This lock is completely useless!! Can you see why?

FULL, IN DEPTH TUTORIAL: ULTIMATE HOME DEFENSE: How To Protect Your Home And Your Loved Ones Against ANYTHING The Bad Guys Try To Do.

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QUIZ ANSWERS:

4) Latch is held on with a basic nut on the outside – ridiculously easy to undo!
SOLUTION: Put the bolt the correct way round so that the nut is on the inside!! (and use a domed top coach bolt or covered hasp, as above).
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Protect your home (get this handled asap):

When we talk about survival and preparedness we have to look first to the most important skill of them all: home defense.

Do you think that a group of men could get into your house and take anything they want? Or you truly believe that you can keep them far away from your porch?

I’ll bet at least one of your doors is unlocked, right now. A home attack could happen any time – and daytime attacks are increasingly common.

It’s time to start getting to work on your home and property. Do NOT leave it to chance!

Here are four steps you need to take:

1) The first step is to make sure you know as much as possible about them and have them know as little as possible about you. That means taking these steps to “disappear off the map” while also taking these steps to give yourself that maximum possible time to react to any incoming threat

2) The second step is to protect and beef up your doors. Your goal should be to make sure they CANNOT get in – no matter which tools they brought with them! Add two more deadbolts to the door, one high up and one down low. If you drill these out carefully and correctly, you can keep your work hidden from the outside. Just remember not to throw those deadbolts, unless your whole family is inside; otherwise, they can’t get in. On the hinge side of the door, you’ll want to replace the screws with longer ones, so that they go into the stud. Also, replace one screw in each hinge with a pin, drilling out the corresponding hole in the other side of the hinge for clearance – to prevent hinge attacks such as the halligan bar attack. Between the deadbolts and these bolts, your door will be much stronger. But there are many more upgrades you can do: here’s the full list.

3) Third step – Windows: First – do a walk-through before you leave for the day and make sure they are actually closed. Even if “you think you closed them”. Don’t leave a ladder out in your yard. Then look into window locks: Even having simple window locks and actually using them puts you ahead of the crowd – but to be a truly hard target that they won’t bother messing with there is more to learn: Full window security tutorial here.

4) Step 4 – Understand and apply all of the “layers” of home defense. This is an absolutely vital concept. Here is the link to the full list of all 25 layers and the amazing in-depth tutorial:

ULTIMATE HOME DEFENSE: How To Protect Your Home And Your Loved Ones Against ANYTHING The Bad Guys Try To Do.

The post QUICK QUIZ: Do You Recognize These 4 Home Security MASSIVE FAILS? appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

But movies or not, disasters do happen. And it makes sense to prepare for them. In this guide, we will tell you exactly how to prepare your vehicle, and what vehicle to take, so that you are well equipped if the need to evacuate ever comes.

What vehicle to have

In an ideal situation, there would be a Marauder sitting in the garage, or some other type of military-grade vehicle. But for the purposes of this article, we are going to look at more down-to-Earth models.

According to research by Money Advice Service, the two safest cars to drive are the Skoda Octavia large family car and the Mercedes-Benz CLA small family car. These two cars are the most likely to withstand an impact, such as a head-on collision, and keep your family safe.

But for cars capable of off-road travel, then two very affordable cars that are able to handle muddy, water-logged roads and woodlands without getting stuck are the Dacia Duster and the SsangYong Tivoli, at least according to research from the car insurance firm Admiral.

All of these cars can accommodate a family of five. It would be worth considering all of them — or doing further research on other models — and then weighing up which is likely to be more important depending on your circumstances: collision safety or off-road worthiness.

Motorhomes are also a great choice because they provide living space and therefore can pretty much be a permanent home-away-from-home if the going gets really tough. Some of the best off-road motorhomes, at least according to research, are the Iveco Daily 4×4 and the Mitsubishi Delica D:5 Terrain campervan.

What tools to have

Now that you have the perfect (or near-perfect) vehicle, it is time to stock it up for a serious evacuation. Some absolute essentials include: a torch, a map, a battery charger to charge batteries through the car, a fuel can, drinking water, a first aid kit, a fire extinguisher, jump leads, at least one spare tyre and the correct tools to help with changing the tyres. Those should (hopefully) all be obvious. But I would recommend a plethora of other items that may really be vital uncertain circumstances that might not be so obvious. Including:

• Pepper spray

• A high-vis warning vest

• Gloves for handling tools and changing tyres

• A crowbar — if there’s ever a situation where you may be trapped inside the car, a crowbar will help you escape

• Good boots for walking through fields and woodland

• Warm blankets for sleeping and keeping warm at night

• A hatchet — if there is ever a felled tree or bramble covering your path, a hatchet will help you clear a way through

• Tyre chains for driving over snow and ice (if you live, or are planning on heading to, an area that experiences heavy snowfall)

• And duct tape, because things fall apart

Another absolute must is a solar panel. There are lots of different types of solar panels and they all have their advantages and disadvantages, but mounted-roof panels and briefcase panels are the most practical, because they can be oriented to follow the sun. They are also easily portable; and can be folded away to prevent theft. Solar panels at the very least, are good for recharging phone and car batteries, and obviously have much greater uses too. (While we are on the topic, it will be immensely rewarding to learn how to achieve power self-sufficiency before the time for evacuation comes. Being energy self-sufficient is not as hard as it looks.)

What supplies to have

In addition to the right tools and vehicle, it is also necessary to stock up on some food supplies. This obviously does not include food that is likely to spoil or perish
after a few days, nor does it require stockpiling huge amounts of tinned food (which can be cumulatively heavy and impractical). If you can, it is best to have about two weeks’ worth of food to ration out to your family members — so you will want the food stocks to be as light as possible. In these respects, astronaut food is very practical. It often comes freeze-dried in light vacuum packs and modern developments have — much like aeroplane food as come on a long way — even made the food tasty as well as nutritious. Astronaut food is varied enough to include steak, spinach, cheese, and even ice cream.

Another simple tip to keep in mind is to have some energy bars — or even just plain old sugar — at hand for an energy boost at times where you might be tired or weary from long spells on the road or without rest. If you do have a motorhome or if space is less of an issue, then of course take a cooler and consider storing some perishables there. You can always eat them first, and cooled vegetables can last more than a week providing the weather isn’t very hot.

Where to go

A well-prepared evacuation is all well and good, but where is the best place to go during a time of crisis? The answer is: it depends on what type of crisis it is.

