Three pages in and no ones posted this yet


I am disappoint.

I'd be willing to share with young hot single Moms?

Not today Mr Community Survey Census Man!



Seriously, we have prepared for many years and our 2 sons/DIL's/Grandkids are part of our long term plan should something happen.  Most of our really good friends are scattered miles from our little farm in various places around the country.  Doubtful they will make it to us but then again, most of our good friends are of the same mindset.

Our place is off the beaten path and its a long shot that too many people will stumble upon us, but we ALWAYS discuss and prepare for the worst scenario.  

Today, and in the past, my stance is that no stranger gets anything.  But I also know that there are 87 million scenarios that might be handled differently.

Mostly, I pray that me and Mrs RDM happily die of old age and never see the evils of a failed societ/apocolypse.  I smile when I think our sons/DIL's and Grandkids might inherit a bunch of really good shit!

"In case of SHTF I'm coming to your house!"
"OK, but don't go past the pile of dead bodies"

This.

In so far as to create a defensive belt around my family yes.  One way or another someone is coming for what I built.  IMO the best defense isnt me acting like a warlord, but striving to be the indispensable man, the guy that leads the way tackling any issues the community faces.  That doesnt mean show all my cards, but it does mean taking an active role to lead by example.  Its also not my only plan.  I have everything prepackaged ready to roll out and be gone in under an hour with everything if needed to networks beyond our home.

I've been working at this for about four years testing neighbors and building up trust as our first contingency.  You can tell a lot just by doing things like shoveling snow out for neighbors and watching to see who comes out to help.  Homes that turned out to the sound of shovels to help got priority invites to my grill so I could feel them out better.  We started a pay it forward gift of food thing too.  A neighbor gifts another food of some sort.  I only suspected the impact of this from reading about how people reacted to such things.  It definitely broke down barriers between households and brought people closer together.  We also started throwing block parties over this summer.  In a pretty short period of time the neighborhood went from everyone not knowing each other, and minding their own business to people having conversations with each other when they see others outside, and helping people when they need it.  You wont know who is desperate and might start eating people if you dont have a line of communication with them.  Thats dangerous IMO.  

Ultimately everyone of your neighbors is going to be in the same boat as you.  If you dont have the fortifications, the means, and the numbers to defend your keep from everything you are fruit to be picked.  You can instead pitch in rowing the boat leading by example with what you have learned as a survivalist over your life along with the sweat of your brow, and instead try to use the common plight of everyone as a unifying factor to get shit done that would be impossible under normal circumstances.  Your insurance policy is not the horde you amassed in your pantry and safes, but your knowledge and skill to fix things and prevent problems for the tribe.  Without someone that can make problems go away a community will flounder and all will sink.

So its not just food.  Potable water for example is our biggest pinch point, but we have access to a decent amount of water via a large pond and two creeks.  I started putting my play money into action building water filter kids out of two five gallon buckets connected by a Sawyer filter with Chlorine on hand to be on the safe side.  Each filter kit cost about 75 bucks and can put out a ton of filtered water if you have a work crew running buckets.  I've tried to plan for a systemic failure of every system we rely on here, right down to the sewage treatment plant shutting down backing everything up into people's homes.  A bunch of sandbags with a paracord leader for easy retrieval, or a do over to place correctly doesnt cost much.  The first layer of protection will be daming up the nearest sanitary manhole leading to our neighborhood, after we deploy compostable toilets to maintain sanitation to minimize risk of compromising our water sources.  Its critical to keep people in their homes with a measure of comfort to stave off the eat each other phase.  A lot of options and insurance can be bought for the cost of a redundant rifle even with todays prices.

Possibly the best investment right now is quality hand tools needed for every construction trade, auto repair, wood working etc.  If you can build or fix things you become more valuable as a person inside the tribe you are building.  Bonus if everything goes  to hell you have a good start on a new life rebuilding civilization.

We are way past the planning stage now IMO.  You need to be moving to implement your plans to build or expand your networks, ability to provide your own infrastructure, etc.

