LLP #139: Old Ways, New Preppers

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Prices creep up, portions shrink, and suddenly dinner feels like a math problem. We take that pressure and turn it into a plan—starting with small, steady habits that build real food security without blowing your budget. From scanning the weekly ad and practicing FIFO rotation to spending one weekend canning or running a freeze-dryer batch, we map a path that trades panic for preparation and guesswork for ready-to-eat meals on your shelf.

We break down how tariffs, inflation, and shrinkflation become “hidden taxes” on everyday items, then show how to push back with timing, substitution, and smart storage. You’ll hear why pressure canning is the most affordable upgrade for turning garden harvests and bulk buys into shelf-stable meals, plus the simple safety checks that keep jars dependable. We also go deep on freeze-drying—how to find a used unit for half price, what foods store best, and why mylar plus oxygen absorbers can give you a 25-year buffer that’s light, compact, and easy to stash.

Along the way, we talk honestly about living within your means, avoiding credit traps, and building a pantry that functions like a mini store. You’ll get practical meal frameworks—rice and beans topped with jarred proteins, soups stretched with lentils and tomatoes, tacos from canned venison—and a clear view of when to DIY and when to buy ready-made long-term buckets for instant peace of mind. The goal isn’t doomsday—it’s simple resilience that steadies your week, your budget, and your family.

If this helped you rethink your pantry, subscribe for more practical liberty-minded episodes, share it with a friend who needs a plan, and leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts so others can find the show.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Welcome back, everybody.
This is Eric and Matt, and thisis Life, Liberty, and the
Pursuit.
Your beacon of freedom and theAmerican way of life.
Tune in every Monday for a newepisode as we dive into the
world of liberty and what makesour country great.
Welcome back, everybody.
This is Eric and Matt here withLLP, and I hope everybody's
having a great week.
Welcome back.
Life, Liberty, and Pursuit.

(00:22):
Your home for all things normalin a world gone completely mad.
What's up, dude?

SPEAKER_00 (00:27):
Having a great day.
Just enjoying my coffee, myblack coffee.

SPEAKER_02 (00:31):
Enjoying your black coffee, your big black coffee.

SPEAKER_00 (00:34):
My BBC.

SPEAKER_02 (00:35):
I see.
I see.
Enjoy that BBC.
All right.
Well, I hope everybody's havinga fantastic week.
We're going to get into today'sshow, and what we're going to be
talking about today is how whatis old is always new again.
And what do we mean by that?
In the particular case oftoday's episode, we're talking
about the whole preppingmentality.

(00:55):
You know, look, the economy hasbeen absolutely crap.
Prices of things are going up.
We're going to talk a little bitabout tariffs today and some of
the economic policy.
And we'll dive into a little bitof the weeds on that.
We're not going to spend a lotof time talking about it, but I
do want to mention some thingsat a bird's eye level.
And we're going to be talkingabout how a lot of people are
choosing to, you know, prepmore.

(01:17):
And, you know, people are eatingout less and maybe spending more
money trying to actually, youknow, increase uh the viability
of their long-term food storage.
Um, they're they're you knowgetting back into more of the
old ways, such as pressurecanning and food preservation.
Maybe they're growing more foodthan they used to, keeping
chickens.
We're gonna talk about all thatsorts of stuff in today's show.

(01:38):
So buckle in, grab a coffee or aBBC.
Yes.
Uh as as as Matt so eloquentlyput, he's gonna grab his BBC.
Yep.
Big black coffee.
Oh my God.
Okay, and we're gonna getcracking on today's show.
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our efforts here on LLP.
And man, you know, the podcasthas been doing great and we're
really getting our stride back,and these episodes are coming
together wonderfully.
And I really enjoy theopportunity to articulate some

(03:25):
of these finer points to peoplethat maybe we don't always, or
I'm not always able to do in afull YouTube video.
I really like to be able to talkabout some of the stuff that we
talk about.

SPEAKER_00 (03:35):
Yeah, it's it's better.
So, guys, if you don't knowthis, we didn't originally do
this podcast for for you guys.
We did the podcast so Eric and Icould sit here and chop it up
for it.
Give us an excuse to gettogether every week and chop it
up.
Yes.
Um excuse.
And the cameras are just herealready in the studio.
So we said one day, well, man,what if we just what if we just

(03:56):
turn the cameras on?