If you just need to leave the city (or part of that city) then you can usually park up and rest in locations such as car parks, hospitals, and camp grounds — at least for the night. If you need to evacuate much further, or even escape, then consult your map for a sparsely populated area with a high-water table and dense woodland.
That way, you will be away from the ravages of the population, and should have access to some drinking water and game food. It will take some time to learn how to source the water and game, but at least the resources will be there.

This Author: Neil Wright is a writer and researcher. He has an interest in travel, science and the natural world, and has written extensively about how to
survive living off grid in the UK on his motorhome website.

The post How To Equip Your Car Or Motorhome For Survival appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

The bandana is an item that is on practically every list of recommended survival gear, and for good reason. It’s incredibly lightweight and has many different uses in survival situations. For this reason, it’s a good idea to carry several in your survival kit, and not just one. To give you an idea of just how versatile a bandana really is, here is a list of uses.

Neck Gaiter

Perhaps the most obvious use is as a neck gaiter. In cold weather, this will help to keep your neck warm, while in the summer, it can help to protect your neck from a sunburn. Hypo and hyperthermia are not to be messed with.

Cool Compress

When you have a headache, soaking a bandana in water and then setting it over your head will alleviate pain if you don’t have proper medications such as ibuprofen. This is also something you should do if you have a fever and need to bring your temperature down.

Tourniquet

If you or someone in your group sustains any kind of an open wound on a leg or an arm, you’ll want to fashion a tourniquet above it, to inhibit the flow of blood. Tying a bandana tightly above the site of the wound will work great for this.

Bandage

Of course, perhaps the simplest medical use for a bandana would be to just use it as a bandage over an open wound. Place a clean bandana over it and then tie it down either with a cord or another bandana.

First Aid Sling

A tourniquet and a bandage aren’t the only first aid use a bandana can have. You can also use it as a sling in the event of a fracture. You have to tie the corners of two bandanas together or tie the bandana to a cord for it to be long enough to wrap around your neck, but it will work.

To Tie A Splint

Instead of a sling, you may have to use your bandana to tie a splint around a broken arm or leg to help heal the fracture. Find two sticks and place them on either side of the fractured limb, and then tie them in place with the bandana.

Weapon Sling

It may be primitive, but a simple bandana and stone may be what gets you dinner. If you’re going to rely on a sling for hunting game, or for defending yourself for that matter, it’s imperative that you know how to use it. For this reason, collect a pile of stones and spend a few hours training yourself in using your bandana as a sling until you get the gist.

Strips/Cordage

Simply cut up a bandana into smaller and thinner strips to serve as cords. Obviously, you won’t be able to put it back together. This technique should arguably only be used if A, you have another bandana to fall back on, and B, you have absolutely nothing else to use as cordage.

For Signaling

A brightly colored bandana may not be the most effective signal in the world (smoke signaling or a mirror reflecting the sunlight will be better), but it’s still better than nothing if you need to get someone’s attention quickly.

Rag/Napkin/Washcloth

This is likely how you will find yourself using your bandana most of the time. There are many reasons for why you would want a rag or a washcloth in a survival situation, the vast majority of which have to do with cleaning and personal hygiene. Assuming that you don’t have an actual rag with you, can you think of anything that would serve this purpose better than a bandana?

Mask

While images of old western outlaws with bandanas over their faces may come to mind here, what we’re referring to here is using your bandana as a means to protect your mouth and your nose from inhaling anything they shouldn’t: smoke, toxic chemicals, or dust.

Gun Cloth

It’s imperative that your firearms be well taken care of for them to work properly. If you have any with you in a survival situation, you’ll want to wipe and dry them down daily to prevent rust or corrosion from setting in. However, this will always be more difficult if you’re stuck in the wild with limited resources. Fortunately, a bandana will work excellently as an alternative to a normal gun rag. While you can use your whole bandana to wipe down the exterior of the gun, you can also cut it down into smaller strips or patches to wipe the internals.

Noise Reducer

All of the metal gear in your backpack can make a lot of noise when it’s all clanging together, but you can strategically place your bandana(s) in between those metal items to reduce the noise as much as possible. This will be key if you’re hunting game and need to be as quiet and stealthy as you can.

Makeshift Strap

If any of the straps on your backpack break, you may think this means you now have to actually carry your backpack in your arms. Fortunately, an ordinary bandana will serve as an excellent remedy. Simply tie your bandana tightly to the two ends of the strap that broke and you should be set.

Handkerchief

It’s not the most pleasant use for a bandana by any means, but if you don’t have disposable tissues with you to serve as a handkerchief, there’s always your bandana.

Tinder

This means that you’ll be sacrificing your bandana obviously, but if you need fire desperately to cook food or warm yourself and you can’t seem to get anything going, it could be worth it. Cut the bandana into small pieces and thin strips. If it’s dry, it should take a flame easily, but even if it doesn’t, you can soak it something flammable such as Vaseline, hand sanitizer, or chap stick, and it should convert a spark into a flame almost instantly. You won’t want to sacrifice your entire bandana for this use, so it may be wise to just cut a single thin strip and then leave the rest of the bandana intact.

Fishing Net

You can use your bandana as a net to catch fish in a stream. Either tie the four corners the bandana to the end of a stick or tie two corners between two sticks and then wade through the stream when you find a fish. While it may be difficult to catch a single fish with this method, you should be able to catch several if you come across a school of small minnows, for example.

Makeshift Hat

The main purpose of wearing a hat in a survival situation is to keep your head warm, especially in a cold climate. But if you don’t have a hat, the next best option will be to simply tie a bandana around it.

Pillow

Folding up a bandana, or tying the four corners and then filling it up with a few leaves, will be better than nothing if you need a pillow to help you get a good night’s sleep and conserve your energy for the next day.

Conclusion

As you can hopefully see by now, there’s perfectly food reason for why most survival checklists have a bandana near or at the top of the list. Bandanas are just so small, lightweight, and cheap that there are practically zero reasons not to include at least one of them in your bug out bag, get home bag, inch bag and even as part of your edc kit. Better yet, you should try and include at least two or three so that you always have backups.

The post Survival Uses For Bandanas appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

Ok, ok, so you might ask yourself: what can you compromise on when it comes to survival and preparedness? A lot of things, particularly when it comes to using everyday items to solve problems or when you’re solving redundancy issues. If you already have a veritable flashlight collection, it doesn’t matter if your 6^th one is from a Maglite or some knock-off.

But some things you should never compromise on, because your life and the life of your family may depend on them. Let’s talk about those for a moment.

