[joeltrout]

Please select your age on the poll even if you don't post a comment.

The age range of PO members is broad but I assume most of the members are 34 years of age or older. This creates major problems for young people coming here for advice. Usually young people come here with little knowledge or experience and little or no financial assets. As we all know preps take money.

I assume most if not all of you worked to get what you have, ie preps, home, land, livestock, poultry, etc... Unless you are a trust fund baby then you have been working for some time. I would guess many of you have been working for over 15 years. In that time you have accumulated much knowledge, experience, physical assets, financial assets, etc... Those assets allow you to do more and prep much greater for whatever comes in the future.

For a 34 year old buying a case of MH Freeze Dried food might not be much of a problem. For a 17 year old with a monthly income of $800 that case of MH might be over 25% of their montly income.

For a 34 year old buying 5 acres with a home might require you to put 20% down and mortgage the remaining 80%. For a 17 year old they don't have 20% down and have no credit history so they do not qualify for a mortgage even if they could pay the monthly mortgage payments.

So how did you get to where you are at today? If you would, give us a short description of how you managed to prep as much or as little as you have.

joeltrout

[joeltrout]

I am currently 25 years old.

When I was in high school my parents advised me a job in the oil industry would be a promising career specifically in petroleum land management. So I went to college to pursue that. I was fortunate my parents supported me and my brother (who is a year younger than me) 100% financially. But we both worked anyways to save money and invest it. I worked at least 20 hours a week and took anywhere from 15 – 21 credit hours in classes. On the weekends we did not go out, instead we studied or read up on investments in stocks, mutual funds, muni-bonds, etc… The jobs we worked at were not bookstore or restaurants. It was internships at oil and gas companies.

My sophomore year of college (2002) my brother and I bought a house in Norman, OK where we were attending school. We did this without our parents help because we were both working and houses were not that expensive. Our plan was to sell in 2006 when both of us graduated from the University of Oklahoma. It worked out great because as you know housing crashed shortly thereafter.

So 6 months before I graduated in 2006 I got a job offer from one of the companies I worked at during the previous summer. While my friends were out traveling the summer of their senior year I was working and it paid off. So I accepted the job and moved to Los Angeles.

Within a year I had purchased a house with the money I had made off the previous house I owned with my brother, the growth of my investments, and the salary I had saved, and the current salary I was making. I put a down payment of 65%. The house should be paid off within 3 years and then we will have no debt (which is very important to me).

My wife and I continue to pinch pennies and save a large amount of our income. Earlier this year we bought 140 acres in a partnership with my family. That 140 acres borders our family ranch in central NM. It has a ranch house, barns, corrals, cattle, horses, deer, elk, good water, etc… If things ever got bad and I decided to move out of LA then it would be there.

Currently I am reading books such as Living on a Few Acres and magazines such as Hobby Farms and Mother Earth News. I cannot put a lot in practice but figure I could gain as much knowledge as possible. I buy MH #10 cans on a monthly basis and store them in various places.

I have a long ways to go but am happy at the progress thus far.

joeltrout

[JustaGirl]

I am 30. We do have some debt but that will be paid off w/in 3-4 years unless for some reason things really go south and my husband loses his job. For that to happen though all hell would have to break loose. He has a pretty PO safe job. We bought a house in '01 & it will not be paid off for another 20 years or so. I'm not really worried about the mortgage though. We bought based only on his income & within our means & we still have quite a bit of equity, for now anyway.

Why is anyone buying freeze dried food for their preps though? You can buy wheat, rice, sugar, pasta, etc & they will last just as long if stored right. I have so far just been buying extras that are on sale. You should be buying foods you would normally eat and rotating them. This is what I'm doing and setting aside some for long term storage. I'm buying some dehydrated food as well but I like how those taste anyway. I plan on buying my own dehydrator soon & making a solar one. You can buy or even make a solar oven if/when the power goes out. This is just my opinion, but anyone just buying an assload of freeze dried food & planning on using those for their survival is in for a world of hurt.

[joeltrout]

Why is anyone buying freeze dried food for their preps though?

I buy for several reasons:

1) The portion I keep at my house in LA I can use in case of major earthquake

2) All the food I buy includes a healthy mix of fruits, breads, meat, and vegetables

3) It has a 30 year shelf life and is easy to store

4) I backpack in the Sierras and use the MH freeze dried food so I know which meals I like.

