Article – 40% of Americans can’t cover a $400 emergency expense

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Four in ten Americans can’t, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Board. Those who don’t have the cash on hand say they’d have to cover it by borrowing or selling something.

The bright side? That’s an improvement from half of adults being unable to cover such an expense in 2013. The number has been ticking down each year since.

Speaking as someone who just had an unexpected vehicle expense pop up, I can tell you that I ain’t in that 40%. Are you?

It’s not nearly as sexy, but it is true: you are far more likely to experience an emergency calling for your stash of US greenbacks than you are for an emergency that requires your plate carrier and NVD’s.

Part of preparedness is being prepared for the unsexy stuff: water heater failures, alternators, dead refrigerators, broken pipes, exploding appendixes, and other sundry crises.

It’s no secret that I try to follow the Dave Ramsey stuff….and I’ll be accused of drinking his particular Kool-Aid but..it’s worked well for me. The alternator died and what might have otherwise been an emergency was downgraded to an inconvenience. I just took the money from the emergency fund and threw it at the mechanic. Next day…functioning vehicle. No muss, no fuss.

Now I drop everything and work on topping off my emergency fund back to its normal level.

If you set back food, ammo, fuel, and meds ‘just in case’ then you really shouldn’t have trouble understanding that adding ‘money’ to that list is just as good an idea as the other items. The trick is having the discipline to do it and then forget that the money is there.

My financial goal, in case anyone is interested, is a years worth of money to cover my basic expenses – food, utilities, taxes, etc. It won’t be a huge amount since I can live without luxuries, but having a years worth of expenses tucked away gives me options I might not otherwise have in case theres a job failure or other ‘personal’ end of the world.

No lie, man…get a couple grand tucked away as soon as possible and forget that it’s there. It’s the best thing you can do to give yourself some peace of mind that allows you to worry and work against bigger things.

Article – The Fed’s Cold War Bunker Had $4 Billion Cash For After The Apocalypse

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Everytime I thaw a pork tenderloin and lay it out in the baking tray, all I can think is how much they look like chestbursters from Aliens. Trivia: In the movie Alien, the cast was not told that the alien was going to burst forth from the other actors chest. They had no idea what was happening when the chestburster exploded out of the other actor. Those surprised looks? Not acting. #dammitridleyscottthatwasmylastcleanpairofunderwear
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So we all figure that after the apocalypse we’ll be using silver and .22 ammo to buy our lapdances and Twinkies, right? Well, Uncle Sam had other ideas..four billion of them, in fact. In cash.

New York and DC are piles of ash, but at least your checks are clearing. That was the idea behind the Culpeper Switch, a sprawling bunker built by the Federal Reserve to keep the banks running after nuclear apocalypse. But even some Cold War-era politicians thought it was silly.

The compound was built just outside the small town of Culpeper, Virginia, near Mount Pony, in 1969. The 135,000 square foot facility was officially called the Federal Reserve System’s Communications and Records Center, and it housed about $4 billion of American currency during the 1970s — currency sitting in what was reportedly the world’s largest single-floor vault at the time.

Edgar Quisneberry would have been quite pleased.

If someone has been scrambling fissionables to the point that the fed has to crack open their Scrooge McDuck-ian vault, then things have hit the point where those greenbacks only utility is as kindling. When I finally climb out of my basement after a couple weeks of watching the dosimeters, I’m going to be inclined to trade a package of crackers-n-cheese for anything other than greenbacks.

 

 

Not my owie, but an owie nonetheless

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Fellow blogger and Friend Of The Blog, Tam, over at View From The Porch had a little mishap that resulted in some structural damage to her bonework. If you’re the generous type she’s got a Patreon page as well as a PayPal link on her blog in case anyone wants to help defray costs. (Further detail)

If you haven’t read her stuff, Tam does a pretty good job of reviewing guns with a perspective you don’t often see in a lot of mainstream gun mags. And her 2,000 round test firings are always informative. And snark….the woman has some great snark-fu.

Check her out.

All the people like us are ‘we’, and everyone else is ‘they’

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I do enjoy chatting with fellow survivalists. There are two or three that I communicate with back and forth in email and it’s always very satisfying and enjoyable. What makes it such a pleasure, other than us being, basically, on the same page is that it also helps to make me feel like I’m not unique and ‘strange’ or ‘out there’… there are people who think that my concerns and actions are perfectly reasonable. I like that feeling of…I dunno…validation?

It isn’t always that way, though. See, everyone has a different flavor of apocalypse. And everyone, when it comes to their particular flavor, is a remarkably fussy eater. For example, the Peak Oil guys are quick to attribute everything to Peak Oil (which, much like how Global Cooling morphed into Global Warming and is now simply the much more vague Climate Change, has undergone some brand retooling)… water wars? Its because Peak Oil makes transporting water too expensive. Food prices up? It’s because Peak Oil makes farming more expensive. Neighbors dog got into the chickens? Peak oil.

