2016 was one of the worst years ever in the United States of America. And not just as it relates to the presidential election. The whole process brought forth the sheer ugliness that mankind has to offer. Hidden biases were exposed. As were the shameless ways campaigns conducted their operations. The Republican National Committee was caught red-handed supporting its favored candidates over an outsider. Democrats gloated gleefully, but not for long. Just weeks later the Democratic National Committee was busted for doing exactly the same thing. Heads rolled. Fingers were pointed. Lies were told. And then it got even uglier. All semblance of civility was thrown out the window. The name calling commenced. Mud-slinging led to all-out slander. And grown men and women began behaving like four-year olds to adoring crowds. Who apparently liked it. The country was almost evenly divided. And whichever side was losing at any given time claimed the country was walking straight off a cliff. These are dark days for the United States of America. She has lost her status as the greatest country on earth. She's now ridiculed instead of admired, and her best days are behind her. She's tottering on the brink of bankruptcy and making more and more enemies by the day. Enemies who are toying with the idea of demanding payment on their loans. Enemies who have the capability of collapsing the almighty dollar with the stroke of a pen. It's just a matter of time. Perhaps years. Or perhaps days. Whenever it does happen, the dollar will be worthless. And the once-mighty United States of America will fall like a house of cards. Only those who make preparations beforehand have a chance of survival. You've seen the prepper shows on all the cable channels. They prepare for a variety of catastrophes, from electromagnetic pulses to nuclear fallout. Few of them prepare for economic collapse. And let's face it. In the state the United States is now in, that's the only realistic scenario. In fact, it's not only a realistic scenario. It's inevitable. It's just a matter of time. We need to prepare, and the sooner the better. But let's face it. Most of these shows center around multi-millionaires who have the money to purchase an old missile silo in the prairies of North Dakota somewhere. Or the guy who has a 400 acre ranch in Colorado. Or the guy with so much money in the bank that he can build a house with four foot-thick reinforced walls and bullet and bomb-proof windows. Or the guy who thinks he can just buy his way out of trouble, and hoards half a million dollars worth of gold bouillon to trade for water and bullets and food, and whatever else he needs. I don't know about you guys, but I don't have millions of dollars to buy an old missile silo, or to hoard gold. I've never even been on a 400 acre ranch, and I couldn't even make a down payment on a bullet and bomb-proof house. Me, I'm just an ordinary guy. I live in the suburbs. In a housing development, in a regular house. And I'm just guessing now, but I'll bet most of you are more like me than you are like the missile silo guy. And that's the purpose behind this book. I've been prepping for years. I've experimented with food preparation and storage, various low cost security methods, and various ways to help my family survive whatever ugliness is coming our way. I can help you with things like sanitizing your water supplies safely, without wasting big money on fancy filtration systems. How to build an outhouse for around a hundred dollars. How to protect your back yard from prowlers without any fancy alarm systems. How to hide in plain sight. And a bunch of other things that'll help you survive when the cities go black and the rest of the world starts to panic.