Hope for the Best, but Plan for the Worst...

The fact that the title is not foreign to most says alot. It's everyones innate desire to have good, but you cannot let that blind you to reality. Hope for the best, but plan now for the possibilities that could happen. As Mamma Bear points out, food in the pantry, is worth alot more to you and your loved ones, than money in the bank, I mean when TSReallyHTF. We tend to have short memories, and we often choose to see the past through rose colored glasses. Noone wants to dwell on the bad times, they usually try and remember just the good. As a friend of mine told me years ago though, "If the good-ole days were as good as we choose to remember them, we never would've tried to change them", we'd be were we were 10 years ago. Planning it seems, is harder to do than it appears, for no real reason. We all sit around and 'plan', but do little about those elaborate plans. Now is the time to take action on those plans you've been making. It will be a rewarding feeling, to look in your pantry, and know... we've enough food in there to sustain ourselves for _______ you choose the amount of time you'd like to not HAVE to go to the store, if there's anything left there to buy, that you could afford. When making a plan, you should remember the acronym PACE;
Primary
Alternate
Contingent
Emergency

It's not just one plan, it's a series of plans. Our Primary plan is to keep the pantry shelves full, and rotate stock as we find stuff on special, our Alternate plan, is to have a stockpile of long shelf life stables stored up whereever, our Contingent plan is to grow and raise our own food here on the farm, and our Emergency plan is to arm ourselves properly, so that when push comes to shove, we're not the ones bringing a knife to a gun fight...

Of course, there are many other nuances embedded in there, but you get the picture. Odds are, you cannot plan for everything, all the time, so you set up a series of plans for how you and your family would survive, as I mention before, a variety of different circumstances, from a week of infrastructure degredation due to a Hurricane, to the full-blown looting and rioting mayhem in the streets because of an oppressive regime/society.

What you decide to do is not as important yet as THAT you decide, and take action. Your plan and level of comfort will become clearer and you'll attain a sense of security and satisfaction with each action step you take (after your through just thinking about it).

So, dear friends and readers, Hope for the Best, but PLAN NOW FOR THE WORST.

Ewe