If you had $200 (or $1000) to improve your long term resilience, how would you spend it?

Merriam Webster defines resilience as :
“an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change”

Is there anything that you, personally, could do, with a $200 (or $1000) budget that would increase your long term resilience?

I’m interested in how you would spend it on yourself, in your current circumstances, rather than how you think someone else should spend that money.

More “personal reflection” than “general advice”. It’s is a “what remains on your wishlist/to do list” question.

It could be a physical item, hiring someone to do something, preventative maintenance, investing in learning.... or better yet, something I haven’t thought of.

For me :

Given $200, I’d buy an IBC tote for rainwater collection (and some parts to make it an easy to use system)
- My generator isn’t big enough to run my pump + all my water treatment systems, and my water quality is from a surface well and is atrocious. My pump failed last summer and I ended up driving to town to refill water jugs. I realized how dependent I am on my pump!
- I worry about a long term power outage (or another failure in my system).


Given $1000 – I’d buy the IBC tote, plus a battery backup for my sump pump, and do some sump pit upgrades
-  My sump pump really struggled with the recent melt (running almost continuously as the pit filled within 30 seconds of the pump kicking off).  I realized if I ever lost power during spring melt, or if it had also been raining, even if I was home, I would have flooded the basement by the time I got a generator set up! Normally my sump pump rarely runs.  
- It also left a few wet spots on the floor, as the pump isn’t set in a deep enough hole to adequately pull down the water table, which means I’m going to have to rip up more of the not-water-resistent flooring the previous occupants put in the basement.
- This one is on my to-do list more than my wish list!

With $200, I'd buy 2 ibc totes transformed into skidded hay mangers,  mount existing waterers, mineral feeders, and tarp tent shelters to them, and that would then give us essentially unlimited pasturing mobility for my goats, without worry, if they ran out of browse. That would make my life far easier, and our land AND goats would be much better served and utilized.

With $1,000, the best thing would be to get the dadgum tractor running, again. (Which would make the $200 investment even better!).

I would improve my food preservation supplies.  

$200 a couple of fancy dehydrators as we eat dry fruit more than we do canned.  

$1,000 some more storage jars and a better canning system.  

We've invested a lot in rainwater harvesting and fruit trees already.  There's always fencing upgrades.  

For my situation, I am looking at my home located in a village with living-in-a-village conveniences. I'm lucky to take quite a few things for granted so resilience to me feels like focusing on critical redundancies to ensure life keeps a certain degree of normal.

Given $200 - I would also look towards rainwater collection in the form of setting up gutters/first flush into a container of some sort. Between spending and obtaining some local supplies I could at the very least keep a source of water for my chickens needs plus supplement my own depending on need.

Given $1000 - If I had the higher amount of money, I would probably spend the money working on insulating my 1850's house. The better insulated the space, the less effort needed to regulate the temperature.

Dang... even added together they would quite make the price of the 10'x12' greenhouse that PA has on sale this week. $1300 before taxes and the gas to go fetch it.

Yes, I'd like something bigger and more permie like, but that's not happened in the last 20 years and 10x12 is large enough that with a bit of tweaking, I could grow some of the things my family really likes to eat. Happiness improves resilience doesn't it?

For $200 I would buy materials to build a j-tube rocket engine. For $1000 I would get fencing for the property so that we could keep livestock and retire some lawnmowers.

Some years ago we had a shortage of natural gas (which we use for cooking) and I bought an induction burner and a smallish air fryer oven. (I already had stainless steel pots that were induction compatible). That cut our gas use by almost 80%, and we didn't see any change in our power bill.

My next change will probably involve building a secure run for chickens (lots of urban predators here). Fencing, footing, etc.

Probably a good bow or crossbow. Not much of a hunter presently, but it would be critical for longer term sustenance in my climate/landscape through any sort of major system disruptions.

Second, or in addition, a slew of quality metal hand tools for 'rough' woodworking and landscaping. Or perhaps even better, a basic blacksmithing setup to forge them with??

I would bury it as in improve the soil. Soil correctives if needed followed by high quality biological fertilizer. Get your soil working, good things will follow.

I would buy food.  Especially now when the price of everything just went up and will probably go up soon.

I will only buy what we will eat.

I finally bought an air fryer so I would buy things that I cook in the air fryer like steak, pork chop, chicken and fish.

Fruits and vegetables are a must also.

I already have a good supply of rice and pasta.

Man, this is hard.

Given $200 Fencing & fence posts to re-do my duck and chicken yards. With the left-over money, I'd by clay or stone bricks to rebuild my keyhole garden and other gardens.

Given $1,000 Fencing & fence posts. Stone bricks for the garden beds. A back-up well pump. I don't like that we run out of water after a day or two of a power outage (we tried running the well pump with the generator. It didn't work.) In the 14 years we've been here, we've have two power outages that lasted 3 days or more. We've run out of water once (either because the toilet leaks or the kids used too much water washing their hands). I don't like running out of water!

