My Plan to Survive the Financial Apocalypse
Filed Under: personal
Did you know you can buy a 3500 square foot home with 20 acres, three ponds, and a fruit tree orchard in Kansas for under $200,000, and still be a short drive from Kansas City?
So here’s my tentative plan if we see a new depression. This plan is predicated on my ability to keep my own job at least for a while… but if things turn bad everywhere and I’m employed, I am leaning towards buying good property outside Kansas City and setting about growing all our own food.
The orchard would be edible through the summer and then anything we don’t eat, we’ll can. We’ll plant an acre or two of vegetables. Chicken coop for meat and eggs. A couple of pigs. A cow for milk and a couple of beef cows. To supplement, hunting and fishing, for as long as that can be done.
I’m a total farm nerd and I had no idea. It’s almost exciting to contemplate trying to grow my own food, or at least a good chunk of it.
Anyone I know who’s looking at homelessness, family, friends, whatever–they would be invited to stay at the Tolbert Farm. It’s not a commune if there isn’t religion involved, right?
In all seriousness, the events of the past few months have hit home for me the importance of a local community that could be self-sufficient. The bail out seems to have done nothing to the stock market. I suppose those companies are able to still make payroll for a while, but how much further do we have to fall? How much higher is unemployment going to climb? I don’t feel like we’re through this by a long shot. Nor do the American people to judge by the questions last night.
What are your plans to survive a depression? Are you thinking about it? Is it a ridiculous idea? Am I overly paranoid? Maybe. But I was reading articles about this credit meltdown over a year ago and sharing them with friends and wondering what was going to happen. Those articles turned out to be true, or if anything, to underestimate the problems.
Writing more than ever feels like a luxury. Hell, blogging feels like a luxury. Electricity.
Right now, I’m keeping my head down. Trying to pay off our remaining debt as fast as possible. And keeping the above possibility in the back of my head. I’ve read too much post-apocalyptic SF not to look at this situation and try to think about what to do if it gets worse.
Comments
10-08-2008
I’m right there with ya.
We’ll probably stay put here for a while, though. We have three citrus trees, and we’re working on seeing what’ll grow in our Mediterranean climate. Most things will, but we’re still adjusting for the rainy season.
We compost damn near everything, and are plowing our way through several heavy tomes on Self Sufficiency and Country Living Skills.
I figure after the fall, I can brew beer and repair bicycles. Petrol-scarcity and Poverty-abundance oughtta make me a fairly popular guy.
10-08-2008
I’ll have to sail over there first but I’m eager. Yee Hah!
10-09-2008
Well, the current plan is to work in a foreign country with a relatively stable economy.
I just checked out Golloyds and the dollar is finally taking that nosedive I’ve been waiting for. Woo-hoo! Screw you American credit card companies!
10-09-2008
Yeah, I bet you guys are getting regular “raises” because of the currency tanking. I know authors that live overseas that are taking massive paycuts thanks to the fall of the dollar.
10-09-2008
In that we send abut 1/3 of our paycheck home to handle debts, yes we are. As of now, the exchange on Golloyds is 100.93 yen to one dollar. 100 yen is regarded as a local equivalent to 1 dollar. It was 109 yen just a few days ago. The dollar is trending towards being weaker than the yen despite great efforts to the contrary (Japan actually still makes and exports stuff so they don’t want their currency to be valued higher than those of other big-consumer nations.)
If this exchange holds steady for the next two weeks (and it never does) it would be equivalent to a raise of $160 for the month (as compared to when we sent home money from last month’s paycheck.) Sine our debts are in dollars, the current situation is good for us. It wouldn’t be so good if we had no debt.
10-09-2008
I’m not all that worried about it. Yes, we’re all screwed in the long run, but it’s going to be a slow comfortable screw as more of our world power gets eaten by China. In the short run, this credit crunch does ripple out, but not in the everybody-jump-out-of-windows sense. The question to ask is: how different is your life, truly and directly, than it was a month ago? Most people aren’t that affected, and won’t be unless they need to apply for more credit. (Which is likely to get harder, but maybe that’s a good thing.) Gas prices are a far bigger problem, but that’s not something to induce panic either.
If you want to buy a farm because you feel it’s something you could be passionate about, that’s a great reason. Buying one because you think the world’s going to go to hell around you is a bad reason. If you’re wrong you’d feel like a putz (esp. if you turn out not to like all that farming once you do it), and if you’re right and society collapses you’d be too busy defending your territory against refugees and bandits. (And maybe zombies or mutants. Depends on your choice of apocalypse.) True collapse isn’t something one could be cozy about.
Just my thoughts. If you do try it, good luck. >8->
10-20-2008
Don’t listen to Steve, Germ! Buy the farm, so that I have somewhere to retreat to with my little army of mutants after the Apocalypse. I actually know a thing or two about growing plants at this point in my degree… Of course, I hope that you have taken the historical boundaries of the Western Interior Sea into context, as the rise in mean global temperature will inevitably result in elevated sea levels as the icepack melts.
11-16-2008
Steve Eley,
It takes time for the repercussions of this mess to be evident. A few months after the October Surprise, thousands of businesses will not be able to sustain employment of so many employees. Therefore, we will se a rise in unemployment. That in turn will decrease consumption in restaurants, food stores, car sales and everything else.
I say January will be a good start to see what Wall Street did to Main Street.
I live in México and I am already looking for my hide out. Good luck.
Only a few people wil be ready to ride the killing wave. Will you be ready?
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