In the spiritual life, those who convert to God at the 11th hour get the same Denarius (heaven) as those who bore the day's heat.

Not so in the world of being prepared.

I've thought about it lately, how the screws are constantly being tightened, and how my wife and I are constantly figuring out new ways to save money, building on previous gains. But more importantly, it's that we HAVE TO keep adapting and getting better and better, just to tread water.

It's the same with my home business. I've advanced that business (and its website) seven ways from Sunday -- and although things are getting worse and worse out there, my income there is holding steady. If I had done nothing at all, it would be far smaller.

Just think if we had converted to "getting prepared" in 2009 instead of years earlier? We wouldn't have bought various things on sale over the years, we'd probably still be in our smaller house in the city -- or we would have moved to a bigger house without any land, etc.

How long would it take to recover from that? Years -- possibly never.

All the garage sales we went to, looking for good practical items (preps) are long gone for us -- we don't live in the city anymore, so garage sales are a much bigger deal. And we have more than 2 children now.

Even my specific career -- web developer -- was chosen with a Greater Depression in mind. I wanted to do something that everyone could use, where I do all the work. Sure, I'd make more money by leveraging OTHERS, and trying to develop "residual income", but those are the things that fall apart during a depression. The poor slob who actually fixes plumbing, does handyman work, tends animals, grows food, builds buildings, installs septic systems, builds websites -- those are the guys that can go out and freelance and make a living. The man who is good at managing such people -- tough luck for him when jobs become scarce.

Moral of the story -- the sooner you start (and persevere), the better off you'll be!

Matthew