Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is
nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality, yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its’
exactitude is obvious; but its’ inexactitude is hidden; its’ wildness lies in wait.” – G. K. Chesterton

Note from the Memsahib:

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Survival On a Shoestring Budget

I often get e-mails from readers claiming either directly or indirectly that preparedness is “only for wealthy people”–that working class people cannot afford to prepare. That is nonsense. By simply re-prioritizing your budget and cutting out needless expenses (such as alcohol, cigarettes, convenience foods, and cable television) almost anyone can set aside enough money for a year’s worth of storage food in fairly short order.

It is amazing what can be done with hard work, ingenuity, and very little money. While I do not endorse interloping on public lands nor do I suggest that you live like a hermit, the following stories are indicative of what can be accomplished with next to no cash.

First, here is an article about about a father and daughter that lived for four years undetected in a Portland, Oregon park:

http://www.katu.com/news/story.asp?ID=067497

Next a story about a hermit who secretly lived for at least three years inside the “secure” Los Alamos nuclear research reservation in New Mexico:

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2004/10/hermit_discover.html

Next, an article about New York City’s semi-apocryphal “Mole People”:

http://www.temple-news.com/media/paper143/news/2004/03/25/Features/New-York.Citys.Secret.Society-641871.shtml

I also vaguely recall in the early 1990s reading an article about a man who secretly built an underground house in parkland abutting the suburbs somewhere on the east coast. The house went undetected for several years. Its entrance was hidden in a berry thicket. He was only discovered because neighbors saw his comings and goings. When sheriff’s deputies arrived to investigate, after much searching for the entrance, they entered the underground house just as the man was taking a shower in his bathroom. (Perhaps one of you readers saved the newspaper clipping or has a link to the news story.)

I recommend the book “The Last of the Mountain Men“. It is the story of Sylvan Hart (a.k.a.”Buckskin Bill”), a famous Idaho solitary who lived deep in a roadless section of the River of No Return Wilderness. His solution to his own unemployment during the Great Depression was to move to the wilderness and live self-sufficiently. The book describes how Hart lived from the 1930s to the 1970s. He mined and smelted his own copper, made his own muzzle loading rifles and pistols, and constructed his house and garden. It is a fascinating book.

And for someone with a “maxi” budget? Consider this: http://www.ultimatesecurehome.com/secure_home.htm

I didn’t point out all of the preceding references because I want you to live like hermits or flee into the wilderness and live in a hollowed-out tree like the boy in My Side of the Mountain. Rather, I just want you to start thinking outside the box. Survival is 90% sweat, ingenuity, and perseverance. It is only the remaining 10% that requires cash.

On Financial Freedom by “Mr. Yankee”

