Thoughts For Today

-Do something you do not want to do or need to do today but that should get done. Sweep a floor, cook a couple days of nutritious lunches so you aren't  eating expensive junk, clean up that stuff which has accumulated on any flat surface in the house. You could apply this to preparedness also. Get to doing things.

- Worry about stuff you can control. Sure it's good to know about inflation or whatever political stuff, like bad laws, is going on but after voicing your opinion move to productive stuff.

You can affect the amount of stored food, precious metals, etc all on inventory.

-You can pay down debt and decrease spending on unnecessary luxuries. Get to a healthy financial place then save in whatever form(s) make the most sense to you.

-You can get quality realistic training from serious professionals like John and K. For those who say they cannot afford training do the math on how much money is spent on luxuries like cable tv, fancy cell phones, eating out, tobacco, booze, mochawhackachino's, etc and for most a class in 2-6 months is very realistic. Those on the tightest budgets can at least hit an Appleseed.

-If you haven't started already at least grow something this year. Even some herbs in a window sill are a start. Learn to do this now when your life is not depending on it.

-Game of Thrones is awesome. I'm getting caught up (mid season 2 now) and it is ridiculous.

-While glad to be over the hump it's been too long of a week for today to be Wednesday. This guy needs a 4 day weekend.

Cyprus Preps

Ferfal did a great post on the topic. Seeing as he has actually lived through an economic collapse it's worth listening to him. It goes something like this:
-Basic Preps: Food, medical, guns, ammo, etc
-Cash in hand
-Silver and Gold
-A safe or two
-Offshore banking. I'm not so sure on this one but if you have no debt, plenty of preps and PM's as well as a decent paid off home/ retreat and still have enough extra money to merit the hassle look into it. Here is the video if you have 20 minutes to spare.
I would add that you should take care of medical/ dental stuff that you've been putting off as well as vehicle repairs, new tires, etc all. Get stuff you know is going to have to happen done now while the cost is still sane.

As Thomas Sowell noted this is arguably happening now in the US via inflation. It took me a long time to really understand inflation. Reading The Alpha Strategy and "Economics in One Lesson" let me understand inflation for the sinister regressive tax that it truly is.

We could debate how bad things are going to get in the US or the probability of certain results. The bottom line is that something less than optimal will certainly happen and something bad is probably going to happen. Start doing something about it while you still can. 

Death Squads, What Collapse Looks Like and Things To Do Now

Well it looks like the friendly (snark) local Aryan Brotherhood offed that DA and his wife, as well as the Colorado prison department guy in Colorado and probably the ADA from Texas. As AM noted recently Assistant Attorney Jay Hileman stepped down from prosecuting an Aryan Brotherhood case. Part of me says the dude should man up and do the job Texas is paying him to but on the other hand I can see his perspective. The guy took the job to bridge into something else and now all of a sudden some crazy honkeys are killing folks in the exact situation he was in. As AM noted this is bad.

I do not know what will happen. It is worth noting this is how death squads come to be. Some group either Criminal or Revolutionary in nature (yes there could be others but lets keep it simple)  decides to start hitting back at the cops and or soldiers (for the sake of flow I will just say cops from here on). The cops decide that it sucks when they are being attacked and killed. In small to medium sized groups they decide to do something about it. Given that they are the cops who have significant discretion about which cases to pursue and where to pursue them, especially with politically marginalized people, the odds of getting caught are about zero. Cops know who the bad guys are, who their friends are and where they hang out. Maybe they go all Vick Mackey and bend some rules, slap some folks around for info or whatever; or they might go strait to 'black sight prisons, torture and summary executions and shallow graves. In the big picture it doesn't really matter because it is bad.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Actions by angry groups of armed men are typically violent. Once the pro regime death squads get going the anti regime (criminal or revolutionary) death squads are sure to follow, if they do not exist already. The tit for tat spiral goes into full effect. The end result is Iraq from 2006-2010ish, the dirty wars in South America or Mexico right now. For those who are not up on their current history that means very bad. Tons of people getting killed or just vanishing. Some are legit players in the conflict but many, of not most, are normal folks ratted out for personal reasons or just at the wrong place during the wrong time.

