Prep Rationale Vindicated! (anecdote)

Emergency stocks of food and water may still seem to be a "tinfoil hat" subject to some, but I have here a personal anecdote which may change that view for some of you.

I related elsewhere an anecdote rationalizing water storage. Now, on to food. The neighborhood here on this block of Green Street is a fairly good one. Across the street is a stretch of houses that were part of the Pine Street Neighborhood Revitalization project, and I see the owners of those units spending a decent amount of time maintaining their homes and gardens. The houses to the east are owned by friendly Hispanic families with loud energetic children, and the patriarchs spend a whole lot of time keeping up their homes' exteriors. To the west are two duplexes (duplices?) owned by landlords who are forever painting, shingling, and carpeting. Which leaves my duplex. On one side is a man who works a low-paying, strenuous job, who comes home exhausted every morning yet still finds time to mow the lawn and sweep the sidewalk. This side has had at least four sets of tenants in the last two years -- it's hard to tell because some of the succeeding sets contained individuals from previous sets. I've had my eye on the unit the whole time, because the loud music, rampant drug use, and neighborhood thefts have long been a serious nuisance. So, when the unit became suddenly available, I jumped on it. Getting the riff-raff out of the neighborhood has been on my to-do list for too long.

I knew that I wasn't fully prepared for the expense of renting the house, but I wasn't worried. There was a 250 percent increase in rent, security deposits on electric and gas, cleaning supplies, pesticides, furniture and appliances, and all the other "minor" expenses associated with taking possession of a house -- especially one which has been so long neglected. For those of you familiar with my life, this house was actually worse than my first house in Allentown, known informally as the "18th Street Soap Company." As a result, as of right now (after budgeted expenses) I have $13 and some change in my purse, and it has to last me another week and a half.

"Surely you shall starve, Annie!"

Not so fast. Over the past two years, I have been building up my stock of emergency food. There's rice, beans, canned meat, corn meal, flour, even powdered milk in my stash. There are more than five dozen cans of vegetables. All told, there's about three months' worth of healthful, nutritionally complete meals in the house, and enough variety that I won't eat the same meal for a week. All I need to do is keep myself in coffee and fresh leafy vegetables, which, thanks to the Spanish grocery over on Wyoming and the Saturday farmers' market on Broad, shall be easier than getting this place clean.

Overall, my expenses are going to be lower in the long run, as I swing fully into household budgeting. Eating out of the convenience stores was easy, but expensive. The easy life is, in fact, over.

Think of how much you eat out. How many times do you grab a McBurger, or a convenience store salad, or an energy drink, or a vending-machine "wheel of death" hoagie. Now, imagine all those conveniences have vanished. The C-stores and groceries are all closed. The farmers' markets are over, as the farmers sit on their produce to feed their own families. How will you eat then? In a broad crisis, with little or no ability by local governments to intervene, a lot of people would starve.

It doesn't matter how the disaster started. It could be a global market crash, or a flood, or a meteor strike, earthquake, revolution, solar-mass ejection, truckers' strike, or even just suddenly losing your job. Disaster happens, on small and large scales, and the question is not if but when it will strike. You have to be ready to face it, or be prepared to stand in line for a handout -- or to join a The Road-style gang, roaming the streets looking for food. Don't worry, though, cannibalism probably won't be endemic.

I'm preparing a more general post on food preparation. This post simply provides anecdotal evidence of the inherent utility of stocking up.