Venezuela has not collapsed. Everything is available for a price. Depends who you know and what kind of currency is available to you. The Black Market streams form the borders take care of that. Currency is the key in that mess. The Venezuelans who emigrated, send cash home or to people in colombia to sneak it home and then all kinds of back alley deals are transacted. Suburban Milfs end up working in "night clubs" to get baby food, and that sort of thing.

Honestly, if the neckbeard that wrote the article was in venezuela and didn't pay protection to an armed group or to friends in government, the gangsters are going to show up, take all his toilet paper and have him dissapeared. Same thing happens in a Mad Max Scenario.

Having a negotiable currency and maintaining good relationships with people are the key in a mess like that. And if you don't trade for profit, your stash dwindles down to the point you have to pimp out your wife.

Anyone who puts generators at the top of the list is an idiot or is talking about a 3-day SHTF, not a major one.

Hello, I'm Londo. I stock it. Now, you know someone.

Yep, at my house the wife has Coffee #1 & TP #2.  She's not going through any SHTF without a good cup joe and some butt wipe.

Or, they just MIGHT know how to make fuel last a long time, by using the generator sparingly.

People on septic systems. You can use wet wipes if you like 5k repair bills.

When my grandmother died she had toilet paper stacked in the shower to the ceiling..I kid you not.
She went thru the depression.

Quite literally laughed out loud....

Water,food, and heat to cook/keep warm

Tobasco for long pig

Exactly.  I keep paper towels and septic friendly toilet paper in my fuel shed.  Tons of it.  I buy the giant packs at BJ's.

If you have a woman or two in the household, you need to keep well-stocked.

The only thing I'll need are those two things in your avatar.

all 10mm sockets and open end wrenches

Where is my Womenz!

My first thought, too.

Bulky as hell... where the hell am I gonna stockpile 1000 rolls of TP?  

Body Armor!

Step 1 is to burn all houses within 500 yards of yours to clear your fields of fire.

You can take them out of the bulk packaging, heck you can remove the cardboard centers; fill large plastic totes, stack a few in the corner of your storage space. It’s not as ballistically protective as an ammo fort, but way more practical.

Or watched Johnny Carson!

Be sure it's well-protected against rodents, they'll use it for nest building.

If you neckbeard toilet paper, you must keep it in the dryest place in your bunker. It will get mold sooner or later.

...after they've all been looted, of course.

I think the other poster had it correct, having all this stuff is irrelevant if you can't defend it....and defending it by yourself will be extremely difficult.  I guess it really depends on how long the SHTF scenario lasts, but it won't take long for people to figure who the haves and have nots are.

Lots of good info but Booze, smokes and coffee will be in the top ten right after any prescription drugs and pain pills like Advil.

Yes.  Fortunately, that has not been an issue.  I rotate the stock and have had the shed for 10+ years so I would have noticed by now.  I also only keep fuel and paper out there, no food source of any kind which makes it less likely to have pests attracted in there.

I keep quite a bit of booze on hand (it doesn’t spoil!), and I like growing tobacco.  I have two Turkish varieties and Virginia Gold seedlings.  They have grown a lot more since this picture was taken:

We are going to bait so many people into our death pits.

As stated, civility goes out the window as soon as people get hungry.

Consumables that will be gone first:

-gas is likely first to go, and has consistently been the first thing to run out in every recent disaster.

-clean water.  In addition to gas panicking, clean water flies off the shelves.  If utilities go, water will be a major issue.

-food.  Especially if you live in an urban center where few families keep more than a few days of food at a time.

-batteries, prescription meds, hygiene products, and comfort items.

-ammunition will probably be a little ways down the list.

As we have seen in every disaster, people grab all the consumables they can as fast as they can.  Which is why *you* need to ensure you have adequate food, water, medical, and hygiene stores for your family.  Even just 2-4 weeks worth will give you a major head up.

But one thing that will run out post-haste is SECURITY.  You *will* need friends.  And you *will* need 24-hour security.  If this is a true SHTF scenario, the unprepared will get desperate.  And desperate people will do desperate things like kill their neighbors for food, clean water, and other supplies.

And yes, a generator will make you a prime target if used in earshot of others.

Excellent post and spot-on.  Assuming, of course, the gangsters don't just take everything, including the wife to start with;)

And who not to fuck with.
Unfortunately the masses are toast..when they run out ya.
Not good.