SPEAKER_02 (03:58):
Just record our shenanigans.

SPEAKER_00 (03:59):
And we'll just talk about stuff that we want to talk
about.

SPEAKER_02 (04:02):
So we record our shenanigans.

SPEAKER_00 (04:03):
Yeah, and it's not necessarily always about gun
content.
You know, I know we get a lot ofcomments, and we I mean, I read
the comments, you know, hey,more gun content.
Like we we do gun content, butyou know, we want to talk about
what's on our minds, you know,and that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 (04:16):
And you know, there there's always a lot of stuff
going on, and I think that wherepeople are at right now, you
know, it goes without saying,again, as I mentioned in last
week's show, I like to just seewhat people are going through
and and see where people's headsare at.
And, you know, I do read a lotof commentary on social media,
particularly X.
You guys might not know this,but X is actually the number one

(04:38):
news source right now.
More people are getting theirnews from Twitter slash X uh
than ever before.
So make sure you follow me onTwitter.
It's IRACVeteran8888.
Um, look for me on there.
Um, maybe I'll I'll put ascreenshot or show you the link
down below.
Maybe Lisa can pretty please shecan do that for me.
Um, but make sure you follow usover there.
So I'm always posting questionsuh that I have for you guys to

(05:00):
answer.
Like I may put out a poll.
Hey, what do you think aboutthis?
And sometimes I take that polland I break it down into a
video.
So you guys actually, you know,interact with me and help me uh
drive forth some of my content.
So you guys are just as much apart of the content that I make
as I do.
I'm just the guy thatarticulates and reports on it,

(05:21):
but you guys provide thecommentary.
So big thanks if you follow onTwitter and you are engaging in
commentary.
Anyway, I digress.
The point I'm making is thatwith all of this, I like to see
where people's heads are at.
And lots of folks look, many,many Americans are struggling to
simply put food on the table.
Um, I was in court earlier.

(05:42):
Okay, I got a freaking speedingticket and I had to go to court
for it.
It was a super speeder.
Well, anyway, uh yeah, I drivefast.
But but look, anyway, point isum it was funny.
The judge talked about, oh, wehave this 30-30 program where
you can have 30 days to pay offyour speeding ticket or blah
blah blah.
And I'm thinking, what kind ofworld we live in where you have

(06:05):
to have a payment plan for aticket?
Jeez.
I mean, like, people are alreadystruggling to put food on the
table.
And it's like, bro, I mean,like, I get it, you broke the
law, the consequences, etcetera, et cetera.
But what there are a lot ofpeople who, when they get in
those situations, it's alife-changing thing.
It can really hem them up, evenover, you know, you get hit with
a$500 life fee that you didn'tknow about or that you weren't

(06:29):
expecting.
And that can make or break yourmonth.
And, you know, I feel for a lotof people, I have empathy for a
lot of people who are living,absolutely living paycheck to
paycheck, absolutely strugglingin every way.
And it's tough.
Like I noticed there was anelderly lady at the grocery
store the other day, Matt.
You know, it was a it was anolder lady.
She was um checking out, andthere was some issue with the

(06:51):
total because the coupons didn'ttake off in the way that she
thought that they would takeoff.
And her total wound up being, Ithink, over$60, but she was, I
guess, had budgeted down to thepenny to spend no more than$60.
And it wound up being$64something or another.
So I reach in my wallet and Igrab a$5 bill here, just handle

(07:11):
it like it's fine.
But when you, you know, folksare struggling sometimes to the
degree where they're having tobudget every little dollar to
try to find the most value tosurvive in this world, to simply
buy groceries, even.
And you know, food scarcity, Iyou know, food is something that
we really have solved, Matt.
The the world has solved thehunger issue, right?

(07:33):
Like generally, now it's noteverywhere in the world, of
course, there are still manypeople in the world who struggle
to have access to clean water,um, struggle to have access to
food.
But generally speaking,scientifically, we've solved the
problem of feeding people,right?

SPEAKER_00 (07:48):
Yeah, I mean, if you if anybody looks at if you I
don't like using China as anexample, but they have an entire
kind of like uh what is it, themicro version of dirty jobs, but
they have it like in China wherethey showed how they take they
recycle like old food and theyliterally take all of this old

(08:10):
food, send it to uh a facility,and they recreate new food out
of the old food, which is kindof gross, but that's how they do
it.
They've somehow figured out howto solve this problem because
China got a lot of people, man.
Like they gotta feed a lot ofpeople.
Um, but to your point, likewhere there's a will, there's a

(08:32):
way.

