Do you have a line in the sand?

So, "something" has already happened or perhaps international/national/local events are deteriorating. At some point you may have to bug out from where you live. My question is: do you have a line in the sand already mentally drawn that is your trigger to leave? What would have to happen for you to leave? How serious would the situation need to be? For those still working when do you abandon your job? When do you attempt to liquidate bank accounts? When do you make the call to gather your family?
If you don't have any pre-set decision making criteria, how do you avoid the trap that many people get caught in of waiting to long?

 

It's a mixed question, but a good one none the less! Dune is right , Money is not going to be easy to get, and makes you a target. I made it a habit long ago to have cash and other valuables stashed away that I can access at any time. Bugging for me would be a life or death sort of deal, My home is my Bug location, but I do have a few locations I could bug to if I were forced. As for a line in the sand, I see it as a fluid and dynamic situation, or a combo of events that "Triggers" a response on my part, and the nature of the situation dictates what, when and how I act.

 

Funny thing about lines in the sand,
Some one is always walking by and messing it up.
I keep thinking I'm going to have to walk home from where ever it is I happen to be headed .
Much as I realize the consequences of numerous events ,short and long term ramifications, despite how we plan/speculate for worst case scenarios , things rarely happen the way I imagine them .
Usually in a good way.

 

thing is in such situations the gov (fema and such) could very easily become your worst nightmare... and enemy...

just thinkin bout Katrina... and thinkin on WHO you have as Governor of a state... and what not...

when you vote... such things as their stance on the Constitution and Bill of Rights... might be worth considering?

 

It's a good idea to keep cash on hand anyway. With all the hacking and worms floating around, it could come to pass that you won't be able to access your money for an extended period. Banks and financial services are not immune. In the meantime, you still need groceries, fuel for your vehicles, vital services, etc.

A few years ago I was at a gas station in a remote part of Arizona when their internet connection dropped. They could not accept any credit or debit cards. I needed gas but fortunately I had cash, because that was the only way to pay for it. The next gas station was about 40 miles and probably could've made it, but it would have been a squeaker.

Imagine a situation such as that on a state wide or even nation wide scale.

 

Back to the new version of the golden rule, "He who has the gold rules!!". In my lifetime, I have drawn many lines in the sand, but the powers that be keep changing the rules and the sand shifts. As a child of the 1940's picking up scrap iron for war drives and picking milkweed pods for the navy, being in the USAF in the late 1950's and the Korean war and cold war, watching the Cuban missile crisis in the 1960's, the Vietnam and other wars, the space race and the new nuke weapons, the various economic crisis's over the last 60 years, I can with all honesty say that I don't have the slightest clue why I am still alive and have for the most part led a very good life. I have tried my best to avoid all the hype and not jump into things and in the process never made, nor lost millions, in all the fads, stock, housing, tech, etc, and by most accepted standards have had an impoverished life. My old, small house and elderly cars are paid for, we have a little money in the bank, are fairly healthy and have no debt, but I certainly don't have the ability or the desire to proudly stand in front of my Mcmansion, next to my BMW, with my trophy wife. I do my best to keep a stable life and try to ignore lines in the sand. In my lifetime most individual lines have been obliterated by things like, illness, death, divorce, loss of jobs, etc, and the very real personal crisis's have destroyed many of my friend and the "major" crisis has yet to happen. Is the present situation survivable, no, is there any hope of changing it, no, will it get worse, yes, may it destroy me tomorrow, yes, is there a chance that the powers that be may keep it floating until I die, yes. If I had lived in many other areas of the world, my life, no matter what my preps, nor my abilities, would probably been short and horrible, I wasn't born in 1938 in China, or Germany, nor South Africa, USSR, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, etc, so most of my life and those of us reading these lines has been very good more as a result of luck, or the will of God, or karma or something other than our abilities or our preps. I will continue to do my best to muddle on, but have given up on lines and instead try to establish a life style that renders lines unnecessary as much as possible. We aren't as well off as BtPost or Rawles are by living in a remote defensible area, but we don't live in downtown LA either. Our priorities this week are more on the wife's CAT scan on a health issue, and less on the fed and the national debt.

 

My line in the sand was crossed years ago and I bugged out and here I am. You people have been a small part of my re-building. I have been living at the end of the world as I knew it for 20 something years now and I have already said too much.

 

To me this is one of the first things that should be covered. A person is very limited on how much they can prep without money. So shouldn't protecting that money be one of the basic building blocks for survival? It doesn't matter how much you make, if you can save for prepping you can keep cash reserves. Folks have WAY to much faith in banks IMO. If your funds aren't in a bank the .gov or banking system can't lock you out of your funds can they?? My ATM is a gun safe, my long term savings are buried. It can be a PITA to deposit some cash onto a card or use to buy money orders for my purchases at times but at least I control my money.
JMT's

 

Why would anyone keep excess funds in the bank and worry about getting it out when rates are so low and silver so cheap (to me)? I withdraw everything except what I need to pay bills. Some I keep in silver and some in cash. I figure silver will have value longer than currency. However, currency will be king in the immediate aftermath of whatever SHTF we are faced with.

