Investments II

Last week I looked at some basic investing, food, ammo, etc. This week we are going to look at a couple of mor valuable investments. Silver, gold and land are the three things I will talk about here.

My first suggestion is to invest in silver. Why silver and not gold? There are several reasons that silver is a better investment than gold for the average survivalist. First of all, if you stick to pre 1964 coins, they are very familiar to people. They do not look much different than today's coins. However, you can easially spot the difference and there is a known amount of silver in each coin. Secondally, they are affordable. I personally feel that these are the coins that will be needed to do business if our present illegal Federal Reserve Notes become worthless. Pre 1964, non-numismatic coins can be had for just over the value of the silver in them. This makes it very easy to figure out what they are worth. If silver is selling for $5 per ounce, the most you should be paying for four quarters is $6. That is a twenty percent markup and should be about the most a reputable dealer will ask. Actually, the range is from ten to twenty percent and by shopping around you may be able to get an even better deal. I would concentrate on dimes and quarters. My own coins consist of mostly dimes and quarters with just a few half dollars. Halves are not as popular as dimes and quarters. As to how many you should purchase, that is a personal decision. As I write this the price of silver is over $12 per ounce. This means all I purchased at $5 per ounce has more than doubled. I will probably purchase more as I have cash available. My personal feeling is that silver will top $50 per ounce and that still makes it cheap today. Once you have purchased what you feel is enough silver coins, you may want to purchase one ounce rounds or bars. These are easier to store than a lot of coins. Many are also easily recognized and have stampings on them that show their assay. Once again, purchase the common rounds and bars that have little or no collectors value. A good quanity of silver will probably get you through many survival situations.

Gold. While gold is an excellent investment, I do not believe it is best for average survivalists that are going to need day to day money to survive. Gold is at about $620 per ounce as I write this, so you can see that even the smallest coins or bars are going to be hard to use in a survival situation. One-tenth of an ounce of gold, which is the smallest increment they come in, is right now worth about $60 or more. Should the price of gold go to $1500 per ounce that one-tenth ounce coin would be worth $150. Thus, many people may have trouble selling you something that only cost a few bucks. They might not have enough for change. You could wind up paying much more for things because of that. Having said that, if you have all the silver you feel you will need, or if you are short of storage space, buy gold. Purchase various sizes of coins from the one-tenth of an ounce to the one ounce size. Again, only you can decide how much you need.

One more thing about both silver and gold, never, NEVER allow anyone to hold your gold or silver. Always take delivery of what you buy and store it in your home. Do not even store it in a safety deposit at the bank. Many companies that sell gold and silver offer to just send you a certificate and to deep the actual metal. They say this is to allow you to own more as you need not pay shipping and they say it is safer. I would personally rather use a cookie jar for gold storage than to let the selling company keep it for me. There is no guarantee that you could get it in an emergency. Get yourself a small safe or at least a locking, fireproof strongbox and keep your silver and gold there. Also, do not let some of these dealers to sell you collectors items unless you are already a collector and you know what you want.

My third suggestion is kind of contraversial in that many people do not consider it a survival investment. The investment is land and it is to be looked at a little different than other investments. For instance: I have five acres of land which I live on and which also consider my investment in land. Twenty years ago, when I was living in a suburb of Chicago, I had land in a remote area of Wisconsin as my investment land. When I felt I no longer needed it, I sold it, took the profit and bought silver. I still have one-fourth ownership in an acre of land 140 miles from where I live which I could use in an emergency. If you live in a city and need a place to get away or if you have all the silver and gold you feel you will need, invest in land. Where, how much, vacant or with buildings, all of these options are personal. Unless I talk to people one on one, there is no way I will suggest what you should do. Some of you that live in cities or other unsafe areas may want a piece of land where you can bury a stash of guns, ammo, food and other necessities for survival. I will be covering that in a later entry.

Well, there you have my idea of survival investing. Food, Ammo, Household items, Silver, Gold and Land. You do not really need to follow any paticular order. If you really feel you need a piece of land away from where you live, you might want to make that your first investment. Each survivalist has different circumstances and is looking to various scenarios. Your investing strategy should depend on your own situation. As I stated earlier, I have yet to have anyone lose money on my advice. A couple of them broke even but were happy to do so.

Coming next week, Making your survival plan.

Investments

Survival investments are a lot different than the normal investments most people make. Think about the scenario that you feel is most likely to cause a survival situation. Now ask yourself if stocks, bonds, and IRA or any of the other "normal" investments would be of immediate help. The only scenario I can come up with in which they would help is in a natural disaster, and even then, they may take a while to convert and the stock market usually drops after a disaster anyway. This means that we need to look at survival investing in an entirely different light.