This is the kind of thing that happens with the mob in Italy or tribal groups in Iraq during the bad years. It leads to a paralyzed system in the short term due to turnover. Eventually folks get into these positions who are not inclined to prosecute these cases unless it's a slam dunk (like caught on live TV and the guy says his name out loud) or maybe even not at all. It would be difficult to overstate the impact this sort of thing has on rule of law.

Along other lines (well except mooching off AM for material;) we need to know that collapses do not typically happen in a day. Rome wasn't going great then all of a sudden those pesky Germanic Hordes showed up. One could make a legitimate argument that right now is what collapse looks like.

What can we do? Long term shelf stable food and dehydrated emergency food are good options. Ammo and precious metals are always good ideas.  A quality water filter is essential. All old hat.

Today I had a couple of cavities filled. Not so long ago I went to the eye doctor to get a couple extra sets of glasses. Wifey has done or is about to do these things. We make sure the kids stay current on all their stuff too. Typically these are things that get put off or delayed when money gets tight, which it is now for about everybody. Best case you still have a job but magical price increases that are clearly not  inflation are decreasing purchasing power.

I urge you to take care of this stuff ASAP. A tooth that you've been putting off getting fixed would be a real problem if things go all Argentina on us. Ditto for needing a spare set of spectacles. If your family need medicine it would be prudent to stock some. Yes it costs money, sometimes a lot of money. However I can't see medical/ dental/ optometry care getting cheaper, more available or better in the next couple years. Quite frankly I suspect the opposite is going to happen. In other words that filling or new pair of glasses you are putting off now will be even less affordable in a year. They may just plain be out of the reach of many folks who are currently in the middle class.

Along the health and fitness effort line work on getting into shape. Also slowly work to make your addictions into luxuries. In other words decrease frequency and consumption such that if you need to stop using them it is not a big deal. Do this a bit at a time and it doesn't suck that bad. I'm down to 2 cups of coffee a day and more days without beer than with so it can be done. It's not fun but sure beats needing to quit these things because you do not have and can not get them during an already stressful situation.

 That covered a lot of ground but hopefully everyone got something out of it.Get moving and do something.

Thoughts?

Surviving Real Life

Commander Zero wrote a post that inspired this. A whole lot of real life happens between crazy regional events, let alone larger national and world ones. Folks get so caught up in stocking up on beans, bullets and band aids that they can forget about more practical things.

We have raided the emergency fund more times than I can recall. Car repairs are the usual culprit but unexpected bills, unforeseen expenses and the occasional sudden trip home have all had their turns. Conversely we have yet to NEED stored food. Sure it has been nice to have an extra bag/ box/ can of whatever to finish a recipe or for those times you decide to deviate from the weeks meal plan. However nothing has happened to us that the typical couple days worth of food in an average household would not cover.

We have had several times somebody ended up needing significant medical care. Without insurance we would have been financially ruined. Conversely while we can all agree guns are comforting the need to have them is rare. Those needs are amply covered by basic guns. One can forgo an expensive AR-15 or precision rifle with almost no risk of it coming back to bite them.

I'm not saying you should stop storing emergency food or sell those politically incorrect guns. What I am  saying is that in addition to those fun survivalist things you need to have an emergency fund and a realistic plan for inevitable medical problems. These are far more likely to save your behind than a pantry full of food and an AK-47.

Economic Crack Binge and Coming Effects

The best comparison to our countries economic situation and coming problems I can think of is Charlie Sheen. Our problems with massive deficits are like Charlies problem with crack cocaine and alcohol. Lets call derivatives the Charlie equivalent of prostitutes/ porn stars.

Now I cannot predict the specifics of Charlie Sheen's next breakdown/ meltdown/ fail. I can however confidently say 100% that there will be one. Maybe he will shoot his celebrity fiance, hold a knife to the wife's neck at Christmas dinner, manage to mess up staring in the top rated sitcom on tv, who knows. (These are all things Charlie has actually done;)

 Disturbingly our upcoming economic problem is like Charlies upcoming breakdown/ meltdown/ fail. Just maybe we will manage to kick the proverbial can a ways down the road. Maybe it will be 70's era stagflation. Could be the standard South American currency devaluation/ hyperinflation or an all out Argentina like economic collapse. The old adage that big powerful countries do not go broke, they go to war (a la Germany) could prove accurate again. Maybe a combination of crumbling infrastructure and weakened defense makes an attractive time for an old enemy to attack or just use an EMP to keep us distracted internally. Maybe one of the dreaded black swans pops up in the time we are able to handle it the least.

