Money. Money. Money. Cash n Silver

squaregrouper said:

A friend used to work for Phillip Morris. He said storing cigarettes in fridge/freezer is really bad due to the arid conditions. He recommended sealing them in ziploc freezer bags with a wet cotton ball. That way there would be X amount of moisture trapped in with the cigarettes. I don't know whether mold would become an issue long term.

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Don't do that for anything long term, really I wouldn't recommend it at all. Sealed Rubbermaid containers with a 65% boveda pack will keep tobacco fresh for years if not opened. Or use ammo cans with a good lid seal and a boveda. No different than a cigar tupperdore. If you wanna go real big you can build a coolerdor. Google has plenty of plans.

Edit: you can also long term store them in vacuum sealed containers with a boveda. Just don't crush them. People seal whole boxes of cigars like that to age them.

It is prudent to keep some of all of the above on hand for what is coming our way. Make no mistake about it, it is coming! (my definition of IT? near total economic collapse. Likely to take the dollar with it and incidentally, if and when it loses its status as the world reserve currency.....game over for the dollar - period.)

Gold will be too valuable for anything but large purchases....and absent mad max scenario or EMP disaster, this could be very useful. However, if you have fractional gold, you open yourself up to very good ability for purchases and gold will always be accepted. Silver in large pieces will have the same ability as gold. 90% US coins (here) and ounces of silver will indeed be valuable for common purchases and hiring of services. I would not worry about saying how people can't tell the difference in a silver quarter and a clad quarter, etc. ---right now, that's true but as things get bad bad, very bad, effin' bad, etc. ppl will learn and learn quickly.

Ammo. acquire and hold - its stupidity (sorry to offend) to dream of bartering with ammo with anyone besides family and your very best of friends. and even then, watch your back jack!

Additional barter items (because there will come a time for this system again) - the list is almost endless.....alcohol, matches, rice, tools - seriously on and on.

So, assuming things don't do to that degree (and who can say they will or won't - really) (and don't use normalcy bias for one position or another - ), GOLD and SILVER are going to make their biggest impact when there is a reset of the valuation of them to the dollar (whether that dollar is federal reserve note or us treasury note or something completely different). This reset will make gold and silver extremely expensive in the new currency. Meaning, if you hold the metals now, you will be buying into the new monetary system way way ahead of anyone not holding these metals now.

Anyway, these items can go on and on and I could probably write a book but I'm sure there are critics to this on here and that's fine. But the above is a little bit as to the way I see things.

I'm also happy to keep this topic going and have more conversations on the topic.

Lousy Shot said:

We always keep $10,000 in crisp, fresh, $20 bills on our kitchen table for anyone who needs a few bucks. Plus, we keep our gold and silver coins and bullion in mayonnaise jars out on the front porch.

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I bury all my cash in my neighbors front yard in mason jars. Pm me if you want his address.

DOM said:

It never hurts to have some cash around. A run on the banks is not going to happen. The FED will provide UNLIMITED liquidity to the banks at this point. If we get to the point where we are trading in gold and silver, the medium of exchange will be the least of your problems. It would result in the complete breakdown of society and safety and food will be about your only concerns.

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Agreed. If cash had no value, then you have bigger problems.

I don't think any precious metal is going to be any good when someone is starving. Nobody in the immediate area will trade your bar of gold and let their family starve so that they can carry the bar of gold. The metals are good for going to another area that is not affected and trading for their currency and also good for after a reset, but not during.

During people just want food, water and shelter.

bigdv said:

I will just wait for my stimulus check

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If they boogered the currency good enough we could get million dollar checks every month. We'd all be millionaires!

randomuser said:

During people just want food, water and shelter.

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And toilet paper!

Lousy Shot said:

And toilet paper!

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Once they get their efficiency down one roll will last a year.

Folks this is an economic bump that we'll get over soon. This will pass. Also, if it came down to it and before we enter the EOTWAWKI and the destruction of all America they'll open the workers gates and let'em get back to work. Virus or not. After all, the death of a few million is a better alternative than the death of a 100 million and the destruction of the USA from economic collapse for the next hundred years. Their not going to let the country go splat because of the possibility of a couple million deaths.

After a hurricane camped over Richmond for several years back and flooded my aunts house the one thing she shared as a lesson learned was to have a variety of denominations in your cash stash.

She had plenty of cash in hand since the ATM networks were down but she really didn’t like paying $20 or $50 for a small purchase since the ‘merchant’ may not have had sufficient change.

randomuser said:

If they boogered the currency good enough we could get million dollar checks every month. We'd all be millionaires!

