New Father Fears the Future

Received this from Anonymous: "I am 27 years old and recently married. We have a three year old daughter and a 4 month old daughter. I live in a duplex, in I guess you would call it the burbs, because I went to school with the owner and he gives me the best rent price possible. My wife is not working now because of the baby, before she was a temp secretary but had work about 60% of the time. I am a
school engineer (really a fix it all guy), plus I do home repairs for the guy I rent from for extra income. Now I need it the extra money more than ever. One of the men I work with taught me about the Survivor Movement with me some magazines to look at and talking about the economy. I am not into guns, recently I have been thinking about getting one and I find myself thinking about what happens if the power goes off and doesn't come back on."

UrbanMan replies: I am curious if you are from the Northeast where a power outage went on for quite a while for some folks. Hopefully, the people who were affected by this used the lessons learned to get better prepared for an alike event,.....or something much worse.

You are wise to start considering what can happen, to include providing for security and protection for your family. Just having a gun is not going to solve everything. If the power goes off and does not come back on, that will only be the beginnings of your problems. Lack of food and fuel, disruption of water utilities, reduced emergency services, a fast and substantial rise in angry, hungry people are can occur quickly if the catalyst for the event are severe enough.

There are four generally categories of Survival Preparation: Food; Water; Shelter; and, Security/Protection. Each with many facets of understanding and preparatory actions.

Consider food for instance. You could have months worth of frozen goods in a freezer, but when the power goes off, what are you going to do? Canned and boxed pantry goods will have an expiration date at some point. Dehydrated foods require water to hydrate. Ready to eat meals like Military MRE's are expensive. You final survival preparation solutions for food, will probably be a combination of all these food items.

One of the easiest things to do is to buy dry and canned pantry goods on sale or when you find good deals.  Put away several months of items and rotate them using the first in, first out principal. 

Security and Protection. I believe all law abiding Americans should own multiple guns. One gun cannot accomplish all your protection tasks as well as possible hunting applications. An individual prepping for survival against many different collapse scenarios would be best served by having several firearms (and ammunition) such as a handgun, shotgun and rifle.

There are other factors of security. Where you live; potential threat streams; refugee routes; defensibility of your home. Protection and security are usually best achieved in a teamwork approach. I say, "Survival is a Team Sport".

And of course, you cannot live without water. You will dehydrate and die without water long before you die of starvation. You simply must have a full time water source, best if not dependent upon power solutions to provide you the water. Some people have a water service where they, like stocking pantry items, buy 15 or 20 five gallon jugs as their stock then reduce the periodic delivery to what they use and use their existing stock again using the first in first out principal.   This is not the cheapest way to insure you have some water on hand when the lights go out or SHTF, but having some emergency food and water on hand gives you time to make a decision,....to stay or bug out.

Shelter is important as it provides protection from the elements and two legged threats. No matter how defensible or strong your survival location is, a Bug Out plan so you can rapidly vacate and move to another safe location are paramount. The Bug Out just doesn't consider where you are going, but how you are going to get there; but what you will take with you.

You can learn much and need to learn much in as quickest time period as you can. This site, as well as many other on-line sites reflect alot of planning tips, lessons learned, techniques, equipment ideas and much, much more. Make use of all these resources. Many of which we are linked to on the bottom right side of this page. Quickly develop a plan. Objectively review that plan continually. And prepare for some unfortunate things to happen to this country be it from an economic/dollar collapse or externally generated chaos. Educate yourself, prep well and good luck.

Survival Planning - The Argument Against Precious Metals

Starting to get a "back and forth" on Precious Metals whether or not this is an essential item for the well prepared survivor. Anonymous has left this new comment" "I didn't sink all my available liquidity into gold and silver. I suppose I could have just left it there. My point was that for 20 years I could not make a profit with it and in fact since those were to 20 go-go years of the stock market I probably could have turned all that into a million dollars. So I don't have a problem with some PMs but keep in mind the silver you buy today for $38 may drop like a rock and not reach that price again in your lifetime. I don't like to gamble and PM investing is gambling. Yes it is a viable way to prepare for an economic collapse but hopefully you have other plans as well. Today I am PM free but I am a prepper never the less. When TSHTF I my well sell you some food for gold and silver."

UrbanMan replies: Nor did I sink anything but what I could afford to spend on Gold and Silver,...mostly Silver. I don't think the word "profit" should even in the equation when it comes to talking about the validity of having Gold sand Silver in case of a major collapse.....again, the lifeline purpose as opposed to investment.

