I was thinking the same thing, Northern NY here.

What are you trying say? Don't think I understand the point you are trying to make.  Wife and I make a bit above the median family income but nowhere near $140k. We are living the American dream. Life is good…bills are paid…retirement is growing….house is nearly paid for….going on an week long awesome vacation out of the country later this year and a few shorter vacation trips before then all paid for in advance…..

Not sure life can get much better…..

Saw ribeyes at Sams a couple days ago for $11lb. Bought 1/4 cow 6 mo ago or so from a local farmer for around $5 per lb for all cuts of meat including ribeyes.  They won’t ship though…..

I don’t doubt the real inflation rate is higher than the reported numbers. I also don’t think it’s as bad as the doom and gloomers believe either. My wife and I are adapting to the new normal.

In all my years reading accounts of real survival, the ones who usually survive the best are the ones who learn to adapt. Those who don’t adapt, often don’t make it. I don’t like where the US is headed but I’m also determined to adapt to the new normal even when I dislike it.

That's just the last few  years. When you look at the last 25 years, it's even  more scary.

When I first got into gold in 1999, it was $259/oz.  I was making less than now yet could afford to buy several times more than today. Now gold went up almost 10 times.  It is indicator of where we are.
Today the CPI is a complete BS political figure with zero credibility.

Food costs have increased more than 15% over the last few years.  Aldi's, Walmart, and Sam's club have all increased some of their canned and dry goods more than 15% in the last 12 months alone.  They are competition to my personal business, and I track their pricing.  The rate of increase has slowed, but I am not seeing many price reductions.  A few, but those seem to be dependent on local production.  For example, in my area fresh local strawberries are inexpensive this year compared to last year, but that is due to an exceptionally large, qood quality crop.

Other items have fared far worse.  Olive oil for example.  October of last year I was selling 2 liter bottles of olive oil for $ 14.98.  Today the same item costs me $21.78 if I buy it wholesale.

Consumers can purchase less expensive vegetable oil instead, but that is not a true comparison to actual price increases since it is a different type of oil.

A great website to look at for inflation numbers is Shadowstats, the guy calculates inflation based on 1980s methodology, before politicians watered down the numbers.  According to his calculations, we've bounced around 10% inflation since 2008, in 2023, we hit 17%.


Andrew Camarata, on youtube, is one of the few youtubers who I think actually live in their shipping container house.  But he did a great job designing his, he made a castle w/ a workshop on the ground floor.  It's pretty austere living though.  

I make a pretty good income, single, east coast. And I track and budget my expenses very closely. For the last several years, I've budgeted $130 every two weeks for groceries and $140 for gas. After paying all bills and setting aside savings, the rest is spending money.

Here's what I've noticed:

- my grocery haul usually came in $10-20 under my budget and I would stock up on other items or can goods for preps with the leftover

- Now I always come in slightly over budget by about $10-25

- My gas expenses were always about $10-15 under budget (and until last year my commute was 60-90 minutes each way, 5 days a week)

- Now I come in almost exactly at budget or slightly over (and my commute is now 30 minutes each way)

- I usually had between $50-100 left from my spending money (dinners out, few beers at the bar, extra groceries, miscellaneous expenses, dry cleaning)

- Now I spend just about my entire budget every two weeks and sometimes go over

I've lived in a rural area on and off for 30 years in Georgia - I can't image networking well without being a member of a local church.  There are people you work with and then there are those who you do life with.  A lot of people outside church tend to be socially isolated with just exposure to immediate family. This can apply to the more urban and suburban places I've lived.   I've been on both situations and simply getting to know more people in a the church setting (by being active) changed my view of my community.  Not growing up somewhere has a lot less to do with things and more about how well you are integrated socially.

I came to realize that the whole lifestyle of building a 'bunker' full of supplies (metaphorically or not) somewhere is an utter-dead end in every way. Survivalism as a lifestyle is a dead-end. It's not going to address any problems in the world at all.

