Alpha Strategy in action

One of the lessons I've learned over my two year hiatus from blogging is having implemented the Alpha Strategy is effective, but not completely so. Reason being is stockpiles of increasing in cost commodities does not cover for monthly living expenses.

Such storage does help to mitigate a lack of cash for things you need such as laundry detergent and toilet paper. Another finer point is having the necessary equipment such as food processors is also a must. Huge cans of tomatoes are nice, without a way to quickly turn them into tomato sauce means they will not be used.

Another point is ones family has to like the food or it will not be used.

A few items of food processing equipment that would have been helpful:

-Bread machine, these save hard cash
-Food processor, for making everything from tomato sauce to jalapeno mustard.
-Crock pot, for making everything from frijilos con porco to lasagna to onion soup

All three items can be easily found at most thrift stores such as goodwill and at local community free cycle locations.

Overall however, the Alpha Strategy has worked as long term unemployment and underemployment is a fact of life in Asheville North Carolina. Several of my coworkers have remained unemployed for two years now. A family member has been under employed for at least a year. My fellow coworkers who have found jobs are making much less then they were prior to being laid off.
Some have grown extra large gardens, others have opened online businesses. The ones whose spouses have remained employed weathered the financial turmoil, the family member has been forced to go deeply into stockpiled Alpha Strategy goods such as canned hams. In my case the food has not been an issue, the problem items have been household goods such as toilet paper and laundry detergent, these cost hard cash and there are no substitutes that seem workable such as homemade laundry detergent.

Ammunition is literally disappearing off the store shelves in what can only be described as a "panic". 

Nothing wrong with that, people should cherish their Rights, the problem is, how do you save money and still remain armed and accurate? 

Enter the ChiCom .177 pellet rifle, typically sells for 50 dollars or less, pellets are relatively cheap, and they hit hard enough to bring down small game such as rabbits or squirrels or soda bottles and since they are modeled after the SKS (which is now a 300 dollar rifle, weren't they 59 dollars not that long ago?) one can also have some training time behind a similar rifle. The cheapy ChiCom also allows for a telescopic site to be added which helps with accuracy a great deal.

This gentleman used his pellet rifle to successfully bring home some supper:

http://www.americanairgunhunter.com/huntingwithchineseAG.html

The price increase in SKS rifles is a great example of inflation in action, when they first became available in the early 90's, they were viewed as semi crappy fixed magazine rifles that could be had for next to nothing, now they command a week's pay and the ammunition is no longer 1.99 per 20 cartridges..and that happened in 13 years or so.