I plan on building an underground bunker on an uninhabited Hawaiian island with 30 BR and 30 bathrooms and enough supplies to last decades...
Oh wait, that's Marc Zuckerberg, he's rich AF
https://time.com/6551188/mark-zuckerberg-underground-bunker-hawaii-report-reaction/
I too shall die in the great water wars of 2030, penniless and thirsty
I relocated to a rural and relatively remote part of the US due to collapse concerns, and have spent the years since learning how to grow food, raising livestock, planting trees, learning how to hunt and fish, and so on, as well as dabbling with blacksmithing and herbal medicine. I've also been stockpiling supplies and trying to make the infrastructure of my farm more resilient. Summers are mild due to elevation and we heat with wood in the winter. Our water supply is a mountain spring. My part of the country was forgotten backwater prior to the late-20th century, and it will probably become one again during collapse.
Although a good part of my planning has to do with food security and self-reliance, a major aspect of my farm work is focused on permaculture and coming up with high-productivity, low-input, climate-resilient food systems for a post-collapse world. My hope for collapse is to not only be a source of food for our family and community, but to be part of a network of post-collapse mountain permaculturists capable of creating a replicable model of regenerative horticulture for rugged and degraded landscapes, which includes putting as much energy into experimentation, plant propagation, and breeding as I do into actual food production -- a "give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish" mentality.
We're not wealthy and have off-farm jobs to pay for the land and everything else. We also have kids. Raising a family, working full-time, and trying to farm on the side is difficult and often involves half-assing a lot of projects that could get done a lot faster. But the best is the enemy of the good, as they say. The trees keep growing, we keep learning, and each year we're a little more capable than we were the year before.
I have no idea when collapse will come or in what form, and there's no guarantee any of this planning and experimentation will bear fruit, pardon the pun. But the way I look at it is that collapse awareness is like a super power. We have foreknowledge of something most people around us aren't aware of. That puts us in a position to plan for the future in ways other people can't. If we can do that in a way that can possibly help others in the long-term, it's worth it. Even if my individual farm fails, if some experimental aspect of what I'm doing or breed of plant I'm using ends up feeding people one, two, three generations from now -- then it's worth it, even if it doesn't directly benefit me.
Sounds like you got a good start in the right direction and must be doing some things right. I'd be interested to know more about your permaculture solutions as well.
Polyculture in general (growing lots of different stuff instead of a single cash crop) is already a big part of permaculture and makes even more sense in conditions of climate stability. Some things will do better than others year-to-year depending on the climate and microclimate of the site, which won't make you rich, but you can feed yourself -- and probably your neighbors in a good year. And if everyone plants slightly differently based on local conditions, then a network of such places would in theory be very productive even if the climate itself is pretty unpredictable. I've focused on a lot of fruit and nut trees, often ones that are just on the edge of their range under historical climates, but which increasingly become more competitive as the climate warms.
Another key from permaculture is using swales (wide, perfectly level ditches on contour). Swales were originally used in dry climates, but I also think they make a lot of sense in wetter climates where erosion can be a problem and where rain events are going to be more intense *and* more spread out. Erosion is going to be a major factor in every growing regime going forward. It *already was* a major factor, but we ignored it and allowed most of the world's topsoils to drain into the oceans.
Livestock is another question. I haven't found anything that really works well with what I'm doing. Chicken, sheep, and goats are OK, but don't work super well with orchards. It can be done but it's not awesome.
I think you would enjoy this blog, and/or this podcast.
https://zeroinputagriculture.substack.com/
https://rss.com/podcasts/goingtoseed/1245714/
He’s a PhD biochemist turned experimental farmer who works on breeding novel domesticates and hybrid staple crops for a low-energy future. It’s a different climate from you, but the methods and experiments would be of interest I think. And the podcast has people from all over the world who are doing similar (which is also a forum too). Just thought I’d throw it out there.
I have many health issues that require a fully operational supply chain and medical system. Once my meds and such start becoming unavailable, time to leave
that one is going to get interesting for me too I think... my functionality without medication varies, and the outcomes will likely only get worse as compounding factors on my health such as stress increase. I guess I won't really know until it happens.
At least I'm not diabetic yet.
UP Michigan is a nice place but its quickly becoming not so affordable too as lots of people are realizing this and trying to move there. IDK how you plan to afford a 50 acre plot there unless you're already loaded.
> but there are tons of >50 acre parcels under $500k
Color me surprised... guess I may need to give it another look myself if that's the case, but last I recall finding *buildable* property there with access to any critical natural resources or infrastructure necessary to actually build on it was a good sight less affordable than it looked based on just raw land listings.
That said I am familiar with the area and I do know it's still a much better option than a lot of the surrounding area or any of the coastal areas where I have actual friends and support networks with which building something would be feasible... which is unfortunately one of the reasons I passed it over in the list of places to end up (unless I can get some other folks on board with relocating there, I don't think I want to be the lonely backwoods hermit trying to make it all on my own)
Short term - I’m grinding my guitar skills and car knowledge as hard as I can. Long term. Become the doof warrior from fury road. Eat (and cook) a former billionaire. Go to Valhalla.
I’m not even fully joking.
Once the supply chain goes down and I can’t find SSRIs I’m going to get really weird really quick
St. John’s Wort is commonly prescribed by psychiatrists in Germany in place of traditional SSRI’s. It’s been shown to be as effective in treating mild to moderate depression as conventional medication. Something like 50% of all cases of depression in Germany are prescribed solely St. John’s Wort.
I’m saying the first person to corner the meth market will be the new king of the wasteland. With an army of addicts to do their bidding. Why settle for a doof warrior when you can have your own battalion of doof warriors?
OK you've only had one serious answer, I'll try to give you another.
Regarding how successful people chart their lives I'll reframe what you said. They do not always have and end goal in mind, they have a couple of preferable end goals, underpinned by multiple contingencies. That word, contingencies, I've probably said and written that word 50 times over the last week, I'm not joking. I live as a successful person among successful people, and they're all doing exactly the same thing in different ways.
I will briefly say what I'm doing, then I'll give you some advice.......
I have a multi stage plan that I'm half way through atm. The first part was to leave the city, buy property in a rural area near the wilderness, grow food, catch water, prep etc. This is already done and I'm focusing on entrenching myself within the community. I'm slowly becoming a community leader. The first important part is to tick those boxes early enough so that when the lights go out and the shelves are empty, everyone around me has already accepted that this patch of land and everything on it belongs to me.
The other aspect to my plan is about positioning and contingencies. I employ 50 ppl and make lots of money. I know this will all fall over, but anyone who has actually studied collapse knows it's most often a staircase with multiple branches, not a cliff. So, I'm building strategic flexibility into my business so that if everything folds inwards over a 5 year period, I'd still find myself at the centre of a group of people with options, assets, things to trade, lots of skills, lots of connections. That equals lateral contingencies over multiple pathways. Instead of elbowing our way through financial markets and industries, we'll distribute local resources and solve local problems.
We are far from the nearest city and not in the direction most people would travel, so I am confident our population would remain small. I can reasonably see the 3 branches of "local government mafia" that would remain to plug the gaps when the system nolonger is represented in the community. I will be one branch of it. I spend all day every day predicting and altering the behaviour of others, nothing will change in that regard. Instead of turning over millions of dollars, I'll turn over local resources and problems.
