Several comments recommend buying land or precious metals.
This will not protect you!!!
Land gets taxed. I own land, and I know. The tax rates rise at various rates, but they always go up. How will you pay the taxes?
Precious metals sound good. I have some Au myself. However, as inflation takes off and the nominal price of gold rises, you are not really “making” any money. At best, you are only get inflation-adjusted value back for what you saved. Also, this nominal increase in value (that is, the value in newly inflated currency) will be taxed as capital gains, even though the gain is illusory, due to inflation. This means that the government will be confiscating a huge part of your savings right there.
And it is worse than that. In a crisis situation, who will be so rich as to be buying your gold? In real terms, the gold market will be depressed, so you will not even be getting back what you put in (in real, material terms). Picture buying a dozen eggs with an ounce of Au.
When the economy breaks down, wealth is no longer being created at the previous rate. In the entire society, there will be shortages. It will do little good to think that you can somehow avoid the crash for you and your family merely by preparing ahead-of-time.
There will be no place to hide.
“There will be no place to hide.”
So just put a bullet in my head, and do the same to my family then - so they don’t have to suffer?
I agree that the options are not great, but there are reasonable steps that people can take that may make the difference between being poor and being destitute (and there are dumb steps, too).