[Ayoob]

Here are your instructions.

Do not blame anyone or anything for your troubles in life, and take control of whatever you can with whatever you have at hand, right now. Practice losing everything. Blow up all your sacred cows, tear down whatever you hold nearest and dearest. Throw it all in the garbage. What's coming next requires your complete attention. Thou shalt have no false gods before me.

1. Water. Take control of your water situation. Clean, drinkable water. How much do you have control over? Do you control a source of water? Can anyone upstream take your water supply away from you? If anyone can take your water supply away from you, then you are not in control of your water. Does that make sense? You MUST have water to survive for three days. If you store water in containers, how long can you survive on that supply? Would you enjoy surviving on it? Are you willing to move to a place where water is assured?

2. Food. Take control of your food situation. Watch the Penn and Teller special on organic food while you drink your cup of coffee, because organic food is BULLSHIT. Pesticides are wonderful, and are far less harmful to you than your cup of coffee. What is your food supply, what can you do to control it? Do you have chickens or goats? I think that owning chickens is going to be a requirement for anyone who has children. Kids who don't get enough protein in their diets wind up with a lot of health problems and a lack of brain development. Do you garden? What percentage of your diet are you in complete control of? What happens to you if food quadruples in price tomorrow? Do you own land, can you container garden, etc.

3. Shelter. Take control of your shelter situation. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. If anyone can take your shelter away from you, you are not in control. Real estate is a fucking nightmare right now, so this one's kind of bullshit. I have no idea what to do to take control of your shelter situation. Just as a side note, I'm seriously considering "investing" in a popup camper trailer. As long as I pay the minimal fees to keep it licensed, nobody can take it away from me. It's not a taxable asset, like real estate. I can park in WalMart parking lots. Join a gym to shower, cook on a grill. I dunno. The hobo lifestyle kind of is for me, and kind of isn't. Frankly I think I'm fucked in this department. Some of you guys own land and shit, and I think that's great and good on you. Wish I did. It's totally ridiculous that nobody in my family owns land and animals. I'm stuck with school loans and a full time job and grad school and a baby and all that kind of thing so I'm not in Buying Land mode, I'm in Paying Off School Loans mode.

4. Buy it Cheap and Stack It Deep. Costco wool socks, undies, jeans, boots, canned tuna, blah blah blah. The more the better. All of it's going to get really expensive. Cost-shift into the future.

5. Defense. Sell it to others. I think the best way to play this category is to sell others on the idea that you're going to provide security, and then allow them to protect themselves. You take no responsibility, make money on the transaction, and then hand off the means of defense to your customers. It's even better if you require a monthly payment for services, when there are no services provided. It would be like charging for an annual carry permit or something like that. Or, allow people to carry on your private land and give them the OK to shoot intruders, but hand them over to the local authorities if they fuck it up. Life is not safe, and we all die in the end. Safety is an illusion. Bad things happen to good people. Static defenses can be defeated by an educated enemy. Living in an ivory tower cuts you off from the flow of information. On the other hand, if you're planning to actually defend yourself, then your options are limitless. Hand to hand, firearms, pepper spray/knife, etc. Physical fitness and physicality in general are your friends. I believe in lights, dogs, window film, locks, strike plates, solid doors, grates and grills, bars, cameras, patrols, etc. Whatever works for your circumstances. When I go from four 10s to five eight hour shifts I'm planning on getting a German Shepherd for various reasons. Window film is going to be negotiated with the landlord. I wish fire protection was an option for me, but it simply is not. I cannot be free from the danger of fire.

6. Love and Joy. Take it for yourself. Friends come and go, lovers get old, children get bitter and turn away from you, business partners find more profitable alternatives, etc. Enjoy the time you spend with your family and friends while you have them. They may be taken away from you in the future. Take care of yourself. Find a way to deal with fear and stress productively. Exercise your body and make it into the vessel that carries your consciousness forward into the future. Share what you have with those you love. I have found that spending the last dollar of my paycheck on some little gift to give to someone I care about when my next dollar is a week away is very liberating.

