Preparing for a long-term economic crisis is about more than ensuring you’ve got your food stocks and a way to protect yourself at home.
Major economic downturns in history, such as the Panic of 1873 and the Great Depression of the 1930s, posed challenges that evolved challenges over time.
With past prolonged financial crises as a bellwether, we decided to take a closer look at some of the terrifying truths arising from a long-term economic crisis.
Chronic Unemployment
Prolonged high unemployment is common during a prolonged economic crisis. This leaves a lot of families struggling to make ends meet and having to make drastic cutbacks. This hurts a lot of other sectors, including housing, consumer goods, and transportation.
Eventually, unemployment benefits run out. Families start losing their homes. This causes economic ripples that worsen other aspects of the financial crisis.
What You Can Do
It’s hard to keep yourself from ever losing your job in a long-term economic crisis. Setting aside three months’ worth of savings is a wise safety net if you do end up unemployed.
Increasing Petty Theft & Violent Crime
Inflation, unemployment, and skyrocketing costs will only increase desperation on the streets. Ordinary people who wouldn’t turn to things like shoplifting, purse-snatching, or drug dealing will start to turn to illegal outlets to get by.
Related: 5 Most Common Crimes During a Societal Breakdown
Yet when things do go wrong these “Amateur Criminals” tend to lose their cool quickly and over-react. The intended victims of petty crimes become more likely to retaliate. Many will take measures to defend themselves.
In time home invasions will start to go up. Tensions will be running so high that it doesn’t take much to incite riots and looting.
Eventually, law enforcement numbers will start to decline. Police departments will start shuttering. This creates a double whammy escalating petty crimes and home invasions.
What You Can Do
Being smart about personal protection and increasing your home security measures are smart first steps. This includes carrying self-defense items on you when you go out while installing cameras, motion lights, and other deterrents around your property.
When you do go out, dress down to keep from looking like a target. Purse snatchers and pickpockets are more likely to target people who look like they have something to steal. Leave the designer-labeled clothes at home and keep a clutch wallet in an inside pocket.
Try to also take the curb appeal of your home down a notch. Even if you’re financially holding your own during an economic downturn, you want your home to look like you’re just getting by.
Riots and Civil Unrest Become Common
When all the ingredients of a prolonged economic downturn stew together long enough, it creates a powder keg for civil unrest.
People who are desperate and frustrated with the government’s response can be easily triggered. Once a riot starts it can spread far beyond the original area.
People use the protests to loot stores, small businesses, and sometimes even homes.
What You Can Do
If you own a small business, bars on windows and roll-up doors reduce the risks of looting, and help you control access. You also need to take home security to the max with bars on windows and heavy-duty steel doors with reinforced jams.
In times of civil unrest, cities can quickly become dangerous. When that happens, escaping to the wilderness might be your safest bet. But survival out there is about more than just basics; it requires mastering long-term skills.
That’s why I trust this guide. It’s not an ordinary survival book—it’s a practical resource that teaches the age-old wisdom of living off the land. So, when you’re planning your escape, make sure this handbook is in your backpack. It could be your key to staying safe when everything else goes wrong.
Government Austerity Will Go Too Far
Governments use austerity measures to weather a prolonged recession. This increases taxes and decreases spending can be modestly effective for several months.
Chronic inflation and unemployment eventually get to a point where austerity measures only add fuel to the fire. Any money borrowed and added to the national debt will also add to soaring inflation as austerity measures start to fail.
What You Can Do
Setting up smart tax shelters in advance will help you keep access to your money in the long term.
Health savings accounts, retirement IRAs, and municipal bonds make the most sense in these times.
Worsening Supply Chain Issues
Minor supply chain issues due to the cost of labor, materials, and transportation infrastructure issues are common during most economic downturns. Yet as an economic crisis draws on, there’s a tipping point where it becomes nearly impossible to get goods at a reasonable time and price.
Meanwhile demand for many consumer goods and luxury items continues to dwindle. While the cost of transporting those goods from nations like China becomes increasingly cost-prohibitive.
Related: 3 Expensive Survival Foods That Are Not Worth Buying
Eventually, overseas manufacturers will pull the plug on exporting goods. Focusing on their domestic markets to stay afloat. This will lead to massive shortages and/or massive delays in getting consumer goods.
What You Can Do
Take inventory of your essential devices and equipment. You need to be brutally honest in determining the things you need. Then make sure you have a duplicate or parts to repair it.
