Posted on 09/13/2016 8:21:55 PM PDT by pboyington
Enough cash to pay for essentials for at least a month. Also useful if there’s a disaster and you need to run, and the credit systems are down. We’ve been in ice storms where all the antennas for credit/debit card verification were down, but I could still buy milk, diapers and wipes with a $20.
LifeLock is good if you don’t have the time for vigilance...I have applied for credit cards in a store and before I got home, they were notifying me/calling me. They help with identity theft too. However, if a total grid meltdown, then won’t matter...
You’ve received a lot of great advice from other FReepers - I just want to add from my own experience of subsistence income & lifestyle after being downsized from a fantastic job nearly a decade ago. From my perspective, SHTF back then, tho I recognize it can certainly become worse.
1. Some have recommended precious metals. As an *investment* that may be fine, especially if you have extra income to set aside w/ no anticipation for need to liquidate for financial emergency needs. But if you actually try to buy from me w/ gold? I can’t make change for your gold piece, nor can I eat, shoot or pay my bills w/ it. So hope your neighbors w/ whom you are most likely to trade are of an equally wealthy situation, or you’re getting nowhere w/ your precious metals.
More to say, but must go get caught working for now...
To continue...
2. If computers or their network is down, good luck accessing those records you need to produce before you can continue w/ the transaction you are desperate to make during a crisis event.
Already off of your schedule & stuck dealing w/ strangers to fulfill your needs? Might wanna have a printout of your medical records to document your need to refill your prescription from an ...unusual source. Like your vet, say, or a neighbor who happens to be a medical professional. Because if your usual pharmacy/provider is out of stock, or their system is down, you’re screwed - and I can attest that it seems to pile on when you’re already stressed by unexpected & unwelcome conditions. Gold & silver are handy, but I find paper, as in cash and record hard copies, much more useful.
Bureaucrats are morons. Their system is set up to prevent deviation & your crisis does not exist in their world. If they cannot see you on their system, *you* do not exist. But a compassionate neighbor or trusted friend, operating out of the norm in a home environment, can be swayed.
3. Lifelock & credit/banking fraud protection “services”? I have no experience w/ the former, but the latter has been awful. I learned to w/draw my meager paycheck soon as possible every payday, tho this prevents the convenience of paying at the pump for gas.
Why?
Because when I left it banked to make purchases using my debit card, & would make a lot of stops as I worked my way home shopping sales... they would block my access until I answered the automated call (if I could hear it incoming) or reached a human freaking being to beg them to please let me have my own money, purty please. I was being held hostage on the damn phone before I could continue w/ the business of my day!
Then came the time when my (former) credit union disregarded not just one but two Nevermind-that-garnishment-request from a tax entity, & seized an entire paycheck & sent it away w/out even questioning me. The reaction? A shrug & not even an apology. Oh & charged a fee for the trouble of garnishing my acct w/ no apology for the bounced checks that ensued.
Yet accused me of fraud repeatedly thru the automated system & even threatened to w/hold a 401K distribution check for an additional week unless I explained it to their satisfaction. It was MY money in the first place, yet clearly, they were only protecting my money from me! If it’s resting in my pocket, there’s no hacker gonna get it. But I must first wrest it from the grasp of my financial institution.
A friend of mine made a bank deposit that evidently got credited to someone else’s acct, but resulted meanwhile in several bounced checks. Luckily he’d retained the deposit slip. Eventually the bank acknowledged their error but only after a looooonnnnnnnngggggggggg investigation handled by the headquarters branch many miles away did they repay his deposit & then credit each NSF fee that accumulated. The tedium of their “investigation” made it clear that it is designed to discourage rather than satisfy the customer who has been wronged.
The point I make here is that, even when you’re right - you’re not right to the powers that be until their stupid dadgum computers say you are. Maybe you feel comfortably well off & therefore insulated from such insults to your dignity & financial well-being.
For your sake, I hope you are correct in your assumption of financial security. But when the PTB are withholding your money or medical needs at gunpoint (or curserpoint, as the case may be), you my FRiend are screwed & you are already in crisis mode & don’t got no time for this sh!t. At least, this has proven so time & again in my situation. Impoverishment = helplessness until I learned to seize the reins by seizing my own cash & printing out my VA health records at the Release of Information office.
Please excuse the long rant. It’s just that I have had this discussion with my parents & get frustrated(for their sakes). I have reached a workable solution & am comfortable & content. I have adjusted. I simply wish to help them avoid the hassle of their earned money (ostensibly housed safely in the bank) suddenly poofing away *can you say Greece* or otherwise being withheld while an “investigation of a banking error” or “suspicion of fraud” wends its way thru the cogs of bureaucracy. You can only fully comprehend once it’s happened. Crippling yet avoidable.
4. Accumulation of water & food against a bad day/week/year is good & lots more than some folks bother with. But lack of *proper* storage or preparation of your supplies for storage can result in loss of property. Several FReepers have already mentioned fuel & energy needs. No need for me to.
However, grains & grain products like wheat, flour, cornmeal, pasta & rice come w/ their own supply of worm eggs & should spend (by my own reckoning) ~3 weeks in the freezer soon as they enter your home. Otherwise, you will proudly unseal that longtime food storage supply only to learn that it has already been consumed - but then again, it’s been replaced by protein-rich bugs & may be a welcome blessing during a SHTF situation so long as the sight of their dead, cooked bodies floating in your bowl doesn’t trigger the ole gag reflex. ;o)
As w/ the convenience of already having your paperwork/cash on hand when a crisis hits, I recommend that along w/ staples for making food, you should also have ready-to-eat, directly-consumable food for when you’re already juggling problems & don’t have time to prepare meals. You can eat (for instance) Vienna sausages/Spam & other canned meats, beef jerky & canned legumes straight out of the packaging. Are these sodium-rich foods of high quality or especially tasty when eaten cold out of the can? Well no, but they’re a quick source of both protein & some carbohydrates to fuel your body while you take a break from filling sandbags or running back & forth to the hospital to take care of a sick relative. Or whatever Mr. Murphy decides to drop into your lap.
OK. I think I’m done. Carry on w/ your day, LOL.
Might I suggest a small solar array. A small system can be reliable and cheap. Although lights and power can be a blessing or a curse.
If you have power when most everyone else does not.... Desperate people do dumb things. If you live around “gibmedats” like I do. Have a plan for them.
I don’t worry about my neighbors next door, but three blocks away. We have discussed what would happen if they decided to try their hand at take sh_t from whitey.
Actually my plans are to go with both solar & wind here on our homestead. I’m already scouting out deep cycle marine batteries to salvage
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