7. Books. Whatever it is you want to know about, buy the books that will give you that information. Book lists have come and gone on this site for years. The key to this is to buy the books and take physical possession of them immediately. What is it that you want your children to know, and their children? I am sure to my very bones that we are going to completely fall apart economically and go to war soon. Once the dust settles and children can live in peace again, they are going to need to know things. What are they going to need to know? I believe they're going to need to know about items 1 through 6. I have a couple of books on geology, weather, and water. I have no idea whether they are sufficient information for my grandchildren to use to thrive, but I have actually bought those books and own them already. I have the means for my great grandchildren to purify water to drink. No, really. It's in my storage room. They need a book to learn how to operate it, and the book is on my shelves. I think I might have to write a book to explain what each book is and why my descendants should read it and what they should do for themselves. Books do not require batteries or a working laptop, and I don't think there's going to be anything for my great grandchildren to plug a flash drive into. They're going to need physical paper with words on it, preserved correctly and usable in the future. I'm thinking hard about putting together information on illuminated manuscripts from the Dark Ages so my great grandchildren will think about recopying the information in the books I will leave behind for them.

8. Books. History, psychology, the various physical sciences, anatomy and physiology, cooking, food preservation, war, construction, woodworking, tools, navigation, the list is endless. In addition to survival skills, people will need that which is required to thrive. Military history is essential in my mind. How do the strong take from the weak? Whether you are strong or weak you need to know that information. Shipbuilding, canoe building, fishing, mapmaking, knifemaking, flintknapping, primitive sandals, propaganda, sales, organizational psychology, leadership, Scouting, there is no end to the knowledge you can amass with enough books.

Obey.

[Timo]

Yes, your Sacredness.

[vision-master]

My food stores are going to rot pretty soon, I'm still waiting for TSTHTF.......

Oh and those bug-out bags - Ha...

[gnm]

Well, one observation.... If you can't keep your home (either from foreclosure, civil unrest, or just outright fraud/seizing) then you are going to have a tough time meeting the food and water security parts of your plan in a popup trailer. In the event of civil unrest or disaster, you are also going to have a tough time moving said popup due to lack of fuel. you present a lot of good ideas but they need to have plan A,B, and C's as well...

just sayin...

-G

[Ayoob]

Well, one observation.... If you can't keep your home (either from foreclosure, civil unrest, or just outright fraud/seizing) then you are going to have a tough time meeting the food and water security parts of your plan in a popup trailer. In the event of civil unrest or disaster, you are also going to have a tough time moving said popup due to lack of fuel. you present a lot of good ideas but they need to have plan A,B, and C's as well...

just sayin...

-G

You are absolutely correct. Plans B through F need to be established and stress tested. Seriously though, if you don't square your water situation up, nothing else matters. You can have anything else lined up securely and safely, but if you don't nail down your water then you will simply have to walk past your own personal Maginot line to the water. Three days is the limit. After three days, you're done.

I think of it like a chemistry experiment. What is the limiting reactant? It's water. If you don't have water it doesn't matter what else you have. Water water water. I moved to have water not be a problem for me. That problem is permanently solved for me.

I have a shitload of other problems to solve, but water is not one of them. That one's nailed down and I'm done with it permanently. For example, I have neither the chicken nor the goat problem solved. Lots of people here have me beat and I kind of envy them, but I'm not jealous. I just need to figure out how to solve my problems.

[davep]

We're lucky with respect to water, in that the whole area was an ancient lake. It disappeared a long time ago after the Alps came up, but is still very humid and the water table is very high. We also have hundreds of metres of nutrient-rich clay soil.

[Newfie]

Good post Aooyb. Don't let the nay sayers bog you down.

[vtsnowedin]

1, water check, own the spring and the land around it.
2, food, check, freezer is full and pantry and root cellar are well stocked.
3, Land, check, more then enough to subsist on if needed. Payed for.
4. house, check built it myself in 1985, paid for no mortgage.
5, defense, check guns of all types in hand with plenty of ammo and the supplies and tools to reload them.Know how to use them as well.
6, Love and joy, check, 34th anniversary coming up in the spring. Maybe grand kids this decade sometime.
7 Books, check, several cords of books in the house, everything from encyclopedias to Grays anatomy to bodice rippers.
8, Books, ? I don't need a textbook to tell me how to de-horn a bull. I have the cutters and know how to use them. All that" live on the farm with horse power "stuff I've been there ,done that and didn't forget how it's done,

[Maddog78]

I've made 72K in the stock market in the past 10 weeks.
I think I'm going to trade in my 911 for an R8.

How's that for preparing for the future?

[vision-master]

I'd say how's taht for ego.

[Maddog78]

Naw, not really, just a jab at the fast crash doomers and pointing out the market has been strong for a few months now.

I also post at a Vancouver RE forum (no bust there, boom continues and many got rich and are getting richer) and a couple of high end car forums.
I guess I shouldn't come directly here and post after viewing these others.
I should leave time to adjust my thoughts between two utterly different realities.

