Category: Self-Employment & Home-Based Businesses

The Post-SHTF Store, by J.P.C.

So much has been written on preparing solely for survival of TEOTWAWKI. What about after? What about five years after? Granted, if something minor happens and we could overcome it within a month or so, I truly see precious metals quite viable. However, should the whole world fall to its knees and we would be looking at years before any sort of progress could be made, I think material goods would be much more important. This list is not meant to be a final checklist, but rather a starting point that you could adjust, add, or take away from. These …


Letter Re: Day to Day Survival–From the Perspective of a Homeless Man

It may not be TEOTWAWKI, but the end of “your world” may be closer than you think. Mine came eight years ago with the end of my wife’s battle with cancer. With the down turn of the economy and a mountain of medical bills, we had already leveraged every penny that we could. We took out a second mortgage, maxed our credit cards, sold the boat, the four wheeler, and travel trailer. Since then I’ve sold my pickup, her car, the tools of my trade (I’d been a carpenter), and anything else that could bring in a dollar. I’ve been …


Letter Re: Finding a Job in Depressed Economy

Good Afternoon, Jim, What can Christian people do if they have lost their income when the economy crashed in October 2008 and they still have limited funds? I am a professional and the market I serve is in decline. Suggestions? I have applied to hundreds of jobs with no reply. Thanks, – Paul S. At this point, the prospects for economic “recovery” seem remote, especially with the planned tax increases (January 1, 2011) and the inevitability of higher interest rates. I recommend that you start your own business, in something recession/depression proof. Look through the 75+ SurvivalBlog articles in the …


Moving to a Small Town as a Retreat (And Why it’s Good to Do it Now), by Bryan B. in Alaska

Two years ago, I was a busy guy. I worked 50-to-60 hour weeks as an equipment and auto mechanic in south central Alaska. I was a Dad, delivery driver and taxi for the family, and maintenance man for our aging trailer. We lived a couple miles from a town of 15,000 on a .75 acre lot with a mobile home. My decent pay barely paid all the bills and fuel costs of going to work. To top things off, I had just “woke up” to what was going on and had no idea how I was going to prepare for …


Letter Re: Managing Back and Joint Pain

Jim, I recently “took a bad turn” and re-experienced some back pain. My original injury was in 1979, when I was in the military. After three days I decided to see a chiropractor … like many men, I will see a Doctor only when I have one foot in the grave … (insert visual of wives nodding their heads here). This painful episode got me thinking about survival pain management. In a previous career, I was the Safety Manager at a poultry processing plant. One of my duties was to manage the in-house Clinic staffed with RNs and LPNs and …


Letter Re: Standardizing with DeWalt 18 VDC Power Tools

James, I have ten of the DeWalt 18 VDC power tools and four of the batteries. This is an excellent product line that has proven much better than some of the older 12 volt and corded tools that they replaced. The impact driver, circular saw, and reciprocating saw have already proven to be very useful. These are excellent survival tools because you can get a lot of work done with them and a good set of 3 or 4 batteries without needing [120 VAC utility] power. DeWalt sells almost all of their 18 VDC power tools as “tool only” kits …


Letter Re: 550 Cord–The Use of Arts and Crafts for Survival and Practical Tasks

Mr. Rawles and SurvivalBlog Readers, I am a newly dedicated reader and have had an interest in your contests since day one. I have a few skills I’ve learned in life (hunting, fishing, marksmanship, tracking and writing) but the newest one is macramé. This is the art of weaving knots to make beautiful and often decorative pieces and is just a craft some folks use to entertain themselves. I’ve combined both of these and applied one more purpose for the art: rope-making, belt-making and strap-making. All three of these have occupied my time overseas for almost a year now. I’ve …


Two Letters Re: The Home Foundry, Metal Casting

Mr. Rawles, First thanks for a great blog. I’ve been a regular reader for a year or so now. I’ve read with interest the entries by Dan in Oklahoma on the home foundry. I learned the foundry trade from my father by helping him in a small bronze foundry. I’ve learned the pattern making trade from my father and by jumping in with both feet and making patterns. I’ve since moved on to my own business casting aluminum parts for the WW2 aircraft restoration industry and hope to add magnesium castings to my capabilities. I have one bone to pick …


How to Prosper in a Salvage Economy, by Tamara W.

