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I'm new to this forum but I do indeed believe that there will come a time, likely sooner rather than later, when the excrement will hit the rotating cooling device. My thought is that it is likely to be a total economic collapse, rather than some catastrophic weather phenomenon.
In the event of a total economic collapse, in theory, money would become worthless. It's happened before. We'd wind up in a situation where humans have to survive rather than live in their modern comforts. Some might say "well I'm stockpiling GOLD"... okay, gold will also be useless. What the heck do we use gold for anyway? It may have a lot of nifty properties that make it a good all-purpose metal for a lot of uses, but if someone showed up and flashed a shiny gold ingot, telling me he'd trade it to me for a supply of food I had grown, I'd be like "What the heck am I supposed to use this little paperweight for?!"
Anyway, with that being the case, what would you say is the best place to set up a home, to prepare for a scenario of SHTF? I have a hard time comprehending how to do it because of one topic: PROPERTY TAXES. It's easy enough to find a place where timber is plentiful and the ground is sufficiently arable so as to grow your own food and raise your own livestock, but I know of no places in the USA where there are no property taxes. It seems 100% totally and completely impossible to live totally independently, and subsist on your own without having to answer (somehow) to someone else. Therefore, I'm not sure just how well America in and of itself is suited for a SHTF scenario.
But maybe you know something I don't know. If you don't know a specific location that you'd consider best for preparing to survive, perhaps you could talk about the type of location that you feel would be best.
There is a state with no property taxes (I'll let you look it up)
But it's not one I'd pick.
There are several states with LOW property taxes... Which are otherwise well suited.
Depends on what lifestyle/weather patterns you want.
You are right ! It would take more then GOLD if the SHTF did occure, this is a question better answered by a MORMON. My friend who is Mormon found his place on the border of AZ and NV, 21 acres , own well , and 2-40ft containers buried under ground and pads for 5 RV's with septic in place, as to taxes ? that the last thing to worry about there will be no one in government to be out collecting it . Ha , Ha
There is a state with no property taxes (I'll let you look it up)
But it's not one I'd pick.
There are several states with LOW property taxes... Which are otherwise well suited.
Depends on what lifestyle/weather patterns you want.
I could look it up but I have never found an AREA with no property taxes. All 50 states have some sort of property tax, whether it be at the state, county, or municipal level.
Lifestyle: sustainable. Weather patterns: Sufficient water, uncommon to experience temperature extremes or natural disasters.
What you want to look for are states where there are a few municipalities that do tax property, but the majority of the state does not. This is in contrast to find the few municipalities that don't tax property in an otherwise taxing state.
Here's a really good tool for researching various tax impacts for different states. It's designed for retirement planning, but you don't have to be a retiree to appreciate not being crippled with taxes. You will also note that there is one state that keeps popping up in the "least taxing" lists that does NOT show up in the top "retirement haven" list... which is entirely down to climate and general high cost of living, not tax structures.
What you want to look for are states where there are a few municipalities that do tax property, but the majority of the state does not. This is in contrast to find the few municipalities that don't tax property in an otherwise taxing state.
Here's a really good tool for researching various tax impacts for different states. It's designed for retirement planning, but you don't have to be a retiree to appreciate not being crippled with taxes. You will also note that there is one state that keeps popping up in the "least taxing" lists that does NOT show up in the top "retirement haven" list... which is entirely down to climate and general high cost of living, not tax structures.
I'll check that out, thanks. But in the meantime, are you really saying that there are some locations in the USA where a person can plunk down cash, buy a property, and then live off the land if he so desires... never again using cash for anything if he wishes to be that extreme... without having to rent his property from the government in the form of property taxes? If that's true, I wonder why I haven't come across any such areas when I've searched for places with no property tax.
What are some such locations where a person could do exactly that - buy a property with cash and then BE LEFT ALONE to live entirely as a hermit if that's what he wanted to do?
I think property will always be an expense as well as a necessity. Taxes will just be one of the expenses and in a true WROL local food could possibly be used in place of tax dollars or coins so I'd grow as much as I'm able. If a government is in serious depression and can't sustain itself, why wouldn't food be just as liquid as a silver? The other alternative is have a specialty that will be just as important in a WROL as now. One guy today pulls around tiller equipment and gets people's season ready and gets good money doing that for several people because there are many who are to old or busy or don't have the means, I'd imagine he'd still be in business as the economy is collapsing and able to pay his taxes.
Best place.. I think about that everyday but at some point you just need to be able to check off all the most important things and make the purchase and get busy because times a ticking. My checklist looks something like this:
1. a specified distance from dense cities (for me its 40 miles, others it may be 200)
2. a specified distance from the ocean/ military/ and nuclear plants (for me 50 miles, could be 100 but I'm to young to worry to much)
3. Property value/size is within your budget with change to spare. (could be 10k-1 million 1-1000 acres)
5th but not least somewhere u are happy and will enjoy waking up and getting to work and having leisurely fun. Right now mine is narrowed down to south-eastern NC because the lakes, weather, and non-commercialism.
Having lived downstream from a nuclear storage facility that was notorious for leaking tritium and other nuclear wastes into the groundwater as well as the local river - where the EPA told us what "acceptable" levels of contamination were - One of our big requirements was fresh and untainted water. Friends of mine who bought along the Ogeechee River in GA were told by the EPA that there was nothing wrong with their river - even as the fish were piling up dead on the shore and people were getting huge blisters on their skin. When after 3 months the culprit was found - a plant was dumping huge quantities of chemicals into the water - the State cut a deal and only fined them $5,000. People who lived there, whose homes used the water, as well as those who fished and swam in it, tried to sue for damages and were told by the court that they had no right to do so.... The EPA told them all along that it was safe to eat the fish from the river 'as long as they were caught alive'...
dhanu86 is right about the rest, although my belief is, the further 'away' you go, the better off you are. But you have to be very careful - being 'away' doesn't mean living on a rock that you cannot plow or in a desert that cannot produce anything but cactus and mesquite (at least not if you want to be long-term self-sufficient). Good arable land will run you more, as will access to water - after all, that is where people homesteaded 100 years ago, and the prices only go up.
For me, 40 miles from a city simply isn't far enough. That's less than a 1/2 tank of gas for those who are looking to escape (or loot) in the event of a disaster, and walkable in less than a week even for a family with children. Also the latest Executive Order permits the confiscation of farms and homes - if you have a small concern with a couple of cattle, goats, chickens, fruit trees, or beehives out in the middle of nowhere, it would cost too much to come and get them for 'conscription'. The closer you are to a city, the more vulnerable you are, from both independent as well as government marauders. Taxes are less where there are fewer government-supplied amenities, or where you don't have states that have huge populations sucking at the government teat.
I've heard a lot about Nebraska taxes being high, both before and after we moved here. We pay the same here for 60 acres and a 100-year-old, 2000 sq foot farmhouse plus outbuildings that we paid in SC for a 900 sq foot home on 1/3 acre. However, the cost of living here is substantially different - you can buy a whole half of a beef for $400, which is about 400 pounds of steaks, roasts, ribs, and hamburger. We raise our own now, and chickens that produce eggs and meat, have a garden that produces, and barter and trade are alive and well because it costs too much time and $ to go to town for basics. Having a tradeable skill is good, too; being able to fix things, provide medical assistance, train horses or butcher meat, if you have any skills that make other folks' lives easier, there can be trade involved.
Long-term economic depressed areas give you a low cost-of-living, low land prices, and low property taxes.
Granted it also means that high-paying jobs are very scarce. In my case, I have a pension. I can live here and be 'prosperous' on a small fixed income because I make as much [or more] than many people here who are working two p/t jobs. It also means that a small scale farmer working 3 acres of land can earn enough by marketing veggies, to support a family.
In most areas where I have lived; there is nothing [legal] you could grow on 2 or 3 acres that would allow you to support yourself.
IMHO rural is better than urban.
Libertarian: where you can hunt, farm, build on your land without anyone giving you grief.
A great deal of the USA is drought-prone. I grew up farming, and very much aware of drought issues. I never wanted to settle in any area that suffers droughts. Google the terms "Water shortage Crisis" to find maps showing this.
There is one map [I do not have the link handy now] where they compare regions that have water today because of Municipal control of water resources.
They show: Municipal Services control over water availability vs where water would be today lacking Municipal Services.
That is a real eye-opener. If anything happens to stop Federal, State and Local municipalities from controlling water availability; then vast regions of the USA will no longer have water. If the government stops the majority of the USA will no longer have water; no water in cities, no water-table to pump water up from, crops will stop growing, livestock will die, people will ...
I retired, bought forest land alongside a river, built a house by myself, and have began our journey toward producing our own food.
I pay no income taxes on my pension [beware not all states allow you to do this], and our property taxes are crazy low.
Something I was not aware of until after we began homesteading, is that this area has a large network of off-grid-homesteaders / Luddite-organic-farmers. They host an annual fair that sees 20,000 - 30,000 fair goers each day, that focuses primarily on this lifestyle [some survivalist stuff; though mostly build your own homes, produce your own food, husband livestock, and how to market your produce in Farmers Markets]. Their calendar has events all year round.
Yesterday I attended the 'Seed-Savers Exchange' that has ran here since the 1970s. It was combined with another group called 'Scion-Swappers' 5 years ago [that group had been meeting to swap scion wood and teach grafting methods since 1980s].
I spent the afternoon in a huge hall swapping seed, talking to the farmers who provided each type of seed; and discussing varieties of fruit/nut/herb trees with other orchard farmers. Throughout the entire event not a penny was spent. That is the kind of network that I have found here, and I had no idea such a thing existed before coming here.
One other thing. I have seen a number of maps that show "US nuclear sites". Beware they only show a minority of nuclear sites. They show commercial facilities only. Most nuclear facilities in the USA [read that the simple majority] are Federal facilities, like military assets and universities.
There are clusters of nuc power plants at various Navy bases, along with Nuc weapons storage and maintenance facilities. Plus the INL facility in Idaho [where hundreds of old Nuc cores are stacked in open air storage visible from satellite photos].
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