This seems pretty important to crowdsource and talk about, so I’m gonna go ahead and risk violating the no politics rule from a few days ago, because I don’t see a better community to ask this. My defense for it not “being politics” is, I’m asking you to keep it to purchasing decisions and how the details of how the tariffs are likely to work, as opposed to who did what. This thread has the potential to save people lots of money if it gets big!

Tariffs are gonna make things more expensive for Americans; what are you planning on buying now instead of later, or stockpiling a little of?

  • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    as someone else said, plan for a long term(longer than four years). as for me I’m going to phase it out over three years to be reliant on the system as least as possible. the fourth year would hopefully be close to 80% self-reliant.

    I’m planning on going all out on a garden next year. nothing fancy; potato, onion, carrot, tomato, squash (fall and winter), peas, string beans, misc herbs, sun flowers, maybe some corn(everybody grows it around here so bartering for some would be easy, besides corn is a pita to grow).

    whatever I can’t dry, I’ll can.

    my goal is to be at least 50-60% self sufficient after the first year. this should only require me to buy meat and seasonings mostly. then add on anything else I’ll need.

    consumables like TP and tissues can’t really be stocked reliably as they degrade over time due to humidity.

    I’ll also be stocking up on common medications for my kids for at least the four years. the last time we went through this there were many product recalls. this time there’s talk of defunding the FDA/CDC. I can only imagine the chaos parents will be in when a pandemic sweeps through again and you can’t even trust the medicine anymore. common things like cold/flu, fever reducers, epi-pens. (if you plan on doing this, don’t be a dick and buy everything at once. take a third so others can still get what they need and get more next week).

    I also plan on stocking up on slingshot rubbers and maybe some more ammo. There’s a lot of wildlife around me that could either be eaten and/or used a fertilizer. I hope I’ll never need to resort to it, but would rather have it and hunt rather than not and starve. probably add some bow strings and arrows to the list for bigger game like deer.

    I have kind of been planning for this for years so it’s not my first time doing this. my best advice, do anything you feel you can accomplish successfully. don’t waste time or resources growing food if you don’t have space for a garden (don’t experiment with hydroponics if you don’t have the time or resources to fail multiple times).

    Find other ways to contribute to your community like; cleaning and maintaining weapons, fixing tools, home repair, technology/PC repair. anything you can do successfully will give you an edge that gives you an opportunity to barter for what you need, this includes credit in the community.

    I once did tech support and one day someone couldn’t pay me. so they gave me some deer they had hunted recently. a year later that person called me and asked if I wanted a job making triple what I was making at my old job(not IT related). credit can’t be eaten, but it goes a long way and is indispensable.

    stay strong, be smart, we’ll get through this yet.

  • Fake4000@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Been archiving a lot of my favourite shows. I expect a lot of them to either disappear in ten years, or sit behind some subscription.

    • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.worldOP
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      8 months ago

      This is probably a different discussion, but anybody with tips, tricks, and details of where and how to do this safely, this might not be a bad place to show off what you know.

      • SendMePhotos@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Step 1. Get a VPN. Probably a paid one that aligns with the needs of the client. Step 2. Get an app for p2p/torrent downloads to make things fast. Step 3. Configure your app of choice to strictly use the tun0 (VPN) only and nothing else. Just in case you get a lapse. Step 4. Do it like it’s 2008 again baby!

          • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            most crypto is useless and practically a scam, it’s a rabbit hole in itself to find a worthy one. paying for vpn with crypto only helps if you use an untraceable crypto

            if I would recommend one, it’s Monero, because it’s private by default and untracable, but nobody should believe me without doing their own research. I mean it.

            • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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              8 months ago

              “Crypto” is such a vague term it’s almost comical to imply it’s private. Sure there are ways to use crypto privately, but it takes a lot of steps.

        • QualifiedKitten@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Can anyone recommend some stable general purpose instances that federate with dbzer0? I believe lemmy.world defederated, as the link doesn’t work for me. I had a kbin account, but that seems to be dead, and I’d like to minimize the number of accounts I have to use to access things.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          How much does the setup cost? assuming I’m already self hosting and have some disk space.

          VPN and a seed box?

          • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            Yes, you definitely need a good VPN service. I use Proton VPN and it works great. I don’t use a seed box or anything like that. I just see stuff right out of my media library that I keep on several external hard drives. So pretty low cost of entry and then you’re not paying any of the subscription costs for streaming or cable or any of that nonsense. Plus there’s movies they’re software there’s music there’s audiobooks there’s e-books. It’s a cornucopia my friend.

  • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    I’ve definitely moved plans to build a storage NAS and some smaller custom home automation electronic devices up to start before December.

  • cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    I’ve got a big pile of lumber I had milled that is almost finished drying. I’m buying up the remaining woodworking tools I need to process it into various items. The American made options are out of my price range.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Canadian grocery prices have increased something like 20% since 2019. At this point I think we’re all buying less, eating less, and making sure we waste less.

  • _bcron_@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m a federal employee and my wife’s a teacher so I’m trying to figure out how to very carefully and cautiously hide a PS5 Pro in the drywall and convince her I got a new controller for the Switch

  • Coasting0942@reddthat.com
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    8 months ago

    Fill up your pantry. Focus on grains which are labor intensive.

    Once the deportations camps get rolling expect all the grocery prices to rise again. Having a full pantry will let you float for a while so you can adapt to newer recipes in your price range.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yup, started focusing on that this week myself, just buying extra rice, pasta, canned goods at least until the election.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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      8 months ago

      If you are willing to grind your own grain, whole grains can be stored in plastic buckets for years without spoiling. You’ve probably got to like whole grain stuff, sifting to get white flour is a pain.

  • Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m in the process of buying land to homestead on. Solar, rain water, green house, etc. my goal is to be as self sufficient as I can be.

  • NABDad@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    My personal desktop machine is a Linux box I assembled from $500 worth of parts about 14 years ago. I’ve increased RAM and added about 8TB of storage for an Emby instance.

    It still manages to get the job done, but it is obviously way, way, WAY overdue for replacement. We’ve been struggling financially for about 25 years.

    Now I’m thinking I need to finally pull the trigger and get it done before January.

    • IMALlama@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      IMO there’s little need to buy new in the computer world unless you want to do something silly like have a snapdragon x laptop or have the disposable funds to go the gaming rig route.

      My desktop is a retired business workstation, a HP Z420. I bought it for $250, installed a smaller SSD ($100 new) for the OS + apps, upgeaded to the “best” Xenon that fit the socket ($150 used), upgraded to 64 GB RAM ($107 used, yay ECC memory being dirt cheap on the used market), and a 1070TI ($225 used, purchased just before covid).

      It’s more than fast enough for my needs still.

      This was all about 4-5 years ago, so you could probably do even better with more modern hardware.

    • Baguette@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      The easy way to save is to buy used. You can usually buy a super high spec one for 500 to 800 USD used. I think I spent 600 for mine with a 3070 (from hardwareswap, about 1k or so in parts)

    • BlemboTheThird@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Yep. Two weeks ago I was thinking I’d wait through at least one more gen of CPUs and GPUs before upgrading–I’ve got a 6700XT which works great, but everything else is basically 2012-era tech. Now I’m getting ready to pull the trigger on replacing basically everything but the GPU as soon as tomorrow. If the country is going to implode I may as well have some extra pretty distractions.

    • philpo@feddit.org
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      8 months ago

      Absolutely. Not because of Trump directly but because of Taiwan. China now has a card blanche basically.

  • LemmySoloHer@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    A portable SSD. I need a new external hard drive anyway, so adding that November sales have reduced prices currently and that announced tariffs are designed to raise them very soon, there really is no better logical time for me to get one other than now.

  • godot@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’m mostly looking at whether I would have made any medium sized purchases in the next two yearsl. I might buy some little things in bulk, too, but if there’s any one time purchase where the price is going to jump $200, $300, $500, it’s time to make a decision.

    For me that mostly means furniture. I already bought a pair of commodity IKEA bookshelves I’d been considering buying vs building. I might still build replacements, but I would still use what I just bought and domestic lumber won’t be directly subject to a tariff. I’m looking at buying a papasan chair and a mattress as well, probably in the next week or two.

    I’ve also considered electronics, but there’s nothing I would buy in the next two years short of some PC components that I’m sure I’ll want. I bought a Quest 3 a while back and it’s been a great purchase.

