Resources for preparing for a rerun of the Great Depression
September 9, 2021 7:14 AM   Subscribe

I’m personally quite nervous about something like the Great Depression happening in my lifetime. All I find are prepper forums, but no, I’m not going to buy a ranch with guns and ammo and canned beans. I could, however, use some help thinking about investments, some level of self sufficiency, and cultivating skills that could help employability in that situation. Any websites or original ideas you can suggest are welcome!
posted by redlines to Work & Money (37 answers total) 48 users marked this as a favorite
 
In times of extreme economic instability, I would bank on your network of good friend and family being your most important resource.

As for assets that will retain some value, there are always precious metals. I have a friend who kept some of his savings in gold and silver bars because he didn't trust the financial system.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 7:40 AM on September 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


my grandma said, "no matter how bad it gets, liquor stores and funeral homes stay afloat."
posted by j_curiouser at 7:49 AM on September 9, 2021 [8 favorites]


My great grandmother said that no matter how bad things get, people will still flush their toilets. We are still living off the literal proceeds of that wisdom. Buy utilities!
posted by DarlingBri at 8:03 AM on September 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


Disclaimer, i teach permaculture, so bear that in mind when i strongly recommend taking a permaculture course. It's a good way of getting an appropriate mindset around practical community and self reliance (vs self-sufficiency).

Permaculture is not just about gardening, but you will increase your backyard gardening understanding in ways that are also incredibly relevant for another symptom of late stage capitalism, the climate crisis. A 2 week PDC (permaculture design certificate) with the right teacher will also be good for your mental health and help you build community connections. Try to take a PDC local to where you now live or where you would like to base yourself long-term.

It should also give you a framework for identifying appropriate skills that youd like to develop / improve upon. I'd look at everyday skills as well as those which are tradeable (For example, repairing shoes is a niche skillset that id like to develop, as a hobby my husband learnt and now teaches scything because grass will grow even once the gas is unavailable and batteries drained - its also good fun and keeps you fit)
.

Related, I'd look at permaculture founder David Holgren's book Retrosuburbia which is all about patterns of retrofitting communities and households to be more resilient to shocks generally.
posted by pipstar at 8:04 AM on September 9, 2021 [21 favorites]


During the early part of the pandemic when shelves were bare of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bleach, flour, yeast, I realized I need to get more serious about emergency preparedness. But I too find most of the prepper sites a bit off-putting. However, I did find Lefty Prepper Mom, which offers some practical advice without the added Jesus/NRA vibe.
posted by brookeb at 8:05 AM on September 9, 2021 [7 favorites]


It's worth thinking through exactly what you're worried about, because different scenarios call for different kinds of preparedness.

In the Great Depression, there was a shortage of money. Farmers didn't earn enough money for their crops to pay their mortgages, so they went broke. Banks didn't have enough money to redeem their depositors, so they failed. The best thing to have in the Depression was money (or, equivalently, gold) because that's what other people didn't have.

By contrast, look at COVID. More people (in the US) had money during the early months of COVID than previously because of government emergency measures, but that money didn't help you get toilet paper. And in the meantime, the price of many assets (houses, cars, what have you) went up. In many sectors, wages went up too. So if you planned financially for the Great Depression and you got COVID instead, you'd be out of luck.
posted by goingonit at 8:20 AM on September 9, 2021 [7 favorites]


It depends on what level of zombie apocalypse you expect to have to live through. The basic infrastructure of society held up during the 1930s depression and the 1980s recession. So utilities kept on uting, there was a need of plumbers and electricians. Advice: learn a trade [by youtube if no other].

