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.

Patriots Day 2020

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One of only a a handful of holidays I actually get enthusiastic about, today is Patriots Day. You can do a search on the blog under ‘Patriots day’ and come up with previous posts on the subject. I try to keep to it’s spirit by going out to the range and practicing for the next shoot-the-Redcoats episode that comes along.

Interestingly, you can buy multicam versions of those hats online.

I understand many of you cannot, for various reasons, get to the range today. It happens. But if you can’t get out and put some lead in the air, you should at least give some thought to the history of the day and what it means to you.

 

Hard not to be an I-told-you-so

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The other day, someone who, in the past, has made fun of my preparedness interests contacted me. They needed an OTC pain reliever of a particular type and brand and it was unavailable at their local pharmacies. I was asked to check my local pharmacies and if I found some I was to send it to them. And all I could think was “If there is a medication that is so critical to you that, when you are out of it, you have to ask people across the country to find you some….well…maybe thats an item you should think about stockpiling more than just one bottle of.”

But…some people won’t learn. When this is over almost everyone who went through it will dismiss the idea of stockpiling necessities against a crisis that wipes out the grocery stores because “Oh, that never happens” even though it just freaking happened.

I’m continuing to round out things on my list (the Preponomicon) because even if we do somehow find ourselves now on the tail end of this crisis (which I don’t believe is anywhere near finished) the economic repercussions are going to last for wuite a while, I think. Anything I can put in place now to prevent me from having to spend resources later is definitely worth doing.

As I wander about I notice more and more people wearing masks. Invariably, they see to be either much older or much younger people. My contemporaries, it seems, are willing to let fate do as it will.

Still haven’t had to break out the freeze-dried pork chops yet. Also haven’t had to shoot any cannibal looters. Lamest boogaloo ever.

 

More Observations

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I dunno about you, but so far, in this slow-moving apocalypse, I have yet to need to shoot anything or anyone in a directly-related-to-the-pandemic situation. In fact, amongst all the myriad items I (and probably you) put back against that uncertain future, virtually none have gotten taken out of their storage containers. Its starting to look like that for 90% of most disasters you can sum up your preps into two different items – a shoebox full of cash, and some food.

Gasoline? Not only is it still available it is at a markedly lower price than when this whole thing started. How many disasters do you see that make the price of a staple commodity go down?

Food? It’s been about a month since this thing really blew up and most of the shelves at my local grocery are back to normal..including TP and rice. It looks like there’s about a four-week lag for the supply and distribution change to catch up.

Guns and ammo? Yeah, they’ve been hit hard over at the gun shops. But, broadly speaking, I haven’t heard of anyone getting into a shootout with starving cannibal armies yet. In more rural environs, with overstretched departments, there might be some tweakers who are waiting for an opportunity to do some home invasions at remote properties but so far…nothing I’ve heard.

Water? I’ve not heard of anyone having problems with their water supplies.

I’m almost tempted to say that your basic Kung Flu survival needs can be met with a well-stocked freezer and a big-ass box of cash. (And, really, that box of cash is often the secret sauce for most disasters.)

Honestly, I could not have imagined such a global-scale disaster or event that still has all the utilities running as normal and seems so…orderly? Neat? Calm?

To be fair, I’m only going off my own experience here in a Montana city (or town, I suppose, if a population of less than 100,000 counts as a city).

But, thus far, it looks like the best preps have been to have money in the bank (or gun safe).

Key words there, though: thus far. Yeah, no shootouts with opportunistic looters…so far. No around-the-block lines for ground beef…so far. No fistfights at the pumps as cars line up for gas in a blocks-long queue… so far.

And its because of ‘so far’ that we keep the freeze drieds, stabilized fuel, Glocks and ammo, etc, etc.

But, I suspect one of the biggest takeaways from this episode, other than the obvious ‘wash your hands, dammit’ is that having money in the bank or on hand alleviates a large part of the headaches involved in a disaster.

Article – The Food Expiration Dates You Should Actually Follow

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From the NY Times. If you can’t get to it because of a paywall, try clearing your browsers cache and then try the link again. Or open a different browser and cut/paste the link.

With most of us quarantined in our homes, chances are you’ve been reacquainting yourself with the forgotten spices and fusty beans from the depths of your pantry. But how fusty is too fusty? When is the right time to throw something out? And what about fresh ingredients? If I’m trying to keep supermarket trips to a minimum, how long can my eggs, dairy and produce keep?

Here’s the first thing you should know: Expiration dates are not expiration dates.

Decent article explaining what most of use should already know: those dates on most foods (though not all) are fairly meaningless. Speaking as someone who routinely eats canned/dry/frozen food that is years old, I can tell you that anything other than high-acid foods (pineapple, tomato products, etc) will last a lot longer than the date on the can. A lot longer. Like, several years.

However, that is no substitute for rotating through your stocks just to keep everything topped off and fresh. For canned goods, I use these and have find them quite handy.

Those Five Recession-Proof Businesses vs The Plague

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I’ve mentioned that this Current Situation is an excellent chance to observe and learn. This is a dress rehearsal for whatever bigger things come down the pike next. If you’ve been watching the news lately, which is rather tough to avoid, we’ve been told that unemployment is rocketing through the roof as people are laid of, furloughed, fired, downsized, or otherwise off the payroll. Makes sense…if a business is closed then there’s no way to pay the employees.

But…some people are not only still getting paid, they’re getting paid more. They are in a position that allows them to continue to have employment in this situation. Let’s examine that.

I read somewhere that people who made it through the tumult of World War Two noted that no matter how bad the situation in the civilian population, certain trades or businesses were able to stay afloat. Broadly, there were five: food, medical, sex, weapons, and entertainment. If you were in a business that was in one of these categories, the odds were better in your favor during recessions, depressions, etc. With various states on lockdowns, people holding onto their money (if they’re smart), and social distancing the order of the day…who is still in business?

