Tag Archives: theory

Direction

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I was having a little exchange in email with someone and was describing how the direction of my own prepping (and I really hate that word..it sounds so cutesy and trendy) has changed as of late and why. Maybe it’s worth a post or two.

I’m fairly satisfied with where I’m sitting in terms of food, fuel, materiel, etc, etc. It’s not necessarily gilding the lily to continue on the current path, but this current economic clime is one that makes me think now is the optimal time to shift directions for me.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re in a somewhat better-than-usual economic period. Jobs and markets are at record numbers. I’m not going to say that money is out there falling from the sky, but for someone with a brain, work ethic, and ambition, now might be a good time to work on getting the financial side of preparedness buffed up…take the extra job, invest the extra cash, sell the unused items, etc.

What does the financial side of preparedness look like?  For the ‘casuals’ that may look like the classic six-month-emergency fund in the bank, pay off the credit cards, and beef up the Roth. For us lifestylers it may look like that plus cash in the safe, cash equivalents like gold and silver, trade goods, and other assets (like land).

I’m pretty sure I will be just fine if I don’t buy another gun, freezedried, or backpack for the next five years. And, as I’ve said over and over, the times in my life where I urgently needed money far outnumber the times in my life where I urgently needed a Barrett 82A1. Doesn’t mean that moment won’t happen, just saying that so far I’ve need $50 bills more than I’ve need .50 API.

Trying to avoid this

So, for the last few months I’ve cut back on my spending on things like storage food, ammo, guns (sorta), and the like, and have instead been moving more resources into savings, investments, cash, hard currency, and that sort of thing.

The economy is doing well at the moment but nothing lasts forever. If this good economy affords me the opportunity to get my ducks in a row for when it inevitably starts to decline…well, wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do?

So..for now, my focus is mostly on getting the money stuff squared away. If the zombies/war/Depression/invasion/flu/volcano/collapse occurs tomorrow I think I’ll be just fine with what I have on hand…but I don’t share that same level of confidence if some of the more mundane life disasters (transmission, broken leg, water heater, job loss, unexpected critical expense, etc.) occur. This change in direction will hopefully change that.

As I read that last paragraph it seem that could be interpreted as the direction of the blog changing, rather than personal direction. Nope…the blog will continue to strive to mediocrity with no change in its usual aimless topical wanderings. But personally, yeah, I think I’m going to be working on the really, really unsexy parts of preparedness. But…it’s gotta be done.

Piggy Goals.

Prepiquette

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“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke

You’re a survivalist, Im a survivalist, we’re survivalists. And although we’re on the same page on a bunch of things, one of the things we really need to be on the same page about is privacy and not being offended when someone leaves you out of the loop, to a degree, to protect their privacy.

Example: I’d had some back-n-forth online with a fella for a while and we agreed to meet for lunch one day to talk about guns and generally get to hang out with like-minded individuals. As we wrapped it up and we were leaving the BBQ place, it turned out we were both walking in the same direction to our vehicles. And walking. And walking. And…walking. See, he didn’t want to get into his vehicle and have me know what he was driving (and, presumably, catching his license plate info) so he walked past his vehicle. And I walked past mine for the same reason. And…kept walking. We still laugh about that.

Unless you’ve been friends for years, try to be mindful of the other person’s privacy and desire to keep some things private:

  • Ask what they like to shoot, don’t ask how many guns they have
  • Don’t ask where they live (or work), although you can ask what they do for work
  • If someone politely declines to answer your question, or tactfully evades a question, recognize that they are very politely trying to tell you it’s none of your business…accept it gracefully and move on.
  • Do not ask if they know so-and-so or if they are related to someone
  • Let them be as vague as they want to be
  • Don’t follow them to their vehicle as you leave
  • If you are joined by a friend/relative of theirs, assume that those people are ‘outside the loop’ in regards to what you’ve been discussing. If you’ve spent a half hour talking to your new friend Steve about his $10,000 Barret 82A1 and his wife sits down to join you, do NOT say to her “Steve here was just telling me how much he enjoys his Barrett” because the last thing you want is her saying “What Barrett? You told me you weren’t going to buy that thing!” Don’t be that guy.
  • Never ask for someone’s contact information, instead offer yours and if they want to give you their info they will reciprocate.
  • Don’t overshare. It makes the other person uncomfortable and puts them in the awkward position of feeling like they aren’t being equally forthcoming.
  • Don’t name drop.