If things go really pear-shaped then gold, flush-toilets, and deep-freezes will be of no use to anyone: liquor stores and funeral homes also both need electricity. But if you can distill liquor and cobble together a functional coffin, then you'll be an asset to yourself and your community. There will always be trees, so learn how to use an axe and a saw and keep them sharp; and yes, scything rocks grass and thistles. As a bonus obtain a hand-drill and some woodscrews. In one future, woodscrews are currency.
Also get whatever is locally appropriate as a guide to free food.
posted by BobTheScientist at 8:23 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


Maybe try "homesteading" as the search term? I've noticed both "prepping" and "homesteading" pop up in my Pinterest feeds (I do a lot of DIY stuff and the algorithm sometimes thinks that's why), but from what I've noticed after a curious browse, the "homesteading" vibe seems to be a little more about "do this lessen your ecological impact" than it is "do this to arm yourself against the apocalypse" or whatever. So that may be more your vibe when it comes to the self-sufficiency bit.

But speaking to the self-sufficiency - what is your proficiency in a kitchen, and have you ever tried canning/preserving food in any capacity? People are still gonna have to eat no matter what state society is in, and being able to jump on any kind of food bounty and stockpile it is always going to be something you can avail yourself of, even if society NEVER collapses. And, bonus, if society never collapses then hey, you can use your stockpile of canned tomatoes for your normal life and be treating yourself to garden-fresh New Jersey tomatoes instead of canned Hunt's in your chili in the winter, or you can have peach jam jazzed up with thyme instead of plain old Smucker's peach-and-nothing-else, and that's always good.

Also, see if there is some kind of a class in your area on foraging - some edible stuff grows wild in surprising places. (New York City is COVERED with mulberry trees, and I've carefully noted where there are a couple near my office so I can head back sometime next June and harvest a bunch; I've also noticed where there are some beach plums, and I keep eyeing the rose hips on the rosebushes near work as well.) I'd recommend taking a class in that, though, so you can be sure that you're picking something that really is edible.

And of course, if you're not that experienced in a kitchen to begin with, knowing how to cook will benefit you as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:30 AM on September 9, 2021 [7 favorites]


Oh, and just plain-old networking. See if your friends have weird hobbies or interests that may come in handy - I've had friends joke that they're going to hit me up "when the zombies attack" because I know how to knit and how to make jam and can things, so I will be invited into their colony as the cook and hat-knitter. And another friend is a good fisherman - we have a standing agreement that I get a few of his fillets when he has an especially good bluefish catch - but if we're still in touch when society goes belly-up, then I have him as that resource for fish.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:34 AM on September 9, 2021


Mormon websites on food storage and emergency preparations are where you want to look here, I am an atheist and found pretty much nothing overly religious about the vast majority of the websites or information and they are are usually more practical than the crazed prepper sites have all the guns websites on the subject. They're not trying to convert anyone and most are just busy mums sharing practical information on how todo this as part of your daily life. The vast majority of them are just practical guides to how to slowly build stores and use food and supplies to last you three months to a year with no political or overtly religions overtones I found them an amazing resource.

There are even guides and lists available from the churches themselves that you can find online that are helpful and again are for the most part practical not religious in nature, they even have everyone can go to not just Mormons for buying and canning to store bulk quantities of food and again they don't push religion on anyone to use this stuff, at least no one ever did to me.

I am not at my desk with all my links on but will try to come back later and try to list some of the sites I use, but some googling of Mormon food storage should start you off down the rabbit hole. Using what we learned from these women, we had built up a good 3 months stockpile of food & supplies over the about a 2 year period so when the covid shut down hit we literally only had to leave the house for fresh fruit and veg or for items for home repairs (something I am now working on making sure we have a few spares of for next time).
posted by wwax at 8:40 AM on September 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


Learn to get creative and thinking in new ways. A couple of years ago there was a water main break in the center of town and the whole town (including a large university) lost water for about 36 hours. I reminded my sister that her and all her neighbors had rain barrels and could easily flush their toilets with water brought in with that. The thought never even crossed her mind since she was used to it being “for gardening.”

