How to Live and Survive When Your Country Enters an Economic Collapse

Countries are starting to fall like dominos.   Argentina, Greek, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, and Spain have entered have gone into economic collapse.  Europe is entering their economic collapse this very weekend, as a bank holiday was declared and haircut announce on all bank deposits.  Italy is very close to an economic collapse. 

The sequestration of the United States budget is an indication that austerity has come to the United States.   In my previous posting, I suggested that the United States might have 2 or 3 years before it slides into an economic collapse.  I hope it doesn’t occur, but nothing to me suggest that things are improving in the global or national economies.

So what do you do if your country enters an economic collapse?   How will you survive?  How will you feed your family?   Here are some suggestions.

1. Family – Use the time to strengthen your family bonds.  Reach out to cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, children, in-laws and others.  Offer them what help you can.  There may be a time when you must rely upon your extended family for help.   Double up your home to share expenses.  Grandparents can move into their children’s home, and provide babysitting services, while the adults go to their employment or seek new jobs.
2. Convert your assets to liquid form – If your country is likely to enter an economic collapse, convert your assets to liquid forms.   Sell the big house, and rent instead.  Move your retirement investments in things likely to survive an economic collapse.  Consider cashing out your retirement assets, if a full-blown great depression become likely.  If I were living in Italy today, I’d remove all my money from banks, liquidate my retirement accounts into cash, and sell all art and collectibles.  Instead, I’d buy long-term stored food, gold, silver, and simply just keep cash.   Italy is inching ever closer to a bail-out by the European Union.
3. Grow your own food – If you have even the smallest plot of land, start a garden. Even a small plot of land can produce enough potatoes to feed a family.
4. Hunting and fishing – If you are out of work, use the time to obtain food as our ancestors did a mere 100 years ago.
5. Cut up your credit cards now – Credit cards are modern forms of slavery.  Debt is killing the global economy.   Pay in cash, or don’t buy it at all.  During an economic collapse, no one uses credit.  First, credit become closed to most people, when banks fail.   Second, in a collapse society, cash is king.
6. Start a home-based business – Whatever your skills, look to transform your skills into a home-based business.  Your hobbies might also transform into a business.   If you play a musical instrument, start teaching the instrument.   Like working on cars, do small repairs our of your home’s garage.
7. Change your diet – To save money, eat less meat.  Instead, eat more beans, which are inexpensive but have high nutrition.   Try to eat food in season for your location.  Buy food direct from farmers.
8. Learn home canning – During the Great Depression of the 1930’s, my mother-in-law was a young child.  She and her siblings would gleam from already picked farm field.  Lots of food are left in the fields because pickers or harvesting machines are not perfect.  My mother-in-law’s mother would do home canning from food in their own garden plus what was gleamed from neighboring farms.   Often you can cheap buy pounds and pounds of green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, berries, and other vegetables from farmers markets.   My mother-in-law mentioned that they were never hungry during the first Great Depression, because their basement often had several hundred jars of home canned foods.
9. Sell your trinkets and toys – You don’t need a big screen television.  Sell the toys, collectibles, and electronic gadgets.   It is better to have gardening tools and long-term stored food.
10. Regain your work ethic – It is hard work to tend to your garden and then go to full-time job.  But that is how people lived just a 50 years ago.  The concept of a paid retirement and 8 hour work day is rather new in society.  Up until 50 years ago, people worked until they could work no longer.  Then their families would take care of them in their old age.  Take on odd jobs, cash jobs.  Extend your work day from 8 to 12 hours.   An adults needs 7 to 8 hours of sleep per day to stay health.  That gives your 16 other hours to be productive in your day.   One of the main reasons why the global debt crisis has gotten so bad is because the Western society has gotten LAZY!!!!   My grandfather used to tell me as a young child, “A man who works hard never starves.”   Take extra part-time jobs, when available.  Even when you have a job, work extra hours or another part-time job.   One month you might be working 18 hours a day, but then the next month you might not find any work at all.   While you are working, always network with potential employers, in case you lose your job.
11. Barter Clubs – In Argentina and Spain, many local towns have started barter clubs.  Goods and services are exchanged for points.  Points are used to obtain other goods and services.   For example, grandma knits four wool sweaters.  At the barter club, the sweaters sold in return for 25 points each.   Grandma uses the 100 points to obtain two loaves of bread for 20 points and fresh gallon milk for 15 points.
12. Take advantage of local charities – Don’t rely upon it, but use it if you must.  If you can work, you should work.  But some people can’t work, due to age or sickness.  You must feed and clothe your children.  Do what you must to provide for your family.  But if you do have employment, let the charities help those less fortunate.
13. Your home – If you live in a big home with a mortgage payment, consider selling the bigger home to move into a small home.  It is better to own outright a smaller home than have a mortgage payment for bigger home.  If you feel like you can barely make your mortgage payments today, sell now, before economic collapse.  Become a renter, which gives your more flexibility.  Owning your home outright will give you some protection during an economic collapse.  Governments are not likely to kick people of their owned homes because of late property taxes, when millions of other people are already on the street.  Owning your home guarantees a place to live.
