The Urban Survivalist

There are a lot of sources for gold jewelry. Jewelry stores are the last place that you want to look. Even at the "80% off blowout sales" you can expect to pay a hefty premium over spot. There are plenty of other great places to buy gold, though. Department stores like Wal-Mart and K-Mart are probably the easiest places to find cheap gold at close to spot. Just look for the clearance items. You can usually find some really small baubles for $15-$100 in 10k and 14k. You can bring a scale but a lot of times the tag will have the weight on it in grams. I've found several pieces for 10% under spot on the clearance rack. Keep in mind that most of the bigger pieces are hollow so they're lightweight and fragile. This is actually a benefit in my eyes since it's a lot cheaper that way. Department stores are the cheapest source for gold that you know is real without having to test it. Pawn shops are another option. Most of them will mark down substantially a...

My posts have been getting less and less frequent lately. I apologize for that. Sometimes I just get busy with other things and the blog takes a back seat. Over the last month or so of slow posting I've had a lot of ideas come to mind so the posting should start to pick up a bit. Anyway, I've finally reached my initial goals that I had set for my silver collection. I actually exceeded it by a decent amount. Having done that I decided that it was time to start getting into gold. Unfortunately, gold is expensive. I built up my silver collection over several months by spending maybe $50-$100 per month. Gold coins and bullion, however, carry a hefty premium if you buy it in small fractional coins. It only took a couple of times buying 1/10th oz gold eagles before I decided to come up with a different solution. Then I remembered Ferfal talking a few times about how he wished that he'd bought more jewelry before the crash in Argentina. He's mentioned this in sev...

If you haven't seen this yet it's worth a look. There's a documentary on youtube (embedding disabled by request so you have to click to watch) that highlights a small community in New Mexico. Here's the trailer. The community is off the grid. Everyone lives in trailers, shanty shacks and other buildings that they manage to hobble together. There seem to be a lot of vets, old hippies and crazy people in the community. Then there's the little group of runaways who think that the rules don't apply to them. The only real government are the "elders". Everyone has a say but ultimately the elders make the decisions. Resources are limited. They have to haul their water from miles away. It's interesting to see how they interact. This particular community probably wouldn't last in a grid down, supply lines cut, SHTF scenario. Once the gas dries up they wouldn't be able to haul water, anymore. They also can't produce enough of...

This weekend Harbor Freight is having a parking lot sale. Their 2 stroke 800w generators are on sale for $79.99. If your local store is compliant then you could also get another 20% off . There's a very long review thread on Arfcom that contains just about everything you need to know about this generator. The general consensus is that it's a hell of a deal, very durable and works as advertised. This little guy isn't going to run your whole house but if you use it wisely it will make a disaster a whole lot more comfortable. It will keep the lights on and it's a good solution to keep a battery bank charged. For basic stuff it's a whole lot better than nothing...especially for $80 (less if they honor the coupon). I'm not affiliated with Harbor Freight. I just know a good deal when I see one. If you don't own a generator and a genset that can run your whole house is out of your price range then consider grabbing something like this.