Certain family members is about it. Look, we all have access to the same news sources. If people choose to sit back and go fishing or watch TV instead of trying to put together the very grim looking puzzle.... Thats their problem, not mine.

Yes, I will walk right past a starving family on the streets. Living in San Fran for 4 years trained me well in that regard.

You able to hold it from a platoon to company sized element of the National Guard sent door to door to collect things for redistribution?  That's how governments the world over through history responded to food shortages.  Maybe you can, but most arent in that shape.

IMO you have much better chances with a neighborhood of locals walling itself off say no thanks were good, or even better building your network up to include local government if possible.  Much harder for the big gov to steal from a local government than it is to steal from citizens.

What are you offering in trade?

I'm not giving food away.

@xd675

This kind of planning is soul-crushingly difficult to pull off, but is, like you said, the best chance to maintain normality.  

Every item of nutritional value you give away is one out of your families' mouths.  All of us had the opportunity to put away for a rainy day, and spend our money and hard earned profit as we saw fit.

No, I would not share.  I might "pay" or "trade" in food for needed items or services, but doubt even that.  Food would be irreplaceable.  Anyone you gave or even traded food to would know you had at least a little more, and would tell others or demand more down the road.

I'd be in just as dire straights as everyone else on the outside, as far as they can tell...

I might seem like an ass but no.  Everyone had the same opportunity as I did to stockpile food.  Even simple things like dry beans and rice dont cost much.

I have a wife and kids, they are the only ones I am feeding.

Like this one...
SHTF anthology by Selco free pdf

Originally I didnt think this possible, but getting to know the neighbors most are prepping in some fashion already lowing the burden on me to make things happen.  It helps most have kids and that naturally protective drive is in place and I have seen good signs of people already being willing to pitch in when less is at stake.

Worse case scenario we vanish in the night for other networks I've set up.

It's your funeral

Yeah... that skinny, dirty, little girl giving you puppy eyes was sent in by a group of 20, just waiting to hear about what food and weapons she is able to see, and if it is worth a physical confrontation.

Lead? Or are you serious.
Make no mistake. I would feel horrible.
If there was ANY hope that whatever caused a near end of world level famine, would recover. Fuck people. Fuck em. Your 2 year old is starving because you did not plan ahead. I feel like shit. But fuck off.

If it is total world ending we have no hope but for a few months of life? Everyone? Everywhere? Fine. What do I need it for?

Liked

The friends I’d feed are self sufficient and like minded so not worried about that but I would if they needed it. My dad, brother, sister and mother, not her boyfriend though. We’d eat him first….

I have zip lock bags specifically to hand out rice and beans.

and when that runs out, I have.....other stuff too.

This ^

If it gets too bad I’m going to be hurting. Thankfully everyone is bringing something (skills). But, foods going to be a problem anything long term….

My last food crisis was our freezer thawing after a hurricane.  Our neighborhood had a giant cookout and everyone ate like kings.

I have great neighbors.

My food is for me. Sucks to be you if you didn't prepare.

For those planning to share, what's the plan after that?  Once they eat all you gave them, and come back asking, begging, demanding more, what's your plan?  Saying no is not going to be easier just cause you fed them already.

What purpose or even good does sharing serve, other than to make you feel better, temporarily?  

Their starvation is only delayed by how ever long you feed them, while your own is quickened.  Added to that is the likelihood of others learning about your supplies, and groups forming to take what you have.

Exchanging food for needed/useful goods or services is only slightly less problematic.  And really, it will only accelerate your own starvation, ... unless you are growing/herding food and have more than enough to sustain you indefinitely.

@viralinsurgency

Who will live longer with a no bullshit long term starvation event, the ones that shared and tried to build community to weather the storm or the ones that isolated themselves and tried to go it alone?  How fast do you think government has police and military going door to door to confiscate from "hoarders" and known producers and when that doesnt work its mobs that will burn you out in spite?  Recent history has government forces able to go door to door easily in this country by selling emergency need when homes arent a community, but they sure stayed clear of the borders of the Autonomous Zones.  

