United States Prepper Networks

Here is a true story from the guest author. I ask you, if this can happen to a professional, can it surely not happen to the rest of us? Once again I want to thank CalicoJack for graciously contributing his expertise and writing.

1996, Elyria OH, Aprox. 2100.

I had just gotten out of the Army after serving as an MP, and was working on the first of what would be many posts as a Federal contractor. I was dating the pastor’s daughter who also happened to have a very bad internal warning system in her younger years and as such, married a juicehead powerlifter who sometimes doubled as a professional psycho. Their divorce was final shortly after I started seeing her casually and long before anything got serious. They had a couple of kids together so I had met the guy several times and on more than one occasion he had threatened me just trying to provoke a response. She had also taken to meeting him for the occasional lunch or dinner to placate him if he was in a cranky mood.

One night at her place I had excused myself to use the phone and answer a page. The call dragged on a bit but I tried to get through it as quickly as I could. At the front door another scene played out.

There was a knock at the door which my girlfriend answered. It was her ex. He wanted her to go to dinner with him because he had been having a bad day and wanted to see her. She told him no and being polite she spent a few minutes talking to him as I was still tied up on the phone. He pressured her throughout the conversation to go out with him, all the while his anxiety level was growing out of control. Eventually he asked if I was there, she told him I was. He began to get agitated and demand that she leave the kids with me and leave with him immediately. When she had refused enough she finally said goodnight and closed the door turning the lock as she did. She paused there with her hand on the back of the door thinking about how she had just dodged a bullet. Then the door came crashing in, trapping her behind it and slamming her head into the wall, confusing her for a moment as he stormed into the house and out of sight.

In the other room I heard heavy footsteps falling across the kitchen floor as I continued my conversation, my back to the kitchen door. One second later, he was on me. He had jumped on my back and began punching me in the head and neck, biting my shoulder. Now, when not in a professional setting I am a notorious slow starter, meaning it takes an army to make me lose my temper. I was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on and this guy was beating the crap out of me. So I said into the phone, “I gotta go” and hung up the phone. A second later I picked it back up, dialed 911, and dropped it on the floor turning my attention to the psycho on my back. I tried several of the standard throws, hip tosses, and wrist locks they teach in Army close combat training but this guy was simply too big and too well placed behind me for these to work. My bag was only about 10 feet away in the kitchen, inside were a change of clothes, a stick of deodorant, a knife, multitool, 2 granola bars, 2 liters of water, and an H&K USP in .40 with 2 magazines full of 180gr Hydrashoks. I fought hard for the kitchen using everything my surroundings would provide to gain the advantage and he did the same. On top of having about 60lbs on me he was also fast and shorter than me, making him very hard to throw off balance. I had finally lost my temper and was fighting wildly now, not knowing if I was fighting for my life. We put holes in the walls, broke the furniture, knocked blinds off of the windows and smashed through a door finally landing in the kitchen. I turned and lunged for my bag misjudging the distance in my rage and underestimating his speed. His reaction put him directly on my back with an arm around my throat. Wrapping his legs around my waist he squeezed for all he was worth cutting my air off completely. After a second of pulling at his arms I collected my thoughts and relaxed. I then reached around behind me, snaking my arm between our bodies and grabbed his nuts. He squeezed even tighter and I saw my girlfriend run into the room screaming for him to let me go. As my vision went blurry I saw her pick the phone up off of the floor in the hallway and shut it off. That’s the last thing I can remember for a bit. My mistake had cost me my life as far as I knew, and my mind slipped into darkness.

Suddenly my vision rushed back, and I could hear people yelling in the distance. I was standing in the hallway facing him and my hand was bleeding. She was talking on the phone but sounded like she was quite a distance outside. Her voice began to get closer and I could hear her saying, “….Yes my ex husband broke into my house and he’s trying to kill my boyfriend!” This set him off anew and he attacked again with a scream. This time my body reacted without me at the wheel. The training put him into the wall with my hand at his throat. My boot went directly to his knee, and my elbow followed to his nose sending him to the carpet groaning and clutching his face. My girlfriend looked at me, and said, “Are you okay?” I answered to the affirmative and she told her ex to leave and that the police were on the way. He was on his feet by now and even as wobbly as he was from that knee shot was ready to attack again. She jumped between us and screamed at him to leave and that the police were on the way. He turned and ran out the front door.

