Weapons! Yup, stocking up on lots of weapons and ammo. With these two things, I can acquire everything else I may need.

BTW, you don't need to buy just rifles and bullets to arm yourself (some places you can't even own real weapons). One of my favorite innocent looking potential weapons is a child toy, a Super Soaker water gun... and a gallon of kerosene... and a lighter. You can keep this cool make-shift weapon in the trunk of your car and nobody will have a clue how effective it can be used to keep a crowd of crazy monkeys 50 feet away from you. If you are armed and dangerous, you can get everything else you may need for free if you should ever have to.

And, stocking up on booze, drugs, and tobacco can also come in handy when you want to get other monkeys to do what you want them to do too.

I have bought an extra item or two everytime that I shop. I rotate by only buying foods that I eat and ammo that I shoot. No real need to panic and buy a lot of a few items. If you buy what you can when you can it can add up to a decent spare amount. You never know when something will go wrong. I lived through a couple of earthquakes asnd had to camp out waiting for things to get back to normal.

You need a plan of action for the scenario you have in mind. What are they?

A two week power outage is not unreasonable. Gas stations closed cause they need power to run the pumps. Grocery stores closed because they can't operate the cash registers. ATMs are down. Water doesn't flow because of the pumps,etc.

A major hurricane like Katrina or floods or earthquakes can play havoc for an extended period of time in a very large area. We know what this can be like.

A Nuclear or biological catastrophy would be the worst with long term implications. Millions dead, millions of sick and starving individuals wandering the streets and country side. This is a costly scenario to deal with requireing a great deal of planning and a whole lot of luck. Actually, the lucky ones might be those who went up with the flash.

Pick your poison and plan for it. Don't just sit back and do nothing and expect society to take care of you. Don't be a burden on others. Be able to fend for yourself as the President, Homeland Security and supposedly the Morman church has now urged you to do. Don't come around my place with your hand out because you failed to take the proper precautions.

worst case, if the government, or other entity should want to raid and take guns and ammo, is there a way to protect them? some sort of container or something that would not be reactive to a metal detector or x-ray device, etc? where and how would you protect yourself in this scenerio? as far as the food, if you have a small parcel of land, even in the city, you can grow your own food. even bird food has seeds that can be grown for human consumption. water is another problem. it will eventually be hard to come by, no matter how much you stock-pile in a city living situation, as well as anything for energy except solar. any comments on that?
salt will be great for not only personal survival, but also for bartering. we'll be back in Biblical days for using salt as coinage. it never goes bad. i would think it would be the most valuable to stockpile.

I'm not stock-piling anything... I'm a jobless college student living at home with parents...

But rice seems pretty obvious, and wine for emergencies... It's healthful (in moderation) and can be an occasioanl substitute for water if need be.

and hard liquor has multiple purposes, as many have said.

PLEASE READ>>>

My little 89 year old Aunt (who is psychic) said to me out of the blue, you know people are trying to figure out what to stock up in their homes for the depression. I NEVER talk to her about anything negative or scary. She has alzheimers and so only breaks out like this on occasion. I sat down and asked her what she thought we should stock up on and she said, "I'ts hard to tell, you never know what will be available and what wont, 'they' dont even know yet. I suppose lard or things to cook your food with, make soap with. Like inthe old days, light for the evenings because they can take out your lights at night."
That was about it. So for little Maizie, her choice would be lard, or in our case shortning because at present we do not eat lard.

I guess they did light their homes with lard back then huh? I never really thought about it.

Thread killers anonymous, any way one big suggestion, my kids and I have been outside for the past 4 hours covering plants and trying to save the babies from the weather modifications coldest night in recorded history. I have used any thing and everything I could to protect as best I can. Luckily my ex never put that new roof on so I had a big roll of tar paper and cut that in half at 20ft lengths made a sort of dome of it by folding in half and covered many of the rows that way, the rest we used paper and boxes, straw, and even old jackets, blankets, lawn furniture, even a few leather gloves over real small plants.
Now its in Gods hands.
But while you are stockpileing, think of things that could come in handy in the event of a mini ice age. Put in your wood stoves and really plan for cold. I have enough wood on hand to build some frames that can go over the rows and they will be built and set aside for subsequent years in case this is becoming a pattern.
Two years in a row we have had Ice Storms and the summers are getting shorter and the nights colder.
Sorry this is so darn long, but I am freaked, these plants have been my project for 3 1/2 months , not counting getting all of the supplies and waiting for seed orders. Its crazy, the little guy is the one to suffer, if I were a big agribusiness, Id be calling the insurance guy and just kicking back drinking wine in front of the fire. Brrrr!

