List of Pandemic Collections, Must haves for the next one!

Bread takes a little bit of time .
A little now , a little more in a little while, a little more in a little more while.
Time is something everyone many have an over-abundance of right now.

I've always kept some cash in the safe. Old habits die hard. Most of it is Bens. Some of it is money I'm not sure that the serial numbers aren't on a "list" somewhere, so I've always spent it on vacation so it can't be traced back to me. I call it my funny money. Problem with Bens is a lot of stores won't take them any more as they just don't keep their cash drawers stuffed any more.

 

this is a good one also

Home - Backwoods Home Magazine

 

Isn't that a requirement for being a part of this club?

 

CB is great for local communications, no license required.

Ham Radio is great for distance communication. The handhelds are primarily VHF/UHF and require licensing to use legally.

As many would guess, if zombie apocalypse happens, no-ones gonna care.


HT's also are very short range. Unless a repeater is nearby. I can hit a tower that is about 22 miles away, but have gotten weak signal reports.

The Baofeng only puts out like 5 watts, so there's that. A 25 watt base station would likely reach out 50mi plus, but that's a guesstimate.

 

A couple things here stand out to me.
Coins; precious metals.
I took a bath on my metals over the last 8 or so years. Theyre worth about half what i paid for them. Then i got to thinking and have read this...if society does break down, who is going to want to trade metal for anything. People will want to trade food, fuel or services/labor, but what will metal or paper money be worth? If the banking system is unstable.

Freezing food.
Sounds like a great idea, and for short term it is helpful. But!...you must have a backup plan! Like a generator.
Not once but twice we lost a freezer full of food. Once was my fault, i plugged the truck in on a cold night and it tripped the breaker. Lost boxes of meat. (Freezers need to be on they're own breaker). Another time the freezer broke. Ugh. Freezers don't belong in a cold garage! Miss July had a ton of fresh fruit in it the second time.

 

There's always skipland.

 

True, but one can't always count on favorable conditions for good skip.

Very doable, but I wouldn't consider it reliable in an emergency situation.

 

I think precious metals may have a place. And I wish our money supply was on a gold standard. That said ...

I lived (nearly 2 decades in a previous life) in a country under economic collapse. Inflation hit 2000% and more, and I have used boxes and backpacks for carrying money around. I paid 18 billion in the local currency for a freezer once.

NOBODY was looking for gold. When you had cash, you converted it into something useful. Food, tools, bicycle, whatever you can use, or sell later to someone else. Cash was still used and useful for exchange, but it was like a hot potato, you tried to not be the one holding it for long.

If I were hording as a hedge, I'd be thinking basic tools and other durable goods that help people to be productive. Gold might store value (or might not), but I prefer to think about what might help people be more productive.

Ammo - probably an unpopular opinion here, but I see little stored value there. Having enough for your needs might be useful, but I see little value in trade.

Firewood, already mentioned, will always be valuable. I think honey, fruit, vegetables, beeswax, maple syrup, medicinal plants, etc. will be as well. Learned and developed basic skills, with the tools to use them, are huge. Plumbing, gardening, forestry, well-drilling, carpentry, machinery repair, etc. are valuable.

 

Yep, the best radio in the world is only as good as the antenna


Once again, I agree that CB is good for local communications. After all, if I'm in an emergency situation I'm not likely to hop on the 40 meter band and contact people in North Dakota or Georgia.

Fun to talk to them, and I have. But they wouldn't be coming to assist me anytime soon.

 

I can relate too. My Dad had a similar set up with a Moon Raker antenna on a 30' tower. Used to talk to all his buddys over in Pa. from the Dover are of NW Jersey. It was a ritual in the mornings before work and in the evenings before bed. Much like FHC over the air...........................

 

My first CB radio had, I think, 9 channel slots and the channels you had depended on which crystals you bought to put in the slots.
Then I had a browning that 2 friends that drove trucks used to constantly borrow.

we have two freezers and a spare commercial freezer that is currently plugged in for my two sisters to use. I wasn't moving it to their house.
I have three year old frozen peppers and they are fine . I have few problems keeping frozen foods . It's not always the cheapest way to go. It doesn't make sense to freeze tomatoes long term as they take so much space and if they are to become sauce it makes more sense to can the sauce storage cost-wise. Once you have several hundreds of dollars worth of frozen food of course you need back-up power as you don't want it to thaw out too much. It does take a while though. Depending on what you've got for mass. We stocked up before the stores started running out of TP. TP wasn't on our list. It will be "next time".
After picking 150 cups of blueberries I'm not losing them to a power outage. It's not just goods-value in the freezer but effort as well.

 

All available space in a freezer should be used. Even if it's containers with water/ice. That alone increases the mass, slowing down any warmup from a power outage. If you need the space, just remove an ice block for your new item.