Most consumer devices aren’t truly essential. In time, you’ll eventually figure out how to replicate them in other ways.
It’s essentials like winter jackets, heaters, flashlights, batteries, and automotive parts that you need to have in stock. It’s these things that will maximize your self-reliance when you need it most!
Failure of Banks and Insurance Corporations
Modern banks have far less liquid capital than they’re worth. During a long-term economic crisis, there will be an inevitable “Run on the Banks” that will cause financial institutions to become insolvent.
This was a serious problem during the Great Depression that only made the problem worse.
When FDR took office, he declared a 4 day bank holiday to restore confidence in the financial system. In 2008 the FDIC rescued several banks and even seized Washington Mutual Bank.
This gives the impression that the Federal Government has the banking system covered for short, and even mid-term bank failures. Yet the financial landscape becomes a slippery slope as a long-term financial crisis drags on. There’s a limit to what the FDIC, US Federal Government, and world banks can do.
What You Can Do
Capping money you have invested in a single ban under the $250,000 FDIC limit is wise during a long-term economic crisis. You should also spread your savings throughout multiple banks just in case one fails.
Keep at least 3 months of income stashed in a safe at home. Keeping barter-worthy items such as excess ammunition, MREs and even fuel could also be wise. If multiple banks fail, the bartering might have more value than money.
Food Supply Insecurity
A prolonged economic crisis will drive up fuel costs while simultaneously impacting farm subsidies. Along with inflation the cost to grow, harvest, and transport food can get insanely high.
Many low-priced staples like milk become prohibitively unprofitable for producers.
During the Great Depression, the price of milk was so low farmers poured it out to try to drive prices higher.
Today the Federal Government provides subsidies to dairy farmers to keep them afloat and control food production costs. Yet these subsidies can evaporate as austerity measures start to fail.
At some point, there’ll be a sharp spike in food prices becomes. When luxury foods like Brussels sprouts, and olive oil, start suddenly going up, staples like eggs, flour, sugar, and bread surge shortly after.
What You Can Do
A staple collection of dry goods, along with a big garden will help you stay self-sufficient. Even when grocery store costs start to skyrocket, you’ll still be able to feed everyone under your roof.
⇒ Even If You Have a Food Stockpile, You Need to Learn This
Keeping backyard chickens, dairy goats, and maybe even a few pigs will help. Being able to do things like grow your vegetables and bake your bread also means you have more money available to buy the things you can’t produce yourself.
Government Fails to Respond to Natural Disasters
A prolonged economic crisis can get to the point that the government simply doesn’t have the means to provide aid during a natural disaster. A hurricane, flood, or earthquake affects your area, with little response from government relief organizations.
Even a serious tornado, ice storm, or drought can have its aftereffects magnified during a major financial crisis. Understaffed first responders will struggle to handle tasks that normally would be handled by FEMA.
Utility companies will struggle to restore power and water. There’s also likely to be a food crisis when shipping infrastructure is compromised, and stores don’t have the electricity to maintain refrigeration.
What You Can Do
Be fully informed about the potential natural disasters that can affect your area. Then make a disaster survival plan with fallback contingencies.
This should include a plan for bugging in with a generator and your freshwater supplies. You should also have clear criteria for when it’s time to evacuate or move to a bug-out location.
Consider establishing a plan that coordinates with your neighbors. Helping them understand what they can do to be more self-sufficient reduces the chances of them needing your support in a natural disaster or pool supplies in a dire time!
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“Setting aside three months’ worth of savings” might be a good thing to do but it will not pull you through the long haul. In a long SHTF, most people will drain any savings they might have. The main things a person needs to pull through a long SHTF is shelter, heat, clean water, food, clothes, and a powerful will to survive.
As mentioned before prepping is a short term project to get us through these Bidenomics times of godless faith in America.
Our finances are already being drained as we taxpayers are propping up the economy by increased taxes, funding the illegal freeloader’s free lunch of benefits. Plus caring for our own family members and the deep state screwing the American homeless and the homeless American veterans. Veterans are being thrown out of their rooms to make room for the illegals.
Not only that the VA system doctors are being used at the southern border to care for the illegals. So the VA is also screwing the homeless vets last then being first as taxpayers fund the whole mess.
What will you be be thankful for on Memorial Day?
Whose country is this for?
God bless America
Memorial Day is to honor the fallen heroes of many wars and Veteran’s Day is to honor the living veterans of the day.
