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10 Bare Bones
This list is a VERY
bare bones list, the ten items that you'll need if you can afford
nothing else. And I mean like, zero, zip, zilch. For the really,
really poor boys. Or, more likely, those of us grossing butt tons of
money and netting close to crap all, dingus or squat. When I was
making $25k in the mid 90's, and my dear loving Baby Mamma was
enjoying anal sex with my virgin bunghole, destroying me financially
so I had no resources to counter her free government lawyer, I was
netting two or three hundred dollars a month.
*
That was rent, food,
gas to get to work and anything else I might desire to keep me alive
and out of jail. I remember I was able to sub-let the rooms in my
apartment and only paid $100 or $150 for rent. I'll never forget the
$40 a month food budget. Luckily that $10 a week grocery shopping
stretched pretty far as Super Wal-Mart had just become a huge thing.
Them keeping me alive allowed me to overlook their thieving ways for
many years, such was my gratitude. I ate a LOT of day old donuts at
the convenience store job, as they were free after midnight, and a
few $1 sandwiches might have accidentally ended up in my belly (
real, thick, stuffed sandwiches, not the skimpy crap ones today ).
*
Gas was $1 a gallon in
Oklahoma then ( although food was taxed, so my $10 a week groceries
were just $9 worth of food ) and I got free cigarettes at work ( buy
two, get one free meant I got one free and customers bought two at
the regular price, removed from the sales bundle. Was all this
“grazing” a bad juju move? Of course. If you had asked me if I
cared at the time I would have told you to hump off. I was hungry
and needed nicotine for stress relief. I couldn't afford alcohol ).
*
Let that be a lesson.
I was hungry-it was a high calorie burn job. We busted our asses
detail cleaning all night. The industry standard was $15k entry
level management, and these folks paid us $20k plus profit sharing.
You earned the extra, and were grateful. Did I feel the least bit
sorry for eating on their dime, even after the extra pay? No, not in
the slightest. I experienced absolutely no remorse or guilt, not the
slightest indigestion. People WILL do as needs must and suffer not a
pang of transgression.
*
This was back when a
couple with kids could live middle class on a $30k paycheck,
comfortably as long as there was no waste ( and as this was prior to
cell phones or Starbucks-at least that I was aware of-I wonder if
there is a correlation with these and the standards of living ) so I
was making super wages. And I had ZERO to spend on prepping. This
is where I expect most people are today, lots coming in, more going
out, and no wiggle room for prepping. That is why, in Trumps most
magical economy my frugal survival advice is more popular than ever.
*
Now, this “10 List”
is really for the poorest of the working poor ( as defined by
NET-just as with petroleum, it isn't gross but net that is the only
important metric ). I expect most of you can do better. It is just
if one has few other options. Please do not bother listing all the
other things you could buy, or perhaps feel you need to upgrade your
level of comfort. Please look up the definition of Bare Bones. Let
us start where any preparedness planning starts, Food First.
*
#1 FOOD
You need calories. If
you ate a pound of white flour or white rice a day, there is your
calories. You get no nutrients, but you do get calories. If you
would like a little taste of how dangerous ONLY eating white rice (
and by extension, processed flour ) is, read King Rat by “Shogun”
fame author James Clavell. It is a great book in and of itself, much
shorter than his regular door stoppers, and could only have been
written by one who experienced it. Fun filled fact, Clavell was able
to take the time to write those huge books by selling movie
screenplays.
*
Calories are paramount,
but you cannot eat just anything and stay healthy. Hard candy as
calories might have worked in civil defense fallout shelters, because
the plan was to only stay two weeks or so. A years food, you need
healthier calories. That is why I insist on wheat kernels. You can
sprout some for vegetables ( fresh, not processed, is necessary for
enzymes and micro-nutrients ) and it does contain protein, if not a
complete one. Wheat first, for healthy calories. 400 pounds a year,
about $100 before container.
*
If you want a complete
protein, you must add beans to your diet. I would plan on a minimum
of 100 pounds a year, about a quarter pound a day, the cheapest being
soy flour from the feed store, about $35 before container. Surely,
anyone can find $135 for a years food? Hopefully, and don't call me
Shirley. I would then recommend fat. Again, buy these in order of
ability to keep you alive. Wheat, beans, fat. Shortening is
disgusting but cheap at about $1.50 a pound and will last forever.
Eight containers will be about $30 and should last a year ( far less
in summer, more in winter. Without sufficient heat your body makes
its own, from fat ).