Sure there are many investors who think the coming collapse, as bad as it may be, will also be fairly short and the Country will come out of it on the good end and those with Gold and Silver will be the new rich people. This is what George Soros and many others are doing and that is ensuring they have a lot of Gold and Silver so they can ensure they will be among the riches when this Country comes out of a major collapse.

I have been talking to a friend of a friend, who is a local investment advisor from a national chain. Aside from the fact that he is very close to having to find another line of work because of the downturn in investing and returns, he recognizes the probability of a collapse. With two small children under 6 years old, he is very scared. Even this guy who made his living helping people with financial planning and investing has now bought some physical Silver as a lifeline......as well as stockpiled some food and bought a handgun to supplement his hunting firearms.

Without a doubt there are Preppers, and I know some of them, that refuse to buy PM's, even coins for Silver melt value, because they believe they won't be able to buy enough to make a difference. I think that's just crazy. If you didn't have a firearm, would you not buy one even though you couldn't afford a high end AR? To me this is the same line of thinking.

I have never placed PM's in a priority position unless all of your other needs are met. Everyone has to determine what that is on their own. In fact, I would consider many other items more essential than Gold or Silver. Those items would be: firearms and ammunition; food and more food; water purification means (in depth meaning many systems); seeds; tools; radios, flashlights, batteries and recharging systems to include solar panels; good clothing and footwear and other personal survival gear. There should not a major issue with one getting better in all areas at the same time to include purchasing PMs even if you only can afford one Silver ound at a time.

I won't be using Gold or Silver to buy food, firearms, ammunition, batteries, seeds, clothes as I have enough of those items already,...at least for the short term.

I have PM's in case I need something I forgot, or maybe a fuel purchase or just about anything that cannot be foreseen, hence stocked.

Survival Planning and Preparation - Utlimate Self Reliance Guide

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com was sent an article Mr Lee Bellinger and his product which is a manual, entitled Independent Living's Ultimate Self Reliance Mega-Manual: 151 Practical Strategies for Thriving in a Shattered Economy.

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com has no financial link with Mr Bellinger. The sole purpose of this post was to inform readers of Survival - Collapse Preparation sources of information.

Mr. Bellinger advertises:

Gas and food prices skyrocketing...

Decimated home values, withering 401(k)s...

Massive unemployment, the devaluing dollar...

Unraveling social safety net, confiscatory taxes...

Who are YOU relying on to secure your future – your financial advisor? An employer? A family member? The government? The fact is there's really no one left you can or should rely on... except yourself.

The Wall Street Journal in October stated that the implications for our future are truly frightening......"Total monetary and financial collapse of the massive government debt bubble is upon us, with devastating real-world consequences for your savings, property values, investments, and other assets."

Lee Bellinger, the founder and publisher of Independent Living, a private advisory letter for individuals who seek to become more self-reliant in these challenging and unprecedented times, has developed a 224-page, manual, called

Independent Living's Ultimate Self Reliance Mega-Manual: 151 Practical Strategies for Thriving in a Shattered Economy, which provides information on how to stock up on food, water, and fuel – a real lifesaver in case of critical shortages of these essential supplies as well as providing cutting-edge strategies for reclaiming your privacy from snoops, corporations, and government busybodies. Plus, Mr Bellinger states he is going to send anyone ordering his manual an one half ounce silver coin – to start (or add to) any holdings in precious metals.

Independent Living puts forth 10 Signs America Is Becoming a Third-World Country before Our Eyes:

Rising unemployment and poverty (both are much bleaker than official reports portray, as government statisticians routinely "cook the books").

Economic dependence (debt above 90% of GDP).

Declining civil rights (Patriot Act and other privacy stealing mandates).

Increasing political corruption (not only the criminal trials and sex scandals that make for titillating headlines, but the insidious, below-the-radar payola system that corrupts government at all levels).

Military patrolling the streets (my newsletter has detailed the hush-hush training of thousands of U.S. troops for deployment in urban America ).

Failing infrastructure (bridges, dams, oil and gas pipelines, power grid).

Disappearing middle class (massive, permanent loss of blue-collar jobs).

Devalued currency (the inevitable result of chronic deficit spending).

Controlling the media (the FCC, having effectively co-opted the major networks, is now eyeing talk radio controls and internet "neutrality").

Capital controls (preventing free markets and free people from correcting and disciplining the financial misdeeds of big government).

UrbanMan comments: Nowhere is there any proof that the U.S. Government is "patrolling our streets with the military" outside of response to natural disasters. There is on-going training in riot and crowd control tactics and techniques, however there is only conspiratorial thought on the government's intent on using military actively in this country.

I have not bought the manual and do not now if I will. However, if anyone is interested in checking this out, the links are as follows:

http://www.independentlivingnews.com

http://www.americanlanternpress.com