Economic collapse preparation – an exercise

barter2What would you do now if you knew in 6/12/18 months there would be economic collapse or a severe depression?

With all of the chaos of a financial collapse aside what would you do? If you still had a job would the pay be worth anything when things start to crumble? Consider the cost of what you take for granted today – food, fuel, utilities, entrainment? It will probably increase significantly.

Here are a few things I think would be top of the list. What do you think?

Food
Food would certainly become a huge issue… FAST. Costs of food would go through the roof and availability would plummet. Having readily accessible food would be a necessity – the longer the better. The first reaction would be to spend everything you could on just food, or at least it would need to be a big part of the plan. To significantly extend your food stores as well as provide variety and higher nutrition growing a garden, raising chickens for eggs, or other animals for meat. Live in the city? Growing plants on the balcony or being part of a community garden is not unattainable.

Water
Critical for survival. Store as much as possible. Get several water purification methods and if possible create a water cache method.

Savings
If I didn’t have savings set aside I don’t think this would be the time to start. And duh! We’re talking economic collapse here! Every dollar should be put to work at this point.

Get things done now while you can afford them. The cost of things will go up as time goes on and in a defunct society or bartering for supplies and work could be difficult. Besides some complete projects may allow for better protection, management of animals, gardens, and more – it would be ideal to have in place BEFORE there is a problem.

Get rid of your junk
What do we have that’s in the way or we haven’t used for a long time. Sure, you can trade a lot of things with the going gets tough, but junk is junk – and the bottom line is before cash doesn’t count… it counts. So use, sell, recycle. Make it count now as much as possible so you have less to worry about later. Heck, might be good for road block or shelter, or maybe a fire – but if it can pay for some water now… better by far.

Form alliances
Getting to know new people now probably isn’t the best thing because there isn’t a lot of time to really vet them, however if you don’t have any sort of team – yeah… you need one. On the other hand, if you have a group of people you’re already involved with that have similar views and you’ve been working together – take the time to step it up in your team to help each other prepare.

Learn how to barter
This certainly seems like something that should be pretty straight forward to begin with – and trading directly is something you could get the hang of pretty quick I imagine… you know, when your life is on the line. But think about it. If you’re starving you’ll trade a lot for a little. A piece of silver for a loaf of bread. The kings of barter will trade several times before they get what they want. Trading up each time you’re basically going to trade a loaf of bread for a piece of silver. So some of that junk we were talking about… maybe some of it is tradable… give it a try.

Education
Always a good idea – so in good times learn all you can. If nothing ‘bad’ is on the horizon go back to school if needed to improve your employment situation. However, if you’re preparing for the worst or just can’t go for formal education then grab a book and learn a new skill. Many things you’ll learn can save you some money (repair car, fix things around the house, etc) or give you a skill you can barter with, especially when times are lean. I can’t tell you this enough… a mentor is worth their weight in gold.

So there are a few things that might be on the top of the list… how about you? What’s your list look like? Are you ready in some of these areas – then your list certainly will be different. So what’s it look like?