======Modern Survivalism====== **Modern Survivalism** is the art of optimizing your living conditions and lifestyle, to ensure that you are prepared for the widest array of possible circumstances, such that you are maximizing your chances of survival and prosperity. Most of the information in this topic was inspired by Jack Spirko of [[http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com The Survival Podcast]]. Modern survivalists make a strong effort to have their preparatory activities also benefit their everyday life. They use various techniques to: save money, increase opportunities and improve overall quality of life. Generally, a modern survivalist, will pay the most attention to the following aspects of survival; many of which dovetail into one another: |=|Disaster Preparedness Planning||Planning out your own strategy, of how you will handle unusual situations, by brainstorming on the most likely situations and coming up with plans in advance.|| |=|Money Management||One of the most common disasters, is not natural; but man-made. Poor money management is a causes serious disasters every day. Disasters that can destroy families. Debt is something that we get ourselves into; but must not rely too heavily on. Excessive debt can eat away at our resources, making it impossible to take opportunities when they arise, because we're too bogged down with debt. Debt also is a major risk, in the event that we lose a major source of income and risk having to pay debts while starved for income.|| |=|Growing Your Own Food||Most people have the ability to at least grow a small percentage of their own food. With the proper techniques, such as BiointensiveGardening, we can turn a relatively small portion of land into a food factory. Growing food provides us with food security, potentially saves money and provides an alternative to obtaining food from external sources, which can also be used as a source of income or even a source of trade.|| |=|Minimizing or Eliminating Taxes||There are a variety of ways we can organize our affairs strategically, which will often allow us to legally minimize or eliminate many taxes, which commonly take a big bite out of most people's net income. Minimizing taxes allows us to have more money, exposes us to less legal liability and allows us to avoid funding things we find objectionable; so we have the money to fund the things we actually want, voluntarily.|| |=|Storing Food||Having stored reserves of food is beneficial in a variety of ways. It helps us to effectively deal with situations where food is not available, while also allowing us to take advantage of opportunity buys, so we can get the best deal on our purchases.|| |=|Owning Land||Owning rural land makes it possible to set up significant sources of food production and have other stored resources stockpiled in case of emergencies. It also gives you a place to escape to in times of turmoil in, for instance, a residence in a densely populated area. Rural land is also good to use as a retirement or vacation spot; it can be a very cost effective place to live when you feel like participating less in the rat race.|| --- --- ----{{category}}--- --- ----[[CategoryCategory List of all categories]]