SPEAKER_01 (08:32):
Sure.

SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
The US doesn't have a problem with supplying food,
they have a they have a problemwith distribution, like getting
the food to certain parts of thecountry where you've seen them
called like food deserts.
Yeah, you know, those, you know,for all intents and purposes do
exist.
There are parts of America whereit's just very difficult to get

(08:55):
fresh food.
And that's just due to wherethat where that city lies in the
US.
You know, if you're like, oh,I'm in the middle of, you know,
somewhere in Indiana whereyou're surrounded by cornfields,
you're probably gonna have ahard time finding certain items,
you know, it's just the natureof of the beast.

(09:17):
It's where it is.

SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Yeah.
You know, it's funny earlier,Matt, we were we were talking
about how uh the guard was justsent out to Illinois, wasn't it?
They got sent to Detroit.

SPEAKER_00 (09:25):
They've been sent to a few places.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (09:27):
So that they've sent the guard out to these places
where things are just absolutelyin chaos.
And again, the last thing that Iwould ever want to do as a
content creator is, you know,create some situation where I
want everyone to think that thesky is falling or the world is
ending or things are goingcrazy.
This is not some doomsdayapproach to uh food scarcity.
But what I really wanted today'svideo to be about was that

(09:51):
people are kind of revertingback to a lot of the old ways
when it comes to foodpreservation and and food um,
you know, maintaining their foodsupply.
And you know, how does one thatis on a budget, how can they
beef up their food supply slowlyover time and do it in a way
that actually is meaningful inthe long-term sense?

(10:12):
And when you look at what'sgoing on in Detroit, like for
instance, you mentioned um, youknow, food deserts, right?
Like uh areas where food mightbe difficult to get or goods or
services might be difficult toget, maybe by virtue of the
geographical location, or in thein the case of Chicago or
Detroit, or some of these moreyou know hard cities where

(10:34):
people are, you know, committinga lot of crimes and there's
there's businesses that getlooted and robbed all the time.
So what do they do?
They shut down.

SPEAKER_00 (10:41):
Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (10:41):
So the corner store where you know young mother, uh
uh a young mother, single motherhad to go down the road to get
her pampers or her or her hermilk or whatever she needed to
get for the house.
Uh now that little corner storeis not open anymore because it
got robbed out of existence.
So a food shortage or let's saya food desert can occur even in

(11:02):
a major city where normally youwould think that there'd be
plenty of that stuff availableon every corner when a business
gets robbed out of existence.
And that happens uh not only ata microcosm, but at a macrocosm
in a huge part of the city.
There's businesses boarded upand people, you know, going,
heck, I can't even make a livingdoing this because I'm getting
robbed out of existence.

(11:23):
You know, every week we'regetting robbed.
What do they do?
They shut down shop, they gosomewhere else, and now you have
all these areas where peopleused to be able to buy food and
now they can't.
And that makes life even harder.
It's already hard to live inthose kind of places.
But imagine now you can't evenwalk by foot, right?
A lot of people don't own cars.
You know, that makes thetransportation even more

(11:44):
difficult to have to driveacross town to go to a grocery
store and then drive all the wayback.
What if you don't own a car?
Now that's an even more costthat you're incurring.
Uh when we look at tariffs, um,these reciprocal tariffs and
everything, yes, we we broughtin, I think,$22 billion in
tariffs so far.
Uh, and that's a drop in thebucket.
Uh, we would have to bring in$1.9 trillion in tariffs to

(12:08):
replace the money that we spenduh that we receive in income
taxes.
Uh I don't know if it's justincome taxes or all the taxes
that they collect in general,but how does society cope with
an issue, Matt, where, okay,you're expected to pay, in some
cases, upwards of 40 to 50% ofyour income in taxes, right?
If you make a decent amount ofmoney, you're gonna pay half

(12:29):
your money out in taxes.
Then when you go to the storeand buy your goods that are
having these tariffs applied tothem, you're paying more money
for the item in question,therefore, spending more money
in a hidden reciprocal tax,which a tariff is sort of a
hidden tax.
But the idea is that a tariff isa tax that's applied on the host
country that produces the item,then the item comes here.

