Please note I am not saying you shouldn't prepare for at least a visit or two so do not keep all your eggs in one basket. Even if your a macho type who swears he or she will defend what they have to the end be realistic will ya? Caching and hiding may mean you can afford to disrupt the theft in other ways and on a more long term basis. We are in this to win and time is on our side so don't get yourself killed or arrested please.
Anyway we have already covered that. Before we get to outright confiscation we are going to experience indirect confiscation and we are already well into that phase. Food inflation is almost impossible to put a real finger on. Two years ago I began trying to determine actual food inflation locally and finally gave up. Why? Well I noticed the inflated prices were not permanent. On several items it would go up several cents for a few weeks or months then drop again either due to reduced volume or sometimes for no apparent reason. A couple weeks after that it would go up again, then drop. It really didn't make much sense unless maybe the price fluctuations had some connection to oil prices but with a lag time. Anyway overall reduction in the dollars value and inflation is another form of indirect confiscation as we all know.
Property taxes keep rising along with chattel taxes especially on equipment and vehicles but what seems to be hitting the prepper community the hardest right now are the two most recent bubbles. Land values and Ammo prices.
Unless you already had plenty of each almost no preppers can afford to pick up any more of either now. I recently saw some farm land in Iowa selling for almost 25K an acre. That is just out of control. Around here even scrub land is selling for outrageous prices sometimes up almost to the 10K mark. Recently down the road a bit a 13 acre lot with a prefab home on it went for almost 120K. Land values are in a serious bubble.
Ammo of course we all know about. I haven't been able to find even shotgun shells to buy in a few weeks once again and the prices of whats left are well inflated too. These two bubbles are making prepping harder than ever. I have adjusted my preparedness spending into mostly food and building projects once again. For the time being I cannot afford to stock any more ammo or purchase anymore land.
In the very near term food costs are going to be the next big bubble to the point that they cannot officially manipulate the cost away. This is the year I believe when growing your own food will prove an economic necessity to survive. In order to properly prepare through this phase and be ahead of the game for the next I would recommend forgetting about ammo for a while and focusing on all aspects of food production and storage from seeds to canning jars.
Time to start really cutting corners and making ends meet before it is too late.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!
I have found that the food prices in the stores are cyclical, without rhyme or reason. My guess is that the store is going to try to get a set dollar amount per visit from you. When chicken goes on sale, something like butter will go up to make up the cost difference. I have found that a log book is very effective in tracking the cyclical prices of the usual foods that I purchase. Ex: Kool-aid and Tang go on sale once per year at ten cents per package and a dollar per container, respectively. I stock up for the year when this happens. Other items will run a six week, or twelve week high/low cycle and I try to buy at the lowest possible price. If I'm lucky I'll also have a coupon to further reduce the price of the item.
ReplyDeleteMy point being, use their tricks against them and track the prices, and buy low. Another tip, the meat usually featured on the sales flyer is what your week's meals should be made out of because they are usually a loss leader..
Sun Tzu tactics at the grocery store if you'd like....
K - Good info. I hate grocery shopping so much I can't even put it into words. As the prices go up I hate it even more :)
DeleteI didn't notice shotgun shells being a problem at my small local gun shop.
ReplyDeleteI imagine all the Korean FMJ surplus is gone though. Hollow point .223 was expensive before all this happened, I can only imagine what it is like now.
Russ - A few weeks ago up at Cabellas there were plenty of shotgun shells to buy but the last few weeks here locally I can't find any except for a few 50 round boxes of the expensive stuff.
DeleteNot sure what is going on now. I haven't seen a box of .223 anything in three months. For any price.
However it's recommended that you mainly buy plastic kitchen containers as well as garages. Using Existing organized kitchenIt is not always possible to build a new set of cabinets or buy an additional kitchen cupboard. Items that you do not use it or like it, throw it away. If you have a small kitchen or a large kitchen, you could try something much easier and it has multi-uses - a organized kitchen trolley.
ReplyDeleteAlso visit my webpage The Emerging Challenges For Rapid Products In Organized Kitchen Ideas