What next to prep for?

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

Does anyone have a crystal ball - I suppose that is ironic as preppers don’t need a crystal ball because they are already prepared.

But, Brexit stashes have been used up and hopefully no longer on the preppers list.

We are a fair way along in a pandemic, apart from a few weeks at the start, supply has ironed out to a great extent. Boy was I pleased to have a store of stuff to use in the early scary days though.

What’s next. Any guesses?

@Sideorderofchips
Yup, I keep an eye on it for HF propagation predictions.

If any preppers are now at a loose end, getting your amateur radio licence takes about a month of study and £30 for the exam. Good fun too.

I do as well. There's been some interesting information on there recently

@FollowYourOwnNorthStar For my part, I meant clearing debt and getting more substantial savings in place - possibly with an eye to having some cash at home, but I'm not in a position to do that yet. You're right that it's probably basic financial preparedness but it's the bit I needed to take control of. So perhaps by financial resilience I just meant my own emotional resilience - interesting that I've conflated the two!

You sound like you're very well organised - well done! It's taken me to my late 30s to even begin to sort my shit out.

I think we're in for some rocky times as we come out of the pandemic and there is time for anger against governments/ nations, and peoples own loss in human and financial terms.
I can see civil unrest and global tensions.
I think its a time to be debt free and look at home security.

@UnsolicitedDickPic - I am late 30s too, and I only started looking at this thanks to the Preppers boards. But I’m always keen to learn more!

The idea of having cash is something I am considering, but my current plan is to know the maximum daily withdrawal limits on my cards and to be ready to withdraw from each of things look bad. Although, I keep thinking, if things really did go south that way, would I know in time?!?

There must be garages full of pasta, baked beans and toilet roll 🤫

Follow my financial prepping has been fairly basic-pay down debt, build savings up. We do have actual cash secreted about the house but if things ever came to banks not functioning I don’t think cash would be of much use. I keep thinking I should learn a practical skill to barter with in case of a cashless society but that seems very extreme.

I did follow the advice of if you can’t cut down spending enough then you need to earn more, and took on a full time job after many years as a sahm. I appreciate that I was lucky to have been able to sah for so long but dh didn’t pressure me to work at all even when the dc became independent, but that extra income has obviously helped a lot. I now intend to work until 67/68 (in my 50’s now) as I feel healthy and energetic, and this would really build up some financial buffers. If I was younger and into prepping I might think about taking on a second job, or try and make a hobby pay, but then there has to be a work/life balance I guess.

Debt has to the biggest thing to control; if interest rates go up, or credit card debt called in, or overdraft facilities pulled, that could be disastrous for many many people, and coupled with a recession and potential job loss people would be absolutely screwed.

@FollowYourOwnNorthStar That's been my thinking too: if there's a run on the banks we're probably pretty fucked, so not sure cash will be useful in that case. Perhaps I'll invest in cigarettes to barter.

@ThroughThickAndThin01 Re: skills to barter, my DP has several trades and I've long maintained that I stay with him just in case of societal collapse. This used to be a joke, but is becoming ever more true I think!

@ThroughThickAndThin01 and @UnsolicitedDickPic It’s interesting that you mention inflation. I recently read about Michael Burry (from The Big Short book), predicting high and rapid inflation. He has also been very vocal about people having access to a water source.

I thought about it, and whether I believed him or not, it seemed that things would be economically turbulent over the next year at least (could be low or high), and that with rates v low, it would be a good idea either way to fix my mortgage. I chose 3 years, as the rate was very good and if inflation did dramatically increase, I would have time to either ride it out before things got back to normal, or time to work out how I would deal with the increase in payments when it ended.

I feel comfortable that this decision is a good one, whether the prediction is true or not. Same as paying off all non-mortgage debt and reducing outgoings - they make good sense regardless, even if I am only doing them because I am worried and want to prepare. It’s the cash-at-home bit, the having a second bank account at a second institution (in case one goes up), having multiple credit cards for the same reason etc - They don’t necessarily make financial sense and I would only be doing all those things if I believed something was about to happen. And that’s the bit I struggle with. Is now the time to do those things?