Clean Water

I know some people are tempted to drink water from a river that looks clean, but that doesn’t mean it’s full of bacteria. If shelter can be improvised, clean water cannot. Keep a water bottle in your bug out bag, one inside your car and always keep a portable water filter at hand. If you’re bugging in, you should think about additional ways to obtain it, such boiling it on a small propane stove (to kill bacteria) and even stock up on refills for those Brita water filters that remove some heavy metals.

Security

Imagine this: you’re speeding on the highway, anxious to get to your BOL when all of the sudden you’re stopped by a gang of thugs. What do you do?

We’ve seen this in Europe recently: the African and Middle-Eastern migrants that were forced to live in a camp near Calais, France, would constantly attack trucks and even a school bus at one point. Do you know what to do if that happens to you? Do you have the reaction time to defend your family, or will you freak out?

I think people are misled by “survival documentaries” where they depict bugging out as being a walk in the park. Maybe it will be, or maybe it won’t.

Just look at the atrocities happening to the migrants on their journey from the Middle East to Europe. Rape, starvation – those camps are anything but safe, and we’ve seen something similar during Katrina when average folks and thugs alike were all crammed in the Louisiana Superdome – eyewitnesses said it was horrible.

Freedom

Stories from migrant and FEMA camps are more than enough for us to realize that our freedom should not be compromised. It’s better to be out there in the woods than taken into detention camps where, in theory at least, you’ll be safer and have access to supplies.

During Katrina, it was only a matter of time until all the food they had there started to rot, (after they ran out of electricity). Supplies are never enough and, sanitation and hygiene are always a problem when large numbers of people are crammed together into tight places. Now, I’m not saying you should run around through the woods when there’s a hurricane, but if you do it right, no disaster should ever take you by surprise and cause you to share a room with thugs and rapists.

Your Bug Out Vehicle

Believe me, the LAST thing you want is to for it to stop working when you’re desperate to get to you your bug out location. Sure, you can always go on foot, but that could take days and will be exhausting, to say the least. Besides, when you’re in your car, it’s a little difficult for people to physically harm you.

That being said, you need a solid bug out vehicle that’s always equipped and always in good shape. One other thing you should do if you have the budget is bulletproof it. Things like using run-flat tires, installing bulletproof windows and even steel-plated armor for the exterior.

Weapons

Knives, guns, primitive weapons – all of these need to work flawlessly. With a little bit of research, you can find plenty of quality items at the right price. The Internet is full of scams but also of reviews on forums, blogs and on Amazon – real people sharing their experiences with every product.

Speaking of knives, one thing you should probably do is have two of them in your survival gear. A larger, bushcraft knife that you can rely on for rough tasks (including chopping wood) and a second, smaller one that you can keep as a back-up. Swedish company Mora makes very good carbon steel budget knives.

Final Word

I wish I had some memorable ending for this article, but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you take survival and preparedness and that you never try to cut corners.

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst is the thing that sums up well everything you read on this page, and what it means is, you should never cut corners when your life and the life of your family is at stake.

Sure, you may try to wing it with some aspects of survival, such as stockpiling less in favor of having the skills to acquire food and water, but some things are just too important not to do them right.

The post 5 Survival Things You Shouldn’t Compromise On appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

Coping With Negative Feelings: Loneliness And Boredom

Today, I’d like to talk about two of the worst feelings in the world: loneliness and boredom. Now, we’ve all experienced each of these emotions at least one in our lives… and I’m sure you know just how awful they feel… how they get you down to point where you grow accustomed to the feeling and you just sink in it until someone in your family or one of your friends rings the alarm and tries to pull you out.

Take boredom for example. It’s the most common feeling we experience. In fact, it’s so common, we feel its presence every day. But here’s where it gets nasty: our daily dose of boredom comes and goes as easily as we want. Whenever we get bored, we can start another activity, something more entertaining.

In times of crisis, however, it’s not as simple to fight boredom. If a disaster happens and you’re stuck indoors, with almost nothing to do but basic survival activities… then boredom becomes a real, heavy burden. I mean it can literally drive you crazy.

But there are plenty of ways to keep it out of your home and enjoy every moment spent with your family or by yourself. Here are some of them:

Loneliness

If you’ve ever lived by yourself, you should be quite familiar with this feeling. Well, as unpleasant as it may be, you might have to deal with it again when the crisis hits.

You see, during disasters, people usually come together. They help each other go through the danger, they share losses and victories and bond like family. However, when there’s a long-term crisis (like the one waiting just around the corner), people tend to isolate themselves from the world. They get absorbed by their own problems that seem like they’re never going to end… and they get selfish.

Even your spouse and your kids will become less communicative. It’s just what harsh times do to people. But you can change that, by initiating communication with your family and friends.

• You can cook for your dear ones and invite them to dinner…

• Or you could ask for their helpwhen you’ve got a problem. They’re not going to say no, because they love you and want to help you out. You just need to tell them that they’re needed…

• Or simply sit down and talk about their problems. Offer some advice. It’s always welcome.

The bottom line here is: don’t isolate yourself like everyone else does. Don’t let problems ruin communication with your loved ones. Open up to them and ask for the same thing from their part. It may be harder at first, but they’ll come around.

Boredom

As I said before, boredom is a feeling we have to deal with almost daily. And when boredom sets in, what do we do? We immediately try to get rid of it. We break our routine even for 10 minutes, we go get a cup of coffee, or read the news, or whatever it takes to make us feel more entertained.

But what happens when we’re stuck indoors and there’s nothing to do? For example, if a disaster strikes and you’re out of power for a couple weeks… After you’re done repairing damages and get used to the situation, boredom will strike you like never before. And you’ll be surprised to see just how fast it gets installed.

I remember seeing some pictures of people sitting around in a refugee camp, after Katrina hit in 2005. Outside, houses were being torn to pieces, while people were playing cards inside. They were lying on blankets on the floor, playing cards and getting bored by the minute.

Waiting around for things to get better is actually the hardest part of dealing with a crisis, so here’s what you need to do to avoid boredom:

• Write. Everyone dreams of writing the Great American Novel, so start writing yours. Ok, it doesn’t have to be the Great American Novel, but you can start with your memoirs. It’s refreshing and it makes you think back on the good moments of your life. Or simply write about the crisis and how you’re handling it. It might help other people some day.

• Play. If you’ve got small kids or grandkids, play with them. Try to understand their games and get into their world. It will be fascinating, I promise you that. And you’ll get to spend quality time with your family.

