When the lockdowns occurred I went down into my basement, looked over my Doom stash and said "Bring it". But having stored food is no good if you can't cook it anywhere. A cast iron dutch oven (and a skillet or two) and a basic understanding of how rocket stoves work should be part of everyone's preps.
Advanced prep is having a family meet up destination in case of being apart when TSHTF and/or when everyone needs to get to a different location and might get separated. Designate routes, stops and communication points on the way. Put a pack of chalk, some pencils and/or some Sharpies (to write name & date on road signs) in your BOB.
Max, this is a great post. I pulled some ideas from it: paper maps and aa EDC bag. Thank you. A few things I would add...
Make peanut butter and homemade bread a regular part of your diet. Flour has about 2000 calories / lb (all carbs) and peanut butter has about 2500 cals / lb (all protein and fat). The combination will keep you alive almost indefinitely. Having 300,000 calories in your house is easy to do, and if you make it part of your regular diet, it never goes bad.
Which brings me to the second point... PRACTICE! COVID was a real-life practice run for our food supply -- 3 weeks w/o any outside inputs, until it became clear COVID wasn't smallpox. Later on, we actually wired our generator into our panel, shut off the mains for the house, and lived off the generator for a week. It takes about 15 minutes of generator daily to supply my water needs from the well which can overlap with the 45 minutes daily to keep the freezer frozen -- neither of which I would know if I hadn't practiced it. You likely still have to go to work, but forgo the Starbucks trip and the office bagels so that you can retain the simulation. You (not you personally, Max, since I'm sure you've done this) will learn a lot, and you'll be sick of peanut butter when you're done.
Finally, on the issue of asset diversification, gold is great, and I like Daisy's suggestion that it's most valuable afterward. We put part of our IRAs into foreign currency CD's though, figuring that currency devaluation happens long before you get to to Zimbabwe or Venezuela territory. Everbank is the company we use but there are others, I'm sure. Even better would be an actual foreign bank account, but those are pretty tough for American citizens to open unless you're really rich.
When the lockdowns occurred I went down into my basement, looked over my Doom stash and said "Bring it". But having stored food is no good if you can't cook it anywhere. A cast iron dutch oven (and a skillet or two) and a basic understanding of how rocket stoves work should be part of everyone's preps.
Advanced prep is having a family meet up destination in case of being apart when TSHTF and/or when everyone needs to get to a different location and might get separated. Designate routes, stops and communication points on the way. Put a pack of chalk, some pencils and/or some Sharpies (to write name & date on road signs) in your BOB.
Post updated with your comments and my reaction.
Max, this is a great post. I pulled some ideas from it: paper maps and aa EDC bag. Thank you. A few things I would add...
Make peanut butter and homemade bread a regular part of your diet. Flour has about 2000 calories / lb (all carbs) and peanut butter has about 2500 cals / lb (all protein and fat). The combination will keep you alive almost indefinitely. Having 300,000 calories in your house is easy to do, and if you make it part of your regular diet, it never goes bad.
Which brings me to the second point... PRACTICE! COVID was a real-life practice run for our food supply -- 3 weeks w/o any outside inputs, until it became clear COVID wasn't smallpox. Later on, we actually wired our generator into our panel, shut off the mains for the house, and lived off the generator for a week. It takes about 15 minutes of generator daily to supply my water needs from the well which can overlap with the 45 minutes daily to keep the freezer frozen -- neither of which I would know if I hadn't practiced it. You likely still have to go to work, but forgo the Starbucks trip and the office bagels so that you can retain the simulation. You (not you personally, Max, since I'm sure you've done this) will learn a lot, and you'll be sick of peanut butter when you're done.
Finally, on the issue of asset diversification, gold is great, and I like Daisy's suggestion that it's most valuable afterward. We put part of our IRAs into foreign currency CD's though, figuring that currency devaluation happens long before you get to to Zimbabwe or Venezuela territory. Everbank is the company we use but there are others, I'm sure. Even better would be an actual foreign bank account, but those are pretty tough for American citizens to open unless you're really rich.
Again, really good article, Max. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing your preps! Post updated with your remarks and my reaction.