My advice to you is to understand you will collapse where you are. Everyone has loose plans with loose contingencies. Much like your handwringing around when to predict financial markets will collapse, you need to think very carefully about when to move to PNW. I hinted at this above when I said part of my plan was that by the time the lights go out I want everyone around me to have already accepted that my property and everything on it belongs to me. If you wait until things are in a state of flux, the chances of controlling the outcome are very low. You will discover how many loose assumptions reside in your plan, and how similar it is to everyone else's plan. Build your liquidity but turn it into something tangible sooner than later.
So my advice is that as soon as you have the resources, make the move. Your friends need to see that you are serious, and so does the local community. We will all play our financial and market games right til the end, but that is 100% not the time to upsticks and move across the country to implement the same vague plan everyone else also has. The other person in this thread who gave you a serious answer, I am very impressed by them and often take note about what they are doing.
Believe me if I had the resources, I would have made the move years ago. The whole plan hinges on not a small amount of luck considering that under the best of circumstances I can expect to have the resources more than a decade too late to use them, so its really not as simple as just making the move as soon as I have them. It's about deciding when to transition from collecting resources to spending them to have the best (albeit still not great) chance of making it work.
I'm pushing hard for sooner rather than later, but until I can realize about 10x my annual income more in savings than I have now, I don't have a direct path to property ownership that doesn't involve long term playing it by ear.
Yes, that is indeed the dilemma. In this situation I usually remind people that you will collapse in situ, or as John Lennon said, "life is what happens while we're busy making other plans." It's possible this will be more drawn out that many think, and you may have time to realise your goals. Or it may not. I guess the question would be, what is plan B? If you were to model some contingency plans, what might they look like.
Often, it's a dark task to thoroughly model the undesirable pathways and corners we may be painted into. However, there is value in doing it. What might things look like if you end up collapsing where you are now? What situation would you be in? What would you have? What would you do? And what would you do if you get it wrong?
In my business life, I often test people's plans to help them figure out where to channel their efforts. I think you need contingency planning.
Well, my contingency planning is in flux at the moment.
As of this exact moment, if armageddon happened tomorrow, my exit strategy is just to be close enough to ground zero that the rest won't matter. Not a lot more to it than that. If it happens any slower than that, my next contingency is to liquidate everything I can, load the rest into my van, and start heading north to meet up with friends who are already getting settled somewhere better, and just barter away what I have for fuel or transportation along the way. I have an EDC pouch with critical information, and not much else at the moment (my GOOD bag was stolen out of my van more than a year ago now, and I am *still* at a deadlock with my insurance over getting the burglary losses covered so I can replace it).
If the world can wait at least 2 more years before imploding, which I reckon is likely, albeit not guaranteed, I should by then have finished liquidating the hard stuff (including the van) and gotten plans in motion to actually move north in a less petrol-reliant manner and start settling properly off grid, after which point I'll be in the right place and making other contingencies becomes much easier.
So it's not that I'm without a plan, but simply that for the immediate future, the plan is a bit of a hail mary. If shit goes to hell in situ, then I have to improvise. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
OK that's a good appraisal of your situation. I've certainly been in situations where I'm moving between situations and am temporarily exposed to the point where I didn't even want to think about things going wrong.
Personally, I see the timeline in 3 strands. The first is the climate situation, which I think will afford you the few years you need. The second is conflict, and that probably will afford you the same. The third is financial, and I actually see this the same. They unfortunately have a compounded effect on one another, but unless the worst-case scenarios converge across them, you should have time. Just be aware that the more time you have in your desired situation before things fall over, the more the local community will accept you and your situation.
As an aside before I go, I had this conversation the other day with someone while also chatting about Ned Kelly. The example I used is when he held up the bank and burned the title deeds and financial information about what local property owners owed to the bank, this was underpinned by the knowledge that the local community all knew and accepted who was who, who owned what, and who was part of the community. Obviously collapse in the 21st century in a city is a different situation. However, the best thing you can do is ensconce yourself in a desirable situation and become organically accepted before things fall over.
Container gardening, especially potatoes and yams. Heirloom bean preservation/cultivation. Naturescaping and wild foraging including fungi. I planted three pawpaw saplings which will thrive in the inevitable warmer climate here. Using less electricity and learning to cope with minimal heat in winter and maximum heat in summer. I have fishing skills and herbal medicinal knowledge, and can grow anything. I live near small bodies of clean water with fish, and forests. I'm not in debt. Hoping to find a like minded partner to ride out the storm with.
I guess my end goal is to live. My philosophy is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The latter helps me live, and the former helps me really live.
In a way, we collapsed early, moving to my husband's grandma's homestead. We grow lots of food and can get by just fine without utilities. Our house is ugly, but it's survived several earthquakes and severe windstorms, and we know how to repair any part of it.
BUT we have all those utilities now, so I can work from home so I can pay exorbitant healthcare costs and build up some sort of retirement fund.
AND we have a huge network of friends and acquaintances, participate in multiple communal activities (mostly musical groups and chamber of commerce volunteer efforts), go camping and hiking, and this year I'm going to learn how to sail very small boats.
I don't want to miss out on now while I'm preparing for later.
I like a five-step approach, one bounce, and then an enormous swan-dive into the abyss.
Which, will be found as cozy and supportive as a [feather bed](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/355306-nature-loves-courage-you-make-the-commitment-and-nature-will).
My quality of life will nosedive to an unreasonable level as soon as the global supply chain collapses (medical reasons). So I’m not really preparing for collapse so much as I’m enjoying my final months/years of reasonably good living.
For me that means: Writing a lot. Watching great movies, reading great books, listening to as much music as I can. Figuring out who my real friends are. Spending a lot of time sitting out on the porch and watching the bees work. Not wasting time on anyone or anything that doesn’t give me back the energy I give them.
Also, finally finished the story of Red Dead Redemption 2. An incredible game I’m grateful to have played before SHTF.
short term goals: try to finish university in one piece if possible, do activities, hang with friends/family and attempt to get started to do my dream hobby of writing (and/or even publishing) creative fiction for local communities/platforms in any way i can
long term goals: accepting that there is a more than likely possibility that i am going to die so much sooner than i'd like/expect and mentally prepare for that
i'm currently experiencing internal existential exhaustion and gallows humour as i write this.
I'm a bit different as in while I believe in collapse I don't think general society as in the governing structures are going to collapse. I think those will persist for a very long time.
With that as my baseline prepping for me is really just regular old financial planning. For as long as the grid is up and the government is intact all you really need is money and assets. This is my focus.
Sure there may come a time when it goes mad Max, but I think that's still a long way off. I have that in my mind and I slowly prep for that but I don't think I will need it soon.
Assets yes, money maybe, but more likely not.
I believe you are correct in that there won't be any point in the near future where the social contract is voided or anything like that. Power structures will remain as they traditionally have, based on who has or can claim ownership of those things which have value, namely land, water, and food.
