A Different Perspective on Investing, by D.W.

I’d like to offer my thoughts on wealth preservation, investment and insurance for the modern prepper. In terms of qualifications I’m a Fee-Only Financial Planner and Registered Financial Consultant who owns his own business and services clients with millions of dollars down to just a few thousand dollars. Several of my clients would qualify as preppers and have engaged me on these issues. I’ve been an avid SurvivalBlog reader for several years now and I have been modestly prepping for most of that time. Allow me to begin by stating my presuppositions on the state of the economy and the chances of economic collapse. I probably fall outside the mainstream of the average reader as I don’t necessarily believe the current economic issues our country is having will result in all out collapse. I consider it one of a number of risks that face productive people who wish to store and increase the value of their labor in investments.

If a number of outcomes are possible, how does one chart a course to not only maintain wealth but to actually grow it? Without getting into the most technical trappings of good asset allocation let me just say that the key to dealing with risk is diversifying. In a traditional investment portfolio such as an IRA or 401(k) I would recommend a mix of assets to deal with volatility. The asset classes I recommend can be roughly broken down to stocks, bonds, commodities and real estate. Different mixes of these four asset classes can produce portfolios all along the volatility spectrum from high volatility/high return to low volatility/low return.
If your life and everything you own is a portfolio that you have to allocate I would recommend keeping your intangible wealth such as IRAs and 401(k)s in a mix of stocks, bonds and commodities index funds managed by a qualified professional. Consider it diversification for the possibility that the world does not end. Personally I consider that plan A but depending on your perspective feel free to consider it plan B. It is the wealth you possess in tangible, non-traditional forms that I want to encourage you to allocate in a similar way to a professionally managed portfolio.

Diversification in this area of your wealth can save you from the same headache and heartache that those who loaded up on tech stocks in 1999 or real estate in 2006 had to deal with. Diversification can allow you to
protect wealth as well as grow it. Here is a general framework for allocating the assets of your life from a pepper’s perspective.

Stock Equivalents – In the traditional investment world common stock represents a tiny slice of a business, an enterprise focused solely and exclusively on creating and increasing the value of goods and services. It is by definition intangible as you can’t call in a “chunk” of Microsoft or Wal-Mart. I love the concept and function of the stock market as it allows anybody to be a participant in the miracle of the American economy. That being said, I’m not so naive to believe that market is completely “free” or clean as the wind driven snow and it is of course intangible. If the SHTF a share of Wal-Mart stock will be worth $0.

Preppers have a chance to participate in an entirely different stock market that exists to create and expand value of goods and services and individual preppers can be the sole owners of 100% of the shares of any given business if they do just one thing… start it themselves. Creating a side business that focuses on meeting the most basic needs of people is a fantastic way to create, grow and maintain wealth for every prepper. People will always need food, clothing, heat, security, clean water and energy solutions. They need these things today and they will need them if the economy collapse’s. I think of Pat Frank’s novel Alas, Babylon wherein, after a 1950s-era nuclear war, the main character transacts business with a bee keeper who before the war was considered lower middle class and bees were a sideline. Now in the aftermath of a war and societal collapse he was considered fabulously wealthy with an army of, essentially, slave labor producing continual additional wealth for him.

Obviously the SHTF key to this wealth growth and maintenance strategy is to focus on “basic needs” businesses. Start a farm stands, learn to weave, buy a loom, start a hobby farm, cut firewood, learn how to butcher animals or start a hobby blacksmith shop. You’ll need time to learn to efficiently hone your business practices and develop your markets. Even if you only do a very small amount of business you can acquire the necessary hardware and get your name out in the community. Each customer becomes another layer of protection from economic downturns. I tell people all the time that I’d rather have 100 clients who pay me $1,000 a piece then one boss who pays me $100,000 a year. Job security is a myth if your boss is nuts or doesn’t mesh with you personally or is just bad at his job and has to fire someone because he’s driving the business into the ground (boss’ will never fire themselves in these circumstances).

Your business represents the exact same asset class as Wal-Mart or Microsoft stock represents in your investment portfolio. Business will always exist in some form or another no matter how bad things get. You will position yourself to create and maintain real wealth in a SHTF scenario if you have a business that functions and creates essential value for people before things get lively.

Commodities Equivalents– In an investment portfolio, commodities play the role of black sheep. Because they zig when everything else zags they tend to reduce average risk while still historically providing relative high returns. They also provide some protection from inflation since the numbers you read on your monthly account statement represent physical goods held somewhere, even if it’s still in the ground. They are in reality still intangible since most people are entirely unlikely to take delivery of 100 barrels of oil or a thousand head of cattle. It’s simple to translate these benefits to tangible assets with in the peppers’ asset allocation.

In all actuality, commodities are one of the most popular and most discussed investments in the prepper community already. If you’ve got a years’ supply of food, gold and silver and guns and ammo you’ve already invested in commodities. Congratulations part of your asset allocation is in place. These things represent physical items that will maintain or grow in value in an inflationary setting. However, I believe that within this asset class you’ve got items that should qualify as insurance and some that should really qualify more as growth investments. For example your food supply is insurance against a disruption in food distribution, not an investment. Think about it this way, under what circumstances would you sell your food preps for profit? I’m guessing you wouldn’t. It’s an essential cornerstone of quality prepping and it should be a priority before you invest for growth. So where do you go when your food preps are essentially complete and you wish to build commodity based, tangible wealth to compliment the other wealth building asset classes such as your home business?

The universal answer for this in prepper communities seems to be physically held gold and silver coins. Obviously enormous amounts of information have been disseminated on this and other internet sites about precious metals. They are tangible, conveniently small and universally recognized. They obviously have a place in wealth preservation. However, they are also easily stolen or lost due to their small size and they can be forged. The integrity of the supply affects you even if your gold and silver is pure since it casts doubts on the totality of the supply. How will the buyer know that your gold and silver is pure? If you were a government entity that wanted to discourage people from owning gold would it not be in your best interest to flood the market with counterfeit gold and silver or at the very least turn a blind eye? The risks that come with owning gold and silver are more diverse than just spot price volatility. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t own it but it does mean you should diversify by owning other commodity investments.

One of the best tangible investments that preppers can purchase is livestock. The synergy (sorry to sound like a business guy but that’s who I am) that comes with this purchase can be perfect when applied to a farm as a home business. You end up with a money making enterprise (I hear the snickers from the farmers out there) that is filled with tangible commodities that reproduce, create food and other valuable bi-products and meet your need for food production and wealth preservation. Even if you start with minor purchases like chickens or rabbits you are further ahead in this area then 95% of the people in the USA.

Another high quality investment which I consider almost guaranteed to grow faster than inflation is collecting surplus firearms. Surplus firearms are generally military firearms from the last 100 years or so. They come in many different grades of quality from the highest end antique investments to beat up, almost non-functional examples. You can own firearms from all over the world and many historic time periods. The reason why they can be great investments is simple supply and demand. Take for example the Mosin Nagant. This is generally a Russian bolt action rifle that can be obtained for around $100 in decent shape, typically 60 or 70 years old. Even though many millions of these rifles have been produced in the past they are no longer produced for military use. The supply is capped. Now I know these things are basically a dime a dozen right now but how many of them are being modified, broken, lost to neglect and house fires? The demand can only grow as population grows. The rifles, though ugly, tend to be fully functional. You have a commodity that is useful, historic and tangible with a capped or even slightly declining supply. I’ll take that as an investment opportunity any day.

I’ve been following the price of Mosin Nagants for several years now. Prices are obviously relative to the quality of the piece being sold but generally I’ve found prices to have risen in my area from around $90 to about $120 for decent examples of the rifle in roughly the last three years. That is a return of around 10% a year. That’s growth I think you can count on in this market for many years to come. Buy an M1 Garand and M1 Carbine, an Enfield, a Mosin, a SKS and any number of other rifles. Enjoy them, store them well. In a SHTF scenario you’ll have a functioning tool for your security but if things don’t get lively you’ll still have a great investment that is nearly certain to make you money, assuming you can bring yourself to sell them someday. On second thought you may want to buy multiples of your favorite rifles to pass down to the kids.

As a qualifier to the above, let me say I’d encourage people to purchase their functional everyday firearms first. Get them and their ammo needs squared away first before building your surplus firearms collection. Also, don’t forget ammo for your surplus collection and various sundries like clips, slings and bayonets.