Let me preface my suggestions with a short statement. I make no hard and fast recommendations. I offer suggestions and let the individual survivalist pick and choose what they feel is best for them. I have been doing my own investing for over thirty years and have been advising others for just over twenty. In all of that time neither I nor any one I advised has ever lost any money. My own investments have gained in value as have most of the people's that I advised. One gentleman actually became a millionare by taking my advice. He started out with much more than I had and chose the right investments. I also made money at that time just not as much. I have also cashed in my investments once because of a divorce and had to start over. I will get more into the man that made a million later in the article. Having said all of that, let's get into the investing.

One of the things that I suggest that you put some of your investment money into is food. That's right; food. Once you have your own two year personal food supply and you still have some money left over, go out and buy a few cases of freeze dried food. Buy MREs or the freeze dried camping food, it does not make any difference. In just about any scenario where survival is important, there are going to be people who did not prepare and need food. You will be able to sell or barter (depending on the scenario) your food for what you need. The worst thing that can happen is that you will have to eat your investment. In that case you will not be spending any money on food so you will probably come out ahead anyway. The reason for freeze dried shoud be self-explanitory. There is a long shelf life on freeze dried food. You can actually just about double the life stated on the package.

The next thing we want to look at as an investment is ammo. Ammo, like food, is something that people that are not survivalist will probably not have. Once again, you will be able to barter for whatever you need. I would, (and do) keep mostly .22 ammo. This is the only gun many people have and these are the people that probably will not have any when the ship hits the sand. Next I would probably hold shotgun shells. Twelve gauge would be best as that is the most popular gauge. That is unless you have a twenty gauge and do not have a twelve gauge. You see, I would never hold any ammo that I did not have a gun to use it in if nothing happened or I could not get rid of it. The same goes for center-fire ammo, hold extra of what you shoot. Ditto for handgun ammo. As I said, .22 ammo is the best thing to keep for barter. There are many reasons that we might need them. Too many to get into here.

There are also many every day products that can be used for barter and could be held as an investment. Things like salt, sugar, coffee, tea, bath soap, tooth paste, tooth brushes, shaving cream, razor blades, and the list could go on and on. Most of these things will never go bad and can be held for years. One great item to hold would be toilet paper. The problem with TP is that it takes up so much room that most of us do not have the space to store it. It is one product that when people run out of, they will pay dearly to obtain.

These are the things I always recommend that people invest in first. These are all things that we all use. Should you decide that nothing is going to happen, you can use these items up yourself. With most of these items, if you hold them for even a couple of years, inflation will have made them more expensive and you will gain on your investment in that way. Next week I will go into my final three investments. STAY TUNED

What Next?

After you have your food supply well under control, it is time to look to other things. If you have the finances available, you can and should be doing more than one of these things at a time. The only reason I am seperating them is due to the fact that some things are more important than others and we need to set priorities. You may want to split up your purchases according to your priorities, say fifty percent for food and the other fifty percent for other items. You may not want to follow my priorities to the letter. I give these as a way to get started and will say more about these priorities later

This week I am going to talk about firearms and ammunition. I am not going to get into a firearms discussion. People ask me about fully auto rifles, semi-auto rifles, etc. etc. I do not really believe it matters. You need to have your weapons in an action that you are comfortable with. You also need to be familiar enough with them to clean, service and possibly repair them. If you have shot bolt actions all your life, now is no time to be switching to a semi-auto. As for full auto, my disclaimer is that they are illegal, they are expensive to practice with and most people do not get enough practice to be proficient with them. I do not even think that a semi-auto is really NEEDED. They are probably best to have, but if you have a number of bolt actions or even single shot weapons, do not feel that you need to go out an buy semi-autos. Any weapon you have is better than none at all and one you are real familiar with is better than one you have never shot. I feel the same way about handguns, whether you have a semi-auto or a revolver is a personal choice. Here again, the semi-auto is probably best due to the ammunition capacity. Having said that I will still carry my wheelgun as I feel much more comfortable with a revolver than a semi-auto. Most of us will never be in a fire-fight, we will be in a defensive position. In a defensive position the action of the weapon does not matter as much as if you were expecting to be in fire-fights regularly. If too many get too close to me, I will just fall back and play sniper.

The next question I usually get, especially from those that do not now have weapons is: "What should I purchase first? I feel that a shotgun is always the best all around weapon if you can only afford one weapon. I would go out and buy a 12 gauge (20 gauge for women and small framed people) probably a slide action (or semi-auto if you prefer). Here again if push comes to shove, a single shot is better than nothing. For the person that cannot practice a lot shotguns are ideal. You can get slugs that will take down deer and black bear, buckshot for medium sized game and self-defense and bird shot for small game. Bird shot can also be used for self-defense especially inside of an apartment. Should you need to use the gun, it is hard to miss and you will not be liable to kill someone in the next apartment should you miss. Once you have a shotgun, a good center-fire rifle is next on my list. Again, as far as action and even caliber, they are not really important. One thing I would advise though, get a caliber that is common and that ammo will be readily available for. Calibers like .223, 7.62 (308), 30-30 or 30-06 are all good. I like to have a center-fire that is not only my survival rifle, but a hunting rifle. Just do not go out and get some wildcat caliber because the price is good. Next, you would want a .22 rimfire in the same action as your center-fire rifle. The reason for that is that you can practice more with a .22 as the ammo is much cheaper and you will become very familiar with the action. I once lent a bolt action rifle to a friend with which to hunt deer. He missed getting a second shot at a buck because he just kept pulling the trigger and not working the bolt. He had hunted with semi-autos for many years and was not thinking of a bolt. Next I would buy two handguns in the same action. I would purchase a .22 rifmire and a center-fire handgun. The .22 is to keep in practice with without ruining your budget. I find practice with a handgun more important than a rifle.