[gnm]

As they say, it takes money to make money... Doubt you could have done that on a starbucks salary with two kids and bills - but cudos on the cashing in of the fed's ramp job... did you notice all those nasty increases in commodities over that 10 weeks? The folks living check to check sure did...

True on the water Ayoob, speaking as someone who has gone a day without any water while crossing a mountain in July I would venture to say that after 24 hours you aren't worth much. Unless you spent that 24 hours just sitting around in the shade. Keep your gallon jug safe!

-G

[Maddog78]

As they say, it takes money to make money... Doubt you could have done that on a starbucks salary with two kids and bills - but cudos on the cashing in of the fed's ramp job... did you notice all those nasty increases in commodities over that 10 weeks? The folks living check to check sure did...

All True.
As you say that was not a normal 10 weeks either.
I got lucky on a few picks. It doesn't happen every time.

[Lumpy]

Ayoob,
I have not posted to PO for, wow, well over a year, I think. The past 18 months have been, basically, hell in terms of personal life. (Family crises, including end-of-life care for and death of very close family member, job problems, etc.) So no time for PO reading/posting.

I am VERY glad that the first post I read when I got back here was this one of yours.

You are right, right, right, right, right.

We live on 7+ acres, which we believe we were led to back in 2005, when we went from city to rural living. We have made an incredible number of very costly mistakes since we got here -- mostly because everything we REALLY knew about making this thing come together we learned by reading a book, or on the Internet. Fortunately, we have learned a lot hands on in the past 5 years, and feel totally blessed that we picked this spot. (Actually, that we felt compelled to buy this place, even with all of its problems to be dealt with -- the extent of most of which we didn't even recognize when we bought the place.) The NUMBER ONE greatest thing about this place is that we have an artesian well that feeds a pond on the property via a little year-round creek. In addition, one boundary of the property is another, much larger creek.

The ground water is high enough that our 4 year old orchard produces now, with MUCH less watering than we would have expected. Only have to pump our water onto the orchard for the hottest weeks of the year ... and as it gets more mature, that will be less of an issue. For our additional trees, we are considering planting closer to the little creek, so that even early on, they will require less water.

Everything else you said is so right on. But the water thing -- that is what called us to this place ... and now we understand even better why it felt so right! (For all the reasons you have delineated.)

Thanks for the post. It is exactly the program we are working toward completing!

Lumpy

[steam_cannon]

Don't get sceered if you are new here, these people aren't waco survivalists, they are simply following the suggestions of the US government,
http://www.ready.gov/

I felt like editing my post and getting this quote on the front page. Pops makes a good point that we aren't survivalist nuts here (or at least not all of us). But we do like to be prepared. Our government suggests this and many of us have seen disasters at home and abroad, what works what doesn't. Totally disconnecting from the system seldom works, but making yourself heartier and more ready for common problems does. Blackouts happen, waterlines break, cities go bankrupt, Detroit happens.

So the ideas presented here aren't necessarily for some doomsday scenario, but more for how to deal with the kind of events that happen in anyone's life if they've lived long enough.

So here's my two cents...

Be sure you have a good source of heat. Water, food and land are all good things. But the winter is coming and it's easy to get hypothermia even on days that are just a little cold. Plus you'll burn though calories a lot faster if you don't have heat.

* Good blankets, socks.

* Having a tent that you can set up in your house in case of power and heat outages.

* Some personal heater packs: A hot water bottle. You can buy hand warmers or make them. Metal water bottles make good hot water bottles. If you put a candle (or oil candle) in a tin can and make a diffuser for the top, and put a wire on it so it hooks onto your belt, then you can put that under your coat to warm up. For hundreds of dollars you can buy a charcoal/fan body heater which wouldn't be a bad investment if you might be outside a lot, like say doing security work.

* A fireplace, wood stove or portable wood stove: What if you can't pay your heat bill or there are power outages? One time I saw the police come to condemn a building and move people out because there was an ice-storm emergency and most people didn't have heat. But they relented because the fireplace worked in that building. Something more common, what happens if you're camping and get rained on a cold day. If you have a stove or heater you can warm up and dry off your cloths. If not...

If you're in a pinch you can pop a stovepipe out a window; if you have a piece of sheet-metal to put the pipe though. I was reading about some people who did that in their apartments in Poland, because their building heat wasn't working so well.