People make money in markets based on what they know. Before you buy surplus rifles educate yourself. Even the most beautiful rifle can be a poor investment if you pay too much for it. This simple truth argues against buying online if another opportunity is available. If you can’t handle it and stare at it and ask questions about it you’re at the mercy of the seller.

Real Estate- Within a diversified investment portfolio real estate can take a number of forms, everything from Real Estate Investment Trusts which function similarly to stocks to buying rental properties and acting as a land lord. Real Estate can be a great investment for a number of reasons but one of my favorites is the simple fact that most real estate is not priced minute to minute like the stock market. You really only know the value of your Real Estate the day you buy it and sell it. Because of this and the fact that it’s a real process to sell Real Estate most people hold it for the long term.

Within your tangible investment portfolio your home probably makes up the bulk of your real estate and that is fine. If you’ve paid a good price for it and you are not deeply upside down on your mortgage you have probably fulfilled this portion of your tangible portfolio. The question may be not whether you own Real Estate but do you own the best possible investment quality Real Estate for your situation. Investment guru’s like Jim Rodgers and experts like our own Jim Rawles have encouraged people to consider investing in productive farm land. I believe this to be an excellent choice for those looking for their first Real Estate investment or for those looking to trade out a house in the suburbs for something more rural. Specifically I like this choice within the frame work of your own home business. Running a small business on a piece of property you own is a great way to increase the overall value of the parcel. For instance, if you fence the land for a few head of cattle you have all three of the investments mention so far in this article; the farm as a home business, the cattle as a commodity and the land as real estate. Even if you don’t run a farm, for many people other businesses are available such as making maple syrup or leasing for hunting purposes.  Showing that you can run a money making venture on a piece of property significantly increases its value when it comes time to sell.

For those of you unable to come up with the money to buy productive farmland, consider unproductive land. You may be able to get a poorly located plot or hilly countryside on the cheap and then improve it as your time and finances allow. This is another great way to get into the game with a little sweat equity and what I’ve found is that many of the most interesting pieces of property out there are ugly ducklings that someone invested their imagination and perspiration into and now are very compelling investments. If I could impart just one bit of wisdom towards this suggestion it would be this; don’t pay too much for the land.

Bond Equivalents- Traditionally bonds have formed the “conservative” corner of most retiree’s investment portfolios for decades. Today treasuries and to a lesser extent corporate bonds have had their prices pushed so high by the Federal Reserve’s actions that they have lost much of their “conservative” reputation in the secular world, and amongst the true believers of the prepper community they are anathema. A bond is really just a loan you give out to someone you reasonably trust to pay you back with the agreed upon interest included. You aren’t guaranteed anything and the higher the anticipated risk the borrower won’t be able to pay you back the higher the required interest rate.

In the world of the prepper I like to think of bond equivalents as good will deposited and built up amongst people you have everyday relationships with.  A lite example would be your neighbor who feels like they owe you for loaning them your push mower when theirs broke down. Now admittedly this is not a tangible investment but in the world of relationships I consider it the second most compelling currency, just behind love (with the right heart attitude they are one in the same). In reality that good will translates often to tangible benefits.

The relationships you build before a SHTF event may be the best investment you make towards not just surviving but thriving in difficult times. Those relationships will thrive and build good will most often when you are seeking to be a blessing to others. Not specifically with the idea that you are going to “cash in” on these acts of kindness but when you aren’t going to. That genuine care for others will be reflected back on you in the most difficult times of life. Often concepts like OPSEC and population density are discussed in settings like this and for good reason. But they are not to be interpreted as isolation from relationships. Our lives are enriched by relationships so get to know your neighbors. Be a blessing to them and build yourself into their lives. The last thing you want is to be in a situation where you are just meeting your neighbors for the first time when things are very bad. You will be considered an outsider in their circle of trust with little chance of breaking through that for your benefit or theirs. If you build up good will now, similarly to loaning money to a government or corporation, you will see the goodwill flow back to you with interest during times of trouble.

Until that time comes you’ll find enriching relationships with people who may well buy the products of your home business, sell you their property and feed and water your cattle while you vacation.
Conclusion- If you believe deeply in one particular outcome and you bet your life savings, all of your possessions and your labor on it, in investing terms, you are aggressive. If you’re right you win big but if you’re wrong you could be in trouble.  If you invest in a number of asset classes that all historically go up but do so at different speeds and under different circumstances you are considered diversified. Diversification means you win no matter the ending circumstance.

If a prepper commits to building these four general categories of tangible investments I’m confident that they will not only insure themselves against high inflation, economic tumult and time periods of social disorder but also find their wealth increasing should things stay on a level playing field.

Letter Re: Repairing and Refurbishing Traditional Optics

Hi James,
   I just want to pass on a “good job” referral.  I was having difficulty with my Optolyth spotting scope’s coarse focus ring.  It was almost frozen; very hard to turn.  There are several companies in Britain that work on optics, but I wanted to find someone here in the USA, and eventually located Cory Suddarth’s company, SuddarthOptical.com.  Cory is a Navy-trained optical man with 38 years’ experience working with all types of optics.  Located in Henryetta, Oklahoma, he offers very affordable service for practically any make or model binocular or scope.  Families are now finding WWII binoculars in their grandfather’s possessions when they pass away. (I just lost my father-in-law, who was a Corpsman on Iwo Jima), and want to keep them functional.  Cory can completely refurbish old optics, including dismantling [and cleaning] the prisms and re-gluing the lenses to like-new condition.  Even the exteriors are renewed.  Truly fine work.  Check his site and contact him for further info and estimates. – D.A., DVM

Letter Re: When Bugging Out is Not an Option: Hunkering Down with a Quadriplegic

JWR:
I was contemplating writing an article for the current round of your competition, but after reading the “hunkering down with a quadriplegic” bit, I don’t think I’ll bother. I’d personally vote for his to win.

I have a cousin who at 17 was paralyzed from the neck down. Now, 20-odd years later, I’m an EMT and I frequently see people (whether grievously injured or not) who must be removed inert and intact from a house that is near-complete inaccessible in its normal condition. Just last night I had to deal with a situation like this — hauling someone out of a house I could barely squeeze into even when I wasn’t holding a stretcher.

Ramps, wider doors, removing carpet and other clutter: I’ll easily agree with these. Firearms and wheelchairs on hand: Absolutely

However, to me the most striking part of the aforementioned article is the danger of bed sores, or pressure sores. To someone who has never dealt with them, a pressure sore might sound no more serious than a mosquito bite. And for some people, in certain situations, that analogy is apt. Some pressure sores can be dealt with by using nothing more than a Band-aid and some Neosporin. For other people (like family members of mine) mosquito bites are an invitation to MRSA–an antibiotic-resistant staph infection that can kill. In my job, I recently had to take a non-verbal, semi-conscious quadriplegic to “wound care” 50 miles away from his nursing home. The nursing home has qualified nursing staff on hand. I honestly respect them for the work they do. But they weren’t equipped to deal with a somewhat serious bedsore.

We delivered this patient to wound care for more than six months, at least once per week, until finally, yesterday, he was pronounced healed. I haven’t personally seen the wound this week, so I can’t really comment on the prognosis.

This may be read as a comment on inadequacies in our healthcare system. That is not my intent. Rather, I’m saying that even trained healthcare providers can fail to stop an incipient killer such as MRSA or other infections. Also, treating injuries/wounds in the long-term involves much more than Neosporin and a Band-aid. If you anticipate or can imagine any serious injuries (by animal, axe or enemy), you must be willing and able to treat them aggressively both in the short-term and in the long. That means prevention, treatment and follow-through now, or debridement, further treatment, and … well, I think you get it.

Not all wounds can be treated with one of the extremes of healthcare — a small bandage or a blow-out kit. To be truly prepared, get ready for those wounds that don’t heal as soon as you stop the bleeding. And some of those more serious wounds might be caused simply by sitting still. – J.D.C. in Mississippi

Odds ‘n Sods:

K.T. suggested: I Built This AK-47. It’s Legal and Totally Untraceable. And speaking of do-it-yourself guns: F.G. sent these items: NSW Police issues warning on 3D printed guns and CNC killed the gun control star.

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Historic vote: Boy Scouts to allow gay youths to join. Sadly, the Boy Scouts are history. I recommend withdrawing your sons from the organization, and instead joining a morally straight group.

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J. McC. sent this: Terceira: China’s interest in strategic Lajes Air Field unfolding – Azores. J. McC.’s comment: “This is not your Grandpa’s Geostrategic Template, Boy.”

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I noticed that Camping Survival just revamped their web site. BTW they have extended the coupon code “survivalblog” for 5% off with every order.

