and you didn't prepare

AND YOU DIDN'T PREPARE
Over the last three years, port and rail freight is down 30%. Our consumer society is over, but you didn't prepare. In the last three years, oil imports are down 20%. 30% of our corn is going to ethanol, even though it most likely is a net energy loser. Dwindling supplies of natural gas are used to turn oil sands into SUV juice. But you don't think any of that means our energy future will be worse, and you didn't prepare. Goldman Saks has 1,000% of its capital at risk in the credit markets. BofA is much better off with "only" 169% of its capital at risk. California's public retirement system lost a cool 100 billion. But our economy is going to bounce back any day now, so you aren't preparing. I've covered this before, but as a reminder and as a service to the new loyal minions we are going to talk about what to do at the last minute after you have failed to prepare.
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After there is looting and power outages and the trucks stop hauling, you are screwed. But if you just got laid off six months after the wife did and your area has 20% unemployment, there is still hope for you. This is for folks that will lose the home, don't have the credit or the cash to get an apartment, can't afford a used RV since they are going up in price, yet would like to live a step above packing the family into the new living quarters manufactured by GMC. This is for those with no prospects and the inability to scrape up more than a few hundred bucks ( and don't have friends or families to help out ). For the longest time, most of us have relied on credit for emergencies. During a layoff, if you thought you would lose the home, you used the credit card and got cash for an apartment or bought a used RV and moved into a park. Or traded an office job for a retail job to at least cover some of the bills. Credit is a vast dry wasteland now, with high credit scores not even enough to secure a new shiny bauble. Those with credit cards are seeing their available limits shrink. In an emergency most folks wouldn't even care the rates jumped from twenty to thirty percent, but the shrinking credit line really cuts deep. And forget about employment. We are all starting to look like Detroit. You can find a job, but not the kind that pays rent for a family, let alone buys the food and medical care.
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So, you only have one option. You can't earn as much as you need, so you need to reduce your living expenses drastically. The only way to do that is eliminate your rent ( or at least get it way down ) and do without a car. Again, we come back to junk land. And a tent to live in on it. Then you work for a few months flipping burgers to build a tire wall, dirt covered shack or buy a used RV. Your only expense is moving to your new area, a tent and the down payment on the land. If you can't find a job in the area at least you will qualify for Food Stamps ( if this is likely, choose an area that will be uncomfortable rather than deadly in winter ). And I'm not talking about moving all your furniture or buying a huge hunting canvas tent. You sell all your crap for chump change, and buy a few tanks of gas or a few Greyhound tickets with each family member getting one bag of clothes. And then buy a $80 piece of crap Wal-Mart nylon tent with a tarp overhead.
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Got a lot of stuff to move? U-haul rented from the proceeds of the car sale, and extra family on the Greyhound. Can't find a piece of land in an area with jobs? Buy a lot outright for cash in east Texas or southern Arizona/New Mexico ( okay, I don't actually know the winter weather in NM so I'm guessing on that one- factor in winter weather carefully ). Then go on welfare. It will keep you fed until the collapse. Don't waver or weasel here. You are about to be living out of your car. This way you use the last of your assets to buy a low cost way of living. Of course it isn't what you want, need or desire. It's what is available to you. If a genuine miracle happens and Baby Jesus himself smiles on us all and the economy recovers ( it won't happen, but feel free to dream ) you now own a swell vacation property cheap. And I would advise making food a higher priority than a bigger shelter. Stock up on grains, the El Nino we are having/about to have will add to the global food production problems. You have been warned, ignore at your own risk.
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Already busted with fewer assets to sell? Pay the down deposit on a piece of land, drive there. Sell your car for living expenses and hope you can get enough earnings for the land payments ( I just added a $50 a month Arizona land on my Dirt Cheap Dirt blog ). Desperate? Sure. Doesn't it beat being homeless and living in your car?
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A quick note. I've been collecting empty Wet Wipe plastic boxes and coffee cans. A wet wipe box holds three and a quarter pounds of pinto beans. A coffee can holds about four pounds even. Free containers, even if they are only rodent resistant rather than rodent proof.