No matter what type of specific doomsday disaster you may be preparing for, a nearly identical scenario of domino effects will ultimately occur during any long-term nationwide event.
Financial collapse and hyper-inflation planning must be factored into any apocalyptic scenario you are prepping yourself and your loved ones to survive – and hopefully thrive in during the post-SHTF rebuilding stage.
Become A Frugal Prepper
The more you can prepare your family financially now, the better your chances of survival during a long-term disaster. In a post-doomsday society you will face world that is functioning on a startling and highly volatile mix of panic, general chaos, fear, and violence.
Over time, and the amount of time depending upon the type of SHTF event, surviving Americans will adjust to the new reality and begin creating a new type of society out of the rubble – both figuratively and literally.
Do not buy into the fantasy that our monetary system will survive an apocalyptic disaster of any origin. If our government is still functioning, flawed attempts to make the dollar a viable method of currency will prompt printing presses to be working on overtime. This will cause hyperinflation of epic proportions – realistically driving the price of a loaf of bread to $10 a bag.
The dollars in your wallet will be worth a nickel, or maybe a penny before our monetary system finally collapses. The bank will still demand your mortgage payment, the electric and water companies will shut you off if you don’t pay, and all the while your children are begging to be fed. The government will most definitely attempt to collect property and income taxes – and will likely increase them in an effort to remain solvent.
The food stockpiles you have invested so much money in over the years could become depleted far quicker that you anticipated. If the SHTF event is either a financial collapse or slow burn event, like a pandemic, it will leave our government and society functioning just long enough to burn a hole through your pocket before bill paying, mortgages, and rents have become a thing of the past.
Simplify Your Finances
Begin living and spending as if a financial collapse is right around the corner, because it just might be. I do not mean to ban Christmas and birthdays, but to live as frugally as possible, celebrating every dime saved and resource used wisely in order to beef up your bank accounts, and your commodity stockpiles.
Increase your spending and reduce both household and major debt to the furthest extent possible to increase your survival buying power. Live debt free or as close to it as you can manage to decrease the amount of bills you’ll have to pay during a financial crisis or when hyperinflation emerges as one of the domino effects of a doomsday disaster.
Debt Reduction Tips
• Pay off your mortgage, or save enough money to buy even a small place to live instead of renting. Even if you can only manage to pay an extra $100 a month on your house payment or save the same amount back towards a down payment on a place you will own and not rent, you are making worthy progress towards your overall goal.
• Eliminate all debt that is assessed at an adjustable rate. When hyperinflation hits, you could lose your home in just two or three months if the struggling bank calls in your note to help cover their own financial losses.
• Become as self-sufficient and energy efficient as possible. Reducing or eliminating your reliance on utility companies for heat, cooling, cooking, light, washing, etc. will save money on monthly bills that can be used to pay down other debt and/or to stockpile more necessary survival gear and bartering commodities.
• Spend your available money wisely – always a good rule of thumb. All of your saving and stockpiling will be pointless if you do not invest in home or survival homesteading defense fortifications. Think of your bugin location as a vault and guard it accordingly, with weapons, low-tech or off grid high-tech surveillance systems, and enough trained bodies to protect it.
• Invest your time and money into a home-based business that uses and likely will enhance your survival skills. See the Prepper Home Business section below for more guidance.
• You and your family will be far more prepared to live with and on, less, because of your pre-SHTF frugality. The mental and emotional shock that will paralyze tens of thousands of other Americans, especially teenagers and millennials, after modern society collapses, will not thwart your prepared family to a debilitating degree because they have already learned to live without things that will not be readily available during a doomsday disaster.
Buy What You Need/Want Without Wasting A Dime
Best Places To Shop For Preps And Everyday Items At A Discount:
1. Yard sales
2. Thrift stores
3. Warehouse clubs
4. Flea markets
5. Auctions
6. Facebook online trading posts, for sale groups, and auctions for your community
7. Second hand stores
8. Shop for clothing, shoes, and other essentials out of season to save. This will involve guessing on children’s sizes, but most moms do that anyway when they come across a good deal. Anything that winds up being too small can be sold at a yard sale or become a bartering item.