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Video: Pro-Second Amendment speaker at New Jersey hearing hits home run! And speaking of eastern gun politics, some consider themselves slightly “more equal” than others: Retired N.Y. LEOs seek exemption from SAFE act.

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Several readers sent: Swedes Take to the Streets to Defend Their Neighborhoods. Note that the polisen are busy arresting “vigilantes” instead of the rioters. Typiska nonsens!

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
And not only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.” – Romans 5:1-9 (KJV)

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 46 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course. (A $1,195 value.) B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo. and G.) A roll of $10 face value in pre-1965 U.S. 90% silver quarters, courtesy of GoldAndSilverOnline.com. The current value of this roll is at least $225.

Second Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. C.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. D.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300 and 10 TAPCO polymer magazines (5 AR and 5 AK) courtesy of Armageddon Armory, E.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials and F.) Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value. E.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value), and F.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 46 ends on May 31st so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The Secret Prepper, by M.D.L.

(Why I prep, and how I do so in a family that thinks I’m crazy.)

In the summer of 1977 my mother dragged me to see my older brother’s Cub Scouts meeting.  I was closing in on my sixth birthday and she informed me in no uncertain terms that I would be joining.  My mother was one of the multitudes of single mom’s in my part of Brooklyn.  A neighborhood where at the time crime was high, money was tight, and involved dads were few.   The only place for many boys to find any kind of positive male role model was in Scouting.  So off to the basement of the local savings bank I went, passing along the way many other kids whose parents weren’t making them go off somewhere that required stuffy uniforms on humid July evenings. 

Shortly after arriving, “Signs Up” was called and the scouts were ordered into their Dens so the meeting could open with The Pledge of Allegiance.  When that was done and all outstanding business concluded I watched in absolute amazement as the older boys (the Webelos) proceeded to learn how to treat shock and minor wounds on one side of the large room while the younger boys (Cubs) were learning how to lash branches together to build a tripod for use as a camp table complete with seats.  Those relatively simple things spoke to me on a level I still can’t comprehend.  I was “all-in” right then and there.

From that night until I turned six I was at every meeting.  I became a mascot of sorts, treated as a member of the team but not quite in the game.  It was a big deal for me when I was finally able to wear the uniform.  At the time (I believe it has changed now) the neckerchief had a picture of a bear cub and the logo: “Be Prepared”.  Words that still echo in my mind and a philosophy that continues to permeate everything I do.

The Modern World:

So here I am: A full grown man, husband and father both, having grown up hearing some variation of “Be Prepared” on a regular basis…  “Make sure you have a dime for the pay-phone”, “Make sure you have extra pencils for your test”, and “Make sure you check your engine fluids before you drive that far”.  The list of recommendations of how and why to be prepared just keeps going and going. 

In a modern world a fully charged cell phone has replaced the dime for the pay phone, but otherwise little has changed with regards to what we tell our children on a daily basis.  So you can imagine my surprise when upon building an emergency kit some year’s back, my wife looked at me with “that look”. 

You know the one you get… it sort of says: “Poor fool just doesn’t know any better”, the visual equivalent of a condescending pat on the head.  I guess I just didn’t realize that being prepared was somehow strange.  So my wife and I proceeded to have a conversation where on one side was the feeling that you can’t ever be too careful (especially in light of how many times we lose power in Upstate N.Y.), and on the other the assertion that I’m paranoid; backed up with the ever so logical “what will the neighbors think?”  I was astonished.

Having grown up about five cents below the poverty line and being raised with Scouting at my side, I had learned to always hedge my proverbial bets.  To find out that according to the people who loved me preparedness was considered crazy…  that most people truly believe the government can and will take care of them in a crisis… just confounds me. 

Had these people not been watching the same news I had?  Do they not remember any of the natural disasters over the last ten years?  Katrina, Irene or Sandy anyone?  Were all of my tidbits of wisdom thrown out like the mornings coffee grinds?

After several discussions about the topic of preparedness I realized I was alone.  I would not receive any assistance in gathering, organizing, storing or in any other way getting my stuff together for an emergency of any kind let alone for TEOTWAWKI.

I had no choice but to become: “The Secret Prepper.” (Cue ominous music.)

Logistics of a dual identity:

Deciding on where to begin is kind of like being an eight-year-old with a $100 bill in a candy store: Overwhelming in its possibilities.  So in looking at the logistics of fulfilling the requirements of my shadow-self, I decided to create 3 basic (but in retrospect woefully inadequate) categories to manage the tasks:

  1. How to pay for it?
  2. What to get and where to get it?
  3. How and where to store it?

The most difficult of these three options, for me, was how to pay for it.  Having a stay at home parent raising a child, in my humble opinion, far outweighs the negative financial effect resulting from only one income.  The problem I came across is that my wife wears so many hats.  I make the money, take care of the yard, kill the bugs and protect us from things that go bump in the night while she does pretty much everything else.  This includes balancing the checkbook.  (Remember, she’s not on-board because I’m nuts.)

How was “The Secret Prepper” to accomplish any of his preparedness goals while not tipping his hand to the one-woman oversight committee that thinks he’s insane?  Not to mention maintaining Operational Security (I will make references to where I adhered strictly to OPSEC.)  Over time it became a game to me.

Getting ready for the Schumer on the cheap:

Finances came from good old-fashioned sacrifice.  I’ve found that when money is tight you have an obligation to stick to what you feel in your gut is important.  As such, sacrifice is an imperative.  At that time, when all was said and done I could allot myself $25 each Friday for the following week.  This money was to pay for my lunch, coffee or anything else I wanted while I was at work. 

I realize this doesn’t sound like a significant amount of money, but once you learn how to squeeze blood from a stone you’d be surprised how much those suckers can bleed.  So I thought back to my childhood and how my mother managed to feed us and came up with some practical solutions as well as some that were foreign to me.

Two things that I did were start a vegetable garden and learn how to jar/can.  This was a completely foreign world to me.  Growing up in an apartment building, the only reason I wanted a good-sized property hours from the city was to get away from people.  I didn’t realize what could be done until I bought a homesteading book.  The amount of money I now save on produce is astonishing.  This has served to help my entire household and not just “The Secret Prepper”.

Otherwise, I spent the first few weeks stocking surplus goods in my locker at work.  Nothing too big mind you, just the basics for the purposes of masking my future purchases.  Ferreting away an excess item from home here and there and bringing it to work, I managed to stash several days lunch in my locker and needed less money the following week.  My surplus cash went into an envelope there as well.  I made it a point to only use cash so as not to create any kind of a paper trail (OPSEC).  It was good practice for my later and larger purchases.

I soon had a sizeable bankroll and a grocery store in my locker with none the wiser.  Some of this food was moved to buckets in the basement and some was consumed for lunch but all of it served to free up $100 a month in cash.  This process took several weeks but once I had it down to a science there was no stopping it.

Saving about $100 a month, I was able to start prioritizing the next objective: What to get and where to get it?

I decided on what my most immediate need would be in the event of the most likely emergency in my area: Nature’s fury and her prolonged power outages.  So with that particular goal in mind, and the knowledge that needs are similar in many emergencies, I proceeded to spend my hard saved money.  Candles, matches, water purification tablets/canteens, solar blankets, first-aid kit, tent and sleeping bags, walkie-talkie’s, batteries, MREs. Thus, all of the basics.

My cup runneth over:

Pretty soon my work locker, my car and my super-secret-hidey-hole were near to bursting at the seams.  It was time to consider task three: How and where to store it?  The problem was, I was still working on what to get.  It became clear to me that a two-pronged approach was in order.

I went to a “mom-and-pop” hardware store in the next town and bought two footlockers, paying in cash (OPSEC), making sure that they could fit into the trunk of my car in case I had to bug out rather than in.  One I labeled camping gear and proceeded to fill it with pretty much anything that fit the bill, storing it where I keep all of the other things my family has no interest in. The other one I left unlabeled and filled with surplus goods.  I added to them some large desiccant packs that I got for free at a piano store and hid the unlabeled one in a dark corner among the spiders.

With room at my outside locations freed up, I went back to my list of necessities.  After buying and waylaying various supplies, I started looking into the next phase of purchase and storage: Mylar.

