How’d that discount-stacking strategy work out at Cabela’s the other night?
Not bad, actually. When all done it was about 26.7% off.
Ruger MPR (with the very impressive Ruger Elite 452 trigger) w/ Leupold 1.25×4 30mm AR Patrol scope in a Leupold mount/base and some backup sights.
An article that says what we’ve known all along – normalcy bias and the ‘this can’t really be happening’ mindset will work against you in a crisis.
Decisiveness, preplanning, equanamity, and a dose of luck make the difference between being embraced and being embalmed. Interesting article and worth a read.
As a survivalist, I’m all about caring where my next meal is coming from. I am less about caring where the rest of the worlds next meal is coming from.
Assuming some sort of “The Road”-esque disaster that reduces the global supply of food, I would imagine that the global supply of people will also suffer in very short order. Or, put another way, when the freeze dried porkchops and barrels of rice are exhausted in a year or so there are going to be a lot less people out there needing food.
Honestly, the notion of some sort of global famine ranks pretty low down there on my probability list. Localized famine, maybe. But it’s interesting to see that there are people thinking about the subject.
Interestingly, the article seems to take itself seriously about ‘feeding the world’ after some sort of global disaster but even now, in a time of relative calm, we still can’t feed the entire world. Additionally, I’m not sure we have an obligation to do so but thats another argument.
Yawn..another article about a flooded missile base being up for sale, right? True enough. But the 3D virtual tour is utterly fascinating. Highly recommend. It’s like a video game.
I’m still rather partial to the old decommissioned long-line microwave relay stations that dot the US. I looked at one in Whitehall years ago and it was a nice, unassuming little bunker with some serious muscle to it. Ah well…a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, else whats a heaven for?
There’s a Cabela’s down the road from me. They are grossly overpriced on most things but once in a while something gets in there that catches my eye. On a whim, I picked up their Cabela’s credit card. It returns 2% of the purchase price of anything you buy there as ‘points’ that can be redeemed on future purchases. In other words, buy $100 worth of gear and you get $2 in points. On your next trip you use that $2 against the price of whatever your next purchase is. Follow?
Here’s where it gets… interesting.
Cabelas is having a ‘Cabelas Club’ event this Sunday. That means that theres a few things on sale but, more importantly, people who have the Cabelas card get some bonuses: a 10% off coupon for their purchase, and ‘triple points’..meaning that if you normally got 2% back in points you will get that 2% and another 6%, meaning you really get 8%. Annnnd…Cabela’s gift cards are 10% off this weekend.
And thats when my brain kicked in.
For the sake of argument let’s say a gun is $1000. You’re going to buy that gun using your 10% discount coupon. That means you need to fork over $900, right? (Because $1000 x .10 = $100 and $1000-$100=$900) Okay, so the gun will now cost you $900. BUT…gift cards are 10% off, right? So you go to the customer service counter and buy a $900 gift card. With a 10% discount on the gift card, that card will cost you $810. So far so good. You’re buying a $1000 rifle for $810. But wait, there’s more! You use your Cabela’s card to pay for the gift card. So you get 8% in points….and $810 x 8% = $64.80.
So you head to the checkout with your $1000 rifle. The gal says “$1000 please”. You hand her the coupon for 10% off. She says “Ok, that’ll be $900 please”. You give her the $900 gift card that you paid $810 for. Then you say “Id like to use my Cabelas points” and hand her your Cabelas card. She discounts you another $64.80 for the points you earned paying for the card.
Your final cost on that rifle is $1000 (orignal cost) – $100 (10% coupon) – $90 (10% for gift card) – $64.80 (points you earned paying for gift card) = $745.20, and you’ll still have some money left on the gift card. Or put another way, you’re looking at a 25% discount.
It’s also worth pointing out that Cabela’s price matches on non-internet competitors. So if your local gun shop has a gun in stock and at a cheaper price that Cabela’s can verify, they’ll match it. So..match the price first, and then hit ’em with the discounts. I did this a couple weeks back when Sportsmans Warehouse had Ruger 10/22 rifles in the $180~ range.
Gonna try this over the weekend since they have a rifle I’m kinda desirous of. (Although its not a $1000 rifle, but the math should still stand up.)
