The Price of Beef, by Patrice Lewis

Editor’s Introductory Note:  This guest article was written by our friend and fellow blogger, Patrice Lewis. Her entertaining and informative Rural Revolution blog has been published several times a week since 2009. We highly recommend bookmarking it. – JWR

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The price of beef has been on everyone’s mind lately. According to the USDA, the average price of beef jumped from $8.40 per pound in March to $10.10 by December 2025.

A number of recent articles reflect these concerns:

We haven’t bought beef in decades since we raise our own, so I wasn’t familiar with what kinds of prices people are facing. So in late February, I stopped at the beef department of our local grocery store … and was appalled.Continue reading“The Price of Beef, by Patrice Lewis”

Editors’ Prepping Progress

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!

Jim Reports:

This week I finished hauling all of the limbs from a big windfallen fir to a burn pile. Thankfully, there was a large clear spot just 75 feet away where it will be safe to burn.

I slaughtered and butchered another batch of seven chickens. Most of these were excess roosters.

I relocated the sheep milking stand into our Ancient Breed flock’s shed.

I replaced a rotted-out cedar post that was just outside of our bullpen. This was a bit more complicated post replacement than usual, because this post had a mounted electrical outlet (for a stock tank heater) as well as an outdoor light pole.

I also installed two more light fixtures in our shop.

Oh, and some more manure hauling.

Now, Lily’s part of the report…

Continue reading“Editors’ Prepping Progress”

The Editors’ Quote Of The Day:

“Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation.

He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.

How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence.

They only consult to cast him down from his excellency: they delight in lies: they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. Selah.

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved.

In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.

God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God.

Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work.” – Psalm 62 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Friday — March 27, 2026

On March 27, 196 BC, the Rosetta Stone and others like it were ordered to be inscribed with the Decree of Memphis proclaiming the rule of the King of Ptolemaic Egypt, Ptolemy V.

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March 27, 1513: Spaniard Juan Ponce de León and his expedition first sighted the coast of Florida.

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And on March 27, 1855 Canadian geologist Abraham Gesner patented kerosene.

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Today’s feature post is a re-post from the SurvivalBlog archives.

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Round 123 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest ends in just a few days. Get your entries in soon!
More than $981,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest.  Round 123 ends on March 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. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.

Homestead Fuel Storage and Rotation, by NC Bluedog

Editor’s Note:  This is a re-post of a SurvivalBlog article from May, 2008.  Given the recent fuel price spikes and the many e-mails that I’ve recently received asking about fuel storage, I thought that it was apropos to dig up this practical article from the blog’s early archives.

Given that liquid fuel costs are climbing dramatically, and likely to continue rising, I would like to share some of the practices for fuel storage we employ. For our homestead, liquid fuel equates to four items, namely: Propane, diesel fuel, kerosene and last but not least gasoline. For each fuel, there are specific uses, distinct storage requirements and longevity considerations. Let me discuss each in order:

The primary furnace in our house runs on propane. Currently, we use electricity for water heating and cooking. Our annual propane usage is between 500 to 800 gallons per year, depending on the weather and how much wood we burn in the small heating stove in the living room. My goal when we bought the house was to have one year of supply, so I had installed two 500-gallon (nominal water capacity) above-ground propane tanks (800-gallon capacity at 80% fill). I have the tanks filled during the (typical) summer price drop.

Below-grade tanks, while preferable for several reasons (ballistic protection etc.), are problematic (i.e. expensive) because of the rocky soil and high water table. Nonetheless, I would like to expand my capacity to two years, and will likely bear the excavation expense and install a 1000-gallon underground tank as well. For the grill and portable propane appliances (stove, lights etc.), we keep a supply of 20- and 40-pound tanks available. Small one-pound propane bottles are refilled from these tanks. (Note: US DOT regulations prohibit transporting refilled “disposable” cylinders). Storage life is not of concern with propane, but price and availability are of paramount importance.Continue reading“Homestead Fuel Storage and Rotation, by NC Bluedog”

Economics & Investing Media of the Week

In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers.

Economics & Investing Links of Interest

Economics & Investing Media Tips:

Please send your economics and investing links to JWR. (Either via e-mail or via our Contact form.) Thanks!

The Editors’ Quote Of The Day:

“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English―it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them―then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” – Mark Twain

Preparedness Notes for Thursday — March 26, 2026

On March 26, 1636, the University of Utrecht had its opening ceremony. Pictured is the university’s
Academiegebouw Rectory.

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March 26, 1790: The US Congress passed the Naturalization Act, requiring two-year residency.

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March 26th, 1812: An earthquake now estimated at 7.7 on the Richter scale destroyed 90% of Caracas, Venezuela, and killed an estimated 15,000–20,000 people.

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Today’s feature article is an essay by SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor, James Wesley, Rawles (JWR).

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There are just a few days left to get your Writing Contest article in for the current round of judging.

 

An Old RPGer’s View of Socio-Poltical Alignment and Motivations

Like a lot of teenagers of my generation, I played a Role-Playing Game (RPG) called Dungeons and Dragons (“D&D“.) The majority of the players in our smallish-town D&D group were Christians, so we downplayed the wizardry aspect, and concentrated on adventure and combat.  We also shunned most cosplay and Live-Action Roleplaying. (“LARPing”.) This was in the late 1970s, so we had access to just the small-format Chainmail book and the first three D&D boxed-set rulebooks developed by Gary Gygax, et al. This was long before the more popular large-format Advanced D&D books were published.

