“If our infrastructure collapses, there will still be a lot of water in most places. It just won’t be safe to drink. And since you can’t go for very long without water, finding ways to purify it will become the top priority for most survivors.” – J Krause

If society were to break down tomorrow, the value of the things we own and the skills we have would be turned on its head. Everybody knows that certain items will be far more valuable after a grid ending event. Stuff like gold, guns, and food are a given in any conversation on preparedness. Skills like hunting, reloading, and first aid would be indispensable, while skills accounting and day trading would be completely worthless.

There are of course, other items that we may be overlooking. While things like gold and guns will be expensive in the future, they’re already quite expensive now. Once you have those bases covered on your preparedness checklist, you can start thinking in terms of “What’s really cheap now, but will definitely be more valuable when the SHTF? What’s going to give me the greatest return on my money?”

With that said, here’s a few barter items you can buy right now, for a fraction of what they’ll be worth when the grid goes down.

Bike Tire Patches

If say, there was an EMP type of event to hit America, it would take several years for the grid to be repaired. If it’s a worldwide event it will probably take even longer. Either way, the need for transportation would not go away. However, I don’t see horses making a comeback anytime soon. Even if it takes a decade for the lights to come back on, I don’t think you could breed them fast enough to accommodate the survivors. What would be far more abundant, is bicycles.

Even without maintenance, the current stock of bicycles in circulation would last a long time. The only exception to this would be the inner tube, which is prone to punctures and leakage. So having a fully stocked repair kit would be a good idea. You can keep spare inner tubes for your own bicycles, or maybe even buy a couple more to trade with (most common sizes are 27, 28, and 29 inches). Fortunately, repair kits and inner tubes are both small, and very cheap.

Vitamin C

In a society where the medical infrastructure has collapsed, and doctors are hard to come by, vitamin C will become one of the most important nutrients. It will also become one of the hardest to find. As far as food goes, the most obvious source is from fruit. Continue reading →