http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2011/01/ten_basic_preparations_for_a_n.php

I like this a lot. It is IMO more of what we need. Practical information that is doable for working people in hard times. It is cheap, when money is tight; easy, as almost everyone is overworked; quick, when finding time to eat and sleep is often impossible.

Being American we come from a long tradition of tackling problems by throwing money and material at them. No problem is too small or insignificant to not justify buying another item or tool. Often in great numbers. The reflex is to buy more, carry more, stack up more, and still more after that. Which is okay if you have money to buy it, time to look after it, a place to store it, a way to move it, patience to keep it organized.

Most Americans don't have the money, time, place, cargo capacity, or patience remaining to invest heavily in survival gear or supplies. Paying the rent, getting the kids to school, and food for the next meal consume the day and available resources.

In this context long lists of survival supplies are meaningless. If a hard pressed family cannot make a meaningful investment in survival with less than $50 and an investment of half an hour they are not going to undertake the effort. Advocate shooting for the moon and they will never leave the ground. We don't need inspiring examples of broad materialism because 99% of Americans are too busy making the rent to do more than look on in wonder.

We need simple, easy, inexpensive plans and actions that people with limited resources of time, money, patience can wrap their heads around and fit into their hard pressed lives. Ten Basic Preparations for a New Year is a series of small scale projects that almost every family could do. I like that. I like that a lot.

That is some Good Info,Softly Spoken,layman speak,For those with No Orientation of Preps/Lacking the $$/Time!Since I am,Who I am,I'll say,It seems they Forgot to mention 1 Important Preparation- A Honey Bucket,lol!During Stressful Moments,that Need is The Greatest,A simple 5 gal.Bucket with 10 gal.Bags,& A good qty. of TP & Hoo-Ahhs or equivalent.Having made my way,Around this Globe & Squatting in Places,I don't Care to Squat,Ever Again,I Think it is Important!

you're a funny

A very thought provoking article. I think this line sums it up for the vast majority:

"Perhaps the very oddest thing about us is simply that even in places where natural disasters occur on a regular basis most people think that it would be too much bother to prepare for them adequately"

The preparations listed are simple, cheap, universal, and employ common sense.

Its really not expensive to buy a few extra groceries when they are on sale to have some preps. I scaled back before we moved and then bought a new set of shelves and put them in our crawlspace and in the couple years have them full and overflowing. Took a picture and showed it to my wife who was amazed that we had so much food.

+1, Eugene. I think the real barrier to preparedness is mindset, not economics, particularly when the next meal is coming from (choose one) McDonalds or Starbucks.

Day one for a new prepper might be:

1. fill 4 l of water
2. get a flashlight

I like this. It points out what I'm doing well and what I can improve upon (points 4 & 5) without huge expense or effort.

Good reading in general; aside from the unnecessary political jab. My only problem with the article is the ever-erroneous 1 gallon/day/person. I hold to no less than three and push for five to seven. Here is what I think is a good method for planning water storage: One cubic foot of storage for each person fer each day. A cubic foot of water is just over seven gallons. Given what storage systems take up in their structure you can probably count on no more than five gallons per cubic foot.

Just a thought.

YMMV

My $.02

Depending upon humidity, my water consumption has varied from around a liter a day to well over a gallon. I would say a gallon a day would be about right if it fairly humid and one is not exercising vigorously. This does not count the water ingested with food, and does not consider body size and other variables.

Speaking as an old desert rat, I hold that the use of water for any purpose other than consumption when the supply is restricted is foolhardy. Forget bathing and washing.

Just as you can never be too rich or too skinny, you can never have too much water, well hardly ever (floods excepted).

While not always pleasant or comfortable most people can get along, or learn to get along, quite well without toilet facilities of any kind. Yes, there is always the cat hole and squat. But the Chinese go for a semi-standing high altitude precision bombing. Often with less than sterling accuracy. Bigger holes and a certain amount of scraping into the hole for near misses can make it work while still preserving the environment.

There are a lot of aspects to the finance and food purchase patterns. Many families are quite literally budgeted down to the last dollar. An extra can of beans may mean doing without something else. Hard for a lot of people to imagine but there are a lot of people who live very close to the edge financially, emotionally, physically.