Obviously, if you’ve known someone for years to the point you’ve had then to your house, then it’s obviously a different story. These suggested guidelines are for new people you meet.

And for Crom’s sake, don’t overshare. It’s better to hold back too much info about yourself than it is to go dig a six-foot hole in the National Forest because you told someone too much too soon. (See, ya gotta have that hole already dug…cause if you don’t, you could be digging it and someone comes along and sees what you’re doing. Now you gotta dig two holes. You could be out there all night!)

 

 

Boutique or niche items

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Years ago, I had a buddy who thought that, for his needs, the ideal ‘battle rifle’ was a 1941 Johnson. You can go on GunBroker and look up the going rate for a Johnson….I’ll wait.

Kinda makes your eyes water, doesn’t it?

He was adamant that the rifle afforded him all the qualities he wanted in a rifle for the lawless apocalypse he envisioned. And, to be honest, it did. Problem is, he had a rather short-sighted list of qualities he wanted. One of the qualities that he soft-pedaled was affordability and logistics. Break the rear sight on your AR-10 and you can get a new rear sight (or mount a scope) with parts that you can find pretty much in any gun shop. Not so for the Johnson rifle. And affordability-wise, you could get two M1A, three PTR’s, or a couple FALs for what you’d pay for the Johnson.

I was reminded of this today because I took the Ruger Mini-14GB to the range and, unsurprisingly, had problems with the one aftermarket magazine that came with the gun. It didn’t surprise me; my experience with Ruger Mini-14 magazines has been that there are no aftermarket mags that are as reliable except for (in my experience) the old Eagle 35-rd mags that haven’t been made since the last century. In short, unless Magpul cranks out some Mini mags, your only real choice is the expensive factory mags.

Tangent: Tapco, apparently, has evolved a Mini-14 magazine that seems to do a very good job for about half the price of the Ruger factory mag. Might have to try a few.

So, after leaving the range today, I headed over to the local Cabela’s looking for a Ruger factory Mini-14 mag. None. Ok, try Sportsman’s Warehouse. None. And that is, in a nutshell, the problem with niche or ’boutique’ gear: you can’t just find the part or accessory you need as easily as other platforms.

Here’s another example. Years ago Streamlight made a little LED flashlight that I was very impressed with. BUT….it took AAAA batteries. Not AA, not AAA, but AAAA batteries. Good luck finding those in the battery rack at the supermarket.

Sometimes the boutique gear does 100% of what we want whereas the lesser, easily supportable version may only do 85% of what we want. But…when  you cant find a Mini-14 magazine or a set of AAAA batteries, that system is now doing 0% of what you want. I’ll muddle along with 85%.

Does this mean that I’m getting rid of the Mini-14GB? Nope…because the AR’s and AK’s are my ‘grab and run out the door’ guns, and they are a legacy weapons system that has a logistics base that is enormous. The Mini is pretty much just for fun or a waaaaay down the line level of backup rifle. But the experience at the range, and the subsequent experiences at the local gunmarts, kinda demonstrates something that is worth keeping in mind: logistics and support for a piece of gear should factor in to your decision about getting it. (Or keeping it.)

 

Prepology 101: You prepare for bad times during the good times

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Unemployment is a tad under 4%…according to the graphs I was looking at, it’s only been that low twice in the last almost-50 years. What’s that mean? Broadly, if there’s anyone out there who wants a job, there’s one to be had.