9. Clip coupons and shot at grocery stores when they have double or triple coupon days, this usually happens on a monthly or quarterly basis. If you get good at the extreme coupon clipping, you might end up not having to fork over any money to the cashier during checkout.
What Is Money?
When factoring financial preparedness into your survival plan, you first must accurately define what money is and let that realization sink in for a few moments. Money is merely a government-based form of currency that has value and exists only as long as the government system itself is fully functional – or even exists at all.
Any nationwide long-term disaster you can think of WILL lead to a devaluation of our currency, the rebirth of bartering as the mutually agreed upon alternative to the American dollar, and of course, civil unrest caused by the breakdown of our society and the rule of law.
What Will Replace Money?
Precious Metals and Gems
Gold, silver, and precious gems will be the first “new” form of currency to emerge after a SHTF disaster. We have all seen those, “Invest in gold…” commercials. Investing in gold bars (not certificates) and jewelry will always be a wise choice, but it is not the only precious metal you should be spending your hard-earned money on.
Gold, and diamonds for that matter, are more valuable than silver. You can buy or barter for large or in high demand items with gold – which can include a single can of food or a jug of clean water if you are desperate because you were not fully prepared or were stripped of your stockpile by either nature or man.
What you will not want to purchase or barter for with gold or precious metals are less valuable items.
Since you cannot bite a gold bar in half or expect a trader to have “change” during a barter, invest in both small amounts of gold (like necklace charms) and silver, as well. You can buy silver bars, pure silver coins, and yes all manner of small amounts of silver jewerly to break down your buying power even more.
Commodities
A fellow survivor may have exactly what you need and be more than willing to trade, but he or she may have absolutely no use for a piece of gold, silver, or an exquisite diamond and emerald ring. What the survivor wants are useful commodities that will buy his family another day on a planet that has been thrust into chaos.
You can likely stockpile gently used versions of most of the top bartering commodities on the list below by hitting yard sales, rummage sales, flea markets, and estate auctions. A couple of years ago I stopped at a church rummage sale just an hour before it closed, knowing most of the cool stuff would be picked over but what was left on the many tables would be sold dirt cheap.
I got a “fill a bag for .25” deal. In the past when I have stockpiled preps in the same manner I often scored a stuff a bag for $1 deal and was thrilled, but a quarter a bag was the biggest cheap prep shopping trip ever! I spend a grand total of $25 and walked away with 15 coats, multiple sets of shoes and boots, sweatshirts, and blankets.
I did not walk away with the most stylish of garments, but all were in really good repair and in a vast array of sizes that will fit the members of our tribe, including the always growing children, and still leave me with ample to barter when necessary.
Commodities that are incredibly affordable to buy and stockpile now will be in high demand on a daily basis after the SHTF.
Top Commodities For Barter
• First Aid
• Footwear
• Outerwear
• Solar Lights
• Batteries
• Handheld Radios
• Canning Supplies
• Fire Starters
• Hand Tools
• Livestock Feed
• Personal Hygiene
• Salt
• Sugar
• Blankets
• Fishing Gear
• Comfort Items
• and more
Develop A Necessary Skill For Post-SHTF Bartering
Use your survival skills and hobbies to launch a doomsday disaster career that will be in high demand. Make a pros and cons list of all the skills you and the members of your family or tribe (my favorite word for mutual assistance group) possess.
Discuss each item on the list and then determine how they could be useful during and after the SHTF. Review the list again to figure out what vital bartering services are missing that you or others could learn now to enhance your bartering efforts later.
You can likely turn many of these skills into a part-time income or a home-based business right now. More on that in the next section of this financial guide.
Top 25 Survival Skills to Barter With
1. Gardening
2. Farming
3. Ranching
4. Alternative Energy and Biodiesel Fuel Produce and Repair Technician
5. Livestock Breeding
6. Aquaponics
7. Worm Farming
8. Butchering
9. Herbalist
10. Seamstress
11. Beekeeper
12. Candlemaker
13. Soapmaker
14. Food Preservation – dehydrating, canning, and smoking
15. Firewood – gathering, cutting, splitting, and hauling
16. Farrier
17. Hunter
18. Angler
19. Wild foraging
20. Hide tanner and leatherworker
21. Engineer
22. Construction worker
23. Mechanic
24. Woodworker
25. Welder
Once the rebuilding phase starts after the apocalypse, it will not be the man or woman who HAD the most money in the bank or the most largest corner office who is wealthy, but the individuals with skills that are in demand.