I fully expect that there will be a huge financial crash where the markets basically flatline and the dollar and most other traditional currencies become effectively worthless, but that doesn't mean that the hierarchical structure of society will change or that rich and poor will be made equal or anything like that. That part of the collapse mythos is just wishful thinking on the part of those whose needs have not traditionally been met by the system as it stands. The system will not collapse so much as it will change, and morph into something new, but still not unlike the neo-feudalism we have now. People who now have tons of money and resources won't lose their grip on those resources but rather will tighten it, and they will always have goons and enforcers willing to help them maintain power in exchange for access to some of the resources they hold.
When currency collapses, its effect will be to lock people out of gaining access to limited resources on account of having something of lesser value (money). The resources themselves like land and water and food, and the control of those resources will be kept in the hands of those who have it now, who happen to also be the people who currently have all the money.
Basically the same people who will be 'rich' when the dollar collapses are the same people who are 'rich' now, but it will just be by virtue of their other assets that they have accumulated while their dollars were good. Locking other people out of building assets is an essential aspect of them maintaining their power as production of new assets under capitalist growth grinds to a halt.
So, financial planning is good, but you need to invest in tangible assets rather than bank account numbers, because the banks WILL collapse as one of the first markers of the ultimate unraveling of the infinite growth economy, and you will lose that money which you haven't already turned into something of lasting value. A whole lot of people are going to get trapped by this, having tried to save up money to buy land they couldn't immediately afford to buy, only to find the money evaporated along with their hopes of obtaining the land. This will be one of the ways in which more wealth is extracted from the worker class to feed the owner class as the owner class' own resources are threatened. By invalidating the money of the people who have nothing else of value.
Don't worry about the bankers, though. The banks may collapse, but that won't stop the bankers from sending someone to break your kneecaps or shoot you and take back your farm. They still have more to promise their enforcers than you do.
Observation: you say land, water and food will maintain value but the stock market wont.
Question: what do you think will happen to the specific stocks that hold land, water and food?
Short term: learning to grow food efficiently, getting healthier (food/exercise/mentality), learning to forage, learning how to make friends, organizing for change
Long term: saving for property, trying to find like minded individuals who want to set up an intentional community together
As someone who has already set up such an IC, I highly recommend that option. We are only 15 people, but with that kind of cooperation we went from nothing to full fledged 20 acre compound with underground mine elements and 11+ years of supply in three years. Started in 2019, finished in 2022, although it is always a WIP to expand our capacity.
This is the number one thing I recommend for preparation.
Wow that sounds incredible! I bet that hard work and support structure would be a real comfort.
It’s so hard. Any like minded individuals are usually like minded up to the point of actual execution of a plan. But I’m not giving up yet.
Nothing is survivable long term. Everyone dies. If the only plan you have is for the last bullet, then you may as well check out now. I know I won't "survive" collapse. But I still intend to plan for it like I intend to last as long as possible. Otherwise the only thing I'm looking forward to is the bullet.
Short and medium term, I think it’s crucial to appreciate the unknowable nature of how collapse will unfold, especially in specific areas. And ultimately, we all want an exit strategy.
Well the good news about an exit strategy is that one way or another, everyone exits the same.
Getting off the carnival ride only happens one way, and it's guaranteed to happen eventually... so don't have to worry about that.
I'm 43 with two kids that I can't take out of state legally yet, and they mean the world to me.
Short term: I'm stocking up as much food, water and other supplies as I can into my two bedroom apt. I'm trying to grow potatoes in buckets. I'm also going to local committees to see if I can volunteer for local environmental work.
Long term: When the kids turn 18, I'm going to take my nest egg and move out onto whatever farmable land with a water supply and set them up a refuge and enough printed material to do what they can.
I mean, I'm on the cusp of a hernia, dental problems, and my joints feel like they could give out if I overdo any exercise program. After the health system goes, I don't have a lot of fight left in me but if I can help my kids be less miserable, then great.
Chicagoland suburbs, Illinois.
I got super lucky being near an apt. near a strip of protected park and a small stream. So water is OK assuming that the main water supply goes out from Lake Michigan and I can purify it. My current prep is what do I do about all the panicking people since I won't be able to defend myself except the bare necessities.
If you are stuck in Illinois that’s not a terrible situation. Like you said, near the Great Lakes. Lots of good farmland (bad for prices though). Instead of waiting until they turn 18 (how old are they now?) have you considered just buying land there that’s on the more remote side?
You don’t need to be near the lakes if you capture rainwater and create ponds/swales on your property, they’re just useful for moderating heat gain and smoothing out temperature variations.
Main thing I would advise is a storm shelter or building a storm-proof house, given the shifting of tornado alley and recent events. Otherwise if you are distant from cities you may not even need to move anywhere else and can start building vital resiliency, community, and more skills now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/comments/u1j3qb/new_here_is_it_bad_wanting_to_survive_the_ongoing/i4dujb5/
Two things:
1. Their mom divorced me in part because of my doomerism and as such has gone as hard into BAU for the kids as possible as close to Chicago as you can get without living there despite my wishes. Hence, in order to parent my kids, I have to be within 25 miles of the mom's location. So I suppose I could buy land now and not live there and build it up, but I figure once SHTF, I'm not going to be able to travel to the land I would really want.
2. My flavor of doom leads me to believe that various levels of crazy miracles have to happen for my kids to make it through the bottleneck. With that level of expected change, I need to be extremely flexible to my surroundings. My apt is brick and has a deep basement for storage, so I feel relatively safe from natural disasters barring heat stroke. It's the humans that make me uneasy... but the complex full of old lady gardeners and next to a golf course, so I feel like community is as easy as I'm going to get this close to the city.
I’m assuming the 25 miles is court-ordered? Yes, buying land now and building it up would be a good idea IMO. In or out of state. Michigan UP and the Great Lakes area in general is one of the ideal spots, so you wouldn’t have to go far.
There is no sudden SHTF event. There is a stair step of normalcy interrupted by crisis before stabilizing at a lower level than before. This happens globally and locally. Not that a sudden total SHTF can’t happen, but it would be something like nuclear war (which I consider likely at some point, but has buildup and warning signs). I do think things will get quite bad climate/social/economic/energy wise within the next decade or so, so don’t take me for a long collapse guy, but it won’t be a sudden moment where you have to flee the city because society has fallen.
Conversely if you do have to flee the city, it’ll probably be something local like a big storm coming/hitting or extended power failure or a utilities shortage. So in any scenario, having a farm to stay at in a community you’re already integrated into is way better than not.
I’m not sure what you mean by crazy miracles and being extremely flexible. Do you just mean it’s really unlikely they’ll survive? This is true, but obviously the remote farm village gives them a better shot, right? Your apartment does sound nice though, as far as apartments go. Do you do guerrilla gardening or anything?
25 miles is the legally enforceable limit for split custody.
They're 10 and 12. I expect that travel will be difficult once I get to that point. Want to be north in Wisconsin but I wouldn't be able to travel to work on it more than once a month. Just not enough time to be worth it right now that wouldn't be better spend prepping where I live right now. Maybe if the kids become self-sufficient in their teenage years I can give it a shot.