5) A full meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert) can be prepared within minutes.

joeltrout

[patience]

joeltrout,

I'm 62 this Fall, and am supposed to get my first SS check before Christmas. My wife is the same age, and may retire in January, '09. We have 2 adult children.

I worked my way from a poor farm background through college and spent the bulk of my working years as a mechanical engineer in the auto industry. These were secure, well paid jobs, for most of that time doing machine and automation design. The income and benefits allowed us to buy and sell several homes, accumulating enough in the process to eventually pay off a 45 acre hobby farm. Throughout our 42 year marriage, my wife and I have lived frugally, doing all we could for ourselves, from car and home maintenance, to making clothing and furniture.

I've always had a part time business of some sort, from refurbing an old house, to trash collection, to furniture making, and finally a hobby machine shop. Severe personal losses forced us to sell the farm, and have only recovered enough in the past few years to pay for one acre with a 30 year old home on it.

In 2003, I was able to start a small machine and welding shop at home, repairing farm and garden equipment, and doing light welding fabrication. In spite of financial losses along the way, we have managed to save some money (in Treasuries) and improve our home for a PO future. Working pretty much sunup-to-sundown, we've built a shop building ourselves, refurbed most of the equipment in it, and added a yard barn, put in an orchard, 3 garden areas, and added a sunporch/summer kitchen to the house. That last will provide some solar heat and provide a spot for a woodstove, plus a place to start garden plants and do canning. All built myself, from the slab to the caulking, with state of the art insulation, windows and doors.

We are in the process of adding solar PV, wood heat, and expanding the gardening. With a bit of luck we will be able to have a good retirement, but we are prepared for worse than that.

We plan to add a few chickens, and buy grain, firewood, and meat from local farmers/customers.

Edit #1
Our thinking on PO preps is that it should be a cost advantage over common consumption. We buy stuff when the price is reduced for whatever reason, and buy extra for the future. It's just good sense. Non-perishables, of course. And we search diligently for the price breaks. That means everything we buy. Often that turns out to be something used. My shop is almost all used equipment that I've rebuilt, or made myself. We look for quality items where their durability will pay over time, but also buy a lot of cheap imports when the quality is good enough. Certain things we buy new for longer life, such as a bicycle, because there are parts that wear out. And on most things we keep spare parts.

Make-vs-buy decisions are a big part of our achieving what we have, too. We try to decide based on the time to either earn the money to buy it, or to make it ourselves, with an eye to the time we have available. Earnings are subject to taxes, so we add 20% to the ticket price and divide by our hourly income to figure out how many hours it costs. We try to keep in mind that the goal is self reliance, not accumulating money, to avoid misapplying our rules.

Done consistently, living on the cheap leaves money for more cost saving items, so the process builds on itself.

[Ainan]

Well, I'm 22, currently working for a year as part of my University degree. Very little in savings at the moment but my job pays well and I'm slowly building up a nest egg, enough to emmigrate out of Europe in a few years time at least. I don't have any financial help from my parents unfortunetly but I get by fine.

Financially speaking my best investment at the moment is in a Bag for Life as I call it(may do a post on the concept(it's not a BOB)) which I am putting together now. A good strong bag, sleeping bag, tent, knife, strong durable clothes and various tools which will last the rest of my life.(50 years with luck) This is the height of economic output and you may never get the chance to buy such a well made sleeping bag or knife every again, buy now! If it all fits in a bag you can carry, you can keep it for the rest of your life.

Fortunetly I've never had any debt problems, next year I hope to take a part time job along with Uni to boost my savings. Looking for consultancy work in my company at the moment so I can work as much free time as I have in my final University year. Prehaps I will be able to afford an acre of land one day...

Highly recommended for saving money:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/

[Spanktron9]

This is just my opinion, but anyone just buying an assload of freeze dried food & planning on using those for their survival is in for a world of hurt.

Um, you are talking about me. I just purchased 3 full-year MH supplies. These are not my only food preps, we have been vaccuum sealing wheat, beans, barley, etc. and I also have several 5 gallon pails of dried meals, plus a well stocked pantry. I bought the MH because of a coming price hike of 30%, lack of availability, and the 30+ year shelf life. Knowing that my family has a 1-year food buffer, provides a lot of piece of mind. A failed garden, poor scavenging whatever, wouldn't necessarily mean going hungry.