Well, I live near the centre of the capital city here, and I can imagine in a real crisis certain essential services and parts of the infrastructure would go down pdq. Example: about 5 years ago, our water supply got shut down for about two days after someone put a backhoe through the mains water pipe for this area. Yep, it took them two days to fix ONE mains pipe. This did not bode well for anything worse on the scale of disruption so I started storing water in clean 2-litre soft drink bottles. I rotate them out and replace them regularly, and have around 150 of them spread around the place in various nooks and crannies in the house. The reason is simple and I think has been pointed out by several people on this thread: you can survive several days without food but you'll need water. As for other supplies, we keep a fair supply of preserved fruit (diy in jars) and some dried food. But I admit that we have nowhere near enough here for any longer period of time.

Based on what I learned about hard times in previous wars here, I always keep a fair supply of coffee around, both the instant variety and beans (in sealed bags). In this part of the world, most people drink coffee every day and it will be much sought after. When things are hard, people still want some "comforts". It could be traded for other stuff or used to "ease contacts". Might buy quite a bit more coffee, come to think of it. It keeps well. By the way, beer doesn't keep all that well. Whisky does, though.... Hmmm... And yes, we ought to lay in some cartons of cigarettes. They are still relatively cheap here. (A carton of 200 cigs can be had for around 500 Czech crowns. That's about $3 US per pack of 20.) If the life-form solid waste product hits the fast-rotating air circulation device then they'll cost many times more in short order so they'll be useful for barter.

We need to build up supplies of various medicines. Longer shelf-life versions of painkillers and the like. My wife also has an excellent knowledge of herbs so she can make up substitutes to treat various ailments and injuries from the plant life that grows in this part of the world. We both have a good knowledge of what's edible in the forest: various types of mushrooms, berries and even very uninteresting-looking green plants that are fine to eat if you cook them right.

However, if the "trouble" is something that builds over time, so we have some warning (if we have our eyes and ears open), then we'll get out of here and head for a small cottage in the country. It's just a cabin but it's solid enough and away from any main roads, there is a lake 100 metres away (stocked with fish) and we have a well with a hand-operated pump. It also has the advantage that all the windows are fitted with very solid, plate-steel shutters that are bolted from the inside. The door is even better protected. No-one has ever managed to break into this place, though several have tried over the years.

Other stuff to stockpile? Candles. Lots of em. They're really cheap and in desperate circumstances (only to stave off hunger pains) you can eat them. It beats gnawing on a strip of leather. (And I knew a man who did that in the worst days of WWII.) Waterproof matches. A few 2-dozen packs of cheap cigarette lighters. A good supply of oil for our old-style but effective oil lamps (that we already have stored away, both here and at the cottage). Bleach for use as disinfectant. Soap. It's pretty cheap if you buy it in bulk and don't care about needing fancy aromas. I already have a good range of tools and whatnot for repairing/making stuff. Besides screwdrivers, spanners and hammers, I have a couple of hand-operated drills, a range of saws for metal and wood, axes, digging implements, puncture repair kits for tires, wire, soldering iron (electric and "old style"), tin snips and metalworking hammers and shapers...and a big pair of bolt cutters in case we need to..errm...cut some bolts

Apologies for the lonng post. Excellent thread and thank you to the OP for starting it. You and the many posters have given me added motivation to get our survival stuff in order.


[edit on 29-4-2008 by JustMike]

I don't know that I am stockpiling, but I have been stocking up on good deals when I find them, in the event of an emergency, or because of rising food costs.

1. Bottled water. Walgreens has a special on 2 cases of 15 bottles each of spring water right now for $5 total. Brand is Pure American- they have a coupon book at the checkout. I don't know if that is a good price- 30 bottles for 5 bucks, since I don't buy much bottled water, and when I do it's Fiji.

2. Dry pet food. I thought the price of dry pet food might go up, as most of them are made with grains and I thought that was what in demand- that and corn products, also found in pet food.

3. Seeds. I am going to try my black thumb at growing some indoor veggies. Also at Walgreens- 5 seeds packets for $1. I bought 15 kinds of veggie, fruit and legume seeds for 3 bucks. Company is Plantation Products.