Everyone agrees that the more self sufficient you are, the greater your personal freedom is. If you are making monthly payments for your mortgage, car loans, and to credit card companies, you are obligated to work so that you can pay those bills and your time is not your own. Your freedom is limited by your debts. But, if we are financially free, we can choose how to spend our time. And the freedom to use our time as we please is a goal worth striving for.
To that end, I will offer a few tips that are easy to incorporate into you spending habits which bring you closer to that goal. These are not earth shaking changes that will turn your world upside down. These are baby steps down the path to financial independence. But every penny that you can save increases your personal freedom. If you are not following any of them, by using these techniques you should save 10% on the purchases you make most often. That is the practical equivalent of getting a 10% raise. And who couldn’t use that?
No matter how much we do for ourselves, we spend some portion of our hard earned cash for the basic requirements of survival. You need food, shelter, and clothing. In addition, there are other items that you buy regularly which you can shop wisely for like over the counter medicines, pet food, and fuel. I’ll use groceries as the example for this issue, but you can apply the techniques to anything that you pay for regularly.
The first step is to get a firm idea of what the fair price of the item in question is. This is as easy as just noticing what you pay for each item as it goes in your grocery cart. Once you know what you normally pay, you will be able to recognize and take advantage of bargains, and avoid the pitfalls of false advertising and marketing schemes.
In store sales are often a good way to save money, but only if the price is less than you would normally pay. An offer to “buy one, get one free” is not a bargain if the first item has been marked up 100%. If the item in question is offered for sale for less than the normal price for two, then the sale is worth taking advantage of.
Similarly, you may be able to save a few dollars a month by using discount or mail in rebate coupons. In fact, if you are diligent at clipping and redeeming you can save quite a bit of money over time. But be careful. Because I tend to buy the cheaper brands and coupons are often for more expensive brands, I can rarely save money by making use of coupons. For example, a $3 box of cereal still cost less than a $5 box with a "$1.00 off "coupon.
Using coupons and taking advantage of sales should let you save a few dollars every trip to the grocery store. But real savings occurs when you have the ability to take advantage of bulk discounts. Let’s say that the “buy one, get one free” offer we discussed above is for a can of ravioli or soup that your family eats once a week. The can normally costs a dollar. So buying two cans for the price of one saves a dollar over buying two when they are not on sale. But canned food is fairly shelf stable. If the cans on sale are not near their “best used by” expiration date, consider buying as many as you can afford. If you bought $20 worth, you would save $20 that you would normally spend over the next five months. By buying one can a week you would normally spend $40 over 40 weeks (5 months.) But by buying the same amount of food for $20 because it is on sale at half price, you save $20. That is like someone putting an extra $20 in your pocket. Sure you might get an odd look from the cashier when you put 40 cans of the same thing on the checkout counter, but is it worth an odd look to get $20? It is to me. When I find pasta on sale at three pounds for a $1 or less, I buy 30 pounds. It is shelf stable, and it gives me the peace of mind of not only knowing that I have saved at least 50% vs. buying it one box at a time, but also that my family won’t starve if times of shortage or financial hardships arrive.
“Buy one get one free” deals don’t happen as often as we’d like, but 25% off sales do happen frequently. Even if the sale is only 25% off the normal price, the same $20 spent would save you $5. Why not save $5?
The last tip I will offer this month is one that should only be used by people with strong self discipline. It can be downright financially dangerous if you can’t control yourself. But if you have the will power to do it, it is literally free money. Your secret to tool for free money is … a credit card. But not the cash advance feature!
Many credit cards offer cash back rebates on money spent. Discover card established itself by paying back a percentage of money spent in Sears’ store credit. Today many credit card companies offer store credit or cash back options. Most are 1% back on dollars charged with additional bonuses for using your card at certain retailers. My credit card pays back a straight 1% on all purchases made. I put my grocery bills, gasoline expenses, and anything else I can pay by credit card through that account. As a result they pay me $10 for every $1,000 spent. This is free money actually earned (not just saved.)
Now here is the dangerous part. You must pay the balance off every billing cycle. If you do not pay off the credit card (in full) each month, you will be charged interest on the balance and it is 100% certain that the interest due will exceed the cash back rebate earned. But if you have the self discipline to only use the credit card for expenses that you would normally pay cash for and to pay off the balance every billing cycle you can actually make money using a credit card. At $10 cash back per month you earn $120 per year. $120 will buy a lot of groceries when a god sale comes along! In addition, using the credit card for routine purchases makes balancing the check book a whole lot easier when you only write one check each month.
So there you have it – five steps toward financial freedom: learn what a fair price is; take advantage of sales; mail in rebates and other coupons; save money by stocking up with bulk buying discounts; and if you have the self discipline to pay off your credit card each month, take advantage of cash back rebates. These techniques will let you save and earn a portion of every purchase you make, and every penny saved or earned is a step closer to your financial freedom! – Mr. Yankee

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” – Thomas Jefferson

Letter Re: Ghillie Suits, NBC Protective Masks, and Southern Arizona

Dear James,
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my questions. I know there are hundreds of letters that come in. My brother Paul in Seattle and my “adopted son” John in Iraq are daily readers. I am building a ghillie suit. Would you suggest a poncho or a coat with an extension to cover the legs? I also plan on lining the suit with mylar or similar heat hiding material. On the subject of gas masks. I have Israeli military units for me and my wife. I have M17 models for back up or friends. Can you tell me how someone can change both cheek filters in an M17 in a tactical situation and survive. Even the standard spin-on can my other two have would let in poison if you changed it in the field. Lastly I am considering moving from Phoenix to the Tombstone area. How do you feel about that area? Thanks again, – Grampa R.

JWR Replies:

Regarding Ghillie Suits: I recommend a poncho, because they are the most versatile. They are also best in hot climates. (Coverall-type ghillie suits are sweltering in hot climates.) Because you can bundle up the front of the poncho when high crawling, I’ve found that poncho hangs up on brush less than a traditional ghillie made out of BDUs or coveralls. Although I can’t imagine that you’d be crawling around much in Cholla cactus country!

Regarding Protective Masks: There is no way to change filters in an M17-style (“cheek filter”) mask in a contaminated environment. The only practical way to change them is inside of a sealed room, after going through a transition room with decontamination shower. And even then, that takes about 10 minutes of tugging on those blasted plastic filter retainer buttons. It is simply a lousy design. (Off on a tangent, I can remember laughing out loud when I saw a picture of the Soviet copy of the M17 mask for the first time. (“Ha ha, fool! You’ve fallen for one the classic blunders! The best well known is ‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia.’… “) The difficulties that I cited are the main reasons why the U.S. military switched back to screw-on filter canisters for their NBC masks. The latter, BTW, can be changed in a contaminated environment by exhaling during the canister swap. (The only exception would be a very contaminated area, where you would probably be dead anyway, due to suit leakage.) OBTW, JRH Enterprises has the best prices that I’ve found for mask components including screw-on filter canisters.