Not that there is anything new in that lifestyle. But we are where we are because of lifestyles like these, apocalypsis-based, in whatever permutation.

What I have seen over the decades is that "survivalists" tend to be isolated even in the community. They don't form any cohesive community in any sense. Even barter is not encouraged. There is usually distrust and disconnectedness. It's like very bunker is on isolated island with no meaningful links to the outside.

Storing dozens of firearms and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo and MREs for a decade, etc. is a bit strange even in red states from the perspective of normies, so that they tend to be secretive, do not advertise their bunkers or their lifestyle or their beliefs, understandisbly so (and neither do I).

But it is a dead-end, kind of an escapist fantasy. They prefer fantasy over reality. Waiting for the TSHTF, or getting ready for it. I submit that TS already HTF. It's already right here, and right now.  And we are not ready in any sense.

The main generator of the TSHTF is the unaccountable central bank with its endless paper emissions. it's the only agency responsible for the national debt and the interest on it. When the currency devalues and it will - it has - doesn't matter if inflation is an instant 1000% over a few months or a slow 5% which still more than halves the value of the currency over several decades, the effect is the same. They have chosen the later thus far but the former insta-devaluation is not an impossibility.

There is no way to co-exist peacefully with an agency which has basically declared war upon the world. It is impossible to ignore it and hide out in some "bunker" with 1000 and 1 various supplies, it is a dead-end paradigm and in fact escapism and not dealing with the problem is why we are where we are.

I remain convinced that a society cannot function without a well-defined unit of account. Today's greenback is very far away from the monetary paradigm created by the founding fathers, who considered the dollar to be a unit of weight, not worth and certainly not an undefined abstration like today. Our enitre monetary system is nonsense.

Vieira said it best: The Federal Reserve System: A Fatal Parasite On The American Body Politic

We are dealt the hand we play, not the hand we want to play.

We live in the world we live in, not the world we want to live in.

Your post seems very depressing with no hope. Personally, I don’t agree. As long as I’m alive, I have hope. But, hope is not a course of action so I don’t base my plans on hopes and dreams. I base my plans on the world we live in, not the world I want to live in.

There is a lot to monetary policy. I will say, since I stopped listening to doom and gloom monetary nonsense, my net worth has grown much faster. You will financially benefit greatly from learning how our system actually works and then using our system, flaws and all, to your benefit.

Personally, life is great. We live in a good place, in a nice though simple house, we have money to do most of what we want (we do plan our purchases carefully to be responsible with the money we have been given), and we are enjoying life. While I plan and save for the future, I’m also enjoying the present.

Stop listening to all the doom and gloom.

I've spent the last several years preparing for the SHTF that is happening all around us every day. My interpretation of what is slowly happening is completely different than most preppers.

As our dollar descends into madness, machinery parts will get harder to find and more expensive. I have positioned my hobby shop to take advantage of this. It's not a crazy idea, considering we saw just parts become scares due to the man made covid disaster.

I'm not saying everyone needs a machine shop. I'm saying everyone should prepare to be able to market their skills directly to the public. Be prepared to have solutions to the problems that result.

So you’re saying you are trying to position yourself to best take advantage of the current environment, not wishing upon a star for perfect conditions??

OP….note this post. No you don’t need to do exactly what he is doing but, you can find your niche in an ever changing world and take advantage of the situation. Or, you can moan and groan about present events and still do nothing to change your position in life.

Doom and gloomers love the doom and gloom. They aren’t interested in seeing things get better. They want to moan and groan about the present. Instead, look at the world from a logical perspective and then plan for the world you are currently in. No it’s not perfect. Yes there are lots of problems. But, all these things are also new opportunities.

I’ve read doom and gloom literature from the early 1970s to the present. It was garbage then, and it’s garbage now.