What can we do about this? Well the usual advice to buy bullets, silver , gold and emergency food is always sound. Things like water filters might become important as infrastructure crumbles or breaks and standards just plain drop. (Yes that is a lot of linkeage in a paragraph. Got to keep the bill payers happy.)

Being as healthy as possible is prudent. Get fit, take care of lingering issues you may have, go to the dentist, order a couple spare sets of glasses and stock extra medication.

Buy food. Yes it is getting more expensive but basic staple food, even the long term stable stuff, is still a great deal. Right now food is ridiculously cheap by historic percentage of income. Most people here can probably make some choices to put a few bucks into food and fill up the pantry.

Learn skills. Specifically learn skills that will let you do things yourself instead of paying somebody else to do them.

Get ready to protect yourself. Things aren't getting better. Have realistic and sustainable (if it's not comfortable you will not do it) plans to carry weapons while still going through your normal life.

Most of these things are not new. In fact they are generally the same stuff I talk about. Best get too them before they are more expensive and harder to do.

Inflation Coming and What Are You Doing About It

It has been more and more clear to me that we are in an inflationary situation. If you have been to the grocery store, gone clothes shopping or filled up the family auto you have probably seen it also. Maybe I am just really noticing it but it is here. Lots of hidden inflation in food products, smaller servings, etc but it is still apparent.

The scary thing is that our current slowly robbing you of purchasing power inflation can suddenly begin quickly robbing you of purchasing power. When the banking conglomerate market focuses on a country things can spiral out of control in a hurry. Not months but weeks if not days.

This week for whatever reason I am getting out of the problem admiration phase. Put up a close line earlier this week. Dug out the spare parts to fix Wifey's bike and will get it up and running probably tomorrow. Trying to find a deal on a bike for me.

Today I picked up some plants; herbs, yellow peppers and tomatoes. My brilliant plan is to grow them. I think the plants are going to be coming inside at night for a bit until the risk of frost is over, probably in 2-3 weeks but I have to do some more reading about it. Am going to get my stuff together, do some research, and try to grow a half dozen buckets (or pots as Wifey doesn't want our yard to look white trash fabulous) of different stuff. If I can make it work without a hassle it would be nice to do the heirloom thing and keep the seeds for next time.

With the exception of  getting the bike up and running and hopefully finding another one for cheap these are tiny steps. Growing some food would be nice, both to teach kiddo about taking care of things and have a fun activity to do with him and to save a few bucks. In fact I expect failure. I don't expect a whole ton to happen from these efforts. The reason I am doing it is to get the inevitable growing pains out of the way now when it doesn't matter. However the real point is to start building some skills. Skills we may need later. Skills that may be the difference between barely getting by on stored food and having some variety to go with it.

I also dug out FerFAL's book Surviving the Economic Collapse  and started going back through it. I briefly talked about his book years back but it turns out I never did a full review. Might have to fix that. In any case despite the relatively high cost of $25 I suggest buying and reading this book. If you are really cheap, read all his old forum posts, guest posts at Survival Blog and his blog it's probably OK to skip the book. That being said I did all that stuff, bought the book and was happy I did.

We are also putting money into food. Stuff like freeze dried emergency food and plain old canned staples like rice and beans. Depending on where your preps and finances are you might want to think about precious metals. If your financial situation is in decent shape (no credit card debt, some savings, etc), you have some gear and a few guns with ammo PM's are a good place to park a few bucks. In particular I think silver is a good buy right now with at $30ish.

I am not saying that you need to do what we are doing. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and working from them instead of blindly following me or anybody else makes sense. The point is that you should be doing something.

What have you been doing?

Food and Fitness

Too many folks are doing a lot of reading and blogging and discussing but not enough DOING.

