Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Someone asked:
Having followed things here off and on for a few years I’m surprised you say you only spend $1,000 per year on smallarms related purchases. I’m in the induetry when in the states and I know dealer costs are a little easier on the checkbook but I’d still have guessed $3,000 or maybe even a little more per year.
That makes me wonder, since you seem to be the sort to do detailed tracking through your lists, have you ever thought about going through the books and seeing how much your expenditures are in different categories? Not just adding to the stocks but other expenses as well? Vehicle, business, home (all survival related but maybe not in the same category as FD foods and ammo), entertainment, etc.?
Might be an interesting exercise. Actually I suspect many people might be a bit surprised as to where the money goes if they were to sit down and look at it. Some might even change their priorities if they knew a good chunk of change goes to things that they don’t really get much use out of.
Well, it helps that we have the FFL and that in my civilian life I run a shop that sells reloading components and gear. But, really, alot of the stuff we have that is directly preparedness-related as far as firearms go is stuff we already had. For example, I still have the first AR I ever bought myself back in 1988. When I started putting together a collection of guns with preparedness in mind I already had most of what I deemed necessary…just needed extras. Most of our ammo was either purchased back in the day when you could get a case of 7.62×39 for $95, or .223 for $135, or is reloaded on the big Dillon. There might have been years where we spent more than $1000 (this year for example will be a big one) but there are years when we spent half of that. On average, its probably about $1000 a year for the gun stuff. A thousand bucks a year is not alot of money…even an underemployed monkey can come up with $3 a day, I would imagine. Also, very few of our firearms were purchased new. I dont think I’ve ever paid more than $400 for a high power or $800 for an AR or $200 for an 870. If you cracked a look in the gun safe it’d be easy to scream “yuppie survivalists!” because theres nothing in there that was used at Stalingrad or has ‘-arov’ in its name but the fact is that if you make more than minimum wage and youre not an idiot with your spending, you can sock away an AR, Glock and 870 pretty quickly.
How much do we spend per year on non-firearms preparedness stuff? Thats trickier. Why? Because alot of preparedness stuff is simply stuff you normally use, except in larger quantities. Let me give an example – I like chicken. When I go to CostCo I always get about 10# of the stuff and when I get home it gets broken down into 1# packages, sealed up, and tucked away in the deep freeze. As the year goes on some gets pulled out and used and more goes in to take its place. So that chicken isnt really bought solely for preparedness…it gets used for normal usage as well. ALot of our food storage is like that so I dont really see the cost of that being considered any different than regular groceries. Succinctly, very little money above ‘normal’ grocery expenses goes to food storage. There are, of course, exceptions. The frezedrieds arent cheap so I got dealer status with MH and save myself a big chunk of money. Even then, since the MH lasts at least 25 years you could dollar cost average it out and it would be less than $200 a year. The bulk stuff like wheat, corn, rice, etc. is ridiculously cheap. A hundred pounds of rice is only about, I think, $30 last time I looked at CostCo.
Stored fuel is like groceries…we fill the fuel cans and rotate them through usage, so its fuel we were going to use anyway. Same for alot of things.
If you were to ask what % of household income goes into preparedness around here I’d say less than 10%..probably closer to 7%. But we’re atypical of average consumers. We don’t buy toys like jet skis, ‘fun’ vehicles, or boats. We don’t have any debt except the mortgage. We don’t have any credit cards, student loans, vehicle loans, or anything like that nibbling away at what comes in. No kids. We live pretty plainly and try to live within our means.
It’s just my opinion but I think pretty much anyone can put together a very nice ‘war chest’ of food, fuel, ammo, guns, gear and the like if theyre sincere in their desires, focussed and disciplined in their spending habits, and careful in their shopping around.