*when I say inflation in the first paragraph, I really mean high interest rates. Apologies

[quote UnsolicitedDickPic]@ThroughThickAndThin01 Re: skills to barter, my DP has several trades and I've long maintained that I stay with him just in case of societal collapse. This used to be a joke, but is becoming ever more true I think! [/quote]
I wrote on another thread about a month ago, much the same thing. In case of financial and societal collapse, what would I do? Stay next to DH!

I think timing is always an issue @FollowYourOwnNorthStar.
People can live and die, and buy and sell a house a couple of times over, in the time between you think something big might happen, and when it actually does.

As it happens, DH and I are at the crossroads financially in several ways. We are trying to incorporate what we do in say the next 10 years, with what may or may not be coming down the road.
I have never read so much about financial matters in my life. Not that I am anywhere near becoming an expert in such matters. Nor will I be.

Instinctively, I am worried about the following, more or less in order.

Subsequent lockdowns or another, worse pandemic.
Powercuts and blackouts.
House fire (partly because I dreamed our house burned down and we lost everything... brr)
War - either nuclear, drone based attack, chemical attack or just a distantly orchestrated but still devastating cyber attack. Again, partly because I keep dreaming we are at war.
No access to water. I haven't really prepped water yet and if I do it will be in glass bottles, but I don't have much space to store it. I could probably harvest rain from the drainpipe for flushing the loo so I am more focused on drinking water.

I am either a tiny bit worried all the way up to pretty concerned about these possible outcomes. Another wave and lockdowns seems very likely, the rest is more up in the air.

How long can drinking water be stored for?

6 months wate is ok for. We store some in old wine bottles what have been washed.

With new mutations, like the India one, sadly this pandemic is far from over. As long as countries only think of themselves in terms of getting vaccinated, the virus will have plenty of time to mutate in poorer countries. Most likely a very big mistake not to work together.

Climate change, but not in the conventional getting ready for weather events type of way, more like getting ready to be taxed massively one way or another.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9438933/ROSS-CLARK-absurd-banned-selling-home-dont-meet-eco-rules.html

www.technocracy.news/mastercard-releases-carbon-footprint-calculator-for-banks/

I don't know where a lot of people are going to just find that kind of money to upgrade everything to make it fit with a new agenda.

We’ve just taken on an allotment, where I’m hoping to grow the vast majority of my food bill

I’m trying to move jobs to better paid but I’m worried about job security.

I’m sporadic in my financial preps and I earn less than £11k a year so ultimately there’s not a lot of scope, but I save first and keep on top of my outgoings. I do have debt though.

I have run down my dry stores, I guess I’ve become complacent as have lockdown fatigue! My big worry was brexit and that got lost in the covid panic. I’ve got two under the counter freezers bursting at the seams but I need to organise them better as I filled my spare one back in autumn 2019 before the pandemic showed me what we really needed if that makes sense!

@Imsayingnothing

Climate change, but not in the conventional getting ready for weather events type of way, more like getting ready to be taxed massively one way or another.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9438933/ROSS-CLARK-absurd-banned-selling-home-dont-meet-eco-rules.html

www.technocracy.news/mastercard-releases-carbon-footprint-calculator-for-banks/

I don't know where a lot of people are going to just find that kind of money to upgrade everything to make it fit with a new agenda.

Good posts on this thread.

I didnt know about that link. Worth knowing.

It used to feel like things were debated for months in Parliament.
Now it feels like things can almost change in an instant.

I tend to stock on staples that we really like and that we couldn't easily 'replace' with alternatives. Those tend to last for quite a while so I don't mind stocking up. As for other stuff we tend to eat a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables which, obviously, cannot be stocked up.

The need to be more self sustainable. Especially for those considering not being vaccinated.

Just a general one here, but still one to consider I think. Less choice. What I mean by less choice is so many small businesses have been forced to close. Companies are watching their balance sheets and this all leads to less choice. So instead of a shop selling 25 different kinds of tomato sauce they might just cut it down to the top 6 most popular ones. I suspect this won't just happen with food items either. One problem with that is they then have the monopoly. They can increase the price as much as they like on essential items and squeeze more out of the consumer because they know people will still need those items.

So possibly switching to items that can be reused other than disposable items might help. Growing some of our own food might help. Learning to reuse items or repurpose them. Maybe even keeping some animals like chickens or rabbits. So just taking back a bit more control over being able to get items you might need.

I was wondering if India's exports will be affected, given the awful situation they're in, will surely affect factories.