Unemployment is down, the markets are doing well, confidence in the economy seems high. This is exactly the time you should be nailing down the acquisition of preparedness items and getting things taken care of.

It’s a lot easier to prepare when you have a good job, the economy is strong, and all seems rosy than it is to prepare when the market is tanking, you’ve been unemployed for two months, and you’re down to your last twenty bucks. Sure, that bonus you’re going to collect in two weeks will buy you that jet ski or 60″HDTV… but when we hit the other side of this moment of prosperity (which we always do) you’re gonna wish you’d used that bonus to pay down your debt, put away food, fund your HSA, or just tucked away in the bank. I’m not saying you can’t enjoy the current situation, just that you might want to use it to your advantage for later down the line.

So, just a reminder: this is the ‘fat’ season that you should take advantage of to put away for the ‘lean’ times. Could be guns, could be food, could be gold, could be cash in savings, could be paying off the house, could be getting those nagging dental issues fixed, could be paying off the truck……but now is the time to get ready for what may be coming next.

Still one of my favorite prints. An artistic representation of the Ant & Grasshopper fable. The grasshopper, the girl with the mandolin who spent all summer playing music and not working, faces the harsh winter and must beg to the ant, the industrious woman with the well-fed household, for help. Note the looks on the two women’s faces…the scorn, the humility.

Adventures in food storage

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You guys remember a few months back I posted about a guy who was crackin’ open some decades-old Mountain House and having himself a little taste test experience? Well, he’s at it again.

He’s got himself one of those buckets that claims to have X amount of days worth of food in it. Read it at his place…….

I’ve been ‘into’ food storage for twenty five years….and I’ve done tons of research on the subject, bought and tried all sortsa food, and created darn near Montana’s largest privately owned Safeway in my basement…..so I feel fairly qualified to say that this will end badly.

Here’s the thing: these types of kits are usually calorie-deficient, somewhat monotonous, and often not terribly appetizing. It is (in my opinion) a panacea to people who want to be prepared but don’t want to have a lifestyle – theyre for someone who just wants to make a quick online purchase, stuff it in the garage, and feel like they’re ready for the crash.

A guy I know was just telling me that he was thinking about purchasing such a kit ‘just in case’. I’m trying to steer him towards a more practical, albeit more expensive, route using regular off-the-shelf stuff from the supermarket.

You know who has this figured out? The Mormons. (No surprise, right?) These guys literally have graduate-level research labs working on just this sort of thing. And having done the research, they actually package and make available these storage-suitable foods. Go read their list of what you can get from them.  And they sell it cheap enough that even the most niggardly ‘poverty prepper’ can afford it.

I have a lot of freeze dried Mountain House here for my future needs. But it’s not my primary ‘go-to’ food in a crisis. What is? My stash of ‘everyday’ food. The pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, spices, cooking oil, canned and frozen meat, flour, cornmeal, canned and jarred vegetables, oatmeal, hash browns, etc. that I have in large quantity. All things I use everyday and all  things that store well.

But, to be fair, a ‘bucket’ as mentioned at the opening of this post, makes it’s strength on the portability and convenience. In theory, you can run out the door with it and know you’re not gonna starve for a month. Perhaps. I’ve taken it a step further and just put together my own ‘bucket’ for those moments when you need to run out the door…specifically, a couple 15-gallon ‘blue barrels’ loaded with freeze drieds.

Reviewing what I have in storage, post-apocalyptic meal planning would look something like this: pancakes, hash browns, scrambled eggs, biscuits, pork chops, strawberries, orange drink, milk, and oatmeal. And thats just breakfast. Lunch and dinner would be equally as broad, equally as long-term, and equally as tasty.

Just write a list of everything you’ve eaten in the last week and figure out if you could recreate it using foods that store well in the long-term. Then go buy those foods. Then when the wheels fly off civilization you’ll be eating pretty much just as well as you were beforehand. Heck, considering the erratic and horrible diet I live on now, I’ll actually eat better after the apocalypse.