• Read. It’s never too late to start reading a book you’ve always wanted too read, but never had the time to. If you want to entertain your loved ones, as well, read it out loud. You can actually start a routine by reading 20 or 30 pages to them every day. This way, you’ll enjoy the book together.

• Build. Find some scraps and start building something, like a bird house or a chair or whatever you like (depending on the materials you’ve found). It will take your mind off the crisis and give you a useful occupation. Let the kids in your family help you out. It will be more fun and they’ll learn a lot from the experience.

If you’ve got more suggestions on how to kill boredom during a crisis, please share it with me and the other readers in the comments section. I’d love to see your ideas!

And if you’d like to read more articles on survival topics, visit www.myfamilysurvivalplan.com.

The post Prepare Your Mind For The Coming Crisis – Part 9 – appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

America absolutely loves Wal-Mart. 100 million customers visit Wal-Mart every single week in this country. But is Wal-Mart good for America? That is a question that most people never stop and ask.

Most of us love shopping in big, clean stores that are packed with super cheap merchandise, but the truth is that Wal-Mart is destroying America in a lot of ways.

As you will see below, Wal-Mart has destroyed tens of thousands of small businesses and countless manufacturing jobs over the past couple of decades. Wal-Mart has become a gigantic retail behemoth that sells five times more stuff than any other retailer in the United States. Unfortunately, about 85 percent of all the stuff sold at Wal-Mart is made overseas. What that is costing the U.S. economy in terms of lost jobs and lost revenue is incalculable. But Wal-Mart is a perfect example of where our economic system is headed.

Our economy is becoming completely and totally dominated by highly centralized monolithic predator corporations that ruthlessly crush all competition and that will stoop to just about anything in order to cut costs. In the future, will we all be working for gigantic communal entities that funnel all of the wealth and economic rewards to a very tiny elite? That sounds very much like how communist China works and red-blooded Americans should want no part of that. America is supposed to be about free enterprise and competition and working together to build up this country, and Wal-Mart is destroying all of that.

The following are 20 facts about Wal-Mart that will absolutely shock you…

#1 The average U.S. family now spends more than $4000 a year at Wal-Mart.

#2 In 2010, Wal-Mart had revenues of 421 billion dollars. That amount was greater than the GDP of 170 different countries including Norway, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.

#3 If Wal-Mart was a nation, it would have the 23rd largest GDP in the world.

#4 Wal-Mart now sells more groceries than anyone else in America does. In the United States today, one out of every four grocery dollars is spent at Wal-Mart.

#5 Amazingly, 100 million customers shop at Wal-Mart every single week.

#6 Wal-Mart has opened more than 1,100 “supercenters” since 2005 alone.

#7 Today, Wal-Mart has more than 2 million employees.

#8 If Wal-Mart was an army, it would be the second largest military on the planet behind China.

#9 Wal-Mart is the largest employer in 25 different U.S. states.

#10 According to the Economic Policy Institute, trade between Wal-Mart and China resulted in the loss of 133,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States between 2001 and 2006.

#11 The CEO of Wal-Mart makes more in a single hour than a full-time Wal-Mart associate makes in an entire year.

#12 Tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees and their children are enrolled in Medicaid and are dependent on the government for healthcare.

#13 Between 2001 and 2007, the value of products that Wal-Mart imported from China grew from $9 billion to $27 billion.

#14 Sadly, about 85 percent of all the products sold at Wal-Mart are made outside of the United States.

#15 It is being reported that about 80 percent of all Wal-Mart suppliers are in China at this point.

#16 Amazingly, 96 percent of all Americans now live within 20 miles of a Wal-Mart.

#17 The number of “independent retailers” in the United States declined by 60,000 between 1992 and 2007.

#18 According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Wal-Mart spent 7.8 million dollars on political lobbying during 2011. That number does not even include campaign contributions.

#19 Today, Wal-Mart has five times the sales of the second largest U.S. retailer (Costco).

#20 The combined net worth of six members of the Walton family is roughly equal to the combined net worth of the poorest 30 percent of all Americans.

All over the country, independent retailers are going out of business because they cannot compete with Wal-Mart and their super cheap Chinese products. Often communities will give Wal-Mart huge tax breaks just to move into their areas. But what many communities don’t take into account is that the introduction of a Wal-Mart is often absolutely devastating to small businesses…

A study of small and rural towns in Iowa showed lost sales for local businesses ranging from -17.2% in small towns to -61.4% in rural areas, amounting to a total dollar loss of $2.46 BILLION over a 13-year period.

When we buy stuff made by people working for slave labor wages in China, we destroy good paying American jobs and we make America poorer. This is a point that I have tried to make over and over.

Wal-Mart often tells one thing to the public and then does another thing in private. Sadly, the truth is that Wal-Mart does not care about U.S. manufacturing jobs. Wal-Mart just wants to get products as cheaply as they possibly can, and most of the time that means getting them from China.

Just check out this first-hand testimony from an 81-year-old retired apparel manufacturer….

I was president of the Southwestern Apparel Manufacturers Association. There was a meeting sometime between 1985 and 1990. Walmart had contacted our organization and asked if they could meet with us at our beautiful Apparel Mart we had here in Dallas, which has now been razed because all the independent merchants don’t exist that used to come to it. Two people from Walmart came down and they said they were going to be sourcing goods from overseas and we would have to meet those prices for consumer products and to get ready for it—we are going to be sourcing the world. Walmart was the only company that came out and said this.

It was sort of shocking: I was selling them some merchandise at the time. On the back of their trucks, it was saying ‘Bring it Back to America!’ They had the big ‘keep it in America’ program going at that time on the big signs in the stores. Meanwhile, when I reminded the buyer of that, she told me, ‘that is just for domestic consumption, we’re going to buy at the cheapest we can anywhere on earth.’

As I have written about previously, the United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

We are losing millions of good jobs that cannot be replaced. If you can believe it, the United States has actually lost an average of about 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Last year, the U.S. trade deficit with China was the biggest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world, and Wal-Mart played a huge role in that.

In fact, Wal-Mart has actually been forcing some U.S. manufacturers to pack up and move overseas. The following is from a recent article by Amy Traub….

Walmart’s market power is so immense that the even the largest suppliers must comply with its demands for lower and lower prices because they cannot afford to have their goods taken off its shelves. Companies that used to manufacture products in the United States, from Levi’s jeans to lock maker Master Lock, were pressured to shut their U.S. factories and moved manufacturing abroad to meet Walmart’s demand for low prices.

