Recently clients who live and work in cities around the world, have had to shift jobs and careers, as the unemployment rate increases. And so we take a long hard look at our lives and incomes to determine how to be self sustainable whether we live on a single income, or more than one source of revenue.

Years ago I blogged that we are in a recession and things will bottom out. Why? Because they just didn't work and as consciousness shifts ... that which does not work gets deleted. So let's see what we can do to preserve our lives in a sustainable way until it all shifts into something better.

The following are preparatory steps complied by a friend that hopefully will guide the choices you make in 2009. Some of the suggestions go to survival in emergency situations, such as those create by natural disasters, while others go to the economy itself. You know the issues, but perhaps the information below can help you prepare today.

STEP 1: Get Your Basic Necessities in Order

In order to be self sustainable, one of the most vital elements to consider is whether you have enough food, water, medication, and money to last until your income returns.
Action Plan
1. Be sure to keep money at home to pay at least one month's bills.
2. If you don't have one already, set up a 72-hour kit to be ready to go if need be. This should include basics: water, food, clothing, communication devices, passports (ID), toilet paper, etc. Visit 72hours.org for more info.
3. You've heard about planting new seeds. It doesn't hurt to go back to the land and plant seed, either indoors or out.
4. Gather items for your food storage. You will want to have at least 6 months worth of food supply available for your family, if possible. There is a great website that gives you all you need to know from what to stock in your food storage, to great food storage recipes: nomoregroceryshopping.blogspot.
5. Find a way to cook your food whether or not you have electricity. A great step by step guide to building a solar oven can be found here: the farm, or do a google on cooking without electricity.
6. If you can afford it, get solar power installed. Even if it is as simple as a solar powered flash light or radio.
7. Make sure you have plenty of gas in your car to get you to wherever you need to go. Also, keep some extra gas cans around, just in case.
8. For more information on how you can be prepared, visit ricktobin.com/roadtoready, and search through the archives of past radio shows on preparedness.

STEP 2: Get Your Home in Order

Are you currently living in a place where if something were to happen and you could not pay your bills for a while, you be okay? If not it is time to do some serious thinking about what you would do if you could not access your money from the bank. Sometimes the answer to these questions may be to downsize your home. Or it may be that you would go and live with relatives for a while until you could get back on your feet. Or if you simply do not want to leave, then perhaps you may get two part time jobs to keep you going. Whatever it is, make a plan A, and then make a plan B. Actions Plan 1. Come up with a plan of action, network with family and friends. 2. Get a generator that can power your home, and enough fuel to keep it going for a few days 3. Consider cutting back on extra spending. Set a budget, and make sure that you are using your resources wisely. 4. If you don't have one, and have the money to do so install a wood burning fireplace inside of your home, and get a couple months supply of wood that you can burn.

STEP 3: Contribute

We are seeing layoffs left and right, whether you are in the banking industry, the auto industry, or anywhere in between, there is a domino effect taking place. Many are wondering, what would our world be like without money? Would we go back to the barter system that was in place ages ago where one neighbor has eggs to offer and the other has wheat? Actions Plan 1. Update your resume and cover letter and have it ready to go at a moments notice. 2. Set clearly defined goals. What kind of work would you like to do? How much money do you expect to make? By when will you have this job? 3. Finding work is a 40 hour a week job. Get off of the couch, search for jobs and post your resume left and right. 4. If you have the resources and the knowledge to bring it about, start your own business. You can set it up as a side business for a start. 5. Figure out what your best at. What is a practical life skill you have that you can offer? Are you great at building homes? Making bread? Knitting blankets? Do you have an orchard producing apples? 6. Network with people who have different skills and trades. You never know when you may need to barter. 7. Visualize and clearly see exactly where it is you see yourself being. When you have done all that you can do, have absolute faith that you will be provided for.

Summary "When you have come to the edge Of all light that you know And are about to drop off into the darkness Of the unknown, Faith is knowing One of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly" -Patrick Overton We are coming to a point in the world right now where it is time to get back to the simple things in life. As you simplify your life, you will find that there is immeasurable reassurance that comes with it. The knowledge that you have the power and the know-how to take care of yourself is something that no amount of money can buy. Living a simpler life not only takes away many stress factors, it also facilitates that close feeling of interconnectedness with our fellow human beings. By networking with those around you, you are able to develop relationships with people who you otherwise may have just passed by. Never give up on your dreams, always strive towards them, and be willing to take what comes and face reality as it is. Don't let the media and their fear keep you in their paralyzing grip. Choose instead to get your home in order and be ready for whatever life may decide to throw at you.

Want to find out where your life is heading
during this economic upheaval?

Killing America, Part I
Whiskey & Gunpowder December 8, 2008
By Don Stott www.ColoradoGold.com

There are a lot of ways to kill something, either slowly or quickly. As for a living thing, you can shoot it, run over it, or use some other instant way of getting rid of it. There are slow ways, such as poison administered gradually, or perhaps destroying its ability to care for itself. If you took a domesticated animal, and put it out in the wild, it would starve or be eaten because it wouldn’t know how to hunt or protect itself. In the animal kingdom, the weak are eliminated because of not being able to protect themselves from predators, illness, or some other form of weakness. This is the natural method which nature uses to keep the animals strong and healthy. The old and weak are at times eaten by the young and strong. Mutants are sterile, so their kind won’t reproduce and pollute the animal kingdom.

