What preps are you doing this week? part 2.

[Trawlerman]

On order for this week are:

Baofeng GT-3 Mk.II dual-band handheld radio. A UV-5r by any other name really. Slightly newer styling.
250 x 8mm ball bearings as ammo for my Black Widow catapult.
4 x PLCE Webbing straps for my NI Patrol Pack.
1 x Belgian MK.IV Bivvy Bag

[jansman]

Yes, the long slow crash!

I suspect my preps will be more for the long haul - for my kids and their kids (if they have any!). Community building. Getting better at growing food. Fitness. Increase my knowledge of first aid and medicinal plants etc.

I'll feedback when I come up with something. Doing lots of reading at the mo.

A slow car crash is what I see too. Today the Primeminister has written in the Guardian(I think) according to Radio 4 that the World economy is slipping back into recession. Frankly, you can see it from a mile away if you live outside the Square Mile Financial District.
I too, believe the good times have gone. My own small bike repair business is slowing(although that is seasonal), but I find folks really up against it financially when I quote a price. My 'proper' job as a Butcher is getting busy now for Christmas, but what it will be like after will be sobering I suspect. We do mainly restaurant supply, and it is now, more than ever, price-driven. We supply a couple of Michelin Star rated places, and they buy crap-because it is cheap! I would never eat out I can tell you.
It is all a race-to-the-bottom. Wages are not going up , in spite of the bulls?it figures. So what do we do?
Like many here, I believe we have to learn skills to make us independent,so we can avoid spending precious money. Keep that for the things you HAVE to buy. Personally I could see this situation coming ten years ago and started preparing accordingly. Whilst the good money was coming in I dicked, dived and connived to pay off the house. It took every single last penny. Now with that out of the way, we are messing with small scale energy production and conservation. A large part of my activities involve solid fuel (wood) processing and food production. These last two have been very successful over the years. And saved us spending a lot of money that is just not there anymore.
Regarding the food production, that has changed a lot for us. Small scale poultry and rabbits provide us with eggs aplenty and at least one rabbit dinner a week when we want. I do sell a few too. Veg -wise, I have moved over to Permaculture/Square-foot gardening and containers. This gives us a variety of veg and salad, year round with the aid of greenhouse and polytunnel. It sounds a lot, but it is all done in an area of 600 square feet, which in context to the ground available is compact. I have got it down to this as I am getting older, and hopefully it is sustainable as I get more decrepit and so does the economy!

The situation does look gloomy, but there is a lot we can do as individuals to help ourselves. It just takes a bit of work.

[Briggs 2.0]

The situation does look gloomy, but there is a lot we can do as individuals to help ourselves. It just takes a bit of work.

At home, we have switched from oil to wood to heat our home and we have reduced our electrical and water usage to a point where our income from wood covers all our utility bills. My mid-term plan is to enjoy the next few years of zero utility bills while I plan to move home to where I can be totally off-grid. It's not so much preparing for a major SHTF scenario, it's preparing for my retirement years when I do not want to be spending a huge proportion of my income on utilities.

[jansman]

I suppose in a roundabout way, what I was trying to say, has just been said rather eloquently by Briggs!
Retirement is in my mind now, so any way to teduce outgoings has to be good.

[Plymtom]

Hat's off to Briggs and Jansman, to hell with SHTF I'd want to be as self sufficient as possible too, and in the here and now, may you both have many years of happy retirement

[Briggs 2.0]

I'm not nearing retirement just yet, I have a dozen or so years to go before I can kick back and let Mrs B do all the providing!

[itslee]

5 packs of BBQ noddles, and a few tins of evaporated milk.

[hobo]

The situation does look gloomy, but there is a lot we can do as individuals to help ourselves. It just takes a bit of work.

Just got talking to my eldest son about this after school today and came to the same conclusion but would like to add '...and help each other' to the first sentence.
Step one will be to join or set up a food co-op. Going to fire off a few emails now.

[woodsman]

That's my wood store filled ready for winter all nice and dry,
I've a couple of trees to fell soon so that's my wood sorted for
Next year's burning. Perks of the job, just the garden to tidy up
a little and then I can sit back and wait for the snow........

[Deeps]

I've just caught up with the 2 threads finally (phew) and its been a good read generally. I'm in the process of building a months supply of food that we regularly use but its difficult because we're a pair of precious wee souls and don't use too much preserved food in our day to day cooking. I'm struggling to build a balanced supply because we eat mostly fresh and I'm reluctant to store stuff that we wouldn't eat. I'm experimenting with stuff, especially from Aldi's and I'm expanding my 'canned experience', the own brand spaghetti hoops (16p a can) was very good so I'll be getting some but it will be introducing something almost for the sake of it.

Preps for this week include a few more torches (6, I'm a bloody weirdo) and also ripping apart a few batteries from my previous employment that were made up of a load of AAA batteries that I got for free. I've also been topping up on brufin, paracetamol and cold tablets. I always buy loads of pasta and passata but that does fit in with our regular scran. I've also been a naughty boy on Amazon and ordered a few things but I'll wait for them to arrive.