Many unexpected things happened here. My bag, as prepared for anything as I tried to be, was useless to me. Also he attacked me from behind, and being short and heavy was difficult to throw. My military training may have saved my life, and here is how I see it.

1. I kept my cool and initially made an assessment that this was and emergency and I needed help.
2. I called 911 and dropped the phone on the floor, sending the sounds of the struggle to the police.
3. Although I made the grievous mistake of turning my back on him and going for my gun allowing him to choke me, something else happened. My then girlfriend told me that my body briefly went limp. As it did she tugged on his arms trying unsuccessfully to get him off of me. That is when she said I began to fight, and so hard that he could not hold me. Once he fell off my swinging continued and I punched a door jamb, splitting my hand open above the 3rd metatarsal, a boxers fracture.
4. When he resumed his attack I reacted without thought just as I was trained and averted another injury.

I made bad errors in judgment, including losing my temper, but my training saw me through. I had a concussion, broken hand, bleeding in my eye, a nearly crushed larynx, and a multitude of cuts and bruises. But I was alive and standing on my feet. As prepared as I was with all of those items in my bag, my brain and my training proved to be my best survival tools.

He got 3 days in county jail.
:hb:

Read more: http://www.shtfmovement.com/users-shtf-stories/topic8023.html#ixzz1mf7oAvD2

Hope this makes you think about your own skill level. Have a nice day, Gary

This morning I bring you what I consider one of the better pieces of work I’ve seen on this very important subject. It’s very clear, concise and not ten pages long. I can’t take credit for any of this, so I’ll give my friend CalicoJack over on the SHTF Movement Forums all the credit he so rightly deserves for this very informative piece of work. Thank you sir for generously allowing the posting of your work here.

First off I am no expert, I have been in the military and continue to work and train in related fields. My experience is fairly limited when compared to the people who have trained me, and fairly extensive when compared to the average person. What I will offer here are highlights from my training and experience for you to do with as you please. I welcome discussion with the understanding that many methods of training and thought processes have been advocated over the years and as many have fallen by the wayside in favor of more enlightened, more violent, or more sophisticated methods/ideas. What I will present here are items that work for ME based largely on experience in specific scenarios, and personal opinion. You know what level you work at and what your mindset is, train accordingly. Having said that, there are no nice violent encounters, so when you are confronted by violence run. If you are trapped you must be prepared to meet violence with greater violence and survive. If you are not prepared, you MAY survive but it will cost you greatly.

If you are physically attacked and there is no weapon involved, you must meet that violence with an appropriate level of force. I am not going to get into a bunch of legal or moral crap except to say that in the eyes of God, the general public, and the law it is wrong to use deadly force because someone hit you in the face. If you are in danger of Immediate greivous bodily injury (maiming) or death, we shall assume you are justified in using deadly force. So what do you do? Whatever you have to. Once it escalates to that level your violence of action must be so precise and so severe that your enemy cannot deal with it, and he surrenders or is incapacitated. Your violent action must continue until it cannot or should not any longer, no matter what else is happening. Situational awareness goes a long way toward never being attacked. In a WROL/SHTF situation you must always be in a “combat mindset”, meaning everything is a potential threat, everyone needs to be watched, every place is a killzone, until you determine otherwise. My personal experience in the CONUS is very limited with regard to violence. It has been a very long time since I have even been approached even by homeless people. I am kind of a big guy, but I am always scanning my surroundings, watching people, their hands, predicting movements and acting accordingly. Most days it is going to be pretty tough to catch me off gaurd, but it happens more than I would like. Still my posture and awareness are like a big sign saying “Warning! Not a victim, hunt elsewhere!” One of the basic concepts that I have been taught that facilitates this is Boyd’s OODA loop. OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, and it is a continously running loop in an aware person’s mind. I say this because I can’t possibly go into ways to mentally prepare yourself for violence without saying awareness and avoidance come first.

