Still a few of the 10/22 mag bundles on hand. If you already bought some, you know what a smokin’ deal you got. If you haven’t bought any yet…well…all the cool kids are doing it. And they make awesome backpack-stuffers for the upcoming Paratus holiday.
Speaking of Paratus, I better start thiking about what to hand out this year……….
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.
Well, if you remember the deals in the past on the Butler Creek 10//22 mags you may recall that prices were…quite good. I seem to have pleased the Magazine Gods and they have granted me a boon. In addition to the deal on AK mags (which I recommend you snap up), I have a ridiculously good deal on 10/22 mags.
Snooze = lose.
ETA: The AK mags are almost gone One 10-pack of AK mags left, the Steel Lip mags are starting to run low, still have plenty of the Hot Lips mags.
I bought a bloody 590A1 today and am picking up the Glock tomorrow…why must these people go to the well so often????
:::Text message:::
“..” …Actually, lemme just screencap it:
I already have a Model 12. I bought one a few years back, had the barrel chopped down, and it makes for a handy takedown shotgun that just barely fits in my backpack. But…it’s an old design that features parts that havent been made since they lit Kennedys flame at Arlington. It’s not exactly a primary, secondary, or even tertiary choice for a shotgun. BUT the fact that it takes down is handy.. so I bought one.
This one, which is actually cheaper than the first one I bought, is in pristine condition except for a hairline crack in the stock and some freckling starting to form. 1914 manufacture and it is a strong 90%+. The crack and the slight freckling are all that I can find wrong with it. All the edges are sharp and it’s a gun that looks like it rolled right off the factory floor. Too nice for me to cut down. I’ll take it to the gun show this weekend and see if someone will gimme $300-$350 for it.
But…good grief…July has been a gun heavy month…Win 1200, Win 12, Mossberg 590A1, Ruger AR, Glock .357… I really went overboard this month.
Buy some AK mags so I can keep buying guns I dont need!
=================
:::Making the bed::::
Phone: !beep!
:::Text message:::
“Mossberg 590 12 ga with extended tube. extendable stock. interested?”
Dammit.
Why does this happen a) right after I get paid and b) when I have to be somewhere in 15 minutes?
Short version: someone bubbatized a 590A1 with some cheapo M4-style stock and a coat of spraypaint. But..for $135 I can just rattlecan the whole thing.
Need to contact the guys at Choate and see what they have for a replacement stock/forend.
And I was just recovering from the Ruger last week.
But…then it got worse. I somehow managed to say yes to a NIB Glock 32 for …. $300.
Double dammit.
I’ll keep the 590A1 for a stash gun, but the Glock is getting swapped out for the first Glock 9mm I can find.
Hmmm…a quantity(!) of Tapco 20-rd AK mags in black and dark earth wound up in the back of my vehicle. I was going to stick a couple hundred back as an investment against Assault Weapons Ban II: The Next Generation……
If anyone wants some, they’d be in a 10-pack, postage paid, for $100. We’d do it just like we did the awesome 10/22 magazine deal from last year. You email me and tell me how many you want (increments of 10, please) and I’ll email you an invoice you can pay online. Shipping by Priority Mail and you’ll get tracking info when its on its way. Only have a couple dozen of the dark earth ones, so unless you’re one of the first purchasers your choice will be black or black.
Text message from local coin/gunshop:
“Hey, a couple shotguns just came in. 20 ga double barrel and Win 1200 in 12 ga”
*sigh* Okay, I’ll try to be resolute.
“Whatcha got?”
“Stevens 20 ga. double barrel but it has a small ding in the barrel. Yours for a hundred bucks.”
“Useless. Lemme see the Winchester. Hmm…..Whaddya want for it?”
“$125”
“Dammit.”
Now, I have no need for a Winchester 1200..the cheapest pump shotgun Winchester ever made…and I’m actually not a fan of that rotating bolt lockup either. But…for the price…it’ll go in the closet until I find someone who wants a duck gun or something and I can make fifty bucks off it. Or, I can break it apart, grease it up, and stick it in Deep Storage as a pentary level backup shotgun.
One of these days, I really hope I learn to say no to these sorts of deals.
I really think the meat department manager sees me enter the store and he goes to hide in the freezer rather than deal with my bargain hunting.
But…his lackey was not so fast. So….93% lean ground beef. $5.99/#. And then it was on ‘sale’ by.50/#. Okay, so now we’re at $5.49/#. Thats no bargain. BUT….since today was the last day of expiration, it was marked down an additional 30%. Now it’s time to try and set the hook…
“Hey…I see you’ve got all this ground beef marked down 30%.”
“Yeah, it expires today.”
“If you mark it down 50%, I’ll take all of it.”
“Uh..let me go in the back and check. I think the manager is in the freezer.”
And he comes back with a roll of ‘50%’ off stickers and starts applying them to the dozen trays of beef. End result? About 20# of extra lean for around $2.75/#… not great, but quite respectable.
It’s these little victories that add up. Anything that gives me an excuse to heave 20# of meat into the freezer is a good thing. Add in the pasta and spaghetti sauce sale from last year, and I can make a giant pot of rigatoni with meat sauce for $4.25, which comes out to less than a buck and a half a meal for three extremely generous (read: unhealthy) portions.
So, 93/7 isn’t great for burgers, but….blend it with the outrageously fatty 73/27 I got and you wind up with about 85/15…which is pretty much right where you wanna be for a cheeseburger.
Food is no laughing matter, man. I remember a time when I literally had nothing in my fridge except ketchup and not much else. When I can load up the freezer without unloading my wallet….well, you better believe I’m gonna jump on that.
I loves me a bargain. Being a survivalist is a resource-intensive lifestyle when you’re getting started. Once you’v been at it a while, and gotten the major purchasing sprees out of the way, it’s really just a little hear-and-there upgrades and ‘nice to have’s. The guys at Spec-Ops are having a closeout on two products that I’ve found to be quite good. They are:
A three-mag MOLLE/PALS panel in your choice of camo for $12.50
I have an extra G3 bayonet without a scabbard laying around, so this sheath is perfect for finding a home for that bayonet and keeping it with the bag of G3 support gear.
Floor porn!
I’ve used the Spec-Ops stuff for years and have been extremely pleased. It’s American-made (unlike Maxpedition and most Blackhawk gear), seems pretty durable, and is pretty basic no-frills stuff. I’ve been carrying their messenger bag as a bookbag to school for the last two years and have had absolutely no issues with it. I’ve been using their discontinued SOB buttpacks (make your own joke) for the last decade and found them remarkably rugged and durable.
Their designs are, for the most part, unimaginative but the quality and price is pretty hard to beat. And at closeout prices, even better.
Hmmm….I wonder what this could possibly be…..