[ROCKMAN]

Great idea for a thread Joel. I'm glad to see the number of younger folks out here. Patience and I are old (I'm 58) and nearly used up. Glad to see a sincere interest by antone under 35. And it is rather refrshing to hear the life stories...nice change from much of the negatives out there. Keep it up.

A young land man, eh Joel. I'm not sure whether I envie your professional future or worry about you. It's always easy to look back at the boom/bust cycles and understand. Predicting, even today, is something I still try to avoid.

[JustaGirl]

This is just my opinion, but anyone just buying an assload of freeze dried food & planning on using those for their survival is in for a world of hurt.

Um, you are talking about me. I just purchased 3 full-year MH supplies. These are not my only food preps, we have been vaccuum sealing wheat, beans, barley, etc. and I also have several 5 gallon pails of dried meals, plus a well stocked pantry. I bought the MH because of a coming price hike of 30%, lack of availability, and the 30+ year shelf life. Knowing that my family has a 1-year food buffer, provides a lot of piece of mind. A failed garden, poor scavenging whatever, wouldn't necessarily mean going hungry.

My intent was not to offend anyone. I'm just trying to point out you can do preps on a budget and have them last just as long as the freeze dried stuff. You have what sounds to be a good plan and that's great. I do worry about the people that just buy the MH stuff & put it away & are doing nothing else. I'm trying to do what i think will be most sustainable long term, learning to cook from scratch, growing some of my own food, etc.

[joeltrout]

I forgot to talk about my job.

I currently work at one of top 5 largest insurance companies in the world. I manage an oil and gas minerals portfolio of a little over 400,000 net mineral acres. We are currently the 2nd largest mineral owner in California.

My day to day business is mostly negotiating oil and gas leases and keeping current of the drilling/production on our minerals.

It believe it has a good future but ROCKMAN you are right the cycles can be devastating. My family has been in oil for over 50 years. Seen really good and really bad both domestic and abroad.

joeltrout

[Spanktron9]

This is just my opinion, but anyone just buying an assload of freeze dried food & planning on using those for their survival is in for a world of hurt.

Um, you are talking about me. I just purchased 3 full-year MH supplies. These are not my only food preps, we have been vaccuum sealing wheat, beans, barley, etc. and I also have several 5 gallon pails of dried meals, plus a well stocked pantry. I bought the MH because of a coming price hike of 30%, lack of availability, and the 30+ year shelf life. Knowing that my family has a 1-year food buffer, provides a lot of piece of mind. A failed garden, poor scavenging whatever, wouldn't necessarily mean going hungry.

My intent was not to offend anyone. I'm just trying to point out you can do preps on a budget and have them last just as long as the freeze dried stuff. You have what sounds to be a good plan and that's great. I do worry about the people that just buy the MH stuff & put it away & are doing nothing else. I'm trying to do what i think will be most sustainable long term, learning to cook from scratch, growing some of my own food, etc.

No Worries. It was just interested as I placed that order yesterday!
Kinda hit home.

[MidwesternMom]

I'm 25 and most of our 'prepping' is actually just things we want to do anyway. We are trying to get out of debt, sticking to a budget, and prior to learning about peak oil and this site, I began couponing, and learning sales, etc. I have been building a nice stock of food the past few months, that I've gotten pretty cheap with coupons mostly, and also bulk purchasing at sam's. We have a year supply of rice, flour, sugar, peanut butter and other odds and ends as far as food goes. By no means a great stockpile, but a start. I started my first garden this year, kind of last minute, but we plan to drastically expand that next year. Other things on my list of things to get: camping gear, manual tools, and possibly a gun and ammo. I am still a little nervous about that, but dh would like one for protection purposes in general, it's only because of learning about peak oil that i'm even considering it now.

I grew up poor, so i know what it's like to go without modern commodities, like heat, hot water, a/c, phones, cars, dish washer, I think that in itself is a bit of prepping, or at least i have experienced going without things that we may not have in the future.

[Nicholai]

I just turned 19 a few months back.

I've been peak oil aware since I was 17 (time flies when you're an old dog like me). In grade 12 I sort of gave up on school but I had a job with our provincial government so I decided to stay on for another year and go to university. I put myself down for a major in economics and boy was that an interesting year...

