I feel for those just waking up and starting out.

You have time, it's just how you use it.

If you waste it making "lists" and "lists of lists" of $hit you are never going to buy/never going to do, then it's time wasted.

If you get out and make progress, a little at a time, then your making the most of the time. But it's got to be steady.  So often "preppers" get all worked up over a news piece and do a little bit, then stop and go back to sleep. It's got to be steady. It can be the smallest bits at a time, as long as they are steady.  38 years I've been preparing, most of it extremely slow, but steady.

The key is to continue to prepare when it's "good times." Most don't. They wait till stuff looks bad and then "oh da noiz, I better prepare!"  It's a lot harder to do then. Waiting to get started has never helped anyone.

A year supply of basic grains is less than a case of rifle ammo. Yet I doubt many new "preppers" have a basic year of grains. Why? Cause the ammo is more fun, even if they don't shoot and train regularly, it makes them feel good to have an "ammo fort."  Yes you need ammo, mainly to continue to develop SKILL AT ARMS, not just to say you have 20K round of 5.56 you never shoot. But you also need food.

If you plan remotely decently, you won't have to fight everyday, but you will have to eat every day.

On the property situation- look for a small tract out of the way you can pay cash for. Better a paid off piece of bare land you could camp on, then a heavily mortgaged house.  "But you see, when things get bad I will say eff off to all my creditors and get all this stuff for free!"  It's both saddening and a little sick that a few think that way. But most importantly it's not realistic.  I could tell you about some dunskies that ran up CC bills before Y2K thinking their balances would somehow go "pooof!" on 1/1. It didn't happen.

Build a small house a little over time, paying cash as you go. Build it where you can add on if need be. My house started off as just a retreat house, something I planned to stay at on the weekends and if something ever happened only. Economic necessity of the time and some actual BO scenario make me realize I wanted to live there full time. We had a nice small paid for house, well insulated, poured solid house. Later we added on.

Doing SOMETHING is important. Good luck.

Have had 3 40 foot containers since the late 90's.

I wouldn't want to live in one.

Not matter how well you ventilate them, they do go to crap over time. Expect some mold and moisture issues and plan accordingly where supplies are concerned- avoid cardboard.

Yes, you hit a lot of the nails on the head.  The current debt ceiling is unsustainable.  Just the debt alone is now the US's single highest budget item.  Our debt to GNP ratio hasn't been this high since the height of WWII.  I don't see the fed cutting spending anytime soon either and have little confidence in our electoral process.  

As for container homes, man have I seen some doozies lately.  Stacked and side by side, windows, doors, and added sun rooms, they're gorgeous things, very livable, but I question the cost and the maintenance would be substantially higher than conventional homes.  You don't have to sand a house before you paint it.  

I do have a story you may find helpful.  

Tj Story Time "The Homestead"  

My parents were both hard workers and saved what money they could.  Just before their retirement, they bought some very rural acreage at a very good price.  Without any debt, the idea was build a little at a time to where when they do retire they could move in.  First investment was a pole barn so they had a place to store building materials and later have a garage.  A 1/3rd of that they finished as a one room efficiency apartment to have a place to stay in during the process.  Next was power, water well, and septic system based on a three bedroom.  Then the major investment, they bought a double wide modular home and had it put on a footer, block, substructure and had a front porch and after installation a deck installed.  The deck they bought a composite material which in retrospect was better than the modular.  By the time they finished upgrading that double wide, other than the frame nothing was left of it.  The roof was replaced, the outside siding, all the plumbing and fixtures, insulation, inside walls, carpeting, flooring, to where about the only thing left original was the studs and wiring.   It was a hell of a nice place when finished.  I'd tell you it was a mistake but in retrospect doing it a little at time, they didn't borrow any money.  They later added a two story barn with lean to for their tractor.   When my father passed, my mother made enough of the place to move here to TN and pay cash for a 3bdr with attached and detached garage with a big yard.  It was a hell of a lot of work.  So much work, constantly improving became a way of life.   It was as much work, they could have been on a working farm.  It was every day and before retirement work all week then travel and work all weekend.  They enjoyed seeing the progress.  

My brother inspired by what they accomplished bought an adjacent plot of land, did the same thing, but took a different approach.  He went with a two story cabin approach.  He had a basement put in, half his expense, and bought an Amish building.  Instead of the particle board siding, he bought insulated Vinal log siding which they installed upon setup, insulated the hell out of it twice over state minimums, did his own wiring, his own plumbing, and finished off the the inside with bead board he finished with Polyurethane.  I liked that so well, I did the same on my house when I added a sun room.  It's really sharp.  It was small but "Oh my was is sharp."  It had two beds in the loft and a fold out in the living room.  He had one of those chimney wood burners on his deck and you could relax there to a nice fire. He used a through wall AC/Heat/Heat pump like hotels use and man that place was nice even in below zero temps. In comparable dollars, he had half as much tired up in his project.  Still with a hell of a lot of work, it was in a fraction of the time.  

