Gradually, then suddenly

As I’ve gotten older, and acquired more years of doing this sort of thing, I’ve come to a couple conclusions. I’ve mentioned them a million times before but I think they are absolute truths that are worth hearing again:

  • The small, personal EOTWAWKI will happen to you far more often than the Great Big EOTWAWKI. In other words, you will lose your job, be betrayed by those close to you, get stuck in the snow, have a medical emergency, experience a blizzard/earthquake/tornado, replace transmissions, repair water heaters, and be in money crunches far, far, far more often than you will be in a post-nuclear, EMP, dirty bomb, Chinese invasion, comet strike, or zombie situation.
  • It’s impossible to be 100% proofed against an event. (Except maybe having your appendix out.) But what you can do is increase resilience. Survivalism isn’t so much about reducing the odds to zero as much as it is bumping up the survivability rate a point or two at a time. Preparedness (or survivalism) is increasing resilience to events.
  • Determination, motivation, and clear-headed thinking with minimal preps beats wishy-washy, uncommitted, unfocused thinking with lotsa gear. If you can’t afford an FAL and a Land Cruiser, you can afford a library card and free wifi at McDonalds. Develop ‘mans basic tool of survival‘ , and you’ll still be at a tremendous advantage over the normies.
  • Money or money-like instruments are the duct tape that fix 99% of the problems you will encounter right up until the wheels fly off civilization. For TEOTWAWKI there’s 5.56, for everything else there’s money. By all means, stack food, meds, fuel, clothes, radios, ammo and water. But stack some form of valuable currency (dollars, gold, silver, etc.) just as deep if you can…you’ll need it a lot sooner and more often than the rest.

But you already knew all that, right?

What an interesting time we  live in to be a survivalist. We’ve got pandemic, race issues, economic issues, lurking foreign policy issues, and who knows what else fate has on deck?

From Hemingway: “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

12 thoughts on “Gradually, then suddenly

  1. I worry the money as duct tape might be affected by massive inflation. Other things like gold might be the answer but nowhere as easy as duct tape.

    • “Money or money-like”. Money-like would be metals or other currencies.

      • Or maybe a 5-gallon bucket of food, or a few gallons of gasoline, or a half-dozen .22LRHP rounds…

        What ever anyone will give for. Some call it barter, but it’s just exchanging stores of value.

  2. I need to push myself harder on this one. Wiped out what savings I had a couple years ago when my daughter spent a month in the children’s hospital, finally back to where I can see end of the red, need to finish pushing through and build up a cushion of some type again. I’ve got a little cash on hand for emergencies, but the paycheck-to-paycheck thing is not how I want to live.

    Definitely happy I made the move to a trade that has all the overtime I can take, and didn’t shut down during the last year of idiocy. I might actually be in the black come January,

  3. Gradually, then suddenly – I like that. The key will be the ability to recognize the ” suddenly” part. I think most people, with any common sense, recognize spending at current levels is very dangerous.

    • “….spending at current levels is very dangerous….”

      It *is* very dangerous. But there’s no “going back”. No future election will change this. We’re going to go though this, whether we like it or not. It will be painful, in ways we never even thought about.

      Posture your family to survive it and come out better on the other end.

      • Tim:
        Even though “Joe Average” hasn’t done what it takes to keep his family alive, he will try to kill YOUR family to protect his.
        It will not sink in that he should have tried harder…
        He will still expect his family to be the one that comes out on the “other end”…
        According to HIM if they don’t, that’s your fault.

  4. “The small, personal EOTWAWKI will happen to you far more often than the Great Big EOTWAWKI”

    Couldn’t agree with you more. You will go through small EOTWAWKI more often, and probably multiple times, but you’ll only go through the BIG EOTWAWKI once. (If you make it through)

    And lets not forget that many different issues can come together to create one big EOTWAWKI, much like 3 or 4 storms coming together to form a perfect storm. As you mention we seem to have nothing but storms on every front, with possibly more, as yet unknown, on the horizon.

  5. Great post. The problem is saving money isn’t sexy. There are single guys buying their 5th AR-15 with $12 left in savings. There is nothing wrong with buying a 5th AR, I have more than that, but I have a hell of a lot of savings.

  6. Correct. As an anedotal bullet point, it is curiously strange that the Commander recently had a good series of posts and supporting commentary from fellow travellers regarding fuel cans and storage. And well now, lo and behold there is a “cyber hack” (cough=calling b.s. on that) on a major fuel pipeline infrastucture. As such 17 (seventeen) states are scurrying into state of emergencies. With those bubba dorks sure to fall out into a formation with their dinky red plastic cans in panic mode. I guess that is why this blog guy is referred to as “Commander”. Keep at it folks, everything is true about “them” being after you.

    • On the ground report from SC. Yes, many gas stations did not get normal delivery. They are open for business if you want a slim jim and a soda. Gas, however, is in short supply. Happily, I have a few 5 gallon containers set aside to buffer the situation.

  7. On the money issue, I’ve always believed if you didn’t have it in your pocket, you didn’t have it. That goes for paper, coin Gold/Silver Tangibles all inclusive. Used to be, when I was in High school, the local bank paid (if I remember right) 5% fro savings accounts. With that I could see the value in a savings account. nNow banks want you to pay them to keep your money. Pay cash, screw the banks, they are as criminal as the ferals are…..
    I’ve never been rich, now even wealthy, but somehow with hard work at time doing jobs I preferred not to do, I’ve always managed to pay the bills and had enough to get by on, although age times a real stretch.
    I’ve made and lost fortunes, spent most of my money on Cars, Trucks, Tractors, Airplanes, Bikes, Boats, Booze, and Women….. the rest I just wasted…

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