There are many kinds of emergencies and disasters but getting creative (and reaching out for support as mentioned above) will help with just about every single one.
posted by raccoon409 at 8:43 AM on September 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


(Oh and personally I feel secure when I am fiscally secure. I know there’s plenty of people who say your shouldn’t pay off your house early, use the money to invest but I like the security of the bank not coming to take it out from under me.)
posted by raccoon409 at 8:45 AM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


That's how I've prepped, as well - pay off your mortgage, if possible.
posted by Rash at 8:59 AM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Frugality is a great skill to have. To that end, I recommend The Complete Tightwad Gazette.
posted by FencingGal at 9:00 AM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Diversification, of all sorts. Cultivate skills in a bunch of different areas, any of which might be something you can fall back on in the future. Have productive hobbies. If you own land, grow a bunch of different things. Learn to prepare food and keep warm with different tools than you're used to. Foster connections with a lot of different people in your community, as well as a few outside of your region who might be able to help you in case of a natural disaster or an expansion of Gilead.
posted by metasarah at 9:15 AM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Oh, do I have a great recommendation for you: the podcast Live Like the World Is Dying. The first entry on that page now is about prepping, but please don't assume it's what you've seen elsewhere. The creator, Margaret Killjoy, is a lefty/anarchist who is approaching this all very differently than right-wing preppers. She talks a lot about community and how isolating ourselves in bunkers with beans and guns is not the best path towards survival. I started listening to her podcast early in the pandemic, and it's really given me a great framework for thinking about the life I live now and how I want to be readying myself, my family, and my life for potential future outcomes that could involve large-scale government, climate, and economic change. Scroll through the titles of past episodes and see if they might be along the lines of what you're thinking about. Anarchist writing is really a great resource here (and you might have to stumble past ideas you were raised with about what anarchy is, or at least I did).
posted by bluedaisy at 9:22 AM on September 9, 2021 [12 favorites]


I think it's difficult to predict some of the specifics of a depression or other severe economic shock, because a lot of things depend on the exact causes. Things that seem to help in a lot of circumstances are good networks and connections in your local community and further afield (ideally including overseas), having a variety of skills so you can turn your hands to different things that might bring in an income, diversifying your assets if you can invest, living in an area with a diverse economy (or being prepared to move as needed). I think it's a mistake to focus too much on self sufficiency, some is good but mutual aid is often more resilient.

Also, although most preppers seem to have a 'back to the land' focus, I think that when you look at crises of the past, they have more often resulted in net migration to more urban locations. In any case, whether it's a hurricane, flood, economic downturn, knowing when to leave may be more helpful to your survival and future wellbeing than being able to hunker down for longer.
posted by plonkee at 9:30 AM on September 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


Unemployment at the very peak of the Great Depression was less than 25%. Three quarters of people were employed during the Great Depression. Maintaining a job you have would have had a higher likelihood of success than deciding to go off-grid and picking up an entirely new lifestyle.

The stock market recovered to pre-boom levels within ten years of the Great Depression. The stock market even ended up in boom levels within twenty years of the Great Depression! If your investment horizon is more than ten years away, then I would argue you should do absolutely nothing to change your investment strategy. In fact, if you were in your late 30s in the late 1920s, and started your investment even at the very tip of the pre-Depression boom, your best outcome would have been to maintain a stock/equity heavy portfolio and retire in the early-mid 1950s rather than putting your money under your bed or into gold.

That's how I've prepped, as well - pay off your mortgage, if possible.

This advice in particular is poor-suited to history. Interest rates now, and during the great depression, were near zero. In such a world, having a mortgage is the absolute best debt to have, it's literally (near-)free money! If you pay off your mortgage, you will have less money - and that's exactly what you want more of during a depression.
posted by saeculorum at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2021 [17 favorites]


Others have mentioned gardening, so I'd mention small engine and bicycle repair. Small engine repair can get you employed fixing boats, winches, motorcycles, and other products that need really regular maintenance, but there really aren't that many people who do it outside of major metros.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:51 AM on September 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


Bicycle repair is so you can have higher mobility and save more money than others who only have cars, which are very expensive to maintain. Recessions have shown us people pay for their cars ahead of their housing, since autos can get you to income.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:53 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


Cash is king. So is gold and silver. I would also create a garden in my yard if I had one. Grow some veggies and corn. Eat and prosper. As for work, to the extent possible, I would get a government job now. I would learn coding too. Seems to me there will always be a need for a coder. Just need to pick the right language.
posted by AugustWest at 9:54 AM on September 9, 2021


Cash is king. So is gold and silver.

