we had to resort to barter and foreign currencies

I would think barter is more important than foreign currency. A 3 pound bag of pinto beans could be very valuable for example, or even more value a half dozen cans of tuna fish or something that doesn't need cooked. I'm to old to fill a wheelbarrow and set off on a hundred mile journey. So keep a few jugs of gas around with stabil in it. I rotate them so its not on hand for a long time. Lawn mower boat motor 4 wheeler. If I need to I dump in my pickup and buy fresh. Get a bad ice storm some gas and a generator is mighty handy. If TEOTWAWKI happens us old folks wont last long. I am not going to build a bunker, get permission to buy military grade weapons etc. However a few essentials on hand just makes sense to me.

Of course a little cash, gold,silver, foreign currency,,,,something to barter with is very important,,, short term

So what happens when you suddenly have to relocate to a safer location? Permanently

Could be 10’s or thousands of miles, from your home,,, with only what you can carry,,,, and your never coming back

Your entire life savings remains behind,,, or is siezed,,, or taken by the government,,,, or,,,,or,,,,

Sounds like it happened to Tatiana,,,, it’s happening in Iran currently,,,, happened to canadains a few years

Self custody of bitcoin allows a person access to their money everywhere in the world 24-7

Like I said. I am to old to worry about TEOTWAWKI

Yes.

Not really. Money has the liquidity that few other things have. Pinto beans are great, but finding those who need them and have what you need, without a middleman who'll rob you, is not fun. Plus there are expensive things you may need fast. Equipment is good but again, liquidity is lower than what you reasonably need. This is why I mentioned meds, ammo, ethanol and tobacco for the bad kind of doomsday scenarios, they are more or less compact, store well, and there is always demand for them

In the 90's, we had a period of true hyperinflation and for a few years, it was normal to see all prices in "provisional units" (uslovnye edinitsy, abbreviated to u.e.) that were in fact U.S. dollars.




it's good if you have faith in your unalienable uninterrupted connection to blockchain. Imagine a (very, very hypothetical) scenario where you wake up one day, your computer shows that you have internet connection but all you can access are the websites of.... say... Google, the IRS, CNN, WSJ, Disney, DoorDash, and a website that sells bus and train tickets, your instant messengers won't send anything, discord shows a blank screen, facebook is down, and Google only shows a handful of strangely irrelevant results. You read the CNN website but most of the news are about funny cats and celebrities. You call your provider and they say everything is fine, so after a few days of excruciating uncertainty the government finally admits that there's been a new emergency law protecting you against growing terrorist threats from Chinese hackers, so it's all for your own good, you decide to outsmart them and try downloading and setting up a VPN client but can't find anything (later, you find out that that new law also forces Google to heavily moderate all search results), so you try to find it in the torrents and it still doesn't work for some reason and then your connection shuts down completely and you may even get a visit from several very tired-looking agents who have questions because all your traffic is now being inspected automatically (thanks to the deep packet inspection equipment that the government had been quietly forcing the providers to install and implement). And mobile internet doesn't work either because they're protecting your rights and freedoms from those Chinese weather balloons that are using the cell tower signals for navigation
And it all happens before you get a chance to exercise your right to be a sovereign individual and flee the country. That's when cash comes in handy. Small bills


purely hypothetical... it never, ever happens in real life

Prepping already saved my life. A year and a half ago I was on a Prepping site and someone mentioned the vast majority are going to die in a long term dire situation, which is true. I said I already knew I would not make it very long. I was 60, massively overweight with two knees that needed to be replaced. Heck, I couldn't walk 100 feet without stopping to catch my breath and had little floaty things in my vision. I had tried for 4 years to lose enough weight that the Dr's would replace my knees, but nothing worked. A couple of people suggested I should try the Carnivore way of eating. I had never heard of it, but I like meat. So I started. Felt horrible the first couple of weeks, no energy what so ever, almost like I had the flu. Then I began to feel much better, started sleeping better. My joint pains were gone in 4 weeks. Knees still hurt really bad because they were bone on bone. I did not step on the scale in the first 2 months but it was obvious the weight was falling off. You could see it in my face and my baggy pants. Dropped 120 pounds in 6 months. Went from a size 52 pants to a size 40. Still have 80 pounds to go, but for the first time in a very long time, I know I will get there. I haven't felt this good in YEARS! Got the left knee replaced in Oct and I get the right one is getting done in early Feb. Recovery has gone way better than I could have hoped for! Literally changed my life and for the first time in a long time I think I might make it past 65. I have everything I need to stick around for quite some time if the grid goes down tomorrow and doesn't come back on for a while (long term)!

One thing that is very handy is a hand pump for your well, if you have a somewhat shallow well. But if you are like me and your well is 720 feet deep, most hand pumps are useless. Look at making a well bucket out of a 3 foot section of 4 inch PVC pipe and a foot valve (one way valve), and some mule tape. If you set up a tripod and pulley, you'll be able to still get water from your well.

If you have a well and a generator going the first few days you can collect water right? I don't understand everyone worrying about water. What am I missing?

FYI you can put water in mason jars and can that too.

Ceramic will remove harmful bacteria. Gravel sand charcoal leaves a lot in the water