4. Various canned goods- mostly veggies and legumes with lots of protein, and soups.

5. Candles, should I need light and not have electricity. I use lots of candles anyway.

6. A radio with batteries.

7. Frozen naan from Trader Joe's. Could grill it if need be, and it's bread.

A few days ago I made a pot of pinto beans. Took hours to cook. Got to thinking later about just how much wood I would need to acomplish the same task in a situation X senerio. Remembered during Y2K I put up beans of all sorts in canning jars that I had processed in my canner. This is an idea I will began to think about doing here in the next week or so.

I live in a small suburban neighborhood on Long Island (NY), surrounded by strip malls, a mall, an industrial park, a park, and a parkway (see the variety!). I live in the rented-out 2nd floor of a regular house. As such, I have no outdoor property to speak of. This means I can't plant a garden, start a composting pile, erect solar panels, or stock up on things that require a lot of space (its at a premium here). I live with my mother, won't be 18 until midsummer, she's a staunch anti-gun type, so all I've got in terms of weapons at the moment are 3 or so pocket knives (blades under 3"), an assortment of kitchen knives, a pump air rifle, and a metal beam (substitute for baseball bat). We get by on little money, and as I mentioned there is little room for storage but I'm doing my best. I drink Arizona Green Tea (in the gallon jugs) and have begun cleaning and filling them with sterilized/purified water. We've got rice, wheat and corn flours, and a small stock of dehydrated/freeze-dried/canned goods. If sit-x happens I won't stay here, won't let my mom either: no room to plant, surrounded by people, no place to forage, the best hunting would be the geese across the way.

Water is distilled pure in two ways. The first is never distill the bottom third of the boiler. All heavy elements and toxics are in this portion. Second when the boiler is first started up Run it open to the air with no worm or catch. Start at 130F and slowly heat up 10 degrees at a time and stabilize at each increase. At 210 back it down to 180 and then back up each time resting there for a bit then as it approaches 212 let it run out a good bit of cloudy steam before using leather gloves to attach the worm or catch. Stop when the last third of boiler is discarded.

You can run the saved water the very same way 3 time discarding the last third each time and get pure fairly water.

There is a reason those old jugs had XXX on them and that was to get clean and pure.

Originally posted by Archideva
A few days ago I made a pot of pinto beans. Took hours to cook. Got to thinking later about just how much wood I would need to acomplish the same task in a situation X senerio. Remembered during Y2K I put up beans of all sorts in canning jars that I had processed in my canner. This is an idea I will began to think about doing here in the next week or so.

switch to mung beans... they are smaller, available in organic bulk, and cook about the same as brown rice

rice and beans, every night over wood heat, scraps from the day's carpentry, on a small non-mortared concrete block cooker in the back yard...

I can boil rice and beans with about 4 feet of nominal pine 2x4 properly chopped and fed to the fire or an oak branch 3" diameter to the tips.

I keep beans stored dry; 50 lbs or more in glass jars, metal lid, wrapped with electrical tape.

Sri Oracle

I have 50 lbs or more of rice, 25 of dryed beans, 25 pounds of dryed garbanzo beans, cases and cases of canned vegtables, fruits and soups, and 30 or 40 tins of chicken. The rice and beans are stored properly in sealed containers with desiccants . Powdered milk and bottled water. I bought a lot of food storage containers for cheap ( post Y2K mania ) in 2000 and have been slowly building up a emergency food supply. I've had to throw some things away, but I've got better at rotating out the old during charity food drives so it won't be wasted.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by RKWWWW]

Originally posted by Divinorumus
Weapons! Yup, stocking up on lots of weapons and ammo. With these two things, I can acquire everything else I may need.

OK, unless you have some pre-firearms registration legislation weapons, and some very creative means of hiding them, just what do you think the government is going to do with all these new gun purchases when the stuff hits the fan?

Knock - Knock (if you are lucky). Several soldiers (probably not even American soldiers) are at your door with automatic weapons.

"Sir. Are records show you have the following weapons...."

Either you open fire (you might get one or two but you will be dead). You turn them over (kind of hard to defend yourself with a pile of ammo and no gun to fire them -- assuming they don't take the ammo as well). Or you try to explain why you don't have them any more ('cause you buried them in the back yard), and they just use that excuse to take you to the Red, Blue or White aisles of the nearest FEMA prison camp.

Of course, the govt. will just ask everyone to turn in their guns when this starts. And after so many days of amnesty, then you will get something like this: "In Central America we shot everyone we caught with a gun even if it was in a drawer unloaded!! [Harold Williams, "Surviving Martial Law"].