guest article

GUEST ARTICLE

Collapse Finances

Whether the world sees a sudden collapse or a slow decline, things are going to get worse every day when it starts. You can't expect to do everything on your own. If you tried to can or dehydrate your foods, guard your wealth, plant and tend your garden, dig your outhouse, haul and purify your water, tend your livestock, repair your home, tend your off-grid power system, tan hides, reload bullets, wash dishes, take a bath, make candles, make bio-diesel, chop and haul wood, forage and hunt for more food, read up on skills you need, keep the rug-rats happy, clean your house, wash laundry, make soap, pay the rent or taxes, cut your hair, sew patches on your clothes, dig the root cellar you need, put in or clean out that home-made septic system, rebuild the hen-house after the coyotes break in, slaughter stock, repair fences, etc, etc, etc...... you would find you probably don't have enough hours in the day!
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As much as many of us would like to just imagine ourselves living alone and not bothered by others, you are probably going to have to count on them for some kind of support. Not charity, it doesn't even have to be friendly, but you will need them. We are talking trade here. Barter. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
We need to start thinking about what we know about our neighbors. The guy two doors down is a carpenter? Great, trade him some of that foraged food for repairing the fence you just don't have time to get to. The other neighbor is a school teacher out of work now due to cutbacks? Sounds like daycare help to me for the curtain climbers you have running around. Keep them out of your hair while you are melting lead for bullets. The key though is going to be making sure you have something they will want.
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Lots of talk has centered on putting up gold and silver for barter. While having some would be fine for when it comes time to pay any taxes and getting things your neighbors just can't supply, it makes more sense to stockpile raw materials or the ability to process raw materials. Things that just don't lend themselves to easy acquisition during tough times. Even if we go through a very long descent, people will move towards more trading and less money. They won't have a choice. Lost jobs, lost pensions, inflation.... no money....
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If you have some off-grid power when nobody else can pay the bills and is sitting in the dark, sounds like a good opportunity to trade your ability to recharge batteries for something you need. You have hens? Then you have eggs to trade. You have a solar food dehydrator? Hmm, I bet someone would love some dried fruit come winter. Got a purifier? Trade them a portion of the cleaned water to drink if they haul the sounds good. Save your back and they are happy to get bug free water. You have a stockpile of powder and primers? Someone scavenges up 20 shell casings and a pound of wheel weights for you gets 5 reloads in return for their weapon.
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So what would be the best things to stockpile? It is going to depend on your skills and resources. If you have off-grid power (even a little) it can be traded...and used yourself if nothing is being traded at the time. Food is always going to be in demand during tough times, but not what you stockpile. That is for your own use when things go really bad. Only trade food you grow/hunt/forage. If you can't collect any, then nobody expects you to have any for trade, and are less likely to try and take your stockpiles. (So be careful who you let know you have some wheat/corn put away) Candle wax is good once all other lighting options die off, so might be worth putting back for much later.
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Tools are the ultimate resource. Without tools, man is just another animal. Tools let us use our brains to evolve above the other animals....(though today's society sure has done a lot to stunt that growth!) If your carpenter neighbor only used tools provided by his employer, he is useless without them, and useless to you. Never trade away a tool if you can help it. Rent it out! Trade gives you a benefit once, renting gives you ongoing returns. Which is better, trade a hammer for a dozen eggs or rent it out for a an egg a day? Trade a bow saw for a cord of wood, or rent it out for a portion of whatever they cut down? You get wood and no work! Always get something as collateral though... Don't want your tools disappearing on you.
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Some things just won't be worth putting away for trade though. Who cares about radios/tv's/dvd players when there are 6 billion of the things running around and nobody can afford electricity or batteries anyway? In some ways I even question the idea of knives for trading.... there are how many kitchen knives out there? Even a butter knife can be sharpened. Books? Trade them only if they are useful for learning a skill you already know, and think its important for someone else to learn it. Don't expect fiction to be worth a damn, too many copies readily available. At best fiction will trade straight across for something different to read. Watches, light bulbs, whiskey, and dog food are examples of useless things to stockpile for trade. (though the right alcohol could be stored in some amounts for making herbal tinctures and remedies...you could trade those). Shoes, sheets and blankets may be valuable years after the end starts and the current crop is worn out if nobody resurrects textile skills. Pots, pans, sewing needles are examples of things that will be valuable to your kids or grand kids. Never trade your guns either, those are going to be legacies handed down to your kids if you remembered to put up enough ammo/reloading supplies.
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Does this mean you shouldn't put away anything except raw materials or tools? Heck no! Maybe you find you can't trust your neighbors after a bad deal or two. Maybe your neighbors turn out to have nothing you can use. Maybe your neighbors are too far for regular trading. What if someone steals your tools? You still need to make sure that your basic needs of life are covered. The point is to consider what you really can do with things and have the right mix put away to help you get the things you need. The mix will be different for everyone, but you need to consider it now, and don't accept what someone else tells you to store for barter. Build your own list.

TMM