Just not what I expected

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So, having been into preparedness (or survivalism) for the last thirty years, you would think that would have been ridiculously ample time to get squared away for something like the Current Situation. So, why the sudden frenzy of buying?

Well, virtually all of my projected scenarios involved some sort of grid-down type of scenario where we are hoarding gasoline, hunkering down, without electricity, listening to our wind-up radios, and that sort of thing. That’s the scenario where you crack open the #10 cans of freezedrieds. As a result, I’ve been prepared for that sort of thing for a while now.

But this particular flavor of apocalypse, so far, has been different. I doesn’t feel dire enough to break into $65 #10 cans of freeze-dried meats. Rather, I can still go to Costco, for now, and buy a flat of pork chops or a 10# brick of 85/15 ground beef. And its that ‘normal’, day-to-day food that I’m winding up going long on right now.

Other stuff like soap, rice, batteries, detergent, aluminum foil, etc….thats all fine… at 100+% on those. But that everyday stuff was a bit lighter than I would have thought and that’s where the focus is now.

As I’ve mentioned, the Current Situation will be a fascinating and illuminating experience to see what does and does not work as far as preparations go. So far, other than what I’ve mentioned, I’ve been fairly pleased. I am especially pleased that in the last few years my focus has moved into financial preparations..eliminating debt and socking away money in case something happened. That, more than the 5-gallon buckets of rice, seems to be the most comforting thing so far.

“So far”…you catch how many times I’ve used that in this post? There is no guarantee that what we are experiencing now will be the same thing we experience later. In fact, it’s virtually guaranteed that it will not. It may be worse, it may be better, but it will be different. For me, in my location, right now, the biggest prep is money. Lotta folks with cut or reduced hours, closed or restricted businesses, etc. For them, it’s living on savings and credit cards. I’ve been adamant about having more than one income stream and, sure enough, if one takes a hit the other can still keep some green coming in. That’s working out as I had hoped. But, thats how things are so far… tomorrow could be an entirely different (and worse) story.

Even the clueless idiots out there are catching on to things being a little squirrely. I don’t see anyone buying 4k televisions, jet skis, or pro gaming computers. When even those people, who normally ‘live for today’, curb their spending you know that the situation has reached a level of seriousness that is unprecedented.

Of course, because of that, the businesses that are open are seeing reduced sales revenue as well. If anyone at the local car dealerships is doing even 1/3 of their normal sales volume, I’d be surprised. I think we might see some very interesting sales and promotions coming up from many different businesses and markets as they try to drive up sales to meet their fixed costs. If you actually do have some ‘disposable income’ you might do very very well on buying a few goodies in the future. Heck, I should go troll Craigslist and see if I can pick up another EU200 or something.

So, here we are a month or two into the largest ‘disaster’ any of us have seen in our lifetimes and…so far….not what I expected. I have always thought the apocalypse was going to be either a ‘real’ one with Katrina-like infrastructure failures and lawlessness, or an economic crisis that, actually, closely parallels what we are in now but without the face masks. Either way, I do feel vindicated about both, the stockpiling of freezedrieds and the financial contortions I’ve gone though to get the finances resilient.

23 thoughts on “Just not what I expected”

  1. “Cash is King”… My Mother told me years ago to save. She said “money is light and easy to carry”… There is a time though (which is coming rapidly) when it’s best to exchange as much as you can for real stuff as soon as you get it. Severe inflation is a biyatch and most of us here probably remember the late 70s and early 80s… It’s coming hard…

    Regards

    • JDub: “There is a time though (which is coming rapidly) when it’s best to exchange as much as you can for real stuff as soon as you get it.”

      I agree with you…just not sure of when. I have been trying to think about what items to buy when inflation starts to ramp up. I remember the 70’s and 80’s.

      • Anything you need on a regular basis which is imported is probably a good start. Couple of K in Swiss Franc wouldn’t be a bad idea either…

        Regards

  2. You’re think the same thing as I’ve been thinking. There will be sales on many big ticket items (right now John Deere is doing 0% 60 month financing, and I’m betting that deal will get sweetened as we go forward) and pretty soon you’re going to see folks putting the toys (extra/collector cars, ATVs, RVs, boats) up for sale.

    My son has been considering buying property of some sort. I told him to start looking now and keep an eye on the ones he likes for price drops. And not get in a hurry.

    As with the Great Depression, some available cash means great deals can be had.

  3. I think “Cash is King” is in line with a slow slide scenario, which I think we’re experiencing. Stage 2 of this scenario will most likely be economic chaos with deflation, prior to inflation. So, make sure and have cash on hand to make some investments in things that will be cheap for a brief period of time, then unattainable. Hell, oil is down to 11.00 dollars a barrel today. Deflation is on the way!!!!

  4. The diff with the current situation and what you’ve described is a very fine thread that is barely holding up a special bag o’tricks. If Uncle Sugar were to run out of free cash – or the electrical grid went down from lack of…whatever, it would/will be a real apocalypse.
    Desperation breeds madness.