Almost all gold was seized by FDR in 1933. If one was preparing for a "rerun of the Great Depression" (as in the OP), the ideal solution would be to *NOT* invest in gold (or, at least, sell all gold in 1932, I guess). Unequivocally, the best investment during the Great Depression would have been in stocks.
posted by saeculorum at 10:17 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


As noted, a crash could take any of a number of forms, and it's hard to prepare for them all.

The market crash of 1928 and the crash of 2008 have a lot in common, but the government response was a lot better in 2008. The depression of the 1930s was not so bad for people who had a job. Price levels fell, so buying power increased in some ways. The lesson in either case is to strive for stability, especially financial stability. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, as Polonius advised. This suggest moderation in mortgages and car loans.

I remember after the 2008 crash, there were stories about young hotshots with big salaries who had taken on huge mortgages and were in big trouble when the usual annual bonuses failed to appear.
posted by SemiSalt at 10:21 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


Any total collapse scenario seems unlikely to me, but extended grid failures after disasters are already happening now and we're still seeing waves of supply shocks due to the shipping backlog built up under pandemic conditions. Economic crisis could make it hard to replace broken things in an age of disposable products. It's reasonable to take safeguards against food you can produce yourself continuing to get relatively more expensive at the market.

So far as the prepper youtube channels and etc go, I've found the The Provident Prepper to be useful. The Christian vibe is there but it's reasonably subdued and the videos are helpful and straightforward. I just ignore the content focused more on basic survival or farming. I also follow a ton of gardening channels, but the ones most relevant here are probably Growing Your Greens, The Rusted Garden, Epic Gardening .

Self Sufficient Me and Roots and Refuge Farm (Christian but the specifically religious content is usually labeled) are also fun but the land and etc. they have to work with make them a little less directly useful.

I've let the cottage garden I put in during the worst of the pandemic food shortages go a little wild, but I want to get it back into shape and expand it.

If I owned my own home (and in as sunny of a place as I rent now) I'd give serious thought to trying to have enough solar and battery capacity to run a fridge, some lighting (maybe 12v?), keep my internet connection up and power a laptop. And to charge an EV, if I had one. Which would also be a good idea. Beyond that, if I could afford the capacity, A/C and additional freezer capacity, so as to be able to preserve more harvest, leftovers, byproducts, etc. without losing it all if the grid fails. And maybe some extended propane supplies for outdoor cooking, and/or a pellet grill and smoker.

Increasingly, learning woodworking, electronics design and repair, 3D printing, basic machining, welding and similar 'maker' skills feel like things that could be used to keep items meant to be disposable in service, fashion basic tools and hardware, or otherwise be more self sufficient.

For basic woodworking with hand tools, Rex Krueger has a great channel. Beyond that, there's Stumpy Nubs.

All that said, though depression is different than war, Dee Xtrovert's post regarding life in Sarajevo under seige is also worth considering. In part:

Those who'd prepared, well, the majority of them shared their food and whatever else they had as soon as someone else was clearly in need. I can't swear it, but I think they felt a little foolish to have been so self-obsessed, and giving away that stuff might have lessened that feeling. There were a few people who hoarded things until they ran out of stuff - eventually everybody ran out of anything worth hoarding - and they soon became wishful beggars like the rest of us. Again, I can't swear it, but I hear stories, and it seems that these people suffer from post-war trauma, guilt and nightmares more than the rest of us.

