Why prepare for an economic collapse?
With the current economic and political climate it leaves me wondering. Just how prepared am I for an economic collapse? Yesterday, I began the chore of finding out how truly prepared I am. As I went through my cabinets I began to realize, I have far to much for one person. My first instinct was to give it to my sister. Which is what I planned on I separated everything and put back what I wanted. I still had a ton of food left. I took a break and got on the internet read some news. I was stunned when I heard that the President said they might NOT send out Social Security payments on August 3, if our debit ceiling is not raised. I am shocked to hear that because that means a lot for Americans. Probably far more than many of us realize. If our economy crumbled as it would on August 3. The US dollar would basically be worthless. The only thing that would be worth anything would be silver and gold. This would devastate several areas in our economy: credit lines would be slashed, and eliminated. Would this affect your emergency savings fund? How much of your emergency savings is based on your credit limit? US money would basically be Monopoly money only good in the US making it impossible or very expensive to travel outside our country. Then there are imports. Most of our food supplies are imported from other countries. Other than what is grown in California and some mid-western states. Therefore the cost of food is going to go up dramatically. This doesn’t just effect food. It effects gas, energy, electronics, and clothing. American doesn’t even make their own clothing anymore. While the price going up seems like it may only make it hard for a short period of time (until we can balance our budget, reduce our debt, and prove to other countries that we economically strong). I believe that it will take far long than just a year or two to get back up on our feet. It took us 40 years to make this mess and its going to take time to fix it. I believe this will be a long lasting economic depression. I believe the aftermath will grow larger than it has currently in year 3 of a the “Great Recession”. The poor are already so poor they won’t notice. This will effect the blue and white collars. The blue collars will become poor and they will struggle. This will increase the homeless population, and those that live in slums or ghettos will increase. The jobs they have will most likely go to white collars because the upper class will become very, very small. We will no longer need all of the specialized services that keep the middle class employed. If they do not dry up completely they will not be in wide demand as they were. The days of fun are far behind us. We as a country need to change for the better. Its sad to know that everything we depend on comes from another country, even our food source. We have forgotten what it means to be self-efficient and take care of our community. Instead we look out for ourselves living only in the moment. We may play games like “farmville” but the thought of actually working out in the field we laugh at and say: “That is something only an immigrant would do”. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the people saying that end up working in the fields themselves pending an economic crash.
With all of this in my mind, I battle to come up with a plan of how to survive until America can get back on its feet. How would I be prepared when chaos breaks loose. Many Americans are already living pay check to pay check and barely making ends meet. I can remember times even when I had to spend my money wisely and I would go to 3 to 4 stores just so I could have good food within my very small budget. We have forgotten the lessons of the great depression. Many often say that the Great Depression was different than this because they were already poor and self-reliant. While that maybe true I feel this is very much the same. Yes, there were poor people, but they also had a middle class, and upper class. I think that is what people forget because the those classes were small. Now we have a large upper class, and middle class. The same thing will happen. Just now we have credit cards, cars, loans, rents, mortgages, etc… to pay. Now we don’t even know how to farm, sew, or repair stuff. When something gets old we toss it. We have changed so dramatically the way we live that we no longer remember how we made it before we could go to the store and chose from 600 pairs of shoes. I work with people teenagers and adults a like. I am always shocked to find out how people view the world. For example, I once had a roommate and she never cooked, and if she got a stain on her shirt, her solution was to buy a new one on her credit card. She was living with me to save money so that she could pay down her credit cards. Couple of facts are my roommate was teacher and worked for the coast guard. One day I was talking to her and I asked her what she would do if she couldn’t just run to trader joes for food, take hot yoga, shopping daily, and dinner out and she was at lost. She had no clue how she would survive. She told me she would probably starve because she has no clue how to cook, and burns everything. She doesn’t have a green thumb. I then had to ask what she would do about clothing when she could no longer afford Gucci? She confessed to me she didn’t even know how to sew a button back on her shirt. I was shocked being that she worked for the coast guard and did life or death missions. Also the fact that she was teacher … teaching our youth. I thought she would of at least known a few things. So, I asked her if she wanted to learn and she simply told me no. She had no interest in learning those things because doesn’t believe that anything will ever happen to this country and that she will always have a job, and be able to pay her bills. She like so many people I know are clueless, and they don’t care. I am so saddened by that. We have it so good that we can’t even acknowledge that it might all be taken away from us one day. We take our lives for granted.
I don’t want to be one of those people that takes life for granted. I have lived through bad times growing up, and as an adult. I’ve also been blessed enough to enjoy good times growing up and as an adult. I am so grateful for that because it has left this spark of survival in me. I grew up with a family from the South. Our family made our money by starting a successful business during the great depression. I’ve always been taught the value of hard work, and ambition. My family has lived by the motto that we can survive anything and be better for it. Growing up my great grandmother who lived during the great depression would tell me how they made it, the farming, etc… They saved their money, and taught their children the same lessons, and even though my family was blessed financially they never forgot their roots. My great grandmother cooked her own food from scratch. She would sew clothes, and baby doll clothes. She was always teaching us to do “odd jobs” for money. Like picking up pine cones in her backyard for $5.00. I only knew her when she was older so I don’t know if she ever farmed. I know my grandparents do extensively. They have my entire life. I’ve learned alot from watching them garden, and even though we could go to the store and buy bushels of blueberries. They preferred to grow their own. My dad has been the same way. He has even pushed to the extreme of homesteading. While I never understood them wanting to do this I am grateful I watched and learned. Now, I know how to sew, quilt, can, farm, make cheese, and cook from scratch. My friends often see me cook and I make everything from scratch because that is how I was taught. The were shocked to find out can make a cake with out a box! Knowing how to do this I believe has given me a competitive edge. Watching over the past several years the economy slowly crumbling away I’ve wanted to become prepared just incase. I’ve always had a 72-hour survival kit as I’ve had multiple natural disasters happen to me and now I live in California. I never thought I would need to be prepared for an economic crisis.
What steps have you taken to prepare? The last two years I’ve been getting my fiscal house in order. Eliminating ALL of my debit. I’ve been working buying a home instead of renting (its hard to do in Cali!). To be honest this all I’ve done to prepare. In the last year I bought some hobby interest like a sewing machine, quilting supplies, fabrics, and patterns. Now I believe its time to take it to the next level because things are getting worse not better. So, this year for the first time ever I got over my feelings on growing on my own food and started a small garden. I’m shocked that everything I planted is still growing, and actually producing. This has taught me the lesson that I will be able to grow my own food. I’ve just had to learn how to keep pest off. I’ve done this using organic pest-control like blue paper with something sticky and some motor oil to attract bugs. I’m also growing all of my herbs. I’ve printed off tons of pages on self-pollinating and what I can grow where. I’ve also planned that if I weren’t able to stay here I would go home south because my family has a paid for home there. We could farm and make it. I’ve bought supplies that would help me for later if things do become bad. One thing I’ve bought because I love are books (plus if we don’t have the internet or electricity). Books on growing vegetables, homesteading, urban homesteading, container growing, cleaning and storing seeds, canning, pickling, and preserving. I’ve bought some manual equipment (assuming I won’t be able to afford electricity – worse case scenario) – like a pasta machine that you turn by hand.
Which leads me to were I am at now. I believe it is important to have a 1 year supply of food on hand that you eat normally. I agree with this fully heartily. Especially after reading what I have about the economy and I want my family to be prepared.
This is where I am currently at in my preparedness list:
1. 72 Hour Emergency Supply (Water, food, tents, camping equipment, propane, etc..)
Now I am on to 1 year survival kit. (I’ll cover this in my next post!)