(12:51):
Well, do you think that they'rejust gonna eat that cost and
that the cost of the cheapChinese consumer good is still
gonna be cheap like it was?
No, they're gonna pass thatprice on to the consumer.
Well, the consumer is the onethat winds up paying the tax
because now the cost of the TVor whatever they're buying,
instead of being$1,800, it's now$2,400.
So you're paying that reciprocaltax on that or the tariff on

(13:14):
that particular item.
So now you're getting taxed bythe IRS, you're getting income
taxes, property taxes, and allanother litany, a whole litany
of random life taxes that areapplied to you.
And you're getting hit with thisreciprocal tariff, which is
essentially a hidden tax.
Then there's the hidden tax ofinflation that incurs, you know,

(13:34):
let's just say quantitativeeasing or worsening that occurs
for the manipulation of themoney supply.
All right, that's because wehave a system where, you know,
uh they are uh free and able tojust print all the money they
want and send it to whatevercorner of the globe they want.
So when you artificiallydecrease the value of the
existing money supply by by justsimply printing more, uh now we

(13:58):
have a fractional banking systemon top of that.
You have the Federal Reserve.
So all these things compoundupon each other.
And now it becomes a systemwhere, wow, even middle class
people are having a much hardertime surviving.
Like, would you have everpictured, I don't know, a person
who makes 100 grand a year everhaving a hard time buying food,

(14:18):
for instance?
Now imagine the person who,yeah, maybe they only make 40,
50 grand a year, whatever.
I mean, I'm saying you make whatyou make.
The point is, average Americans,you know, if you look at the
average salary of your averageAmerican, it's getting harder
and harder and harder for thatperson to survive on the money
that they make.
And if you would have asked anynumber of people, have you ever

(14:40):
worried about where your foodcomes from?
In years past, they wouldprobably say, that's probably a
minimal uh concern that I wouldever have in everyday life,
Matt.
But more and more people now aretalking in polls.
They're saying they're therewhen you look at some of the
polling data on this, or let'sjust say, you know, when people,
you know, issue question-answer,you know, whatever polls, if you

(15:01):
will, that a lot of people aresaying, yeah, like maybe for the
first time in my life I'veactually been worried about
where the hell my food is goingto come from.

SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (15:09):
And that's a huge issue.
It's like when the$80,000 and$90,000 income earners are
having a hard time with thebasics and and the extras, what
does the lower person on thetotal poll they're really
suffering?
You have to put a speedingticket on a payment plan.

SPEAKER_00 (15:25):
Yeah.
So that's scary.
I think that there is adifference between you know
being genuinely um low income.
Yeah.
Because those that does exist.
You uh it is that is a cyclethat is very hard to get out of.
Everything that you purchase,and I'm when I say cycle, like I

(15:48):
it's not like oh, it's somesystemic.
No, I'm talking about when youlook at how everything is set up
for low income, it's hard to getout because let's say you go to
uh the dollar store, right?
You're paying a dollar forsomething, but it's it's a
smaller quantity.
So the toothpaste you're buyingis it's a dollar, but you're

(16:09):
getting half of what a normaltoothpaste would be.
But if you just went to theKroger, you could get you could
pay a dollar more and get triplelike what you would get at the
dollar store.
So it's not that it and thatgoes across the board with
anything like food, alleverything is a smaller portion.
So you're you're actually payingmore for if you look at it like

(16:31):
like weight, quantity, volume,you're paying more for less.

SPEAKER_02 (16:35):
The term, I believe the term for that is called
shrinkflation.
Well, so like when when let'ssay a piece of cheese used to, I
don't know, let's just throw anarbitrary number out there and
say a one-pound block of cheese,16 ounces of cheese is whatever,
five dollars.
So it's like, oh, well, thecheese is still five dollars,
but it's only 12 ounces ofcheese.
So it's like they lower theportion of the product but

(16:56):
charge the same money.
It's it's sort of like a way forthem to almost make you feel
like you're not paying any more.
But the reality, you are payingmore because you're getting less
for the same money.

SPEAKER_00 (17:05):
So that's true.

SPEAKER_02 (17:06):
A 20-ounce bottle of coke, now it's a 16-ounce, and
so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 (17:10):
Well, shrinkflation, it does exist.
That is a little different thanyou know, the the low income
cycle that they're in.
So that's it, it is hard to getout of it.

SPEAKER_02 (17:18):
They're buying single-use something.
Correct.