$200 would cover the remaining materials we need for building the bench for the rocket mass heater with enough left over to stock up on emergency food supplies in case tshtf. Split lentils, rice, beans, that sort of thing.

$1000 would give us enough to get a decent solar panel for battery charging and materials to render the walls downstairs, put the tile floor down, build a pantry with loads of shelves and extend the grey water pipe so it reaches the furthest fruit trees. We might need a few more barrels for the willow feeder too.

Catie George wrote:Merriam Webster defines resilience as :
“an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change”

Is there anything that you, personally, could do, with a $200 (or $1000) budget that would increase your long term resilience?

I’m interested in how you would spend it on yourself, in your current circumstances, rather than how you think someone else should spend that money.

More “personal reflection” than “general advice”. It’s is a “what remains on your wishlist/to do list” question.

It could be a physical item, hiring someone to do something, preventative maintenance, investing in learning.... or better yet, something I haven’t thought of.

I'd take a minute and see how spending it would provide the best long term ROI. That may mean getting rid of an interest payment or paying my insurance ahead or getting some new seeds or livestock. Each individual would have to decide what would be the best for them at the moment to improve their overall circumstances.

In the hypothetical, I would get a couple steaks, a case of yuengling, and invest the rest. (4th floor apartment in the city)

We have been pretty good growing our own veggies, I am looking into building some solar powered equipment as well, so maybe that?

$200  ...  I would buy good organic soil for my gardens.   It takes a long time to build it up myself and I like "instant gratification".

$1000     ...  I would buy a couple truck loads of good organic soil for my gardens.   ;-)  

Well, I'm about to spend $200 (USD equivalent) on a 3-point hitch middle buster for my little Kubota tractor. The front end loader has limits in what it can dig; and so do my joints and tendons even though the spirit is willing. This little beast will break sod, dig trenches, break up roots from native shrubs, fix some sloping paths on hills, build a second-access driveway, and generally speed up the work.

As for $1000? I'm torn. A couple of tin sheds for dry storage would be handy. Or I could bring in a monster bobcat that would upgrade my earthworks and access roads in a day. I could get an insurance approved wood-stove chimney in my cabin or my basement. Or I could hire a couple of aimless teenagers billeted at my neighbour's and perhaps mentor and inspire a little while their young backs get a workout.

I have really been enjoying the answers to this thread.

As I suspected, the answers are far more interesting than the many  generic checklists for you can find online (probably because most permies already aim for resilience in their personal lives).

I’m thinking of three things, any one of which could (possibly) fit within this price range…

One option would be a tipi. That could be rather useful for being able to move around the valley based on which foods are available when—moving up to the hills when the acorns are dropping, back down to dig parsnips, etc.

Second option would be compost, of good quality, as much as I can get!

Third is to find or commission some large, sturdy clay jars (silos?) that can store enough seeds/beans/etc. in a rodent-proof environment to last the winter and as long as is needed.  This seems like maybe the most important thing to do…

Let's think - resilience...I'm fairly well off for the big priorities: shelter, water, food, warmth.
For $200 I'd quite like some more books on herbal medicine - how to harvest and prepare various trees and plants (what exactly do you do to a willow to get the bark? what time of year is best to dig marshmallow roots? ...) I could probably stretch that to some equipment too, like a larger pestle/mortar.  
If the power goes off for more than 24 hours it will start to get inconvenient for us, I guess the dogs will eat well out of the freezer for a few days (!)...Having some means of charging devices after that would be good, we were thinking of a little overshot water wheel - not that efficient, but DIY possible with what we have around us. I think spending some money on the bits we can't make and don't have, like cables and controllers would probably eat up a fair amount of the $1000, with a couple of PV panels perhaps for when the stream is running rather dry, but we have more daylight.

M Ljin wrote:One option would be a tipi. That could be rather useful for being able to move around the valley based on which foods are available when—moving up to the hills when the acorns are dropping, back down to dig parsnips, etc.

I made tipi's when I got out of high school.  Around 25 of them.  Sold them locally in Montana.

My mother was the first female licensed outfitter in the state and had a backpacking business into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.  Base camp was a 21 foot diameter tipi I made her.

After she quit that business, (insurance go to high, they found out grizzly bears frequented her camps) we used the tipi for hunting camps and just camping for almost 30 years.  It finally fell apart.

Dennis Barrow wrote:

M Ljin wrote:One option would be a tipi. That could be rather useful for being able to move around the valley based on which foods are available when—moving up to the hills when the acorns are dropping, back down to dig parsnips, etc.

I made tipi's when I got out of high school.  Around 25 of them.  Sold them locally in Montana.