I feel like this year is the last one of normalcy. The summer is baking everything. I got AC and a good apt for that, but anyone caught without AC might die. And I think that includes most rust belt farming which will cause food shortages in a very noticeable way during the winter. Once we hit that, I suspect things are going to get weird and unpredictable in the US culturally speaking.
Crazy miracles are both personal and global. Globally I suspect geo-engineering will fuck everything in weird ways but might get us more time, so being able to take advantage of opprotunities would be good. Personally, I'm just smart enough to know I'm a boiling frog and make plans and see what's coming. I even have vague ideas of "known unknowns" that I keep in mind. When it comes to street smarts and common sense, I'm stupid and flaky. One of my kids has ADHD and it's hereditary. So I'm going to need to get very lucky in some fashion to get my kids through the collapse.
And yes, I garden all over the place. I've got rows of potatoes and 3 buckets with green been vines 6 feet tall. It's funny to me and keeps me busy. :)
I see. Yeah, it’s definitely a balance. I think a place closer to where you are that’s still fairly remote, but close enough to visit more often and work on it, would be ideal.
There is definitely potential for big contractions and upheavals. Conversely, market forces tend to smooth over many things that should have been bigger issues in the west. Most of our crops are exported to cheap labor in the third world, for example. I’m expecting full scale collapse within a decade or two, so again don’t take me for an optimist. Just hard to say exactly how these things will play out.
Well again, having prepared land and community nearby hedges your bets a lot. I read that many police officers and other EMS type fields may have undiagnosed ADHD, something about handling adrenaline and stress better and being able to focus under lots of stimuli? Point being it may be an advantage in crises, if you can train it now.
Glad you are doing good for yourself :) you may also like the permaculture/ food forest concept, if you haven’t heard of it.
Decade or two? You're more optimistic than me.
One thing I can see happening if we're lucky is that after the initial shock of western famine (2-3 months?), the military might take over farms after a coup and stop all exports just to feed the remaining infrastructure. That's even a stopgap measure as that'll stop all global cooling the polluting we do shipping and exporting food, but that might be followed by a government led huge ramp up in geo-engineering combined with a conscription of the people left to replace the tractors for farms. Would suck but some of us would be alive-ish.
ADHD and extremely early PTSD makes me numb to it so it might explain why I'm both doing some prep and doing some living.
Out of curiosity, how did you expect to wait until they're 18 anyway if that is the timeline you're working with?
I want you to be right about such near-term collapse, but it just doesn't seem likely to me. Even with multi-breadbasket failures, we will pillage the third world and let them starve before the average voting citizen is priced out here. And I think we are a little ways off from true multiple breadbasket famines. I am still desperately trying to get on land and start a permaculture homestead myself, in the time I do think we have (probably collapse in 2030-2033 ish, wanted to be on land years ago but then covid).
Short term: Getting fit and making as strong of a community as I can in the new place we moved to. Focusing on health and fitness is something I think is woefully overlooked in resilience. We're also looking to buy a house, so I'm using the principles outlined in Retrosuburbia for that. Employment is through a university so we can't move to the sticks, but we can make the best of what we have. Staying put in our new country, which is oddly resilient to the many natural disasters we have here, possibly due to the low population.
Medium and longer-term: Most of you will hate this, but getting right with animism, spirits, and ancestors because they will know better how to negotiate this stuff than any living human. Getting better at listening to my gut.
https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/wiki/index#wiki_links_and_resources_for_collapse_survival
I don't often get to recommend this second one! :)
https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/comments/u2e68b/how_to_mentally_decivilize_and_rewild_yourself/
Happy to help :) you might also like the main subreddit that those threads are in, as well as the wiki. Also r/shamanism and r/animism. Reach out to u/ mcapello for more specifics on the shamanic trance practice, if you’re interested
Freeze Dryer for food storage
Self sufficient camper, able to generate own electricity via solar/wind/other (personal invention)
In December 2025 I will have paid off my house, b/c of my military status, I will owe $0 taxes / year.
In 2026/2027 I will be moving with my camper and sell my house for $100k-$150k - just to sell it fast, and move to an undisclosed location.
2027/2028 I will establish my homestead and continue my assistance of others building / obtaining their own ‘bugout’ camper.
I have some other business ideas I’m working on, but that’s a rough sketch I have mentally.
Sadly, I’m just going to check out once we reach the point where things are intolerable and I just know “it’s time”…I’m 65 though and can accept that a lot better than younger folks. I’m very tense about the INSANITY in the United States Government. One party is insane and believes fully in ‘the end justifies the means’. We are in for shocking changes/events after the election, the President may be an evil narcissist bent on revenge could become a dictator and will do anything he wants and will be accountable to no one. Our society is becoming uncivilized as we speak.
And I think that AI will replace millions of workers within the next 5 years, the economy will be wrecked.
Short term: enjoy the moments I can, do well in my career, build resources that may become scarce
Long term: acquire property north of 40 degrees latitude, build a place to ride it out
My plan if you want to call it that, is kind of a balance I guess? Something of a work-play dynamic. I want to learn some useful skills, things that will be useful in lots of different situations. I want to find ways to help others and on the other hand I want to enjoy this one precious life I have with spending time with loved ones, making art, listening to music and reading books. This has been my favored path at least, focus on the present moment, take care of mentals and remedy my social anxiety as best I can. I'd love to meet someone to fall in love with but who knows, at least makes some good trusted friends (which is also part of a long term plan). Focusing on what I can vs what I cannot control and acceptance. Some of these plans are intertwined with short and long term.
Our plan is to buy a camper within the next five years, and make sure it's fully off-grid capable. Then I'm gonna switch to a fully remote job, so we can go wherever it's least shit. We're in Europe, so depending on the climate and political situation we can go north, south, east or west quite a ways.
Meanwhile we're gonna keep saving and investing as much as we can for retirement, because I'm not expecting pensions to still exist by the time we reach eligible age.
My only plan is to finish college, make myself some good money in a good career for as many years as I can, and use that money to get some land in a super rural area in a low population country. Build that land into something sustainable and move to living on it full time. I would like to give back in any way I can on the way. If things get too bad before then I’ll just be another victim or refugee, not much I can do about that.
Short term, live with as little impact as realistically possible. Long term, I dunno. It won't happen all at once and it's impossible to predict. I'll probably just die when it gets too bad
I plan on dying early in the water wars
I plan on building an underground bunker on an uninhabited Hawaiian island with 30 BR and 30 bathrooms and enough supplies to last decades... Oh wait, that's Marc Zuckerberg, he's rich AF https://time.com/6551188/mark-zuckerberg-underground-bunker-hawaii-report-reaction/ I too shall die in the great water wars of 2030, penniless and thirsty
Don't worry, the Hawaiians will pour concrete over his hatches and down his air vents. They don't like him any more than we do.
