If you pay any attention to what is being posted online in what I like to call “the preppersphere” (meaning the collection of blogs, podcasts, and videos by and for preppers), it has probably come to your attention that lots of people are pretty worried about what the future holds.
The worry breaks down into two areas: the economy and the possibility of a bigger war in Europe. Because I covered the war drums last week, I’m going to focus on the economic end of things in this post.
That’s not to downplay the possibility of war. In fact, Poland and Lithuania have both stated they expect anywhere from a provocation to an outright invasion in the next couple of months. Finland has asked Sweden to send troops and fighter jets to help them hold off a possible Russian invasion. If anything, these are more telling than the recent trip to Moscow made by the CIA director. (If you missed last week’s post, go back and read it and start thinking about your preps.)
Finance and Food
One thing I have observed is a sudden increase in the number of YouTube videos on stockpiling food. As you know, I am in favor of stockpiling food. Food, water, and shelter are the big three in preparedness, and you can’t do much fighting or surviving without food.
But…many of these posts are AI-generated slop. Many of the channels are ones I had never heard of before. This leads me to believe one of three things:
- People have noticed these videos generate views, and they are jumping on the bandwagon
- Someone is trying to scare Americans and is using prepper messaging to do so.
- Our own government is trying to encourage people to prep without coming out and saying so.
Most of these videos are poorly done, rarely feature a human, and often use AI illustrations and stock photography. (That tends to imply points one and two are accurate.) The information is so general and so vague that I find it hard to believe any serious prepper would stick around and watch the whole thing.
In contrast, there are the videos by real human preppers who have had prepping channels for years; people like SouthernPrepper1 and City Prepping who are covering food inflation and talking about how the costs for food will rise. These are the more serious preppers, and their videos are more than a list of ten common canned goods you should buy.
So what is a prepper to do? Well, prep, obviously.
Financial Threats
In my opinion, the possibility of inflation is very real, and we will feel it first in oil and gas and then in food. The $40 trillion in debt, climbing at a rapid rate, is a key driver. (We now pay more than$1 trillion a year in interest.) The Iranian war and its constraints on the global oil market are another. Add in the financial disruption that a war in Europe could cause, problems with the bond market, food shocks caused by the Super El Niño, a possible AI/chip or tech stock market crash, and we could see a recession as bad or worse than what we had in 2008. (If you are too young to remember, it was a bad one; people called it the Great Recession for a reason.)
That means people will lose their jobs, lose their houses or be evicted, get their cars repossessed, and end up broke, homeless, and helpless. This will be worse than moving back in with your parents because their retirement savings could be wiped away as well. For an idea of what happened 100 years ago during the Great Depression and how people coped, read this recent post on ZeroHedge. Take it seriously and plan what you can do to keep yourself out of a similar position in the next two months to two years.
Recession vs Inflation
One of the biggest challenges about facing an unknown economic downturn is that we don’t know if it will be driven by inflation or deflation/recession, or if we will see stagflation instead, which is like the worst of both. The difficulty is that prepping for inflation differs from prepping for deflation. However, here are some things that should serve you well in both scenarios:
- Have cash or accessible money in fixed accounts that you can access without having to take a loss. I am no financial advisor (see our disclaimers) but if you are wealthy, consider growing your reserve fund from six months to two years of cash or money in CDs or money market accounts.
- Have some physical cash, too, in case the banks close for a bank holiday. Gold and silver coins are also useful in an emergency, but don’t keep them in your safe deposit box.
- Don’t make any large purchases and pay off every loan you can. If you own it outright, no one can repossess it. If you don’t owe anyone money, you probably won’t have to declare bankruptcy; bankruptcy judges can force you to sell assets.
- Look for ways to lower your out-of-pocket costs, especially your monthly fixed costs. Do you need that boat, jet ski, RV, etc.? Is it worth the amount of insurance and payments you are making on it? If you are going to sell it, do so before the market tanks and no one wants to buy it. RV sales are already at lows.
- Look at starting a side gig, making, baking, or raising something you can sell. Burnish physical skills you have that people will pay for, whether it is carpentry, auto mechanics, or sewing. If you lose your job, you may need to fall back on a second source of income.
Don’t Obsess Over Things
If I had $1 for every time the Canadian Prepper warned us about WWIII over the past three years, I reckon I’d have $10,000. But just because it hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean it won’t. Of course, it also doesn’t mean it will. Things change. Countries walk up to the edge and then step back.
Over the past six-and-a-half years, I’ve warned you about conventional war and nuclear war, about recession, inflation, financial collapse, societal collapse, and plenty of other dire scenarios. Yet here we are. Most of us lived through COVID, all of us lived through the inflation that followed, and most of us are still making it. Maybe it’s tougher today than it was in 2019, but I bet some of my readers are better off today than they were back then.
No matter what you read, see posted on X, or watch on YouTube, don’t panic until the bombs are falling and the inflation is soaring. (Actually, don’t panic then, either; just bug out, bug in, or execute your plan.) In the meantime, prep. If you are just starting your prepping journey, that might mean buying food. If you are an experienced prepper like me, it could mean investing in solar power. If you are wealthy, take steps to preserve your wealth; if you are struggling financially, do what you can to put your financial house in order.
No matter how many AI videos are out there or how many bots are posting, no one knows what happens next. Take a step back, look at your life, your situation, and do what you can to make yourself more resilient. That’s what prepping is all about.