There are many sources for information on what happens in violent encounters so I am just going to highlight two here, but you can read until your eyes bleed and and only get a glimpse of the analysis that people have done over the years. A great start for mental conditioning are Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s books, “On killing”, and “On Combat”.

A video to demonstrate why combat mindset is critical. There is no way in hell that I would have turned my back on that second guy.

Here are some points of philosophy that many I have trained and worked with over the years have used to condition themselves and prepare to win in a violent encounter.

Run. If you can’t run, walk away as fast as you can. If you can’t walk away, drive. DO NOT get into a violent situation.
When the violence starts, you should be doing maximum violence with maximum speed to end the encounter.
First things first, kill the enemy.
If someone attacks you with a knife or gun, they are not attempting to wound you and leave. If you need to use a weapon to win the fight, you need to assume you must kill the enemy. Do so, quickly.
The longer you spend in a protracted battle, the more your exposure to fatal injury.
You MUST overwhelm your opponent with violence until it is over. We are not fighting nice, because this is not a fight. Hit fast, hit to kill, you do not want to GET hit.
When attacked DO NOT PANIC. Breathe, you must get oxygen to your brain to think clearly.
Move to cover, laterally in relation to the enemy, then USE the cover. Lateral movement makes you hard to hit, so train to shoot while moving.
If you get hit you MUST continue to attack, or you will not survive. When you’re going through hell, keep going.
DO NOT allow the enemy time to think or move on you, fire on target even if it does not hit is disorienting and allows you to maintain the attack.
Practice your reloads at home, pausing in a gunbattle gives the opponent time to move and take control.
Most firefights outside of the military occur at about 10ft. It is loud, blinding, scary, and entire magazines can be emptied in 5 seconds. Train under stress.
If you are shot directly in the heart, you still have up to a minute to take your attacker down. DO IT.
Your body is strong, and can take much more abuse than you think before it gives up. You must do your part, DO NOT GIVE UP, attack until it is over.
Do not make mountains out of molehills. Medical is a few minutes away, if you are injured you will be treated. Focus on surviving until then.
A knife will do a ton of damage if you use it properly, cut for effect. DO NOT attempt to stab your opponent in the chest and abdomen, it takes too long to incapacitate them unless you know what you’re doing.
Cut wrists, forearms, quadriceps, deltiods, neck. Cutting tendons and muscles stops that muscle from being used, incapacitation is as good as death.
If a person can’t see, breathe, stand, they can’t attack! Attack the eyes, knees, throat/lungs.
When firing at the enemy, aim for center mass, and pelvic region. You are not a sniper, leave the head shots for point blank shooting and snipers.
If you are not on offense, you’re losing.
If you are not shooting, you’re reloading.
If you are not moving, you’re dying.
People survive headshots all the time, you are superman until you’re dead.
We are not fighting, we are overwhelming the enemy quickly and brutally. ATTACK!
You must not engage the enemy in your camp, you must attack him in his. Take the fight to him, advance and attack.
There are no rules in survival, use any means to overwhelm the enemy. Be violent, brutal, and fast. If at any time you can escape, do so. There are no rules in survival, and there is no shame.

I can go on for weeks. But I will leave you with this video, and if you have any specific questions post away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArDRg5SkuT0&feature=player_embedded

If want to read some of the discussion on this topic, I invite you come visit us here, http://www.shtfmovement.com/general-gun-talk/topic16395.html

Hope this helps some folks understand this very important subject a bit better. Have a nice day, Gary.

It’s that time of year again. Most have already started months ago, but it’s never to late to plant a garden. In some parts of the country some of us are late through no fault of our own. First it was to cold, then it was to wet. I’m just now getting the main parts of my garden planted, but still expect to have some decent crop production.