Most ignorant public see these days as an excuse to have a three day weekend drinking and barbecue fest and the latest store sales.
Will America return back to it’s moral compass, America first than last here and in the world?
Since hardly anybody seems to be thinking about how Bidenomics will affect us 5 years down the road, it makes sense to think about and begin preparing for the main things every needs to pull through a long SHTF: shelter, heat, clean water, food, clothes, and a powerful will to survive.
Two young generations have been dumbed down by the Marxist in the teacher’s union public schools. CRT, DEI and other school curriculum that exploit our children who may become future leaders.
They don’t think past their smartphones, heads buried into their tik tok and social media to see what is truly coming ahead.
Prepping and politics are a couple of interesting modern times developments in our culture.
The survivalist of the 1970’s did not have Chinese owning American farmlands and controlling our meat processing industries.
We still have the Carter years of economic mess as they did.
Recycling the past history is happening today.
I agree. Three months worth of savings is nothing and unfortunately too many people have gotten themselves into a pickle because they’ve already maxed out their credit cards. So they have no savings and they have no options. And in a true prolonged SHTF currency is more than likely to become devalued to the point so that no matter much how money you DO have on hand, over time it will purchase less and less. And the very real possibility of hyperinflation where you end up paying a trillion dollars for a loaf of bread. Much better, while you’re still able, to convert your fiat currency into tangible goods like food and water while you’re still able to afford it. We can’t eat the FED note and we can’t eat gold and silver. Beans, bullets and bandaids.
What 3 months of savings gets you, is a way to make 3 house/rent payments while you frantically look for another job. My house payment is less than $500/month and i found it really hard to put away 3 payments. So, in the case of a true SHTF, like an EMP, paper money will rapidly become worthless and that won’t be as much of a concern. Many people don’t get much of a notice before losing a job, and sadly, there are perfectly valid reasons for employers doing that and THAT’S when havin even a months worth of savings can be priceless.
I see your comment a lot – “you can’t eat gold and silver”.
Actually no one ever said that you can eat metals but there’s another aspect to them:
If you have institutionalized debts and obligations like a mortgage, car payments, personal loan payments or property taxes these aren’t going to go away.
You won’t be able to walk into the tax office or lending institution with a case of toilet paper and expect them to accept it as payment for your obligations. But the chances are excellent that they will accept gold or silver.
While everyone on your street is being forced out of their homes or having their vehicles repossessed you might be able to keep your property if you have precious metals.
Once the economic emergency passes you can always sell your metals for whatever the new currency turns out to be.
Hmmmm ….. can’t eat bullets’ or band aides either
Amazing we have to hide in plain sight when in public acting like a neutral looking individual. Unless your a liberal of a certain political party you can do whatever you want.
People don’t like politics and religion comments here but what really drives the prepper paradigm?
Recent helicopter crash killed the elected Iranian president, was that done by Islamic mullah’s running that country?
We got religious Islamist obsessed illegals roaming around America causing troubles. American citizens can’t wear a cross or the Star of David without being targeted by religious foreign nutjobs in America.
I want my America back again, not a foreign controlled Manchurian puppet in the white house hopped up on a drug cocktail to function.
Pray to God for our salvation of America.
If you are referring to Donald Trump being in the Whitehouse, I agree with you.
He is a crazy cult leader, with a following that is blindly following his coat tails. Why, I do not know. I cannot answer that, but ever since Covid, people’s minds have turned to soup or mush, and common sense has disappeared. And it doesn’t look like it will be back anytime soon. Donald Trump is not an honest man, he has lived his whole life in an entitled condition, and screwed the American people royaly. Remember when he was running the first time, and he said he didn’t pay income tax? Yeah…. a professed billionaire not paying taxes. Well I pay income tax, and I certainly am not a billionaire, nor do I play one on reality T.V.
The Republican party is in-fighting, they are destroying themselves. They are losing credibility. Marjorie Taylor Greene is chaos, negative, and a problem to the Republican party. Seems to be quite a few crazy people running the Republican party. It’s a sad state of affairs that the United States only has 2 old men running to be President. Neither one in their prime, and I wonder how it got to that! Really? No young people want to be President any more? That is crazy scary. (I am not from the United States, but I do watch what crazyness is going on over there!!)
Did you just fall off a Mexican panga boat, hit your head or cross the open southern border?