It will be the farmer, the rancher, the medical professional, the mechanic, the farrier, and the gardener who will be treated like royalty and not the celebrities and lawyers and tech gurus of the world.
Do you and your tribe have enough skills and commodities to start a trading post when it becomes safe enough to do so? Now that, my prepping friends, is one sure route to riches in a post-doomsday world. Such an endeavor will require skills, goods, and a robust amount of security to keep it all safe.
Survival-Based Home Businesses
The family’s self-reliance plan should include not only hands-on cross training to help increase their chances of survival, but also to use their emerging and mastered skill sets as a pre-SHTF money maker.
Sadly, a significant number of preppers think they cannot live on their survival homesteading retreat, or are chained to small towns and the suburbs so they can earn a paycheck. Working online from home and/or starting a home-based business opens up a plethora of money-making opportunities which should allow most frugal preppers to live where they have the best chances of survival.
The items on the list of prepper home businesses was created with individuals who had at least a backyard and unrestrictive government control over their lives via permits, zoning laws, or homeowner association dictates. Some of the prepper-based businesses could work in any environment. Never let where you live deter your from learning new survival skills, honing existing ones, or trying to use your knowledge to turn a buck.
Selling locally from a home-based shop, online, and at flea markets and community events will give you multiple potential money streams while promoting awareness about your business. ETSY is one of, if not the best, places to sell handmade, repurposed, and vintage items online. You can also sell supplies and materials on the website, like old barn wood, rusty tin from a barn roof, and bargain fabrics and thread you buy and resell via an online storefront you create on the website.
Top 10 Survival Home-Based Business Opportunities
1. Blacksmith – Bladesmith – You can make beautiful knives, indoor and outdoor decorations to sell, decorative and functional hardware fittings, and so much more to earn extra money that could potentially become your sole source of income.
2. Farrier – Learning how to shoe horses and trim the hooves of both medium and large livestock can earn hundreds of extra dollars, at least, in many rural areas right now. After the SHTF happens and horses once again become a primary mode of transportation, the demand for farrier services will be even higher. Buy a van or enclosed work truck and make it your office on wheels so you can travel to the customer – a service that is not always offered in many areas.
3. Leathercraft – Invest only a couple hundred dollars into leatherworking tools and supplies and launch a repair and handmade goods business. If you own livestock and tan your own hides, that will drastically keep down your materials costs. Not every community is lucky enough to include an Amish population like ours, making the chances of going to a leathercrafters for repairs and beautiful homemade gifts very slim. Leathercrafters can make or repair many useful and decorative goods, such as: wallets, purses, holsters, knife sheaths, saddles, saddle bags, bridles, reins, boots, shoes, and rifle scabbards.
4. Potter – Turn an enclosed porch on your home or a section of the garage into your pottery studio. You can make not only decorative items to sell now, but useful daily cookware, bakeware, and water storage containers for survival use.
5. Beekeeper – Raise bees not only to pollinate your own garden crops and fruit grove, but to rent out to other growers, to sell raw honey, and to sell beeswax, aslo.
6. Seamstress – Sewing is quickly becoming a lost art just like canning. Seamstress shops have disappeared from our American landscape just like print newspapers. You only need to dedicate a small space in your home to open a repair and tailoring service to make adorable baby and child outfits, quilts, to engage in custom machine embroidery, etc.
Upcycling old fabric into something new is a great selling niche to consider. Not so long ago I used two vintage handkerchiefs and a bit of scrap lace to make a toddler dress. It was such a hit I bought hankies 2 for a $1 at a local discount store and make more of the dresses for sale – each sold for $25 each. I often use tablecloths, bed linens, and curtains from yard sales and clearance racks as fabric for patterns, saving me a bundle on supplies.
Craftsy is a superb website to visit for hundreds of free patterns. I have sewn a few thousand different creations and have only once paid any money for the pattern I used.
7. Toy Making – This is a great prepper home-based business the whole family can enjoy doing together. Making simple toys from natural wood and fabrics are still in high demand, even in our cheap plastic toys from China world.