I’ve heard two different people say recently “I live in town and I don’t have room for a garden”. My answer is always, and why not? I mean after all you’ve got all that grass you mow and you sometimes water and fertilize but you can’t eat it. And you spend money on those pretty flowers that you can’t eat either. Replace some of both with vegetables and you might be surprised at what the outcome might be. But, that’s not the real reason for this post. I want to tell you about an opportunity some of you may not have thought of before. There is a good bit of very usable garden space out there just lying fallow every year. Mostly this is because the owner is getting to old to take care of a big garden so they just put out tomato plants and such for fresh eating. There-in lies your opportunity to have your garden. It’s a win-win for the both of you, you get the benefits of your own garden and they reap benefits you’ll probably never think of. They get to see their garden spot back in production and know they’re helping someone, but importantly to them they get visitors a couple times a week and just as important to them, they get to pass some of their vast knowledge gain from a lifetime of gardening. And if you are smart you’ll take full advantage of that last one.Like I said it’s a win-win for you both.

I know these opportunities exist because I’m taking advantage of one such. I’m splitting a large garden space with an older gentleman who doesn’t want to try to take care of the whole thing. He gets the garden for his needs and I get a 35×50ft. space some main crops that I just can’t do in my “side of the mountain” garden beds. I’ll be planting potatoes and most likely green beans and tomatoes that I couldn’t other wise plant. So, get out there and look around you may find a golden, or in this case a green and edible, opportunity. Hope this gets you thinking. Have a nice day, Gary

I own dogs. It’s hard to see my dogs suffer from anything that hurts them. I think I’m like a lot of owners and I’ve tried to research what causes the health problems in my pets. Here’s what I’ve learned about allergies: like humans, pets are bombarded every minute of every day with particles; some large, some microscopic in the air, water and soil. Like our bodies, your pet’s immune system is constantly fighting these particulates to keep the body functioning and healthy. This all started because one of my girls, Missy, had a spot the size of a small saucer on her back near her tail that would on occasion scab over and had no hair. I talked to my vet and while he is a great vet that I trust I was not happy with what I was hearing about my dog let alone the high cost of the treatment being suggested. As I began looking for a viable alternative I went and talked with a local pet store about my problem. The following is what I learned from this store owner in sort of an interview style.

“Here’s my experience with allergies: Every day customers come into our pet store and report their vet told them their pet has allergies. When I hear this I know the “Allergy Scam” is under way. The pet allergy industry centers kick into high gear because they are going to make a pretty good profit off of your pet. Vets now have an excuse to see your pet on a regular basis to control the allergies, the pet food manufactures now can charge you more for pet food because the good old vet can control your pet’s allergies with special food (which the vet most likely sells) and the drug companies are cleaning up at your expense.

You will be told that if you really love your pet you need to get a series of allergy tests. You can expect at least a page full of stuff your pet is allergic. Remember, the longer the list the more profit for the pet industry. In the end the vet will most likely give your pet antibiotics or steroids or both and put your pet on a expensive diet while requiring you to return for treatment on a regular basis.

Back to what I’ve learned: This Band-Aid approach to your pet’s health care, in addition to being expensive, is most likely is bad for your pet’s overall all health. There are things that both people and pets are allergic too – such as bee stings, peanut butter etc. but, in my experience, the vast majority of allergy diagnoses are bogus, expensive and counter to the overall health of your pet. Of course antibiotics do have a place in medicinal treatment but it should be used sparingly as they have side effects, many bacteria are becoming resistant, and your pet may develop a tolerance over time that requires even more antibiotics in order to be effective. In my opinion, steroids should only be used as a treatment of last resort. The reasons are obvious – the side effects range from temperament changes to Cushing’s disease, liver and kidney failure, and increase risk of infection.