Biden is downgrading the restricted class of marijuana or pot for you people to smoke your brains out as a way to buy votes for Demoncrats.
Your Demoncrat party started the KKK, hung many Blacks to force them to vote for your side.
Soros is one of your elitist billionaires disrupting American politics by employing do nothing DA’s letting criminals off the hook.
You are another snake in the grass selling political venom.
If you spend more than you’re making, chances are you don’t pay Income Tax!!!!! Research for yourself!!!! Donald Trump is the only one at this point that can save America from a total take over from Marxists and the One World Order that the Democrats want so badly. “You’ll have nothing and be happy” , I’ll stick with the right on this one.
Well said.
Things to do in bringing low T America back to normal.
Get rid of gun free zones a magnet for liberal minded mass shooters where people are defenseless. Have open carry in the public, look at old west history you were able to defend yourself.
The corrupt Soros DA lawyers and judges need to be disbarred, thrown in jail with the criminals.
Let the Jan6th political prisoners out, put the Antifa, BLM and radical Islamist rioter protesters in jail or deport then by the truckloads.
Build the border wall, drill for oil and repair the 14th Amendment end the anchor baby daisy chain loophole for the past 100 years to now.
Pray to God for guidance in these social matters.
Oh yeah plus get rid of the sanctuary state policies that are a big magnet for illegals to get American free benefits, many of us can’t get.
Why did many of you vote for Let’s Go Brandon, I can’t see that happened?
Willy J. Free stuff is just the lure and not the reason they are being dumped in demonicrat run states. The REAL reason the illegals are being dumped in those states is because of political power. When the rules of the Census were changed to include everyone, legal and illegal, it changed the numbers used to calculate representation in the House of Representatives. With D states having more population it gives them more representatives and decreases the representation of non-D states since there are only 435 seats in the House to fill. Since the House is the body that holds the government purse strings that gives them the power to buy votes wherever necessary with give away programs. Using the illegals to displace the “disloyal” black voters is just an added bonus.
Well said Willy!
The money system in this country needs to be over. End the fed and go back to paper ballots. Not to incur the wrath of most here, as I’m definitely sympathetic, DJT increased the debt too and thinks debt is good. How do we get the memo to him?
You hit the nail right on the head A.E.
Another socialist no nothing who voted for Biden the dictator.
A.E, L.C.- are the types that would burn the American flag and put up the Hamas and rainbow flags in place of Old Glory.
Go live in Iran, see how much freedom you have there.
God bless America.
Sister Mary Jones….
Did you notice that I DO NOT LIVE IN THE U.S. AND I AM NOT AN AMERICAN???
Then…..why should we care about your opinion??
Consider this:
Banks are already closing in the Northern USA.
If we have a “Depression” (collapse) the banks will NOT let you withdraw money. Your debit and credit cards will be locked and useless. You will need “stuff” to barter with.
BUT if someone finds out you have “stuff” they want, you are a target. Take out money, soon, in small bills. Lots of dollar bills, some 5’s and a few 10’s. And never pull your money out in front of someone. Tell them you have a to go get it (make sure they do NOT follow you, EVER)
NEVER carry a lot on you and be careful with whom you deal. And have eyes in the back of your head and take someone with you, as backup, that carries. Meet in public places, discreetly. If the GRID collapses, food and ammo will be about all you can barter. But you should NOT unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. Prepare. Stock up.
Seek GOD in everything you do……..GOD BLESS
Wait a minute someone took my L.C. initials I didn’t write that last remark! When I said that A.E. hit the nail on the head is because all the American people have to choose from is two old men. Come on people open your eyes both Democrats and Republicans have lost their minds! Jesus said a house divided WILL FALL! This country has lost its way both parties. I am born and raised American! I love this country but can’t stand the scene! From my point of view all the politicians Dems and Rep just love the money! It makes me sick. Oh, by the way, ISRAEL 100% ALL THE WAY!
No it’s never too late! I have been reading this for sometime now and I guess people steal others identity’s and make remarks that are their own. This is rotten! I guess you people are just a bunch of counterfeit cheap talkers! My dad fought in WWII and my brothers went to Vietnam. Don’t call me a rainbow lefty. I just don’t believe in any of the TWO FACED POLITICIANS! Biden or Trump don’t care about you or America it’s the ALMIGHTY DOLLAR they care about.
Invest in the ONLY decentralized store of wealth buy Bitcoin and put it in self custody! Make war unaffordable.