My long winded point, though, is this – before you get lured into these sorts of ‘bucket kits’ do some research on calories, taste, and texture, and then see if you can’t put together something on your own. When the apocalypse hits, I have no intention of eating 3/4 of a cup of cheesey broccoli soup every lunchtime for thirty days. Given the stress and physical strain that the end of the world will put you under, I think you’re going to want more ‘stick to your ribs’ fare.

Conclusion: ‘Food buckets’, like first-aid kits, are better for your needs when you assemble your own.

 

Routine

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I was talking to my mailman letter-carrier today and we got onto the topic of absurd city politics and taxes and social programs. This further reinforces my belief that people who spend a lot of time in vehicles all day (truck drivers, letter carriers, etc.) tend to be fairly like minded. Not sure its a result of having not much to listen to except talk radio, or if people who are like minded wind up gravitating to those jobs. It is, however, kinda consistent.
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I’ve been trying to get into some better habits lately. Most notably, I really need to consistently leave things like my keys and phone in the same place every time I return to the house. There are plenty of things in this house that are always, always, always left in the same place in order to facilitate not having to think about it in an urgent situation. If something goes bump in the middle of the night, I know there’s a flashlight and gun sitting on the shelf by the bed. If I poke a hole in me, I know there’s a pretty comprehensive first aid kit in the living room, if I need to run outside in a hurry I know there’s always a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt by the door…..that sort of thing.

But thats what habits are – an unconscious behaviour. Something that requires no active thought on my part, but happens automatically…like breathing or blinking. And a few months ago I had a hell of a time finding my keys when I was in a hurry and after thinking about it I realized that, yes, I need to have that same level of ‘don’t need to think about it’ going on with my keys.

From a survivalist standpoint, some habits (or routines, if you will) are bad… outside actors can observe your routines and take advantage of them. For example, my neighbor is a schoolteacher. I know, with utter certainty, when her house will be empty and for how long during the day. Were I of a different mindset, that information would be useful for nefarious purposes. But on the other hand, some habits… like always locking the door, checking the world news first thing in the morning, keeping gas tanks at least half full, etc…promote a more prepared life without exposing oneself to risk.

Many shortsighted (in my opinion) people equate routines with boring and mundane existence. I see routines as providing security and stability….two things I desperately want. All aspects of a personas life don’t have to be routine, obviously, but for me there are certain things in life I would like to have be predictable and routine. And there are some things I would very much like to be wildly unpredictable and  spontaneous. But on the whole, for me, I crave the security, stability, and predictability that comes from having some things be habit and routine.

There are other routines/habits Im trying to develop, and all of them, I think, go along towards increasing my level of general preparedness. They are, however, a pain in the ass to develop when you’ve never done them before.

Anyway, thats my thoughts for the day. (Speaking of which, a good routine I need to get into would be  a more regular posting schedule.)
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Thought For The Day:

By the case? Buy the case….Pt IV

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About 18 months ago my local Albertsons had a good sale on pasta and I took advantage of it like Bill Clinton takes advantage of interns. Well, that sale came back and I decided i could use a few(!) cases of rigatoni.

Shopping carts are for amateurs. When the Zero stocks up, he goes deep.

Savings? Well, according to my receipt, what normally would have cost 238.80 came out to sixty bucks. (Got careless, forgot to ask for the 10% case discount.)

The apocalypse will be a fairly carbohydrate-heavy experience what with all the rice and pasta in storage, it seems.