Nailed it. Like to see a thread how many of your capable friends are meeting up with you

They have a lot of redundant items, or they break things out unnecessarily in my mind.  Resorting and condensing them gives me these general categories:

ANIMALS and/or LIVESTOCK:  Possible protection, transportation, or food.  I think they overlooked cats as pest control (it doesn't help if you stock up a bunch of food and mice/rats eat it all).

BOOKS:  Helpful, but it will still be a rocky transition if you're not living it to some degree (i.e. actually going camping, even at developed camp grounds, is better than simply having a book on survival sitting on the shelf).

CLOTHES:  Yeah, you're clothes will wear out, and faster in a SHTF scenario.  Being aware of the (very likely) more physical post-apocalyptic lifestyle and the seasonal weather of your locality is important.

FOOD and COOKING:  Frozen dinners need not apply.  However, while stocking up on the basics don't forget things like spices, sweeteners, and other treats.  Don't forget the stuff to prepare your food with.  Also keep in mind what might be useful for trade.

HEALTH, HYGIENE, and CLEANLINESS:  The other three esses; shit, shower, and shave.  Also; first aid, baby care (if necessary), and trash disposal.

HEATING, LIGHTING, and ELECTRICITY:  A generator would be almost essential, but carries some limitations and liabilities.  There are other things like firewood, lanterns, flash lights (with batteries), and glow-sticks.

TOOLS and WEAPONRY:  Guns and ammo, knives, and whatever tools that might be remotely useful.  Probably too late to buy them after the SHTF.

WATER:  Probably only second or third after will to survive and shelter.  We take for granted the clean water we have here in the western world and it doesn't take much to lose it.  I know of towns who's water systems were contaminated after their water towers broke and the water system got contaminated due to back-flow (not sure on the details, but they were on bottled water for several days).

NOTE:  This is not meant to be a survival guide, just a 'Cliffs notes' of the article in question.  I do think they do a good job of pointing out details that some people might forget.  Definitely good for one read through.

Personally, TP, shelf stable food, a means to heat it; water. During the 1992 L.A. Riots ammo, went really quick.

Mine are too and I live near one of their largest distribution centers.

Batteries, bottled water, fresh produce, and meds.

Haha did you already have this ready to go? Great memory and looked it up? GD always surprises
Wtf

The first layer of defense is ANONYMITY. If no one knows about your preps, you won't need to defend the homestead.
This means that the longer the SHTF event lasts, the likelier you will be to be outed. It may be possible to mute the sound of a generator, but can you cover your cooking odors? How's it possible that you are driving ten days after the gas pumps have shut down?  Why are you burying fresh chicken bones in your back yard a week after Walmart has been looted?
Everyone has the "Omega Man" fantasy, but it's far, far better to be the "Grey Man." If you are shooting at someone, eventually someone's going to shoot back.

As you can see, it's an old story... which many people fell for hook, line and sinker! And it wasn't just the chumps who suffered- EVERYone dealt with the shortage! There's a very finite amount of TP in the "pipeline." Manufacturers are set up to deal with a set demand for TP, and are NOT set up to "ramp up" their production. So when a limited number of people fell for the gag, say only 5%, and started hoarding up on TP, then the shelves went bare very quickly, and the people who realized it was a gag suffered!
Carson did NOT create the story, he was the guy who lit the fire; the stage was already set for a nationwide panic. As Paul Harvey used to say: "And now, here's the rest of the story."

You obviously don't know my wife. They'll find our desiccated remains, died of starvation, but we'll have clean asses.

This is my plan.  Worked for the Romans.

We literally had to replace our toilets with ones with extra large trap ways because my daughters constantly clogged them.  God only knows what they were putting down there.

Your first prep item should be tampons.

Oil for yer truck?

Last time we had a SHTF event in 03, we had a total social breakdown for 8 days. It started with a series of Venezuelan funded anti gov't protests, that escalated when the gov't wasted 15 protesters, and everything went apeshit overnight. The protesters blocked ALL the roads to the capital and took the gates of the fuel refinery causing a fuel and food crisis over the weekend.

That Monday it was panic at the gas pumps and the supermarkets. We had a food supply, but no idea how long the disaster was going to last. my brother went food shopping, while i emptied my account. some lady went at him for his 10lb ham and he came home with half that ham, a shit ton of ramen noodles and what ever cans were left on the shelf. That night we ferried 300 liters of fuel from the parked cars at a friends auto shop uptown to our neighborhood. This was done at night, evading road blocks with a buddy who was literally riding shotgun, with an actual shotgun.

