TOTM January 2021... Prepping Strategies for the coming year

Paying ahead on taxes strikes me as to trust the tax collector. I like Amy, but not with my money; after all, she passes it out, and I don't necessarily know to whom or when, or if she tracks it well enough that she will credit the right parcel account.

One thing I can be certain of, property and school taxes will go up annually and I plan for it accordingly.

 

I go down to the county tax office and pay every couple years and pay well ahead. I do get a receipt as well..

 

Been debt free when I paid off the house note in 2005. Stayed that way since, paying cash for everything. Yeah, I could buy stock, but with a Dem taking over, no bueno.

Refreshed the autos, got my DIL into a better rig and so on.
Hunker down, keep my eyes open...

 

We are sitting pretty good here house and everything else is paid for. Good stock of just about everything else. Now we wait and see what happens next.

 

Until last year my plan was to open a small bookstore in 2024, but that is on the way back burner. Now it's about relearning old skills, working on my property and working on a plan for the future.

I have a connex container that I have been filling up with building materials. The soil is very poor so we have been taking out yards of soil and compost. Been collecting old tires for planting beds and water retention. Going to move the airstream from storage and set it up. Thinking now it was a stupid purchase, it shines for miles. Need to paint it. Need more fencing, lots of it. Have about half the route from my house to the property on back roads figured out, need to finish that.

Read some interesting posts here about gray and black water reclamation. Need to work on that. I have a couple of game cameras set but that by itself is not real security.

The list is long but I have time, no work. My tribe is deep so help is there, my youngest (legal slave labor) has nothing but time on his hands and has a strong back.

My long dreamed retirement plan seems to be fading. I was looking forward to spending my years in some over priced mt Town talking books sharing a Guinness and a smoke. Oh well. I knew that the world turning upside down was a real possibility. So I am planning accordingly

 

I know but I kinda had a work around by embracing online sales. Frankly the idea of a physical location was to have a real cool clubhouse. Looked at bookstores in san fran, Seattle, denver, and the NYC area. It is something that has been a dream for years. I even bought out the inventory of a store that closed.

It was or maybe still is more about an easy retirement than making a living.

 

Last weekend I buried my 6k diesel generator. We used a backhoe to dig a sloping pit that goes from 2' to 11' feet deep and 4' wide. Today we go out and finish the welding of the cover. The genny sits at the 6' deep level of the 30' long pit and the plan worked, you can't hear it running unless you are right over the pit. We put a pump at the very bottom because like anything over an inch deep in these parts it will get water in it, hopefully water we can use for irrigation, flushing toilets, etc. The top is a bunch of free angle iron welded into a frame with 1/8" black iron sheet steel over it painted with brown Rustoleum. I'm going to add 1" of dirt just so some weeds grow on it. I have a 650 gallon above ground diesel tank in place. If anyone needs a tank I have two 650 gallon tanks that I won't need. They are used and I have $100 each in them, so I'll take that for them. Located in NE South Carolina close to the NC border. Buyer loads them and transports them.
I think folks are putting too much emphasis on guns and ammunition and not enough on being able to survive for an extended time with no re-supply. No one is going to "just go out and take what they need" , and least not many times. I have not considered buying guns and ammo during this shortage. If I were to use the ammo I have in battle, odds are that I wouldn't live long enough to expend it all. A hundred rounds for the bolt gun should be plenty to discourage looters. A box of .308 right now is worth a weeks worth of groceries, but the grocery store won't take a box of .308 for the groceries. Never will. I can see a time where liquor or cigarettes might be bartered and maybe even ammunition, but when bartering for something that is in demand like food may be, the exchange rate is going to be high.
I talk to a lot of folks who are "planning on" or "going to" do this or that to prepare. My advice is always to research the viability of the idea, and if it is feasible, do it. If you can afford retreat land, buy it. They ain't making anymore land. If you feel your food stocks are too low, correct it now, not during the next sale. Get the greenhouse you've been wanting built, drill the well, make your plans. The pandemic should have been a wake-call and trial run for the astute among us. The next big thing probably won't be as subtle as Covid-19 was.

 

I already have too much to do just keeping up with property maintenance and sorting out Dad's collection of antiques and junk I inherited.
Fortunately, Through the years, I have been making ready for some of the worst-case scenarios I anticipate.
I do have yet to rebuild my greenhouse and get that gardening started again, but I'm 70 and I move a lot slower nowadays.