Making little dolls from pipe cleaners, simply painted faces on wood beads for heads, embroidery floss, and a little bit of felt for clothing typically sell for $12 to $25 on ETSY.
Little wood cars that wood peg people blanks you can buy cheaply and sell after painting them with simple faces and clothing, are also great money makers that require darn little artistic skill. Learn how to make Waldorf style dolls and make your way into the high-end homemade toy market where the delightful dolls frequently sell for at minimum of $100 each.
8. Carpentry – Use your handyman or handywoman skills to open up a home based shopped selling furniture, cabinets, tables, etc. You can also advertise your services for small repair jobs in your community.
9. Rope Maker – You might not be able to garner enough money making rope to quit your day job, but you can bring extra money into the family making and selling handmade quality rope and weaving paracord bracelets and accessories. Like with most of the survival home-based jobs on this list, consider creating instructional videos that can be posted online to generate ad revenue and hosting workshops to train others who also want to learn a valuable skill.
10. Gunsmith – Knowing how to repair and build guns, as well as how to reload your own ammunition gives you the potential for a highly lucrative home-based business. There are some drawbacks with this prepper work-from-home job, though. Once the SHTF, everyone will know you have a stockpile of guns, gun parts, and ammo and you might not want to risk that information becoming public or helping to keep others well-armed during and after a SHTF disaster.
11. Weaver – Got sheep? Learn how to weave and make the most of the wool you have sheared. A growing online demand for natural fabric by fabric artisans should make this home-based job worth the effort and money to get it up and running. You could combine a weaving business with a sheep breeding business to increase the frugal prepping family’s finances even further.
12. Basket Weaver – Make baskets to sell now that are both useful and beautiful while spending off time between orders making an array of functional baskets, including flat-backed type that can be hung from a horse, ATV, or motorcycle.
13. Cooper – Open a cooperage and turn the wood cut from your property into handmade buckets, barrels, etc. Those items can fetch a high price for decorative purposes now will be essential for food storage and water toting during a long-term disaster.
14. Wood Cutter – Hire out your services as a tree cutter, wood splitter, sawmill planer, and firewood hauler. A home portable sawmill, a small one, roughly costs about $5,000 to $7,000.
15. Greenhouse – Start a small or large scale greenhouse and grow heirloom seeds, medicinal plants, and dwarf non-native fruit trees. All of these items are great sellers both at farmer’s markets and online.
16. Livestock Breeding – Help your herds, flocks, colonies, and sounders learn how to pay for their keep by breeding them and selling the offspring – and eggs. Find a niche to fill a void in your region to increase the potential for profit as much as possible.
Every farmer, homesteader, and prepper I know wants guineas on their land but have to order them from a far away hatchery – which only ships a couple of times a year, or get super lucky and buy a few at Rural King during their once a year sale.
Guineas protect your chickens and ducks from predators and alerts you to predators lurking around the barnyard eager to dine on your larger livestock. Due to their watchdog nature, guineas tend to disappear frequently when they sacrifice themselves to save their charges.
17. Livestock Guardian and Herd Dog Breeder/Trainer – Breeding and training dogs of this type if you live in an agriculture community could prove a steady extra income stream that when combined with boarding and grooming services, could allow a prepper to work from home all the time.
18. Herbalist – There is no special certificate to work as an herbalist, but the advertising of such services and allowable activities varies by state. In most states, you can make and sell your own natural homemade salves, tinctures, supplements if you follow specific state guidelines when proclaiming what the item will do for the consumer.
19. Baker – Learn how to be an expert bread, roll, pie, etc baker to sell your delicious homemade good and to teach others how to make healthy bread from scratch. To sell commercially, you will likely need to have a kitchen inspection from your county health department.
20. Survival Instructor – Become the hero of other preppers in your region and probably some weekend warriors too, by offering on-site training, primitive camping, tree identification, forager, hunting lease weekends, fishing your stocked pond, and by teaching a series of other small-scale but essential outdoor skills to both children and adults. Create your own gun range and become a certified gun trainer and offer concealed carry permit classes, etc.
Wrap-Up
Becoming a frugal prepper and developing a home based business that will allow you to quit your day job and even more onto your survival homesteading retreat are tasks that are typically accomplished in stages.
