This is common knowledge, but sometimes some things just need to be said out loud....
When everything around us that we are used to, stops, that is when your bartering skills will be just as important as knowing how to shoot a gun or skin a rabbit. And it never fails, no matter how many preparations you make, somethign will be forgotten somewhere, or used up before order is restored to the galaxy. And should it last more than the bare two weeks that most people have rations for, then thats when bartering can become dangerous.
You (we, us) as preparers, will have the upper hand when it comes to trading for some thing or service you may need. The way to keep that upper hand is not to 'show off' the entire stash when you go to barter. If someone comes up to your house, and you have lights blazing, battery operated cd player playing, a big bbq going in the backyard, sitting there on the front porch cleaning a stack of guns or reloading ammo, then its going to be obvious that you should 'share the wealth' with the neighborhood and you'll probably be the next target for the marauding vigilantes who need to feed their family. And a hungry family at the gate is really going to be hard to turn away when you know you have plenty of food and supplies.
Keeping a low profile is very important. If you feel the need to help a neighbor (and I hope you do), then do it quietly, discretely. Leave food or provisions on their porch, dont go knocking on the door and say "I got 500 lbs of rations back at the homestead, here you can have some'...
Give away something that you can explain where it came from. Dressed, fresh wild meat, garden vegetables, with a little bit of rice or potatoes etc are renewable. A case of beans in exchange for those empty guns that a neighbor no longer has bullets for, is kinda obvious....
Treat those rations as if they are precious. Sure, it may only be a day's worth of food in your 3 year supply, but everybody else doesnt have to know that. Be willing to walk away or make the 'sacrifice' of giving up what precious food you have to trade, in order to get what you need. A good acting job can save you a ton of stash...
Trade away from your homestead or BOL. We come in here to this group and talk about all our preps and show our munitions, but nobody outside your protective circle needs to know anything about what you have. And never tell the same people about the same stash. If you show this person your guns, then dont tell them about the food you have in a bunker in the backyard.
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS resist a pissing contest both before AND after TSHTF!!! Some other guy is gonna show off his guns, stash, provisions, hunting skills, or whatever the case may be. Let him think he has the bigger caliber or the longer list of provisions, especially if a third party is listening. The name of the game is not who has the bigger stash, but who gets to keep it the longest!!!
I know there's a lot of common sense floating out there. Anyone got more to add?
Lo~
When everything around us that we are used to, stops, that is when your bartering skills will be just as important as knowing how to shoot a gun or skin a rabbit. And it never fails, no matter how many preparations you make, somethign will be forgotten somewhere, or used up before order is restored to the galaxy. And should it last more than the bare two weeks that most people have rations for, then thats when bartering can become dangerous.
You (we, us) as preparers, will have the upper hand when it comes to trading for some thing or service you may need. The way to keep that upper hand is not to 'show off' the entire stash when you go to barter. If someone comes up to your house, and you have lights blazing, battery operated cd player playing, a big bbq going in the backyard, sitting there on the front porch cleaning a stack of guns or reloading ammo, then its going to be obvious that you should 'share the wealth' with the neighborhood and you'll probably be the next target for the marauding vigilantes who need to feed their family. And a hungry family at the gate is really going to be hard to turn away when you know you have plenty of food and supplies.
Keeping a low profile is very important. If you feel the need to help a neighbor (and I hope you do), then do it quietly, discretely. Leave food or provisions on their porch, dont go knocking on the door and say "I got 500 lbs of rations back at the homestead, here you can have some'...
Give away something that you can explain where it came from. Dressed, fresh wild meat, garden vegetables, with a little bit of rice or potatoes etc are renewable. A case of beans in exchange for those empty guns that a neighbor no longer has bullets for, is kinda obvious....
Treat those rations as if they are precious. Sure, it may only be a day's worth of food in your 3 year supply, but everybody else doesnt have to know that. Be willing to walk away or make the 'sacrifice' of giving up what precious food you have to trade, in order to get what you need. A good acting job can save you a ton of stash...
Trade away from your homestead or BOL. We come in here to this group and talk about all our preps and show our munitions, but nobody outside your protective circle needs to know anything about what you have. And never tell the same people about the same stash. If you show this person your guns, then dont tell them about the food you have in a bunker in the backyard.
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS resist a pissing contest both before AND after TSHTF!!! Some other guy is gonna show off his guns, stash, provisions, hunting skills, or whatever the case may be. Let him think he has the bigger caliber or the longer list of provisions, especially if a third party is listening. The name of the game is not who has the bigger stash, but who gets to keep it the longest!!!
I know there's a lot of common sense floating out there. Anyone got more to add?
Lo~
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