In actuality, this is mostly my desire to have a large amount of day-to-day use items on hand in case some sort of financial donkey punch occurs. When you show up at work one day and your boss says “We’re being bought out by another company. This office will close in three weeks. Good luck.”, you really want to have some of the expensive niggling details (like food) locked down. Also, I just feel calmer and more at peace when I look at the shelves and see boxes and cans of food, racks of toiletries, paper towels, soap, detergent, and all the other consumables that keep my quality of life above that of some Third Worlder.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to stockpile the cash instead of the food if I am worried about such things? Well, yes…except for that part about the fabulous sale. Lets put it this way: You have $60 cash in hand..save it or buy food? If you’re worried about a job loss, for example, and you’ve tied that $60 in food, then you only have that one thing (food) covered. But if you keep the $60 in cash, you can use it to buy food..or fuel..or electricity. So does that mean it makes more sense to stick that $60 in the bank? Nope.. heres why: I didn’t buy $60 worth of food. I bought $240 worth of food and paid $60. Or, put another way, if I stuck that $60 in the bank, when I used it in the future I’d get only $60 worth of food. In this particular case, my purchase power today was 4x what my purchase power would be with that same $60 later.  (Disregarding inflation, which would actually make todays purchase more than 4x the purchasing power.) The more clinically minded of you will say “Wait, we’re drifting into Time Value Of Money country..” Yes. Yes we kinda are.)This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put money away as part of your preps…it just means that you need to think about things past the obvious. Maybe you already do that..I didn’t used to. Preparedness is really about resource management in regards to risk reduction – we try to get the most for our money when we take steps to protect ourselves from future problems.

Regardless, I’m pleased with todays purchase. It’s more food on the shelf and one less thing I have to worry about acquiring when/if I hit an economic rough patch.

In None We Trust

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Well, it’s a sentiment I can certainly understand, but it’s not terribly practical in the real world. True, more often than not someone you put some trust in will wind up proving to be unworthy of that trust….at that point your only recourse is damage control of the highest order.

But trust, like virtue, has degrees. For example, Tony at the corner pizza place trusts you enough to let you slide when you order a couple slices and discover you forgot your wallet. Rather than demand you leave your watch or cellphone with him as collateral, he trusts you to bring him a few bucks the next time you’re in there. But Tony ain’t gonna trust some mook like you with, say, the weeks cash receipts getting deposited at the bank. Tony has a scale of trust and you, paisan, are at the bottom.

So, trust has degrees…. it’s easy to trust virtually anybody when the stakes are so low as to be immaterial. It’s when the stakes get higher that we start getting mighty picky about who we trust and how far.

As survivalists, we have a few things going on in our lives that we’d rather the world at large not know about. But, at the same time, we can’t go 100% solo or we’re going to have some really bad moments.

It’s depressing, but true… you’re on this planet for a finite amount of time, with a finite amount of resources, and you simply don’t have room in your life for people who are, passively or actively, damaging (or at least not contributing) to your life.

If you haven’t already done it, you may want to think about people you know and evaluate their position in the hierarchy of trust. And, naturally, you may also want to think about contingency plans for when Cousin Bill or Friend Steve violates that trust (or becomes a non-asset to your life).

 

 

Article – What Venezuelan savers can teach everyone else

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ASK the chief investment officer of a fund-management firm how to spread your investments and you will be told to put so much in stocks, so much in bonds and something in hedge funds or private equity. Chances are that white-elephant buildings, eggs and long-life milk will not feature. But in Venezuela, where the inflation rate is in the tens of thousands, things that people elsewhere would shun for fear they will lose value have become stores of real wealth.

The old standard for guarding against hyperinflation has always been gold and, to a lesser degree, silver. But, as seen in many wartime economies, certain goods hold their value across board… most notably cigarettes, booze, and …ahem…’personal services’. There’s a handful of occupations that are, basically, recession- and depression-proof: food, medical, weapons, entertainment, and sex. Doesn’t matter if it’s a war or a depression – everyone wants to eat, everyone wants to live, everyone wants to protect themselves, everyone wants to forget, and everyone wants to get some action.

Of course it’s kinda hard to transport some of those goods in a convenient manner which is why we have a medium of exchange – gold.

