“I don’t have the money to buy that level of prep, or the varied skills and time to do it on the cheap. I accpt the possibility that in a real SHTF situation that I might just well die. I hope that I am given the Grace by God to die a Holy Death, and that I can protect my wife and children somehow.”
You’re more realistic than 99% of the population. Most people are storing food for the people who will kill them for it later, whether it’s their neighbor who didn’t store quite as much as they did and is now starving, or the stranger who will shoot them from the tree line the minute they step out of their house. I especially like to hear, “oh, I live in a safe place, all my neighbors are great.” Wait and see how great your neighbor is when they run out of food and know you have some, or how great you will be when you run out of food and your family is starving.
I think I’m situated pretty good, but that is a combination of being sort of in the middle of nowhere and being two hours on the unpopulated side of Ottawa (albeit west, not north).
If Ottawa has the ability to salvage any zone of sanity, it will be Ottawa that is salvaged, and I think the area has the general ability to hang on by itself for a while.
No amount of prepping can guarantee survival but no preparations will guarantee misery, failure and death or you can add to the numbers of those who will rob and kill because they did nothing. I guess its up to each of us to decide how we wish to die. You can die trying to provide and protect your family of you can die robbing and kill others. Up to how you wish to meet your maker.
One only has to look at what happened in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina passed through in order to know what life in the US will be like post-collapse.
If it gets bad enough people will kill you for what’s in your garden.
If you have lights on at night ..they will know you have solar panels.
And they will assume you have more than they do.