This poster has a plan. If things get bad, he’s in a position to benefit. If things get better, well he still has an in demand skill and can benefit. Either way, he benefits. Smart.

Maybe you are right. But I will give you some hope. I think the most likely doomday mechanism is economic in nature. Societies collapse because of deep fundamental economic disintegration. Be it ancient Rome or whatever. Moral disintegration seems to correlate with economic disintegration. I do not know if it's a causation or merely correlation. Anyway. I think the next few years are going to be very turbulent. As the currency either collapse and/or mutates into some kind of purely digital format. We shall have a golden opportunity to rebuild the proper, solvent and stable monetary system.

US will probably disintegrate into various districts/regions/states/conferecies. Imagine this scenario, the funny money people (including gov/mil) are getting paid with are worth almost nothing so the machine grinds to a halt.
Take Texas, the state will say, we have no more incentive to stay in the Union whatsoever, the alliance is a liability. So they declare independence.  Since the fedgov does nothing for us, has not just zero funds but a huge (-).

I predict the central gov will lose the ability to hold things together in another decade, maybe much sooner.   It will just run out of funds and with the hyperinflated 'dollar' won't be able to generate any more funds out of thin air like it does now.

So once TX, etc. declare independence, more or less out of necessity, concerned citizens should approach the state legislature and suggest a completely different monetary system, based on precious metals, a la 1792 coinage act but improved, with automatically calculated ratios, electronic banking, so you can withdraw 0.001 of a gold ounce/gram. And not have to carry gold bullion with you, or silver, or even copper. Every banknote will have QRcode on it to authenticate via an app to make sure it's not fake. We can't use this stuff from the 19th century with almost no security features.

Civil WAr seems very doubtful, because the tyrants in the central gov will not have funds to pay their jackboots to enforce anything. Without payment, jackboots will go home and find another line of work. I think it really is that simple.

My view is actually pretty optimistic, a lot more so than what I read on GD.

I think my biggest disappointment will be if the new, post-collapse regime will be a replica of the old regime. The same fiat paper money, just different design and paper color, but same in substance.  

But going off the grid somewhere, the apocalypitic bunker lifestyle does nothing, it will ensure life will happen to us, instead of WE, the people running things.

I think many current processes which support us now will stop working, completely. Whole functions will shut down.
As in "going to work" and "getting a paycheck".

We *need* a fundamentally new money system. Think of 1790's coinage act (created mostly by Hamilton) you know the one which defined the dollar as 371-1/4 grains of silver and so on. Combined with high-tech. So you can do all transactions electronically, but the money supply remains fixed.

Adding zeroes on a piece of paper does not make one wealthy. Increasing purchasing power makes one wealthy. It doesn't matter how much you make. You could make $5/year in gold coin. But if a house costs $10 and a car costs $3.  Lots of zeroes on a bankote is a sign of trouble and financial instability.

Ask yourself this question, why doesn't the FedReserveSystem make a $1,000 or $5,000 or even $10,000 Note?

Because they want to make it most difficult to transport notes, it's all about control. They want to abolish even the largest denominations we now have.  Like in Turkey, where the largest banknote is about $7 .

My plan is to work on the details of a viable monetary system and then present it to the new power structures, which will emerge out of the ashes of this mess.  Power is not going anywhere, it will merely shift.

I don't agree but that's just my opinion.  

So, what do you think (assuming your opinions turn out to be correct and mine turn out to be incorrect) the average person should be doing to prepare themselves for what you believe is coming?  

While armies of the past were paid, often more wealth followed them home from campaigns than what they actually earned for their service.  I fail to see why this would change, and would certainly motivate a portion of the "jackboots" to continue their work.  Particularly so if there were few jobs or opportunities at home.

Username checks out

Don’t know how many people in the survival/prepper community have caught on yet, but our long awaited SHTF event took the form of Inflation.   There’s no reason to think it won’t continue this way in the long term.  