*
For the remainder of a
$200 bill ( not counting storage containers-call that another $50 ),
you could get some vitamin pills. I recommend it, as the sprouts
might not be sufficient, only being about three pounds of wheat per
month to make those ( one pound a day calories, the remaining
fraction in sprouts ). You can survive just on wheat, perhaps, but
if you can double that budget you give yourself a much better chance.
$150 minimum, $250-$300 ideally.
*
#2
Grain Grinder
This is easy, on a bare
bones budget. The old Corona, now sold as “Victoria”. $45 at
Amazon. There are cheaper, half the price, but that is Chinese
rather than South American. I'd buy within your own hemisphere for a
better quality. It is a corn mill, not a wheat mill, so you must
apply labor rather than money. Wheat needs three passes to get a
rough meal ( not pastry flour fine-that costs another $100 to $200 ).
But the Victoria is affordable and built as a tank. It will last
forever if you just use dry foods in it, to keep it from rusting.
You cannot beat these on a budget. No, I recommend no other bubba
engineering tools. Get the proper tool, one up to the task of
grinding hundreds of pounds of grains.
*
We continue tomorrow,
or the next day as tickles my fancy, with #3.
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click HERE )
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“When I was making $25k in the mid 90's, and my dear loving Baby Mamma was enjoying anal sex with my virgin bunghole, destroying me financially”.
ReplyDeleteI’m not suggesting that you should have killed the bitch. But Chris Rock would have understood :D
I would have been in jail, if we had Minority Reports back then
DeleteLast evening at the gym, I got into a deep discussion with my amigo 'Joel' from Sinoloa Mexico.
ReplyDeleteI claim the title 'cynic', Joel grew-up a realist.
Independently, each of us concluded the flu, the Ukraine bankers, the oil, the politicians, the dog-catcher's new uniform, the mystery-meat fruit-cake twinks... all of it is a diversion.*
If TheMainStreamMedia officially proclaim it, it is officially non-important.
What are they not discussing?
And does it matter?
And what happened to Paris Hilton?
She used to be absolutely everywhere!
But Kanye and Kim bought another Montana ranch.
I just know she's going to decorate in something mauve... it's so 'in' this year.
Trendy colors, they are so 'to die for'!
*****
One of my hobbies is going back a day or six, reading comments posted after articles on ,Rawles.
I see a lot of circle-jerking going on.
"N95 is 14% partially-ineffective in non-standardized researchical clinical trials on alternative Thursdays", and immediately, multiple comments offer hope only through TheLord©... and Costco.
Preppers.
Always good for a grin.
footnote:
* but not Hunter Biden.
Watch this space for further developments.
What DID happen to Hilton? LOL
DeleteThanks for the stimulus to read the Wik article on James Clavell. I read King Rat and Shogun a long time ago. KR did indeed smack of personal experience. 1 in 15 in his Singapore prison survived. Brutal.
ReplyDeleteKR, good enough to read two or three times. Highest compliment for a book.
DeleteInteresting take on King Rat here:
ReplyDeletehttps://books.google.com/books?id=rebq5IHSfkIC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=james+clavell+beri-beri&source=bl&ots=YS_jq-FKEp&sig=ACfU3U2z7BpAdJBNjLCafoqmQdTSXu9teA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjKjf7Ov7TnAhUDUK0KHayXAcoQ6AEwAHoECBMQAQ#v=onepage&q=james%20clavell%20beri-beri&f=false
I read it long ago, and never thought about any political line being pushed, rather, I just figured people did what they did, coping with their circumstances how they could. It was the same in my family and in people we knew, in my very poor childhood (actually middle-class until I was about 12 then it all went to shit) there developed sneak-thieves, whores, muggers, con men and women, Stoics, foragers, artists/crafters, etc. Generally each person was a few thing, once never sufficing and our needs were super-low with no internet or starbucks or telephone or anyone to write a letter to (saves on stamps) or need for much in the way of clothes or shoes (it was in Hawaii).
Looking back, I only wish I'd had more of a clue that what I was experiencing was not an anomaly but reality, and had worked on my stealing and scamming skills more.
Granted, I haven't read King Rat for some time, but my recollection is that the American was ostracized at the end because of his embrace of money over basic human decency. It had nothing to do with class consciousness as the above states. Sounds like an analysis by a college freshman, an educated idiot.
DeleteJames, $100 for 400 lbs of wheat? Here in the SE I'm looking at $0.83 per lb (which includes buckets and shipping at Walmart) It's a little cheaper at an LDS Cannery: $0.78/lb. Thanks for what you do.
ReplyDeleteFeed store wheat. Not everyone is lucky enough to live near one.
Delete