Yet, bottom line is most likely YOUR PET DOES NOT HAVE ALLERGIES! His scratching, dandruff and hot-spots, his “allergies” are probably symptoms of a depressed immune system, which does not allow your pet to overcome the affect of everyday particulates. Antibiotics and steroids actually suppress the very immune system needed to fight the allergens! So the cure to your pet’s allergies is not attacking the symptoms – it’s correcting the cause by boosting the immune system so your pet can overcome the allergic symptoms.

So what is the answer? After tons of research I found the answer. Vibrant Pets! This company provides a nutritional supplement that they guarantee will show signs of improvement in your pet’s health and allergies in 2 weeks or your money back. On their website www.vibrantpets.com are a bunch, and I mean a bunch, of testimonials that demonstrate just how powerful Vibrant Pets products really are. One in particular is a testimonial about Muffin, a 1-year-old Yorkie. On their website you can see pictures of Muffin when she literally had no hair because of allergies. I talked to the guys at Vibrant Pets and also to the owner of Muffin and found out that Vibrant Pets was able to turn a tragedy into a success. Because of Muffin’s allergies the Vets did the normal allergy tests and put Muffin on a series of steroids and antibiotics and nothing worked. Hundreds upon hundreds of dollars were spent after which the Vets recommended that Muffin be euthanized. In desperation, Muffin’s owners took her off of all the steroids and antibiotics and went strictly on Vibrant Pets and after just 5 ½ weeks, as the pictures show, Muffin was over her allergies and full coated again. Muffin is still alive and healthy. The total cost to save Muffin’s life was less than $20.00 using Vibrant Pets Ultimate Formulas. I’ve seen this result myself with my customer’s pets and all my dogs get Vibrant Pets every day.

If your pet shows signs of being allergic to anything I suggest you try Vibrant Pets before you do anything else. If it does not help your pet you get your money back. But when it helps your pet, you not only overcome the affects of the depressed immune system in you pet, you also have a healthier pet.

After talking with this store owner I called the folks at Vibrant Pets and found them to be super nice and quite easy to talk to and extremely helpful. As they are pet owners their main concern IS your pet. They are in the business of helping your pet. You can see this for yourself at the Vibrant Pets website here. Now you may ask what this has to do with preparedness or preppers? Well, in talking with the owners I found them to be preppers also. And since most preppers are cost conscious folks I do think this is a good subject for this blog. Not only that but if you go to their website and decide to order one or more of their products, enter the word “prepper” in the promo code box and get a 10% discount off your purchase. Not only that offer but they working on a new marketing idea where you don’t pay until “after” you see the results in your pet. I know, “Where’s the catch?”. The only “catch” is you have to call on the phone for this one. If you would like to talk to the guys at Vibrant Pets you can call 866-945-7387 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              866-945-7387      end_of_the_skype_highlighting And if you call you might get the president of the co./owner on the phone. Give them a chance to help your pet.

Before I go, back to my girl Missy. She is well on the way to being healthy with a full coat of hair with no more bald spot or scabs. Have a great day everyone, Gary.

First of all a Happy New Year wish to all. I hope it will be better than the last, but I fear things may have to get worse before we see them get better. Be a good time to take a critical look at your preparedness plans and fill in the gaps. We may need them sooner rather than later.

Now on to the first new change. As most of you know we here at USPN have a forum board of like-minded people where we hang-out and call home. Most if not all of the writers have moved to a new home forum. I can’t take credit for the choice, it was a group effort you might say. I’m not going to go in to reasons or trashing the old board, it was just something that had to happen. We have all moved on and are happy with our new home. Please don’t let the name in the address bar turn you off as it truly is a preparedness board. You can find the new forum, SHTF Survival, Disaster and Emergency Preparedness Forums, here. There are some very knowledgeable people who are more than willing to help others get better prepared and they have a very active chat room where can also get lots of help with any problem or question. Johnny the owner, also has a blogtalk radio show with great guest and lots of good info. Find more show details here . Our very own Herbalpagan is tonight’s guest, check her out here. We invite you to come join us at the new place and learn or share your knowledge with others. That is after-all how we all get better prepared.

