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

It was pointed out at TSLRF that “people are starting to get shell-shocked out of blogging because of the large amounts of bad news which seems to be the world nowadays.” Theres a bit of truth to that…but on the other hand, being aware of the bad news is far more important than being aware of good news.

However, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are subjective. For example, I see nothing but ‘news’:

• People are going to be scraping to put food on the table, but we’re going to have no problem feeding ourselves.
• Folks are going to be dreading their mortgages becoming millstones around their necks, but we’ll be okay with our small fixed rate mortgage.
• People will have to choose between heating and lighting or having food on the table, but we’ll have both.
• Crime will increase and some people will be afraid to walk out of their homes, but we’ll be going on with our heavily armed and armored lives without interuption.
• People are going to have to face the consequences of their suffocating debt load; we’ll have no debt at all except the small mortgage.
• Inflation, deflation, recession and depression will be weighing heavily on peoples minds; we’ll look at our almost non-existent debt load, cash reserve, paid-for vehicle, small stash of precious metals, and our mountain of food and ammo and think that we’ll be okay.
• When the stresses of unemployment, worrying about the future, and the crushing sense of doom cause people to start snapping at their loved ones and sabotage their relationships we’ll be  pulling together for our common and shared future.

So, you see, for us it really is pretty much just ‘news’…it isnt ‘bad news’ because we’re situated so it won’t affect us in a majorly negative way. And, not to sound like a motivational speaker or anything, if youre willing to sell the jet ski, stop buying $25,000 cars and think strategically (and enforce some self-discipline) you can feel just as secure.

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Speaking of securing our future, a late night trip to Albertson’s caught the meat counter at that magical time of day when they put out the remaindered meat. Mmmmm…meat. Ground beef at $1.69/#….darn well better believe we picked up a bunch. Brought it home, divvied it up into smaller units and they are in the freezer now in preparation for vacuum sealing and then the great cryo-nap…see you in three years.

As an aside, they had individual 1#~ units of this stuff for $1.99/# but if you bought the ‘bulk’ ( a giant snowball of meat weighing around 6#) it was $1.69/#…save thirty cents a pound for just repackaging it at homeinto smaller units? You bet! Thats about a 15% savings and thats the same as one free pound for every seven.