Normally, I would wait for the day after Thanksgiving to purchase the big ticket items.  For example, 2 years ago I snagged a Panasonic 42″ plasma TV for around $800 AND they threw in the $300 Tweeter gift card.  Last year, I grabbed some parts for my computer dirt cheap, and some nice jewelry items for my wife.  I’d wake up early, load some tunes on my Sansa, browse through the paper ads, and chill with other thrill-seekers outside some store.

Not this year.

Even though I’ve just read about people being pronounced dead after being trampled at some Wal-Mart, or pregnant women being hospitalized under similar conditions (which tells me that people are still shopping it up regardless of the economic situation), I decided to skip the shopping extravaganzas.

First of, we have everything we need — and the stuff we thought we needed, well, we don’t.  As Peter Schiff said in one of the many YouTube clips (paraphrasing), nothing bad would happen if people didn’t buy a new car and made do with the old one, or didn’t charge that new television set and just watched their 32″ RCA for another year.  We still have nice, fairly new things, and I can’t think of anything we need.

Second, I am stockpiling cash to 1) expand the safety net 2) pay down debt 3) convert cash into silver.  I’ll elaborate — basically, after food/utilities/bills, each dollar we make gets divided into those 3 categories.  We need more cash in case both of us lose our jobs.  We need to aggressively attack our remaining debts.  We need to set aside a portion of our budget that we won’t immediately need so it can be converted into tokens with intrinsic value, i.e. precious metals.

A quick note on precious metals — there’s evidence of big players shorting gold and silver to keep the price down … I believe gold will surpass $2,000/oz within 12 months.  I’ve been incrementally buying Silver Dollar bullion coin from the US Mint, although it takes longer and longer to order and receive (crazy demand).

And finally, this Black Friday bonanza makes me feel like I’ve felt right before quitting smoking — the realization of pointlessness, harm to my body, and waste of money finally helped me quit for good … not only that, I now cringe every time I catch a whiff of someone’s cigarette and run away from it :) Same with shopping — because shopping for the sake of shopping is … sickening in its decadence.

If you’re out shopping, just be careful.  Both with your money, and with not being trampled.

You need to watch this — I love gems like “houses will go up 10% in value”, “the worst is over”, “stocks will be heckuva lot higher next year”.

Pretty amazing.

I’ll start by saying — you can trust me on this one — I was born and bred in the USSR.  Being an Air Force brat, I’ve traveled the former USSR like it’s nobody’s business, and have been to almost every former Republic, hanging around Ukraine the most.

You know all these bailouts you hear about on TV — banks, financial services firms, insurance firms, and now car makes, public transit, smaller countries (like … hm … UKRAINE) … what’s next?  Probably, entitlement programs, cities, schools, etc.

What they are doing is worse than communist.  Proof?

The government (We The People) is giving those organizations money/loans, and in return we all are supposedly receiving stakes in those organizations.  Oh, where to start — this is called nationalization, and it happens all the time in countries like Cuba, Chile, Czech Republic … but those countires don’t claim to believe in “free market” oh so deeply.  So hypocritical of us.

Secondly, at least in Ukraine they had the decency to nationalize former USSR assets, and give you a physical certificate for your chunk of whatever they were nationalizing at the time (industry, farming, etc).  You actually got a piece of paper with your name on it, and it was worth quite a bit at the time.  We called them “vouchers”.

And here in the States, entire industries are being nationalized, and we get jack shit for it because we “believe in free market”.  Ugh … so mad.

And then entire industries, like car makers in Detroit, are lining up and requesting taxpayer money — you know what, fuck it, I’m done.

What’s up.

I was looping though the radio stations in my car via my favorite button ever — the “Scan” button, and inevitably stopped at GCN Station at 90.1 here in good ole Austin, Texas.  “GCN” stands for “Genesis Communication Network”.  It hosts a pretty insane cadre of “experts” who seem to believe a variety of so-called “conspiracy” theories ranging from the complete and constant monitoring of EVERYONE to getting ready for Jesus’ Second Coming.

I’m not into Jesus, but I am into privacy, so I gave them a listen.  After about 10 minutes, the show spiraled uncontrollably into the abyss of supposed police states, RFID conspiracies, and Big Brother-like plots.