Unfortunately, the vast wealth that Wal-Mart is sucking out of our communities is not put back into our communities. The profits are funneled out to Wal-Mart executives and shareholders. We may enjoy the low prices, but very little of the money that we give to Wal-Mart gets recycled in our local areas.

In the old days, you could actually support a family selling electronics or running a general store. But you can’t support a family working at Wal-Mart. The vast majority of the jobs that Wal-Mart creates are very low paying. Large numbers of Wal-Mart employees are actually on welfare, and this is part of the reason why we have seen such an explosion in the number of the working poor in America.

At this point, more than 40 percent of all jobs in America are low wage jobs and the middle class is rapidly disappearing.

If we do not support American jobs and American manufacturers they will continue to go away and the welfare rolls in this country will continue to explode.

There is not going to be any prosperity in this country without jobs. Unfortunately, most Americans simply do not understand how good jobs are being systematically destroyed in America every single day.

The path that America is headed on today is only going to end in complete and total disaster. We are being transformed from a wealthy nation into a poor nation. In the end, we will be dominated by a very tiny elite and everyone else will either be among the working poor or will be totally dependent on the government.

Our system is supposed to be about open, honest competition. But that is not what Wal-Mart is about. Wal-Mart is about crushing small businesses and manufacturers here in America and getting us all to buy their super cheap Chinese-made goods.

The saddest part? The original founder, Sam Walton, based his company on all-American values. He insisted on only selling USA-made goods and ran his operation with such remarkable skill that the company took off. How far, now, the values from the original ethos behind the company.

So what do all of you think about Wal-Mart? Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

The post Is Wal-Mart Destroying America? 20 Facts About Wal-Mart That Will Absolutely Shock You appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

The U.S. government has racked up an insane debt of $15,876,457,645,132.66 which has a devastating consequence on future generations of Americans. We continue to add well over a hundred million dollars to that total every single day. The 15 trillion dollar binge that we have been on over the past 30 years has fueled the greatest standard of living (on cheap imported goods) the world has ever seen, but this wonderful prosperity that we have been enjoying has been a lie. It isn’t real.

Most people cannot really conceptualize a trillion dollars. Imagine a football field stacked nine feet high in hundred dollar bills. Yes. That much. Check out this astonishing infographic just to get your head around the insanity of this: http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/

We have been living way above our means for so long that we do not have any idea of what “normal” actually is anymore. But every debt addict hits “the wall” eventually, and the same thing is going to happen to us as a nation. At some point, the weight of our national debt is going to cause our financial system to implode, and every American will feel the pain of that collapse. Under our current system, there is no mathematical way that this debt can ever be paid back. The road that we are on will either lead to default or to hyperinflation. We have piled up the biggest debt in the history of the world, and if there are future generations of Americans they will look back and curse us for what we did to them. We like to think of ourselves as much wiser than previous generations of Americans, but the truth is that we have been so foolish that it is hard to put it into words.

Whenever I do an article about the national debt, Democrats leave comments blaming the Republicans and Republicans leave comments blaming the Democrats.

Well, you know what? Both parties are to blame. Both of them get a failing grade.

If the Republicans really wanted to stop the federal government from running up all this debt they could have done it.

If the Democrats really wanted to stop the federal government from running up all this debt they could have done it.

So let’s not pretend that one of the political parties is “the hero” in this little drama.

The damage has been done, and both parties will go down in history as being grossly negligent on fiscal issues during this period of American history.

Sadly, neither party is showing any signs of changing their ways. They both talk about how the budget will be balanced “someday”, but as we have seen so many times in the past, “someday” never comes.

I didn’t mean to get all political in this article, but the truth is that the national debt threatens to destroy everything that previous generations have built, and our politicians continue to give us nothing but excuses.

The following are 27 things that every American should know about the national debt…

#1 It took more than 200 years for the U.S. national debt to reach 1 trillion dollars. In 1986, the U.S. national debt reached 2 trillion dollars. In 1992, the U.S. national debt reached 4 trillion dollars. In 2005, the U.S. national debt doubled again and reached 8 trillion dollars. Now the U.S. national debt is about to cross the 16 trillion dollar mark. How long can this kind of exponential growth go on?

#2 If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rises to just 7 percent, the U.S. government will find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.

#3 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#4 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the U.S. national debt has increased by an average of more than $64,000 per taxpayer.

#5 Barack Obama became the first president to run deficits of more than a trillion dollars during each of his first four years in office.

#6 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

#7 The U.S. national debt has increased by more than 1.6 trillion dollars since the Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. So far, this Congress has added more to the national debt than the first 97 Congresses combined.

#8 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more new debt than it did from the time that George Washington became president to the time that Bill Clinton became president.

#9 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#10 As Bill Whittle has shown, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38 percent of the federal budget.

#11 Today, the government debt to GDP ratio in the United States is well over 100 percent.

#12 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.

#13 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.

#14 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

#15 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

#16 The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

#17 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will surpass 23 trillion dollars in 2015.

#18 Mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011. That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.

#19 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

#20 The U.S. government has total assets of 2.7 trillion dollars and has total liabilities of 17.5 trillion dollars. The liabilities do not even count 4.7 trillion dollars of intragovernmental debt that is currently outstanding.

#21 U.S. households are now actually receiving more money directly from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#22 The U.S. government is wasting your money on some of the stupidest things imaginable. For example, in 2011 the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

#23 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for last year would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.

#24 The Federal Reserve purchased approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

#25 At this point, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.

#26 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 480,000 years to completely pay off the national debt.

#27 The official government debt figure does not even account for massive unfunded liabilities that the U.S. government will be hit within the years ahead. According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. government is facing a future “fiscal gap” of more than 200 trillion dollars.

As the U.S. economy continues to crumble, even more Americans are going to become financially dependent on the federal government.

For example, spending on food stamps has doubled since 2008. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs and have needed some assistance from the government. Since Obama became president the number of Americans on food stamps has gone from 32 million to 46 million.

But the Obama administration believes that a lot more Americans should be enrolled in the food stamp program. The Obama administration is now spending millions of dollars on ads that urge even more people to sign up for food stamps. In fact, their efforts to get even more Americans to sign up for food stamps have become very creative…

The government has been targeting Spanish speakers with radio “novelas” promoting food stamp usage as part of a stated mission to increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps.

Each novela, comprising a 10-part series called “PARQUE ALEGRIA,” or “HOPE PARK,” presents a semi-dramatic scenario involving characters convincing others to get on food stamps, or explaining how much healthier it is to be on food stamps.

