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Two Letters Re: Advice for City Folks on a Budget?
Dear Mr. Rawles,
I am writing to ask for your advice and for your charity, and also because
I think this subject may be of interest to many of your readers. I discovered
your web site a week ago and have found it to be both very informative and
also very alarming! It was major wake-up call for me.
In my opinion, I am not at all prepared for the upheavals that are already
underway and that lie ahead of us.
I would very much like to change that situation, but it all (considered as
a whole) seems so overwhelming. I don't know what to do, where to start and
how to go about it. Also, I don't feel that I have the same resources and freedom
as some of your other readers.
I also have the feeling that many, perhaps most, of your readers may be in
exactly the same situation as me:
I am a 50 year old average guy with a wife and two young children to support.
I work in a medium sized metropolitan area and live in an average house in
the suburbs, about 10 miles out of town, on a 1/5th acre lot. My kids go to
public school, my wife works part-time and I work full-time. We depend on the
income
from my job to support the family. It is not the kind of job that allows me
to just uproot myself and live out in the sticks. My wife and I make just enough
to pay the bills and set aside a little bit for my 401(k) [retirement
savings account]and my kids' college education. We do not own any real estate
aside from our home.
We have about
$50,000 in savings, $90,000 in home equity and about $190,000 in my 401(k)
.
In my opinion, we are not prepared at all for any sort of natural, economic,
social or political upheaval or disaster:
- We don't own a ranch or farm or remote property of any kind.
- We don't own gold or silver.
- We don't own any weapons and don't know how to use them.
- We don't have any food or emergency supplies stored up.
- Our house is not "hardened" or "secure".
- We don't have a generator, etc.
- We are not EMTs and don't know how to grow crops or butcher a hog.
- We don't have a G.O.O.D. plan or vehicle or provisions.
In short, we are probably just like most of the other average families in the
USA (and perhaps like most of your readers) except for our awareness of the
problems that may be coming and our desire to be prepared.
My wife and I both believe in being "prepared" but my idea and hers
are different. My wife things that the problems we are facing are temporary,
so she would like to be prepared too, but she doesn't want to rock the boat
or uproot our family to do it. I am alarmed and would like to be very well
prepared, but I don't want to wreck my marriage and family in the process.
Mr. Rawles, please tell us what we can do given the situation I've described.
What specific steps should we take and in what order? What would you do if
you were me in my shoes?
I know you get a lot of letters, but I sure hope you answer this one on your
web site. For my sake, for my family's sake and for the sake of what may be
hundreds or thousands of people just like me that read your web site and want
to do something but don't know what to do, how to do it, where to start and
what's most important to do first, second, third etc.
Thank you in advance for your kind consideration. - Mike H.
Hello Jim,
I've been reading your blog off and on for several months, but I've yet to
see anything substantial for us poorer citizens. When it comes to TEOTWAWKI,
then it's all well and good if you were wealthy enough to be able to afford
a nice out-of-the-way location to save yourself, but what of us who are stuck
in an apartment in the city, like Denver? Or worse, people in metropolises
like Chicago and New York? Where could millions of people all possibly go
to get away from it all? All we can do is to arm ourselves to the teeth and
wait it out? We'd like to get out of the city too, but we aren't able to
buy property, which is why we're stuck in apartments, rather than homes.
I'm afraid that if such a disaster should come our way, then we will be on
our own. Even if we have a network of people, they are often driving distances
that are impractical in a time of extreme crisis. Do you have any suggestions
for those of us with extremely limited incomes? I've searched your site,
but if you did have something, I may have missed it.
Thanks, - Ken R.
JWR Replies: I realize that buying a rural
retreat is not within the means of most SurvivalBlog readers.
There have been quite a few articles on both urban survival and budget conscious
survival, and they are available in the archives, all of course free of charge.
OBTW, a brief description of how to search the archives can be found here.
Here are a few SurvivalBlog letters and articles that I found in just a few
minutes of searches, using "urban" and "budget" in my search phrases. (There
are
many
more available.):
Budget
Preparedness--Survival Isn't About Stuff, It is About Skills
Letter Re: Hunkering Down in an Urban Apartment in a Worst Case Societal Collapse
Letter
Re: An Urban/Suburban "Stay Put" Survival Strategy
Ten Things That Will Get You Killed While Bugging In, by Paul C.
Letter Re: Advice on a Budget Water Filter
Selecting a Rifle for a Budget-Constrained Prepper
Letter
Re: Preparedness on a Very Tight Budget (Also see: Follow-up
letter from
J.F.,
and Follow-up
letter from R.L.)
Letter
Re: Advice for a Canadian with a "Just One Gun" Budget
Letter Re: Will Peasant Farmers Fare Better than the Rich in TEOTWAWKI?
SurvivalBlog is intended
for people from all walks of life. One point of clarification: My own income
is quite modest. In fact, if I still lived in a high cost region, then I
wouldn't be able to afford a mortgage payment on a three bedroom house. It
is only
because
I've
been preparing very gradually and systematically for 30 years that I now
have a squared-away retreat here in The Unnamed Western State. And it is only
by God's grace that I have a wife that is agreeable to living in the boonies,
and that I'm able to work
from home.
Regardless of your income level, start
with a list of lists. Tailor your procurement plan based on your personal
circumstances and to match what you see as the most likely chain of events. Just
be
systematic, and set your priorities carefully. The smaller your budget, then
the
more
important this is.
In answer to the question on 401(k) accounts: Many 401(k) accounts can be
rolled over into IRAs.
If that is the case, then I recommend doing a rollover into a Gold IRA, available
through Swiss
America Trading Company. I have had a gold coin IRA since 1998. Once established,
these accounts are measured in an "ounce" value with
a "Beginning Cost Basis" noted for when your dollars were first
converted into U.S. Gold Eagles. In my case, most of the one ounce Gold
Eagle bullion coins they put in storage for me cost $315 each (IIRC, this was
when spot gold was $298 per ounce). Gold has nearly tripled since then. The
coins
are
physically
stored
by Goldstar
Trust, a bonded vault company in Texas.
The annual storage and administration fee is now $90 per
year, but in my opinion that is a small price to pay for knowing that when
I eventually cash out my IRA it will be in tangible form,
rather than an investment vehicle denominated in dollars. I have no way of
knowing
how much
the US Dollar
will depreciate in the next 15 years, but it is pretty safe to say that gold
will still have the same--or nearly the same--buying power that it does today.
I strongly recommend that if you have an IRA or 401(k) account that you conduct
a fund rollover into a Gold
IRA.
