I think the toughest part of dealing with the fast approaching Zombie Apocalypse is coping with our own Pre-Zombie behavior.  That is to say, while we aren’t out literally performing cannibalistic acts, we are cannibalizing ourselves in a way.  We cannibalize our ability to prepare and survive.

Just like Zombies we are compelled to do things that are inherently anti-necessary for our own survival.  Zombies don’t NEED to eat human flesh.  They don’t ever die, and the flesh munching doesn’t revitalize them.  While it’s true that it helps them reproduce, how necessary is reproduction to a life form that never dies anyhow?  You’d think they could just eat a person once in a rare while to keep their numbers up, replacing those hit by busses or shot by drunken hunters mistaking them for deer.  But they don’t, they eat as many people as they possibly can and because of this, humans will inevitably try to annihilate every last one of their species rather than finding some quasi-happy medium like we do with Great White Sharks and Grizzly Bears.

Now I am thinking of one anti-necessary thing in particular that we do as humans preparing for the inevitable and fast approaching Zombie Apocalypse and that is shopping.  It has been so deeply engrained in our modern culture that we can’t help it.  It is like we are being compelled by a dark and sinister force deep within our own being to buy crap that we don’t need in order to feel whole.  Of course we don’t feel more complete when we buy unnecessary crap, not at all, we just have a new set of problems like where to put the newly purchased stuff, how to maintain it, how to pay for the interest expense arising from its purchase, how to protect it from theft, and on and on.  If we’re feeling incomplete it probably has something to do with the breakdown of first the tribal structure then the extended family and then the destruction of even the nuclear family, leaving us feeling empty and alone.  Buying stuff cannot fill that hole in our lives, so let’s not kid ourselves.  But I am digressing a bit.  The point is, every dollar you spend on some impulse buy, or a “want” buy diminishes your ability to put your dollars to work SAVING YOUR GODDAMNED LIFE.

Relax, I’m probably just about as bad at this as millions of other festering, fiscally irresponsible Americans, however I have come up with a few strategies to help put the dollars that I just can’t hold onto into things that stand a chance of helping me survive when the Z-shit has hit the fan.

So since I’ve identified that I have a problem I decided to come up with a plan.  My plan was not to stop the shopping, not to fight the urge, although I try to as much as possible, but to work within certain budget limitations putting the dollars I would spend anyway into useful tangible goods, and in some cases services (such as taking a Wilderness Medicine course (i.e. “Wilderness First Responder”))  The first thing I did was to realign my perception of what I would like to buy by asking the question, “How does this thing help me when Zombies start ambling down the street eating the afternoon commuters.”  Quickly I lost interest in cool clothes, expensive cars and iPhones.  A good start!  However, I started developing an obsession with really expensive knives, machetes, axes, and things that go boom. 

Also a problem…

So the next step was to start asking the question, “Is this thing going to give me the best bang for my buck in regards to being prepared to survive a prolonged Zombie Onslaught.”  Looking around and seeing that I own six bowie knives that cost 200 plus dollars each but only a couple months supply of very cheap rice and beans and no good means by which to cook them when I could have diverted a fraction of the bowie knife funds to food storage and had a year’s supply of food stashed away with money left over, left me doubting my situation.  So it was time to take stock of things, really figure out how I see the Z-pocalypse playing out and working up some plans for dealing with it.

So I started putting together several rough and flexible plans by answering a few simple questions. 

• What did I need to hunker down where I am?
• What did I need to get out of Dodge in my vehicle?
• What did I need to get home safely if vehicles stopped working?
• What did I need if I had to “bug out” on foot?
• What skills did I need to spend time and money learning?

Not being one for focus I thought it would be best to get cracking on all of these more or less simultaneously striving to get a minimum level of acceptability across the board.  That gives me something to work towards, and when I feel like I have the minimum survival supplies for each scenario covered, then I can start to polish, refine and improve each strategy with more and better gear, take advanced critical skills courses, read more books, etc.  

This way I’m not fighting the Pre-Zombie symptomatic urge to BUY, BUY, BUY that we’ve all been so deeply infected with, instead I’m taking that assaulting energy and in a deft aikido like move, redirecting it to inflict a powerful blow against my enemy, death.

I’m still blowing money that maybe I aught to be saving for a rural piece of land with lots of wild game and a big garden, but I justify it to myself by arguing that if I devoted all my money to saving for some future goal then a hyperinflation struck and wiped out all of my savings, or if the Z-pocalypse came fast and early I would have wasted that cash resource, saving it and never using it.  Life is a balancing act and so is preparing to survive the Zombie Apocalypse.  Good luck!

That said, if you do still happen to have a little extra cash on hand, you may want to check out some of our Zombie Apocalypse Gifts and Attire at the new The End Is Here store!  Oh the irony!!!