Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Doom n’ Gloom Patrol:

A couple articles I came across while perusing the interweb. First one is about the increase in food prices. The article says that there is no one reason, but rather that a variety of reasons happening all at once are responsible. Whats interesting is that its more than a ‘prepare to pay more’ article. It examines one of the repercussions which is that with more of a person’s income going towards food their disposable income is reduced and that could have economic repercussions as well.

According to the article, eggs are up as much as 30% and chicken by 10%. This mates nicely with the letter I got from Mountain House saying that dairy prices were pushing the prices of their freezedried foods up this year. Im glad I did the group buys last year and got a goodly amount of the stuff before the prices went up.

Reasons for the increases vary from climatic issues (A flood here, a drought there), the demand for biofuel (and I saw that one coming a mile away), etc, etc. The upshot is that its costing more to fill your belly while its costing more to fill your tank.

While I have seen some increases locally (and believe me, I keep track of this sort of thing) its not been too bad because I usually buy in bulk, buy on sale and use coupons. Plus, the deep freeze makes a big difference. I think theres about 30# of chicken tucked away right now at last years (and the year befores) prices. (In addition to the stuff in the freezer, theres also a pretty healthy quantity of freeze-dried chicken and dehydrated eggs. As Ive said before, I am NOT going through the apocalypse as a vegetarian.)

The lesson here is that a) its not just you, prices are indeed going up and b) the smart thing to do, if you can, is buy now for later use.

Next article up is about inflation, hyperinflation and the hows and whys. Again, it doesn’t really say much that you cant figure out on your own – as a currency devalues theres a rush to spend it on things that will keep their value as the money devalues – but its still an interesting read. Theres the classic stories about workers in the Weimar getting paid twice a day to keep up with the galloping inflation, wheelbarrows of money, buying anything you can before your money becomes worthless, etc. Interesting stuff.

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Put another set of shelving in the bunker the other night. Its starting to get a bit more organized but its still kinda cluttered. Nonetheless, it still gives me a case of the warm fuzzies to sit amongst my gear and supplies and think “Damn, I could live a long time just offa whats in here”.

I’ve been dragging my feet on taking an inventory of things because its just such a bloody tedious project. But, with the elections looming, I need to make informed purchasing decisions and I cant do that if I don’t know what I already have and what I need. So…I’ll draft the girlfriend, give her a clipboard and have her give me a hand. Good experience for her, too….I think that while she has some idea of what we have theres a goodly amount of stuff she may not be aware of. More than once we’ve gone somewhere and I’ll produce a piece of gear and she’ll say “Where’d you get that?” and I’ll reply “From the bunker. We’ve got like ten of them.”