And the second change you should see is the “American Preparedness Radio Net” linked on our main index page. Dave, aka WV Santa, and his group have always been a part of the networks, I’ve just been lax in getting it done after he was ready. This is a group of Ham Radio operators trying to folks involved in “emergency communications”. If you’re interested give them a visit via the link in the sidebar to the right.

And finally, I fully intend to do more writing here and endeavor to keep this page more current and up to date, also if anyone would like to try writing please contact us. Again, Happy New Year and as always have a great day, Gary.

I’ve noticed a lot more traffic to the blogs than usual and I now know why. It seems one of the sites in this network got mentioned at “Survival Blog”, thank you Mr. Rawles, and caused the increased traffic. Welcome to all our new guest. We are a small, but growing, group trying to help get information to folks wanting to get themselves better prepared for tough times ahead. We are always looking for new writers for the different blogs, so if you would like to try your hand and pass on information you have to others, please contact me or one of our other members. We are also trying to build a small forum board for the express and sole purpose of helping others get their prepping questions answered. You can check that out by using the link in the bar on the right. Again thanks for visiting and everyone have a nice day, Gary

I am trying to gather more how-to articles up on USPN to help folks get a bit more independent. I think here on the Prepper Networks we need to be helping people do things that save them money and, hopefully, improve their situation. I mean, anyone can tell you how to spend thousands of your hard earned dollars and point you toward this or that website thats having the latest and greatest gadget that you just have to have. I really don’t think that’s what we want to be about on the Prepper’s Network. Now, I can’t promise you will not get an occasional rant from me, but Santa and I have decided we would like to take WV in a little different direction, and try to put up more how-to info.

Today I want to tell you about a small and easy-to-make root cellar that I designed for an elderly customer of mine who lives in a small town and doesn’t have much room to work with on her lot. I think this could be used just about anywhere there is a need. This is a little different than some you can see at different websites as they are mostly for just one fruit or vegetable. I designed this so it could be used for up to four different items at the same time.

The materials needed for this are as follows:
* 1- straight wall, 55 gallon metal barrel with a clamp lid
* 1- sheet 3/4 in plywood
* some strofoam board/ or rubber foam such as you’d find in a sofa cushion

This is very simple to assemble and needs very few tools. You start by measuring the diameter and depth of your barrel on the inside. You subtract 1/2 in from the diameter measurement and 2 in from the depth measurement.

Then you take your plywood and cut two pieces from it using these measurements ( see table below) and then mark then center of each peice the length of the longest section. Then mark 1/2 in both sides of your center for half of the total length. This is the most critical point to remember, the old carpenter’s rule “measure twice, cut once”. Then cut this 1 in part out and measure on half the length.

Repeat with your other piece of plywood. When you finish you should be able to slide the first piece in the barrel with the long notch up and the second piece with the notch down. This should give you a barrel with four equal compartments. Then you ned to cut from the foam board three pieces that just fit inside the barrel, or one piece of the foam rubber.

You can then choose one of several ways to bury the barrel. You can completely bury it with just the lid sticking out or you can bury it half way and use the dug out dirt to cover the top, or you can just lay it on the ground and use bales of straw or mulch hay ( which you can use in your garden the following year). You can also use trash bags full of leaves to cover the barrel. You are trying to to insulate it enough to keep the temp near 10 degrees. You now have a functional root cellar ready for filling. When it is full you put your styrofoam disc or the foam rubber in and put the lid on. Hope this helps and if you decide to try, best of luck to you.
nitewalker (Click on picture for full size view)

I would like to offer my apologies to all of our readers. I have not been diligent about getting post on the blogs for some time now and I will do my best to remedy that situation. I’ve been so busy trying to keep my head above water that I let the blogs fall by the wayside and I’m sorry. Thanks for your support and interest, Gary

I was thinking that a helpful how-to post that can save you some much needed cash would be good for today. With that in mind I’ll try to help you build a functioning water filter. Directions as follows.

