Prepper Finances
Helping you find the right ways to secure your future
The Self Sufficient Prepper (FINANCES)
The Mainstream Prepper (FINANCES)
The Worst Case Scenario Prepper (FINANCES)
The three archetypes above may not be exactly in line with your personal financial viewpoints – but they do offer you a strong starting point for the ideas surrounding preparedness and money matters. The Self-Sufficient prepper is the most likely scenario for most preppers – they want to be ready for most things, and need to be more prudent, and have a bit more of their own responsibility for their well-being to feel more secure than most typical citizens. The mainstream prepper is more in-line with a newer prepper, or one that doesn’t take any hardcore viewpoints and is still comfortable in typical market offerings, including using public markets and generally aligns with the majority of the population on finances, etc. The worst case scenario prepper may have a distrust of public systems, or even the government, whether by mindset, or by actual experience. The Worst Case scenario prepper may need more decentralized, and austere solutions to feel good about their financial preparation. THESE ARE PHILOSOPHICAL POSITIONS – CHOOSE BASED ON YOUR IDEOLOGIES, NOT NECESSARILY OTHER FACTORS.
Choosing one of the above archetypes may help you find articles and resources on defiel.com that more closely align with your beliefs and help you find the right financial methods and models to accomplish your goals. Alternatively, you may also be interested in simply looking through articles and resources by name/title too. If you are not sure: use the FAQ sections below to see some of the concepts that might closely be related to each type of prepper we cater to from a financial perspective on this website – this can help you use our resources better.
Are you a Self-Sufficient Prepper when it comes to money matters?
If you lost your job, would your first instinct be to look to your prepper pantry? And then breathe a sigh of relief?
Self-sufficiency is kind of your thing. You thrive on having things in place for when situations go south. You carry a multi-tool in your pocket or purse. You carry a battery backup when yo travel. You would be (or already have been) an early adopter for solar, or hydrogen fuel cells. When things go south, you just grin, because you are already positioned to weather the storm. If this describes you, you’re probably mostly aligned with the Self-Sufficient Prepper financial archetype.
You buy an extra couple of cans of food each time you shop for groceries, and have a water filtration system in a backpack, don't you?
You’re not bothered by going to a public grocery store weekly or every couple of weeks to get food – mainstream resources are an important part of your preparedness – but your most important parts are more reliant on your planning, and personal oversight. You know there will be a time in your life that you need to rely on your preparations, so you’re constantly on the lookout for new ways to optimize. While you may not be into certain financial instruments, you probably have some retirement planning, and you have probably explored alternative investments. Sure, you are probably more focused on protecting wealth than you are on growing it, but you’re engaged on multiple sides of the spectrum and each tool or resource is evaluated independently for financial suitability and applicability to your unique scenario.
You recognize the importance of budgeting, long-term savings, and diversification.
Not everything is handled by a single solution. Layers of financial security will best ride out temporary or long-term situations. So, you plan. You plan for the here and now. But you also have intermediate goals. You’re also aware of how compounding interest can help you in the long-run. Sure, you are not completely enamored with the “full faith and credit” of some of the institutions that are catering to the masses, but with the right mix of financial tooling, and a good mindset, a proper plan can get you to where you want to be. You’d rather be bill-free, and own a homestead than be a billionaire, but you’re not afraid to use some of the resources available to the mainstream financial consumer if it means getting to that homestead quicker.
Self-Sufficient Preppers may be interested in using mainstream financial instruments, but tend to be a bit more privacy oriented; and prefer not to overtly rely on normal public channels for support as heavily. Their goal is to be able to handle most economic conditions without outside help, but would tend to skew towards relying on their own preps, and being willing to live a slightly less glamorous lifestyle in favor of being able to say they have accomplished goals by being a bit more austere than the general population. Things like extensive food preps and alternative non-grid tied power generation might be high on their list. Removing recurring bills, in favor of spending one-time for their own infrastructure might be a goal. They bridge the gap between the other two archetypes we cater to here from a general perspective. this type of financial prepper is likely to be the majority of the visitors to this site. They want economic freedom, accept that some of the opportunity to attain such freedom may have to be tied to public and governmental resources at some level, and some some level of trust for generally accepted financial practices, including mainstream retirement planning, but may not agree with the same type of retirement planning that is sold in a brochure in your typical financial planner’s office.
Are you a Mainstream Prepper when it comes to money matters?
ETF's and Crypto are reasonable - nay, important - in helping you to grow wealth
If it’s a new instrument that can help you optimize your portfolio, you’re willing to be sold – for a bit. Your mentality is that money is important, and it helps you accomplish the preparedness goals you have. Even if you have to deal with some of the market volatility, and trust a big financial isntitution to get the benefit of the investment. You are contributing to your retirement regularly through payroll channels. You might even have a Bloomberg subscription, or belong to an email list for CNBC – just to make sure you know what’s happening in the markets. Tax minimization is an important factor, but you’re really trying to build wealth right now, so it’s more of a tool to increase compounding, than it is a way to protest the government.
