeks camping gear/food and some extra ammunition.  A Survivalist, on the other hand, has quite a list of things he’ll never achieve because he chose to look through decades of spending choices lenses as someone trying to survive actual civilization collapse ( as opposed to mere disaster survival ).  A prepper lite lives in the big city to work at a well paying job and puts aside a few tools, a few cases of MRE’s and has a potted tomato plant.  The survivalist has decades of lost income from moving away from the city.  As an example of an opportunity cost. 

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Another example would be a food stockpile and arsenal taking the place of a college education.  You gave up the chance to earn more, since your cost/benefits analyses judged that a room full of tangibles beat the probability of a job being available or money retaining value.  Not staying in the military because you view an overseas station too high of a risk given the possibility of imperial blowback, with the no longer realized pension, is an opportunity cost for a survivalist ( I refused to stay in the military because I don’t take direction well from morons-but that indirectly benefited me as I would have seen Panama, then the Gulf War I with its troop poisoning, then a stop loss extension in Iraq just as I was about to retire ).  Leaving a less-stressful job and an affordable housing area because crime might increase ( in Florida, it isn’t very fun living next to a ghetto, but at the time they were one of the better states to carry concealed and protect your castle in ), you’ve given up a better job and the chance to retire in a nice climate.   I moved to a higher cost of living area to get away from such high population densities, but the 50% wage hike didn’t make the 5x housing cost a very good trade off.

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 As a matter of fact, if I had stayed in Florida after taking on a VA mortgage, I could have cashed out during the bubble and had a much nicer retreat here paid for in cash.  That was an opportunity cost ( although I did move out just in time to avoid the record breaking hurricanes, so I call it a wash, financially.  I have great luck deciding to do something for another reason and then being rewarded for it in other ways.  Avoiding war because I hate being micro-managed.  Avoiding the housing crash because I was moving every few years from multiple marriages and with wanderlust.  Avoiding the new harder to qualify for bankruptcy because the ex had my tax return seized for arrears [ that I had never missed a payment on ] and in desperation I filed a year prior to the law changing.  Avoiding the financial collapse as a renter because I finally decided to move after rent kept going up 10% a year and I didn’t have much time before I couldn’t afford it anymore.  Avoiding price increases not because I had foreseen inflation due to resource depletion but because I’ve thought the world would end for decades now-in other words I was paranoid about the wrong thing but still benefited  ). 

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But some things are a lot harder to justify away as the smarter move.  I’ve always thought the perfect investment would have been a travel trailer park.  Minimal investment or maintenance, or liability, with rents as your income and a free place to live for yourself.  I had that plan in the mid ‘80’s after living in my first park in an RV.  Did I do anything about it?  Of course not.  I was too busy trying to get laid and worrying about the end of the world ( and worrying about not getting laid enough ).  Now, I look at my age and the job market and can’t help but wonder if I made a mistake.  I mean, obviously I’m beyond certain that the End Is Nigh.  I keep doubling down on that.  I just look at the opportunity costs sometimes and ponder.  Pondering isn’t losing your nerve or changing your mind, it is just mental masturbation.  I can’t help doing that a lot.  I can’t help but wonder what I could have accomplished by saving money rather than buying the wrong pieces of real estate.  Or, rather than double and triple all my minor preps, if I had built a house ( a 400 square foot one, not a McMansion ).  Then I might still be living in the boonies rather than paying rent ( of course, that is still questionable feasibility wise.  The New Old Lady might still have elected to stay in town, even if I had offered all amenities ).

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If I was an economic collapse prepper ( as in, New Great Depression ) rather than a civilization collapse survivalist, I could have already been living in east Texas, retired and fishing every day.  Rather than busting my hump working for chump change here.  So, the more paranoid you are, your opportunity costs are far higher.  That is an additional price we pay, above and beyond stockpile equipment costs.  Being extra worried is cheap enough.  Ten years of wheat is only a thousand bucks ( excluding container costs.  But then, your $1,000 semi-auto rifle excludes the cost of mags and ammo, so I can still safely compare a decade of food to one plastic carbine ).  Junk land is a grand or three.  Peanuts compared to rent.  Rather, it is those opportunity costs that can really make things far more expensive.  Most normal people won’t forgo possible lost income-that is why they are normal rather than bat crap crazy survivalists.  And we can all tell ourselves we’ll get the last laugh, but at our age I wonder if that is even true.  The damn collapse really better hurry up and get here!

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