    • Forget grid down,have you seen a grocery when EBT(foodstamps) stop working? It is not a “Golden Horde”.
      I am seeing zombies everywhere, just with masks on mesmerised by whatever low IQ talking head is telling them and a DeepState bioweapon attack on China.
      That is the real worry,we are ramping up a economic attack on China(allowing trillion$$$ lawsuits/ suspending sovereign immunity) ,massively deflating our FRN’s (weren’t we accusing China of that a few months ago). Are we going to try to reneg on the Treasuries China holds with these phony lawsuits or is China going to the UN and Colin Powell(why did he not go to jail for that fraud about Iraq?) US,except they have real evidence and not just bald faced lies to REQUIRE the rest of the world to attack US. That could go from financial to kinetic fast(Chinese boomer sub surface and lauch another missle-not off Malibu/Catalina island again but in the middle of San Francisco bay), they repo a couple aircraft carriers, seize ships violating zones in south pacific,persian gulf,straits of hormuz(less important with oil glut), take military bases and Embassies (like we did to the Russians)? How would Trump react(ego overrides thought) to the actions caused by the Corporatists/Neocons /Clintonistas he insists on surrounding himself with?
      The one recreation(toy) I have noticed us not being curtailed is motorcycling. Waiting to see if marinas open up as sailboats could get really cheap.

  5. I dunno. Our next door neighbors bought a HUMONGOUS RV with all the bells and whistles a month ago, and it’s been sitting in their driveway ever since because all the RV parks are closed. A couple of weeks into the shutdown, we heard them loudly exclaiming, while sitting around their pool, how they thought they would sail through the quarantine because they have 6 motorcycles, 3 trucks, the RV, and a stash of fairly decent wine. I think they may have recently added a TV to their poolside cabana as well. Don’t think they’ve caught on yet about the rest of the world.

  7. I’m admiring, with new found affection, all my canned/freeze dried food, ammunition and water filters. Shit is about to get real.

  8. Thecorollary to those observations is that because there are no zombie hordes rampaging for BRAINZ, evertone not experiencing this in all it’s Brooklyn/Nawlins glory is convinced, in a Dunning-Kruger Certainty kind of way, that
    a) it’s not happening
    b) they’re magically immune to a virus they’ve never had
    and that therefore,
    c) it’s just the seasonal flu, bro.

    Those on the Left are trying like mad (because they are) to blame Kung Flu on Trump instead of China.
    Those on the Right are trying like Mayor Vaughn morons (because they are) to get the Amity beaches open by the Fourth of July, before they lose the whole summer.
    And giving the off-islanders crap, because we never go near the water.

    And in between, the petty tyrants in their hundreds are roaring like tiny T-rexes at their newfound emergency powers of compulsion.

    Society is standing in a pool of avgas, juggling lit road flares, wearing a bandolier of dynamite sticks.

    This will end well.
    And you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

    • Epileptics juggling nitro on unicycles?
      Petty tyrants-Napoleon style or jr. Hitlers or full Caligula? I can sometimes tell by the number of stars they have on the collar as chief of the local thuggery-call them “generalisimo” and check their reaction. They are now in charge of the biggest, most concentrated outbreaks,do they think qualified immunity covers willful endangerment(pushing someone into a burning house)? Scumbag lawyers Unite!

  9. and speaking of petty tyrants, and if history repeats itself. I’ve got to think there are some hawks in the vast military complex that Eisenhower warned us about long ago saying ‘…what we need is a good war to get us back up and running…’ Looking at you China.

  10. Forego the generator and get a solar system with a GOOD quality inverter.

    We are watching the death throes of the petrodollar. Cash is great until it’s not. The speed at which the value of the dollar disintegrates will be jaw-dropping.

  12. Well, I found a hole I should have considered earlier – bleach. I run a cup of it through the A/C drain pipe to clear ‘water buggers’ out of the line once a month and found a nearly empty jug a couple of days ago. Wife ran out of bleach and just began using the one I reserved for this drain treatment.

    The ONE ?

    Yeah, dumb on my part. I never considered the world would go ‘Uber Stuber CLEAN’ and figured bleach would remain available. Not right now it isn’t. So ahuntin’ I will go . . .

    As far as money goes, we got lucky in timing. Imagine if this pandemic had hit in January, when Christmas and property tax bills had just commenced coming in. Talk about insult to injury !

    • Well, not to sound like a jerk but….there are no January Christmas bills if you pay cash for the Christmas stuff.

    • Look in the pool section at Lowes or Home Depot for bleach. It will be ‘liquid clorinator’. You want to be sure it is JUST bleach and not a bunch of algicides, fungicides, etc. The “Active Ingredient” list should be one item, Sodium hypochlorite.

      Long after everyone else what out, my lowes had 2 pallet of three packs sitting in that dark outdoor part of the store where the pool stuff lives. Bonus is that it was 10% strength or double normal household bleach, and stronger than the 8% “extra strength” household bleach.

      While you’re there, see if they have an Mold Armor (not the housewash) in stock. It’s a disinfectant and virocide that not a lot of people know about so it’s usually in stock.

      If there is a pool supply near you, you can look for sodium hypochlorite tabs or powder (might be in one pound bags, like rice) which you can mix into water to get bleach solution. Read up first. Wear PPE especially goggles. Make sure it doesn’t have additional ingredients.

      n

      • Thank you for the tips Mr. Flandrey. I don’t know if pool shops are considered essential and open and have no idea if these pool products are being shipped at the moment but its worth a shot. This is a minor inconvenience and not that vital – I used to blow compressed air through the line before, but pouring the bleach is so much easier than hooking up compressor, finding air blow gun fixture to hook up.

        Other minor annoyance – the primer bulb on my lawnmower developed a tiny hole and no longer works well. Finding a replacement bulb may prove to be challenging, as Chinese parts for my particular model may no longer be available.

        Just minor stuff that rolls down hill.

  13. Look for inflation/supply problems in beef, chicken soon. Home pressure canning is easy economic compared to commercial. #1 ground beef/pt jar,#3 chicken(legs/ thighs work best)/qt jar if you add seasonings it is heat and eat,lasts a year or more

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