Now to ammo. First the shotgun. Here I opt for a minimum of 500 rounds. 100 rounds of rifled slugs, 200 rounds of a couple of different sizes of buckshot and 200 rounds of bird shot in various sizes. This gives you both hunting and defense ammo. For your .22 I recommend 2,000 rounds. This should be the gun you practice with most and you may also have a .22 handgun to feed. For the center-fire rifle I recommend at least 1,000 rounds. Here again, you will want enough for both hunting and defense. For your center-fire handgun, 300 to 500 should be plenty. Always rotate your ammo, using the oldest first. Write a date on each box of ammo you buy and keep rotating as you practice and replace what you use. I like to practice once a week and use a different gun each week. In this way, I can use each of my guns about once a month.

That pretty much takes care of guns and ammo for the near future. I will be getting into the ammo portion of your survival supplies in a later entry. There is more use for ammo than just hunting and protection. Until next week "SURVIVE".

What Does One Need?

What is the first thing that one needs when one wants to survive the type of situation that I discussed last week? I have had other survivilists and even advisors tell me many different things. Ammo is a big favorite and usually enough to fight WW III single handedly. Others say silver, gold and barter items. Still others say fishing and hunting equipment. While all of these things are needed, they are not the first thing I would worry about. FOOD & WATER!! That is always the first priority. How much? What kind? Those and many other question come up and are very hard to answer on a general basis. Each of us has their own idea of what scenario will come about and how it will play out. We also each have a different method of handling our scenario. We all need to take a look at our own situation and make some intelligent choices. It is not a difficult as it may seem.

First: you should have a two week supply of highly portable food for each person in your party. This is just in case you would HAVE to leave your area for a while or to make an extended trip to your retreat. Your retreat may only be two hours away in normal times but take a week or more to get there if there is rioting or other disturbances. One question I get a lot is; "Should I buy MREs or other freeze dried ready to eat meals? Only if you want to. They are light, easy to carry, quick to fix and do not taste as much like cardboard as they used to. I have two days worth of MREs for myself and my wife. The rest of our two week supply we make and package ourselves. There is jerkey, dehydrated fruit and vegetables and things that we purchase and repackage for one meal convenience. These are things like powdered milk, powdered potatoes, juice mixes, coffee, tea, etc. In my own case, these foods are kept in backpacks and then stored in our camper. There is other heavier food in the camper also, but these packs are for just in case we do not even have time to hook up the pop-up. I call this our getaway food and it is in the packs with some other items which I will discuss at a later date.

Next we need to concentrate on our long range supply. My suggestion is that you always have a two year supply on hand. While many survivalists suggest wheat, wheat and more wheat, to the tune of buckets or even barrels of the stuff, I do not agree. I have read in some survival information that you should have a five year food supply consisting of wheat. Can you imagine eating wheat seven days a week, three meals a day for five years? My idea is to supply yourself with food that you can somewhat enjoy eating. Here again jerking, dehydrating and then vacuum sealing meals is a good way to get some of it. If you intend to stay in your present location, you can put up much canned goods and heavier items. Should I decide that I have to move, I can haul all of my food in my camping trailer. If all you have to get to your new home is a family sedan, you are going to use more compact food products. This is one place you could add MREs or something similar.

Having water or a good water supply is even more important than food. Those of you who live in the country as I do, probably pump your water from a well using electricity. What do you do if all power goes out. You could use a generator to make electricity or better yet, you could have a hand pump on hand to install, should the need arise. As for myself, I am putting in a second well to water my gardens and will have a hand pump for it. It will be a shallow well so only a small pump is needed. As this is almost groundwater, I will probably need to purify it for drinking and cooking. This brings me to another point, always keep some water purification tablets in that backpack of food. While you are out and about there is no telling where you will have to get your drinking water from. For city dwellers, keep as much water stored as possible where you live. Two or five gallon buckets of large barrels are all excellent if you have the storage space. No matter how little space you have, storing some water is important. Add a little chlorine to any water you store. Probably a tablespoon to five gallons would be enough. This will keep the water more pure.

As I stated at the beginning of today's note, much of this depends on the individual. For any of you wh have any questions, leave them at the end of this article along with your email address and I will do my best to answer them. More next week.