Set some spending, saving, and extra money earning goals and diligently work toward them on a daily basis. Once you start seeing the results of your labor and sacrifices, set new goals to achieve while resting assured that the family’s overall chances of survival increase with every goal reached.
$10 for a bag of bread? When the trucks stop rolling that bread will cost $100 if available at all.
Pay off the mortgage now? How about buy precious metals now, wait for the crash and massive revaluation of precious metals then, pay off your mortgage for pennies on the dollar?
Get your money out of the banks now to avoid a bail-in later.
This is a lot of good ideas and advice,to me,excepting the debt thing.I have no debt but property taxes as they keep coming due and other bills,that said,it all crashes the banks are not taking your home/whatever credit card debt you have,oh well,a write off ect.Hell,stock up on ammo on your credit card,is yours in hand!
I believe even if just starting to prep,congrats,you got over the mental hurtle,just add a few cans/bag of rice a week if in tight finances,a box of ammo/bandaids here and there,you get the point,trust me,the smalls add up.There is a lot you can do repurposing items for new jobs as times get tougher,getting little healthier now and perhaps picking up a martial art will only benefit you and could save your ass.
Look at this as insurance/a spare tire ect.You hope you don’t need it but if you do you are ready.All the food/camping gear/hunting gear and skills I am slowly picking up adding to ones I have will use either way so see no real loss/downside,as you rotate and eat foodstock and just become a more ounded person skill wise.
So,get off your ass and do something no matter how small a start!
Gold and silver are great, but lead and brass are the most precious of metals in a time of chaos.
.22 will be the new dollar, silver dime the new $10, a 1/2 oz. gold coin will buy you an AR when a loaf of bread is $100
The suggestion of holding diamonds is dumb. An once of gold is an once of gold , but good luck getting what you paid for gemstones when the producers have so much of them in inventory that they keep them off of the market to support the price. Not to mention that you need to be an expert to know what you have in your hand.
All good ideas but the problem is you will still be an ‘army of one’ or whatever you can put together in the way of trusted family on a patch of ground.
The real ‘prepper’ will have an intercontinental escape vehicle, otherwise known as a blue water sailboat. Upon this 40 foot plus vessel will be all the equipment necessary to survive including the know how to operate it. You will have solar panels and a small wind powered generator sufficient to operate a small refrigerator and basic electronic equipment. You will have the range to reach any destination necessary without ‘refueling’ and the ability to acquire protein to sustain yourself for the journey.
Land based predators cannot reach you and those you meet, if you choose to ‘meet’ them on the open ocean will, more than likely, be friendly allies.
Cost? Not cheap but less than buying land, a house and the same, but larger, equipment to run a land based defensive position. A basic intercontinental escape vehicle will run around $200,000.
Nope,unlike obola drawing a line in the sand for my property/country/a shot at gaining a republic,hence,no waterworld for me.
Then you will die. A car full of street hoodlums can overwhelm your position because they will have firearms too and every much incentive as you do to use them.
otoh, you only need be a few miles offshore, secure in a floating survival unit to withstand everything the dindu can throw at you. They can’t survive on the water. You can! Would you rather be on Lake Michigan or Chicago when the SHTF. A $10 million dollar mansion won’t protect you as well as $250,000 boat!
Greetings,
I used to think that way too but I’m beginning to think that such a scenario could be worth fighting through on land. If I’m correct then maybe one out of one hundred people are in any way prepared for what is coming. To me, that looks like an opportunity should anything happen to go bad. Desperate, hungry, thirsty unarmed people can be put to work.
Now, for most of recorded human history, a man’s labor could be had at the price of 1/10th of an ounce of silver per day. For a little more than a silver dime but lets call it a silver dime for simplicity, a man or woman would labor for you from sun up ’til sun down. It was true for the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Europeans and Americans right up to the 19th Century.
Anyway, you can buy “junk” silver coins for very little cash and hoard bags of old silver dimes and quarters without really investing that much time or paper money. That means if things go as described in this article then someone holding a bag of silver quarters could pay for a private army to set up one of them fancy tradin’ posts mentioned in this article.
