Recently on an internet forum a discussion in regards to how much cash to have on hand caught my interest. This topic is interesting to me because I disagree with most people on this topic. I do not think cash, gold, silver or other precious metals will have a place in a societal collapse environment. In the event of civil unrest will you be able to purchase anything with any currency? Keeping our preparations grounded in reality is a challenging topic for many preppers.
On a Forum, one of the more intriguing comments was discussing along the lines of $5,000 to get out before the storm and purchase food, ammo, and gas. The problem with this thought is that same gut reaction is going to be telling hundreds of thousands of other people to react as well. By this point, money is unlikely to buy anything. For example trying to find an N95 mask during the Covid 19 Pandemic.
Another example was a comment in regards to having enough cash to purchase plane tickets to get home. Again in the event of civil unrest, using the Covid 19 Pandemic as evidence, plane trips were halted.
Personally, I only keep $100 in the safe. Any more than that amount is better protected by a bank. I do not believe cash, gold, silver or other precious metals will have a place in a post-apocalyptic environment mainly due to the lack of ability to purchase anything. Recently in January of 2021, I offered someone $2 a round for their 5.56. They were unwilling to part with their ammo regardless of the absurd amount of money I offered them. Within reason, if I offered him $100 a round of ammo, the individual might have taken it. In that case if I am trading a paper with value on it for an item of barter and paying what we view as absurd amounts, how much is it becoming devalued to the point it is worthless? In the event of a civil unrest, I believe it will be better to barter tangible items.
Other items that could be used for barter for obvious reasons are those essential to life; Food, Water, and Shelter. I won’t expand on these in an effort to minimize the length of this blog.
In my effort to keep redundancy around, alcohol also offers another cleaning solution. Alcohol can be used to clean wounds on the body. Alcohol can also be used to reduce pain by depressing the central nervous system. Further, Alcohol can also be used as a fire starter.
Pain medicines like acetaminophen (Tylenol) can help alleviate head and body aches and lower your temperature. Further, acetaminophen can be used to treat headache, muscle aches, arthritis, backache, toothaches, sore throats, colds, flu, and fevers. As cheap as bulk acetaminophen from sources like Costco and Sams Club is, it is something I rotate through and always keep a bit on hand.
During times of civil unrest items that are used in cleaning or creating a sanitary environment will become valuable. While not an immediate thought, when illnesses (Covid 19) and infections start occurring due to unsanitary conditions people will seek out these items for their residences.
Other items I predict will be extremely valuable during a civil unrest is relatively anything that can be used for self-protection and protection of residences. Guns, Knives, Ammo, blunt force objects such as bats, body armor, Chemical protection agents such as OC and CS, and Electrical Discharge weapons will become valuable. For home protections items such as thick plywood, chain link fences, chains and pad locks will be valuable as well.
Four Horsemen Adventures and Preparedness 