Money and Bargain Hunting on the Road to Becoming Prepared

I have a confession to make. I’m not a huge fan of the myriad digital payment platforms that have insinuated themselves into our daily lives. I’ll be blunt; I don’t trust them, for starters. Second, it seems that fraudsters and scammers can manipulate their vulnerabilities with considerable ease. To be fair, this is largely due to our susceptibility to social engineering schemes. Third, their utility is nonexistent when the power grid goes down. For that matter, in the absence of a computer, phone or tablet, they’re useless. Yeah, I think of things like that, and you should, too!

I have a checkbook buried in the bottom of a drawer in my den, which means I have a bank account. I have credit cards and all the other financial assets, resources and tools a responsible adult should have. However, I’m old enough to appreciate the primacy of cash. Regardless of the circumstances: buying food and water in a power outage, discreetly paying a neighbor for a favor or simply paying for a service, cash is universally accepted.

This is the level of pragmatism you should build into your preps and plans. In this post, I’m going to make the case for building a solid financial foundation into your preps as well as identifying the ways you can have shiny, pretty things without breaking the bank. Readiness, resourcefulness and resilience are rooted in effective decision-making and nowhere is that more apparent than when it comes to money.

I Can’t Afford It

One of the most common arguments against preparing for disasters is money. Specifically, the argument is based upon the lack thereof. Yes, everything we touch daily costs something. The food we eat, water we drink and the electricity we use aren’t free. Worse, they’re often not available following a flood, wildfire or hurricane. However, early and focused planning can allow you to have food to eat, water to drink and even be able to keep a light on. How, you ask? Look at the word focused in the preceding sentence. Let’s unpack this one.

A few years ago, I used to commute to the ambulance company I managed. On the way in, I’d stop off for a coffee and muffin. One day I became curious as to how much this indulgence cost me monthly, so I saved the receipts and monitored my spending. It was about eighty dollars. Not an exorbitant sum and it didn’t break me. Still, it was money being spent on a nonessential purpose. I adapted by making coffee at work and taking a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I made at home.

In a year, that eighty dollars grows to just under $1,000, enough to buy a brand name solar generator and matching solar panel. Or a handful of the dehydrated meal kits in the 5-gallon buckets. That’s roughly the tuition for a wilderness medicine class or a few days of traditional bushcraft training. These classes are offered around the country and on a seasonal basis. Start by doing an online search with the phrase “wilderness training near me.” This points to resources in your area. Of course, you can also look at the offerings available through partnerships with the national sporting goods and outdoor retailers in your area. If you'd like to know how much food you'd need to have stored for a family of four, click here for the calculator.     

This anecdote is an oversimplification; however, the message on how to control excess spending is clear. Be aggressive about identifying where you can cut wasteful spending without compromising your standard of living. The usual suspects are:

o   Streaming services

o   Eating out (this includes a daily coffee)

o   Overpaying for car insurance; shop around every year

o   Balances on high-interest rate credit cards

o   Health club and other seldom used memberships

o   Any subscription service that you used one time and forgot to go back and cancel after the trial period     

What You Need vs. What You Think You Need

We want what we want, it’s as simple as that. The fact that we can’t have everything is clear to most of us. For most, owning a new Ferrari is simply out of the question. I’m coming back to this in a minute because it’s important. Nevertheless, you can still have the latest and greatest.

In the preceding section, I talked about how to examine your spending to cut out waste, freeing up money for higher value items and higher purposes. In this section, we’re going to identify where and when to shop. Before the deep dive, here’s a question and a lesson. Is a $100,000 watch bought from an exclusive boutique inherently better than one that sets you back $25 at the local one-stop shop? No. The difference is in exclusivity, the materials, the purchase experience itself but they both measure time as we understand it. This is an important distinction and it’s at the heart of our consumerism.

Here are some pro tips to maximize savings on almost everything:

o   Open box sales at the big box retailers

o   Splitting membership at a warehouse club to buy in bulk

o   Traditional sales events such as Black Friday

o   Lien sales at public storage facilities

o   Government auctions for foreclosures, tax lien sales and other seized property

o   Auto auctions for bank repossessions

o   *Frequent estate and garage sales

o   *Pawn shops (they tend to know the value of things and aren’t always willing to deal) 

o   Going out of business sales

o   End of season, year-end closeouts and discontinued model sales

o   Discount retailers and Outlet Stores (one of my favorites!)

o   *Antiquing

o   *Flea Markets and Swap Meets (another of my favorites!)

*A caveat: investors and savvy shoppers are aware of these shopping hacks and while deals aren’t hard to find, they’re not always cheap. They also go quickly. Target the more affluent suburbs and communities popular for vacation homes.