Unit,most times in way out in the back part of New England,ccloset major roads 20 miles,doubt many but some asshole locals be a issue unless foreign troops thrown in the mix.Smart folks have worked out neighborhood partners in tighter quarters,would not live much less visit Chiraq or lake Michigan.You may unless living on it have a big issue getting to said boat,while homestead raring to go and have walkout bag always in vehicle,to a certain degree only so much one can do,and remember,Hampster has a issue with not many blacks,ones here would get along with just fine as they enjoy like me hunting/fishing/no sales-income tax/no permit carry ect.
Kind as the author was being, this is extremely poor advice:
Gold, silver, and precious gems will be the first “new” form of currency to emerge after a SHTF disaster. We have all seen those, “Invest in gold…” commercials. Investing in gold bars (not certificates) and jewelry will always be a wise choice, but it is not the only precious metal you should be spending your hard-earned money on.
“investing in Gold bars” Gee, you need water for your baby and you are going to exchange a gold bar for it? Think about that for a moment…..
Boo,metals while agree mostly for after could in lead up also be valuable in a inflation hedge but things have not gone completely off the deep end.Would say items/skills/perhaps a dug well in your example more on top of list,then,you have cash and other items covered get some metals.I would also have small amounts of silver/grams of gold in beginning mix,bars,well,damn,you have some serious extra cash but hell yah,get a few bars.
We have gardens, greenhouses, woodlot, live on a river, chickens, ponds, 5 years of firewood, paid for house with low taxes, a rental, tools, woodshop, machine shop, stores, guns and ammo, loading equipment, first aid supplies….and always cash on hand + lots of savings, etc. But most important of all, we have community. We live on a dead end road with good neighbours, they look out for us and we look out for them. The old guy at the head of the road makes note of every car that drives by, which isn’t too often. When anyone needs help I always say, “When do you want to start”? I believe people won’t be able to survive a crash alone, plus if someone comes to my door hungry we will feed them. Thieves I would shoot, folks down and out we help.
The one thing I still wish to purchase is a good hand pump for our well. The ‘no freeze’ ones are expensive so I have delayed. This is simply our lifestyle and has been for almost 15 years; self sufficiency as much as possible. Why? I read this book just after we bought our place in the boonies and it all seemed to come together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Emergency
Oh yeah…we bake the bread at home. easy peasy and great flavour.
Simple Pump http://www.simplepump.com/
I live in the mid Ohio Valley where there are still some who could survive hard times. The biggest problem I see is the loss of skills, both recent and also very old, especially by the young. Are you equipped to cook on open wood fires where you can bake bread using cast iron camp ovens? That’s what happens during long term loss of utilities. Many people don’t have an emergency light source to use during a power outage. They don’t have a kerosene lamp, but I’ve certainly used mine and never sat in darkness. I’ve even entertained after big thunderstorms when everyone got fed and drunk under Aladdin Mantle Kerosene Lamp light .
You could have a kerosene lantern but what you are failing to understand is a light is also a ‘beacon’ advertising you have something others need. We aren’t talking about a storm where thousands of utility company workers will be marshaled to restore power. In a real collapse the power may not come back on…ever! Your generator/lanterns will run out of fuel at some point but until they do they are advertising you are home and have ‘stuff’.
There was a movie called “Panic in the Year Zero”. Its an interesting peek of how civilization collapsed after an atomic strike on Los Angeles. TCM shows it occassionally.
Uh, I live in Eastern Kentucky. In my neighborhood if anyone came in here to cause trouble they would be shot to pieces. Everyone here has a gun and will tell any strangers seen to get the fuck out of here. There are some notable cases of that. Years ago a peeping tom looked in one of the neighbors windows and was promptly shot at. EVERY cop in town showed up and told the old man he couldn’t shoot guns in city limits; he told them if anyone is seen looking in windows around here they’re going to become targets and suggested that the cops do their damn job. Another time a car from Detroit came to “visit” one of the neighbors and got his car stuck in another neighbor’s yard. That turd was told that if he didn’t get his ass back to Michigan he was going to get a cap popped on him. Shit like that has happened several times over the last few years. People here drool all over themselves at just the thought of it.
Amateur. LOL
After a disaster, you can often find unopened containers of food and other supplies at your local port or freight depot, ignored by everyone, 11 months after the fact.