Nowadays there are a lot of good videos on YouTube about the use of Mylar bags.  Not so just a few years back.  I’ll tell you what I believe to be the most important piece of information I learned about Mylar bags after I had started using them.  I have decided (once again my humble opinion) that I prefer to fill smaller bags.  I can then use these bags to create a variety of items in a single storage bucket.  If I had to grab just a few buckets and bug due to an emergency I won’t have to think about which ones to grab.  Each has a little of everything.  But I’m getting way ahead of myself…

I bought some 5-Gallon 5mil Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers through a dummy persona from an Internet retailer that accepted money orders (OPSEC).  Then, to save money I went to a bunch of grocery stores out-of-town (OPSEC) and basically trash-picked or asked for some food-grade buckets.  When I had a good bucket to Mylar ratio I proceeded to fill my dried stores.

Filling Mylar bags is a simple thing to do.  It’s pretty much a 3-step process:

1. Put bag in bucket and fill with dry goods.
2. Add Oxygen Absorbers.  I use 300 to 500cc absorbers per pound depending on how much “dead air” is left in the bag. For instance ziti leaves more air than rice.
3. Fold the bag over, squeezing all of the air out and run a hot iron across the open end to create a seal.  I usually iron the outermost part of the bag, near the opening, and an extra two inches to create a bigger seal.  By leaving a lot of the bag below the seal you can re-use it.

My dried stores consisted of what you’d expect: Beans, rice, pasta and various grains totaling a paltry five buckets-worth.  To supplement them I proceeded to add cans of various meats like tuna, sardines and the like.  Anything with a shelf life extending out for a few years that I could and would eat over time was collected and stored away.  After a while my secret stash, which was in plain sight, was becoming noticeable (definitely not OPSEC).

It was about then that I read on a blog about how a couple in Manhattan with a considerable shortage of space managed their preparedness needs. 
While I couldn’t follow their example strictly I did learn a lot from it.  Here are three examples of what I did with this wisdom:

  1. I made a workbench using stacked buckets for the legs and camouflaged it on three sides with storage shelves. (They had made a kitchen table camouflaged with a table cloth,)
  2. I stored food in Mylar bags under (my side) of the bed in those under-the-bed storage containers, surrounding them with out-of-season clothes.
  3. Started using 1-gallon Mylar bags to fit a greater variety of items per bucket.

Now it bears note that following number three is a less efficient use of food-space. When you seal the items this way and put them into a bucket there is a lot of dead space between the bags.  What I do with those spaces now is add things like: ammo, toilet paper, water filters/tablets, basic first aid supplies and pretty much anything else I can cram in there.  [JWR Adds: Never include anything on a food container that might exude toxic vapors such as lubricants, paint, Sterno, cans of lighter fluid, hexamine tabs, or Trioxane fuel bars.] So long as I can lift and carry them without straining myself I fill the buckets as much as I can.

Now, instead of having to open a 5-gallon bucket of rice and risk spoilage, I can open smaller amounts as needed and preserve freshness to greater quantities of supplies.  Plus, I have the added benefit of knowing that a single bucket is roughly equal to a full month of a majority of my supplies.  I’ll delve into this momentarily as I know it sounds like a ridiculous estimate.  Just bear with me.

Hiding in plain sight:

Over time my stores grew and my available space was shrinking.  I needed to find a new way to hide my stores in plain sight.  One of the way’s I’ve done this is to put storage buckets next to the items they resemble.  What I mean by this is that I have a bucket with a re-used label stating “Activated Carbon” next to my house’s water filter.  I have a bucket with a manufacturer painted fertilizer label on it among my garden supplies. The variety of things that now require buckets for “organization” in my house is amazing.

All of my buckets have been cleaned and sterilized, and the use of Mylar goes further to ensure the supplies are safe.  Plus, the buckets are among the items they are pretending to be.  This adds a level of camouflage that I otherwise wouldn’t have achieved (OPSEC).  If you think about it, you can find many different ways to not-camouflage your hidden stuff.

Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat:

So now that I have some experience in this, what do I fit in my magical, invisible buckets?  I’m glad you asked.  It takes some creative packing but here’s a typical inventory:

-8 Lbs Rice                                               
-5 Lbs Beans
-5 Lbs Pasta                                               
-5 Lbs TVP (taco, beef or chicken chunk)
-1 cup Sugar                                               
-1 cup Salt
-1 cup Italian Seasoning                       
-100 rounds .22 Long (for small game or ballistic wampum)
-4 Bottles of Water Purification Tablets in a wide mouth quart jug (totals 50 quarts)
-25 each of Chicken and Beef Bullion Cubes (also in the quart jug)
-1 roll of compressed/vacuum sealed toilet paper (cardboard removed)
-50 (ish) compressed/vacuum sealed napkins (can double as kindling after use)
-200 strike anywhere matches in a sealed plastic tube
-2 solar accent lights removed from their stakes
-Whatever first-aid supplies I can get in

Coupled with my jarred stores, garden and chickens (see below), these supplemental items should do just fine.  And if something should go wrong what buckets I may need to bring should I have to evacuate/bug out will still have a solid variety of supplies.

Subterranean Supermarket

I will touch briefly on canned goods.  We can all agree on the fact that they last a long while and offer up a variety of ways to supplement protein and calories as well as ways to avoid Food Fatigue. 

Food Fatigue is basically getting so sick and tired of eating the same things repeatedly over a long period of time that you slowly starve yourself because you choose not to eat them anymore.  Please feel free to look up a literal definition.

Setting up a rotational stock system should be high on your list.  Canned goods must be stored in such a way that they can be rotated with every purchase.  Optimally you can set up a shelf that lets you put new stuff directly in back and allows you to easily take from the front.

Just imagine that the Schumer has hit the Fan.  You’ve used everything in your refrigerator first and now are going to your stores.  You open up a can of tuna and it just doesn’t smell right.  So you open another… same thing.  As the fear sets in you realize your mistake.  The best way to avoid this is to rotate your stock and stay on top of it. 

Rule of thumb: One in, one out. [Quickly replace everything you use, and use your oldest stocks first.]

Other things you need to keep along with your canned/jarred stores are:

  1. Bleach: You can’t beat it for keeping things sanitary, especially if you have a designated area for butchering game.  It can also be used for treating water, but I’m not entirely comfy with that.
  2. Vinegar: It’s a great non-chemical cleaner that can be used where food is prepared/consumed.  You’ll also need it for jarring foods, post-SHTF.  Store different types of vinegar.  White for cleaning/jarring, apple cider for poultices or treatment for conditions like Gout.
  3. Alcohol:  The drinking kind.  I do not partake often, but if there is any kind of prolonged crisis you may need it for tincturing medicines.  It’s also a great barter item.  Make sure you have vodka and high proof rum.

An old dog learns new tricks:

So to address the obvious shortcomings in my monthly supply estimate, I did after all say it was a rough estimate, I had to learn a few new skills.  Under the guise of boredom (OPSEC) I decided that I wanted to enter the magical world of keeping chickens.  I had to think long and hard about this one.  There are a lot of reasons not to do this.  Among them are:

  1. Chicken coops require maintenance.  If you can’t keep up on things you have no place having them, especially when it comes to living creatures.  They may only be chickens, but their still Gods creatures.
  2. Space is a factor.  If you have a rooster and your neighbors are as little as an acre away, you won’t be friends for long.
  3. Town ordinances.
  4. My limited experience with animals of any nature.

If you look on YouTube there are a lot of instructional videos dealing with coop construction.  I strongly recommend watching them.  Also, though my acreage is small I’m surrounded on three sides by state land.  As for town ordinance, the clerk told me that, though illegal, if there were no noise complaints from my nearest neighbor then there weren’t any chickens in existence on my property. 

After about six months, I decided that all was well on the chicken keeping front.  The next thing I had to learn was how to jar and can the produce from my ever-expanding garden. 

I firmly believe that it is my duty not just as a Christian, but also as a human being, to give charitably whenever possible.  I have found that a garden can go long ways towards helping others when needs are great.  As unemployment in my area exceeds 15% at the time of typing this, I am finding more and more people within five miles of my home who are in need of food assistance than I ever though I would see.  Having gone to bed hungry many times as a child I find this to be an affront to my very existence.

As such I keep producing as much as possible.  Along with this, I have found that it has become a simple matter to jar foods like pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, chutney and bean salad.  I give my surplus to the food pantry run by my church versus direct giving (OPSEC) and I’ve managed to streamline my process and make better quality stores for myself.  I still have a lot to learn, but I’ve always believed that you learn best by doing.

The best offense is a good defense:

I’ve now spent the last couple of years secretly creating my cache of supplies.  While doing so I’ve come across a like-minded individual who brought me to my current phase of preparedness: Security and Defense.

