Last night was bone-chillingly cold and was accompanied by winds that cut through you like a laser beam. As the expression goes, t’was a night not fit for man nor beast. And what is the one thing that most often would make someone venture out onto the two-lane skating rink? Food. And this is why storing food is, to me, more paramount than almost anything else.
Guns are the super sexy part of survivalism. They are, often, the first thing that a freshly-minted survivalist starts stockpiling. And, sadly, it is often the thing that captures the most resources, attention, and time…often to the detriment of the more mundane things.
There’s no two ways about it, guns (and their attendant accessories) are quite important. But part of the focus of survivalism is…surviving. If I have plenty of food on hand, I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to leave the relative safety of my house. I can stay behind my locked doors, in my heated home, and let the world go by.
Now, you could argue that, if you have the guns then you don’t need to worry about your safety when you leave your house to get food. This is an interesting argument, but it doesn’t pass the smell test. Going out to get food while heavily armed is probably safer than doing that same thing while unarmed. But you know what’s safer than that? Not having to go out at all. By eliminating the need to go out for food you eliminate the risks incurred by ‘going outside your wire’.
There is, of course, risk to staying home as well. However, that’s the same risk regardless of whether you are armed or not. Obviously, the best situation is to be well-stocked with food so that you don’t have to leave your secure area, and then to be armed so you have the ability to defend your secure area.
Nine times out of ten, stored food will be more useful than stored ammo. But, its because of that 10% that we keep the ammo and guns onhand.
Regardless, it’s minus something outside right now and I don’t have to get into a cold truck, risk icy roads, walk across slippery parking lots, ad just in general experience miserable cold….because I have a kitchen and storage area full of food.
So..yay me.
There’s a quote from Pastor Joe Fox of Viking Preparedness that I like to repeat to friends and family members to show them I’m a rational person and not “one of those survivalist weirdos”, and that, I think, encapsulate the gist of this post, dear Commander
I’m going to paraphrase it cause he stressed this point many times in different videos, but it’s something like this: “I cannot guarantee that, during your lifetime, you’ll ever have the need to fire a weapon in anger to protect you and your familiy. But I can guarentee you one thing: that from now on, every single day for the rest of your life, you’re going to need to eat.”
Thanks from Italy,
Daniele
I had a thought recently. We lost power during the first night of the ” ice storm of the half century”. No it wasn’t. 2011 was a real event that tore my part of the mitten to shreds. Power was out for days. The wise ones were prepared.
With all bullshieska going on about the Drooler banning natural gas cooking stoves. I had a thought about that. Those work without electricity. So you can have hot food and in some dire cases heat.
One the deep state morons always think of themselves as the savior of the people. The more things we can use for self sufficiently the more they will find ways to deprive us of those. The Arkansas Traveler actually signed an executive order essentially banning any person or family of having more then a one year supply of food stores.
As Reagan pointed out. The gumint ain’t your friend. The words that should strike fear in everyone is when some dummy shows up and says ” I’m from the Government. I’m here to help”. Run like he’ll if it happens.
Notice that the Regime of the Drooler started shipping contaminated soil from the rail disaster in E Paletine Ohio to Michigan and Texas without so much as giving notice to the state officials. Of course my Gualtlieter was busy at the theater. We’re still dealing with the effects of a natural disaster. 700K still without power and she just has to be seen. No idea why. She is as nearly as homely as our female Senator. Not sure which is which.
Anytime you can get yourself out of a jam your better for it.
Many newer gas stoves require electricity to run due to safety devices, and with the trend towards glow plugs for the oven, it can be LOTS of it. Read Joel’s Gulch for discussions of how hard it is to use a modern gas stove off grid…
Food first, but once a cushion (three months worth?) is in hand, IMHO you really need to make sure that you have a way to keep it from being taken from you. Get your basic defense needs, then continue acquiring more food storage. After that strive for a balance. Neglecting either food or defense could have negative consequences. And don’t neglect water and shelter either.
I have a collection of guns for no good reason. If the troubles come, I will be relying on a small subset of them for my personal protection. I just like having guns. The people I know who dont have guns likely wouldn’t be too useful with them in a crisis. My stumbling block is my very liberal, ” trust in God” wife. Her feelings are that since we are so blessed ( we are blessed) we should give away any surplus we have. We didnt meet and marry till we were in our 60’s ( mid 70’s now) so we are pretty set in our ways but she’s more hard headed than me..
One reason to have numerous firearms is that, you may need to arm other non-gun people on short notice. The vast majority of Americans either don’t own a firearm, or don’t know where their single firearm is. The guns aren’t “for you”. They’re for the tribe.
The folks in my “tribe” that I could count on to know when and how to use a gun are already armed. A couple of them will probably need a few loaded mags.
To paraphrase you “I’ve never had an emergency where I needed an AR-15; but I’ve had a lot of emergencies where I needed a thousand bucks cash.”
A legit argument can be made that after a handgun and a short (18.5-22 in not NFA) barreled shotgun, the basic 2 week Red Cross/ fema suggested stuff and a reasonably stocked pantry the best thing one can do is put away a few month emergency fund in cash part at home in small bills and part in the bank.