SPEAKER_00 (17:20):
So they're they're using they're they're they're
overpaying for something that itshouldn't, they shouldn't.
Right.
Now, let's let's get past thatbecause that's that is a thing.
But let's say you do get out ofthat.
You know, my family got out ofit.
We were living in Section 8housing, like for the longest
time, you know, a single mom,two sons grew up.
We we made our way.

(17:42):
Now we happen to live in a nicerpart of of Georgia.
We live in in an affluent area.
Um and then that when that wholelike uh like uh I guess when
COVID was around and when theeconomy kind of started to tank
a little bit, and even like thelast year or so, the economy's

(18:05):
been a little bit down.
You start to see on the news,oh, there's lines outside of
churches for like you know,lining up to get food, right?
Food banks.
So and if you guys don't knowhow that works, you you go up,
you don't really have a choice.
Like you pull up, they give youa paper bag, and it has a week's
worth of groceries, regardlessof what you eat, what you're
doing, whatever it is, likeyou're getting that bag, you can

(18:26):
use that bag however you like.

SPEAKER_02 (18:28):
But they're you don't get a choice, you don't
get a choice, maybe what theyhave.

SPEAKER_00 (18:31):
Yep, and then they're showing it on the news,
and it was in the line was likenicer vehicles.
And I'm telling you guys thisbecause I know that you went
into detail about oh, you youkind of feel bad for some
people.
I'm kind of indifferent on that,guys.
I feel like there are uh a largenumber of people that put

(18:53):
themselves in a position thatthey should that they're getting
they're reaping what they sow.
And to finish that story off,they're in line to get free food
at the food bank, and it's likeLincoln Navigators, BMW X5s,
yeah, like Mercedes, like CMG, CAMGs.

(19:14):
I'm like, these are hundredthousand dollar cars in line to
get uh free food, and I'msupposed to feel bad for you,
like absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 (19:25):
So you know, I think that people you know, there are
a lot of people that have beenthere.
Uh I mean, nobody is perfect,right?
Uh and again, I agree with you.
It is kind of you know odd tosee a hundred thousand dollar.
It's wild, man.
Yeah, I mean, that is wild, andyou do see that quite a bit.
But I feel like while that istrue, I think that there are

(19:48):
also situations where, yes, manypeople do live beyond their
means.
Uh, they spend too much.
And and let's face it, it it itis a very American trait to live
beyond your means.
Keep up with the Joneses.
I would say that probably out ofall the countries, America is a
country that probably has morepeople that make, you know,

(20:09):
let's just say probably lessthan good uh long-term financial
decisions.
And that's because of the theway we have things set up.
I mean, like we have, you know,think about it.
You take out a credit card andyou go, oh, well, I can have it
now.
Like America is a very have itnow society.
And the banks and all, you know,the people making these loans, I
mean, they know that people wantit now.
And um, it is very easy to gettied up into a situation where

(20:34):
you've overextended yourself oncredit or you've made some bad
financial decisions that arethen going to require some time
to uh get your way out of.
Or in some cases, some peoplecan never dig themselves out of
a bad financial hole and theywind up being enslaved to that
process for the rest of theirlives.
And, you know, again, um, it'syou know, I was having a

(20:55):
discussion with someone uh theother day, and they mentioned,
well, getting alone is enslavingyour future self.
And that is so true that yes,you are agreeing to enslave your
future self in exchange forsomething now.
And the now wears off, and thenyou realize, wow, the veneer of
this now is not really quite sonice.
But now I see the the cruel uh,you know, sort of reality that

(21:18):
that that wow, I overextendedmyself on my finances on XYZ.
And I'm not gonna say it's okayfor it to happen, but if you
continue to make the samemistakes over and over again,
you really only have anyone toblame yourself.
You know, hey, if you've made amistake and you slipped up on
somewhere and you've made somebad financial decisions, fix it,
figure out a way, live morewithin your means.