One of the knives that I stockpile for Der Tag is the BK&T… it is basically a sharpened crowbar. It has the end-of-the-world durability Im after at a reasonable price. But the sheaths that come with them suck. So I usually replace them with these highly recommended SpecOps sheaths. Note that the sheath has a pocket for a sharpening stone or similar device. I was having a heck of a time finding a stone that fit that pocket correctly. Then, as I was perusing the knife section at Cabela’s, I found this:
Very much me likey. It puts a fast edge on pretty much anything, has built in angle guides, two grades of diamond plates, a leather strop, and a ceramic for fior sharpening fish hooks and serrated edges. But…while its an awesome tool, it doesn’t fit in the pouch on the sheath.
Intrigued, I looked at what other products these guys made and picked up a couple other things:
This one does fit in the sheath, so I picked up a couple of these. I also picked up a couple of their small pocket sharpeners. They have a carbide feature on them sor they are no t something you want to use every time you sharpen a particular knife, but the ceramics and diamond on it are great for keeping the knife sharp once you put the new edge on it:
Now, I do have a nice set of stones on one of those Smith-brand three-stone setups. And I use it when I need to. But it isn’t exactly portable or pack/pocket sized. These sharpeners seem to fit the bill for throwing into a small pack and keeping a knife properly sharp out in the field. And, considering some of the really awful things we are going to subject a knife to in a crisis, being able o resharpen them in the field seems a solidly prudent move.
Silver was down a bit the other day, and I had the treacherous combination of a few extra dollars in my pocket and a bit of impulse control issues. As a result, there’s another tube of silver dimes sitting in the safe.
Why? Well, thats an interesting question. Intellectually, I know that the odds of there being an event where greenbacks are worthless and we’re trading silver and gold like some sort of Roman market are pretty slim. And if the world collapses in on itself, its probably more likely that a box of .22 or a package of AA batts will get me more merchandise than silver or gold.
On the other hand…. we have plenty of episodes in the last 100 years where a national currency became worthless and people who had silver and gold were able to get the things they need.
Somewhere between “Current standard of living” and “Mad Max” is where the metals will be handy, in my opinion. Today, you can walk into a 7-11 and Apu might not take silver for a pack of Marlboros, and when the bombs fall and we’re all eating our children it is also likely that silver and gold won’t be very valued. But there’s that in-between….that point where the currency still has some worth but is rapidly becoming worthless, and there is the opportunity to purchase needed items. Thats the sweet spot, I think, for the use of metals.
There’s always the wag who thinks he’s being clever and original with some pithy line abou t how ‘if you can’t eat it it, shoot it, or live in it, it’s worthless’. And yet….he’s at the Kroger paying for his groceries with greenbacks that he can’t eat, shoot, or live in. Hmmm.
Now, I’m not saying that after the end of the world we’ll all be trading silver and gold for our transactions. I’m saying that its during the ride to the end of the world where the metals will have the most utility.
And…for some reason I cannot precisely express… I just feel better having some shiny metal on hand. So…a little more silver in the safe.
If you’ve spent any time as a survivalist, you know that the Swiss are the closest thing to a country that has institutionalized preparedness (the Israelis probably get runner-up). Their ‘secret’ bunkers that litter the countryside are famous…as was their mandate about new home construction including shelter space. Add into the mix the long-standing (though that may be changing) access to military arms for its citizenry and you have a recipe for nation that could be said to have made preparedness a national platform.
And…apparently….coffee was part of that preparedness plan.
In just about every classic piece of survivalist fiction (“Alas Babylon” springs to mind) there is always a little section about how the lack of coffee is greatly lamented by survivors (with cigarettes and alcohol coming in a close second). The Swiss, apparently, hedged their bets and stockpiled some java to get everyone started when they wake up in the morning.
I don’t drink coffee, but I do keep some freeze dried coffee around. I am told by aficionados that although freeze dried coffee is regarded rather poorly, it is magnitudes of order better than no coffee at all.
My own personal addiction is CocaCola. I can go without if I have to, but I won’t be happy about it. I find that my cravings for the sugar and caffeine can be met with long-term-storage-friendly drink mixes such as powdered ice tea mix. However, for the folks that smoke or have a less-than-healthy relationship with alcohol, well, I don’t envy them.