You understand what balancing a portfolio looks like, but you're overweight tech and have a 90% US Equities mix.
You prefer good old American Equities to fully diversifying your portfolio – because there is a lot of money being left on the table if you’re giving up potential returns for a little bit of safety. That doesn’t mean you aren’t diversified among sectors, though. You just findamentally beleive that the market will go up 5-9% on average annually over the long-term, and tech is really good right now. Your planning has allowed you to feel confident in a market downturn, because you have a long-term time horizon. You’ll probably move to a higher percentage of fixed income over time, just to make sure you are mitigating some risk closer to retirement, but you’re all in on the markets.
You prep because you know there are things that can go wrong, but you're just trying to live your life
Money is a means to accomplish goals. You’re going to travel – with the appropriate preparation and to the right destinations to avoid an international risk. You are also OK with trusting the system your financial planner has helped you to build. But there is a little nagging belief in the back of your head that you need to be a bit more prepare than the mainstream. You’re confident that everything is going to be alright, but you want to have options, too. Credit card debt is not as palatable as say, a home mortgage, but a bit of revolving debt is acceptable to you, as long as it contributes positively to your personal goals. You try to utilize good judgment on all money matters, but you are also willing to indulge a bit as cool opportunities come up. If you align with these concepts – you’re probably good to go by choosing this archetype.
Mainstream preppers like the preparedness mindset – maybe it was part of their family dynamic growing up; potentially they have experienced an event or a catalyzing scenario that pushed them towards prepping. A mainstream prepper from a financial perspective will be just fine utilizing public markets (Wall Street, Stocks, bonds, etc.), and will be looking for opportunities to have some advantages in real-world scenarios from a monetary perspective. They are generally less hardcore about prepping, and while they like to have things in place for emergencies, it’s probably a hybrid model that they employ, which helps them gain some peace of mind, while also not negatively affecting their day to day lifestyle. A mainstream prepper might be into using gold as a store of wealth, but may not be into understanding barter and exchange mechanisms from a real-world implementation perspective, but rather as an acknowledgement for general understanding and learning. They may not be as comfortable holding a large amount of gold or alternatives. There is a general trust of the financial system and government relative to the other prepper types we list on this page.
Are you a Worst-Case Scenario Prepper when it comes to money matters?
Is gold an attractive physical investment to you?
If you prefer to have gold rather than fiat/paper money, you may skew towards being a worst case scenario prepper. Having a portable store of wealth like silver or gold may seem more appropriate to you – being able to bug out with a large amount of stored financial power may be a goal on your list of preps.
Do you dislike the idea of money being controlled or overseen by the government?
A general distrust of goverment is a given, probably. Taxes suck (you’re not alone in that belief); fiat money is less than trust-inducing; manipulating the economy by contracting or increasing the money supply through the treasury seems ridiculous to you. Knowing your money could be frozen at the bank level, or that you may have to be subjected to regulatory oversight by a bunch of bureaucrats makes you throw up in your mouth a little. You’re probably more cloesly alignned with this archetype of financial prepper if these are true statements for you.
Are you the type of person that can sacrifice a bit of physical comfort for some peace of mind and control?
It’s not easy being reliant mostly on yourself from a financial perspective. It takes a lot of extra work to make up for the challenges it brings. But the idea that you’re in complete control of your financial potential is important to you, even if it means you won’t be a multi-millionaire, generally. Having a comfortable lifestyle is your main goal, but you’ll sacrifice a bit of temporary comfort for long-term peace of mind. If you feel like this may be you – and you are willing to do some extra research and utilize some more historically relevant concepts – from a time when money wasn’t so casual – you’re probably more aligned with the ideas of a worst case scenario financial prepper.
Worst Case Scenario Preppers from a financial perspective may not necessarily have a distrust of government or of financial markets – but it’s more likely than not that they do not feel overtly confident in the state of affairs from an economic macro perspective. They tend to be a little more (or a lot more) interested in isolationism from a monetary and means perspective. Their distrust of first world monetary policy may even push them to handling wealth through different metrics other than fiat money, or generally accepted public mechanisms, like the stock market, or the banking system. If they do use these platforms, they will tend to put hedges in place to ensure they don’t have a lot of financial risk exposure. A worst-case scenario prepper will probably be interested in decentralized finance. they may also be interested in taking extreme measures to minimize or avoid taxes. They may want to use barter or trade between close communities as a more central financial theme. They would be interested in smaller, more portable, high-value stores of wealth that are tangible, and less subject to the whims of the mainstream market – gold or some forms of crypto currency may be interesting to them. They have goals that mostly align with being austere in planning, and extreme from a self-sufficiency perspective, generally.
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