Prepping on the Cheap

Patricia, at Rural Revolution, has a good post on cheap prepping.


Stop by your local grocery store (Walmart) or bakery and see if they have any plastic buckets (food grade) to get rid of.

The beauty of bakery buckets

 Back in our naïve days of preparing for Y2K, Don and I bit the bullet and bought 24 five-gallon buckets with screw-on gasketed lids. These have been superb buckets and we still use them, but they were expensive. Bakery buckets are a far better deal.

Bakery buckets are quite literally a prepper’s best friend. For the last couple of years, I’ve made it a policy to stop at our local grocery store’s bakery department and inquire about buckets. Sometimes there aren’t any available (others beat me to them), sometimes there’s only one or two, and sometimes I hit the jackpot.

 

Anti-carjacking device...

Blue posted on a great product for CCW in a vehicle.

I just ordered one.

Gum Creek Customs

Here is a video showing how it attaches in the vehicle.

Busting Bubbles

 
Bubbles can't last forever.  

They float around on the air and hit some grass & pop.  

They get blown like the above pic and pop.  

Balloons filled with He float up-up & away, but only go so high before they pop


Sovereign Man offers up this info on bubbles.

But is that all a bubble is– simply meteoric growth, seemingly with no end in sight? If so, let’s examine some other ‘bubbles’ in our society.

1) Number of people renouncing US citizenship: Four years of exponential growth. [Source: Bloomberg / IRS]

2008: 146
2009: 742
2010: 1534
2011: 2048 (estimate)

2) Number of Facebook users: Eight years of viral growth. [Source: Facebook]

August 26, 2008: 100 million
April 8, 2009: 200 million
September 15, 2009: 300 million
February 5, 2010: 400 million
July 21, 2010: 500 million
January 5, 2011: 600 million
May 30, 2011: 700 million
September 22, 2011: 800 million
February 4, 2012: 845 million

3) Number of Americans on Foodstamps: A disturbing, tragic long-term growth trend. [Source: USDA's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]

2007: 26.3 million
2008: 28.2 million
2009: 33.5 million
2010: 40.3 million
2011: 44.7 million

4) Number of FBI/NICS background checks to obtain a firearm in the United States: Eight years of consistent growth.  And baby, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. [Source: FBI]

2004: 8.69 million
2005: 8.95 million
2006: 10.04 million
2007: 11.18 million
2008: 12.70 million
2009: 14.03 million
2010: 14.41 million
2011: 16.45 million

5) Number of requests the US government made for Google user data: 4 straight reporting periods of astounding growth. [Source: Google]
6-months ending 12/31/2009: 3,580
6-months ending 6/30/2010:  4,287
6-months ending 12/31/2010: 4,601
6-months ending 6/30/2011:  5,950

6) US federal government budget outlays: a never-ending growth trend of out-of-control spending. [Source: CBO, OMB]

2000 budget: $1.9 trillion
2001 budget: $2.0 trillion
2002 budget: $2.2 trillion
2003 budget: $2.2 trillion
2004 budget: $2.3 trillion
2005 budget: $2.4 trillion
2006 budget: $2.7 trillion
2007 budget: $2.8 trillion
2008 budget: $2.9 trillion
2009 budget: $3.1 trillion
2010 budget: $3.6 trillion
2011 budget: $3.8 trillion

7) And last but not least, US monetary base as of January 1st each year [Source: St. Louis Fed]

2001: $  616.7 billion
2002: $  673.7 billion
2003: $  719.6 billion
2004: $  756.8 billion
2005: $  793.8 billion
2006: $  825.2 billion
2007: $  843.5 billion
2008: $  851.4 billion
2009: $1,730.2 billion
2010: $2,010.1 billion
2011: $2,057.1 billion
2012: $2,647.7 billion

Ultimately, a bubble isn’t something whose price keeps going up. It’s something that is steadily expanding, supported by nothing but hot air.