Well, the gun and ammo businesses are doing well. Weapons always make people feel, right or wrong, that they have some control over their lives. If you’re in the ammo business or the gun business right now, and you have some inventory, you’re probably doing pretty well. So…thats 1/5th that seems accurate.

Grocers are always going to see people buying from them. Folks have to eat. And, again, as long as they have inventory there will be no supermarket that has sales flatline. Pandemic or no, people wanna eat. (Also folding booze and smokes into this group.) 2/5ths.

Nurses and doctors are probably not short of work right now unless youre something a little more pedestrian and a lot less ER. For example, I don’t think there’s a lot of dentists or podiatrists doing business right now. But you’re an ER, ICU, or flight nurse? Bet you’re getting all the work you want. So, yeah, 3/5ths.

Entertainment? Thats tricky. Mass gatherings are kinda frowned upon right now..concerts, movies, etc, are not doing well. Even if your venue isn’t closed down by .gov edict, no one wants to sit elbow-to-elbow with coughing strangers. So, no, this fifth doesn’t work in this situation.

Sex? Well, with everyone staying at home there’s a rise (ahem) in online porn, toy purchases, cam shows, etc, etc. And, I suppose that for those who make house calls…there might be a consistent demand. 4/5ths.

So out of those five businesses, it looks like four of them will weather this pandemic. Others I’ve noticed: the local gold/silver shop is doing crazy business.

If you work for government, you’re probably also somewhat bulletproof in all this. Certainly if youre a cop or fireman you can expect to keep working.

All in all, this is an interesting subject to watch play out in the real world. If you’re looking for a career or sideline to give you an extra income in all sorts of situations, you might want to look around your neighorhood and see who is open, and how much business theyre doing. If they can make money during a crisis like this, then perhaps its a business worth looking into.

Excel-ence in logisitcs

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First off, that last poll really surprised me. A full 50% of you people don’t keep track of what you have using anything more complicated than what’s between your ears. And only 1/5 of you use anything more technologically advanced than a paper and pencil.

Why am I surprised? Well, you’re sitting in front of a computer right now, aren’t you? You know how to work the thing, don’t you? So it seemed reasonable to figure that people who can figure out how to use a computer would take advantage of it for this sort of thing. However, a previous poll showed that the readership around here is..shall we say…a bit ‘seasoned’…and perhaps with the older demographic there is a resistance (or ignorance) towards the technological. Who knows. All in all, though…I was very surprised.

I use spreadsheets for keeping track of all my stuff that I need to consider myself ‘prepared’. You can call it your Master List, Inventory, TOE, or whatever. Since I have a bizarre sense of humour, I call mine The Preponomicon.

Anyway……

I use Excel. Mostly because I’m familiar with it and because I still haven’t sat my butt down in front of the computer and mastered Access. My spreadsheets don’t have anything really fancy to them, but I do have them wired up to alert me when inventory levels are at particular thresholds. This is signalled to me by changing the colors of the cells that show my percentage of quantity. At the moment it’s set up like this:

100%-90% = Green – All good
75%-89% = Light green – Okay, but you might wanna jump on this
50%-74% = Yellow – Next trip to the store, get this stuff
0%-49% = Red – Get this fixed ASAP.

It looks something like this:

How do we do the color change? Conditional formatting. Somewhere in your menu bar you’ll see it.From there, under “Manage Rules”, are the rules I made:

And here’s the actual rule saying that if the value in that cell is equal to 90%, or more than 90%, make it green:

For the other values its just a mater of creating a separate rule for each one. And, yes, you can also use a rule that uses a color gradient rather than just these….I just went with something basic. What’s that you say? Still seems overwhelming? Alright, how about I give you a template to work with?

template

Fairly simple….Just a basic template. As you add stuff to your list copy the cells in Column M downwards to your new line. I threw in filters for the column headers in case you want to sort or see only a specific category.

Delete or add columns to add/delete the things you want to sort by. I de facto go with four categories so I can narrow down my focus….Gun stuff, Magazine, Glock, 9mm……Food, Dry, Freeze Dried, Rice & Chicken……Hygiene, Dry, Paper, TP….. that sort of thing. I throw two descriptors after that for brand/model and size. If you really want to go nuts, add a column for ‘servings per qty’ and ‘servings total’, throw in some math, and get yourself an idea of how many servings of oatmeal three five pound sacks will provide. I’m sure there’s someone reading this who is chuckling to themselves that this is a kludgy spreadsheet and that there’s a more streamlined way to do this. Hey, have it. Just showing ya what works for me.

If your virus warning pops up as you try to open the template, ignore it. They do that if there isn’t some sort of certificate or whatnot. This is just a half dozen or so lines of Excel.

If you find this useful, how about thanking me in a renumerative way? Oh, and I lay claim to the term ‘Preponomicon’ which, if you haven’t figured it out, is a nod to the necronomicon from ‘Evil Dead’.

 

 

Mag(a)

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So these arrived today:

Ruger Mini-14 factory 20-rd mags…marked ‘BLEMISH’. I think that means it was for the Blem military.

Price? $19.99 ea for a Ruger steel factory mag. w00t.

Big thanks to the person who emailed me and told me about this deal.
I know, I know…why didn’t I pass this on to you guys? Easy…about a half hour after I ordered…OOS. (Out of stock). Right place, right time.

(I swear, every single time I play with Mini-14 folder or the mags I wind up whistling the A-team them. Every. Single. Time. And I’m not even aware Im doing it! Curse you, Cannell!)