A salvage economy is a post-production economy. The economy is based on salvage and then reuse or remanufacture of salvaged materials. The current modern equivalent of this are those individuals who sort through trash heaps and dumps for recyclable materials. The historical equivalent of this are the stone masons in Egypt who tore down ancient monuments for building material. For example, the lost Pyramid of Djedefre was thought to have not been built until its foundations were found, including a mortuary temple and queens’ pyramids. Where did it go? Must of it was used to build buildings in Cairo from …


Letter Re: Some Thoughts on Bartering and Disaster Preparedness

Greetings Jim, I hope this letter finds you well. I wanted to touch on a few topics that may interest some of your readers. I have been in many phases of the construction trade for 18 years, I live on the edge a medium sized city, and like so many others, because of my work, and the need for a population to support my livelihood, my options are limited as to where I live, so I will have to make do with where I am. Being in the construction industry, I learned early on that it’s Feast or Feathers, so …


Twenty-Two Reasons Why this Recession is Different and Why it Will Endure

I find it surprising that I’m now getting inquiries from readers, asking if “we’ve reached bottom” in the current economic recession, and asking if the time has come to start buying stocks or residential real estate. It seems that the talking heads of mainstream media are using some sort of voodoo. How can anyone think that we’ve hit bottom, and an economic recovery is in progress? To dispel the myths from the CNBC Cheering Section, please consider the following. (And note that I’ve provided references for each assertion, just so you know that I’m not talking out of my camouflage …


What Recovery? Find Yourself a Recoveryless Job

For more than a month, the mainstream media has been yammering about an economic recovery. Chasing phantom “good number” statistics amidst an onslaught of otherwise bad economic and global credit market news, the Wall Street cheering section is desperately seeking some news that the current recession is coming to an end. They talk about “the recovery in progress”–almost a fait accompli. They have been so good at this that they have fooled some investors into putting their sidelined money back into the stock market. What a masterpiece of disingenuous grandstanding. But the sad truth is that there is no genuine …


Letter Re: Grub and Gear–Lessons Learned from an Alaskan Trapper

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James, Going through some old gear last month, I found my food supply lists and notes from 1976-79. I thought the old list might be of interest and the lessons I learned during the first three years in the remote Alaska bush may be helpful to a few of your readers. I do not recommend Alaska for a TEOTWAWKI retreat but the lessons I learned the hard way may be helpful to any one in a cold climate. I grew up in California listing to stories from my grandfather about Alaska and the Yukon. When I graduated from high school …


Letter Re: Living in the Time After TEOTWAWKI

Dear Mr. Rawles, I think there is a blind spot in a lot of preparedness/survivalist writing that I would like to address. There are a number of sites which do a good to excellent job of getting the word out about the nuts-and-bolts of getting prepared to allow a family to get through a short term emergency, and there are sites which encourages us to get a retreat in farm country. However, I have not seen anyone talk about how we will boot strap ourselves to back towards some sort of village life and civil society[, in the event of …


Barter Goods — A Woman’s Perspective, by “Wry Catcher”

Most of the survival information published today comes from thoughtful and hardy men who plan, prepare, and protect themselves and their families from disasters.  My admiration and appreciate for such men cannot be overemphasized. I doff my hard hat to all of you. There are, however, some elements of survival that are perhaps better served from a woman’s perspective. In particular, this article focuses on barter goods – those items that can be traded to other survivors for an improved quality of life or for basic necessity. For purposes of clarity and ease of reference, this article is divided into …