Do you really think some place remote like a farm or homestead is beyond reach?  Can you hide your crops and preps from the Eye of Sauron?  Are you just going to tell that platoon of troops get a warrant and then stack bodies when they persist?  Do you think they are just going to skip that one hard nut, or are they going to call in reinforcements and make an example?  Is that a plan for survival?

Human history doesnt hold well for the isolated holdouts when things go tribal, and one does not need to look much beyond recent history either to see this behavior either.  Humans survive hard times with numbers working towards a common goal.  Most communities, even in urban areas are isolated holdouts.  How many even know their neighbors names?  Do you think someone that familiar with each other is going to be the Calvary?  What if you have been feeding that neighbors belly and their kids and those guys are going to take it away?  Your squared away buddy or three an hour away aint going to make it in time.  Maybe that makes a difference, maybe not.  

I've been in the survival game for a long time.  Everyone I meet is short numbers and is looking desperately for someone they can trust to help them.  Most couldnt even man an extended 24/7 360 degree perimeter watch let alone work details to sustain life beyond their preps.  I've never seen one that actually had the defensible and productive land, and the numbers to hold and work it long term.  Maybe they are out there, but it seems to be a unicorn.

It seems to me if you want a real survival plan, it starts with building a tribe large and strong enough to hold off or discourage those activities while still being able to have bodies to obtain resources, farm, fix and start to rebuild civilization.  Welfare does not exist in a tribe.  You want in you help in some fashion.  

Nothing is 100% of course, but ask yourself what is left if you happen to survive a nation of selfishness that did not care for their neighbors?  Do you really think a shred of the Constitution we hold dear survives?  What values will the generation you raise have when it comes to the value of life after watching you letting the neighbors starve to death?

I am completely open to the idea I am missing something, it wouldnt be the first time, but I have a Wife and kids riding on me getting it right.  Please dont take this as a snarky post because I used to believe isolation was the better option till I thought about it in detail.  I dont have the luxury of pride, this is just the most common success story I see in history.  If you have a better plan, please lay it on us.

Yes I would but I am not exactly sure to who, how much, and how.

But I think it would be the Christian thing to do. Not sure how it would go though. I guess it would depend on how I feel led at the time.

I don't own any food.

Mother in law, and I'd have to help the whale in law. They can have my extra three cans of pork and beans. Other than that, I got nuthin'.



This is a fear I expect sooner than later. In the case of an actual or even perceived food shortage, the great unwashed will demand the government take from those who have and give to those who consume. Prior to any "collapse" of law and order, the welfare state will scream that hoarding food is racist and homophobic, and that the woke government MUST make sure they continue eating whatever we have.
IS that really going to happen? Just a few years ago I would have laughed and said not in my lifetime...I'm not laughing now.

Kinda get the feeling that it would be binary

Situation where it is optional, and maybe you go
with less. Or not, and nobody really dies or is wrecked by malnutrition

Or

Situation where, ehhhhhh you don't really have a choice in the matter (irl, not the internet where you die in a pile of hot brass)

Either situation may resolve itself quickly. Either situation, you're better off being a little generous to at least your friends, perhaps strangers. This sort of transactional pre or post facto math doesn't seem to jive with anything I've read or can infer from being an observant dude. No man is an island, despite any rhetoric to the contrary. Haven't been in a situation like that, so I could be totally wrong

There is polite, charitable, and neighborly mode and then there is survival mode. The slide scale varies considerably WRT this.

I’ve been saving and prepping for years while family laughs and says I’m wasting time and money. Maybe I am, until I’m not…

@fxntime

Where can one buy canned lard?

I’ve been looking for some a long time.

I got mine at Walmart. Check in the ethnic food section.

I have a stash?
I have no idea what you are talking about......

No. Me, spouse, kid.