14. Learn to do things for yourself – I am stunned about how many women these days don’t know how to sew a button on a shirt.   I’m a guy, and I know how to sew a button.  Learn to do everything for yourself.   Change the oil on your car.  Repair your own shoes and clothing.  Do you own home repairs.   Make your own jams and jellies.  Wash and iron your own dress shirts.   Cook your own meals. Something truly terrifying is coming our way, and it will hit homeland before the 1st of January 2017…
15. Raise chickens or rabbits for food – Chickens and rabbits are fairly easy to raise, but takes some skills and practice.   Rabbits can be raised in a rather small space, if you buy their feed.  Even if you just have a quarter acre of land, that is enough for a chicken coup and a dozen hens and a roster.
16. Use the resources in your community – Use your local library to rent books and videos, rather than paying.  Take classes at your local community college to obtain new skills.   Offer to help the farmers near your home, in return for a portion of the harvest.
17. One man’s trash is another’s treasure – Furniture, clothing, appliances and tools are often discarded while still useful.   Form a hand-me-down network in your neighborhood for children’s clothing.   If you have skills to repair item, find discarded items to fix and then sell.
18. Gold and Silver are reserved for when things get really bad – If you able to acquire physical gold and silver, set these aside for when things get really bad.  Economic collapse leads to a break down in society, which leads to changes in government, which often leads to war.  A gold coin was often used as a bribe to escape a country in a state of war.  Do everything you can to avoid selling your gold and silver, until the choice is starvation or not.  First rely on your labors to provide for your family.  Exhaust every option before selling your gold and silver coins. From a price point alone, now is a great time to buy silver and gold.I like to buy both silver and gold coins.   I save silver coins for what would be everyday transactions.  The gold coins are for a long-term store of wealth and major purchases.    In a long-term SHTF or WROL environment, such as an economic collapse, much of what commerce that will occur will be done through barter.  Since silver and gold coins are universal currency, the easiest barter will occur with exchange of silver and gold coins.   For one 10 cent silver dime, you could envision buying a loaf of bread.  A half ounce of gold coin could buy a side of beef (one-half of a beef cattle).My favorite way to buy silver and gold is small amounts every month.  Each month, depending on what is left over from paying the bills, I’ll buy small amounts of gold and silver.I like the 1/10th ounce gold coins versus 1 ounce gold coins for several reasons.   First, the 1/10th ounce coins are very small and easily hidden.   You could have 20 1/10th gold coins sew into clothing, hidden within a zipper belt, or in the heel of your shoes.  The larger gold coins are more likely to be discoverable from an x-ray or an airport security detector device.
19. Expect crime to become rampant – During an economic collapse, police are laid-off and crime rates go up.  It is up to you to defend your family from crime.   Obtain firearms and ammunition before the collapse.  You’ll not be able to afford firearms after the collapse.
20. Be prepared to move for a new job – During an economic collapse, jobs will not come to you.  You might need to go to the job.   Expect that you might need to move your family to a new city or even a new country to find employment.  Think ahead of time of what you might do for a relocation.   For this reason, don’t weigh down your household with lots of art work, decorations, and expensive furniture.   Rather, focus on nice, but functional items for you home, which are of the size which are easy for your to move yourself.
21. Cancel your addictions – If you smoke tobacco, drink too much alcohol, take illegal drugs, or addicted to prescription medicines, now is the time to confront your addictions.   Can you look into your children’s eyes as they ask for more food, but you spend your money on tobacco, alcohol, or drugs instead?   Addictions are difficult to confront.  Do it now, or it may kill you outright during an economic collapse.
22. Improve your health – Exercise, lose weight, and learn to love sweat.   A proper body weight will not only let you live longer, but will enable you to do more work and earn more money.  Expect during an economic collapse that you will lose access to medical insurance.  If you have any outstanding dental problems or pending minor surgeries, do it now.  During an economic collapse, hospitals will be places of misery, and not healing. 
23. Learn to live without electricity – Electricity will be a luxury during an economic collapse.  Learn and prepare to wash clothing by hand.  Be able to heat your home with fireplace or wood stove.  Cut your own firewood.  Boil water and prepare meals from wood stove or fireplace.
24. Become mentally strong – You will need to be mentally strong to survive an economic collapse.  Our grandparents and great-grandparents survived the first Great Depression and World War Two.  And so can you survive the second Great Depression.   The Greatest Generation had the courage to endure the 1st Great Depression and World War 2.  The following Baby Boomer generation racked up debts to be paid by their grandchildren and yet unboard great-grandchildren.  Shamefully, the Baby Boomer generation, produced by the greatest generation, is the spoiled, selfish, worst generation.   Focus on the love of your family.  The pride of being self-sufficient.  A positive attitude is a reward in so many ways.   Many people will simply give up, because of being accustomed to a life of leisure and plenty.   Reconnect with your religion and your spirituality.  Focus on the joys of living.  Success is a roof over you head and food in your children’s bellies.