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5月1日 Shopping on Apocolypse EveOK, I’m back.
That was a very quick shopping expedition. Some people were buying petrol, but no panic-buying of food yet.
So what did I buy I hear you ask? How do you prepare for a possible apocalypse, when you don't know what kind of apocolypse it might be?
I mentioned that I want to secure food, water, and cooking. I did that, and thought of a few extras. Hereis what I have so far...
Food.
Here is the list, the cost and why:
- Sugar. 120 kg. $90. Does that sound crazy? Sugar travels 2,500 km to get to me, yet currently it only costs 75 cents per kilogram. Sugar is a preservative. I will use it to preserve the fruit that I grow so that it can feed me during winter. Preserved fruit is also likely to be a “Trade Good” - I can swap it for other items later. I am also a pretty good brewer. I can brew apple cider out of the apples from my apple tree. Sugar will go into that. Apple Cider might be another trade good.... or just a nice sip on a winter's night. - White Rice. 90 kg. $85. White rice stores for years (it has less nutrition, but the nutrients in brown rice cause it to go off). I can get vitamins and minerals from my garden, but I can’t get enough calories. I would need to grow wheat, corn, or something similar, and I just don’t have enough room. So I can use my garden to supply the vitamins, but I need to stockpile some easy, cheap calories.
- White Flour. 90 kg. $85. The same arguments apply here as with white rice.
The sugar, rice and flour will supply my entire family with all the missing calories they need for an entire year, for only $260! The vegetables and fruit in my garden will supply some calories as well as all the missing vitamins and minerals we need for 1 year.... or at least it will after I expand the garden. The fruit trees will not supply enough fruit this year, they are too young, so I need to get strawberries and watercress happening over the next few days and that will give me Vitamin C for the interim. I also need to plant.... well I will think about it later and I will turn it into a post. "What to plant".
So, I have calories, vitamins and minerals. what is missing? Protein. My aquaponics system can supply a few fish, but not enough. I can scale it up slowly, if I let the fish breed (instead of eating them), but for now I have no secure protein source. I'm not a vegetarian. If you are squeamish, skip over the next paragraph.
I could buy 300 cans of tinned meat and tuna for $490 - but I’ve got other stuff I need to buy with that $490. So I am going to do two things: hunt meat and breed meat. Chickens would be ideal. I tried to buy some chickens, but I couldn’t find anywhere that would sell me a live chook. I guess there is not a big call for them here in the city. Then I passed a pet shop. Here’s the (gruesome) plan: Guinea pigs. They used to be bred for food. That’s right: I’m going to breed guinea pigs for food. I did warn you. It gets even more gruesome - I can hunt. I have never shot a living thing in my life, but I used to be pretty good at target shooting, and I still have a .22 rifle, a shotgun, and a .22 handgun (all licensed). So I bought ammo. The .22 ammo was cheap so I bought 800 rounds for $50. Shotgun ammo ammo was expensive – so I only got 200 rounds for $170.
Even if food gets completely cut off. that secures my family's food for 1 year. More likely it supplies us for many years, supplementing whatever is available.
Transport.
Passing a sports shop, it suddenly dawned on me that I left something out of my mental list of things that I must secure: Transport.
I bought 3 bikes $1,400. Time to re-learn the art of bicycle riding.
I bought 3 of those cheap removalist trolleys that they sell in hardware stores – they will be good as trailers for the bikes. $60.
Water.
I have rain tanks, but I want to make sure I have clean, safe water. So I bought some water filters and cartridges. $240. I have bleach and water purification tablets, but don't really want to use them unless I have to. I would prefer to boil and filter.
Cooking.
For cooking I decided I wanted to keep things “normal” for as long as possible - I don’t want to be cooking on a fire made from my wooden furniture.
I have a gas stove top and my oven uses electricity. If one is cut off, I can use the other. If both are cut off, I have a BBQ that uses gas bottles. I bought another two large bottles. $180. This may be a silly expenditure – but I see it as a way of staying comfortable if gas and electricity are out for days or weeks at a time, but then run for days or weeks at a time – no need for huge life-changes, just use the BBQ.
I go camping, so I have a kerosene camp stove and 3 kersone lanterns. I bought 10 litres of kerosene for my camp stove and lanterns. $15 (the price of kerosene in the stores hasn’t caught up with the rise in oil prices yet).
Luxuries.
I don’t have Solar Hot Water. I intended to get it, but I guess I’ve missed my chance. I bought a couple of Solar Camping Showers. $90. I do a lot of chores at night. I like being able to see when I do those chores, so I bought an LED headlamp, 4 AA rechargeable batteries, and a solar-powered battery recharger. $95.
The Money Situation.
I’m out of money. Considering the fact that I have a 6-figure income, I don’t seem to have a lot of cash reserves. I have 3 credit cards. I keep them fully paid off, so I could go on a wild spending spree. But all the advice I’ve seen suggests that we are in for an economic meltdown, and I should try to stay debt free. Yet there are so many things I need to buy.
I will think about it. More soon. 评论 (7)引用通告此日志的引用通告 URL 是： http://aeldric.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A859FF3D2F2384E4!112.trak 引用此项的网络日志
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