I shouldn’t give the Peak Oil guys too much grief….my own particular flavor of apocalypse is probably scoffed at by other parts of the survivalist demographic. But…my point is that it’s always nice when you have ‘out of the ordinary’ interests/beliefs/concerns to get to interact with other ‘like minded individuals’ so you don’t feel so isolated or alienated.

I was thinking about that today as I was restocking the rice containers in the kitchen. As of late I’ve been going through a lot of rice, mostly to use it up and also out of a renewed sense of thrift since there’s a new alternator sitting at the curb with an old car attached to it. Anyway, I was scooping out the last of a five-gallon bucket of rice and I was thinking what it must feel like to have that moment where you see the bottom of the barrel (literally) and think ‘thats it…we’re outta food’.

Of course, in my case that just means opening up another five-gallon pail. But how many people keep multiple five-gallon buckets of food on-hand? For years? Not many, I’d wager. But when I encounter other people who do that sort of thing, I feel much more comfortable with myself. Go figure.

I’m relatively active on a bunch of discussion forums. Some as Commander Zero, some as other anonymous names, but I really enjoy reading other people’s experiences and ideas about preparedness. It really helps to lessen the feeling that I’m the only one who thinks this way and, therefore, somehow I’m abnormal or not quite right.

So…let’s ask an interesting question: not counting spouses or relatives, how many survivalists do you frequently interact with in real life.. not over the internet, not on discussion boards, but in genuine “Hey, you wanna go to the range/gun show/Mormon cannery/backapacking store?” fashion?

[yop_poll id=”9″]

 

An example of the ‘loaner’ or ‘disposable’ gun

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Tam very nicely linked back to this post and opined in her blog:

But say you wind up with a friend or family member who suddenly finds themselves in a life circumstance where they realize that they need a better way to protect themselves than 911? A crazy ex, a stalker, a neighbor making threats, or just one of those violent criminal incidents that happens close enough to home to be a wake-up call…

If you’re the “gun person” in your family or social circle, this has probably happened to you at least once already. Lately, seeing the occasional sub-$300 fire sale prices on Smith & Wesson Shields and SD9s, I’ve more than once thought about buying one to set aside for just this sort of occasion. “In case of crisis, remove unfired-in-box gat from safe.”

And no sooner had that post hit the light of day than my vehicle decided that it’s alternator had had enough of this mortal coil (get it? ‘Coil’?) and shuffled off to wherever dead car parts go. As a result, my vehicle very inconveniently puttered to a stop. In front of the homeless shelter.

Joy.

So, I called a buddy of mine to come help me push it off the road because I really didn’t want to ask the whiskey-for-breakfast crowd for a hand. My mood was already several orders of magnitude into the red zone and it wouldn’t have taken much to release some pressure in an unprofessional manner. So my buddy shows up and asks how long till the tow truck arrives. “Two hours”, I reply. He looks over at the homeless milling around aimlessly, goes back to his truck, and pulls a beater Beretta 96 out from under the seat. “Wanna borrow this until the tow truck gets here?”, he asks. I thanked him and told him me and my G19 were just fine. But…here’s the big takeaway from that: because he had what amounted to a ‘disposable’ or ‘beater’ or ‘truck gun’ available he was able to offer it to someone else. And a scenario like that is precisely why we have extras, and extras on top of extras – because someday a friend, family member, or other person you care about might be in a bad position and in this way you can offer them assistance. And thats not just guns, guys…. that could be food, ammo, batteries, money, or any host of other things that, when you don’t have it and really need it, are really important.

This is a big distinction from charity. Charity is generalized giving out of some sense of moral or religious imperative or duty. I generally don’t suffer from this particular quality, so my generosity is a bit more selfish – I give to those that add a value to my life, or I give for the satisfaction I get from the act of giving. It may seem like that’s a difference with no distinction, but I see a distinction. I suppose the greatest distinction, for me, is that charity often comes across as an obligation and I am extremely opposed to obligations being forced upon me rather than they being voluntarily assumed.

On a side note, I had my Bag Of Tricks with me as well as my mountain bike sitting in the back of the vehicle so I could very easily have left the area and made it back to base with minimal inconvenience…if I was willing to just abandon the vehicle, which was not called for at that point.

Watergun: grips

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Set of grip screws arrived today. Had some cheesey plastic P35 grips laying around, so no extra cost there. Also had a couple crappy USA Brand P35 mags sitting around that I never got around to throwing out. (USA mags are unbelievably worthless.) Took the followers out and put them into he mags that rose form the depths with the Watergun. Result: functioning magazines.So, all thats left is replace the parts for the rear sight and get the gun coated with something.

Must. Not. Buy.

