Spend a Little, Save a Lot

Let's consider the issue of spending money and saving time.  After all, isn't that what we trade our labor for?  Specialization came about through history as a result of John being able to do something better and faster than Jane, and Jane being able to do something else better and faster than John.  It could be due to aptitude, physical strength, or dexterity.  In more recent history, financial resources and opportunities for education also played a role.  Distance from production and production costs factor into the equation as well.

The ability to be self-sufficient is basic to living a prepared life.  Having the skills, knowledge, and tools to fulfill homesteading needs will greatly ease the challenges we face in the future.  However, most of us cannot live that type of life right now.  Some still have bills to pay and regular jobs to work to pay those bills.  Even if we are entirely shut down in the future for whatever reason, suddenly producing everything we need is just not feasible.  Sure, we can start baking bread and knitting socks pretty quickly.  But soon the yeast runs out and so do the salt and sugar.

"Never fear!" you hear people say.  "You can DIY these."

Yes, you can use everlasting yeast or sourdough starter for making bread.  That's not such a huge transition.  Sugar, of course, can be obtained by harvesting sap from sugar maples and processing it into syrup or sugar.  Honey can be obtained from your own beehives.  Both of these involve a bit more labor, and some risk as bees can be a bit sensitive.  Salt can be evaporated from seawater or the Great Salt Lake, but you have to actually live pretty nearby for these to be feasible.  There are also salt mines scattered across the country.  That could be pretty labor-intensive.

With concerns about locusts in Africa and Asia and cooler temperatures in North America due to the Grand Solar Minimum and crazy weather, people are starting to talk about growing their own grains.  Now that is really labor-intensive.  And most people don't have the experience, tools, or land to pull it off.

A while back, I read a post from someone wanting to know what plants he could process to obtain salt.  I'm not sure there are any such plants.  What I do know is that salt is incredibly cheap right now.  Iodine is essential to a healthy diet, and we most easily obtain it from iodized salt.  At $1.18 cents for a 26-ounce carton, that's roughly 4.5 cents per ounce, or 72 cents per pound.  Ten pounds, just over seven dollars.  Cheap.  In 1860, Johnston's Army that was sent to harass the Mormon pioneers in Utah paid Indians five dollars per pound for salt.  (That was not the going rate for salt in the eastern part of the country; it was what desperate soldiers far removed from their supply lines were willing to pay.)  Now, put that in today's money.  Figure an ounce of gold was $20 then.  So salt was the equivalent of a quarter of an ounce of gold.  Gold today is nearly $2000 per ounce.  So an equivalent price for a pound of salt today would be $720.  It makes sense to stock up now on something so critical.

Now consider sugar.  Yes, we totally eat too much of it, but that's not what this post is about.  It can be obtained from honey or sugar maple trees.  Pioneers also cultivated sugar beets and honeydew to satisfy their desires for something sweet.  These options entail a whole lot of fuel and man-hours to cook down the fruits to produce the sugar.  They require all the land and time to grow the beets and melons.  Most people won't have the luxury of using valuable time to make sugar.  Historically, it was an expensive product.  Currently, like salt, it is very cheap, about 80 cents per pound.

Think about soap.  Soapmaking has been a popular craft for the last decade or so.  For most people, it involves buying the individual ingredients at the craft store and melting them in a double boiler on the stove and then pouring into molds.  But that's not how it was done historically.  Colonials and pioneers made lye from wood ash and rendered tallow from beef or venison for the oil.  The two were combined and by the chemical process known as saponification, soap was produced.  It was one of the most hated chores for women of the period.  Only the well-to-do could afford to buy their soap.  Yet soap is still pretty cheap for us.  And it stores forever.

Socks.  Baby socks wouldn't be a big deal, but children's and adult socks, even the nicest hand knit ones, aren't as comfortable.  And I say this as a hand knitter with a lot of wool, alpaca, and angora socks.  They take a lot of time and need to be mended frequently.

Shoes.  I couldn't even begin to make my own.

Underwear.  I could definitely make my own, if I had the fabric and the elastic.  But remember how the pandemic made it impossible to find elastic?  And that was only for masks.  What if people needed to make underwear?

The list could go on indefinitely.  Think about the items you use every day, where they come from, and how easy or difficult it will be for you to replicate those items.  We may have to begin producing these items on our own, but we'll be doing ourselves and our families a huge favor if we don't have to start off this way when society collapses.  Even if nothing "big" ever happens, with all the "stimulus" money issued by the government, inflation is making everything more expensive.  Things are going to get difficult.  Let's make it as easy as possible by preparing now and buying essentials while they're inexpensive.

 

 7.16.23