priorities

PRIORITIES

I was reading another blog, something by “graywolf”-sorry, it looked like a rather decent effort but it blurred in my mind with others I read at the same time- talking about prepping for The Big One ( in this instance EMP ) and hence practicing Worst Case Scenario and thus missing the more probable small scale disasters.  I made such an observation around twelve years ago when I said it would be a shame to get your fallout shelter repoed by the tax man.  So, yes, you can’t focus exclusively on only the worst case.  This is what Yuppie Vermin do all the time when they finance a retreat and work a rare high paying job in an urban zoo.  But you also can’t prepare the wrong way when you get ready for all the small scale problems.  Such as increased crime and economic implosion and civil unrest.  You can’t do it all-although a great many areas overlap so you can do most- so you must prioritize.  Rather than starting at the top for worst case, you start at the bottom and work your way up.  The great thing about this approach is that each step frees up money so that the going gets easier and each step is exponential.  Now, this is NOT the same as only prepping for natural disasters and then coming up short when a collapse happens.  You start so that you can “jump around” in your scenarios and still survive.  Since no one can time the collapse ( sorry, I should say no one has recognized the collapse already occurred so no one can time its swells and dips ), trying to do so will kill you.

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Do not start by clearing debt.  This is a waste of money.  And as much as I despise money as a goal in life, it is useful short term ( which is also why you don’t set aside TOO much for the rainy day fund.  You can’t time the inflation, either and tangibles are better after you set aside a very small amount which is an article onto itself  ).  You want money for immediate supplies.  Then, once credit no longer matters, declare bankruptcy.  Paying off debt is not the same as having no debt.  You want no debt so that a lot less income goes much farther.  You don’t want credit good or bad, so get rid of debt and nuke your credit rating.  The only thing that is good for is getting yourself in more debt which is what you don’t want.  Are you a survivalist or not?  If you really think the ass is going to fall out of this bad boy, screw credit.  Credit is for a future functioning economy ( although I would make the case even against that ). Which we won’t have.  Your first priority is the elementary.  Food and security ( I lump water in with food ).  Get your year of food ( $250 bucketed wheat and grinder and filter element ) and a rifle ( bolt action $350 ) and ammo ( $150 for 200 rounds ).  This is caveman levels of survival, but it will work if an asteroid hits tomorrow.  It also works if the Saudi oil refinery is bombed and oil supplies globally choke.  It is your bare bones insurance.

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Once you have this you can ignore the Siren call of freeze dried foods, semi auto big boy toys, etc.  Next work on saving that money.  Secure that junk land either by outright purchase or down payment ( I’d do that cautiously.  Say, if it was under a half years minimum wage ).  Now you can repo the car.  This frees up gobs of money.  If you are out in the suburbs, wait for that credit check to go through on an apartment rental, then repo.  Even if the rent is the same as the mortgage, just freeing up the car cost gets you serious money.  Of course, this might result in weirdness with your credit cards.  Perhaps they jack the rates or demand accelerated payments- do your research.  You want to get rid of those, but first you move to the junk land, have no job or a new minimum wage one, so you can declare the good type of bankruptcy where everything is forgiven rather than needing to make repayments.  From there, no rent ( or very little land payments- I had $100 payments ) and no car means you CAN quickly prep for worst case.  While taking care of those pesky Less Worse Case problems.  You’ve reduced your crime exposure, reduced your needs, reduced the money you need, gotten off your grid exposure, etc.  How easy was that?

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