The Resilient Household

FIRE JUSTIN TIME, HIRE JUSTIN CASE
Avoid Problems and Save Money with 'The Resilient Household'

Presented for your consideration:

• The economy is dismal. Real unemployment is at post-WWII highs. Most 401Ks have been hammered; pensions are widely undercapitalized, with many are at risk of failure. Bank closures are up sharply in the last year. The buzz about the potential for "dollar collapse" is growing.
• Swine flu has been over-hyped (why?) and the vaccine has been over-pushed. Rumors are circulating among the info-web's back channels that preparations are being made for mass quarantines.
• The International Energy Agency has finally admitted peak oil is a real threat. Fuel prices are rising again. If the dollar tanks, gas prices will spike and fuel shortages will be inevitable. The US electricity grid is dilapidated and evermore prone to outages.
• Global grain supplies are at all-time lows. Agricultural productivity problems due to climate disruption are coming. The typical grocery store has a three-day inventory of food.
• Many regions are having increasing problems with adequate, consistent fresh water supplies.

These are real or potential problems most of us would rather not think about, preferring to leave the solutions to the people we elect or otherwise pay to worry about such matters. But you may be shocked, shocked to find out that our elected officials are largely not worrying about these things; in fact, their actions and lack of leadership are largely to blame for the problems.

If you read Grinning Planet's 2010 predictions, you know that these potential trouble points ahead may cause disruptions to life as we have known it in the last half-century.

Some people choose to ignore such troubles and hope they'll never happen or, if they happen, won't be too bad. But there are many realists among you who think it might be a better idea to "prepare for the worst and hope for the best." That means reducing your dependence on centralized, just-in-time delivery of food, energy, water, and health care products.

This article will provide basic guidance on how you can switch to a just-in-case approach that can also save you money. The Resilient Household concept breaks the tasks down into five areas: Financial, Food, Water, Energy, Health.

Each section below has a short background statement followed by actions you should consider, listed in priority order. This document has been kept brief to make it manageable and to avoid overwhelming the reader. After reading it, we urge you to do further research, both to make sure you firmly accept the premise of the article and to hone the strategies to suit your individual situation, needs, and resources.

The Resilient Household

FINANCIAL

Background

So far, bank regulators have seamlessly handled the swelling number of bank failures (which are usually presented to the public as bank mergers and acquisitions). Still, the FDIC recently "ran low on funds," and the high exposure of the banking industry to toxic derivatives (which have yet to be cleaned out) says there is a rising possibility of a 1930s-style bank holiday or a mega bank failure that would breach the FDIC levee.

At the same time, huge numbers of new dollars are being created by the US treasury and Federal Reserve, ostensibly to stimulate the economy and save too-big-to-fail companies (mostly financial institutions). But this is likely to create a future wave of inflation, which will erode your purchasing power.

Finally, an outright dollar collapse would send the global economy into chaos, leading to disruptions of credit cards, banking, and all other factors of daily economic life.

Essential Actions

• Keep enough cash on hand for X months' worth of family expenses. "On hand" means safely stored somewhere other than a bank. You decide what X should be.
• If you have substantial cash holdings, diversify your bank accounts—that is, have several banks at which you can draw funds. Include at least one locally owned bank or credit union among your choices.

Second-Level Actions

• Convert available cash and other financial assets to...
  1. items that you would have to purchase anyway in the next year or two;
  2. tools, supplies, and other useful things, especially for food production.
  This locks in the value of your money at today's prices, avoiding the problem of trying to make your savings-account interest rates or investment returns keep up with inflation (which they won't).
• Do your best to minimize debt, especially debt where being unable to pay a would result in forfeiture of an essential asset.

A Side Note About The Stock Market, Gold and Silver

All that newly printed money has to go somewhere, and that's one of the reasons the stock market indices have stayed elevated despite the relentless onslaught of bad unemployment news (which is a much truer indicator of how things really are in the economy). If the US money supply keeps expanding, that trend may continue, and we may even see new market highs. But such a situation would be a race between the increasing value of your stock portfolio and the declining real purchasing power of the stocks' dollar-denominated value. Stocks could conceivably keep going up in dollar terms as their true value declines in absolute terms.

Some people think that precious metals (especially gold and silver coins) are a sound way to protect some portion of their money from inflation or other financial problems. We are not going to comment for or against that proposition—the answer depends on each person's particular financial situation. However, if you do decide to follow the yellowbrick road to the silver city, we advise that you take physical possession of whatever you invest in. That is to say, investing in a gold fund or having a paper certificate that represents a stash of gold held somewhere else is not as good as having the stuff in hand. At this point, though, physical gold and silver are getting much harder to come by, so you may find that the other ways of protecting the value of your money—like investing in food-production infrastructure or alternative energy for your home—make more sense.

The Resilient Household

FOOD

Background

We wrote extensively about the threats to the food system in our food crisis series. If you are unaware of the problems facing our farmers, the grocery store system, and food in general, please review those articles.

Essential Actions

• Maintain a "buffer supply" of food equal to at least X months of your family's consumption. Again, you decide what X should be (however, we think 3 is a good minimum).