I had come to realize that there is a giant hole in all of my preparation.  I did not have the ability to defend it.  I have a fairly decent ability to fight hand-to-hand and with knives.  I honed this ability growing up in a rough neighborhood.  My biggest problem was that I didn’t want to end up being the fool who died because he brought a knife to a gunfight.

To that end I sought to get my pistol permit.  During my journey to permit-hood I met a firearms instructor who, as it turns out, lives not too far from my home.  My gut told me we were kindred.  After my class we got to talking and our belief systems seemed to be in sync.  So I decided to break operational security and divulge my preparedness.  I have not had a single regret about it yet.

My newly discovered partner-in-preparedness is a retired SWAT-experienced police officer.   He has helped several people on the road to “Emergency Security” and has decided to not only teach this to me, but to train with me.  I have been introduced to the world of the “three gun” philosophy and am currently taking steps to hone my skills along with others like me.

A man’s home is his castle:

When it comes to home defense, it’s not enough to just know how to shoot.  I had heard numerous times about “Hardening your home”.  Hardening, in general, is a very simple concept: Don’t make it easy for the bad guys to get in and win.  Use things like thorny plants below but not overgrowing your windows, security system, motion lights etc.  But what about when the Schumer hits the fan?

These basic precautions would likely not be enough to fend of a few hungry people let alone stand up to a full-on assault by looters.  With that in mind I spent a good amount of time walking the perimeter of my property looking for places where my property, as well as my home, could be compromised or used against me.

My property, which borders hundreds of acres of state land, is heavily wooded.  I don’t expect to be set-upon by a fast moving vehicle based force from any of the sides facing forest.  Any approach on foot from these directions would have plenty of cover, but only after traversing 12 acres of swamp on one side, and hundreds of densely forested acres on the others.  I have made good use of a chainsaw and thinned out the woods for a hundred feet in each direction past my property line.  This wood will do a lot of good in my fireplace.

Additionally, I have taken the liberty of re-populating the now thinned areas with low growing vines for ground cover.  These will serve to entangle all but the most dexterous foot thus slowing any approach, and even offering up targets should they get stuck on approach.

With three of four areas of approach taken care of I then needed to contend with my homes three weakest points.

  1. My proximity to the road.
  2. The gaping hole in my home created by my glass deck doors.
  3. The gaping hole in my home created by the Bay Window facing the road.

There isn’t much I can do about how close to the road my home is.  Here are a few solutions I have applied or am in the process of at the time of typing:

  1. The digging of a “Water Run-off” ditch along my road frontage will do considerable damage to smaller vehicles.
  2. A six-foot privacy fence, using concrete in the pillars running the length of my property.  On the “Yard Side” of the fence, concrete “Planters” with decorative brick facing have been added at intervals that will make it impossible for anything to drive between (should my fence be rammed).  Plus they look nice and are the future home for my medicinal herb garden.
  3. My glass doors will be removed when SHTF.  To take their place I have constructed a ballistic and fire resistant blockade that I refer to as “The Portcullis”, though it doesn’t really look like one.

 

Building The Portcullis

2×8 pressure treated lumber was used to frame out the door opening.  The framing was done in such a way as to allow for the installation of a steel fire door in the center.  The outside of the structure will be closed around the door by screwing plywood to the framing and allowing it to overlap the house by one foot in all directions. 

This plywood is then covered with sheet metal, which when needed for actual use will be coated in barbecue paint.  The whole effect, with the steel fire door installed, is to create a standard door opening that offers protection from nasty things like Molotov cocktails and bullets. 

The additional ballistic protection comes from gravel.   Once the outside of The Portcullis is installed, the inside will go up in sections.  The bottom four feet will be covered with plywood.  At which time gravel, cleverly disguised as additional parking on the side of my driveway (OPSEC), will be used to fill in the space between the outer and inner plywood. 

When I reach the top of the first section, three additional feet will be added in the same manner.  The final foot will be filled this way but with a bit more difficulty as there is little room remaining for the shovels of gravel to be manipulated.

The final product results in excellent ballistic and flame protection.  The same process will be used for the Bay Window with the addition of two gun ports.

The beauty of this assembly is that all of the parts can be stored unassumingly in my basement, shed or anywhere else such things seem ordinary (OPSEC).

It all comes full circle:

As I type this I am still living this secret life.  I have learned how to raise chickens, grow crops, jar and can, purify drinking water, store food, use multiple weapons and harden my home.  I am surveying my land for an area suitable for fuel storage and I have even signed up to take “classes” on battlefield medicine.  But I have yet to re-visit the topic of preparedness with my family.

To an extent I am a coward.  I know how I will react in an emergency.  We’ve had multiple hurricanes and nor’easters. We’ve had a “gas crunch” which saw people fighting on long lines.  I have stared-down armed assailants and fought violently to clear a path through harm’s way. And worse, I have performed CPR on my dying child, and failed, while others either panicked or froze in fear. I know exactly who I am.

I’m just still trying to find out how to be him.  Until then I am shrouded in Operational Security in my own home.  I am “The Secret Prepper”.

Letter Re: Tattletale Alarm Systems

Dear Mr. Rawles,
A young friend recommended “Patriots” to me a month ago and, since that time, I’ve consumed it’s two sequels and “How to Survive…”  I was pleased to see that I have followed most if not all of your recommendations without having known them – my endless frustration in life has been to never had an original thought.  In re-reading “Surviving…”, the lighting, alarm and camera chapters, I note that you reference motion detector operated lighting, Dakota Alert MURS systems and webcams but not an alarm system as such.

Back in 2008, as moving day to The American Redoubt was close at hand, I suddenly panicked thinking, “What about security for my U-Haul full of “stuff”?” (By “stuff”, I mean valuable items that the movers wouldn’t handle or those which I did not want them to handle.) Since my move was to include at least 3 nights in low-end motels, the kind that allow dogs, my concerns increased exponentially.  In a sweat, I started web-searching like mad for some sort of portable alarm system that would signal me in my room without alerting or annoying others should the trailer be tampered with.  What I found was a remarkable system, the Tattletale.

The system is designed primarily for contractors who must leave storage units, materials and equipment scattered about remote locations.  The alarm signal is conveyed to a “central station” via the national cell phone network but does not use any single service provider or cell phone number, etc; the central station then alerts you and/or any others you may designate by whatever means you designate.  The alarm signal itself is sent via some sort of cell phone system “side band” that you, with your knowledge of arcane radio mumbo-jumbo, will understand.

The transmitter unit is portable, includes an integral motion detection unit and has battery backup which is good for extended periods.  Furthermore, numerous other devices can be added to this unit, wirelessly, such as additional motion detectors, smoke/fire detectors and locking devices which can be used to secure equipment or outbuildings, etc.

This system will be rendered unusable post-TEOTWAWKI, of course, but is an excellent system till then.  I used my system for more than two years and never had a false alarm.

Thank you for expanding my horizons and especially for scaring the pants off a lot of complacent but otherwise sentient beings and getting them off the dime – a 90% silver dime, that is.

All the best, – Sam

P.S.: The funny part of the story, though I’m loathe to tell it, is that my system arrived on the day of the move so I was not able to figure it out until I arrived in Montana and could finally sit down, focus and follow through.  To use one of your favorite phrases, “needless to say”, I spent several very nervous nights on the road.  Three years ago, I built my retreat: a dugout (“earth sheltered home” to liberal greenies), 3/4th of a mile off the county road, out of sight behind a butte, at the end of a road closely monitored by friends. Therefore, I put my Tattletale contract on hold and have yet to re-install it.  S. 

Odds ‘n Sods:

I suspect this will start a trend: Commissioners Declare Carroll a Sanctuary County for Second Amendment. It is great seeing this coming from a state like Maryland. Please contact your county commissioners and state legislators and urge them to do likewise, with this as model legislation.

   o o o

Some useful lessons here: Self-defense groups spring up in Mexico to battle Knights Templar drug cartel. (A hat tip to Peter S. for the link.)

   o o o

Sue C. sent: Sweden’s capital hit by worst riots in years. JWR’s Comment: Conspicuously absent in this coverage is the fact that these “youths” are nearly all Muslim immigrants. The mass media in Europe has now so fully embraced Political Correctness that they are complicit with their cultural suicide.

   o o o

Attention readers living in Buck Owens country: The Prepare 2 Endure (“P2E”) Emergency Preparedness Expo is scheduled for June 8th and 9th at the Kern County Fairgrounds in Bakersfield, California.

   o o o

J.F.J. recommended this piece: Inside Every Liberal Is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out

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Fellow blogger Mac Slavo warns of a trend that could be used as an excuse for disarming millions of Americans: You are Crazy: New Psychiatric Guidelines Target Hoarding, Child Temper Tantrums, and a Host of Other “Illnesses”. (Thanks to B.B. for the link.)