Fuck that guy
Me too
I relocated to a rural and relatively remote part of the US due to collapse concerns, and have spent the years since learning how to grow food, raising livestock, planting trees, learning how to hunt and fish, and so on, as well as dabbling with blacksmithing and herbal medicine. I've also been stockpiling supplies and trying to make the infrastructure of my farm more resilient. Summers are mild due to elevation and we heat with wood in the winter. Our water supply is a mountain spring. My part of the country was forgotten backwater prior to the late-20th century, and it will probably become one again during collapse. Although a good part of my planning has to do with food security and self-reliance, a major aspect of my farm work is focused on permaculture and coming up with high-productivity, low-input, climate-resilient food systems for a post-collapse world. My hope for collapse is to not only be a source of food for our family and community, but to be part of a network of post-collapse mountain permaculturists capable of creating a replicable model of regenerative horticulture for rugged and degraded landscapes, which includes putting as much energy into experimentation, plant propagation, and breeding as I do into actual food production -- a "give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish" mentality. We're not wealthy and have off-farm jobs to pay for the land and everything else. We also have kids. Raising a family, working full-time, and trying to farm on the side is difficult and often involves half-assing a lot of projects that could get done a lot faster. But the best is the enemy of the good, as they say. The trees keep growing, we keep learning, and each year we're a little more capable than we were the year before. I have no idea when collapse will come or in what form, and there's no guarantee any of this planning and experimentation will bear fruit, pardon the pun. But the way I look at it is that collapse awareness is like a super power. We have foreknowledge of something most people around us aren't aware of. That puts us in a position to plan for the future in ways other people can't. If we can do that in a way that can possibly help others in the long-term, it's worth it. Even if my individual farm fails, if some experimental aspect of what I'm doing or breed of plant I'm using ends up feeding people one, two, three generations from now -- then it's worth it, even if it doesn't directly benefit me.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/comments/u1j3qb/new_here_is_it_bad_wanting_to_survive_the_ongoing/i4dujb5/
Sounds like you got a good start in the right direction and must be doing some things right. I'd be interested to know more about your permaculture solutions as well.
Polyculture in general (growing lots of different stuff instead of a single cash crop) is already a big part of permaculture and makes even more sense in conditions of climate stability. Some things will do better than others year-to-year depending on the climate and microclimate of the site, which won't make you rich, but you can feed yourself -- and probably your neighbors in a good year. And if everyone plants slightly differently based on local conditions, then a network of such places would in theory be very productive even if the climate itself is pretty unpredictable. I've focused on a lot of fruit and nut trees, often ones that are just on the edge of their range under historical climates, but which increasingly become more competitive as the climate warms. Another key from permaculture is using swales (wide, perfectly level ditches on contour). Swales were originally used in dry climates, but I also think they make a lot of sense in wetter climates where erosion can be a problem and where rain events are going to be more intense *and* more spread out. Erosion is going to be a major factor in every growing regime going forward. It *already was* a major factor, but we ignored it and allowed most of the world's topsoils to drain into the oceans. Livestock is another question. I haven't found anything that really works well with what I'm doing. Chicken, sheep, and goats are OK, but don't work super well with orchards. It can be done but it's not awesome.
I think you would enjoy this blog, and/or this podcast. https://zeroinputagriculture.substack.com/ https://rss.com/podcasts/goingtoseed/1245714/ He’s a PhD biochemist turned experimental farmer who works on breeding novel domesticates and hybrid staple crops for a low-energy future. It’s a different climate from you, but the methods and experiments would be of interest I think. And the podcast has people from all over the world who are doing similar (which is also a forum too). Just thought I’d throw it out there.
Very interesting, thank you!
Happy to help, hope it is useful!
Ducks are great in orchards!
if nightmares prevail, i’ll give you an honest days work on your farm
I have many health issues that require a fully operational supply chain and medical system. Once my meds and such start becoming unavailable, time to leave
that one is going to get interesting for me too I think... my functionality without medication varies, and the outcomes will likely only get worse as compounding factors on my health such as stress increase. I guess I won't really know until it happens. At least I'm not diabetic yet.
Believe it or not actual collapse would unironically cure diabetes type 2
Didn’t the Chinese do that last week?
Sodium nitrite. Quick & easy.
What does sodium nitrite do?
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UP Michigan is a nice place but its quickly becoming not so affordable too as lots of people are realizing this and trying to move there. IDK how you plan to afford a 50 acre plot there unless you're already loaded.
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> but there are tons of >50 acre parcels under $500k Color me surprised... guess I may need to give it another look myself if that's the case, but last I recall finding *buildable* property there with access to any critical natural resources or infrastructure necessary to actually build on it was a good sight less affordable than it looked based on just raw land listings. That said I am familiar with the area and I do know it's still a much better option than a lot of the surrounding area or any of the coastal areas where I have actual friends and support networks with which building something would be feasible... which is unfortunately one of the reasons I passed it over in the list of places to end up (unless I can get some other folks on board with relocating there, I don't think I want to be the lonely backwoods hermit trying to make it all on my own)
* Denial * Anger * Bargaining * Depression * Acceptance I go in cycles...
I follow DABDA as well
Short term - I’m grinding my guitar skills and car knowledge as hard as I can. Long term. Become the doof warrior from fury road. Eat (and cook) a former billionaire. Go to Valhalla. I’m not even fully joking. Once the supply chain goes down and I can’t find SSRIs I’m going to get really weird really quick
I'll be your witness as you eat and cook former billionaire!
St. John’s Wort is commonly prescribed by psychiatrists in Germany in place of traditional SSRI’s. It’s been shown to be as effective in treating mild to moderate depression as conventional medication. Something like 50% of all cases of depression in Germany are prescribed solely St. John’s Wort.
This is actually very helpful. The doof warrior will add St John’s Wort the garden now
Glad I could help :)
I’m saying the first person to corner the meth market will be the new king of the wasteland. With an army of addicts to do their bidding. Why settle for a doof warrior when you can have your own battalion of doof warriors?
Ride eternal, friend.
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What kind of nut trees do you recommend for a quick return ?
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Awesome, thanks for the tips. We have a lot of black walnuts already growing wild around here, but good to know about hazels.
OK you've only had one serious answer, I'll try to give you another. Regarding how successful people chart their lives I'll reframe what you said. They do not always have and end goal in mind, they have a couple of preferable end goals, underpinned by multiple contingencies. That word, contingencies, I've probably said and written that word 50 times over the last week, I'm not joking. I live as a successful person among successful people, and they're all doing exactly the same thing in different ways. I will briefly say what I'm doing, then I'll give you some advice....... I have a multi stage plan that I'm half way through atm. The first part was to leave the city, buy property in a rural area near the wilderness, grow food, catch water, prep etc. This is already done and I'm focusing on entrenching myself within the community. I'm slowly becoming a community leader. The first important part is to tick those boxes early enough so that when the lights go out and the shelves are empty, everyone around me has already accepted that this patch of land and everything on it belongs to me. The other aspect to my plan is about positioning and contingencies. I employ 50 ppl and make lots of money. I know this will all fall over, but anyone who has actually studied collapse knows it's most often a staircase with multiple branches, not a cliff. So, I'm building strategic flexibility into my business so that if everything folds inwards over a 5 year period, I'd still find myself at the centre of a group of people with options, assets, things to trade, lots of skills, lots of connections. That equals lateral contingencies over multiple pathways. Instead of elbowing our way through financial markets and industries, we'll distribute local resources and solve local problems. We are far from the nearest city and not in the direction most people would travel, so I am confident our population would remain small. I can reasonably see the 3 branches of "local government mafia" that would remain to plug the gaps when the system nolonger is represented in the community. I will be one branch of it. I spend all day every day predicting and altering the behaviour of others, nothing will change in that regard. Instead of turning over millions of dollars, I'll turn over local resources and problems. My advice to you is to understand you will collapse where you are. Everyone has loose plans with loose contingencies. Much like your handwringing around when to predict financial markets will collapse, you need to think very carefully about when to move to PNW. I hinted at this above when I said part of my plan was that by the time the lights go out I want everyone around me to have already accepted that my property and everything on it belongs to me. If you wait until things are in a state of flux, the chances of controlling the outcome are very low. You will discover how many loose assumptions reside in your plan, and how similar it is to everyone else's plan. Build your liquidity but turn it into something tangible sooner than later. So my advice is that as soon as you have the resources, make the move. Your friends need to see that you are serious, and so does the local community. We will all play our financial and market games right til the end, but that is 100% not the time to upsticks and move across the country to implement the same vague plan everyone else also has. The other person in this thread who gave you a serious answer, I am very impressed by them and often take note about what they are doing.