Not sure if hyper-inflation is the right word, but it sure feels like it; having watched the Land, House and Stock prices double.  

Basically, the Doomers and the Stock Market Cheerleaders are Both correct, but the Doomers lost money, while the Cheerleaders treaded water.

Annoying as it is, it’s not anywhere close to hyper inflation.  Even if ithe inflation rate went up an order of magnitude it still wouldn’t be hyper.  

The no cell service thing - I find this really hard to believe, but what sort of jobs are you talking about? Are these minimum wage jobs?

I can tell you that the fast food drive thrus are pretty empty. I pass a lot of fast food locations (mainly McD) on my daily commute and they are empty, both before and after work. Saturday morning I stopped by a McD for coffee (99 cents with the app) and the parking lot was full - I could see the restaurant was full of seniors. There was one other car at the drive thru.

Chick-Fil-A used to have long lines at lunch and after work up until maybe six months ago. No more.

I think gun sales are a pretty good indicator.

I worked a pretty large gunshow this weekend (I get paid hourly for what I do and it's all OT). Probably the deadest I've ever seen it.
Many of the dealers left upset with their sales numbers.
One vendor stated he bought as many guns as he sold one day. He said guys just kept offering him guns at rock bottom prices. $200 for a Glock 23, $1200 for THREE Winchester '94's, and many more.

All I can conclude is people are hurting. Now it's time to sell off that gun you bought during the Covid boom and never shot, or grandpas old rifles collecting dust.

If I hadn't just bought a house I would have cleaned out one table, 2 Glock 34's for $300 a piece, a 20 gauge double barrel for $200, and a S&W .38 for $300. I probably would have walked away with all of them ??.

There is opportunity in almost anything.  Remember COVID times?  People were buying toys left and right.  I had an ATV I purchased in 2017 for $2100.  I sold it in 2021 for $2900...and it had over 1000 more miles than when I bought it.  Sold in a couple days on craigslist and the guy who bought it drove 3 hrs to get it.  Side by sides, boats, campers, guns, toys of all kinds......all were selling as fast as they could be made.  Well, many of those people bought on credit.  Those toys still need to be paid for.  If you are loaded with debt and the economy takes a dip, you can't pay your bills and you have to sell off those toys you overpaid for and purchased on credit.  Lots of people were living high for awhile during COVID (and government stimulus checks encouraged it).  The problem is, instead of purchasing with cash, they bought with debt. The cash was used for down payments.  With prices and expenses rising, people are having to sell those toys.  I've got cash set aside for a couple toy purchases once I find someone desperate enough to sell low.

I’ve been seeing a lot of newer travel trailers and such on Marketplace for the past year maybe. Weren’t used much, per ads.

I have noticed a lot of boxed foods, like graham crackers, have empty space in the box. They used to be completely full. Half gallon orange juice containers are now 57 oz. Vs 64 oz. Shrinkflation in action.

https://lancasterlogcabins.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI542wlvfUhgMVdDbUAR0IfwQFEAAYASAAEgKPQ_D_BwE

I just looked into these. Since the cabin is a trailer it doesnt get taxed as house.

https://www.history.com/news/great-depression-people-who-made-money

From the article:

Oil tycoon J. Paul Getty abided by a simple business formula: “Buy when everyone else is selling, and hold on until everyone else is buying.”



This site is selling a product so up to you if you choose to consider the advice or not:

https://www.cashflowmojosoftware.com/how-depression-era-millionaires-were-made/

From the article:
The key takeaway from that era, which is just as relevant now, is the power of liquidity. The Depression taught us that having immediately accessible cash reserves is the ultimate financial safety net. This is the golden nugget of wisdom: in times of economic crisis, liquidity is king.

The strategy is simple and straightforward yet profoundly powerful: conserve cash. This doesn’t mean hoarding every penny out of fear, but rather maintaining a balance that allows for strategic investments while safeguarding financial stability.