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Ok, Crom as my witness I am done buying Ruger P95DC’s. I unexpectedly won not one but two auctions last week. That’s a pretty hard punch to the wallet to roll with. So….no more. Done. Finito. Inventory says I’ve got.. well…a bunch. Since my policy is usually to never sell a gun except to purchase another one, I suppose I should remove some of the P89 and P95 non-decocker variants to make room for the two on the way.

In my defense, though, the last one I purchased for $200 plus shipping was virtually untouched, with box and docs:

For a pistol platform that is a tertiary level of backup, I really might have gone overboard. But…a quality, reliable, inexpensive, and somewhat semi-disposable handgun is really not a bad thing to have squirreled away for that Rainy Decade. And, quite honestly, for $200 I cannot fathom a better handgun choice….certainly it is leaps and bounds a better choice than any -arov handgun, and it certainly beats, IMHO, a HiPoint. Remember, guys – after the end of the world there will be no award handed out for the person who managed to make it through the apocalypse with the cheapest gear. Yeah, you could go through Katrina with a Mosin-Nagant and a Makarov…. but why would you? Anyone whose aspirations exceed working as a WalMart greeter can come up with better materiels than that.

If someone I cared about showed up on my doorstep with not much more than the clothes on their back, I like to think I’d be able to gear them up in a manner that would not embarrass or shame me.Guns such as this one allow me to do just that. On the other hand, I have, literally, no people I  am close to who do not already have enough guns in their own stashes to do this sort of thing. But Fate is a fickle and unpredictable thing…so you never know.

Is this a likelihood? Probably not. But I feel better when I have extra guns in the safe, and (normally) I can afford to pick them up every once in a while. And, like the stash of freeze drieds, a couple of these will get packaged for the Deep Sleep and wind up at the Beta Site. Since these stupid things are, relatively, so cheap it isn’t like there’s a tremendous opportunity cost.

Overkill? Meh…maybe. But I think differently about these sorts of things than most humans. I tend to overthink things. For example, if I have a friend or relative that I visit out of state, I can afford to stash one of these there for my use while I’m there and not have to deal with the hassle of flying with a pistol.

My reckoning says I’ve about 25 years left on my meter, and if I were unable to buy any more guns after tomorrow I think I’d be pretty okay…not happy…but okay.

The good news for you? You guys will no longer be bidding against me on GunBroker for these things.

Magazines

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There’s a ratio of magazine:gun that makes me feel comfortable. For a pistol that I plan on shooting and having as an integral part of my long-term plans, I like to have a ratio of at least 20:1. For rifles, thats more like 40:1. That’s not an unattainable goal and, in my opinion, it’s a realistic quantity of magazines if you operate under the guide of “will what I have right now last me the rest of my life if I can’t get any more?”

Having acquired recently two Ruger PC9 carbines that take P-series magazines, my ratio of mags:guns took a bit of a hit. So…off to GunBroker……

Once in a blue moon I can find someone selling a bunch of Ruger mags as a single lot. (Which is how this absurd collection of P-series pistols got started.) I just happen to stumble across someone selling a fistful of law-enforcement restricted P-series mags and, since the guns aren’t exactly terribly popular, managed to nail them down for $100 for the lot…or $12.50@. Good deal for gen-u-ine Ruger mags.

Although it’s not something we usually think about, mags are a consumable. They are disposable. They have a limited usage life compared to the pistol. The person who says “Oh, I’ve got five mags for Beretta 92…I’m all set!” is a short-sighted, ignorant, and unimaginative fool. I’ve covered this elsewhere so I won’t rehash it here, but it’s really hard to have too many spare mags.

Anyway, these will get distributed amongs the pistols, and a couple pistol mag pouches will be set aside for the carbines. And, unless a smoking deal comes along, I think I’ll be pretty much done on this particular front.

 

Floodings

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Between rain and snowmelt, western Montana…esp my little area of it…is experiencing a rather heavy amount of flooding. Rivers are way, way up and low-lying (or is it low-laying?) parts of town are underwater. Fortunately, I live in an are that is pretty much immune to such things. The city would have to be several feet deep in water across its breadth before I’d have to worry.

Nonetheless, it’s a good example of how when you purchase your little chunk of paradise you really need to investigate all the possible threats. “Oh, it only floods once every 200 years” is not as good as “it never floods here”. In addition to floods, you need to think about things like forest fires, rockslides, avalanches, wind storms. and a few other donkey punches Mom Nature likes to administer.

Oh, sure…you can build resilient housing, but better to not be in the path of the train rather than develop a train-proof suit.

On the bright side, the homeless camps (and hopefully some of the homeless) were completely washed away as the river rose about a dozen feet higher than normal. Folks downstream will be inundated with sleeping bags and tents when this thing finally dies down.

In the meantime, I’m just watching it all for the entertainment value. But I kinda did wanna go shooting this weekend and the rain is spoiling that.