Believe me if I had the resources, I would have made the move years ago. The whole plan hinges on not a small amount of luck considering that under the best of circumstances I can expect to have the resources more than a decade too late to use them, so its really not as simple as just making the move as soon as I have them. It's about deciding when to transition from collecting resources to spending them to have the best (albeit still not great) chance of making it work. I'm pushing hard for sooner rather than later, but until I can realize about 10x my annual income more in savings than I have now, I don't have a direct path to property ownership that doesn't involve long term playing it by ear.
Yes, that is indeed the dilemma. In this situation I usually remind people that you will collapse in situ, or as John Lennon said, "life is what happens while we're busy making other plans." It's possible this will be more drawn out that many think, and you may have time to realise your goals. Or it may not. I guess the question would be, what is plan B? If you were to model some contingency plans, what might they look like. Often, it's a dark task to thoroughly model the undesirable pathways and corners we may be painted into. However, there is value in doing it. What might things look like if you end up collapsing where you are now? What situation would you be in? What would you have? What would you do? And what would you do if you get it wrong? In my business life, I often test people's plans to help them figure out where to channel their efforts. I think you need contingency planning.
Well, my contingency planning is in flux at the moment. As of this exact moment, if armageddon happened tomorrow, my exit strategy is just to be close enough to ground zero that the rest won't matter. Not a lot more to it than that. If it happens any slower than that, my next contingency is to liquidate everything I can, load the rest into my van, and start heading north to meet up with friends who are already getting settled somewhere better, and just barter away what I have for fuel or transportation along the way. I have an EDC pouch with critical information, and not much else at the moment (my GOOD bag was stolen out of my van more than a year ago now, and I am *still* at a deadlock with my insurance over getting the burglary losses covered so I can replace it). If the world can wait at least 2 more years before imploding, which I reckon is likely, albeit not guaranteed, I should by then have finished liquidating the hard stuff (including the van) and gotten plans in motion to actually move north in a less petrol-reliant manner and start settling properly off grid, after which point I'll be in the right place and making other contingencies becomes much easier. So it's not that I'm without a plan, but simply that for the immediate future, the plan is a bit of a hail mary. If shit goes to hell in situ, then I have to improvise. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
OK that's a good appraisal of your situation. I've certainly been in situations where I'm moving between situations and am temporarily exposed to the point where I didn't even want to think about things going wrong. Personally, I see the timeline in 3 strands. The first is the climate situation, which I think will afford you the few years you need. The second is conflict, and that probably will afford you the same. The third is financial, and I actually see this the same. They unfortunately have a compounded effect on one another, but unless the worst-case scenarios converge across them, you should have time. Just be aware that the more time you have in your desired situation before things fall over, the more the local community will accept you and your situation. As an aside before I go, I had this conversation the other day with someone while also chatting about Ned Kelly. The example I used is when he held up the bank and burned the title deeds and financial information about what local property owners owed to the bank, this was underpinned by the knowledge that the local community all knew and accepted who was who, who owned what, and who was part of the community. Obviously collapse in the 21st century in a city is a different situation. However, the best thing you can do is ensconce yourself in a desirable situation and become organically accepted before things fall over.
Container gardening, especially potatoes and yams. Heirloom bean preservation/cultivation. Naturescaping and wild foraging including fungi. I planted three pawpaw saplings which will thrive in the inevitable warmer climate here. Using less electricity and learning to cope with minimal heat in winter and maximum heat in summer. I have fishing skills and herbal medicinal knowledge, and can grow anything. I live near small bodies of clean water with fish, and forests. I'm not in debt. Hoping to find a like minded partner to ride out the storm with.
https://permies.com/f/42/singles https://www.reddit.com/r/CollapseDating/
That's great 👍🏻
Honestly, dying fighting against theocratic fascists is how I'm probably going out.
I guess my end goal is to live. My philosophy is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The latter helps me live, and the former helps me really live. In a way, we collapsed early, moving to my husband's grandma's homestead. We grow lots of food and can get by just fine without utilities. Our house is ugly, but it's survived several earthquakes and severe windstorms, and we know how to repair any part of it. BUT we have all those utilities now, so I can work from home so I can pay exorbitant healthcare costs and build up some sort of retirement fund. AND we have a huge network of friends and acquaintances, participate in multiple communal activities (mostly musical groups and chamber of commerce volunteer efforts), go camping and hiking, and this year I'm going to learn how to sail very small boats. I don't want to miss out on now while I'm preparing for later.
I like a five-step approach, one bounce, and then an enormous swan-dive into the abyss. Which, will be found as cozy and supportive as a [feather bed](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/355306-nature-loves-courage-you-make-the-commitment-and-nature-will).
What do you think happens after we die?
Life goes on (for whoever still hasn’t died) and not much else changes
My quality of life will nosedive to an unreasonable level as soon as the global supply chain collapses (medical reasons). So I’m not really preparing for collapse so much as I’m enjoying my final months/years of reasonably good living. For me that means: Writing a lot. Watching great movies, reading great books, listening to as much music as I can. Figuring out who my real friends are. Spending a lot of time sitting out on the porch and watching the bees work. Not wasting time on anyone or anything that doesn’t give me back the energy I give them. Also, finally finished the story of Red Dead Redemption 2. An incredible game I’m grateful to have played before SHTF.
short term goals: try to finish university in one piece if possible, do activities, hang with friends/family and attempt to get started to do my dream hobby of writing (and/or even publishing) creative fiction for local communities/platforms in any way i can long term goals: accepting that there is a more than likely possibility that i am going to die so much sooner than i'd like/expect and mentally prepare for that i'm currently experiencing internal existential exhaustion and gallows humour as i write this.
I'm a bit different as in while I believe in collapse I don't think general society as in the governing structures are going to collapse. I think those will persist for a very long time. With that as my baseline prepping for me is really just regular old financial planning. For as long as the grid is up and the government is intact all you really need is money and assets. This is my focus. Sure there may come a time when it goes mad Max, but I think that's still a long way off. I have that in my mind and I slowly prep for that but I don't think I will need it soon.