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, [even] her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.
Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.
They shall fall in the midst of [them that are] slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.
The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.” – Ezekiel 32:18-21 (KJV)

Notes from JWR:

JRH Enterprises is running a Memorial Day sale through June 1st on FLIR Scout Series thermal imagers. These are ideal for retreat security. The Scout PS24 FLIR is on sale for $1,850 and the FLIR PS32 Thermal camera which offers higher resolution and 2X magnification greatly increasing the range for $2,795. JRH also has on sale the DBAL-I2 Infrared and visible laser sighting system for use with your night vision device available.

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Today we present another entry for Round 46 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize: A.) Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate, good for any one, two, or three course. (A $1,195 value.) B.) A course certificate from onPoint Tactical. This certificate will be for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses. (Excluding those restricted for military or government teams.) Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795, and C.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources. (A $350 value.) D.) a $300 gift certificate from CJL Enterprize, for any of their military surplus gear, E.) A 9-Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator from Safecastle.com (a $300 value), and F.) A $250 gift certificate from Sunflower Ammo. and G.) A roll of $10 face value in pre-1965 U.S. 90% silver quarters, courtesy of GoldAndSilverOnline.com. The current value of this roll is at least $225.

Second Prize: A.) A gift certificate worth $1,000, courtesy of Spec Ops Brand, B.) A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training. Together, these have a retail value of $589. C.) A FloJak FP-50 stainless steel hand well pump (a $600 value), courtesy of FloJak.com. D.) A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $300 and 10 TAPCO polymer magazines (5 AR and 5 AK) courtesy of Armageddon Armory, E.) A $250 gift card from Emergency Essentials and F.) Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Third Prize: A.) A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21. (This filter system is a $275 value.), B.) A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206, C.) Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy. This is a $185 retail value, D.) A Commence Fire! emergency stove with three tinder refill kits. (A $160 value. E.) A Tactical Trauma Bag #3 from JRH Enterprises (a $200 value), and F.) Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security.

Round 46 ends on May 31st so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

When Bugging Out is Not an Option: Hunkering Down with a Quadriplegic, by Steven in Alabama

I’ve always considered myself and my family extremely blessed.  I also am a firm believer that God expects you to make the most out of what you have.  God gave me a wonderful wife and 3 healthy, strong boys.  We are a hard working family who have always had goals and planned well for the future.  We even had a bug-out plan when not many other folks even talked about such things.  Our world took a drastic turn a little over a year ago when my oldest son was injured in a high school wrestling accident.  In the blink of an eye my son became a C4C5 quadriplegic.  After about three months reality began to sit in and we had to start planning for a greatly altered future.  One night I began to think about our bug-out plan and it became obvious for a plethora of reasons that we couldn’t just grab our stuff and head out.  At this point I began to harden our existing home.  Fortunately we live in a very rural neighborhood with like-minded people around us.  There is nothing about us that calls attention to ourselves or screams prepper.  We just go about business as usual and quietly prepare.  Here is what we have done and are in the process of doing to make our house a handicapped assessable fortress.

I must preface this article by saying that we are not a wealthy family with an unlimited budget.  We are just a dual income family that has always saved for the future.  Most of what I will describe came together very quickly because we sold a property that was not handicapped assessable and opted to put that extra money in our now primary and only home.  I hope that what I’m about to share will help others who want to prepare and have a handicapped family member.  We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel.  I do realize that we are doing many things that other individuals have done and are doing, but, I will give you a unique perspective from a handicapped assessable point of view.  The first thing I learned was that you really do need to commit to live where you will hunker down.  Everything that you want or need will be with you all the time and you will never have to decide what to take and what to leave behind in an emergency situation.  I also found it easier from a financial stand point since I was putting money into one place.  So, with that being said, here is our home and retreat.  

Our house is a one level all brick home on a full basement with one step to get in the front door and a nice smooth slope with no steps down to the drive and basement.  Talk about handicapped ready before we even arrived!  Doors will be your first challenge.  They have to be widened to allow wheel chair access.  Use this opportunity to really fortify all those exterior entries.  Nobody will question you at all in this situation so here is your opportunity to go a little crazy.  I do suggest that you limit the amount of glass and beef these doors up to take a slug.  You can justify this by saying that the door may take a beating from the wheel chair and if it is a power chair it will definitely take a few good licks early in the game.  At the very least you need a very heavy wooden door with some kind of cross support.  Install a strike plate which would deflect and distribute the force of a blow along with reinforced hinges.  Go ahead and widen every single doorway inside the house.  You won’t regret it.  It will be easier for everybody to move around, I promise.  Eventually your injured family member will need access to the entire house and it is an opportunity to reinforce the interior a little as well.  Get rid of all carpet.  Wheel chairs don’t like carpet and it’s hard to keep clean.  Hard wood is an excellent choice for all rooms and no lip at any door.  Let’s talk wheelchair for a second.  Make sure you have a high quality manual push chair as a back-up if not your primary chair.  Charging a motorized chair could be an issue when there is no power to count on.  Opt for solid wheels rather than air so that you don’t have to worry about flat tires.  Air will give you a better ride though.

The next modifications made were in my son’s living area which is in our finished basement.  These changes in particular are aimed at handicapped individuals but have made maintenance and livability much easier for everyone.  All carpet and tile was torn out so that we had raw concrete.  The concrete was then polished, stained, and sealed.  It’s beautiful and very easy to clean as well as super tough and durable.  Also worth mentioning is his bathroom.  We took out a wall and increased the area from existing closet space and constructed him a huge roll in shower.  The shower is now roughly a 10 foot by 10 foot area.  It’s overkill but, maneuverability is an important issue.

Surveillance was something that we put our money into soon after getting our son home.  We invested in both indoor and outdoor cameras.  We can’t be with our son at every moment, so, we can always check on him and his care person at any time and any place.  All of our cameras are tied into our alarm system and we can monitor with our phone 24/7 by video monitor at home.  These cameras will help as our son begins to gain some independence and in crunch time they may save your life by giving you a view of exactly what is going on outside without placing someone in a potentially dangerous situation.  We did opt for infrared cameras outside which give you an incredible view in the dark.

An all metal roof is nice but, you may have to put a few other changes first.  If you don’t have gutters, get them!  Rain water is your friend.  If possible, install underground tanks to catch all the rain off your roof.  I learned this trick from a Cajun that I duck hunt with.  He has a camp built on a barge that catches rain water in 2 tanks that each holds a thousand gallons.  If you treat your water with swimming pool chlorine and use your water wisely, you should have plenty of usable water at all times.  I have been shocked at how well this works at his camp.  I’m going to us a 1,000 gallon holding tank.  Putting it in will spur a few questions but, explaining that you have drainage issues and you also intend to irrigate with it should explain it all away.  It has also come to my attention that in some cities you must have a permit to catch rain water off your roof.  This is crazy, but some regulations in a few places say you are not allowed to change the natural flow of water, even if that is off your roof.  In my opinion this is government over reaching its bounds again.  If you’re worried about this it is easy to check.  We did, and all is fine.   We will pump the water with electric pumps that can also work with our back-up power system which I will discuss later in this article.  We use about 6,000 gallons of water each month and in crunch time this could be greatly reduced.  We get plenty of rain throughout the year here in the South, so we should be able to keep our tank rather full.  For now, we are picking out the most practical placement for this tank and with a little luck it will be catching water by June of this year.  Initially we will just use our tanks for watering and car washing.  This water will be perfect to use for washing and bathing as is.  It should be run through a filter system before drinking and cooking.   Another great thing about the underground tank method is that people will never realize that you have plenty of water.  We also store water in many other various containers. 

My next suggestion concerning water will be a little complicated, but this fix will hopefully make your septic system more trouble free.  An inspector will not allow you to do this but, route your black water (toilet) to the septic tank.  Re-route your waste water (gray) out to a run off to catch it for reuse.  If you plan ahead for this, when the mess hits the fan, all you will need to do is twist a few levers and you are on a black/gray system.  If you think about it, your home just became similar to a giant camper with a fresh water holding tank, black tank, and a gray tank.