I did the same with Exxon Mobil and bought in around $44.  It's a nice stable *qualified* dividend payer that has done very well since the crash.

Why are we voting on who the next geriatric president will be? There is too much money to be made in politics. Because they are in control of the levers of power, they will not allow any of us to change the system.
The NRA leaders, perhaps, got lessons from the political system on how to insulate themselves from their constituents and retain control of the system they were in charge of. Only a higher power brought them into check and is slowly unwinding the corruption. There is no higher power to unwind the corruption of the federal government. The court system takes too long and can be gamed by the players. Too many constituents receive payment from the system and will not vote to change it.
What can we do, but wait for it all to collapse? If we prepare for the long haul, will we be in any position to influence the new system? The elites have gathered the power and wealth to wait for that time. They sit above the fray watching us destroy ourselves fighting against the "opposition". The left vs the right, conservative vs liberal, democrat vs republican, IOW the dichotomy. They will continue to rule over us, however subtly, while we war over opinions. Unless we can remove the dichotomy, we are doomed to continue as we are.

21 Facts that suggest we are in an economic SHTF



I am in a rapidly growing city and its amazing to see how many businesses are shutting down all around me.

There was a report here locally that 50% of drivers in the Corpus Christi area don't have car insurance. I got rear-ended last week up in the DFW area and the driver didn't have insurance (they'd let it lapse because they "couldn't afford it" any more). Wife came up with an idea - for those who don't have insurance and clobber somebody, they have to pay the cost of the repair at minimum wage working community service (so it couldn't be called indentured servitude). Me personally, I'd just as soon see them thrown in prison and their car sent to the crusher and sold for scrap (or parts) to pay the cost of repair. Or maybe their car should be confiscated and given to the repairing insurance company so they can supply their repair shops with parts.

If the lack of insurance rate continues to climb, that becomes somewhat of a death spiral of sorts. The people who have assets to protect from lawsuits will have insurance and deadbeats won't. Fewer paying into the system makes rates go up for the remainder. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Living in a fairly modest city, some observations...
-In the last 5yrs, the homeless begging on the sides of roads around here went from non-existant to virtually everywhere there is a stop light.  Many show signs of severe (boarderline dangerous) mental instability.
-A lot of shops have closed down and done one of two things.  1.  Stayed empty.  2.  Turned into a pot shop/payday loan/pawn shop/etc
-There are no longer any 24hr stores in the area.  If you are working odd hours, you better plan ahead.
-The number of cars w/o plates (no dealer tags, nothing) has gone up greatly within the last 5yrs.
-The quality of peoples driving seems to have taken a nose dive since the COVID lockdowns and stayed in the dumpster.
-Customer service has gone from 'meh' to terrible.
-Petty crime in broad daylight has gone up.  Many aren't even trying to hide their activity anymore, they are doing it brazenly.

Sounds like the ghetto is spreading into the area.

I would agree with you, but that is absolutely everywhere.  I'd be willing to bet many of my observations are shared by many others in various different cities.  The ghetto isn't spredding so much as the citiestook a sharp decline (beyond normal) in the last 5years in most areas.  Another observation i've made lately is that many of the hotels (fairly nice ones) in the US I used to go to when traveling for work have also become crappier while also becoming more expensive.

Yeah, just got my E'mail from Bud's Gun Shop.  I don't remember seeing all this "get this GUN for 80 dollars a month".

I guess everyone is trying to get by, but if I don't have cash, I don't buy it.  Can't imagine all the stuff folks put on credit now days.

However, that chicken is coming home to roost!!

Doc

Get out of NoVa, within 3 hours of NoVa, county real estate taxes are 1/2 or less of Fairfax.  Land off the water is very cheap.  Yep the signs, like people selling extra toys, eating out is fading, restaurants cannot hire anyone because of lack of work ethic or welfare pays more, etc.

Record setting stock market, wait until there is a 20% market correction, all hell will break loose.