Several things happened in 1980 that made me think this way. First of all, Unemployment was 10% nationwide then and worse in selected places around the country. So, I put some of our cash reserves into buying 2 1/2 acres. At that time I could buy 2 1/2 acres without electricity with a spring on the land at 4000 feet for around 8000 dollars which I know seems impossible today. However, you do have to remember that we could get 7 feet of snow or more at one time anytime between December and April then too. So, it did have it's drawbacks. So, part of the year when the snows came I parked my International Harvester Scout II 4 wheel drive (the most amazing 4 wheel drive I have ever own in that it could push 2 sometimes 3 feet of snow and keep on going. I never bought a snow plow attachment for it because I watched friends trash their trucks costing them thousands of dollars in repairs when they did this who lived near us then in the wilderness. So, we built an A-Frame house which allowed us to not be there without caving the roof in with the snow load if we weren't there when the snow came down.
Back then, we buried non-perishable food in 50 gallon drums because we believed the U.S. Government was going to economically collapse because of the excesses of the Viet Nam war and really bad inflation worse than now. So, we bought good pasta and rice and bags of uncooked beans and things like 25 gallons of. Peanut butter and Maple Syrup so we had basic needs taken care of to survive. Then we also bought canned goods too. Things were really bad for many people but because we prepared for literally anything we were okay through all of this. Also, by investing cash into land we didn't have to pay rent. Then we sold my then wife's 1971 Westfalia Camper van and bought building materials with it which was enough to create the basics with plywood and roofing. My father who was 64 then came up with his camper in 1980 because he had just retired and helped me build our house too. At one point my father and I built two ladders out of lodgepole pines on our land and leaned them against the plywood on the roof and then put down first tar paper and then Green Felt Roofing to keep out the rain and snow. My father took an old water pressure tank from his 2 1/2 acres of retirement property in Yucca Valley, California and welded me up a Wood Stove for heating our A-Frame. We built a Loft for us all to sleep in above the first floor too because it is warmer above the wood stove in the winter time when it is snowing outside.
So, we always had enough food even when others were starving. So, I could always feed my family even when others couldn't from 1980 to 1985. But, I was never into the whole gun part of being a Survivalist because I thought that didn't make any sense.
Then after the economy got better again we bought another business in the greater San Francisco Area because our oldest (then 12) didn't want to be home schooled anymore and wanted to go back to a regular school.
Note: By the way the main reason that the U.S. government didn't go bankrupt then is that Europe and Japan loaned the U.S. enough money so it didn't go bankrupt from the outlandishly expensive Viet Nam war that we lost anyway.
So, our friends that we had loaned money to to get back on our feet in Europe and Japan saved us by loaning us money so we didn't go bankrupt then.
I didn't think this was possible at the time but you learn something new every day.
But, preparing for food insecurity by preparing ways to not be food insecure I think is still a good idea today, especially because of inflation. So, having non-perishable food for a rainy day of food insecurity is always important.
Because whatever you buy now is going to be more expensive tomorrow. So, if you have a good place to store non-perishable food then maybe buy now while it is less expensive is a good idea. Because food is only going to go up in price because of Global Climate changes and uneven rain patterns worldwide now.
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