I would imagine all who are making what preps they can feel the pinch, but it is better to feel it now than it is to be caught without necessary items when you need them but can no longer obtain them.

Two things:

1-you can add 10 bucks to your normal groceries each time you shop, and stock up that way. Just find the things you already eat, but with the longest shelf life among them (for example we eat some meats, like tuna, canned, we also eat canned peaches, which turned out to have a very long shelf life!) and we just add a few more than we'd normally buy and do this each time we shop. This way:
   A)we don't drop hundreds of dollars on special survival food all at once, we accrue it slowly/incrementally. This is what the LDS church teaches their members incidentally.
   B)We're buying things we already eat, just selecting more of the things with long shelf lives from among our normal diet. This way we don't buy a bunch of stuff we won't like to eat when we need to, or stuff we don't know how to prepare or our kids' palettes aren't used to
   C)most importantly, this eliminates wasting the food. Since it's stuff in our current diet, we eat this food and rotate the stock, oldest first gets eaten and newer items (from our extra 10 bucks per grocery trip) get placed in the back.

2-Don't just hoard 'stuff.' Hoard *skills*. Learn preserving/canning if you don't know how. Learn to solar cook, or cooking on a woodstove. Learn to mend and sew if you don't. Learn to garden, plant, compost. Learn medicinal plants and herbs and how they're used in herbal medicine. Learn first aid or other medical knowledge. If you don't, get a book, take Red Cross first responder training or head to a local junior college for night classes. Learn auto repair or machining, metal or woodworking, welding ...again, junior colleges have the equipment onsite and are cheap. A book can impart knowledge but it'd be expensive to buy tools or equipment just to learn the skill.

   Hoard skills.

Wow, someone gave my post above a thumbs down?? Lol, ill never understand what chaps some people's hide.

Quote from: Iuvenalis

Wow, someone gave my post above a thumbs down?? Lol, ill never understand what chaps some people's hide.

I gave you a thumbs up  :applause:and since I don't know why someone would've given you a thumbs down, I'm thinking someone may have done it by mistake.  If that is the case, the person accidentally giving you a thumbs down may not even know he/she did so.

I was just trying to figure out what was heretical about what I said :)

   I do quite a bit of prepping, and do definately feel the pinch doing it.

   All the money I used to squirrel away now goes to prepping.

   Not sure there will be any such thing as retirement for my Gen X age group anyway.

   But it is quite scriptural to prepare for thin times when you have a little extra (For example, recall how Joseph saved Egypt by squirreling away 7 years worth of food, etc and then came a 7 year drought).  And this example has always been touted as wisdom, not fringe behavior.

   Here is what I have accomplished in the last 2.5 yrs (And I have 3 toddlers and a stay at home wife, and have averaged about $80k during that time):

1) 10 rifles and/or handguns (tactical all of them)
2) 10k rounds of various caliber ammo
3) 1 year of dry bulk foods packed into buckets w myler inserts and O2 absorbers
4) 1/4 acre garden and all canning supplies, books, pressure canner, grain mill, etc
5) Katadyn Gravidyn water purifier
6) 500+ oz silver bullion
7) Liquidated 401k (and made more on silver to offset the early distribution tax)
8) 8K WATT GENERATOR and 50 gal gas
9) complete camping supplies from tent, military cots, sleeping bags, camp dishes, etc.
10) Bug out bag w about 45 lbs supplies; 150 items+
11) 3 month supply canned foods
12) 1 month supply water (have pond in back yard for purifier)
13) Planted 4 fruit trees (1 plum, 2 apple)
14) Male Black Lab (Great w Kids, but excellent alarm and home defense tool; free at shelter)
15) Converted neighbor into prepping, and now I have help
16) Lots of kerosene lanterns ans kerosene for light

etc.

The point is that if you are motivated, you can get pretty far in a short time.

And the best part is that if a collapse never happens, we will eat the food, hunt with the guns/ammo, camp with the supplies, retire with the silver, etc.

Nothing in the prepping goes to waste if I gamble wrong.

A word of advice Seraph....

It would be wise not to say if you have any guns at all, most especially if you were lucky enough to purchase them privately.

EDIT: I didn't finish reading your post.... don't mention anything about your precious metals either!

  I used to worry about that.

   But since none of my guns were purchased privately, they already know everything I have.

   Same with the metals (which I was stupid enough to purchase with a credit card, as required by the vendor).

 

 Oh well.... at least you have them. Guess you'll just have to use them.