Food and fitness are the two primary areas people tend to fail in at the most basic level. For goodness sake do something to improve your situation.

Food is easy. We could go at it from a lot of angles but at the most basic level just buy a little bit more of the stuff you regularly eat on each shopping trip. I am talking about shelf stable stuff like dried pasta and sauce, beans, rice, pancake mix, Bisquick, peanut butter and jelly and various canned goods. We will touch on money later but if you can't manage to squeeze five or ten bucks of extra stuff into the budget per shopping trip I recommend looking at your life. If you have some more money and want to stash away some canned staples or emergency food then all the better. I care less how you do it so long as you are doing it. The point is simply that you need to be putting back food in case something happens that disrupts the supply chain.

Fitness is something way too many folks miss. I split off my fitness efforts into another blog because folks would rather talk about other things here. How folks think the world is going to collapse and they are going to be doing all this stuff but lack of fitness will not come into play baffles me. There are way more situations where you will need fitness than cool rifles and emergency food. Sort of like food getting started in any way is a good thing. Eat a bit better and do more exercise. Lift and run or do crossfit, man aerobics or whatever. Heck just go for walks. Doing anything will improve your situation.

In the context we are talking about finances are not that hard either. Avoid debt for obvious reasons. Do some thinking and educate yourself about what is happening and historical comparisons. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse by FerFal is a bit pricey but has some great info. It's writer has actually lived through an economic collapse which is a lot more than most other folks can say. 
If you have some money that isn't doing anything right now you might want to think about what to do with it. Putting a portion of it into precious metals and emergency food could be a good way to go. 

It is easy to put too much money into firearms.  Most guys who are into preparedness like guns and it's easy to get canalized into stuff one likes. However if you are objectively short on .38 ammo for the nightstand revolver or buckshot for the scatter gun then do something about it. I like a lot of ammo but even the tightest budget will let you put back at least a couple hundred rounds per gun with a bit of dedication and some planning.


Get out and do something! Exercise and stash some food. Look at your money situation and if you need it some ammo. The bottom line is that unless your butt and gut are getting smaller and the pantry is getting filled you are not actually becoming more prepared. A little bit of knowledge put into action is a whole lot better than a bunch of knowledge which you do nothing with.

Solo Pot, Perfect to go With Your Solo Stove

The good folks at Solo Stove have got a pot to go with it called the  Solo Pot. They look like a solid piece of kit which is to be expected considering the source. Aside from being stainless steel and generally well made another big plus is that the Solo Pot can nest with the stove inside it. The capacity is 900 ml AKA just a bit less than a liter. Right about perfect for 1-2 person cooking of simple dishes. The pour spout and volume markings in ounces and liters are also nice touches.

I really enjoy using my solo stove and am looking forward to testing the companion pot in the near future. Maybe I will use it test some more survival food. Likely the pot will go right alongside the stove in my bug out bag. Anyway I figured you all would want to know about this cool product.

Solo Stove Review And Gratuitous Dog Pics

I have been meaning to play with scientifically test the Solo Stove for awhile now. Sorry to folks with slow connections as this post is 56k death.

For whatever reason today was the day. So I got to fiddling with it.

 They come in a nice little black pouch.











The Solo Stove as packaged.

As you can see this is a really nice well made piece of gear. Yes you can make a hobo style rocket stove with a couple of tin cans and some wire but I seriously doubt it will be as efficient or durable as the Solo Stove. By all means have fun making some home made stoves to experiment with but if you want a piece of gear that is going to last the Solo Stove is probably the way to go.

The top piece/ pot holder in place.

My Pathfinder cup and Trade Knife which are being evaluated and are used to support the Solo Stove effort.

The goal today is to boil water in my cup. While hot chocolate does not require boiling water I wanted it to boil because that is a pretty ambiguous cooking need for emergency food or a variety of other things.  I gathered a variety of small twigs, a decent sized stick as well as some newspaper and cardboard to get it all going. Pretty representative of the way I start most fires.

