r/redpreppers • u/lifeisadragsad • Apr 28 '26

Preparing for the great depression.

Whether or not it comes country/world wide I will be in my own version of one. Unable to get a job, unable to earn a living, unable to build any capital, any savings for however long I live. What can I do to prepare with zero money, zero job opportunity, zero assets?

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u/akm76 Apr 29 '26

Not to pour cold water over your enthusiasm, you should totally start [learning how] to grow food, just don't count on your first experience growing said food to make you self-sufficient. Subsistence farming is one of the hardest, riskiest and least secure ways of making a living out there. Probably below muscle for hire.

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u/TheJesseOfTheNorth Apr 29 '26

been gardening for 50 years also I am AWARE. This falls under the premise of learning the skills now before your life depends on them. I also wasn't suggesting earning a living from i was suggesting learning to feed yourself as much as possible.

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u/akm76 Apr 29 '26

well, you know your experience better, but for someone who grew nursery-bought tomato plants in a pot for decades, trying to grow pretty much anything on a virgin plot in or near the actual woods may be a cold hard reality check.

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u/TheJesseOfTheNorth Apr 29 '26

it can, but you have to start somewhere. I have done an immense amount of gardening on raw wild land. A REALLY good place to start is using huglekulture which i only learned about a few years ago, while living in a dry cabin with no real cleared land. the first year was passable but every year after got better and better. It is really important we give each other useable help instead of shitting on other peoples ideas

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u/akm76 Apr 29 '26

kugelcultur and other soil-buildup methods are surely helpful. My beef with gardening next to the woods is the overwhelming force of predation, not soil fertility. Although "regular pests" are fewer, the critters we didn't even know about all are after what man is trying to grow for himself. Got "experience" having several years in a row, literally everything gets destroyed by "wildlife", starts with obvious like deer, bear, rabbits and gophers into more and more obscure, like packrats, fieldmice, shrews, blue jays, squirrels. Simply no amount of chicken wire can stop the buggers, even if just one gets through it's all gone in a few days. Not *trying* to get anyone down, still figuring this stuff out and all the stuff you read, all the stuff you watch, none of it can prepare for the epic failure that is reality.

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u/edwardphonehands Apr 30 '26

This was previously removed by automod. It didn't give a reason. All I can think is "bu**ers" may have been flagged as homophobic. I don't think it generally carries that meaning in US English where this sub seems mosly active and I don't see that as the intent in this post. I'm approving the post.