Second-Level Actions

• Learn how to grow and preserve food. Convert as much of your yard as possible to garden beds for food production. Plant fruit and nut trees as well as berry bushes. Invest in the equipment and supplies needed to preserve food—and learn how to do it safely. Our food-gardening books page has many good books that will help you minimize mistakes in planning and implementing garden spaces as well as preserving food.
• For purchased food, find local sources and buy as much as you can from them. Consider joining a CSA if you can find one near you.

Our food security article has more information on these approaches and has many more ideas that can add to your "food resilience."

The Resilient Household

WATER

Background

The water supply in the US is generally very reliable. But some areas have ever-worsening water supply issues and many municipalities routinely have problems with pollutants, pathogens, or over-chlorination. (And don't get us started on fluoride!)

Water mains can fail, disrupting taps for hours or days. Likewise, if a pumping station's power goes out, water contamination problems may rise or there may be a complete shutdown.

Water prices are also going up, and watering your new garden all summer may cause sticker shock on your water bill.

Essential Actions

• Store X day's worth of drinking water. The rule of thumb is one gallon per person per day. The minimum X is 3.
• Install a high quality water filtration system on your kitchen sink. Make sure it can filter biological pathogens. When shopping, it's smart to compare the capabilities of the filters you're considering to the last few annual water quality reports from your water company to make sure your filter will match up well against the problems most likely to show up in your water.

Second-Level Actions

• Have sufficient rainwater capture capacity to supply your family with drinking water for three weeks.
• Have the means to treat or filter your captured rainwater. Some people are satisfied with chemical decontamination, but for those who prefer to avoid chlorine and other chemicals, the Big Berkey water filter is widely recognized by preppers as the top gravity-fed water filter. (If you decide to buy one, you can support Grinning Planet (which is a completely free site) by buying your Big Berkey through this Amazon link.)

Third-Level Actions

• Install additional rainwater capture capacity that can also be available for watering your garden plants during dry weather. Keep watch at Grinning Planet for our upcoming articles about rainbarrels, cisterns, and roofwashers.

The Resilient Household

ENERGY

Background

In the post-deregulation era of privatized power generation, the juice has kept flowing and shareholders' profits increased. The trouble is, the latter came at the expense of investment in new generation capacity and upgrades of the electrical grid. There is broad consensus among electricity analysts that the grid is old and prone to failure, and that the likelihood of a another major outage like the 2003 Northeast grid outage is not "if" but "when."

On the fuel front, if the dollar has big problems, oil supplies will have big problems. The results at your local gas station will not be pretty.

Essential Actions

• Have sufficient battery or generator backup to keep your refrigerator(s) and freezer(s) running for at least a week. Generators can be sized to also support a space heater or two, but battery backup would likely be insufficient for that.
• Always keep your vehicles at a half tank or above.

Second-Level Actions

• Figure out how to get better gas mileage with your current vehicle.
• Reduce your electricity (or heating fuel) requirements by improving your home's insulation, efficiency of appliances, etc.
• Begin learning and using passive solar techniques. If you can afford it, add solar hot water and/or solar PV. See our home solar energy article for more info.
• If you live in an area with decent woodlands and reasonably priced firewood, consider a wood stove (or wood stove insert for your fireplace). During a winter power outage, a wood stove can keep you warm and provide an alternate way of cooking meals. WoodHeat.org is a good place to get educated about wood as an energy source.

Third-Level Actions

• Try mass transit, carpooling, or biking to work. Understanding all your options before a fuel problem hits will maximize your mobility as others scramble to figure out alternatives.
• Get a high-mileage vehicle (40 mpg or better).
• Reduce your commute's fuel requirements by investigating the possibility of working from home part of the week, or at a nearby telecommuting center. A helpful selling point here is that your ability to keep being productive in the event of a fuel disruption will be a benefit to your employer. Or, if you think there are good opportunities closer to home, consider a job change. (But in this job environment, we don't advise that unless you're reeaaaaally sure.)

The Resilient Household

HEALTH

Background

In the worst-case scenarios for dollar collapse, fuel disruptions, or a long-term power outage, goods and services we take for granted won't be there, and that includes medications. Additionally, basic emergency preparedness is always a good idea, and most of us are under-prepared on that front too.

Essential Actions

• Keep a broad range of basic health care and first aid supplies on-hand.
• In the same way that you keep a buffer supply of food, store extra soap, toilet paper, and any other items essential for personal hygiene.
• Get in shape. This is a good idea generally, but we all may be growing more of our own food in the future, and while that's enjoyable and rewarding, it's also hard physical work. We may also finding ourselves biking to work or doing more of our own household repairs/maintenance in the future. Making sure our bodies are ready is smart.

Second-Level Actions

• Address any habits where you wouldn't be able to easily "do without" for a period of time. Also try harder to address any lingering or long-ignored health issues. Entering a period of chaos with such functional liabilities is something to avoid.
• If you are on medication but think you could be off medication by modifying your diet and exercise habits (or by other, natural means), do so. But please consult with your physician before beginning any such undertaking!

The Resilient Household

WRAP-UP

Preparedness takes time. It can also take money, but done correctly, it can also save money in the long run. There is one thing preparedness will bring that cannot be affixed with a price tag---peace of mind.

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"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

— Kenneth Boulding, economist

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Big Berkey
(water filter)