I’m all for helping those that cannot feed themselves, but do we really need to run ads urging more people to become dependent on the government?

Of course, Obamacare is going to cause our debt to balloon in size as well. It is being projected that Obamacare will add more than 2.6 trillion dollars to the U.S. national debt over the first decade alone.

So where are we going to get all this money?

We can’t keep spending money that we do not have. We have got to prioritize. Every single category of government spending needs to be cut.

But instead we feel like we can keep ripping off future generations of Americans and that we will always be able to get away with it.

What we have done to our children and our grandchildren is beyond criminal.

The truth is that we should have listened to the warnings of our founding fathers about government debt. For example, Thomas Jefferson once said that if he could add just one more amendment to the U.S. Constitution it would be a complete ban on all borrowing by the federal government…

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Where would we be today if we had taken the advice of Thomas Jefferson?

That is something to think about.

This article is released by: www.theeconomiccollapseblog.com

The post 27 Astonishing Things That Every American Should Know About The National Debt appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

Principle 1: Conduct a hazard analysis.

Plans determine the food safety hazards and identify the preventive measures the plan can apply to control these hazards. A food safety hazard is any biological, chemical, or physical property that may cause a food to be unsafe for human consumption.

Principle 2: Identify critical control points.

A critical control point (CCP) is a point, step, or procedure in a food manufacturing process at which control can be applied and, as a result, a food safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to an acceptable level.

Principle 3: Establish critical limits for each critical control point.

A critical limit is the maximum or minimum value to which a physical, biological, or chemical hazard must be controlled at a critical control point to prevent, eliminate, or reduce to an acceptable level.

Principle 4: Establish critical control point monitoring requirements.

Monitoring activities are necessary to ensure that the process is under control at each critical control point. In the United States, the FSIS is requiring that each monitoring procedure and its frequency be listed in the HACCP plan.

Principle 5: Establish corrective actions.

These are actions to be taken when monitoring indicates a deviation from an established critical limit. The final rule requires a plant’s HACCP plan to identify the corrective actions to be taken if a critical limit is not met. Corrective actions are intended to ensure that no product injurious to health or otherwise adulterated as a result of the deviation enters commerce.

Principle 6: Establish procedures for ensuring the HACCP system is working as intended.

Validation ensures that the plants do what they were designed to do; that is, they are successful in ensuring the production of a safe product. Plants will be required to validate their own HACCP plans. FSIS will not approve HACCP plans in advance but will review them for conformance with the final rule.

Verification ensures the HACCP plan is adequate, that is, working as intended. Verification procedures may include such activities as a review of HACCP plans, CCP records, critical limits and microbial sampling and analysis. FSIS is requiring that the HACCP plan include verification tasks to be performed by plant personnel. Verification tasks would also be performed by FSIS inspectors. Both FSIS and industry will undertake microbial testing as one of several verification activities.

Verification also includes ‘validation’ – the process of finding evidence for the accuracy of the HACCP system (e.g. scientific evidence for critical limitations).

Principle 7: Establish record keeping procedures.

The HACCP regulation requires that all plants maintain certain documents, including its hazard analysis and written HACCP plan, and records documenting the monitoring of critical control points, critical limits, verification activities, and the handling of processing deviations.

Standards

The seven HACCP principles are included in the international standard ISO 22000 FSMS 2005. This standard is a complete food safety and quality management system incorporating the elements of prerequisite programmes(GMP & SSOP), HACCP and the quality management system, which together form an organization’s Total Quality Management system.

The post The HACCP Seven Principles appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

How in the world is someone supposed to actually prepare for an economic collapse?

What should you do with your money?

How can you make sure that your family is going to be okay?

How can you prepare if your resources are extremely limited?

These are the kinds of questions people ask me all the time.

Once people understand that the economy has been collapsing and will continue to collapse, then the next step for most of them is that they want to get prepared for the storm that is coming. So where should someone get started? Well, the truth is that no two people are facing the exact same set of circumstances, so preparation is going to look different for each individual. But there are certain core principles that we can all benefit from. For example, when a financial storm is coming that is not the time to be blowing thousands of dollars on vacations and new toys.

You would be surprised at how many people there is that claim that they have no extra money in their budgets and yet somehow have plenty of money to run down to Wal-Mart and buy a big stack of DVDs.

When times are difficult, each hard-earned dollar becomes much more precious, and we all need to start getting into the habit of making the most out of our limited resources.

The seemingly endless prosperity that we have all been enjoying for decades is coming to an end, and most of us have absolutely no experience on how to deal with truly hard times. If you are under the age of 60, it might be a really good idea to read a book or two on what conditions were like during the Great Depression of the 1930s. There is a lot that we can learn from our own history.

Another key characteristic that we will all need in the years ahead is flexibility. Anyone that has spent any time in the military knows that very few plans ever work out perfectly. As the global economy breaks down and the world becomes increasingly unstable, conditions are going to change rapidly. What might work really well in one situation might be the exact wrong thing to do 6 months later. If you are not willing or able to adapt to dramatic change then you are going to have a lot of difficulty in the years ahead.

Many people refer to me as a “doom and gloomer” because I run a website called “The Economic Collapse” and I am constantly pointing out that the entire world is heading for a complete and total financial nightmare.

But I don’t think that it does any good to stick your head in the sand. I believe that there is hope in understanding what is happening and I believe that there is hope in getting prepared.

It is those that are completely oblivious to what is really going on that will be totally blindsided by the coming crisis. When they finally realize what has come upon them many of them will totally lose it.

From my little spot on the wall, I am trying my best to warn people so that they can have a chance to be prepared for what is coming.

I am not spreading doom and gloom.

I am spreading hope.

And I want to make another point. Generally, things are going to be getting progressively worse as the years roll along. As I have written about before, I believe that the economic collapse is not a single event. Rather, I see it as a series of waves that will be punctuated by moments of great crisis.

So advice about preparation is going to be different depending on whether you are talking about the short-term or the mid-term or the long-term. Hopefully, you will keep that in mind as you read my answers to the questions below.

The following are common questions that people ask about how to prepare for the collapse of the economy…

#1 How Do I Get Started?

When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, what was the biggest danger for most Americans?

The biggest danger was that they would lose their jobs and not be able to pay their bills.

During the last recession, millions and millions of Americans did end up losing their jobs.

And because many of them were living paycheck to paycheck many of them also ended up losing their homes.

You do not want that to happen to you.