In the event of the kind serious and lasting collapse that a lot of 'preppers' are focused on, it is likely that the personal connections and community you can forge now will be more important than any particular logistical measures you can take.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:35 AM on September 9, 2021 [7 favorites]


Yeah, I think maybe getting to know other people in the community is most important? In a disaster, a neighbor who knows your name and cares enough to check and see if you are okay, or can tell the first responders to check on you, or will let you charge your phone on their generator, seems like the most precious resource of all. I'm not great at people, and we moved into our house right before the start of the pandemic and I have really suffered from not knowing our neighbors well - it's less secure, we don't have anyone to keep an eye on the place while we're gone, nobody would notice for awhile if we just turned up dead, besides our employers. I always think about Yvette Vickers, and how having fame and money was still no protection against dying alone and that absence going unnoticed for a really long time. And even then, it was a neighbor who realized something was wrong and did something about it.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 11:49 AM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


There are liberal prepper groups that aren't about guns and building a personal kingdom in Idaho. We came close to a major Depression with the Great Recession, and it could happen again, though Pres. Obama's actions really worked - getting money into the economy via jobs in infrastructure, propping up key industries, etc. Not genius level, this is known economic process. I had as much of my 401k in socially responsible funds as I could manage, and they did fine during the Recession. Read about the economics; three's tons of interesting literature.

My parents were young in the Depression. People who did okay in the Depression had a variety of skills - they could do some building or farm work, maybe bookkeeping. As in the Recession, not everyone lost their job and/or home. So, learn some useful skills that could help you earn in tough times. Basic car repair, carpentry, gardening, etc. Code runs the world, programmers are likely to be employable for the foreseeable future.

There are frugal groups on the web and facebook. A lot of frugal habits are also ways of living simply and contribute less to the climate crisis, so highly recommended. Pay attention to calm smart money writers. Diversify. Pay down consumer debt. Buy Less Stuff. Build a strong community. Fear is miserable. Building a sustainable lifestyle is kind of fun.
posted by theora55 at 12:50 PM on September 9, 2021


I own my small home, have considered a mortgage because interest is so low and investments are profitable, but it's really nice to have this security. I remember the inflation of the late 70s and early 80s, and that's a thing to consider, too, though I don't expect levels like that, and have not read anyone credible who does.
posted by theora55 at 12:53 PM on September 9, 2021


Interest rates now, and during the great depression, were near zero. In such a world, having a mortgage is the absolute best debt to have, it's literally (near-)free money!

All very well, if you have the steady cash-flow to pay that monthly bill. But as noted above, Depression is a time when there is no money, no jobs (unlike now, true). However, the family losing the house or farm to bank foreclosure is a common story from the 1930s (and 2008, as well -- remember how unwise borrowing via low interest rates, balloon mortgages and zero-down-payment loans was a lead-up to the Great Recession).
posted by Rash at 1:33 PM on September 9, 2021 [3 favorites]


For self-sufficiency, take basic first aid and a CPR class. Also, make sure you're up to date on your tetanus shot. Medical care could become very expensive or difficult to access and it would not be pleasant to get an infection or tetanus because you stepped on a nail.
posted by twelve cent archie at 1:52 PM on September 9, 2021 [5 favorites]


You could look into taking a disaster/ wilderness medicine course.
posted by erattacorrige at 2:18 PM on September 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


A plug here for Amateur Radio.

Getting a Technician's license, by passing the Technician's test in the USA, is quite straightforward. That, a decent hand held radio, and an equally decent antenna? You can easily communicate with others for miles around. There are even repeaters you can go onto. Especially handy for communication in cases of emergency, like when cell towers are overloaded, and/or the Internet goes down.

73,
N7YYZ (My callsign)
posted by spinifex23 at 6:03 PM on September 9, 2021 [7 favorites]


I hear the anxiety in your question, and, gently, would suggest that you think about volunteering for something like Search & Rescue, city council, disability volunteers, animal rescue, a habitat restoration group, your park district or here in Australia they have the CFA. (On preview, Spinifex’s radio suggestion seems good too.)

Organizations like these often help people in times of crisis, frequently offer useful training like CPR training and might even give you advance knowledge of a crisis. Plus, then you can be out there helping people, rather than holing up at home and feeling anxious.

