All valid points, but two years supplies runs you right into issues of storage space, mobility and dependence on a single location.
I have had people working against me in the real world to the point that I have had to deal with the jealousy and fear of others who for whatever reasons decided to pre-emptively sabotage my preps, even when those preps were done with generosity toward them as a key component. In fact I will likely be going into a lot of detail on that in a few months when I regain control of my old website.
Even John Rawles book, there are a lot of comparisons between the different types of preps people had done in the book, and survival methods from the people who had a rock solid retreat fortress (which eventually gets wiped out in an artillery barrage) to some cannibals with rudimentary weapons and a hand cart, to the Mutant Zombie biker gang.
I suggest getting a copy of the book at least as a baseline for knowing what the rest of us are discussing.
Kurt Saxon used to discuss some of the most valuable survivalist preparations are not so much your piles of stuff, but your skills and knowledge, along with being reasonably able bodied, but then he anticipated (I think rightfully) that a wise and clever old man with very little physical ability left could be very useful to the right group if he applies knowledge and experience.
The thing I look at right now is mobility. In the past, I had a specific designated survival bugout rig. A ford Diesel van previously owned by a gold prospector who had it set up for off road use and foul weather camping. It was costly to run and I ended up buying another econo car for everyday use, leaving the rig as a "project" vehicle for survival use.
Some people know what happened within my "group" as discussed in some other forums. We were infiltrated, myself and another guy badly betrayed. My "standing in the community" was not just being challenged from the outside as I had originally thought, but was being undermined by a government sponsored campaign. When the moves were made, we were looted.
I found out that my bugout rig had been sabotaged, my retreat looted and under virtual seige. Preps left with some people were either given away or simply claimed by them.. Every time I articulated my survival plans to more than one or two people, the information got to people who meant to do harm with that information. Information I put on the net was used as targeting information, although in the long run, the hatred put my way was in part due to the fact that I was also putting out sound advice and preps which due to the nature of the net, would be permanent.
No matter how boxed in I was locally, friends on the net started to come through a bit, and in reality people several states away ended up being my best friends, the people I could trust he most. The people who "get it" are often quite few and far between, and that prick neighbor or even family member who observes and reports your preps might just be the one who has an eye on cashing you in when the time is right.
There is a component that you just never really know until some heavy shit goes down who is good and who is bad, and at that point, who is good for you and who is bad for you.
Right now, I have a few caches, nothing to brag about, and have had this concern of them being compromised shortly after laying them in, especially if those involve trusting people. In the past I went to people based caches and found that they had been squandered, maintenance not done, their end of preps not laid in with mine, or stuff just plain given away.
I look at my mobility options right now and hate to discuss it, but it involves what I see as a cargo limit on the largest vehicle I own, and if that gets lost, damaged or sabotaged, then plan B is the next smaller vehicle I own. Plan C the next smaller yet, Plan D maybe a bike, Plan E the backback. Plan F, well, Plan F is that controversial one, which involves knowing the security details of how certain places with large not so accounted for motorpools handle their security.
Food supplies, similar fashion. And thus, according to Rawles blueprint, plan A is my retreat, plan B is running a circuit of other retreats where I would remain welcome. Now that had in the past involved pre-staging some supplies, materials and items at the other people's places, but that proved problematic and non-reciprocal for the most part.
That's where I came up with the "ownership of extra" plan, which means owning extra stuff which I can share, and hoping others get on the same program as a team play, even if that team may not be fully formed until after SHTF. As according to what the Trochtmans had told me, of what they knew of people who had gone through the crisis situations in the 1990s, a lot of those "allies" that certain people thought they had were selling them out, and then some people who were initially not even trusted that much, often times due to a borderline criminal nature, were the ones most willing and capable of pulling through when the crisis were happening.
In my regular life, which right now in this economy is practically at the survival level anyway, I am learning the skills of on the spot character judgement in getting stuff done, often making hiring decisions within minutes, and a couple days ago, seconds, of meeting someone due to the nature of the work I do. My experience of getting burned sort of helped me with that, but I have still made mistakes in trusting people. My most common mistake is trusting people on the basis of status with the government because I have still not been able to psychologically undo my basic military training and mentality.
I still have that thing in the back of my head that says "oh, SF, Marine, ex cop, must be cool" and whammo, get screwed over or let down. I have literally done better on getting some stuff done by giving smokes to bums than tasking a former SF guy with it. Two of the better guys I have worked with on some straight labor jobs and coordinating some of the food related survival preps were long time felons who probably only quit a life of crime because they aged out of it.
Right now, I think my current food supply could go two months in relative comfort, but that's not counting stuff which would totally replace the perishables. Matter of fact, I work up early to take care of some business today in a different time zone and decided to make breakfast for a change. Found that since I was skipping breakfast for most of the last month in trying to lose weight, a bunch of stuff is really borderline on some expiration date issues. Popped open some MRE Applesauce and it went to the trash.
I think my country retreat is down to maybe a 30 day supply due to a relative living there and going through a bunch of stuff when he was on hard times and I could not be there. Now that place can be tranformed into a semi-sustainable farm, but only be recruiting people willing to work.
That to me gets back to that people issue. From a survival standpoint, not just in a major economic downturn but pretty much any time, you get people on rural land that has even halfway decent soil and water and you can pull a subsistence lifestyle in part through technology IF, and I say IF, the people are willing to do the farm work. We are not talking big tractors plowing an acre a pass with six share plows, but labor intensive gardens, fruit trees and vinyards. That, however all requires relative peace in order to be propserous and sustainable, in fact given ten years of that, the people sustaining the property would be up to a fairly decent standard of living as long as they are not bleeding too much money out, say in the form of rent. Likewise, the retreat can't be bleeding money out in the form of wages and major external spending.
That's all stuff which starts to fall apart in the conflict scenario, and as in Rawles book there reaches a point when the survival group has to abandon and boobytrap their beloved retreat prior to it coming under attack from the same group that had demolished the more fortified retreat down the road.
I am also noticing that article was put on Rawles website, but appears not to have been written by Rawles himself.
I know for me, right now, having more preps at my current location than what I could either consider mobile or abandonable is not going to work. I would hope that I can find someone within one fuel tank worth of distance who would be able to take in a guy who is bringing 180 watts of solar panels, brewing equipment, contractor tools sufficient to build a house, food for a month or two and some other homestead stuff would be welcome without simply getting looted and then taken out in the pasture and pre-emptively shot for not being fully vetted enough or "failing" someones morality audit and getting "fined" or placed on permanent servitude upon arrival.