That being said, I bug out every week to my BOL and go home when the wife makes me.

 

It costs nothing to store relative information. How much is the simple skill of lighting a fire worth to a cold billionaire? What is wealth when the only value is surviving or keeping the one's you love secure until tomorrow? Forget monetary values, refugees have. JMHO.

 

A few reasons:
1) I have a mortgage so my payment comes out every couple of weeks. I need a bank account to do that.
2) Some people have a car loan(which I used to) so payments automatically come from one's bank account.
3) Virtually every working person (at least in my area) gets paid by direct deposit into their bank account.

I think you are all getting caught up to much on the word "bank". I, like many other people, am working towards retirement so I have a retirement savings account and other investment accounts. The payments are transferred regularly from my bank account to my other accounts. One of my retirement accounts is from contributions made by my employer. One of the restrictions is that you cannot withdraw from it while you're still working as they want you to save for retirement. Thus the money is not available to withdraw.

Anyway, the point is that I'm not going to save enough for retirement by keeping my money in a mattress. Personally I think my situation is pretty common but from the responses so far it seems that my thinking is very strange! Not using a bank is simply not an option.

The purpose of the original question was to try and determine what others are using as their line on the sand but it is clear many people don't have one. To my way of thinking that means you're flying by the seat of your pants.

Dunerunner made some comments:
"You will not have time to visit the ATM or your Bank. If you do, you will be targeted."

As I wrote above. Keeping all of money outside of a bank or some other financial institution isn't going to happen. Aren't any of you investing for retirement?

"You should have a plan to meet family members at a designated place, establish code words, etc."
Yes you should. Everyone should. My question though was when do you activate said plan? See further comments below.

"You should determine when you need to get out of Dodge."
Again, agreed. But again, my question is what criteria are you using to determine when to leave? Don't any of you have jobs? What point do you abandon them? Dune also said "events are unpredictable". While I agree to a point that this is so it would seem to make sense to have some plans already made depending on whether x, y or z happens.

During the cold war, US doctrine was that an enemy nuclear strike would not happen with no provocation of any kind. The general thinking was that there would be a period of destabilization during which conditions between the two countries broke down, the typical period mentioned was 30 days. I tend to have the same general belief now. Society is not going to break down overnight. I personally think there will be some kind of trigger event so my original question ultimately boils down to what are you, as people who believe in prepping, watching for? Ura-Ki said "I see it as a fluid and dynamic situation, or a combo of events that "Triggers" a response on my part, and the nature of the situation dictates what, when and how I act." I am assuming others have a similar thought so my question is what would have to happen, specifically, for you to leave? What combination of events would have to occur? I am asking so that I can get ideas that I may not have considered.

 

May be that 's why we make lines in sand , and not in stone.

 

That is thinking of the unimaginable. People cannot truly wrap their brains around not having money & stuff. We have been born and raised with material items around, even scavenging from a dumper is more then some in a 3rd world country will ever possess. I find many think of prepping as buying and possessing but they have never tried to fashion a spear head from a rock (not easy, I got frustrated and gave up). Instead of going on vacation to a cabin in the woods or a tropical vacation, go on an alternative vacation, to a place where all day is spent gathering dirty water or where the children eat dirt to fill their bellies.

My line in the sand, I am not sure what would make me leave. I have places in mind to go but the actual events, those cannot be clearly defined. If things are really bad and one of my kids has yet to make it back or they are not at the meeting points, that would be a tough decision to leave. Most people will not up and leave their jobs because they will believe that tomorrow will be better, it has to be right? This is America and we always land on our feet. But one day we will not and that will be incomprehensible to many.

 

Problem is we can't be the frog enduring the progressive boil in the water.

 

True. Although with the billionaires assets he would be able to afford to stock pile matches and other methods to make starting a fire/his survival a lot easier. Push come to shove I can start a fire with a wood drill or my eye glasses, but it's a damn site quicker and easier to use my zippo. Using those monetary assets to not only help keep loved ones alive but to be in a position to thrive is my goal.
JMT's

 

I'm old, I'm pissed off, armed and as prepared as able. With the exception of fire or flood I'm not going anywhere. I moved to my retreat almost five years ago. I have a line in the sand. It will be better for all concerned if it's not crossed.

 

Good question which I hadn't really thought of before. I would guess that if a Nuke went off killing 20,000 plus people somewhere in the US not near me, I'd make plans to move to a more isolated area where Nukes/radiation would be less likely to happen. If there was a deadly Pandemic with no cure against starting quite far from me, I'd move to an isolated area. As far as international events, wouldn't have any affect on me whatsoever unless a Nuclear Attack on the US looked eminent. Note whether or not this move by myself is successful is another matter.

 

I don't have anything profound to add, only that it makes me mourn the time when a people would make their own damn country for less than we put up with.