So what I am about to say next is not considered to be very “sexy” in prepper circles, but it is absolutely crucial advice.

You need to have an emergency fund saved up that can cover your expenses for at least six months.

That way if you lose your job or your business goes under you will be able to keep going for a while as you figure out what your next move will be.

These days it takes the average unemployed American nearly 40 weeks to find a new job, and it will likely be even worse in the next major economic downturn.

So make sure that you have plenty of cash saved up just in case. If you are currently living paycheck to paycheck you are extremely vulnerable.

#2 What Should I Do With My Money?

I get this question a lot.

People always want to know where they should put their money.

Well, my first piece of advice is always to build an emergency fund. See #1 above. Most people do not have one.

After that is done, I am a big believer in not putting all of my eggs in one basket.

Sometimes people will tell me that they are going to take all of their money out of the banks because they don’t feel safe having their money in them.

Well, if you stick all of your money in your mattress, what happens if there is a fire or what happens if someone robs you?

That is why I believe in spreading your risk around. Having money a bunch of different places is a good thing.

But one place I would not put it is in the stock market. If you were fortunate enough to catch the recent rally you should get out while the getting is good.

If you have blind faith in the stock market you are going to be deeply disappointed eventually. I do not have a single penny in the stock market, and a couple of years from now that is going to look like a very wise move.

#3 Should I Invest In Precious Metals?

A lot of people that write about the economic crisis in this country really advocate investing in precious metals because they tend to hold value over time (unlike fiat currencies).

I like precious metals myself, but if you are going to invest you need to get educated so that you know what you are doing. If you go in blindly you are likely to get burned at some point.

In addition, you need to be prepared for wild fluctuations in price over the coming years. There will be times when gold and silver absolutely soar and there will be times when they drop like a rock.

So if you are going to play the game you need to be able to handle the ride.

#4 Should I Get Out Of Debt?

Many that write about the coming economic collapse say that you shouldn’t even bother to pay off your debts because the financial system is going to collapse anyway.

I don’t see it that way.

I don’t believe that our banks are going to totally collapse and suddenly go out of existence.

Not in the short-term anyway.

So I believe that it is actually a good idea to get out of debt. When financial troubles hit you don’t want a horde of bill collectors coming after you.

There is a lot of freedom that comes with getting out of debt, and in this environment, it is wise to become as independent of the system as possible.

#5 What If I Don’t Have Any Money To Prepare?

In this kind of economic environment, it is no surprise that I get this question a lot.

Many families are just barely scraping by each month and they do not have much money to put into anything.

And I can definitely sympathize with that.

However, I would say that there are very, very few families out there that do not have anything that can be cut out of the budget.

The truth is that American families are experts at blowing money on really stupid stuff.

In general, I recommend that all families do what they can to reduce their expenses.

The smaller of a financial footprint you have, the better off you will be and the more resources you will have to help you get prepared.

Also, now is the time to be looking for ways that you can increase your income.

For many Americans, starting a side business is a way to bring in some extra cash. Yes, this will cut into your television watching time, but now is not the time to be lazy.

The time you spend working hard now while the sun is still shining will pay off later.

Don’t be afraid to work harder than you ever have before.

#6 Should I Rent Or Buy?

This is a question that I also get a lot, and it really depends on your situation.

If you rent, that gives you a lot more flexibility. You can move to a new job or a new opportunity without having to sell a house. And you get to avoid a lot of the expenses and hassles that come with being a homeowner.

If you buy, you get to “lock in” your housing expenses for many years. In a highly inflationary environment, this would potentially be very beneficial. And interest rates are very low right now.

In addition, it is going to be really hard to rent a really good “prepper” property. If you are looking for a property that is away from the big cities where you can grow your own food and become more independent of the system, then in most cases you are going to have to buy such a property.

But if you do buy, it is going to be much harder to move if something does happen and you need to go somewhere else.

#7 What About My Health Condition?

Over the next few years, our health care system should continue operating at least somewhat normally. But the truth is that our health care system is in horrible shape and it is not a good thing to be totally dependent on pills and doctors.

Even if economic conditions were perfect it would be a good idea to learn what you can do on your own to improve your health. But this is especially true as we move into a time of great economic instability.

#8 Should I Be Storing Food?

Yes.

However, even though the United States is experiencing a historic drought right now, I do not believe that there will be major food shortages in America this year or next year.

Down the road, however, is a different story.

And your food dollars are never going to go farther than they do right now. As I wrote about the other day, this drought is likely to cause food prices to go up substantially, and so the food you store now might end up being twice as valuable a few years from now.

In addition, you never know when a major disaster or emergency is going to strike so it is always good to become more independent of the system.

I encourage everyone to learn how to grow a garden. Yes, your space may be limited, but there is actually one family that produces 6000 pounds of produce every year on just 1/10th of an acre right in the middle of Pasadena, California.

If they can do such extraordinary things with their little plot of land, why can’t you try to do what you can with what you have?

#9 Should I Be Storing Water?

It is always good to have some water on hand in case of disaster or emergency strikes.

And you should be rotating whatever water you currently have on hand because you don’t want water sitting around indefinitely.

But what is much more important is to make sure that you and your family have access to a source of water that you can depend on if disaster strikes and the grid goes down.

In a previous article I discussed a report put out by the American Trucker Associations entitled “When Trucks Stop, America Stops” that detailed just how incredibly vulnerable our water supply really is…

According to the American Water Works Association, Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day. For safety and security reasons, most water supply plants maintain a larger inventory of supplies than the typical business. However, the amount of chemical storage varies significantly and is site-specific. According to the Chlorine Institute, most water treatment facilities receive chlorine in cylinders (150 pounds and one-ton cylinders) that are delivered by motor carriers. On average, trucks deliver purification chemicals to water supply plants every seven to 14 days. Without these chemicals, water cannot be purified and made safe for drinking. Without truck deliveries of purification chemicals, water supply plants will run out of drinkable water in 14 to 28 days. Once the water supply is drained, water will be deemed safe for drinking only when boiled. Lack of clean drinking water will lead to increased gastrointestinal and other illnesses, further taxing an already weakened healthcare system.

So yes, water is definitely something you should be accounting for in your preparations.

#10 Other Than Food And Water What Other Supplies Will I Need?

Anything that you use on a regular basis or that you would use in an emergency situation is something that you should consider storing up.

For example, if you could not buy any more toilet paper from the stores, what would you do?

Basic things like that are often overlooked by many preppers.