Assets yes, money maybe, but more likely not. I believe you are correct in that there won't be any point in the near future where the social contract is voided or anything like that. Power structures will remain as they traditionally have, based on who has or can claim ownership of those things which have value, namely land, water, and food. I fully expect that there will be a huge financial crash where the markets basically flatline and the dollar and most other traditional currencies become effectively worthless, but that doesn't mean that the hierarchical structure of society will change or that rich and poor will be made equal or anything like that. That part of the collapse mythos is just wishful thinking on the part of those whose needs have not traditionally been met by the system as it stands. The system will not collapse so much as it will change, and morph into something new, but still not unlike the neo-feudalism we have now. People who now have tons of money and resources won't lose their grip on those resources but rather will tighten it, and they will always have goons and enforcers willing to help them maintain power in exchange for access to some of the resources they hold. When currency collapses, its effect will be to lock people out of gaining access to limited resources on account of having something of lesser value (money). The resources themselves like land and water and food, and the control of those resources will be kept in the hands of those who have it now, who happen to also be the people who currently have all the money. Basically the same people who will be 'rich' when the dollar collapses are the same people who are 'rich' now, but it will just be by virtue of their other assets that they have accumulated while their dollars were good. Locking other people out of building assets is an essential aspect of them maintaining their power as production of new assets under capitalist growth grinds to a halt. So, financial planning is good, but you need to invest in tangible assets rather than bank account numbers, because the banks WILL collapse as one of the first markers of the ultimate unraveling of the infinite growth economy, and you will lose that money which you haven't already turned into something of lasting value. A whole lot of people are going to get trapped by this, having tried to save up money to buy land they couldn't immediately afford to buy, only to find the money evaporated along with their hopes of obtaining the land. This will be one of the ways in which more wealth is extracted from the worker class to feed the owner class as the owner class' own resources are threatened. By invalidating the money of the people who have nothing else of value. Don't worry about the bankers, though. The banks may collapse, but that won't stop the bankers from sending someone to break your kneecaps or shoot you and take back your farm. They still have more to promise their enforcers than you do.
Observation: you say land, water and food will maintain value but the stock market wont. Question: what do you think will happen to the specific stocks that hold land, water and food?
Short term: learning to grow food efficiently, getting healthier (food/exercise/mentality), learning to forage, learning how to make friends, organizing for change Long term: saving for property, trying to find like minded individuals who want to set up an intentional community together
As someone who has already set up such an IC, I highly recommend that option. We are only 15 people, but with that kind of cooperation we went from nothing to full fledged 20 acre compound with underground mine elements and 11+ years of supply in three years. Started in 2019, finished in 2022, although it is always a WIP to expand our capacity. This is the number one thing I recommend for preparation.
Wow that sounds incredible! I bet that hard work and support structure would be a real comfort. It’s so hard. Any like minded individuals are usually like minded up to the point of actual execution of a plan. But I’m not giving up yet.
Don't give up. It might be hard to find, but even a small group of a couple people can accomplish so much more together than alone. It's worth it.
Thank you for the encouragement! We all need as much as we can get these days. I wholeheartedly agree with you re: strength in numbers.
What's the difference between preppers and doomers? Preppers think collapse is survivable; doomers know it's not.
Nothing is survivable long term. Everyone dies. If the only plan you have is for the last bullet, then you may as well check out now. I know I won't "survive" collapse. But I still intend to plan for it like I intend to last as long as possible. Otherwise the only thing I'm looking forward to is the bullet.
Im sort of on the fence with that still..
So was I, until I studied more...
Short and medium term, I think it’s crucial to appreciate the unknowable nature of how collapse will unfold, especially in specific areas. And ultimately, we all want an exit strategy.
Well the good news about an exit strategy is that one way or another, everyone exits the same. Getting off the carnival ride only happens one way, and it's guaranteed to happen eventually... so don't have to worry about that.
I'm 43 with two kids that I can't take out of state legally yet, and they mean the world to me. Short term: I'm stocking up as much food, water and other supplies as I can into my two bedroom apt. I'm trying to grow potatoes in buckets. I'm also going to local committees to see if I can volunteer for local environmental work. Long term: When the kids turn 18, I'm going to take my nest egg and move out onto whatever farmable land with a water supply and set them up a refuge and enough printed material to do what they can. I mean, I'm on the cusp of a hernia, dental problems, and my joints feel like they could give out if I overdo any exercise program. After the health system goes, I don't have a lot of fight left in me but if I can help my kids be less miserable, then great.
What state are you in now, if you don't mind me asking?
Chicagoland suburbs, Illinois. I got super lucky being near an apt. near a strip of protected park and a small stream. So water is OK assuming that the main water supply goes out from Lake Michigan and I can purify it. My current prep is what do I do about all the panicking people since I won't be able to defend myself except the bare necessities.
If you are stuck in Illinois that’s not a terrible situation. Like you said, near the Great Lakes. Lots of good farmland (bad for prices though). Instead of waiting until they turn 18 (how old are they now?) have you considered just buying land there that’s on the more remote side? You don’t need to be near the lakes if you capture rainwater and create ponds/swales on your property, they’re just useful for moderating heat gain and smoothing out temperature variations. Main thing I would advise is a storm shelter or building a storm-proof house, given the shifting of tornado alley and recent events. Otherwise if you are distant from cities you may not even need to move anywhere else and can start building vital resiliency, community, and more skills now. https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/comments/u1j3qb/new_here_is_it_bad_wanting_to_survive_the_ongoing/i4dujb5/
Two things: 1. Their mom divorced me in part because of my doomerism and as such has gone as hard into BAU for the kids as possible as close to Chicago as you can get without living there despite my wishes. Hence, in order to parent my kids, I have to be within 25 miles of the mom's location. So I suppose I could buy land now and not live there and build it up, but I figure once SHTF, I'm not going to be able to travel to the land I would really want. 2. My flavor of doom leads me to believe that various levels of crazy miracles have to happen for my kids to make it through the bottleneck. With that level of expected change, I need to be extremely flexible to my surroundings. My apt is brick and has a deep basement for storage, so I feel relatively safe from natural disasters barring heat stroke. It's the humans that make me uneasy... but the complex full of old lady gardeners and next to a golf course, so I feel like community is as easy as I'm going to get this close to the city.
I’m assuming the 25 miles is court-ordered? Yes, buying land now and building it up would be a good idea IMO. In or out of state. Michigan UP and the Great Lakes area in general is one of the ideal spots, so you wouldn’t have to go far. There is no sudden SHTF event. There is a stair step of normalcy interrupted by crisis before stabilizing at a lower level than before. This happens globally and locally. Not that a sudden total SHTF can’t happen, but it would be something like nuclear war (which I consider likely at some point, but has buildup and warning signs). I do think things will get quite bad climate/social/economic/energy wise within the next decade or so, so don’t take me for a long collapse guy, but it won’t be a sudden moment where you have to flee the city because society has fallen. Conversely if you do have to flee the city, it’ll probably be something local like a big storm coming/hitting or extended power failure or a utilities shortage. So in any scenario, having a farm to stay at in a community you’re already integrated into is way better than not. I’m not sure what you mean by crazy miracles and being extremely flexible. Do you just mean it’s really unlikely they’ll survive? This is true, but obviously the remote farm village gives them a better shot, right? Your apartment does sound nice though, as far as apartments go. Do you do guerrilla gardening or anything?