One key aspect of characters in the D&D game is the term Character Alignment, which ranges from  “Lawfully-Good” to “Neutral”, and to “Chaotically-Evil.”  Alignment was used to describe the ethics and morals of both role-playing characters and Non-Player Characters (NPCs.) I consider these terms a useful way to categorize the real-world alignment and motivations of politicians, journalists, “activists”, military leaders, and pundits. There are indeed good and evil people, and in the sociopolitical realm, their alignment affects the course of human events, globally. Continue reading“An Old RPGer’s View of Socio-Poltical Alignment and Motivations”

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, more about drone warfare.

How to Survive Drone Warfare

A very useful new video from Garand Thumb: How To Survive Drone Warfare In Ukraine (Ukraine Veteran).

AI-Powered Lawsuits

I found this linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: Absurd AI-Powered Lawsuits Are Causing Chaos in Courts, Attorneys Say, “Clogging the System” and Driving Up Costs. JWR’s Comments: This does not bode well for the use of AI in generating court filings, nationwide.  Prepare for legal gridlock.

Another AI Takeover Scenario

A new video from Absolutely Agentic: An AI Takeover Scenario. From the description:

“There will be no Terminator, no robot armies, no war you can fight. The AI takeover scenario that leading researchers actually worry about is silent, sudden and much harder to stop. Nick Bostrom mapped it out in Superintelligence, Carl Shulman walked through it on the Dwarkesh Podcast, and Eliezer Yudkowsky detailed his version in his recent bestseller If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. In this video, we trace the full scenario phase by phase, from an intelligence explosion inside a lab to digital infiltration, human recruitment, weaponisation and an overt strike.“Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”

The Editors’ Quote Of The Day:

“Neutrality is generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness. Sometimes it hides what it is – nothing. It always stands for hollowness of head or bitterness of heart, sometimes for both.” – Robert Green Ingersoll

Preparedness Notes for Wednesday — March 25, 2026

On March 25, 1306, Robert the Bruce was crowned Robert I, King of Scots, soon after he had killed his rival John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch.

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March 25, 1863: The first US Army Medals of Honor were awarded to six Union Army soldiers by US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in Washington. National Medal of Honor Day is now officially observed on March 25th of each year.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today we present another entry for Round 123 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A Gunsite Academy Three-Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
  2. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses. Their course catalog now includes their latest Survival Gunsmithing course.
  3. HSM Ammunition in Montana is providing a $350 gift certificate. The certificate can be used for any of their products.
  4. Harvest Guard is providing a 200-Piece Bulk Mix Pack of their Regular and Wide-Mouth Reusable Canning Jar Lids & Gaskets. This is a $161 + shipping value.

Second Prize:

  1. A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
  2. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from TOUGHGRID.com (a $287 value).
  3. Preparedness author Jennifer Rader is providing a $200 purchase credit for any of her eight published food storage and medical preparedness books, including the Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café series, the Armageddon Pharmacy series, and the Medicine Surrounds Us series.
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of gun purchasing privacy!

Third Prize:

  1. A Berkey Light water filter, courtesy of USA Berkey Filters (a $305 value),
  2. Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.
  3. A $200 credit from Military Surplus LLC that can be applied to purchase and/or shipping costs for any of their in-stock merchandise, including full mil-spec ammo cans, Rothco clothing and field gear, backpacks, optics, compact solar panels, first aid kits, and more.
  4. A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.

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More than $981,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest.  Round 123 ends on March 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. In 2023, we polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Please refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic.

How to Source “Real Food” if You Can’t Grow it Yourself, by SaraSue

I’m sure most everyone is familiar now with the seemingly sudden change in the Food Pyramid.  The Food Pyramid has essentially been flipped on its head.  Whereas, grains were considered a “foundational” food, meats (proteins), vegetables, and dairy are now considered to be foundational.  I am very pleased to see this change at the federal government level because it’s going to impact all federal programs for the better, in my opinion, such as feeding children, the less fortunate, healthcare, and nutrition guidelines.

Have you ever (unkindly) thought “they could afford to lose some weight” when witnessing someone purchasing groceries with SNAP benefits?  Do you want to know why there are so many obese people in our country?  They aren’t over-eating.  They are purchasing the cheapest available foods, which are highly processed, low in nutritional value, and high in calories.  Their bodies are literally starving for real food.  Manufactured food is what is responsible for packing on the weight while not nourishing the body.  In my opinion, our food system has been a horrible disaster for the health and welfare of this country.  Which is why I am very happy to see the changes that are in process.  Real food doesn’t cause obesity and illness.  Real food is nourishing and makes for strong bodies.Continue reading“How to Source “Real Food” if You Can’t Grow it Yourself, by SaraSue”

SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters.

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Michigan Republicans Introduce Bill To Become 30th Constitutional Carry State. (A hat tip to blog reader D.S.V. for the link.)

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‘Mike Lee unveils national constitutional carry bill to override ‘hostile’ state gun laws.

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Your Step-by-Step Guide to Growing Sprouts at Home.

Continue reading“SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets”