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I read that you are lamenting over the prohibitive cost of buying a piece of land that could be made into a self-sustaining farmstead. To me, that is the "end game" goal of being a prepper...having the land, animals, water, crops, ability to heat and make electricity to sustain you for the rest of forever. I don't know if you would even be a "prepper" anymore if you were that self-sustaining, as your entire life style would revolve around maintaining, processing and producing things from your land. When the SHTF, you would hardly notice because little would change for you.
Folks that feel there is a time coming where they will have to take care of themselves without the usual conveniences can still prepare without spending a ton of money or giving up because they can't move right into that self-sufficient farmstead.
Even someone in an apartment somewhere can have emergency food supplies and water filters. Getting the cheap camping stove now and then upgrading later when funds allow means you are still helping yourself and every simple thing you do puts you ahead of the people around you who have done nothing.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RomaniGypsy
In my experience, it seems as though survivalism is subject to the "American way" just as everything else is.
If you don't have money, you can't get land upon which to homestead. (Amplify this with "if you don't have A LOT of money, you can't get a decent enough amount of land in a decent area for homesteading".) Back in the day, people used to be given free land for homesteading. These days - you have to BUY it.
Nobody knows how to make anything anymore. If you want anything, forget being adequately taught how to make it. You have to BUY it. And anything that is decent for survival is going to be outrageously expensive. Guns, ammunition, off-grid cooking utensils and appliances, etc.
So really - if you don't have a lot of disposable income, how exactly can you "prepare" adequately?
Another question - Is there anywhere in this country where small tracts of land, perhaps by the acre, are available for <$1,000 per acre? I'm not interested in huge tracts that'll cost >$10,000 because they're 50 acres at $200 per acre - I want to know about small parcels of 1 or 2 acres where they can be bought for less than the cost of an operable used car.
I really don't relish the thought of having to work my butt off at a soul-killing but high-paying job just so that I can prepare to live an agrarian life. Back in the day, people just lived agrarian lives and didn't have to be independently wealthy in order to do so.
Or is it better to look outside of America if we want to "bug out" without being "wealthy"?
Well, it ain't gonna get that bad for that long. We have the knowledge of how to rebuild society and technology such as electricity, that knowledge won't go away.
You probably already have enough guns, but if you want old military surplus rifles that are still in excellent condition, you can get a C&R license from the feds, cheap and easy, then you can order online - and order the surplus ammo also. A surplus SKS is a good cheap semiauto that's almost indestructible.
You should have a nested sleeping bag to survive extreme cold or milder.
It would be hard to cook and heat without a woodstove, though it can be done outside on a campfire on nice days ...... suck it up and pay for one if you really think things will get that bad. Get cast-iron cookware, cheap at Walmart and yard sales.
To get a large load of necessities stored quickly, you'd have to go the grains-and-beans approach. Grains (I'd recommend flour as being most versatile, and rice), cheapest bulk beans or legumes, dry milk helps fill in some of the nutritional gaps, cooking oil/fat, salt, multivitamins. Ramen is probably the cheapest pre-cooked grain if you can't cook. (it's been deep-fried before packaging). I'd get a lot of cheap canned goods in case you can't or don't want to cook.
Hunt and gather. Learn about the local edibles.
You can get a mining claim if you just want something small. You have to show proof of a mineral find (such as a gold nugget), stake it out by using gps, then make improvements every year. This is not property rights, but it gives you the right to stay there.
If you're talking about super-rich, like the snob-o-rama who flew past me at 15 mph over the speed limit in his brand-spanking-new Bentley yesterday so that he could be one spot ahead of me when the road narrowed from two lanes to one, okay, obviously that dude doesn't care. (One of his tail lights was not working. I laughed at him from the driver's seat of my far cheaper and more efficient Prius which had both tail lights working.)
Hillside forest = firewood. Nothing wrong with that. Is there really a country where it IS a crime to be independent and self-sustaining?
I would LOVE to live remotely. Even where I am now (Ohio) it seems too built-up. Remote living sounds in-freaking-credible. By the way, "a town of just a few thousand" isn't remote. It doesn't start becoming remote until the population of the town is "just a few hundred" or less.
When I said "appliances" I meant old-school stuff. Man, even a freaking washboard costs $35! You can't even find a mortar and pestle at an antique shop. Old-style wood-fired cook stoves? To get one in good shape, it'll cost you 2-3x what a regular stove would cost.
They'll respect my property rights because failure to do so will result in the separating of their heads from the rest of their bodies at the hands of my various firearms.
You can never underestimate the government. Not to mention, if you do that, you will probably have a rough time protecting unfamiliar property from invaders for long enough to farm the land.
Rich people, rather doctors or billionaires don't work towards self sufficiency. Doctors are too busy and billionaires have estates that will sustain them even during an economic apocalypse. But us, somewhere between poverty and middle class have the prepper instinct because we're 2 or 3 disasters from losing it all. Out here people dig their own wells (literally), plant beans all over the place, some don't have electric, they burn all their trash including glass, maybe have one or two family members working minimum wage jobs, they manage to pay property taxes and manage to fix their leaking roof after a year of having it covered with a tarp.... How do they do all this and still enjoy homemade wine year round? They have no choice so it becomes a way of life.
Have you traveled a few countries? It is a crime to be self sufficient and it shows in the taxation and complete socialist economy which is designed for people to survive only one way which is following the herd. Firearms are 100% illegal, forget strict permits, not even police are armed. Free speech isn't in their vocabulary because they're taught that having a contrary opinion is rude and dangerous.
Well remote is relative. 50 people per sq mile feels remote compared to NJ which is over 1000 people per sq mile. If you don't have gas money 50pps may feel just like 5pps because u can't walk that far.
Wood cook stoves last a long time. They serve as a heating system and for cooking. If you only want it for cooking (smaller but big enough to cook a couple things) you can get those for around 500.
Location: When you take flak it means you are on target
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All you need is a .45. Use it to obtain an AR15, use that to aquire a tank, use it to get a helicopter gunship, use that to get a battleship with nukes! Now YOU are the boss of the apockylypse.
That's my plan anyway, I'll let ya know how it works out.
In my experience, it seems as though survivalism is subject to the "American way" just as everything else is.
If you don't have money, you can't get land upon which to homestead. (Amplify this with "if you don't have A LOT of money, you can't get a decent enough amount of land in a decent area for homesteading".) Back in the day, people used to be given free land for homesteading. These days - you have to BUY it.
Nobody knows how to make anything anymore. If you want anything, forget being adequately taught how to make it. You have to BUY it. And anything that is decent for survival is going to be outrageously expensive. Guns, ammunition, off-grid cooking utensils and appliances, etc.
So really - if you don't have a lot of disposable income, how exactly can you "prepare" adequately?
Another question - Is there anywhere in this country where small tracts of land, perhaps by the acre, are available for <$1,000 per acre? I'm not interested in huge tracts that'll cost >$10,000 because they're 50 acres at $200 per acre - I want to know about small parcels of 1 or 2 acres where they can be bought for less than the cost of an operable used car.
I really don't relish the thought of having to work my butt off at a soul-killing but high-paying job just so that I can prepare to live an agrarian life. Back in the day, people just lived agrarian lives and didn't have to be independently wealthy in order to do so.
Or is it better to look outside of America if we want to "bug out" without being "wealthy"?
Go out to west Texas. I remember seeing ads for land out there, 50 dollars an acre. Of course very desolate. Out by Van Horn texas. This was about 20 years ago.
You don't need to worry about "in perpetuity". Crises simply don't last that long. Look at history: 3 to 6 months max. Any longer than that, and we'd go extinct. You will still need other people in any crisis.
As has been pointed out, prepping and homesteading are 2 different things. Start out with what you can do now: prepping. Homesteading is what you save up for, for the future.
Start out the way we all started: put back enough bottled water and food for 30 days, then 3 months, then a year. Begin to add other items to it, like TP, a camp stove, camp lantern, basic first aid, and whatever you find yourself using on a regular basis. If you can't afford a gun right away, put back some heavy-duty pepper spray. Add an axe, sleeping bag, some wool socks, a rain poncho, a quality backpack, fresh batteries, and basic tools. You will find that brand-name camping gear can be your best friend.
The very BEST thing you can do - for free - is to learn, and practice skills!
It hasn't really been mentioned here, but not all prepping is for a complete collapse of society. Some people just want to know they can hole up for 3 days to 3 weeks, in the event of a riot or a natural disaster. Order eventually does get restored.
That said, there's some cheap land in Northeen AZ. Buddy of mine bought two 5-acre lots. Each lot was $4,500 -- so a little under $1,000 / acre. He's about 45 minutes outside of Flagstaff, and about 45 minutes to the Grand Canyon. The land is a bit hard to farm, but if it's you and a small group, a greenhouse or planters would work. Livestock lives well out there, and there's deer and small game. Firewood is plentiful if you go a few miles (he's just past where the forest ends). He's a few miles off the main road down a dirt road. There's no utilities out there. Most people set up solar, and either dig deep for water or install a cistern. It doesn't really rain enough year-round though for water collection, but dig deep enough and you'll get water.
There's cheap land in a lot of rural states but it will be cheap for a reason (no jobs, rough access, difficult terrain, harsh climate....). Maine, Alaska, Texas and others all have cheap land. It takes the right person to make a go of it on it. If you can't handle extreme cold, isolation and wildlife like grizzlies stay out of Alaska, and if you can't take dry and hot areas stay out of TX or the southwest.
In my experience, it seems as though survivalism is subject to the "American way" just as everything else is.
If you don't have money, you can't get land upon which to homestead. (Amplify this with "if you don't have A LOT of money, you can't get a decent enough amount of land in a decent area for homesteading".) Back in the day, people used to be given free land for homesteading. These days - you have to BUY it.
Nobody knows how to make anything anymore. If you want anything, forget being adequately taught how to make it. You have to BUY it. And anything that is decent for survival is going to be outrageously expensive. Guns, ammunition, off-grid cooking utensils and appliances, etc.
So really - if you don't have a lot of disposable income, how exactly can you "prepare" adequately?
Another question - Is there anywhere in this country where small tracts of land, perhaps by the acre, are available for <$1,000 per acre? I'm not interested in huge tracts that'll cost >$10,000 because they're 50 acres at $200 per acre - I want to know about small parcels of 1 or 2 acres where they can be bought for less than the cost of an operable used car.
I really don't relish the thought of having to work my butt off at a soul-killing but high-paying job just so that I can prepare to live an agrarian life. Back in the day, people just lived agrarian lives and didn't have to be independently wealthy in order to do so.
Or is it better to look outside of America if we want to "bug out" without being "wealthy"?
Well, of course you can , whats more preppy than going to a yard sale or the 5 and 10 and picking out vintage clothes, being unique is as preppy as you can get IMHO
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