My mother was the first female licensed outfitter in the state and had a backpacking business into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.  Base camp was a 21 foot diameter tipi I made her.

After she quit that business, (insurance go to high, they found out grizzly bears frequented her camps) we used the tipi for hunting camps and just camping for almost 30 years.  It finally fell apart.

Thank you for sharing! What were your materials? Waxed canvas? Skins?

M Ljin wrote:Thank you for sharing! What were your materials? Waxed canvas? Skins?

I think it was a 12 oz duck canvas.  It was in 1971 so memory of weight is foggy.
I ordered a couple rolls of the canvas and it arrived via freight train to Whitefish, MT, that's where I lived at the time.
My dad was the local Singer Sewing Machine dealer and repairman for same.
He got me set up with a Singer adjusted to handle the heavier weight material.
I made them in the parents back yard, the only place that was large enough.
Also went out and collected poles to sell.

I drove by a place yesterday that had a giant stack of old glass windows of all shapes and sizes. no time to stop yesterday but, with $1000 I would build a long lasting greenhouse with no plastic anywhere involved.
$200 or even $1000 doesn't go very far these days. just a big dump truck load of crushed rock or stones is about $650 around here. would be nice to have that for greenhouse floor but not necessary as the ground here is mostly very slippery when wet clay.

Since health is everything, and plays a huge role physically and psychologically in coming back from adversity, I would say eat real, organic food, not processed food.  Watch out for salt and sugar.  If you don't like to cook, you can still make soup with broth and 3 or 4 types of vegetables, meat is optional, pasta or potatoes, tomato sauce, spices.  Throw them in a crockpot for half a day.  Grow your own vegetables if you like to do that.  Use some money for raised beds or whatever structures you need to protect your vegetable plants.

I'm an older person, most of my friends are older people, and they are paying for their previous decades of not taking nutrition seriously, particularly in their eyesight, their joints, their sun exposure (which also involves eyesight/cataracts.)  Wear decent sunglasses and a big hat!   If you are living off-grid, rurally, or intend to, health is the only thing that can keep you there.

Keep a well-stocked pantry of basic food supplies (not processed/premade food)  in a large closet or part of a room for the sake of saving money, food during storms or emergencies, saving trips to the store (which saves money and wear and tear on a vehicle,) saving time. The lockdown really kicked our pantry up a couple notches.   I never regret buying in twos or threes when something is on sale.

I am not a fan of goods in cans, but there's a lot of good food in glass jars, spaghetti sauce, condiments for salad dressings, your own canned food if you like to can fruits and vegetables.  Store grains in large glass canning jars in case of mouse or pest intrusions.  Psychologically a pantry creates a feeling of safety and abundance.  It's very satisfying to want to fix something unexpected for dinner and remember you've got it in the pantry.

Psychologically and probably physically, I've recently been trying the wait 90 minutes in the morning before having caffeine thing, (caffeine affects adenosine levels which governs our sleep/feeling tired,) so our brains can register that we are up and at 'em in the morning.   Caffeine gets in the way of that.  

I've got to say, I am amazed at how I hardly even think about caffeine anymore, when I used to rely on it a lot.  First thing  in the morning drink a big glass of water, do little morning things for the 90 minutes, which goes surprisingly fast.  Then have caffeine.  The expense of coffee takes the fun out of it, too, so drinking less is good for a couple of reasons.

Working outside a lot I used to feel tired in the afternoon.   Now I rarely have an afternoon tea.  I'm not usually weary when the morning caffeine wears off.

The $1,000 would be in savings collecting interest to repair whatever adversity I'll probably face.

The one thing we haven't been able to effect at our now decade-new inner-urban homestead is seed saving.  

It's been quite a challenge getting to know a new drylands regime with dry & wet seasons flipped, no frost so 365-day growing season, medium term drought with handful of rain events sometimes most of year's rain (9": 3"-17" range) in one storm, saltiest conveyed-water in Southwest, more bugs/ birds/ rodents onto our crops than anywhere else, & re-breeding/ selection with very little local seed around.

I'd spend $200 on the most important backup seed & $1000 on more of that for our other seasonal homesteads, one where our housemate/ caretakers haven't cultivated the seed bank in a dozen years, & the other where the forest hasn't quite opened to our scion plantings yet.  

Find a plot of land WAY far away from people, and build a wood cabin and off grid. Grow as much food as I could. Preserve it.

My husband and I are $200 away from being able to buy him a new-to-him better graphics card so he can livestream new games.  Newer games can lead to more followers and viewing hours which, someday, could lead to monitization for him.

If I had an extra thousand I'd put it toward getting a small trailer to pull behind our Rav4 so we could sleep in it for faires I perform at, making camping more pleasant for my husband would be great, because he doesn't like camping so less whinging would be nice haha.