That got me thinking — what would a person with the right type of access learn about me?  Looks like quite a bit.  If you flash your Homeland Security badge and cite some obscure deed falling under the Patriot Act, you’ll probably get access to the following:

• My bank records.  Because I bank at the same place, it will be a one-stop-shop of everything you need to know about my financial situation and purchasing habits.  After all, I like the convenience of debit, which means 95% of everything I buy leaves a trail.
• My shopping patterns — you could get this from several shopping club cards I carry for discount purposes.
• My internet search habits.  If you subpoena Google, you’ll have a very complete track of not just what I am doing, but what I am thinking about.  THINKING, for Christ’s sakes.  This is the exact idea behind Google’s recent flu maps.
• My viewing preferences.  Your cable company knows what you are watching — I’ve confirmed this.  One time, my DVR broke, so I called in and they were able to manipulate it from their central office, and they told me what I was watching (Comedy Central, of course).
• Most of my Internet habits.  To get this one, all they’d have to do is subpoena my cable provider, and voila — all places where my IP pointed, in neat little log files.
• My phone calls — between the exact time, date, and length of ALL my phone calls, some VoIP providers actually record the calls — after all, the cost per terabyte of hard drive space is dropping lower by the week.
• My travels — between the credit card records such as gasoline purchases and reservations at airline companies, you’d know exactly when I traveled and would be able to deduce why.  Don’t forget about toll tags in your car.
• Email conversations.  This one is easy and is directly tied to your email account provider — while Google and Yahoo! may push a little bit, Comcast and TimeWarner would quickly fall in line and divulge everything.
• Social networking sites.  Everyone’s got at least a Facebook/MySpace account — this one is self-explanatory if you just think about crap people post, sometimes with up-to-the-minute precision.
• Compliance records — driver’s license renewals, registration stickers, tax records, etc.

You can also get into some other stuff that tracks your behavior, like OnStar tracking, street cameras, Google Streetview.

The bottom line — we all leave more of a trail than a car with a busted oil pan.  I am not too bothered by it, fuck it, we live in a modern society.  But there are people that are … oh yes, they are.

In case you didn’t know … I love books and movies about zombies.  I watch old zombie movies, new zombie movies, play an occasional zombie video game, listen to Rob Zombie … :)

So it’s no surprise I’ve read the Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks.  This book, and the SAS Survival Guide are two of my most favorite books (the MOST favorite book of all time still being 12 Chairs by Ilf and Petrov … although if you don’t read Russian, don’t even bother).

Max Brooks’ Zombie book has an amazing variety of methods of protecting yourself from the attacks of the living dead, as well as ways to kill them quickly and efficiently.  However, the true awesomeness is on the back cover of the book — and since I could not find it on the Internet, I am publishing the entire list:

TOP 10 LESSONS FOR SURVIVING A ZOMBIE ATTACK

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head, cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

I suppose another reason this appeals to me is because I grew up in the Eastern Europe in the 80′s … so you can pretty much replace the word “zombie” with the word “communism” and instantly relate to why I like all this.

The lessons of this list don’t have to apply in a post-apocalyptical world of Fallout 3 … they apply here and now.

1. Be prepared.
2. Don’t be easily intimidated.
3. Think before you act.
4. Keep things simple.
5. Protect yourself, your family, and your assets.
6. Seek the high ground, but physically and morally.
7. Stay mobile.
8. Pay attention to your surroundings.
9. Nothing lasts forever.
10. History repeats itself.

This is the real reason I love all this zombie shit — it reminds me to be focused, alert, and prepared.  Don’t believe my being prepared?

Here’s some pics — one day back in May I realized we didn’t have a pantry.  Well, we had one, but it was stocked with a few canned goods and mostly perishables.  I then decided to utilize the space under the stairs to jam pack it full of survival food that would last the two us at least a year.

How to be Poor Survival - Zombie Shelter

Here’s some soup — I know the most economical use of space would be to store canned chicken and dry pasta and then make your own soup, but that’s being almost “too ready” — at least with canned soup you lose a little space, but gain a lot in convenience.

How to be Poor Survival - Zombie Shelter Soup

This would not be long-term survival without SPAM — high fat, high calorie meat with a shelf life of 3 years, easy:

How to be Poor Survival - Zombie Shelter Spam

I picked up a bunch of rice and other grains (wheat, buckwheat).  They don’t go bad, and you can survive on them forever.

How to be Poor Survival - Zombie Shelter Grain

I put together a box of medical supplies — antibiotic ointment, gauze, alcohol, wet naps, etc.  Yes, tampons too.  Oh, I also picked up a sweet hand-cranked radio/flashlight.

How to be Poor Survival - Zombie Shelter Medkit

There you have it.  I don’t have to worry about zombies, but if anything like a hurricane, a flood, or job loss happens, we should be good for awhile.