I cannot claim to understand the physics of why this stove is so awesome as I am not a physicist, a fire fighter or a pyromaniac. However between the grill that the burning material rests on and the holes in the bottom that let air in this thing burns like crazy. It is almost a continuous effort to keep enough fuel in there for it to continue burning. I pulled out an old trick as you can see in the top pic. Instead of cutting a log just stick the end into the fire and when it burns up push a bit more in.

You can see the stove burning away with the cup of water on top of it. Also there is some of the small wood used in the fire, the container of hot chocolate, the Jim Beam that is going to turn it into a non caffeinated redneck Irish Coffee and the beer I am enjoying this evening.

The beer in question is a New Belgium Trippel. A fair interpretation of a stiff (7.8%) Belgium brew though it is filtered a bit more, probably to suit American tastes. Anyway back to the topic at hand.

The water in the cup was simmering after about 4 minutes. It took awhile longer till it really boiled after about 12 minutes. Part of that was the learning curve that to keep the stove really going I have to almost continually be putting little pieces of wood in it.

 
I added the hot chocolate and as you can see it is solidly boiling.

Letting the hot chocolate cool down while the stove continues burning.

Decided to toss the rest of the wood I had into the stove. It was sort of nice to enjoy some woodsman TV and think about life for awhile.

The stove burned all the wood pretty quickly and then I was hanging out letting the coals burn down.

My Pathfinder cup a but burned up on the outside. The Pathfinder symbol cooks kind of cool here. I think Dave Canterbury would approve except that I did this on concrete (due to fire concerns).

Now is a good time for some discussion on my concept of use for the solo stove. I think it would be great for simple cooking if you have primitive inclinations or are in a long term scenario. Cooking simple, quick meals for 1 or 2 people is where this stove would shine. Also in relatively barren environments (I am in the desert and feed this stove with stuff readily found around here) this stoves very high efficiency will let you maximize the small twigs and such that are available and easy to gather. You can definitely feed this stove with a knife which is really handy for traveling light.The solo stove is going into my bug out bag for sure. 

At reader request we have some gratuitous dog pics.

Dog coming out to investigate what I am up to. He things it is stupid to be outside when it is cold (well for Arizona anyway) and raining. He promptly went back inside.

Dog enjoying the old couch that is his exclusive domain. He is tired after a long day of napping, mooching people food, messing with the Christmas tree (he hides from Walker in the corner behind the tree and randomly snacks on it) and dealing with Walker.

Anyway if you are looking for a good cooking method that does not require gas/ propane/ kerosene I would give the Solo Stove a hard look.

Prepare Wise Food Review and Hidden Inflation

The good folks at Prepare Wise were nice enough to send me some of their new Legacy Premium freeze dried food to sample. We had the alfredo pasta for lunch yesterday. It was pretty darn good. Better than other freeze dried products we have tried and it even beats the instant box o pasta type dishes. Considering it has a 25 year shelf life that is pretty impressive. I even had some of the leftovers for lunch today. Their sampler package is a good way to try the food before making a bigger purchase. If it is important to you their stuff is GMO free. While GMO is not a primary concern of ours it is something we avoid when readily possible. Also they have gluten free options for those with that dietary constraint in the family. We will definitely be adding some of this excellent food to our food storage plan as finances allow.

Yesterday we were doing some shopping and Wifey grabbed a couple bottles of soda.  Like the bigger ones to keep in the fridge and fill up a glass to drink. When I was putting them into the cart after the cashier rang us up they seemed a bit small. At home I looked again. While they were close to the overall size of a 2 liter however they were actually only 1.25 liters. The price was about what we are used to paying for a 2 liter bottle.

Inflation is definitely upon us. This concept that we measure inflation while excluding food, fuel and some other stuff is totally rigged to hide the real situation. If I didn't already have a desire to put a few bucks into useful things like long term storage food, non hybrid seeds, camping gear, silver, 9mm ammo, .38 special and 12 gauge buckshot this was a good reminder to do so.

And The Winner Of The Prepare Wise 16 Serving Entree Sampler Is..

The winner of this highly contested and most excellent contest for a 16 Serving Entree Sampler brought to you by our friends Prepare Wise is, wait for it, John Mosby.

JM, Please send me the address you want the prize to go to.

Thanks to the folks at Prepare Wise for making this happen. Please go to their site and check out all the great stuff.