Axenolith wrote:
“...Use any means to sever or reduce dependance upon institutional crutches.”
Buy land, houses, silver, gold?
I already have that myself save touch ups, currently watching the show and figuring out action paths for unexpected swan events. Would I like more? Sure. Would I like to actually be on areas where we have airable land I could have under hoe now? Sure. Gotta go with what’s in hand though...
-—>Get out of debt<-—
If I had to start from scratch and I had a small nest egg to work with I would keep all my vehicles fueled, have fuel in cans, have a couple weeks of food, make sure I have water and ability to get it, first aid, weaponry, fishing pole, etc...
Cull Cu pennies, they’re currently getting ~$8.50/lb, 1 lb = 147 to 153 of them (150 average for easy head math). I think I have north of 600 pounds of them laying around. I also collect “fungible” scrap. Base metals (Lead, electrical grade copper, aluminum, some other arcane aquisitions). Functional common spare parts, screws, nuts/bolts, nails
Starter barter-
roll of silver dimes
aforementioned pennies
liquor
Coffee
fasteners
fish hooks (OOHH - a Fly Tying kit!)
Grease
Oil
(This is possibly endless)
If, after that was taken care of, I had financial ability and DID NOT live in a pretty “high trust” area I would start looking for some type of plot to prepare for a transition to. That can always be a recreational spot/investment. One can noodle out eking out a sustenance on it from the vast amounts of knowledge available on that everywhere.
By institutional crutches we’re also talking banks, medical facilities (Get Healthier!) and things like that.