(21:39):
I mean if you're driving thathundred thousand dollar car,
maybe you need to sell that sonof a bitch and buy something
more affordable and live morewithin your means.
And I know sometimes that'sdifficult for people to accept.
And it's very difficult forsomeone to accept when they've
been used to a certain lifestylefor a certain amount of time,
and now all of these crazythings with our economy happen,

(21:59):
which essentially change thevalue of your money.
I mean, the the value of thedollar has dropped some.
I think the last time I checked,it was like, I think since 2020,
since COVID, the dollar has lostsome like I think 36 or 38% of
its value from 2020 until now.
Well, from 1990 until now, it'slost like some, I don't know, I

(22:24):
think the last time I checked,the number was like 146%.
Yeah, and someone says, oh,well, you can't say that the
that it has lost all of itsvalue just in the last five
years.
But if you look at that over alinear scale, okay, I'm no
economist, but if you look atthis over a linear scale, five
years is not a long time to losethat large of a percentage of

(22:46):
the value of the money.
So again, if someone was used toliving a certain way for 10 or
12 years and then they got hitwith this COVID stuff, which
really did put a huge damper inthe economy, then they handed
out all the stimulus checks.
So you had this basicallyprinting of money.
Yes, it put some money into theeconomy, but that's still
printing money that didn't existand giving it out to people.

(23:08):
You know, it creates a verydifficult quantitative situation
that eventually that has to rolldownhill.
That fiscal can gets kicked downthe road, but it can't get
kicked down the road forever.
Eventually, going to kick it,it's gonna explode.
And I feel like we're seeing theresults of many, many years of
bad government policy related tothe financial sphere.

(23:29):
And then you actually stack thatback on to the Federal Reserve
and their printing money andthis fractional banking system
and all the things we have.
Now Trump added tariffs where,you know, before income taxes
were a thing, tariffs are whatpaid for everything, for the
government to run, for wars tobe fought.
We used tariffs as a way tocollect money, uh, and we made

(23:50):
the foreign governments pay forit.
And we we tried to, you know,relieve that financial burden
from the American citizen.
But then we created income taxesand it completely screwed things
up.
So now you have tax upon taxupon tax, and most Americans
feel like the tariffs are simplyjust one more tax that now it's
for the people that are payingattention, they realize, wow,

(24:12):
well, the cost of everything isup when it shouldn't be up.
Well, that simply means thatyou're just paying more that
someone had to have their palmsgreased along the way.
The government had to have theirpalms greased somewhere to get
that stuff in the country, andnow you're paying more because
of it.
So it's a hidden tax.
At the end of the day, if thegovernment if the government
gets the money, it's a tax, andthat's the way you have to treat

(24:32):
it.
Inflation is at its core ahidden tax.
Okay, I'm no economist, butthat's the truth of it.
Anyway, we're getting off moreof the uh, let's just say the
financial end and the economicalend, and you know, exploring
some of the reasons why thesethings might be happening right
now.
But what does that have to dowith food prep?

(24:52):
So now, okay, let's say you haveless money than you used to
have, but you still want toprep, you still want to, you
know, get some things done.
Um I'll tell you, I bought oneof the all-American pressure
canners.
And I I I want to, I believe infull transparency here.
Okay.
I I don't want to, you know, putout any information that's gonna
make somebody feel a certain wayabout me either way.

(25:14):
I'll just say that, okay, um II'm not like mega rich or
anything like that, but I'm alsonot like doing terrible either.
So, so just a lot of peoplethink that that us YouTubers,
you know, we're millionaires andall that.
And that that's not always thecase.
Some of them are, you know, Iknow everybody has a certain
opinion they think about theamount of money I bring in, or
as a but I'll I'll just say thatI do okay, you know, like I I'm

(25:38):
not suffering for anything.
I'm not one of the people has toclip coupons or anything.
But point is I do have thementality of, hey, it's good to
be prepared, it's good to, youknow, have a plan.
All right.
So I want to discuss some of thethings that you can do to
increase your food stores forthe least amount of money
possible and incrementally do sowithout having to break the bank

(25:59):
every time you go to the grocerystore.
Um, one way that you can do sois simply buy a little bit of
food extra every time you go tothe grocery store.
Now I know that seems simple,right?
Be savvy.
Look at the sales, all right?
The other day, I'm notnecessarily hurting for the
money to buy this stuff, but ifI go, all right, the other day I
went to the grocery store, theyhave my favorite rice on sale

(26:22):
for$1.79, and it's normally$2.79.
Well, gosh, that's almost 33%off, right?
Whatever.
Three, you know, a third off.
So what did I do?
I bought two flats of rice.
I bought a flat of rice,whatever it may be.
Yeah, when it's on sale, buy it,put it in your cupboard.
That's a smart buy.
If it's a smart buy, buy it andstack it if you can afford it.