Everyone else fuck off.

As far out in the sticks as we live it's not likely to be an issue for us. The few neighbors we know are already prepared.

A real food crisis, would likely go hand in hand with power outages, riots, murder, mayhem, loss of services, and much worse. Planning to hunker down, eating well, while everyone else goes hungry likely won’t last long, before your found out. A lone family won’t last long.

Your best bet is to create a armed neighborhood watch, ( depending on your neighborhood anyway ). You will need help protecting your home / neighborhood, get neighbors organized, share resources, and band together, start gardens, hunt, fish, scavenge etc.

What kind of Farmer are you?

"Hey help me plant these seeds and take care of the garden."  

"Here is my pellet gun, see those clumps of leaves in the tree?  Those are squirrel  nests."  

"I know a spot where the mullet are running, grab the cast net and let's go."

That is how I share food.  Still coming over after SHTF?

About as much as I would share my ammo....

I’m going to be busting my ass keeping 3 teenager’s among the six of us fed.

I’ve struggled to keep more than a months worth of food on hand. Between a shortage of space and keeping up with rotating for longer term.

I'd help those I wanted to help but not at the expense of our family.

Its worse.

I meant Eye of Sauron.  Take some government super computers and turn them loose on food purchasing patterns using bank and credit card data and boom you got a prepper list.  You could even be fancy and cross reference it to the Census to get more accurate idea of how much food that household should be consuming.  Likely too late to do anything about that too since they can look back as long as they have records.  

The right was too worried about guns and they got just about everything else.

Isolationists IMO need to give up any ideas they can hunker down and ride this out alone.  They have all manner of intel already that marks you as a target when they need something, its just a matter of processing the data, populating the lists and giving orders.

I will feed whoever in my family is hungry, or whoever can exchange goods or services that I am in need of for food.

The stash their computer AI modeling that used Census info you gave on your house cross referenced to your financial records from grocery purchases says exists.

Here comes an expansion of Immanent Domain.  Heres some rapidly devaluing USD we are required to pay in exchange.  One only need to look how Biden Admin has acted unilaterally under the guise they know they cant do it, but it takes too long for the courts to catch up, if the courts choose to correct them in the first place.

Maybe you can cache it to avoid a sweep, but that has other security concerns like someone watching you and going back to bag your goods.

It depends on what you mean by share.

Just give it out to those in need?  No.

Share with those I have specifically selected for social, cultural, familial, and defensive reasons? Absolutely.

In fact you could say part of the prep is getting just enough to get other people to join hands with me.  Or to have enough to join hands with someone else.

I wouldn't really call it prep though. I've just been buying small amounts of extra canned goods.  A couple cans of extra tuna here.  A dented can of soup there.

I also eat it before it passes it's best by date.

I only store extra for my son who lives in a dinky ass apartment, full time cop and on a tight budget...that's as far as I go. I'll be more than willing to barter, but I would be extremely cautious and selective with anyone in my immediate area.

Of course, I may consider it if shit really hits the fan before 2024. Oh, you would like a can of beans? Where's your voter registration, if it isn't GOP, fuck off. Oh, you haven't voted? Go vote, show me the receipt, and if I approve, you get that can of beans.

I will feel sorry for the kids, but the unprepared, free-loading, liberal and/or apathetic fuckers who don't contribute to society, let alone our community, can feed the fucking worms.

ROCK6

Unless you have a means of producing more food, either by working within your own initial group or trying to build a civilization, all you do by sharing a fixed quantity is expedite the starvation of your initial group, while delaying the starvation of the new additions.  Which my question above addressed.

Better to remain hidden and or defend to the last.  As for your army going across the country door to door, if they could even organize under such circumstances, or any other group of takers, I'd destroy my supplies before allowing anyone to take them.

If you do have a means to produce more food, then it only makes sense to trade food for needed supplies or labor which further your chance of survival.  And only in such quantities as you can do without and still survive, hopefully until living circumstances improve.

To each his own.