peev2c14

PEEv2c14

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.

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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 ).

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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 ).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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#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.

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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.

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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 ).

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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.

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#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.

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We continue tomorrow, or the next day as tickles my fancy, with #3.

( .Y. )

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