tools of the devil 3 of 3

TOOLS OF THE DEVIL 3

Again, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the tools the devil endorses.  Being the devil, we know he is up to no good.  Expensive tools make money for advertisers who pay survivalist gurus.  If I were to hawk war surplus guns, at most I would get a mail order company which sold their spare parts.  But if I tell you that only semi-auto guns hold any value for the apocalypse then I get magazine, red dot scope, tactical slings, gear vests, all the purveyors of the equipment that we are preached to need in order to survive, all that and more for advertisers.

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Not only that, but the majority of “experts” have no critical thinking abilities and parrot what the old gurus advocated.  With the devil, you aren’t supposed to be able to win.  But just because they are tools of His trade doesn’t make them all inherently evil.  You can pick and choose wisely.  Just like going into a store and ONLY buying the loss leaders.  Just like wisely sorting through pennies ( pre-’82 are the mostly copper ) or at best buying silver, rather than the gold you are told you must have.  Like realizing that a bag of jerky and some Top Ramen, along with oatmeal packs and peanut butter, are a far better bargain than MRE’s-marginally better nutrition, far more filling and far cheaper per calorie, with the bonus of actually having fiber.

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The trick is to use the Yuppie Tools sparingly rather than believing them to be the primary tool.  Modifying them to your budget AND situation.  I had some jag-off sell me a book on frugal survival whose solution was to recommend the cheapest AR, the cheapest freeze-dried.  All the least expensive Yuppie Scum Survivalist tools.  No, giant bag of dingus’, I want the most affordable tool, not the least expensive of the far too pricey.  I won’t miss the five bucks, but I sure do chaff to this day that it put food into his oxygen wasting hole. 

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Is there a place for MRE’s?  Certainly.  If spending $7 a meal is your idea of a Good Time Charlie, by all means.  If you are spending $4 on a pound of meat to make jerky anyway, it isn’t a huge stretch to go to $7.  I’d rather have all the meat rather than fillers for the same price, but I also know most people think they need variety.  Which is where learning how to cook comes in.  You can have variety with the same ingredients if you learn how to prepare them differently.  What’s the old joke ( I think by George Lopez )?  Listing all the different Mexican foods, enchiladas and tacos and burritos and such, he said the same thing ( tortillas and beans, basically ). 

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The first initial days or weeks of the die-off, you will be rather busy.  Dodging gunfire, putting out fires, pulling your hair realizing you were in fact an idiot for not moving out of the city.  The time to learn to cook is later, and the time to actually cook at all is later.  MRE’s deliver a familiar food in a time of high stress, with no labor which you might not have time for, and it is high octane fuel.  It will also teach you quite painfully in the toilet how important complex carbs are.  As for freeze dried, I have serious doubts on them delivering anywhere close to the taste you are used to, but sometimes for some they are the better way of storing butter and meat ( foods you need for optimal performance when you become the machine ).

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It will be all fine and dandy to stock your pantry with wet canned meat ( if you are a good minion and buy my next book I talk about home canned verses freeze dried.  $3 verses $10 a pound ) and canned butter and buckets of wheat.  But for your fall back cache, freeze dried can have its place.  You can backpack it up, it takes little space and weighs less ( except the #10 can of wheat, which is $2.22 a pound verses 22 cents a pound from the feed store.  You pay a LOT for that metal can and shipping ).  If you can stomach the slop, Wal-Mart has freeze dried camping meals which are more expensive than even MRE’s, but are far more compact for bugging out.

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You know I hate bugging out, but only if it is long distance and only if you need a dedicated expensive vehicle for it.  Reducing your exposure to people in a small to medium city and having a paid for retreat a reasonable back-up walking distance away is not the greatest strategy, but it is the most realistic most of have as we must relocate to work now.  It is still cheaper to pay for a commute than to buy a Redoubt property that must miraculously come with a rural job.  Next up, that retreat.  For now, more on bugging out.  You must have far more food and water than you have planned on for the known distance.

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If your journey is thirty miles, it isn’t an hour drive.  You must assume you’ll be walking as your car broke down, was stalled in traffic, or whatever.  Then, you can’t assume a day to a day and a half walking, but closer to three or four as you are delayed as you run the wrong way away from danger, detour away from potential danger, sprain an ankle, or whatever.  Freeze dried are a great way to insure against that extra time factor, without weighing yourself down. 

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As far as the Redoubt property, I have severe reservations about it ( see my book I just put out on Retreating ).  But if you do decide to live there, you don’t need three hundred thousand dollars.  You can easily do it on three grand.  Just pick the desert portion, away from power lines.  You can pick up tax delinquent property for a few hundred bucks, or buy on payments for a few thousand.  And the desert is perfect for building in or with dirt.  Just be close enough to a natural water source, as a back-up to rain catchment ( a well should be your last, not first, choice ). 

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And that concrete bunker atop a mountain?  If a recreational crack user I knew can build one on casual income, so can you.  He just bought the concrete cinder blocks as he could afford them and hand mixed the small batches of concrete for them.  Rather than a slab or concrete wall for the foundation, he just used those blocks.  It isn’t meant to last much past his lifetime ( okay, so it was a hilltop rather than atop a mountain ).  I’ve also seem Colorado land on E-Bay that wasn’t much past $100 a month, in sight of the Colorado river, way up there in elevation.  The nearest town was a few hundred folks.  I wouldn’t want to live there, but it sure is much more affordable than a place up in Idaho or Montana, isn’t it?

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No one wants you to do without the luxury items completely, if you have the means otherwise.  Just don’t go Full Retard on them.  Listen to your common sense rather than the Moneyed Interests.

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