Biggest hassles without hesitation was dealing with country permits. Septic was a PITA for my brother as the county insisted it had to be for a 3 bdroom house because somebody some day may tear that cabin down. The cronyism is really bad in less populated counties.  They damn near insist you use their cousin BillyBobJimJack especially in a Democrat run area.   Many a stressful days dealing with the government BS.  At one point because he too was still working, he considered a composting toilet but already on the county radar they squashed that idea because they had no county facilities to dispose of the waste.  Tell you how insane that was.  The next farm over the son ran a septic pump out business and would spray the waste over his fields, no kidding.  Anyway what advice I can give anyone thinking of a homestead is before you buy a thing, learn the county BS. First stop, the courthouse.  I kid you not in that county there were rural trailers with no septic at all taking a catch me if you can approach and one the couple didn't have running water so took baths in the creek.  

Biggest help, another hands down, was getting to know the locals.  Rural areas even up north where this was, everyone knows everyone of knows of them and if there's a way around it or better way they know it.

Bottom line, homesteading without debt can be done.  I've seen it twice in my family. It does require upfront cash and one hell of a lot of planning and dedication.    

Tj  

I own 55 rental properties in an old-line rust belt city.  My client base is "blue collar to no collar" or working class down to permanent multi-generational welfare.  Some of these may surprise people who never dealt with housing people in these classes, but all signs point to problems.

Those who work nearly always aren't in careers to do work from home.  That means driving.  Fuel costs remain ugly and car repairs can bankrupt them due to living paycheck to paycheck.  I am starting to see more "unique" vehicle repairs and more fluid stains in my parking lots and driveways as they go without repairs.

The ralph count is low.  After drinking holidays like St. Patricks, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, New Years, etc., I count the puke piles on my properties.  More is better because that means they have money for booze.  Less is a bad sign because they don't have money for booze.  If they have money for booze, they're doing decent economically.  This year I found only one.  I haven't had that low of a ralph count since 2008.

Litter talks.  In good times, I see more name brand cigarette packaging and butts, cigarillo packaging and butts (Swisher Sweets), etc.  Now I'm seeing zero cigarette cartons.  Name-brand cigarette packs have been replaced by off-brand and weird stuff I've never heard of before, and there are fewer of them.  But since the number of butts is constant, they're buying loosies on the corner.  Cigarillos have gone from packs to single or doubles from odd brands soaked in weird flavors to disguise the garbage tobacco.  I've watched a few have to hollow them out versus buying pre-made blunts, and they're carefully scooping up the tobacco for re-use versus letting it blow away in the wind.  And even that's less necessary now because they're having trouble affording or justifying even the crappiest ditch weed pot.  

The donation area in my apartment buildings is picked over.  In every apartment building, I keep a closet for tenants to put decent stuff they don't want.  This keeps the dumpsters from filling up (I pay for trash in 3+ or 4+ buildings depending on the municipality).  It also helps the tenants; if they're not financially stressed, rent gets paid on time or at least not as late as it would otherwise.  In good times, these areas fill up and nobody looks through them.  In lean times, they're popular and watched like hawks.  Right now they're all very popular and multiple tenants are watching them like hawks.  I've found two tenants keeping lists of wants for family and friends, which I haven't seen since 2008.

Scams and funny business involving responsibility for utilities is up again.  I'm seeing more "forgetting" to put the power, gas, etc., into their name.  Now they must provide evidence that they did so at move-in, and I no longer am set up for auto-switching into my name when there's a move-out.  This is because some switch it "early" or "the power company made an error" or.....

More tenants than normal are approaching me to see if I need odd jobs done.

Work is getting harder to find and the pay increases of 2021-forward are fading.  My skilled tenants (dump truck driver, backhoe operator, skilled factory work, etc.) are fine but watching their pennies.  My totally unskilled ones without GEDs / high school diplomas are struggling.

I'm beginning to see multi-generational household formation.  This is normally the province of my hispanic tenants with three generations under one roof.  Now I'm seeing it among all of my tenants.

Violence is up.  Previously it was just the normal post-2020 dEfUnD tHe PoLiCe BS.  Now I'm seeing more domestic violence, child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse (different from partying on holidays / ralph count), police visits to arrest for petty to moderate financial and property crimes like garage break-ins, auto theft, shoplifting, vending and laundry machine break-ins, stealing from junk and scrap yards, selling food without a license, fencing, etc.

Pennies and spare change isn't left laying around or just thrown from cars anymore.  Normally I find a few hundred in spare change annually.  This year I'm not seeing that nearly as much; maybe I'll only find $50-$100 this year.