However dudes want to keep buying guns and chicks want to keep gardening or putting back food. As is often the case women are closer to right than men are.
Break
We’ve known a few survivalists have their lives fall apart due to modest sized emergencies. A dozen rifles and a bunch of buckets of food won’t pay the mortgage, or a doctor bill. Money will.
Stay safe and warm!!! Better to stay in and not go anywhere.
Correct. Once a person has a stop gap amount supply of food and assorted personal commodities they can dabble in increasing the guns, ammo, and accoutrements but certainly without becoming an extreme gun hoarder. Then the critical thinking value assessments must be made towards more food stocks, much more so. I participate in my local grocery store case lot sale program in fall and spring. I get more giddy and relish getting a truck bed full of cased foods these days than another gun. Spending a few hundred or so all at once on a couple dozen or so cases of quality chow is more of a value priority than a gun or something that can’t be eaten.
Hazard mitigation and being hyper safety conscious of things outside your wire is sound survivalist thinking. Keep those heads on a swivel.
Nobody ever made a movie about a guy who cooked 57 meals to avenge someone killing his dog, and in no Western did the hero and protagonist face off over kettles and do a one-on-one chili cookoff as tumbleweeds blew down the main street.
And if Hollywood ever did a movie about the Donner party, it would either be re-cast as either a horror flick, or an action-murder mystery, rather than underline the bog-obvious documentary observation that venturing into the wilderness clueless and half-assed is a bad idea.
True intelligent survivalism is recognizing the difference between real life and fiction.
If you could fill a convention in Vegas every January with 20,000 people from everywhere interested in retailers for freeze-driers, pressure cookers, and canning equipment, you wouldn’t have needed to make that point over and over for years.
Logical conclusions made. Thanks for writing your post. Just as important as the raw food is having a method to heat – cook it should the grid be down. Many foods are pre-cooked and ready to eat as is, but for foods that require cooking, maybe eat those up first. Especially the ones requiring electricity to keep edible. One sign of an apocalypse to me is not having dependable electricity.
A good point made by anonymous above and CZ in the past. A wad of cash for emergency payments / acquisitions makes a lot of sense.
Winter of 2000 we had a pair of major if storms. Power out for 23 days, back on for 2 days then out another 6. I had a wood burning fireplace and a gas stove plus a small generator. Guess where the neighborhood stayed?
A dozen rifles and a bunch of buckets of food won’t pay the mortgage, or a doctor bill. Money will.
— yeah, but it takes half an hour to turn those rifles into cash at the pawn shop, or your buddy’s house. And money you don’t have to spend on food can be spent on mortgage and taxes. Dr bills, well, 40 million invaders have shown that you don’t need to pay those if push comes to shove, and even if you do pay them, you have years to do so.
It’s not either or, it’s “and”.
n
Lets not forget an ample supply of firewood.
A few critical factors in modern society.
Decent leadership, energy and sound money.
We have a Kleptocracy doing its best to steal the silver and shut off the power (and fertilizer). Not good for “We the people”.
The book “when money dies” describe first person what happened during the Wiemer Germany Hyperinflation. Worth looking up and reading.
From my research on Grandma’s history (She fled Kristallnacht to NYC) and the non-sanitized stories of the Great Depression the TAX MAN is your greatest threat.
A government’s 1st rule is to survive and grow. The second says refer to rule #1.
Taxes are the lifeblood of the government. Plenty of true stories of Bankers buying farms and homes guarded by Sheriffs that sent many families “On the Road” aka homeless seeking shelter, jobs and food.
Always have the ability to pay your taxes in the coin of the realm.
Feral Irishman has an excellent article up about the 2008 banking crisis.
We are very close to a bail in with our money to keep “Too Important to Fail” banks and government alive. “When money died” is nearby.
So what do you do when your money isn’t yours?
I agree that bail-ins are in our future. That stuff everyone calls “money” isn’t yours and and says so right on the debt note. My money (gold & silver) has zero counterparty risk and cannot be bailed-in. Although the price changes, the value of my money never changes and is immune from bankster manipulation. My money is mine and always will be.
Gold and Silver do have a counterparty risk or three.
One the US Government has previously forced a turn in at a set price for “Dollars” THEN revised upwards the number of Dollars each ounce was “Worth”. A 20% haircut if I recall correctly.
Snip from Wikipedia Executive Order 6102 is an executive order signed on April 5, 1933, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt “forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States.” The executive order was made under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, as amended by the Emergency Banking Act in March 1933.
Been done once means the door is open for a second try.
Not turning them in granted you an all expenses paid vacation at the Grey Hotel for several years AND Confiscation of all gold they can find.
Dealing in Gold and getting turned in was also a fine way to vacation in the Grey Hotel and lose all your “Gold Related” earnings as determined by the Feds.
SO, You COULD hide them for decades never getting use of their value or face the ever increasing chance of a hotel vacation.
Other counterparty risk is two fold. Proving the proof of being REAL Gold, plenty of Chinese tungsten fakes and WHAT Value is agreed to it.