Earlier I emphasized new as it relates to buying a Ferrari. What if you bought a used one at an estate sale or auction? It’s still a Ferrari. In the 1990s, auto dealers dropped the word “used” in their public facing communication and used the phrases “pre-owned” or “certified pre-owned.” They touted that these cars underwent extensive inspections but at the core, it was still a used car. The part being downplayed is that other people owned and used it before you acquired it. This was mostly a rebranding strategy and this is where discernment is crucial. Understand the message being communicated about the product and the process.

Billions of dollars are spent on helping retailers and other businesses separate consumers from their hard-earned dollars. This is called marketing. When you understand this, you’re able to make more informed decisions, meet your basic needs and enjoy an indulgence or two. If you’re skilled at this, the indulgences never stop.

The friend and mentor who introduced me to prepping was a chef. He never bought Tupperware. He always reused empty food containers. One of my closest friends makes a comfortable six-figure salary and shops at Goodwill. He bought his genuine Rolex at a pawn shop. He always looks nice and I never guessed.

I buy my work clothes at discount retailers, and my coworkers are surprised when they learn this. I work an overnight shift in a large transportation facility. Wearing the latest fashions to work strikes me as unwise, to put it mildly. I refuse to spend a fortune looking presentable. The money I don’t spend on clothes, I put into my supplies. I’m aware of my opportunity costs and these figure prominently into what I buy, when and where I buy it.

Cash is King

I started off ranting about digital payment platforms. I don’t like them, but I use them sparingly. I keep nominal amounts of money available in the digital payment apps, and this allows me to not nickel and dime myself to death and not use a credit card for a ten-dollar purchase. I’m a fan of cash for the reasons I listed above. In a grid-down situation having cash is often the only means of paying for what you need. Paying in cash is also an easier way of getting a discount. A breakfast joint I frequent shows the cash price on the receipt, allowing them to waive the nominal fee charged for credit and debit card purchases. It adds up!

For decades, the guidance was that you should have money saved to cover at least six months’ worth of expenses. This looks different to everyone, and some financial planners are suggesting that maybe you should set aside enough to cover a full year of expenses. That’s a huge ask and a near impossibility for many, without tapping into retirement accounts and such. As a family, discuss your situation, set goals and create a plan of action. Large amounts such as this should be in a separate bank account that you can readily access.  

How much cash you’re able to set aside depends upon a host of factors that I’m not going to address. A quick way to save a few hundred dollars is to throw whatever you can afford into your cash-on-hand mason jar or envelope. The amount is less important than the frequency.

Say you throw in fifty dollars in small bills every time you get paid or you empty your pockets or purse of singles and five-dollar bills at the end of the week. Both work; just be consistent.

The family needs to understand that this money is for emergency use only. A singleton can perhaps get by with $500 while a family of four may need $1,000. These are merely suggestions and you’d likely need much more. Pets and medical conditions must be considered at the start. In the interests of safety, keep this money in a fire-resistant box or safe. If you're still fixated on cash and want to discuss it further, click here.    

We Can’t Be Friends If You’re Cheap

The purpose of all of this is to free up cash to afford the extra food, water, generators and training you need to become better prepared. How you get there depends on a host of factors. Becoming prepared isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s a journey best undertaken with trusted friends and family, and it involves doing research and critically examining and understanding your specific needs. Speaking of needs, click here to learn how to conduct your own Needs Analysis.

In this post, I’ve leaned heavily into being thrifty and other cost-saving strategies. Here are some safety considerations that are never open to negotiation:

o   Only store food and water in food-grade containers.  

o   Never reuse containers that previously held fuel, oil or other chemicals.

o   Never use appliances such as propane-based heaters or fuel-based generators in ways not recommended by the manufacturer.

o   Never buy these items because they’re cheap assuming you’ll be able to fix them unless you’re specifically trained to do so.

Here are a few words of caution on being cheap:

o   Cheapskates don’t win. You want to save money and prepare, not make enemies. Your plan can’t be built upon taking advantage of others.

o   Bargains only exist when an item fits your needs and serves a purpose. Buying something just because it’s cheap often ends up as a waste of money.

o   In most circumstances and within reason, utility should outweigh price.

Becoming prepared is a process and I don’t know if it ever ends. As we enter different chapters in our life, our needs change, so do our wants. There’s no reason to forgo buying nice things if they don’t impede your ability to meet your needs and obligations. Employing a bit of creativity, a modicum of patience and consistency, allows you to have the solar generator and the occasional coffee and muffin stop!

Michael Witherspoon is the founder of Hidden Cache Prepper. A Certified Healthcare Emergency Professional and former EMT with a background in emergency management, he spent years with the American Red Cross and teaching disaster response and disaster psychology at the college level. He writes preparedness for real households, calmly, plainly and without the fearmongering. Read more about Michael here.