Finally, while rent growth has been healthy, I'm seeing signs of a pause or plateau.  Unfortunately, government is a few years behind and is suddenly getting the idea that it's time to raise taxes.  My properties were reassessed with an increase averaging 83%.  (No, I wish I was joking.)  Assessed value isn't the mill rate, but I know what's coming.  This will lead to more rent increases which will further destabilize these tenants and create more "social problems" that'll land in taxpayer laps.

LOL, I've seen way more than one.  Those trailers I mentioned in my story all had the idea they'd buy land and improve it.  My feeling is it was a combination of lack of planning thus financial means and quite honestly a lack of motivation and dedication.  It's hard to work a 40 hour week at a job then 40 hours a week for yourself.   Ask any small privately owned farmer?  It's sun up to sun set seven days a week.  It's inside work when it's raining or cold and outside work when it's not.   It's a large pile of materials staring you in the face saying "Install me".  It reminded me of me going to college, working full time, going to school full time, and if I was at neither studying my ass off.  It's so easy to get use to a lower standard of living and just go "Good enough" and slack off.

Nice how the people responsible for inflation get to pick how inflation is measured.   It's pissing down the peoples back and telling them it's raining.  

Here's a dose of reality. Based on TN numbers not evacuating north ghetto cities.  

Housing up 100%
Home Insurance up 100%
Property tax 100%
Meat up 100%
Gas up 30%  My area it was $1.82 a gallon.  Now $3.30.  
Mortgage rates 100%
Automobiles 50%  
Travel 30%
Other groceries 18%
Gold 2020 was $1,770 oz and now it's $2,500 oz.  I guess according to Bidenomics they got this wrong and must be price gouging.  

I don't know how much your budget is on those very little inflation products but to a kid just starting life, it's a show stopper.  

Tj

My girlfriend is also a landlord.  She lives a few states away and has six rentals.  But she deals with the lower end of the upper class or upper end of the middle class.  Think of newly minted professionals, some middle management, recent upper-class divorcees getting back on their feet, graduate-level students from monied families, experienced RNs and PAs, etc.  Her area is very gentrified and high quality.

She notes that car repairs are still happening but are happening in stages.  Instead of repairing everything at once, they're fixing the mission-critical stuff first and then going down the line month after month.  (One gentleman tried doing an oil change himself and made a HUGE mess in her lot.  Turns out he never did it before and "had no idea a car could hold that much.")

New car purchases have become rare.  Used car purchases are the rule, though they're gently used from a lease.  In addition, existing cars are being held longer.

Purchases are down in general.  Where you used to see them think nothing of buying a new grill, fancy fluff for their apartment balconies, etc., they're starting to hold onto what they've got and are haunting FB Marketplace and similar.

The women (especially) are holding their clothes and shoes longer.  There are infinitely fewer trips to Sak's Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, and Nordstrom and my girlfriend is seeing less empty bags and boxes in the recycle bins.  She is starting to see discounter bags like Off Fifth, Nordstrom Rack, TJ Maxx, etc.  She's also seeing fewer Target bags and more Walmart bags, and those bags are getting used to wrap trash.  (Previously these people bought special bags for their trash.  Now they're using their old shopping bags instead.)  There are fewer Amazon deliveries and she's starting to see Walmart deliveries.

Groceries have gone from the corner yuppie store to places like Aldi, Gordon, etc.  Grocery service and pre-prepared meal service deliveries are way down.

The cost of the wine bottles in the recycle bin has fallen.  Previously, it was normal to find $1k+ worth of now-empty wine bottles a month.  Now she's seeing more like $250-350 monthly.

Subscriptions to physical media (magazines and trade journals, newspapers, etc.) have dropped.

Visiting service providers numbers and frequency has dropped.   Visiting housekeepers is down from once daily to maybe 2-3 times weekly.  (Multiple tenants means a provider for a different tenant daily was common.)  Mobile dog grooming service visits went from monthly to maybe once every other month.  Visits from professional dog walkers and cat companions is down as well.  Visits from mobile car details fell off a cliff.  (Car washes in general are down given the appearance of vehicles in the parking lot.)

Speaking of services, tenants are hiring cleaners at move-out to ensure their security deposit is returned.  Previously, they just left it in whatever condition and didn't care.

Given the changed appearance of a few of the women, visits to yoga, spin, and Pilates classes is down or out.

Karenism (whining over minor and petty annoyances) has gone up, and now they're seeking rent concessions for the smallest things.

Requests to add roommates (which divides the rent and shares expenses) has gone up.

Some tenants are seeking extra work, accepting overtime they previously turned down, or trying to start side businesses / consulting gigs to bring in extra income.

Nights out on the town are less frequent.  Nights in are more normal.  This is affecting the singles’ dating lives.