10 Essentials to Have Before a Collapse (and also very useful in a Depression)

I admit it, I’m on a collapse bender. I don’t see how we can avoid catastrophe, and believe me, I’m an optimist generally. I wrote an article about why a collapse is inevitable on our current path, but briefly: peak oil, economic corruption, climate change, and other serious dangers are not only not being addressed by our leaders, they are stomping on the gas and steering us straight toward the abyss.

Given this reality, sensible people should be preparing. This post lists specific items you should be trying to put in place now; while it is easy to say a collapse is inevitable, it is impossible to say when it will occur. The current Great Recession could be the start of it, or we could have another ten years. In addition, any of the following will be very useful in the event of another Depression, which I would describe as a minor collapse.

Priorities start with necessities and end up with nice-to-have things that make life better. If you don’t have necessities, you will have to make a deal, likely unfavourable to you, with someone who has things you must have.

1. Food and water: What will you do if you or your family is starving? What some women – and men – do is turn to prostitution. Presumably you don’t, won’t, or can’t do that. To ensure you have adequate food and water (there is no guarantee that the municipal water supply will keep running, or be drinkable): land for crops, supply of clean water. You don’t need much; even an acre will do. Dmitri Orlov pointed out that many families made it through the collapse of the Soviet Union because they had small family gardens of about 1,000 square feet. Water is trickier; even if your land backs onto a river or lake, the water will need to be purified or you risk Giardia and other diseases.
2. Shelter: If you have the misfortune to be unable to pay your rent or mortgage early in the collapse, the landlord or bank will boot you out. Later, once it becomes obvious that kicking you out will mean the house will become valueless quite rapidly thanks to scavenging and squatting, banks and landlords may become more flexible. Or not. Ideally, you have a place bought-and-paid-for. Of course, there are still taxes, which can be substantial in some areas. Again, early in the collapse, you will get the boot. Later, municipalities may be more flexible, perhaps because a few of their sheriffs got shot while attempting to evict people. A more positive response happened during the Great Depression, where neighbours bought each others’ houses for a pittance. Your house should get most of its heat from passive solar energy, meaning the only moving part is the Sun.
3. Energy: Energy makes many things possible, including our civilisation. Unfortunately, energy is destined to be less available and more expensive; peak oil is one of the prime drivers for a collapse, perhaps the prime driver. The banksters may crash the economy first, though; it’s a race between stupid and crooked. Energy comes in many forms, from solar panels and windmills to an woodburning masonry oven or DIY metal woodstove, which everyone in a cold climate should have. It’s a low-tech way to provide a lot of heat, hot water, and cooking, and will be repairable long after some vitally important piece of plastic has broken off the solar panel and rendered it decorative. If your water supply is a stream or river, you can tap that for power. A horse or two fit into several categories of useful: energy, transportation, trading (if you breed them), and emergency food supply. Of course they are a lot of work to feed and maintain.
4. Clothing: What you currently have will likely last for a few years. After things go to hell and it is clear to all that no bounceback is coming any time soon, and nor will imports of cheap crap from China resume any time soon, more useful and durable clothing should be the bulk of your wardrobe. You should still keep some dressy clothing; unless chaos reigns there will still be social gatherings. And, of course, if you do end up in the field of prostituting yourself for things you want or need, it will be helpful to look your best in order to get the best rate.
5. Knowledge: Knowledge is power, both personal and social. If you know how to do things that others need, you will be in demand. Thus books, from the Kama Sutra (for those engaged in the exchange of personal services for needed or desired goods), to all kinds of “How to” would be smart to have. I’ll provide a list of recommendations in different categories in a future article; every wise person should have a personal library of useful books.
6. Security: A bulletproof house would be a start. Yes, I realise that windows and doors will not be bulletproof, but if the walls are you can take shelter behind them while shooting back. There’s no point building a fortress, anyway; your attackers will clean out your garden and everything outside, and if necessary wait you out. You should have at least a shotgun. Keep in mind that handguns and rifles require bullets, which may be in short supply post-collapse, where shotgun shells can be repacked. A simple bow would be handy; not a complex graphite model with wheels and pulleys for which spare parts will be unavailable. Some good knives are useful for defence and many other things.
7. Transportation: See the photo starting this article. Peak oil means that gas and diesel-powered transportation – cars, pickup trucks, UPS vans, tractor-trailers, and so forth – will become too expensive to be practical. A bike will get you around in decent weather, but as Orlov has pointed out, most bikes today contain one or more flimsy, irreplaceable, and vital plastic bits. Garden carts will be very useful. A horse is a lot of work to maintain, but a source of energy, transportation, trade if you breed them, and meat if things get really bad.
8. Tradable things: I have already mentioned those trading their bodies. If you don’t want to do this, or do but don’t have a body that anybody wants to pay for the use of, then a stock of useful items could have high trade value. Straight razors, for example. After a collapse, disposable 4-blade razors from Gillette with a “wear indicator” so you know when to throw it away, will be considerably less desirable than a resharpenable straight razor. (You might want to read up on how to use one so your first shave isn’t your last, and so your razor lasts a lifetime.) Condoms will be a hot property, I’m sure. (If you’re sure you don’t want more kids, get a vasectomy or your tubes tied now. You should also get any teeth fixed that are causing you problems.) What is tradable depends upon how far back civilisation is set. A solar oven might be enormously popular. Skills and knowledge may ultimately be the most valuable tradable items.
9. Useful skills: Dentistry will still be needed, if not wanted. The ability to make alcoholic beverages of any kind will be worth something. If in doubt, see; History; human. Once again, I plug books containing knowledge; just because you don’t have a particular skill now doesn’t mean you can’t acquire it in a hurry. There are many other useful skills, such as the ability to make things with hand tools, start a fire without matches or lighters, build a solar-heated house, and so on.
10. Sporting goods equipment: Just kidding. You will not need full hockey gear. Also not particularly useful: battery-powered sex toys, big screen TVs (or anything electronic, including my favourite whipping toy, the Kindle, cool as it otherwise is), and cars that run on fossil fuels.
11. Resilience, persistence, imagination, positive attitude: If, or more likely when things get tough, you will have to, too. You will have to learn and do new things, some of which you might not want to do, and some of which may make the difference between life-and-death. A sense of humour will be useful.

Useful Resources

As mentioned in this article, I will shortly produce an article devoted to the best resources, mainly books, to have on hand. These will be the books that vanish first from the libraries and bookstores when times get tough.

In the meantime, if you want to educate yourself about the likelihood of a collapse occurring and what to expect post-collapse, the books below will be useful. From left to right: Reinventing Collapse is by Dmitri Orlov, who had first-hand experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union. He expects the United States to also collapse fairly soon, and that the outcome will be worse in many ways than occurred in the former USSR.

World Made by Hand is a novel by James Howard Kunstler, author of many books but most pertinent here being the influential The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century. In the novel, Kunstler describes a post-collapse world. This is useful to help envision what the world will be like, as it is so difficult for us to do now in the midst of apparently endless plenty.

The Modern Survival Manual was written by a survivor of the Argentinian collapse, while When Technology Fails is very highly rated by reviewers from professors to average people concerned about the future.