As an aside, as someone with a public policy background, questions like this make me feel sad. I believe in the durability of society, so if we anticipate crisis, I also believe it’s important for each of us, as possible, to get out there and do something to prepare society via collective action of some sort. (Really thinking of climate issues here!) Have an emergency go bag, sure, but too much online reading seems like a way of feeling more powerless and anxious compared to getting out and volunteering once a week or so. Make a change, make new friends, etc.
posted by ec2y at 8:30 PM on September 9, 2021 [12 favorites]


Pick up skills and build relationships by volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, volunteer search/rescue or taking first aid courses. Change the mindset from zombie apocalypse to weeks-long resource restriction due to a major weather event, which is way more likely and not tripping the prepper/survivalist/rapture crowd. It is perfectly reasonable to think about installing solar, putting together food stores based on disaster prep a la "Apocalypse Chow"; having an outdoor kitchen with solar oven; having emergency cash at the house in case of evacuation and the ATMs go down; have a real nice camping gear collection, etc. You can be VERY prepared without entering a cult world but viewing it as any other form of readiness.
posted by jadepearl at 2:00 AM on September 10, 2021 [3 favorites]


A follow-up with a book about what I said about "cultivating relationships" -

Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Built In Hell may underscore how it's the reaching-out to people that may be the way forward in a crisis, because historically it's exactly what HAS been the way forward. Again and again, when there's been a big disaster, in the immediate aftermath you have people turning out and showing up for each other. Restaurant owners who still have a working stove get to work making a crapton of food to hand out to everyone or start soup kitchens. People with spare bedrooms raise their hands and say "I can take someone in." People with working trucks offer to do rubble clearing. People who are good with kids offer to start day cares or schools for the people doing other rubble clearing or what-not. In the past we haven't heard as much about that because usually the government puts a stop to those grass-roots efforts when FEMA rolls in, for various reasons.

Even in the Great Depression there were rural communities who had weekly or monthly potlucks called "Fun Feeds", where they tried to keep everyone's spirits up and give everyone a change of pace; instead of everyone sitting on their own farms and eating the same damn thing every day because that's all there was, people would make up bigger-than-usual batches of whatever they were making and all go to the town meeting hall or whatever, and put it all together as a potluck, so the Smith family who'd been having Mrs. Smith's egg-and-noodle casserole for weeks now could try Mrs. Jones' beans-and-greens stew, or Mrs. Campanetti's pasta-with-peas or Mrs. French's hot dog stew. Families could socialize and swap recipes or just eat something different, the kids could all play together and run around, and people who had different instruments could jam and make music for the rest of the crowd.

I'm even seeing something like this happen right now on a smaller scale - I belong to my local Buy Nothing group, and boy, is that becoming a network. When I mentioned on a post that I was trying to move and get rid of a lot of stuff but I had a broken knee and was having trouble, people came out of the woodwork offering to come over and help me pack or clean or haul stuff to Goodwill. One angel even threw a tag sale for me and then helped me bring all my food over to my new place when we learned the movers couldn't. And now it's a month later, and there's a young woman who posted that her parents got flooded out of their apartment in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida - and people are turning out with clothes and housewares for them. I just gave her a whole bag of dishes and kitchenware the night before last.

Communities are supposed to work this way, and the good news is that human nature does work this way, again and again. But the more of a face you are in a community in the "normal times", and the more willing you are to step forward to say "here's what I can do" when the time comes, the more likely you'll find people stepping forward to help you with the stuff you can't do.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:15 AM on September 10, 2021 [8 favorites]


being in good shape and taking care of your health are important ways to prepare for daily life as well as disasters.
posted by theora55 at 7:48 AM on September 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


A plug here for Amateur Radio.

I would also encourage this -- and getting into software defined radio via some cheap hardware -- but do be warned that even in SoCal the repeater networks are filled with Q-Anon Hilliary-haters who mostly want to discuss the conditions under which they might be able to shoot their neighbors.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:09 AM on September 10, 2021


Thirding, Amateur Radio. The zombies will eat the wired communications infrastructure.

73,
Jim
N2TAW
posted by JimN2TAW at 3:06 PM on September 11, 2021 [3 favorites]


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