Everyone in the city ended up patrolling their neighborhoods forming ad hoc defense groups, cause the cops and military were overwhelmed with all the fighting uptown. We made bread at a milf's house. We went to the "town meetings" held at plazas. We played lots of drunk monopoly, (cause work and normal life was suspended.) we went through half a case of rum, and got fresh eggs and meat at triple the price during our forays.

My friend Mr. Gary had his kid visiting him from the UK. He went to see if his green house was still standing in one of the areas where the protesting was bad on day 5. They ended up in the middle of a gunfight. Gary talked some scared conscripts with FALs and pot helmets into hopping in his isuzu trooper to provide safety. He was getting the hell out of the area, when his ex-wife called his cell. She had been watching this disaster on the bbc. The kid answered, there was gunfire in the background. he was 12 or 13, so the conversation went like this: "mum, we're driving in a war zone with dad, but don't worry, have some soldiers with machine guns in the car just like in the war movies." Gary's ex-wife lost her fucking mind. The kid was on the first plane out once order was restored.

Our part of town, the fancy residential area, got militarized on day 6 and the government airlifted food to the capital to resupply the supermarkets. By then a lot of embassies decided to evacuate non essentials and some severely freaked out tourists.

On day 7, our skies were full of Peruvian air-force Hind 8's taking folks to the airport, cause our nam era heueys can't fly above 10,000 feet. The president and his cabinet resigned on day 8 with 67 dead, which really ain't that bad, but 10,000 people were on the streets asking for his head. Had he not resigned, we were looking at a 3 month state of siege and an actual civil war.

What did we learn?

1.- Put some money away for a rainy day. This thing escalated out of the blue and i was caught totally unprepared.

2.- Keep a fuel Stock

3.- Keep an alcohol and tobacco stock

4.- The practice of buying rice, beans and flour in bulk pays off.

5.- Keep a propane stove and candles ready.

6.- Your neighbors are your first line of defense. Most of the patrols were neighborhood kids and men with big sticks. A communication system was established and people came together to face a common threat.

7.- Intel is priceless. When the government is running a military repression program and the poorer half of town wants to burn down your neighborhood, you need to talk to everyone you know (cops, friends of cops, your friendly army colonel, ministry folks, the cousin to a wife of the chief of staff etc.) to figure out what the hell is really going on. In situations like these, rumors spread like wildfire and its important to know whats real and what is not. A carton of smokes buys a lot of good will. Driving at night to the military roadblocks and offering smokes to the officers and  conscripts to get an idea how things were going was priceless.

8.- Guns are iffy in a mess like this. The dudes who had guns kept them quietly in their trucks. There were no cops, we watched our own neighborhoods. This went well, though a dumb kid went all Leroy Jenkins at a roadblock and shot a protester dude with a .22 pistol one morning. He had to ferry the guy to the hospital. fortunatley the guy didn't die and the family settled out of court with a shitload of money once order was restored, cause he was charged with attempted murder. And once you got military folks on the streets, you don't wanna get targeted for having a weapon, or "denounced" for having a weapon.

9.- Prepare to deal with the herd in panic. what really gets people is the stress of being in the middle if a nuclear meltdown, watching it on tv, getting distressed relatives calling in with wild rumors and feeling helpless holed up in a house. Town meetings turned into regular shouting matches cause everyone was in a freak out mode. People went ape shit in the supermarket and normal arguments had a tendency to escalate. maintaining community relations with civility is a priority. Also, here Alcohol becomes a key currency, since the less uptight people will have a drink to blow off steam.

10.- Most SHTF events don't last very long. People want to return to normal. not everyone has a years food supply in their pantry. Once you hit the one week mark, the poor folks who live hand to mouth run out of food and go on the streets. Past that mark, people do really stupid shit.

11.-The amount of perceived social disorder escalates looting. We were able to contain it because the neighborhoods pulled together and established a calm environment.

12.-the idea that we're gonna be in a prolonged mad max apocalypse is only applicable if there is a disaster of biblical proportions. And even those events eventually come to an end. there is always a reckoning, and your behavior will be duly noted by your community.

Thank you, @tads for sharing your experience.

During SHTF I’ll just order whatever I need on Amazon Prime. After Hurricane Michael I was receiving Amazon orders before they’d even cleared all the roads of downed powerlines. The mailman had to climb through the down trees in the driveway to deliver one of the packages.

“Oh shit I need more extension cords for the generator and a new chain for my Stihl!” Delivered at my door 30 hours later.

They don’t care what’s going on outside, your Amazon order is going to arrive, dammit.

I do.. but I shit a lot.
I will sit like a king on my throne when the apocalypse comes.. both literally and figuratively.

Yes, that was an excellent post.