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Nope. Look at Zimbabwe. They buggered their currency to the point that they issued a 100,000,000,000,000 bill. A single piece of paper for 100 TRILLION.

Short term Cash.

Long term Gold and Silver. Need to understand the Karat system, Plumb Gold, Gold Filled, Coin Silver, Sterling Silver, Fine Silver, have an accurate scale and have one of these:
https://www.riogrande.com/product/complete-gold-testing-kit/1115281

Longer term and beyond you need a SKILL that will be in demand that you can use to replace your supply of Cash, Gold, Silver, and barter for the things you need. The skill must be in something other people will want which leaves out telephone sanitisers and other skill sets included on Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B. You might consider blacksmith, potter, basket weaver, wheelwright, tanner, farmer, teamster, weaver, tailor, cobbler, miller or other honest labor.

It would be a good idea to practice your chosen skill until you become proficient.

The Germans also buggered their currency between the wars which you can see in what is called German Overprint Stamps where the inflation was so bad that instead of issuing new postage stamps they overprinted new higher values on exiting stamps. Here are some examples:
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf...HQrrAf8Q7Al6BAgKEDE&biw=1280&bih=586&dpr=1.25

Well, so long as I can get the bottles I’ve got supplies on hand to brew about 150 gallons of beer. I suppose that’s worth something in barter.

And beyond brewing, I am an excellent cook, decent auto mechanic, decent welder, decent lumberjack, good engineer, very good plumber, excellent electrician, good general contractor, good HVAC, so-so fabricator, newb gunsmith, good gardener, pretty good hunter, so-so seamstress, okay surveyor and architect. Oh and a decent program manager (my actual job).

I mostly don’t like people doing things for me. So I mostly do everything in life myself whenever possible. And I do a hell of a lot.

slsc98 said:

Reading journals of those who’ve survived recent and total societal crashes (ie Argentina and Bosnia)

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IIRC, both the ARG and BOS bloggers documented the fact that, eventually, tobacco IS gold!

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I remember reading that Argentine's blog years ago. What was his name? I'd like to refresh my memory. Also who is the Bosnian you mention?

welder516 said:

How can anyone preserve Tobacco ? for potential years and i don't smoke so it won't do me any good .

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My grandfather was a merchant marine. Before his trips, he would load up on cartons of cigarettes. The stuff he would trade for was unbelievable.


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BartExp said:

My grandfather was a merchant marine. Before his trips, he would load up on cartons of cigarettes. The stuff he would trade for was unbelievable.

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Charley O'Casey approves of this post.


All y'all make me snicker with these seemingly genuine plans.

If the SHTF, and it really is TEOTWAWKI, I can be honest and say I cannot survive more than five to seven months.

Very few of us here will be John Matherson, though many of the "phony tough, and crazy brave" here think they will be.

Threeband said:

I remember reading that Argentine's blog years ago. What was his name? I'd like to refresh my memory. Also who is the Bosnian you mention?

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Are you thinking FerFAL? http://ferfal.blogspot.com/

He has written a few books now as well.

Obviously we will resort to bottle caps as currency

EDA98 said:

Obviously we will resort to bottle caps as currency

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I have a buncha drywall screws an' nails 'n' stuff.

EDA98 said:

Obviously we will resort to bottle caps as currency

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POGs

The beautiful thing about being a placer gold miner is I don't have to chisel or hack to 'make change' as most of it looks like peppercorns before and after grinding. The bummer is a hole in the bag, mitigated by carrying it in the thicker Gatorade bottles.

The stand medium of trade will be Trojans. Always a purpose for those, As long as there are still women and men.

welder516 said:

How can anyone preserve Tobacco ? for potential years and i don't smoke so it won't do me any good .

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I’ve been smoking pipes and cigars for years. Pipe tobacco is very easy to store - you just put it in a mason jar and screw the lid on. I’m working through some 2012 tobacco right now. I buy pipe tobacco when it’s on sale and shelf it. I probably have a lifetime supply for myself now.

Cigars are a little tricky because you need to keep them humidified to around 70% humidity.

I’ve vacuum sealed cigarettes before for a friend as an experiment. Vacuum sealed and sat on a shelf for 2 years. He said they were fine.

EDIT: you can age cigars and pipe tobacco like wine or whiskey. Some tobaccos improve with age, so it’s possible that even without SHTF you can sell your tobacco for a premium if you aged it correctly.