About this point in the conversation the shortsighted jump in and say that if you can’t eat it or shoot it, it’s worthless. After all, they argue, if you were dropped in the middle of the Andes with a suitcase full of gold you’d starve/freeze/etc.

This is, of course, quite true. But it fails to take into account that economic disasters rarely happen overnight. They are usually a gradual-but-increasingly-steep slope. The gold gets you the things you need to survive that drop into the Andes. Somewhere between “normal” and “Mad Max” is where the gold come into play. When the local backpacking supply shop won’t accept currency, the gas stations won’t take plastic, and the gun stores won’t take a check….that’s where the metals come in handy.

But…thats my opinion. I hedge my bets….metals, ammo, fuel, food, etc.

The Magic Number

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NOTE: This post has been sitting in my “Drafts” folder for three years now. Figured it was time to finish it up.
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It seems like every time I mention to a friend that I picked up a gun they seem to respond with, “Don’t you already have a couple of those?”. Why, yes….yes I do. But, contrary to appearances, there really is a Magic Number that I am shooting for. It is the number at which I feel I will have enough to last me the rest of my life, which is, arguably, about 30 years.

The number is 10.

No, not ten guns total. Ten of each. Ten AR’s, ten 870’s, ten 10/22’s, ten 9mm Glocks, etc.

Its important to have goals.

By and large, when someone on a survivalist forum somewhere starts talking about ‘survival battery’ (whatever the heck that is), the result is something very similar to that. Throw in a ‘hunting’ or ‘precision’ rifle in there and you have pretty much 90% of the responses.

Many of us stockpile stuff on the PACE paradigm – Primary, Auxiliary, Contingency, Extra. I suppose I’ve added an R in there with Redundant.

That’s a total of five. Where does ten come from? Might be more than one person in the household, right? Hence, two times five is ten.

So thats it…once I have ten of what I feel is necessary, in regards to boomtoys, I can back the throttle down a bit in terms of acquisitions.

Those numbers, by the way, only represent firearms….my opinion on firearms accessories (like magazines) is a completely different number. And it’d be foolish to keep a buncha eggs in one basket like that so these things would get spread around a bit.

But thats the number.. five of each type of gun, per person, gives me enough room to keep one at the Beta Site, use one, loan one, sock one away somewhere else, etc, etc. I’m the fist to admit that comes out to a fairly large (though not by Montana standards) amount of guns but if I can afford them…why not? Plus, it’s really kind of an Alpha strategy…theyre just going to be more expensive later so if I just buy ’em all now I can be done with it and move resources elsewhere.

Is it a realistic number? Well, I think so. It gives me margin in case something gets stolen, broken,confiscated,lost, abandoned, etc. It’s rather foolish, I think, to believe that you can buy something and expect to keep possession of it, and have it in good working order, for 30 years. Sure, someone may have grandads Win 94 thats been in the family for 80 years but much of that 80 years it was just sitting in his closet, waiting for the one week every year that he hunted. And no one was trying to ban it.

This ‘Magic Number’ theory extends to non-gun items as well…the number may be different, but there’s still that goal-orientation. How many extra boots, socks, rolls of TP, etc, etc…..that sort of thing. (For example, 210 is the magic number for TP [ 30/package x 7])

Tappan, in his classic tome ‘Survival Guns’, advocated a mixture of guns that eventually added up to about 40 different handguns, rifles and shotguns. I remember thinking it was excessive at the time. Tappan differentiated between ‘working guns’ and survival/defensive guns. I don’t make such a distinction. The End Of The World stuff gets the layers and layers of redundancy…the Walking Through The Woods stuff can be much more freestyle.

Anyway, that’s the plan – ten each of the important thundertoys. Keep ’em identical, scatter ’em around, keep tabs on them, and hopefully thirty years from now I’ll just hand ’em off to someone I like.

ETA: I should also mention ten is MY Magic Number. You may have your own. Or you may have none at all. But, for me, I’m going with ten…you pick whatever number you think works for you. You go do your own thing, man.