You can make your own “Big Berkey” type water filter for about one third the cost and a little bit of time on your part. The materials you will need for this project are two food grade buckets of two to five gallon size with lids, a “Black Berkey” filter, three brass or stainless one and one quarter inch 3/16ths bolts with nuts and two washers each, three rubber washers of the same size and either a cpvc threaded boiler drain or a flip-up spigot like those found on large coffee pots and some water coolers.
The first thing you want to do is scrub your buckets and lids meticulously clean and then wipe them with some bleach water and let air dry. Then put the lid on one bucket and sit the other bucket on top of the lid. It should nestle inside the rim of the lid nicely, then drill three holes the size of your bolts in a triangle pattern about 2in. in from the edge for small or three for large buckets. Then slide a rubber washer and a metal washer on your bolt then put them down through the top bucket and bottom lid. While the buckets are still in this position drill a hole 1/8th inch less than the thread size on your filter element, usually this will be 11/16ths, but double check that to be sure. Now lift the lid and bucket and lid off together and put a washer and nut on each bolt and tighten pulling the two snugly together. Now you want to drill a hole for your spigot near the bottom of the lower bucket, 1/16 smaller than the threads if using a cpvc boiler drain then screw the drain in keeping it as square in the hole as possible. If using the flip lever spigot make the hole the exact size needed and install spigot making sure you have one rubber washer on the inside and one on the outside. Now put the lid back on your bottom bucket and then screw your filter down through the hole you previously drilled in the center and you are now ready to put your new water filter in to service.Follow the instructions for cleaning the ceramic filter and be sure and pre-filter any “dirty” water and this system will do many, many gallons of water for you and your family.
Good luck and as always, if I may be of any assistance you need only ask. Everyone have a nice day, Gary.

It certainly is starting to look like things are on the brink of a irreversible slid in to an area this country hasn’t seen in 75yrs and I don’t think there is any stopping it now. The new spending package doesn’t seem to be making everyone feel warm and fuzzy like our gov said it would. Well duhhh, us peons out here in the real world could have told them that weeks if not months ago. If you haven’t got your preps together, now would be the time to move it to the front of the line and shift into high gear. I would suggest that you only have a small window of opportunity before the economy starts showing the effects of things that are happening now. Expect prices to rise sharply for most of the basic goods we need and I can see a rise in taxes and other services,if you can call it that, to go up also as the states try to balance budgets. I think now is the time to really hit the basics hard such as dry beans, rice,flour and other things you can use as the foundation to feed your family. You can still find some stuff at prices that will allow you to buy lots. Look in the Mexican section at Dollar General for pinto beans at $2.00 for a 4# bag and 10# bags of rice at $4.25 and they still have Treet at $1.00 per can. I mean the very basics here not the things you wish you could get but can’t afford or are otherwise out of reach. When you need them the most what you have on hand will trump what you wish you had every time. Get the most bang for your buck while you still can. Do what you have to do now and your family will thank you later.
On a related note, I mentioned old cookbooks the other day and I found a couple of links in my bookmarks I’ll pass on. The first is on how the Indians used the very basics,www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/NAIFood/NAIrecipes.htm and the second is an e-book from WW1 that has a lot of very basic stuff http://www.gutenburg.org/ebook/15464 Hope these may help you get an idea of what can be done with just the very basics.
I know everyone talks a lot about food but there is more things that will be needed so don’t make the mistake of honing in on just one thing like food and forgetting other things like water,light,the ability to cook and all the other things that go into staying alive when you can’t run to the store when you’ve forgotten something. Think about things like an extra pair of shoes for everyone and extra clothes and anything else that wears out or gets out grown. Start making it a point to hit Goodwill or Salvation Army stores and yard sales for things you can use to better your position. You will find lots of things like candles(extra care with these),cookware(get cast iron or alum because teflon will not last long over the fire) and many other useful items. Use your common sense and experience and you will find lots of things you can use. If you are just starting to get prepared do as much as you can and try to meet others of like mind and are also prepping and work together to the benefit of all. I wish I had better news but I just do not see any. Everyone have a nice day.