    I did go back through some of my online buying this year to see what I used. I’ll probably buy a few pairs of work shoes and some good soap.

  • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Nothing. These companies don’t deserve it, I’ll do without today and continue into tomorrow.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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    8 months ago

    I don’t believe in such consumption unless it is warrant by some sort of real need.

    ie, if you use the product over years and you know you will need it going forward, sure stock pile. but maintaining a stock pile has its own cost.

    Also, using what you got until is fail is a valid strategy too for durable goods, most people don’t do this. We as society literally throwing money away.

    I think one things anyone who has excess should be doing is buying US treasury bills or money markets, it seems people some people are still keeping their cash at boomer banks who won’t give you good rate unless you shop around etc.

    While threat of tariffs is real, I doubt federal government will start fucking peasants outright in already inflationary environment.

    US is food and energy sufficient. Them targeting china made plastic trash sold on Temu and Shein is or a domestic retailers really too, should be fucked tariffed the fuck out. You don’t need this plastic slop, sorry, not sorry.

    Plus US can make all of these products home anyway, since some of these products do have strategic role within society. No joke, when Biden did his state aid package shit like trash bag manufacturing was covered. So US provided free money to corpo parasites to build or expand factories for this. While I don’t support state aid usage, at least this state aid result in more national security and pandemic resilience along with jobs for some peasants in more rural areas.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Food, but not primarily for cost savings as most regular used things things don’t last longer than a year, which cost wise won’t bridge the gap.

    55 lbs of 00 flour in the chest freezer, still have about 25lbs of AP flour in there. 1 30lb bag of Jasmine Rice, 1 25 lb basmati. I still have a ton of beans and and dry pasts in mylar/oxy absorb sitting in barens cans for long term storage. When covid started, I had 1 million calories in storage. I don’t plan to go back to that, but I intend to be able to hunker down for a long time.

    For work, I’m pushing to purchase more laptops before tariffs.

    I’ve considered stowing fuel with a stabilizer but even if prices double on fuel, I don’t use enough of it to make a difference.

    It would be a good time to buy any lithium ion batteries and finish off those ali-express/temu orders.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      8 months ago

      US produces sufficient amount of food to be self sufficient, ie fast majority of foods is made within US for US consumption… i doubt any base food will be affected anyway, that’s not what tariff policy is about here.

      While US is self sufficient in fuel, US pays global market rate. But again, we are getting hit with tariffs here either.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        8 months ago

        A large percentage of US manufacturing is food processing. Manufacturing has been struggling to fill open roles for years,1 and as a low-skilled job with tons of openings lots of migrants, both citizens and not work in manufacturing since the pay & benefits are hard to beat for not requiring any degrees. Its a similar situation with farm work. If the Trump administration actually performs significant deportations and cancellations of visas like he promised, food availability will be affected as farms and food producers struggle to keep up with demand

        1 Here’s the JOLTS data showing as much as 200k unfilled manufacturing jobs. I can’t easily directly link my query, but here’s a screenshot of the data with enough info to replicate my query

        • Archer@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Noting like a job where your shitty boss’ cost cutting gets you killed by heavy equipment! Wonder why they can’t find anyone?

        • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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          8 months ago

          Again… owners need cheap labour US in migration policy aint changing no matter what trump said… we already had him and nothing changed.

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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            8 months ago

            Manufacturing jobs actually pay pretty well. Like I said, it’s hard to beat the pay and benefits of working in manufacturing if you don’t have a degree.

            The reason they struggle to fill these roles is because most people don’t want to work in industrial facilities working physically taxing jobs, often at odd hours filling second or third shifts and risking that the facility doesn’t sufficiently value safety leading to a serious injury or death

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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          8 months ago

          Yeah, but that just means that the cost of processing food is going to skyrocket. Whole chicken costs will go down while chicken wing costs will go up.

          I can also see states leaning on their prison populations to supply some forced labor.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        As I said, not for cost saving, but more for not needing to go out when people start panicking, or being stupid

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      55 lbs of 00 flour in the chest freezer, still have about 25lbs of AP flour in there

      Mmhmm, 12ga and xm855 “flour,” got it.