It is hard to overestimate how stressed the bottom ten percent of the population is.

Also it has to be noted that eating at McDonnald's is fairly effective in a calories per dollar basis. But the big payoff is in time and effort. A single mother working two or three jobs six or seven days a week, shuttling kids to school and daycare, and catching sleep a few hours at a time whenever they can often have little time or energy to cook. Hitting the drive-through on the way home from picking the kids up from daycare is about as good as it gets.

For these people tossing the kids old Power Ranger comforter into the car, refilling discarded soda bottles, and getting a few large deep-discount candles may be a major advance. These ten steps Baby steps are just barely doable.

The good news is the first steps have the biggest payoff for the least investment.

I would rather see hundreds of families with few resources get a minimalist kit together than one or two assembling extensive kits.

Exactly. A few liters of water and a flashlight is better than not having any water and a flashlight.

People have survived on far less than one gallon/person/day. Within certain limits more is better, a lot depends on what you are doing without to have more, but most people can get along with a gallon a day if you limit use to drinking, brushing teeth, and a sponge bath.

Presently,I'm Unaware of Any society in this world,That Even Tries to Get along,Of whom Lack the proper facility or Commode! China Certainly isn't one,OK Mongolia/Tibet,I haven't been there!I'm Mainly Concerned with My Country,when a disaster happens such as, Tornado sends your outhouse into your neighbors house,Earthquake swallows up your Bathroom & Then some,Flood decides to visit,& overstay's it Welcome,Hurricane Andrew's Momma wants to hang out for awhile,Stuff like that!When you lack the proper place to Vent your frustrations,You remain Frustrated!

I totally agree Art. Better is always better, but something is better than nothing. The easiest way to get someone to start thinking along these lines is to make it easy and cheap, especially when the family budget is tight. Organizing what you already have on hand can also be very empowering when you realize that you are more prepared than you thought.

What a great thought: Simple, direct, and very manageable. Just the fact you slow down enough to do this is a move in the right direction.

Honestly, I have a hard time knowing what I need to get when I go "major" grocery shopping. This step alone needs to be integrated.

Make a plan, make a plan, make a plan.....

Again, great thought.

What about those who are unemployed with unemployment insurance benefits (i.e. social security recipients with at least some minimal income with local currency), those who are unemployed without unemployment benefits (i.e. timed out social security recipients who have been referred to as bums, junkies and animals that don't deserve to be fed less they breed and not even counted on Government statistics as even being unemployed).

I'm a little confused how food stamps work, as they appear to be a system of (Local, Federal Government or charitable?) rationing out with the main stream economy yet there are tens of millions of folks reliant on this system (i.e. food survival). There appears to very little leeway (basically non existent even for those who are adept at planning a weekly diet rota) for folks on food stamps to put aside enough to cater for a general emergency.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0wdlyXJBU

Is the food stamp system the fall back for unemployed people whose unemployment benefits have run out. How does this affect any housing benefits so that folks can remain in their place of residence (i.e Shelter esp with one of the coldest winters forecast for a generation)?

The underlying economic problems haven't been resolved, in fact they are even more dire since the banking and financial sectors in the western world went bankrupt in 2008. The real economic fallout has yet to be paid in currency devaluation and government debt default with the consequent inflation of worldwide commodities because they are priced in the worlds reserve currency (i,e, the UN food price index is once again at its highest level due to speculative actions as just before the previous stock market crash of 2008), whilst many other countries are actively decoupling their economies from the worlds reserve currency (currency war) to the point that I suspect gun boat diplomacy is being actively pursued to maintain the free ride that the masters of the universe have gotten so used to.

I suspect it may be to late for those on limited fix incomes or those on poorly paid wages without any savings to put together enough cash for a 3-6 month food stockpile. For those that can afford to do so, I would recommend that they do so immediately or at least have a cash float available under the mattress to pay for a food stockpile when required.