Let’s talk about energy independence and some practical modifications that I have made and will be making very soon.  Solar energy is a strong and lasting option.  You will need a good supply of sunshine though.  Our house is situated so that we get full sunlight on our house from sunrise until sunset.  Did God know that we would need this place or what!!  The system that we are planning to install produces enough energy that we can meet all our needs and feed back into the power grid for credit should we so choose.  We will have a battery system for night time power and use the grid if necessary.  Batteries are not great power sources like the sun but, they can keep you a fair supply of emergency power.  Should the grid go down, we hope it won’t faze us too bad.  This does come with a strong price tag!  Depending on your choice of set-up and needs, the price can range from $15,000-$30,000.  This will be our most expensive prep.  The good news is that you can take advantage of some tax credits by going solar.  I know that is a lot of money, but, over the span of a few years the system will help pay for itself through energy savings and increasing the value and marketability of your home.  It will be worth every penny the first time you lose power for any extended period of time and when the mess hits the fan, this system will be priceless.  Don’t forget, we have a quadriplegic that has more needs to meet than for the average person.  Thank goodness he is not respirator dependent, but, that need could be met if it were ever necessary.  We are working out the logistics for a 10KW system to be installed before summer.   We also keep a 7,500 watt generator on hand with 60 gallons of stabilized gas close by. (Yes, I know that this is not enough fuel. We are making arrangements for a larger and better storage system.)   Other electrical needs are met with an abundance of rechargeable batteries and the small backpack solar chargers.  The most important modification that we made to our house was done well before we started preparing for a hunkering down situation.  We installed lightning rods on our home.  We have been hit twice over the past few years and lost television s and other electrical items.  In crunch time, this would be a devastating blow.  Get your house grounded by a professional.  Take every step to make your shelter safe and energy independent.  We are quickly moving toward energy independence.  You should be too!

Windows are a weak link in all homes.  Ours are tied into an alarm system.  In crunch time my suggestion here is to have diamond plate sheets on hand to place over certain select windows (I’m not talking about aluminum).  You can find them in many different gauges to meet your personal needs.  I do suggest that you get them in a flat black or brown color.  They can easily be bolted on in times of emergency and to be honest, in severe weather outbreaks, they are rather handy.  Can they stop a bullet?  Yes.  A heavy gauge will offer sufficient protection from almost any projectile that you will encounter.  If a tank rolls into your neighborhood, it’s not going to matter what you have up.  Is this perfect?  No.  But I guarantee you that a looter won’t crawl in a window or shoot you from the street.  This leads me right to my next change.  We will be adding a wood burning stove in our basement kitchen for heating and cooking purposes.  It will be vented out an existing window which will now be closed and sealed off.  That’s one less window to worry about.  Also, consider adding a kitchen in your basement.  We added a small kitchen to our basement when we made modifications to our home for our son.  His area is the basement and the kitchen actually makes him feel like the basement is his own place.  You never know when you may have to stay in your basement for extended periods of time due to a Biological/Chemical hazard or some other fallout.  A good underground basement offers nice protection and can be sealed fairly tight.  Also, our basement has a fully furnished and well equipped wine cellar.  Homemade wine will be an excellent trade/barter item when some stability is returned to society.  A simple hobby now could turn into a nice profession one day.  Also, the temperature of the cellar makes it easy to store other items should it ever become necessary.

Now, let’s discuss a few personal needs.  These next few comments are especially for those hunkering down with someone who has a spinal cord injury but, can be helpful to the able bodied individual as well.  You must have a rock solid plan for bowel and bladder needs.  I won’t elaborate.  You are familiar with your loved one’s needs better than anyone else.  This is priority number one.  Next is skin care, which must become second nature.  A pressure sore could easily be fatal.  Remember, there won’t be deliveries and replacements for medical supplies for a long time (if ever).You must learn to conserve and reuse as well as clean and sterilize material.  It’s defiantly tough to consider, but, you better learn how to put an indwelling foley catheter in your family member just in case something happens and intermittent catheterization is not practical.  I suggest you obtain a large amount of cranberry supplements for your injured family member.  It will help a little in the prevention of a urinary tract infection.  Many spinal cord injury patients die from urinary tract infections long after their injury, so be careful.  I should also mention that individuals with high spinal cord injuries have trouble with blood pressure and lose the ability to regulate their body temperature.  Blood pressure medicine may be hard to get or even impossible.  You should stock up with many extra pair of ted hose and abdominal binders.  These will help push the blood back toward the heart.  Familiarize yourself with the signs of dysreflexia and be prepared to treat it immediately.  This is a sudden and huge increase in blood pressure usually caused by some type of irritation or something that would be painful to the able bodied person.  You must locate this problem and correct it immediately.  Your family member can die from this if not corrected quickly.  Your doctor should have prepared you for this.  Our family is lucky.  My wife is a family nurse practitioner so she is highly qualified to care for our family.  Here are some things that we feel you must have stocked up:  Ibuprofen, Tylenol, Aspirin, Antibiotics, Vitamins, Potassium Iodide tablets, Masks, Bandages, Tape, Eye drops, Suture kit, Surgical and other instruments.  Have a very high quality blood pressure cuff on hand that you know how to use.  Keep a very large supply of Clorox, rubbing alcohol, iodine, and peroxide on hand.   KY jelly and Vaseline should also be stocked heavily.  I would also have several aloe plants on hand and keep them in good health.  Rubber gloves, paper products, and plastic bags are vital and like other medical supplies are finite in number.  The list can go on and on.  The bottom line is to stock up so that you can meet your medical needs as best possible. 

You must eat to stay healthy.  Stocking up on food is a given.  You must learn to grow, gather seed, can, and preserve your food.  When my son was still inpatient, he took an interest in gardening and landscape.  As a result of his new found interest, we constructed several raised beds in our back yard for him to plant in and help tend his garden.  We have a large, fenced in back yard where these raised beds are located.   And much to our surprise, our neighbors have done the same.  After some discussion and planning, we have decided to team up in the food production (and defense) business should the need ever arise.  You will be shocked at the quantity and quality of food that is produced in raised beds.  Our garden produces enough that we had to give away a large amount of food.  You will find that you will be able to keep something growing almost year around.  The raised beds and fence help keep the critters out.  The fact that the beds are raised will allow our son to help cultivate the crops from his wheelchair.  It is extremely important for the mental well being of your injured family member that they be able to work and contribute to the success of your home. We also have several blackberry and blueberry bushes planted with several fruit trees.  Our newest project has been establishing grape vines.  At some point, I would like to learn how to keep bees.  Do you have any idea how popular you would be in crunch time if you had honey to barter or trade with?  Bees are vital around your garden anyway!  I should probably move this up on my list especially since we live in a perfect climate for bee keeping. 

Birds are a different story.  A BB gun or nice air rifle will handle that problem and I guess that we all might need to learn to eat a little crow.  It goes without saying that you need a dehydrator and lots of salt.  You need to learn how to make jerky.  Now, how do I put meat on the table?  Of course we have plenty on hand to last several months but, sooner or later you will need to begin harvesting again.  This won’t be easy but we have a plan.  Around here everybody and their brother will head for any wooded area and try to kill anything that moves during the first few weeks of a meltdown.  I don’t think they will have much success as there are very few real hunters.  After a couple of weeks when people figure out that they can’t just go out and kill what they want, most will stop trying and resort to other methods (looting/stealing).  In a situation where everything has fallen apart, normal rules have to be thrown out so that food can be harvested.   When the time is right, I will harvest game, if we need it, in the middle of the night with the aid of a FLIR.  That is thermal imaging.  Everything alive gives off a heat signature and I plan to take full advantage of this fact.  I was completely amazed the first time I drove through our hunting club in our Ranger and took a look through my FLIR.  Wow!  There were many pairs of eyes on me!  If you have a chance, try one out and you will be very impressed.  You can purchase a nice FLIR for about $2,000 and it will be a valuable asset when it comes to food gathering and defense of your home.  The one that I use runs on rechargeable batteries and is very trouble free.  I have not had very good luck with regular night vision goggles.  Lenses tend to break easy and they have caused us more trouble than they are worth.  Camouflage won’t hide a heat signature either.    Nobody will sneak up on you.  If you can afford it, get an extra one.  Now, back to food harvesting for a second.  Given the circumstances, I doubt the game warden will be out looking for poachers.  I’m sure I can bring plenty of game right to our door with a nice salt block or a little corn. 