Also, the minor chance someone might want to kill you over it. Gold makes some folks a little crazy.
Until Gold and Silver can pay your taxes and buy stuff at Wal-Mart it’s not money.
Preparedness is a state of mind and a way of living. Those who follow the “keeping up with the Jones” philosophy will be in a hurting way when things go bad. Whether in the short term or long term. As well, they will be holding out their hands for help from anyone who can supply it and when desperate, will forcibly take from others they perceive to have what they need. As sad as this is, it is human nature. We follow a family, clan, tribe hierarchy almost without thought and will act accordingly when the “big bad” happens. So.. food first (that includes water), clear all debt, acquire and use the appropriate firearms you are familiar with or learn to be familiar with and pray we never have to use them. JMHO
TTFN
Plus: home is where all the booze is!
Bad weather doesn’t care if you’re armed or not. It’s a game better not played if possible.
Since it’s not always possible, be prepared with the right gear.
Having guns, food, etc is fine – but make sure you know how to use it, and get training if you don’t!
Something that seems to have disappeared from preparedness discussions in the last few years is someone quoting a co-worker, friend, or the like who said, “I won’t need all sorts of stored food. When SH TF comes, with my guns, I can take anything I need.”
This attitude indicates that the person who made this comment was an outright sociopath who bears watching closely even in “normal times” in all sorts of situations. One good reason that people prep is that they do not want to be even tempted to do “bad things” in order to provide for themselves and their families should the S actually HTF. Being prepared takes away the need to do so.
Beyond that, the sociopath saying such things blithely ignores the fact that every stranger’s door he rushes through, and every stranger’s window he crawls through increases the risk that he will meet a shotgun blast to the face. As with an infantry platoon in a high-risk combat environment, no one can walk “point” each and every day without bad results.
As some “really smart” fellow said a couple of millennia ago, “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”
In any event, get your “beans, bullets, and bandages” NOW while there is still time.
“One good reason that people prep is that they do not want to be even tempted to do “bad things” in order to provide for themselves and their families should the S actually HTF.”
This may be true, but it is stone cold fact that Bad Guys today already do bad things to live off others. It is the victim’s problem if they suffer, not the Bad Guy. Heck, they are just providing resources for THEIR selves or families to live on.
The choice for the preppers will be when that last can has been opened, every crumb has been shaken out. And you and your children’s bellies begin rumbling. Then what will you do ?
“,,,it is stone cold fact that Bad Guys today already do bad things to live off others.” Is this not obvious to everyone???
“,,,The choice for the preppers will be when that last can has been opened, every crumb has been shaken out…Then what will you do?”
Absent a lengthy massive breakdown of American society, for me, “getting to the last can or crumb” simply will not happen. Yet, almost everyone who is seriously interested in preparedness, even if they are of modest means, can prepare for years (even if over time) if they only buy staples and give up things like cable, vacations, movies, and 6-packs.
So you are at the “boring” point. When are you going to go all “Jubal Harshaw” with a quartet of flaming hot coeds taking turns…..ah……. Never mind. Boring is good. Won’t get as many clicks as flaming hot coeds, but a good place to be. Only 80 here today. Kinda cold last night about 66.
The man with abundant food in a famine can get all the flaming hot coeds he wants. 😉
Might be true, might find you with a sharp knife in the belly or throat also.
Many a Rich man has found that over the eons.
Wife and your “Treasured Family” might also take that poorly. I personally prefer trusted people to be that close to me.
Might also stock up on antibiotics for the probable STDs involved if she’s willing to sell herself for a meal….
Really ?
Talk to folks who lived through the Depression.
There was no or very little money (for most people), but they had farms and gardens, maybe some chickens, a cow, a hog.
They survived, they ate, they made do.
We are so much better off than they were.
Do we have the mind set, the will they did?
Anyone who was old enough to remember the Depression is, quite likely, dead. The Depression is listed as having occurred from 1929-1939. Assuming you had to be at least seven years old to have any vivid memories of that time, that would make a seven-year-old in 1939 approximately 91 years old this year. This is not to say that there isnt anyone alive who can remember the Depression. Just that they are going to be rather difficult to find….youve gotta find someone who was old enough to have been in the Depression AND can remember it. Thats a tall order.
My grandmother turns 90 this year and remembers the great depression well. Her older sister still talks to my mom every week. I have in-laws I see regularly that are 90 and 92 that live on the lot the husband grew up on.
The grandfather says he can still remember how to slaughter a pig and the type of berries they picked to make preserves. He says he never ate better than then, because they ate the pig they raised each year, the corn/potatoes/tomatoes/produce they grew, the grouse his dad shot, etc. However, it sounds like his parents went without food so he could eat growing up, so there’s that.
If anyone has anything specific I can ask them, I’ll ask and relay the message.
One of the fears I have is that my retirement savings will be taxed away or simply outright taken from my accounts in the event (more likely each day) of a “haircut” – sure, I could pay the taxes now and convert the IRAs to cash and buy gold \ silver, but that has problems of it’s own – seems like the reach or the IRS extends around the world.