Stay Home or Beat Feet.

I have been thinking lately of where to go in the event of a meltdown. Now I don't expect an overnight collapse. Even the Great Depression took six months to get into full swing. When things start to go to crap is what you have to worry about. I figure that my wife and I will still have our jobs (at least for a while) when maybe our neighbors won't. If you are working how do you keep others from looting you out while you are not home? Sometimes doubling up or hiding your goodies are not feasable. It would be foolish to quit your job if you still have one when things are bad. Unless of course money is completely worthless at that point. I have a peice of rural property back in the woods but I do have neighbors. We are aquainted with them but thats about it. Probably most people out there are like this. Aquainted but thats about it. That is a OK way to be in normal times but when the SHTF nice neighbors can turn into real threats. Those nice people who wave to you as you go off to work will, in bad times, take everything you have or worse yet attack you get it. There is no way you can make your home into enough of a vault to hold determined people out of it for the 8 or more hours you will not be there. The only way I can forsee avoiding that is to keep a bare minimum of supplies in your primary residence and stockpiling at your "retreat".

I have a couple places to go once we reach Road Warrior times but what to do before that. Our house while it is removed from plain site is still not what I would call a retreat. Living off the land is fine for short term but you really need to have a stable defensible shelter. You need to maintain a low profile. Don't look like you are better off than your neighbors. Don't shoot at your property (I have enough land to shoot but I don't). You don't want people to know you have weapons. Don't talk about guns or any other preps.

When to get out? If you've lost your job and things are starting to look dicey around the home its time to go. You want to go when there is still a police presence. It would not be fun to run into a roadblock and get into a shootout.