Part of me is a bit disappointed that the Swiss are slowly dismantling the policies and practices that made them a beacon of preparedness. For a while they were a great example of ‘civil defense’ to point to when discussing national policies on the subject.
But, in the end, the only person responsible for your safety and security is you. It’s nice when governments make it easier with things like tax breaks, flexible building codes, and free ammo, but you always need to operate as if it’s going to be just whatever you can do for yourself… which is often how it actually goes.
As you might expect, the midwest produces a lot of grain which gets fed to a lot of animals which get fed to a lot of people. What’s interesting is what the map suggests – crippling or disabling a few key points can have a disproportionately large effect on a region. Remember the Boston marathon bombing a few years back? Two guys managed to shut down an entire citys worth of airports, ports, tunnels, and major transportation hubs…and thats just two guys with DIY training from the internet. Get a group of dedicated, focused individuals with some more serious training, and perhaps some real backing from some source, and you’ve got the potential to cause some major mayhem.
Note that the article mentions the regions/localities that export the most food, but also the ones that import the most food as well. Its fascinating to note that some of the biggest exporters of food are also the largest importers.
Although it may not necessarily have been the intended point, I think this article demonstrates quite nicely some vulnerabilities that exist should someone get their act together enough to have the muscle and materiels to try and create a little manufactured crisis.
Interestingly, the article suggests that should something….dramatic…happen to southern California the repercussions through the national food supply would be rather pronounced.
The moral here, I suppose, is to keep in mind that relying on a ‘long tail’ for your food exposes you to a significant risk and that the smart individual might be prudent to develop closer-to-home sources for foodstuffs.
After some rather uncharacteristically cold weather, things have stabilized into a more normal range of temperatures. Still cold, especially by the standards of people from states where “y’all” is considered good grammar, but tolerable.
Whether it’s sitting out a power outage from an ice storm, or you just happen to live in a hermit shack where the BTU’s come from whatever fuel you brought with you, staying warm is a priority in the winter. I live in a decent house with forced air heat from a gas furnace. Double whammy…in a power outage there’s no electricity for the blower (although the Honda EU2000 could be made to work in such a situation), or something may occur that disrupts the flow of natural gas (say, foreign hackers getting into the system that controls the distribution system.) Being me, I try to keep several options on hand. The most notable of which is the old standby – kerosene heaters. No fuel puts out as much heat as kerosene. And it’s remarkable stable and safe to handle. You could drop a match into a 5-gallon bucket of the stuff and…nothing.
I also keep one of those smaller Mr Buddy heaters around with a few dozen bottles of propane, as well as the 20# bottles out by the BBQ, but I find them not as efficient as the kerosene. Theyre nice if you want to justhear one small room, which is pretty much how to deal with a heat problem in a really bad situation…you retreat to one room and heat that room. but, I prefer the kerosene.
Of course, once its time for bed, you can crank the heat down considerably. Wool blankets are nice, but for keeping yourself comfortable warm when the temperature in the house is only a few degrees above freezing there is nothing that beats a big down comforter, and if you throw a heavy wool blanket on top of the comforter you’ve pretty much made yourself impervious to cold. Im one of those freaks that sleep better in a cold room and I often turn off the heat to the bedroom, shut the door, open a window, and sleep with my head right by the window when its below freezing.
The only reason a stunt like that works is because your bod has fuel to burn to keep your dumb butt warm. Going to bed hungry is a great way to not stay warm. Eat a good meal, go to sleep, stay warm.
Staying indoors, even in a house that is hovering in the low-50’s, is a far sight better than sitting out in the 5* weather. On the few occasions when we’ve lost power here in the winter I’ve managed to barely be inconvenienced…kerosene heaters and lanterns, along with judicious use of closed doors to isolate various rooms, kept me warm and my pipes unfrozen.
I mention this because, as I was straightening a few things up today I came across a stash of military wool blankets I forgot I had. Theyre not very attractive, and perhaps a tad scratchy, but I’ll take warm and slightly itchy over cold and frostbitten any day.