* Think you might be "traveling" in your car or a camper? Get an alcohol burner to heat up your car, for example canned alcohol gel set in a larger metal can partway full of sand (so it doesn't burn your floor and maybe a diffuser on top). Alcohol flames don't produce significant carbon monoxide. Or get a tent heater that uses a heat exchanger so you don't get lots of carbon monoxide exposure. A car cover can make a car into a tent and keep some heat in.

* Water proofing like simple plastic bags or rubber boots so you can cross cold/icy wet areas and stay dry. Even advanced UAV's don't work well in thunderstorms, but plastic bags do.

With heat you can catch your breath, which is better then seeing your breath. You can resist the winter and travel when everyone else is staying inside. With plastic bags over warm socks you can walk in freezing water. With heat you can boil water to make it safe, cook food and generally give your self time to think what to do next.

The ideas mentioned so far are good, but first and foremost you should ask yourself: "Can I keep myself warm?" You might not need any of these things, but it's good to have options and heat makes a lot of things easier.

[Pops]

I'm glad to see a little preparedness talk.

Don't get sceered if you are new here, these people aren't waco survivalists, they are simply following the suggestions of the US government,
http://www.ready.gov/

Anyway, we have a couple of 5 gallon jugs in the closet (with a few drops of unscented bleach added) that have come in handy a surprising number of times. Probably cost $10 at wally's.

[Mesuge]

Reality spoiler alert, reposted comment post from Kunstler blog:

BenCorp | November 15, 2010 9:52 AM | Reply
I'm really starting to think that he and everybody else is getting the nature of the collapse all wrong. It's happening now but it's slow. There is no tipping point, no cliff. Just slow decent, notch by notch, day after day, forever.
I live in Africa and believe me, yeast folk, you have no idea how much things can deteriorate, how poor you become, how many services can fail while at the same time there are still rich politicians and their business pals driving in big limos (more like BMW X6s round here) down new freeways doing exactly what they want. Where I live half the population under 30 has no job and no hope of getting one. A third of country live in shacks. There are plagues, no-go zones, corrupt pigs demanding bribes everywhere, more taxes. But at the same time more golf esates, more BMW X6s and more silicone breast implants than ever before! It becomes normal very quickly, trust me.
If you're waiting for some kind of poverty limit to spark revolt you're going to wait forever.

[Oneaboveall]

Reality spoiler alert, reposted comment post from Kunstler blog:

BenCorp | November 15, 2010 9:52 AM | Reply
I'm really starting to think that he and everybody else is getting the nature of the collapse all wrong. It's happening now but it's slow. There is no tipping point, no cliff. Just slow decent, notch by notch, day after day, forever.
I live in Africa and believe me, yeast folk, you have no idea how much things can deteriorate, how poor you become, how many services can fail while at the same time there are still rich politicians and their business pals driving in big limos (more like BMW X6s round here) down new freeways doing exactly what they want. Where I live half the population under 30 has no job and no hope of getting one. A third of country live in shacks. There are plagues, no-go zones, corrupt pigs demanding bribes everywhere, more taxes. But at the same time more golf esates, more BMW X6s and more silicone breast implants than ever before! It becomes normal very quickly, trust me.
If you're waiting for some kind of poverty limit to spark revolt you're going to wait forever.

I mostly agree with this, with one caveat. Such 3rd world countries never really developed a modern infrastructure. We have one and we will not sink quite as low. We will have the similar levels of unemployment but food, water and minimal health care can be provided fairly cheaply. Just enough to keep us from revolting.

I saw this post too and a few things came to mind:

I'm sure the means to build the golf courses and BMW's are coming from somewhere else. If that "somewhere else" starts to have major problems, then the "rich politicians and their business pals" will be a SOOL as everyone else.

The article mentions "no-go" zones, there may not be an organized revolt, but I'm sure the crime rate and random violence statistics are insanely high.

[vtsnowedin]

Here's my two cents...

Be sure you have a good source of heat. ....
.......
The ideas mentioned so far are good, but first and foremost you should ask yourself: "Can I keep myself warm?" You might not need any of these things, but it's good to have options and heat makes a lot of things easier.

Quite correct. Hypothermia kills.
I'm not too worried about it. I heat exclusively with wood and use about ten cords per year cut from my own woods. If the oil situation gets to the point that I can't buy gas for the chain saw I'll just have to suck it up and deal with it. Of course the rest of oil heat New England would be in complete anarchy long before I can't buy five gallons of gas for my saw. Axe and bucksaw still work but I'd rather not.