I've been in line at the supermarket,& Observed many a Folk,Using Foodstamps/WIC coupons & Talking/Texting on BlackBerry's & Razors(cells)/Bluetooth's,Parked in the Blue zones(Handicapped Only)Loading their Lincoln Navigators/Cadillacs with the Groceries,whilst being Oblivious to the Traffic/Life around them!As far as I'm Concerned,These types don't Deserve, Preparational Instruction!Murphy's law Tells me,They will Probably Survive,Any Disaster!

I've seen my share of those , load up a cart and when their bill was more than the amount of food stamps they had they would put everything back but the junk food. Some would offer $5-10 in food stamps in exchange for $4 to us pushing carts in from the lot in case so they could buy cigarettes (and get mad at me when I wouldn't take them on their offer).
I got paid weekly and allocated $20 to groceries our of my $100 per week take home pay, I got lunch at school and at work sat and Sunday when I worked 8 hours so that had to do breakfast and dinner for a week. I'd get the $0.19 loaf of bread, the $0.99 eggs, $0.99 gallon of OJ, $0.79 imitation pop tarts, cans of soup or such that was on sale. It was almost a game to see how far I could stretch that budget.

"Is the food stamp system the fall back for unemployed people whose unemployment benefits have run out. How does this affect any housing benefits so that folks can remain in their place of residence (i.e Shelter esp with one of the coldest winters forecast for a generation)?"

I'm not exactly sure what your question is, but I'm sure food stamps are separate from housing. The amount you get is dependent on income and how many people there are in your family.

I received food stamps for three months back in 1982 when I lost my job to the recession then, and it wasn't very much. I took a list and a calculator to try to get the most food value for the price. Then I would get behind a large woman with a bunch of kids and an overflowing basket full of junk food and soda and frozen prepared meals.

There seems to be some sort of multiplication equation involved, but I don't know how it works. Maybe if you're collecting other forms of welfare from the government you get more.

There are also Food Banks, that collect food and give it away to people who get food stamps (and maybe others, too), but I think you can only go there a few times a month. But the way things are now (not as good as the news media reports), the food banks are in dire straits due to more demand than they can supply.

Sue

On the up side, the boorish and inconsiderate behavior by those who paid by other means, not Foodstamps/WIC coupons, didn't seem to cause you any great discomfort.

I find it interesting that the indicators seem to say this experience comes from what sounds like 20 years ago. When was the last time there was "$0.19 loaf of bread, the $0.99 eggs, $0.99 gallon of OJ, $0.79 imitation pop tarts"?

It also has to be pointed out that the foodstamp program stopped issuing paper coupons in 2004 and the coupons themselves were non-redeemable as of June 17 2009. I haven't seen a coupon in better than four years. The debit cards are far harder to convert to cash.

Of course the foodstamp program is a subsidy for the poor and a backdoor minimum wage. Wages have remained static for most of forty years even as the cost of living has gone up. The simple fact is that you can work sixty hours a week and not make enough even minimally support a family.

As of last May one in eight Americans were receiving foodstamps.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6465E220100507

An example to work through would probably be useful

If you become unemployed from a job and are single which pays say twice the minimum wage i.e. $15 an hour and you work 40 hrs per week to get an gross income of $600 per week or $2400 per month and your New York rental property is costing $1000 per month. How quickly do you end up on food stamps if you have say savings of $6000 if you cannot find a suitable job to cover rental/mortgage expenses etc.

How much is unemployment benefit?

How long does unemployment benefit last? (Does eligibility for food stamps kick in after unemployment benefit runs out i.e. long term unemployment, or can the food stamp program be accessed even to those on minimum wage incomes as a government mandated supplementary income i.e. it is telling folks how to spend the cash for food)

How long is the rent paid for by Government assistance? i.e. is there are form of housing benefits paid to stabilise the housing market and reduce the considerable stress of having to think about moving whilst looking for employment. (millions on food stamps and considerable numbers homeless whilst there are approx 30 million unoccupied homes quickly falling into disrepair)

Is the level of government assistance dependent of the level of personal savings etc i.e. means tested?

The food stamps system appears to be a government form of food rationing much like the 1940s in the UK during and after WW2.