In a previous article, I listed dozens of things you may want to consider storing. Preparation is going to look different for every family, but hopefully, that list will give you some ideas.

#11 What Happens If The Power Grid Goes Down?

This is a very important consideration – especially if you live in a colder climate.

Some people have a backup generator for such circumstances.

Others have set up wind and/or solar systems for their homes.

Alternative energy solutions are great if you can afford them, and they will enable you to become much more independent of the system.

But not everyone can afford to put in solar panels or a big wind turbine.

So do what you can with what you have.

#12 Should I Leave The Big Cities?

A lot of people ask me this, but there is no easy answer.

In this day and age, a good job is like gold. It can be really, really tough to give up a good job and move to the middle of nowhere.

But without a doubt, society is starting to come apart at the seams and I do expect rioting and major civil unrest in our major cities at some point in the future.

In the end, you need to do what is right for you and your own family. Nobody else can make this decision for you.

#13 Should I Get Some Self-Defense Training?

America seems to be overrun by psychopaths and sociopaths these days, and in such an environment being able to defend yourself becomes more important.

When criminals come to your home, they are not going to sit down and have a debate with you. They are not going to care what your political outlook is or if you sympathize with their plight.

The criminals are simply going to do what they came there to do unless someone stops them.

So yes, some self-defense training may come in very handy in the years ahead.

#14 What Should I Do If My Family And Friends Won’t Listen To Me?

This is another very common question that I get.

What should people do if nobody will listen to them?

Well, you just have to do the best that you can. If they won’t listen now, just keep planting seeds. Keep sending them articles that are packed with statistics and information that show why an economic collapse is going to happen.

In the years ahead we are all going to need our families and our friends because communities will endure what is coming much better than “lone wolf” individuals will be able to.

No matter how hard you prepare, at some point, you are going to need the help of someone else.

So don’t be afraid to reach out to others.

If nobody among your family or friends will listen to you at the moment, you may have to prepare on your own right now.

In fact, you may have to do extra preparation because at some point it is probably inevitable that your family and friends will come to you for help.

That is the perspective that my wife and I take. We are not only preparing for ourselves. We are also preparing for the family members that may have to depend on us someday.

Nobody said that preparing was going to be easy.

But beyond any physical preparations, I also believe that it is absolutely crucial to prepare mentally and spiritually.

The times that are coming are going to be incredibly challenging. They are going to require a great deal of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual strength.

If you are a “lone wolf” that believes that you don’t need anyone or anything, then I feel sorry for you and I honestly don’t know how you are going to make it.

None of us have all the answers.

I never want to stop learning, and hopefully, that is the case for you as well.

Author: Michael Snyder

Website: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

The post 14 Important Questions Answered About How To Prepare For An Economic Collapse appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.

When it comes to your personal protection and the protection of your property, is there such a thing as “too much”? Hard to say really. But if you have the time and the means, you should spear no expense in securing your home. Sure, having you very own machine gun turrets installed on the lawn would be excessive indeed, not to mention extremely illegal.

But luckily there are other ways of securing a perimeter, and they’re far less expensive than advanced military technology. Building a fence around the area you’re trying to protect is the way to go, and nothing would be more efficient than your very own electric fence system. Electric fences are less obvious than barbed wire and more efficient, as they can deliver quite a punch to anything and anybody that dare to intrude on your property. To be more precise, the system uses alternative current (A.C.), and via a transformer, turns it into electric pulses. A mechanical trigger is activated when something comes in contact with the wires and the current is released immediately. The current shoots out the power terminal, goes through the wires as high voltage electric pulse (can go as high as 10.000 V) and it’s picked up by a second terminal, which consists of a rod (mostly copper) that’s implanted in the ground. Such fences are highly used today in agriculture (they deliver mild, discomforting shocks to keep animals away) or in prisons (where voltages are lethal).

Such technology is available for everybody who takes prepping and personal safety to the next level. And believe it or not, installing an electric fence has its own advantages over more traditional methods. If done right, you won’t be sorry won’t went for an electric fence instead of barbed wire or anything else. And here’s a list of reasons as to why.

1. Electric fences are cheaper than traditional fences

Believe it or not, it’s true. The materials are cheaper to buy and the installation process will be cheaper as well. This is because an electric fence requires a lesser quantity of wires and fewer posts as opposed to traditional fencing methods. It’s not meant to be strong and withstand mechanical forces, but rather cover a big enough area to stop all sorts of intrusions. It may be frailer than barbed wire, but it will do some much more than scratch the surface of your skin; it can make you wish you’d never been born.

2. Electric fences are easier to install

Because the key components are fewer and lighter, you can install your electric fence by yourself, although I’d advice against it. But even if you plan on doing it yourself, make sure you know what you’re doing. The materials aren’t that heavy, not even the posts, so the installation will go faster than if you’d be installing a traditional fence, where you’d need to dig holes. The thin electric fence poles require no such effort on your part; just take them out and stick them in the ground.

3. Electric fence systems are easily maintained and modified

The system will require very little attention on your part. Just pay some attention to the battery system and the console from time to time, to make sure that everything is working properly. Also, they should be kept clean and dry at all times to avoid unwanted electric discharges and system shutdown. The wires require no maintenance unless the fence has been hit or damaged in one way or another. Because it has fewer and lighter elements compared to a regular fence, you can modify the structure with ease. You can add or take out poles in matter minutes.

4. Electric fences are more efficient overall

The intensity of the electric discharge is customizable, depending on the types of charge you’re using, but also on the materials that the fence is made up of. Barbed wire can be easily cut and taken down by perpetrators, and once the fence is gone, the way is clear. Electric fences can’t be cut, as they’ll release thousands of Vs when the cutting tool comes in contact with the wire. So not only is it hard to go around, but it’s also very hard to interact with a fully charged electric system without getting the shock of a lifetime.

Of course, there are some things to keep in mind and consider before installing your very own electric fence. The systems are effective, but you’ll need to keep the area around the fence as clean as possible at all times so that nothing’s growing in the vicinity of the wires. Growing plants could complicate the situation, so make sure there are none close to the wires.

Thunderstorms could also spell trouble, as the electric discharges could shut the fence down. But repairing the electric fence shouldn’t be much harder than installing it, so that’s a plus. To make it even more effective, you could conceal it, so whoever is trying to breach your “fortress” will get a nasty surprise. However, most states have very specific laws regarding electric fencing visibility and signaling. So do some research and stay out of trouble.

The post The Advantages In Using Electric Fence As Your First Line Of Defense appeared first on My Family Survival Plan.