This section is meant to detail the things a person would do or consider doing under the very worst of conditions. Cut back again, to a more basic level.

Cut to basic energy needs

• Keep power switched off most of the time.
• No clothes or hair dryer use.
• No cell phones.
• Use furnace only occasionally.
• Stove only occasionally.
• No computer, TV, electronics, or stereo.
• Stop mowing the lawn.
• No electric yard tools.

Reduce living space.

• Live and work in one room.
• Cook in the one living space that you heat.
• Insulate and seal off the living and working space.
• If sleeping in another room, no heat.

Reuse everything

• Begin reusing SOME water - grey water
• Bath water, to dish water, to garden water, etc.
• All water should end up watering crops.
• Start a no garbage life style.
• Keep all containers.
• Food waste to compost or chickens.
• Or to feed worms.
• Packing material is insulation.
• Reuse any building materials.
• Kill the lawn with newspaper.

Consume even less

• One or two meals a day.
• Sew up clothes; keep all rags.
• Don’t break things.
• Buy as little as if possible.
• Share anything that others can use too.
• Stay home; garden with hand tools; watch your home.

Live in a family group

• Give up living at multiple houses.
• If gas is available, plan car use to accomplish many tasks in one trip.
• Pool labor at one central location.
• Garden, cook, tend animals, cut wood as a group.
• Fill a house with many family members living together.

Set up barter

• Store things to trade.
• Trade for your skilled labor.
• Search out barter currencies.
• Find swap meets.
• Gold and silver will most likely be the money.
• Learn what the neighbors around need most and have to trade.
• Online swaps: Craigslist, Yahoo, Freecycle, even Ebay.

Start a NO-EXTRAS routine

• Everything will revolve around food and water.
• Reduce the energy and work you put into nonessentials.
• Take stock of everything you have.
• Work on the necessities first, no matter how hard.

Turn your heat WAY down

• Evaluate whether you need heat at all.
• Living in the Willamette Valley, you can survive all winter with no heat, but you must stay dry.

Protect your family

• Consider weapons of all and any types.
• Keep your mouth shut; think ... “Loose lips sink ships.”
• Become invisible.
• Always know what is going around you and in your neighborhood.
• Set up neighborhood patrols that are not observed.
• Consider blocking off your street to vehicles.

Consider helping others

• You can’t help everyone, but you must help some.
• Be selective.
• The old and the young are the most vulnerable.
• Helping people is a form of barter.
• People you help will help you.
• People you feed will feed you.
• People you protect will protect you.

Scavenge

• It’s time to go to the dump, so to speak.
• Figure out where the abandoned resources are.
• Stores and businesses will close without notice.
• Some people will abandon their homes.
• Abandoned vehicles have many resources, more if you can cut metal.
• Get there first; don’t fight over things, it won’t pay.
• Have a way to move things: a cart or wagon or cycle or horse.
• You will need help, especially getting things home.

Don’t discuss preparations

• Keep your own counsel.
• Even in your closest circles be careful who you tell what you have.

Develop water sources  *

• This is probably the toughest problem besides getting out of debt.
• You need at least 2 quarts of water to drink daily, minimum.
•     Best solutions:
• Drill a well. ( 20-30 feet could get you water to use for everything, EXCEPT drinking.)
• Start rainwater collecting.
• Buy a water tank, or two.
• Build a cistern.
• Keep a supply of potable water on hand all the time.
•     Other solutions:
• Never use water you can drink for anything else; save it.
• There is drinking water in the water heater and the toilet tank.
• Cooking water needs to be clean but not perfect; boil it and drink it after use.
• Buy a water filter and purification tablets.
• Reduce washing and cleaning to very little; put it on the garden.
• Bath water doesn’t need to be very clean.
• Don’t give pets or animals the best water you have.
• Learn how to hold various grades of water to reuse many times.
• You need some tanks, at least tubs and buckets.
• You need a good siphon or manual pump, or both
• Clean it, and filter it, and put tablets in it, and use it again.
• * MINIMUM - A family of two ( 2 qts/day  X  2 people) can “get by” with one gallon of drinking water per day. Your hot water heater holds from 40 to 80 gallons.