Regarding Southern Arizona: The Tombstone area is typical for the terrain and hydrology of the region, and hence doesn’t have a lot going for it. If you must stay in southern Arizona, you are better off in the edge of the Chiracahua or Huachuca mountain ranges where there is some surface water. Go take a look at Ramsey Canyon and Garden Canyon, (both are east of Sierra Vista.) You will be amazed! BTW, there are similar verdant canyons elsewhere on the periphery of the Chiracahua and Huachuca ranges. If you haven’t ever taken the drive through the Chiracahua over to Portal (near the New Mexico state line), I recommend it. There is some private land in that region. I recommend that you talk to real estate agents in Sierra Vista and Bisbee. Tell them that you are looking for a place with a year-round spring and are willing to wait until one comes on the market A place with a well will suffice (with a photovoltaic-powered pump system, as sold by Solarjack, but that is a poor second choice compared to a reliable spring.

Letter Re: Survivor Man TV Series

Hello,
I highly recommend a TV show called Survivor Man. It is on the Science Channel on Direct TV it is Channel 284 on my unit, and it comes on Friday Nights. This fellow goes into the wild and stays seven days in different locations without much in the way of supplies. He shows some pretty decent survival techniques. Fire starting, water locating, food sources etc. He has done everything from the Arctic to Deserts. I find it quite informative and it may be of use to some other readers as well. I just thought I would pass it along. – Jerry

Letter Re: Tritium Sights and Night Vision Devices

Mr. Rawles,
First let me say that I love the blog. Also, your book (“Patriots“) is my all time favorite fictional survival book. You will have to give us an update on when the new edition with extra chapters is due out.
A little background on myself, for the past few years I have been flying helicopters in support of a military survival school in the Northwest. I average a handful of night flights each month and when we fly we use current issue NVG’s. We normally fly at 300 feet above the ground and have little to no cultural lighting (city lights) as we are over National Forest lands. For this reason I would consider the amount of light we fly with to be similar to a TEOTWAWKI scenario (no cultural lights.)
Now I would like to add some thoughts about the tritium sight thread from Monday. The benefits associated with tritium sights definitely outweigh any disadvantages. I consider your comments on tritium sights to be correct for worst case. By that I mean you would get the penlight in the face effect (we call it “raccoon eyes”) if you were operating in an unlit building, in a cave, or possibly outside on a very overcast and moonless night with no cultural background lights. Tritium sights should not be overlooked when trying to decrease your tactical profile but I personally would not excessively worry about them. Like yourself, I would use a full flap holster and that would be the extent of my mitigation. To give some perspective on light sources in a different situation, I remember flying a couple weeks ago with a full moon and having a hard time seeing an IR (infrared) strobe. And we had to request the IR strobe after being unable to identify a group in which an individual was swinging a chemical light stick attached to a 2 foot cord around in a circle. I would like to point out to your readers that wearing their own set of NVGs would give them a much greater light profile (very bright raccoon eyes) than tritium sights would. NVGs are a huge force multiplier and I don’t recommend going without them but when they are used they should primarily be used to scan and only for a short duration.
Two things that I would be more concerned about are fire and light discipline. As far as fire goes, even a fire that has no visible flames really pops out when viewed on NVG’s. That is because the goggles sensitivity peaks near the red/ IR spectrum of light. If you must have a fire, bury any left over embers and move far away when you are done. Like I said, goggles really pick up red and IR lights. Brake lights can be seen for miles and those red filters used on flashlights to read maps are almost just as bad. Get rid of the red filters and carry a blue/green filter instead. The blue/ green filter allows you to maintain your night vision while offering a slightly smaller light profile than the same flashlight in plain white.
Regards, – The Northwest Helo Pilot

Letter Re: Retreat Potential for The Eastern States and “Prudent Places USA”

Hi Jim and Memsahib:
Many people cannot possibly move west of the Mississippi. I think everyone wants to make an educated assessment of where they live in relation to preparing for whatever may happen. Regardless of the energy and thought we put into planning, there seems to be one or many things we either leave out or have not considered. For example, how many have taken into consideration if there is a germ facility or chemical weapons lab near their prized spot? There are also terrorists cells among us as well as major terrorists organizations. Knowing their targets whether they be infrastructure, military, national landmarks or vulnerable cities should be considered in our plans. I recommend that Prudent Places USA CD-ROM. It covers six main areas: Natural Disasters, Manmade Disasters, Environmental Basics, Environmental Problems, Energy, People and Places. Within these chapter headings, one has access to 69 main topics, plus additional sub-topics and maps to a county level–all 3,141 of them. Maps are very large and must be presented in CD-ROM format. If there is a safer place in your county or state these maps will point them out. The maps can be printed on transparencies and overlaid for a defining view of areas of interest. This is one of the most comprehensive accumulation of data covering almost every topic of interest for choosing a prudent place I have come across. David from Israel so eloquently illustrated the mindset of most who prepare. Generally speaking, we tend not to think of having to leave our retreat. We all should have at least two backup plans in place. Prudent Places USA is an invaluable aid in planning localities, roads, everything one can imagine and more. See: http://www.millennium-ark.net/Our_Books/PPusa/next.htm Regards, – F1

Letter Re: A SurvivalBlog Discussion Forum?

