No Money? What do You do?

NO MONEY? What do you do?

What do you do if your money cannot be accessed, or if it temporarily ceases to exist? I’m not talking about losing your job, and I’m not talking about simply being broke because your expenses exceeded your income.

I’m talking about a long-term situation, power blackout or whatever, wherein you would not be able to use a credit card to buy things because the only way merchants today are able to take your money is if the electricity is up and running. If there is a blackout, for whatever reason, there would be no way for the store merchants to access the information on your credit card. If there were battery back-ups, or if the merchant had a smart phone with a device for reading a credit card, you might be able to make a purchase.

But also consider: if the local power goes out, you can’t dash over the to convenient ATM machine and pull out a few bucks for lunch. You might be able to write a check for some merchants, but fewer and fewer people are using checks since the merchants prefer credit cards, or cash.

Have you ever experienced such an inconvenience? After most major hurricanes, tornadoes, snow storms, and earthquakes, there are often just a few days – rarely a few weeks – before all the electrical systems are up and running again, and then we go back to our “normal” way of doing business.

We’ve all grown accustomed to having the electrical power to run the society that we live in, and anyone under 70 has probably not known any other way of life. We regard the electricity that we use for everything – including banking and making purchases – to be an indispensable part of our life. We cannot imagine life without it.

Consider for a moment the vast millennia of time when there was no electricity. Somehow, people managed. Systems developed for exchange, and for money, based on the technology that was available. Now, as we have enjoyed each new step of technological progress, most people are barely aware that we now cannot function with business and trade without electricity. While we looked forward with great optimism, we barely realized that we were building a prison for ourselves IF the power failures to flow.

In his book, “Lights Out,” Ted Koppel offers a scenario where electricity could be out nation-wide for weeks, maybe months. His scenario is a cyber-attack, and Koppel amply illustrates that in the case of power transformers, there is not quick fix if cyber terrorists took them out. With no electrical flow, the very way of daily life that we’ve all grown accustomed to would cease instantly, and only those who were the most prepared would be able to weather the unique storm that would follow.

The first day would be a major inconvenience, and everyone would be waiting for the power to come back on. But, if such a scenario came to pass, and the power did not come back on anytime soon, there would be no regular daily life as we knew it. Many people would find ways to deal with it stoically, but –let’s face it – there is a large element in our society who wouldn’t think twice about stealing what they need, and even killing for it. This is especially true if a power outage dragged on for many day, or weeks. It would be an ugly transition if the U.S. ever had to quickly revert from our expectation of 24/7 to no power at all.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? How would you prepare?

For the average, modern, city-dwelling American, this is an almost impossible scenario for which to prepare. So many of your needs are met fully or partly with the use of electricity. Your communication is mostly through electricity. Your money is represented by a plastic card, whose use relies upon electricity.

For starters, take inventory of your life’s every financial transaction. Yes, write it all down and look at it objectively. Some of these you might be able to trade for, other not.

The people we interact with – do you know them well? Neighbors are always willing to trade and barter for food and services. But probably not with government agencies. Local businesses might trade – it all depends on how well you know them.

Paper money might be good for a short while, but if an emergency was widespread and prolonged, it would quickly be useless.
Then regular coinage would be useful for a bit, and if things didn’t improve, people would wise up that the coinage was of no intrinsic value.
After a while, if still no power, people will want useful items rather than an intrinsically useless article of exchange.

What will people barter? THINK: What do YOU need? Everyone else has pretty much those same needs.

Food, water, medicine, gas, candles, toilet paper, soap, etc. During war times and depressions, people find a way to get the very basic necessities of human life and survival. Note, I said “necessities.”

Some services might be readily barterable for goods: These include: Mechanic, Plumber, Electrician, Security, and such.

There is an obvious great value in getting to know neighbors, through Neighborhood Watch or other community activities.

You know, the “system” by which we all live under is too big for any one person to change or to effect in any meaningful way. Everyone spends so much of their time just surviving, getting by, taking care of the family and home, that we want the “system” to just roll along, smoothly, without us having to devote too much extra time to it. And by the “system,” I’m referring to our accepted monetary system and system of banking, our commercial enterprises so that people drive trucks and stock stores and make things and grow food so they can earn a living for their family and you can buy that stuff to make your life work. We all benefit by these things, for the most part, as long as the cost doesn’t hurt too much.

I’m not sure that anyone can plan for a post-disaster scenario without money. If such would happen, it would be a situation that was radical and profound.

Thinking about the future, you might want to consider the following: The great value of working close to home, and finding self-employment; Know your neighbors (if you don’t already); Know your local sources of food and water.

Working at home is great so you don’t have to commute an hour or more each way. However, if you work at home through your computer, how would you be able to continue working if all the power went out?

You’d need to have a backup electrical system, and that assumes that the scenario we’re talking about is not that severe.

Surviving a worst-case scenario would not be fun. It would alter everything about your current life and lifestyle and would likely mean you’d have to evacuate or go elsewhere. Major disasters always include many people dead, and so everyone you might be depending upon, might not be there.

These are just ideas for you to consider, and to discuss.