It is my opinion that the defense of your home is the most important part of preparing for a crisis like the one we are discussing.  I’ve already mentioned what my plans are for entry ways and windows.  After much research and study, I believe that the reinforced heavy doors and diamond plate sheets are perfect for most situations like ours.  Our back yard and garden are already fenced in with chain link and as luck would have it, our property looks out over hundreds of acres and there is a huge drop to the property below.  We are on extremely high ground and it would be difficult for someone to approach us from behind.  Therefore, in a time of civil unrest, I would probably only add barbed wire to the top of our fence and apply a layer of electric wire.  Another huge advantage that we have is how isolated our small neighborhood is and there is only one dead end road which enters and forest around that.  However, until we can agree as a neighborhood group to barricade the road, my neighbors and I will take steps to keep a crazy looter from driving through our front door.  My two neighbors on each side and I plan to erect pilings through our yards spaced so that a vehicle cannot pass between them.  Railroad ties along with existing trees are what we plan to use and we have been collecting the ties for a couple of months now.  They are easy to get here and it doesn’t hurt to have a friend who works with the railroad.  We realize that this is going to be very tough and time consuming work but, if everything falls apart you will have plenty of time on your hands and you never know what a desperate individual might try.  Each post will be placed at least 3 feet in the ground.  This should be an excellent barrier from almost any vehicle.  Speaking as someone who has operated heavy machinery in the past, I can definitely vouch that the machine could not just drive straight through.  It would require a little work which would give us time to take appropriate action to stop it. 

Thank God for the Second Amendment!   We do try to keep things simple.  Everybody has a 12 gauge shotgun.  In a rural neighborhood like ours this gun may very well be our most valuable weapon.  We’ll use number 2 or 4 shot in most cases.  We do have buckshot and some goose loads if necessary.  Everybody has a. 22 rifle with thousands of rounds and extra magazines.  Everyone has a handgun with the exception of our injured son.   These include a .44 Magnum, .45 ACP, .38 revolvers, .22s, and some extras parts.  The long guns in addition to our .22s include a .44 Mag lever action rifle ,a .22-250, a .17 HMR, .270 and an AR-15.   

All these weapons are very effective in our particular situation and everyone is very comfortable with these weapons.  I do believe our shotguns will be our most useful tool.  Now, our handicapped son will be able to take part in the defense of the home as well.  He has a very nice .270 with a first class Leupold scope.  How does he shoot it?  Thanks to Buckmasters, he has a mounting system for his chair that enables him to shoot as well as an able bodied person if not better.  He has a LCD display with joystick controls and a sip and puff trigger control.  He can really reach out and touch someone.  The whole set-up runs off a 12 volt battery.  Many thanks go out to the people at Buckmasters for giving this to my son which has enabled him to hunt again.  We even figured out how to use the LCD with the FLIR.  Of course we do keep a few other surprises locked away in our vault and our neighbors each have a very nice selection of weapons.  Our area will be very well defended! 

With that being said, let me take a moment and talk especially to those who have an injured or disabled family member.  Your family member is an easy target for criminals.  In our situation, (our son) is a target when he is in public because he can’t help or defend himself.  A thief will target a quad and take anything they want with very little problem.  Independence is important and must be approached carefully.  Due to the level of our son’s injury he still has an attendant or close friend with him if he is in public.  One step that we took to help our son become more independent was to get a service dog.  He chose a large German shepherd.  The security around our house just doubled.  That dog loves my son and would give her life protecting his and the family.  She opens and closes doors, picks up items off the floor, helps pull him when he is in his manual chair, and is a constant companion.  She has also been exposed to the sport of schutzhund.  I know that there have been other articles about the value of dogs in crunch time so I won’t spend time discussing them.  But, you should strongly consider a service animal!  Once a dog like a German shepherd bonds with you and the family they will become extremely protective of their pack.  You are now part of the pack! You should see the wide space people give my son when he is in public with his German shepherd.  Also, these animals can go any place in public that you go.  That equals independence and peace of mind.     

Another factor that I believe will play a vital role in the survival of our family is the fact that we are all very outdoor oriented people.  We’re all avid campers and know how to ruff it when necessary.  Everyone knows how to read a map and use a compass.  These are skills that are very valuable and few people understand anymore.  We all have good knives and know how to use them.  We have good radios to communicate with and listen for local news.  We also obtained a good short wave radio.  Monitoring the radios and cameras will be our injured son’s primary job.  We have a large supply of what I call my everyday useful tools.  Examples of these are rakes, shovels, hoes, picks, axes, wedges, hammers of all sizes and weights, sling blades, hatchets, machetes, saws including an old fashioned 2 man saw, various sizes of nails, bolts, screws, nuts, and washers.  You will also need a good supply of common hand tools for mechanical, plumbing, and carpenter needs.  Consider keeping a supply of various tape, caulk, glue, and oils.  Keep a good supply of replacement parts on hand and learn how to maintain what you have, especially your solar power supply and water pumps.  Don’t forget that you are now the repair man.  There is also a little pocket reference book that is written by Thomas J. Glover which I think everybody should own.  It has over 500 pages of tables/facts/formulas and other information that you will need sooner or later.  I think that it is a great tool that everyone must have.

Also, keep in mind that with a spinal cord injury you are going to have large amounts of medical waste that will need to be disposed of to avoid disease and other problems.  My suggestion is to invest in one or two 50 gallon metal drums to burn trash in.  You might be surprised how often you use it now.  Keep your old new papers.  Try to have a nice selection of books and magazines which should include plenty of how to information.  The fox fire book series is nice to have.  Cards and board games will also help pass the time.  And I guess most important would be to learn how to reload your ammunition and have plenty of supplies in that area! 

We’re lucky we don’t live in a big city, but we are a little too close for comfort.  Should something happen, we feel that the first 24 to 48 hours will be vital in the preparation and initial fortification of our home.  While everybody else is staggering around in shock, we will get everybody home and move into action.  Close up, seal up, lock up, and drop off of the radar.  Let the crazy’s kill and steal from each other and don’t do anything to catch their attention.  No smoke during the day and keep it dark at night.  With any luck all this will pass and civility will return rather soon.  If not, we and our neighbors are ready to hunker down together where are and keep each other safe for the long haul.  Hunkering down where you are may be your best plan for now.  For us, at this time in our life, we really must make the best out of what we have.  Working with your close neighbors makes this process much easier.  For those of you who can’t relocate at this time like us, don’t stress, just work to make what you have the best possible.  It can be done.  We’re living proof.  So, until such a time that we are able to relocate to the great American redoubt, we’ll be holding the line here in the South.   God Bless and good luck.

Letter Re: Checking Your Handguns for Feeding Problems: Round Nose Versus Hollow Points

Sir,
For those with hollowpoint feeding problems with their pistols, I’d like to recommend the Dremel 516 Abrasive Point, which is bullet-shaped.

Here is manufacturer’s description: “Abrasive point, bullet shaped constructed of compressed non-woven nylon fibers that have been impregnated with aluminum oxide abrasive grains. These abrasive points are great for finishing work and light deburring.”
 
I find it works well by polishing the feed ramp to a mirror finish as well as lightly rounding the sharp edges of the chamber end of a new barrel.  I stumbled upon this solution when I received one of the first batch of Diamondback 380s.  I had multiple malfunctions with the DB380 using hollow points and was considering sending it back to Diamondback.  I elected to polish the barrel as describe above and it was a remarkable improvement and the next box of hollow points fed flawlessly.  I now do this polishing mod with all my new pistols.  A simple test of bullet to chamber feed is to hold the barrel vertical and simply drop a bullet in from one inch above.  If the bullet doesn’t simply glide into the chamber, hangs up by catching the case rim, or if it rolls around the on barrel rim a few times, buff it a little bit more with the Dremel abrasive bit.  My only warning is don’t overdo it, as you might remove too much barrel material and have a case rupture near the rim (which I have to date not experienced.) Cheers, – Foo

JWR Replies: I concur that feed ramp polishing should be done judiciously. As with any machining process, always remember that it is easy to remove metal, but it is usually impossible to put it back via welding or brazing without ruining a part. Proceed with caution and take your time! Never use a file when you should be using a stone, or your will probably regret it. The old saying is “haste makes waste.” Or, as my father put it: “haste makes expensive trips to the hardware store.” Also keep in mind any time you use any abrasives on your guns, that you need to remove all of the fragments and filings, which might wear on the inner workings elsewhere in your pistol or scratch their protective finishes. For this, I often use a spray can of brake cleaner solvent. (Available at you local auto parts store.) Be sure to wear rubber gloves, and of course properly re-lubricate the parts as you re-assemble the gun, since brake cleaner will strip away all of the lubrication.