I’m interested in discussing topics with like-minded folks. If this can’t be done, do you have any favorite forums? – C.D.R.

JWR Replies: I’m sorry to report that I have neither the time nor the patience to moderate a forum. (I moderated one for Dr. Gary North back in the late 1990s, and it quickly degenerated into a “flame war”, with far more flame posts than serious posts on preparedness.)

I recommend that anyone who is interested sign up at The Claire Files and start frequenting the “Gulching/Self-Sufficiency” Forum. You might start out with a thread titled: “SurvivalBlog Readers–Check In!”

Yes, I know that there are lots of other forums out there, but the biggest advantage of The Claire Files is that you can sign up anonymously.

Note from JWR: Some Interesting Web Sites

In my most recent radio “round table” interview on pandemics, Dr. Geri Guidetti (the host) mentioned some interesting web sites:

http://www.farmersadvance.com –Some scary statistics on America’s food supply. It is no longer measured in weeks.

http://www.effectmeasure.com — Useful information on the Asian Avian Flu.(But decided leftward leaningand anti-Christian!)

http://www.fluwikie.com — More useful information on the Asian Avian Flu.

http://www.curevents.com — A general current events forum, currently with several discussions on pandemics.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/ — Site for the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (still more useful information on the Asian Avian Flu.)

OBTW, if you missed hearing the webcast live, you can download it post facto, by visiting the Republic Radio web site: http://www.rbnlive.com. Look for the archive of the Geri Guidetti show for Saturday, October 8th.

Letter From “Mr. Lima” Re: Retreat Potential for The Eastern States

Jim,
I agree with you 100% that by far the West (Far West) is the best survival locale, but I am one of those East Coast survivors. If I really wanted to I would move West (I’m of the mindset that anyone can do anything they really want to do, they just have to WANT it bad enough), then I probably would. I won’t go into all the excuses people normally use when you tell them to relocate.

Something that ought to be considered as well is proximity to like minded friends and family members. I “could” move out West but if I did I would lose a support network that I have worked almost 20 years to develop. To go from having a reliable support network to being a lone family survivalist is a frightening thought, no matter how secure the new locale is.

Suffice it to say, everyone that cannot or will not move West (I’m reminded of the old Westerns–“Go West young man!”) absolutely must develop a working Group or network of like minded friends and family members who they can rely on when the times comes.

Also, I would prompt every survivalist on the East side of the Mississippi to work towards developing a fallout shelter. This could be as simple as a trench shelter with two 90 degree turns for entrances. Cover the trench with railroad ties, a couple of layers of plastic and 3′ feet of earth and you have a basic shelter you can improve over time.

The downsides of living on the East Coast are many–higher population, more nuclear targets, closer to seat of government, etc. It’s important also for people to realize that living away from the cities when TSHTF is more important that having 10 years of freeze dried food. No one single move can yield more towards your survival than moving away from the cities (save for accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior.)

Now is the time to cash out of homes that have appreciated in value greatly in the last couple of years. $100,000 will still buy some land and build you a modest home in most areas of the countryside, especially here in the South.

Those thinking they will just bug out at the last minute have to realize the first warning they may get is seeing the mushroom cloud over their city. – Mr. Lima

Letter Re: Retreat Potential for The Eastern States–Pennsylvania

Dear Jim,
In response to the letter from the Californian with aspirations on returning to western Pennsylvania, is he in for a shock. We have become, due to really short sighted thinking, the net importer of garbage for the east coast. Western and central Pa. have become the waste center for Maine, New York (city and state), New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, Ohio, West Virginia, and many other locales. We put toxic waste in our soils and act like if can not see it, it will go away. Nature always bats last. The ground water and water table will become polluted beyond use when we will need it most. This waste is not limited to household garbage, but also medical waste. Have a glass of HIV, on me. Just because one does not see or smell the pollution, does not mean it is not there. I would NOT recommend Pennsylvania for this reason alone. Do not forget the close proximity to large urban areas also. I totally agree with you on anywhere past the west of Mississippi. Keep up the good work. – C.D.