How robust would the system of food stamps be if the Federal Government defaults on its National debt. Would these folks hanging on by their fingernails be the first to feel acute hunger (25% of all children reliant on food stamps for nutrition) where as the rest of the population would at least have some devalued (inflation) income such as experienced in Argentina in the late 90s.

It would appear that even free board and lodging with 3 square meals a day at the Governments pleasure is starting to become restricted as more prison places are being reduced as local and state government are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Or does everyone simply call the 50 Million Americans with potentially no food resources, no income, no housing, no medical insurance and no hope, after a Government debt default, the 'Zombies' and be glad of the ammunition stock pile for those that have prepared. I hope not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiK_RF3ioRw

The last section of the video might be of interest to gather some actionable intelligence on how to proceed if the Government Debt default become reality. Try not to be too offended at Max Keiser's outrage.

I worked grocery when I was in college in the 90's so 15 years ago.
I still see if, before we moved we were in an older area of town, I used to find paper food stamps that they would toss out their car window, I wanted to get those and call up the.gov office and tell them so and so apparently doesn't need them since they are throwing them in our yard. That was just over a couple years ago before we moved. Our city is apparently behind the times. We had the houses around us rented out through the government section 8 program. Watched the 50" tv, big stereo, come in from rent a center. Watched the nurse come weekly yo check on the younger kids, watched the social workers come every couple weeks to check on the older kids, watched the church vans bring them food once a week then saw most of that food in their trashcan unopened the next trash day.

Whew! I don't know the answers to a lot of this...

The Food Stamp program is a federal program, totally divorced from unemployment, which is handled by each state individually (each is different). I'll have to use Washington State as an example, it's the only one I know, and I will be making some assumptions and estimates just to give you an idea of how it works.

A WA claim is good for one year, but the total amount is decided by how much you made, approx. 40% of your gross annual income. Using the job you mentioned ($28,800/yr), the total amount available would be about $11,500 for the year, or $960/mo, which wouldn't even pay his rent.

If he found a part-time job, 15 hrs/wk at min. wage of $8.67/hr (T= $520/mo), about 75% of that ($386) would be deducted from his unemployment. His gross income would be $1,094 (reduced unemployment payment of $574 + $520 from his P/T job), but after deductions, that would be about $990 cash in hand, if he deferred the deductions from his unemployment until the following tax year. Still not enough to keep his apartment.

WA has an online calculator for food stamps. With or without the $6000 in the bank, he could receive $149/mo.

But, using your figures, he cannot make his rent or his electricity payments, so he would probably be evicted very soon. If he moved in with a friend or relative and paid them $300/mo, his food stamps would decrease to $123/mo. If he had no friends or relatives and had to live under a bridge, his food stamp amount would drop to $33/mo.

Since he has no children, he would not be eligible for any housing.

"The food stamps system appears to be a government form of food rationing much like the 1940s in the UK during and after WW2."

No, not really. The WWII rationing applied to everyone, even if they could afford to buy as much meat or gas as they wanted. The majority of the food was being sent overseas to feed the troops. The rationing was to ensure that everyone got a bit of everything (meat, butter, eggs, etc). Joe Smith who lost a leg in WWII and sold pencils on a street corner got the same number/kinds of ration tickets that the local bank president got.

The bit about govt inspection of personal savings appears to be a very tangled web, and I don't know enough about it to say. I believe most of it involves long-term Welfare and disabled Social Security recipients. I do know that investigators will confiscate funds in excess of allowable limits, any bank accounts belonging even to the family's children, etc.

"How robust would the system of food stamps be if the Federal Government defaults on its National debt?"

Our National Debt is over $14 trillon -- it will never be paid. If you are referring to the token payments currently being made suddenly coming to an abrupt stop, the economies in every single country in the world will crash into the worst Grand Depression ever seen, and the starvation will be incredible. IMO.

The growing number of people "with potentially no food resources, no income, no housing, no medical insurance and no hope" aren't called Zombies, they are the "Invisible Poor", and their ranks are growing daily.

I hope this has answered at least a few of your questions. It's a complicated subject. If there are others who want to correct me, go right ahead.

Sue