Thousands of articles and hundreds of books have been written about how to prepare for hard times. But the sheer volume of recommendations, suggestions, and warnings can be daunting, and sometimes it helps to see them distilled down to a few basic concepts.
In "3 Factors for Successful Survival?" "FerFAL," publisher of the always interesting Surviving in Argentina Blog, does just that when he answers the following question from one of his readers [Note: since English is not the blogger's first language, I have taken the liberty of tidying up the language a little bit]:
If you had to pick three things that you did, three pivotal events that occurred to you, or three circumstances you and your family were in, which helped you and your family keep your heads above water or that keep you in a better position than your fellow countrymen, what would be your answer?
Here is how he responded:
The three pivotal differences between me and most Argentines:
1) Family: While growing up I had a family that was pretty unique in many ways. Economically speaking we were middle class, maybe just a bit above average middle class income. The big difference was that while our neighbors went out for dinner every weekend, and bought expensive cars, toys, quads and jet skis, my parents invested their money.
We also had traveled some -- you could say that was our only real luxury -- and we had lived in Boston for three years when I was little. That gave us a different perspective on things: a) we knew about more than our own country, and B) the idea of moving somewhere else and starting over wasn’t something that scared us or was beyond our limits.
Education was also a priority. Bad grades where simply not tolerated and we were expected to always be among the top students in our classes. We also knew the value of a second language, and its has been, by FAR, the most valuable tool we took from school.
My brother, my sister, they both got their jobs in their different lines of work thanks to their fluent English. I sure ended up using English a lot as well. :-)
Tip: You want to do something for your kids that will give them an invaluable tool when they grow up? Get them Spanish lessons.
2) Mindset: Unless you have the right perspective, you don’t think about preparing for difficult times. The mindset you have, the way your brain is wired, leads you to prepare for blackouts, store supplies, batteries, food, water, so having that sort of mindset is crucial and leads to other preparations.
I also had lots of luck regarding firearms training. When I was 15 years old I took my first shooting course, one-on-one with an Army Major. The complete course lasted about 3 months or so, took place several times a week, and involved learning to fire autos and revolvers of various calibers and models, as well as shooting under stress and target recognition. These days classes like that are almost nonexistent. They usually last a day or two, if not just a couple of hours. So that gave me a good edge as well. I wasn’t winning shooting tournaments or anything, but at that age I could handle firearms safely for self-defense.
[The right] mindset also makes you learn new things, plan ahead for problems, learn from history, and prepare for events.
3) Finances: Thanks to smart family investment, when things got ugly, we had financial investments that allowed us to get by. Please understand what I mean by family investment: While our “rich” neighbors spent their weekend partying, going to restaurants or spending a couple of days on some cabin somewhere, we would spend our weekends working to restore a small “fixer-upper” house to resell, painting, carpeting, polishing floors and gardening. We all worked pretty hard. I also learned to use tools and fix just about anything in a house as well. When you teach your kids these lessons at an early age, they understand the value of money, investing, and hard work.
When there was no jobs to be found, there were still things that could be done in the family. We had a small accounting office, and that’s were my sister and I worked for some time when there was nothing else. Not much money to be made, but some is always better than none.
Currently, I’m self-employed. Thanks to the success the book has had, the blog and other projects, I don’t suffer from inflation and unemployment as much as others in my country do. This is a huge difference and certainly a key point to keep in mind.
For an American, this would be the equivalent of being able to work for UK or European countries as the local economy goes down. Of course, it's not easy, but having the ability to do so makes all the difference during a crisis.
Tip: Having a family business of some sort or being your own boss and being self-employed is a key element during times like these. People will generally go for it once things get ugly or they already got fired. Trust me, its better if you start right away, before you’re desperate for income. Even if its part-time or only done on weekends, its better to start right now.
To read FerFAL's other insights on supplies, firearms, security, finances, and skills training, click here.
Comments