Enough about animals; let’s examine how America has, and is being killed. In the main by two methods: (1) Currency destruction, and (2) Weakening the populace. The currency destruction is inseparably linked to the second method. Before FDR, people used to plan for their retirement, save in sound dollars, own a home, or in a hundred ways, plan for old age. Americans were strong, intelligent, hard working, and knew that if they didn’t plan for retirement and old age, they might die early. Did it work? Of course! Naturally, the weak and stupid didn’t plan for their old age, and guess what? They died early, which is as it should have been. Just like stupid animals, they couldn’t survive if they didn’t act and plan properly. An animal has to find a place to live, build a nest, store food, and the like. People had to pay their debts, pay off their home, save money, and PLAN. If they did, all was OK. If they didn’t, they died early. The human strain was kept strong by this method, just like in the animal kingdom.

What stopped this necessity to plan and save? Social Security, for one. Government would take care of the oldsters, and remove their duty and necessity to care and plan for themselves. Government would force a deduction from their paychecks, put it away for them, and then when they retired, all would be well. This, of course, weakened the populace. They no longer had to plan, save, sacrifice, and work hard for their old age. The weak no longer failed and died. They lived, and continued to live, when they should have, by all logical means, been dead and buried. By staying alive, they became and become a burden on the rest of the populace and families. Does this sound coarse, mean, crude, and ungodly? Maybe it does to you, but it is so logical. The Social Security scheme, like all other government “plans” and bureaucracies, have ruined the value of the dollar. Forced, compulsory, Social Security, like all other government entitlements, has become a disaster. There are far more retirees than workers, and the original 1% deduction, now is close to 20%, still not enough, thereby weakening all of us. As if that weren’t bad enough, government continues to lie about inflation, which it causes, so the welfare checks are far less than they should be; thereby screwing the supposedly well cared for recipients. No one can live on a Social Security check today, even though we have all been forced to pay through our noses to support it. The entire American citizenry has been made weaker, made unable to care for itself, and at the same time been stolen from in a wholesale manner. Government then, is killing its citizens and itself at the same time.

Originally, there were no public schools. Everyone taught their kids at home. Literally, or in a private or religious school. Caring, smart parents taught them well, and the kids succeeded. America, a hundred years ago was far more educated and cultured than now. By knowledge and skills of reading, math and other subjects, the eighth grader of a hundred years ago compares equally with today’s college student or maybe even graduate. This was without any public schools. The stupid parents who didn’t teach or show caring, demonstrated it in their kids who failed in life, probably died early, and didn’t become a burden on the rest of society. Next, there were thousands of one-room schoolhouses, paid for by the local populace, and these schools did very well, but it was the beginning of large public schools, which seem to be not much more than baby sitters. Home schooling has once again become the smart thing to do by caring parents, because they realize that government schools are a disaster, like every other government scheme and “program.” Public schools now consume three quarters of all property taxes, and do a lousy, expensive job. Catholic parents usually send their kids to parochial schools which are in no way “public” and not paid for by taxpayers. Wealthy parents may have sent, and still do, send their kids to private schools, not paid for by taxes, and they always did and still do a fine job.

Government schools had to fail, like all “programs” fail, because of inefficiency and cost. The failure and cost of public schools is partially responsible for populating the streets of America with thugs, criminals, druggies, shoplifters, burglars, rapists, and all sorts of riff-raff, which should be dead, and maybe not have been born in the first place, probably. Trash, uneducated, uncaring people seem to multiply at enormous rates and cause a lot of crime, don’t they? Cruel, ungodly, and coarse? Maybe, but picture America if there had never been a public school, and every child had been home-schooled or sent to a private school, paid for by its parents, with little or no property taxes, and no terrible, microscopic educating in failing public schools. There would be thousands and thousands of private schools operating for profit, and competing with each other for achievement, being used by parents who chose not to home-school. No teachers unions and inept teachers. There couldn’t be because competition in the market wouldn’t allow for it. There would be schools specializing in cooking, engineering, language, math, or whatever the parents chose for their kids. There would be an abundance of religious schools, paid for by churches and parents of pupils, but no drain on taxpayers of any kind, and superb education.

The public school systems, even in small towns like the one I live in, have proved to be expensive disasters. Homeowners are being taxed severely to pay for these incompetent, inefficient, poorly educating, sinkholes of fading dollars. So ingrained have public schools and Social Security become in the American mind, that most will disagree with my thesis. They will moan and groan about how, “We have to care for old people and educate the children,” even though facts and logic prove that the opposite has happened, and cost a fortune in dollars and crime. America has inflicted wounds on itself over the last hundred years, because the general public opinion is that, “People need to be helped and taught,” regardless of the cost or lack of success at either. Perhaps 1% of America will agree with me on this first part, because they are so mind-numbed by government propaganda, the media, and the garbage they themselves have learned in classrooms of public schools. Government and “programs” always come out ahead, and are painted as glorious and wonderful by the media, schools, and bureaucrats. They are the opposite, and are partly responsible for the killing of America. Once something gets started, regardless of the total illogic of it, such as public schools and Social Security, there is a zero chance of obliterating it, because so many have become dependent, and thereby weak. How can a nation survive if it is weak?

Buy Stevia and split your H20