As my first semester rolled to a close I decided to start saving up some cash and taking a tour of some ecovillages throughout Canada and Europe. I've found some really interesting and beautiful spots in Quebec and some really fascinating locations in Europe. Being young and peak oil aware is just a horrendous combination unless you are an extremely rational and psychologically capable individual. There's nothing worse than coming to the conclusion that the industrial world as you know it is soon going to end without having the education or finance to prepare yourself. It's sort of like a homeless quadriplegic finding out that a hail storm is only 10 minutes away......I'm terrible with analogies FYI

I hope I find an ecovillage in Quebec that would be willing to take me in a give me a room, teach me some skills and hopefully allow me to build a COB house in the area somewhere along the line. There's one ecovillage with a bakery on site so I think it would be great to learn some basic baking skills and hopefully earn a little bit of money to pay for food prep and such. I've saved up a decent amount of money for the trip but nothing to last me a life time. This will last me for the year (2009) at best and allow me to plant my roots and figure things out. I live at home so the family will have to do what they want when things get bad. My Dad understands the concepts but he sees peak oil as a mere hypothetical topic, something for the dinner table and not much more....

It's hard preparing for the end of the world when you still pick your nose....aw well, life is like a box of chocolates....

[allenwrench]

I am a transplant from L.A., lived there 35 years and moved in 1989 to the NE US to 'city-country' as opposed to 'city-city'.

I had a big shock the first time the electric went off for more than 5 minutes in my new local. That was the day I learned about self sufficiency about 17 years ago.

Bought some candles and a flashlight and went on from there. But that only clued me into short term survival with my preparedness aimed at 4 to 6 weeks. Then came 'peak oil' and the rest and had my eyes opened to long term, indefinite survival.

That was in Oct of '07. Have been working on preps like a part time job ever since.

[burtonridr]

Funny how the results closely follow a bell curve

[ROCKMAN]

Funny ha ha or funny strange burt? Can't explain exactly why but I would have guessed the median age would have been much higher. Perhaps I'm not giving the more youthful enough credit.

[RedStateGreen]

So how did you get to where you are at today? If you would, give us a short description of how you managed to prep as much or as little as you have.

I'll be 46 tomorrow

I grew up with two fiscally irresponsible parents and four younger siblings. By the time I was a young teenager I was buying the groceries, dealing with frequent bouts of having water/lights turned off, and raising four children (my sisters). I got my bachelor's degree by getting a scholarship and working three part time jobs. I didn't take out any loans to go to college, for which I am eternally grateful.

Then I went to medical school. I got married after my first year and we decided that we would always live below our means, and we've done so ever since. I only had $35k in student loans when I graduated, and I got those paid off in 7 years.

Three months after I started residency, a beautiful little 'oops' happened, which eventually meant we needed to move out of our tiny apartment. We got our first home during the SoCal housing bust of the early 90's, and by the time we moved to OK 14 years and two more kids later, we had something like $38k left on the mortgage (even after I left medical practice in 2000, cutting our on-paper income by 2/3). We got our house sold right at the top of the housing bubble, selling it for well over twice what we paid for it. (that still astonishes me)

So I guess the advice I would give is: don't spend more than you make, keep your eye on trends, don't go into debt if you don't have to (and if you do, do whatever you need to in order to pay it off as fast as you can), and pray a lot.

As far as preps, I have bought a lot of FD stuff/food/etc., but I've also been an organic gardener for 15 years and know how to sew, can, crochet, and knit, plus I'm handy at making things. The important thing (I think) is to keep your options open and always be on the lookout for new practical skills. The more you can do, the more ways your services will be valuable to someone.

[ROCKMAN]

Good for you RGS. This thread really is proving to be a good escape from the harsh realities of the other threads. I hope folks continue adding their bios. I suspect a lot more out there are enjoying it even if they don't join in.

[patience]

Added to my post as an edit, maybe not the best choice, but at least it's all together.

Young people are faced with rising costs and pressures from all sides, undoubtedly more than us old guys, so perhaps that explains their interest.

[Ludi]

I'm in the 42 to 49 age range. My husband and I worked for four years in the entertainment industry to save the money we needed to buy our land and move from Los Angeles. We had each worked longer than that of course, but that is how long it took us to save the money we needed for the move. We still work in the entertainment industry, making a quite modest living from our place in the country. We usually don't have much spare cash to prep, but since we would be living this way even without the looming spectre of Peak Oil, we just keep poking along to become more independent. Lately I haven't been very interested in PO, and I've been a lot happier.