How much have you spent on survival gear or preparations? How does 200-300 dollars of an essentially liquefiable asset compare?

It’s not liquefiable too easily in a bug out or survival situation.





Precious metals have look alike metals and can be faked, how would a person you wanted to trade with verify that you a transient (bugging out) they are never going to see again in their life and have no reason to trust are in fact telling them the truth that the metal you have is in fact gold? They can’t. What if they only have enough supplies to see themselves through? What if they are like me and see gold as something you can’t eat or use right away?

I see precious metals as a worthwhile investment for things like retirement as long as a social structure is there. As I would expect society to continue to do. But for a bug out and the idea that you can use it for re-supply is risky at best. Too many ways it can’t work, I want things I know will work or are risks I can manage and control.

Yea food can go bad and rice can get wet, but through diligence keeping on top of this I can easily manage this risk to keep it down. How many of us right now have food put away that is wet or infested with bugs? Probably none, we store it right and keep on top of it and rotate stock and buy food in durable containers of have good containers for it.

Bugging out, you have no idea if you will find someone to trade with, and if you do they have to want what you have to trade and see and be able to prove it’s a value to them. Not being able to prove it’s really gold of whatever quality you say it is, it’s value will be much less to them as from their view they have to take a big risk to take an unknown value product and give away a known quality and valued product.

And what if you can’t find some to trade anything with?

Bugging out, you better have the supplies you need or be able to hunt for them (animals for food) along the way. I also don’t agree that you can’t carry enough supplies to get you out of any given problem area. An auto with a full tank of gas and a trunk full of food will feed me for 5 or 6 weeks (I go camping for a week with 1-duffel bag of food and don’t eat it all) and allow me to travel 450-miles without refueling. This is far enough to drive away from most problems. If you plan ahead and have a pickup truck, van or a small trailer you can increase your lifeline considerably. I just think it’s better to rely on me for supplies then someone a few hundred miles down the road I may not be able to find or that may not have things to give me because he’s having supply problems himself or just may not want to trade or be interested in what I have to trade.

I love primitive tent camping and have over the years accumulated a lot of gear that lends itself to survival. Other then food and gasoline (consumable items that are hard to come by in nature) I have everything I need to keep going. In fact I’m over stocked in this area as I would guess most of us here are. I have at least 10 camp stoves, 3 tents, 2 water filters, the list goes on & on.

You can’t compare a person that hikes the Appalachian Trail to a person bugging out. Hiking the AT is about hiking with a minimal amount of supplies, packs weighting under 35-pounds, some light weight hikers hike with a pack weighting 10 to 12-pounds. They can do this because the AT is not about survival in the wild, it’s about hiking. It purposely goes through or close to many towns a person can re-supply in that have businesses that cater to hikers. If society were to collapse (like is a possibility in a crises bug out situation) and the re-supply structure & businesses that feed the AT that have sprang up over the years were to fail even for a short time hikers on the AT would not get far.

They expect to and do find things that are not normally found anyplace (like butane for a popular stove called a Jet-Boil, while this stove is a great stove, it’s hard top find it and fuel for it) but a specialty store. Take an AT hiker and his carried supplies without a special store and he’s stuck in short time. They have people send them drop boxes to a post office (post office will hold a package for you for 30-days) they are on their way to.

If I need to bug-out, no one is going to send me supplies to a post office I can then go to and re-supply.


The best bug-out mentality is to fully expect to carry what you need with you for the duration you will be gone.

Or pre-plan a route with catches you have set up ahead of time.

Or have a destination you have in mind with a catch of supplies.

Or go far enough to get out of the effected area (like with Katrina, 300-miles or less would have been fine.)

Are you trying to get the economy started again, or get the US economy started again?

Just curious if anyone has been following the price of PM in the last month, or even the last few days.

I figure if you buy now what you'll need later, then later you won't need to barter for anything.

It's difficult and/or impractical to store some things in quantity so there might always be a need to barter. Plus, in some situations, I would probably welcome the opportunity to trade the fruits of my skills for the fruits of someone else's since it could lessen the number of skills needed to get by when there's no time to learn. One person might be a skilled hunter and the other might be skilled at turning hides into shelter and/or clothing. Let's make a deal!

Gold/metals would be the last thing on my list.

Is there something lower in priority than last on the list?

"oh yeah, don't forget to pack the kruggerrands honey..."

John E

As a post script, anyone thinking that gold is gonna save them in the post-apocalyptic world should read "On the beach" by Nevil Shute.

John E

Nope.

There seems to be quite a bit of concern or debate surrounding verifying the legitimacy of gold or silver. If you buy Eagles, they are made by the same group that prints paper money and is defended by the same secret service. So, I would trust a silver or gold eagle the same as I would trust a US $20 or $100 bill.

Personally, I don't see a bunch of use for metals in a short term survival situation unless you are talking about a rather large financial collapse. If that was the case, I wouldn't be worried that people would not know what silver is. We used silver prior to 1964 and people would figure it out quickly if we ever go back there again.

It is a store of value and if you want to use it to buy rice, maybe it is better to just buy rice now. Once you have your preparations made and need someplace to keep excess funds, it may be a good place.

Fact is that nobody knows what is going to happen. Between the deficit and unfunded liabilities, something has to give sooner or later.