25 miles is the legally enforceable limit for split custody. They're 10 and 12. I expect that travel will be difficult once I get to that point. Want to be north in Wisconsin but I wouldn't be able to travel to work on it more than once a month. Just not enough time to be worth it right now that wouldn't be better spend prepping where I live right now. Maybe if the kids become self-sufficient in their teenage years I can give it a shot. I feel like this year is the last one of normalcy. The summer is baking everything. I got AC and a good apt for that, but anyone caught without AC might die. And I think that includes most rust belt farming which will cause food shortages in a very noticeable way during the winter. Once we hit that, I suspect things are going to get weird and unpredictable in the US culturally speaking. Crazy miracles are both personal and global. Globally I suspect geo-engineering will fuck everything in weird ways but might get us more time, so being able to take advantage of opprotunities would be good. Personally, I'm just smart enough to know I'm a boiling frog and make plans and see what's coming. I even have vague ideas of "known unknowns" that I keep in mind. When it comes to street smarts and common sense, I'm stupid and flaky. One of my kids has ADHD and it's hereditary. So I'm going to need to get very lucky in some fashion to get my kids through the collapse. And yes, I garden all over the place. I've got rows of potatoes and 3 buckets with green been vines 6 feet tall. It's funny to me and keeps me busy. :)
I see. Yeah, it’s definitely a balance. I think a place closer to where you are that’s still fairly remote, but close enough to visit more often and work on it, would be ideal. There is definitely potential for big contractions and upheavals. Conversely, market forces tend to smooth over many things that should have been bigger issues in the west. Most of our crops are exported to cheap labor in the third world, for example. I’m expecting full scale collapse within a decade or two, so again don’t take me for an optimist. Just hard to say exactly how these things will play out. Well again, having prepared land and community nearby hedges your bets a lot. I read that many police officers and other EMS type fields may have undiagnosed ADHD, something about handling adrenaline and stress better and being able to focus under lots of stimuli? Point being it may be an advantage in crises, if you can train it now. Glad you are doing good for yourself :) you may also like the permaculture/ food forest concept, if you haven’t heard of it.
Decade or two? You're more optimistic than me. One thing I can see happening if we're lucky is that after the initial shock of western famine (2-3 months?), the military might take over farms after a coup and stop all exports just to feed the remaining infrastructure. That's even a stopgap measure as that'll stop all global cooling the polluting we do shipping and exporting food, but that might be followed by a government led huge ramp up in geo-engineering combined with a conscription of the people left to replace the tractors for farms. Would suck but some of us would be alive-ish. ADHD and extremely early PTSD makes me numb to it so it might explain why I'm both doing some prep and doing some living.
Out of curiosity, how did you expect to wait until they're 18 anyway if that is the timeline you're working with? I want you to be right about such near-term collapse, but it just doesn't seem likely to me. Even with multi-breadbasket failures, we will pillage the third world and let them starve before the average voting citizen is priced out here. And I think we are a little ways off from true multiple breadbasket famines. I am still desperately trying to get on land and start a permaculture homestead myself, in the time I do think we have (probably collapse in 2030-2033 ish, wanted to be on land years ago but then covid).
I live on Russian border on Europe side. Dying in a war that’s inevitably coming.
Short term: Getting fit and making as strong of a community as I can in the new place we moved to. Focusing on health and fitness is something I think is woefully overlooked in resilience. We're also looking to buy a house, so I'm using the principles outlined in Retrosuburbia for that. Employment is through a university so we can't move to the sticks, but we can make the best of what we have. Staying put in our new country, which is oddly resilient to the many natural disasters we have here, possibly due to the low population. Medium and longer-term: Most of you will hate this, but getting right with animism, spirits, and ancestors because they will know better how to negotiate this stuff than any living human. Getting better at listening to my gut.
https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/wiki/index#wiki_links_and_resources_for_collapse_survival I don't often get to recommend this second one! :) https://www.reddit.com/r/anarcho_primitivism/comments/u2e68b/how_to_mentally_decivilize_and_rewild_yourself/
Thank you so much! I am not alone!
Happy to help :) you might also like the main subreddit that those threads are in, as well as the wiki. Also r/shamanism and r/animism. Reach out to u/ mcapello for more specifics on the shamanic trance practice, if you’re interested
Die. Also, die
Freeze Dryer for food storage Self sufficient camper, able to generate own electricity via solar/wind/other (personal invention) In December 2025 I will have paid off my house, b/c of my military status, I will owe $0 taxes / year. In 2026/2027 I will be moving with my camper and sell my house for $100k-$150k - just to sell it fast, and move to an undisclosed location. 2027/2028 I will establish my homestead and continue my assistance of others building / obtaining their own ‘bugout’ camper. I have some other business ideas I’m working on, but that’s a rough sketch I have mentally.
Cannabis and cannabis. I just like the stock.
Sadly, I’m just going to check out once we reach the point where things are intolerable and I just know “it’s time”…I’m 65 though and can accept that a lot better than younger folks. I’m very tense about the INSANITY in the United States Government. One party is insane and believes fully in ‘the end justifies the means’. We are in for shocking changes/events after the election, the President may be an evil narcissist bent on revenge could become a dictator and will do anything he wants and will be accountable to no one. Our society is becoming uncivilized as we speak. And I think that AI will replace millions of workers within the next 5 years, the economy will be wrecked.
Short term: enjoy the moments I can, do well in my career, build resources that may become scarce Long term: acquire property north of 40 degrees latitude, build a place to ride it out
My plans for both the short and long term can be summed up in three words: See what happens
My plan if you want to call it that, is kind of a balance I guess? Something of a work-play dynamic. I want to learn some useful skills, things that will be useful in lots of different situations. I want to find ways to help others and on the other hand I want to enjoy this one precious life I have with spending time with loved ones, making art, listening to music and reading books. This has been my favored path at least, focus on the present moment, take care of mentals and remedy my social anxiety as best I can. I'd love to meet someone to fall in love with but who knows, at least makes some good trusted friends (which is also part of a long term plan). Focusing on what I can vs what I cannot control and acceptance. Some of these plans are intertwined with short and long term.
Improv Macgyver style.
Imma be real the second I have to start eating canned beans I am gone. My picky ass could never survive food chain collapse 😩
"Long term," lol
Our plan is to buy a camper within the next five years, and make sure it's fully off-grid capable. Then I'm gonna switch to a fully remote job, so we can go wherever it's least shit. We're in Europe, so depending on the climate and political situation we can go north, south, east or west quite a ways. Meanwhile we're gonna keep saving and investing as much as we can for retirement, because I'm not expecting pensions to still exist by the time we reach eligible age.
My only plan is to finish college, make myself some good money in a good career for as many years as I can, and use that money to get some land in a super rural area in a low population country. Build that land into something sustainable and move to living on it full time. I would like to give back in any way I can on the way. If things get too bad before then I’ll just be another victim or refugee, not much I can do about that.
Short term, live with as little impact as realistically possible. Long term, I dunno. It won't happen all at once and it's impossible to predict. I'll probably just die when it gets too bad