(26:42):
You know, spend an extra$20 aweek, spend an extra$50 a week,
whatever you can afford.
Pick a budget, stick to it.
Say, hey, this month I'm gonnaspend a hundred extra dollars on
food, not stuff I need, stuffthat I'm going to put into my uh
cupboard and keep as a staple,right?
Oh, they're running lentils onsale, canned lentils or bagged

(27:04):
lentils, whatever.
Buy yourself some lentils, buyyourself some soups, buy
yourself some um some uh riceand things, some beans, some
dried beans.
Oh, they're they're burning outbeans on on sale.
Boom.
Put that in your budget.
Treat your budget as if, wow,I'm gonna maximize this sucker,
right?
Wow, rice is on sale.

(27:24):
Wow, that means for the amountof money I'm gonna spend, I get
more freaking rice for themoney.
Stock, you know, buy a bit andstart stacking it back.
So that's one way is toincrementally build your food
stores to where one day you lookin the cupboard, you're like,
wow, I got plenty of rice.
Well, what do you do then?
You have plenty of rice.
Now you start consuming thatrice and rotating it out.

(27:44):
And then you take your extrafood stores, you know, first in,
first out, just like a grocerystore.
You treat your own cupboard asif it's its own little grocery
store.
All right.
The oldest rice you consume, thenewest rice you bring in first
in, first out, just like agrocery store.
Treat your stock as if it isthat.
Consume the stock you buyincrementally and buy it

(28:06):
incrementally.
So that's one way you can do it.

SPEAKER_00 (28:08):
Oh, yeah.
You know, uh Asian House, man,we eat a lot of rice, man.
Like we pretty much eat ricewith every meal.
So we we have a problemstockpiling rice because we eat
it all.

SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (28:19):
But um, but seriously, that's a great point.
What I would say, I would add onto that, uh, you mentioned uh
pressure canning and getting theequipment for that.
Um what I've noticed, and I wasjust while you were talking, I
just wanted to double check tomake sure I was giving the
correct information.
Because what I found is I can goon Facebook Marketplace right

(28:40):
now and buy a freeze dryer, aharvest right freeze dryer, mind
you, for half of the price thatyou would buy it new.
And lots of times these are likeone-year-old machines.
And if you really want to getinto um, you know, food prep and
food preservation, like uhfreeze drying is king.

(29:05):
All right, you can pretty muchfreeze dry anything you want.
You can freeze dry raw meat,cooked meat, coffee.
How do you think instant coffeeis made?
Yeah, there's two ways they makeinstant coffee.
They have like the sprayermethod where they spray it with
a chemical that kind of freezesit as it's in spray form, and
then you have freeze drying.
When that's both of those areused.

(29:27):
Um, you know, any type of food,freeze dry it, it preserves it
25-year shelf life.
Um, you'd obviously you don'tneed to freeze dry rice, uh, you
can just cook that.
Um soups, everything.
I mean, it's it's great.
Candy.

SPEAKER_02 (29:45):
You can even freeze dry ice cream sandwiches.

SPEAKER_00 (29:47):
Yeah, make the I make the astronaut ice cream,
man.
So, I mean, um, if you guys wantto get into that game, 50% off
basically, go on FacebookMarketplace.
Lots of people have these.
Uh machines, they get them, theydon't realize how long it takes
because guys, it does take awhile.
You're talking 24-48 hours uh todo it.

(30:10):
Um, but it like if you're goingto the store, you're getting
extra, like we go to Sam's orCostco, you get a big old pack
of you know, a whole tube ofribeye, like slice it up, freeze
dry it, you're good to go, man.
Right.
You can really, really you'd bevery surprised at how much you
can save up and store by doingthat.

(30:34):
Yep.
Um, it'll blow you away.

SPEAKER_02 (30:35):
One thing I wanted to mention about pressure
canning.
The reason that I like pressurecanning as an option is because
one, the entry, the cost ofentry is very reasonable to get
into pressure canning.
Extremely.
Um, really, so the all-Americanpressure canners are definitely
worth every penny.
They are a little pricey, theydo represent a certain
investment, but you can get thebasic all-American pressure

(30:58):
canner.
I think they're like$300.
So, yeah, it's$300, but once youhave it, if you take care of it,
it literally just lasts freakingforever.
Um, it takes a lot for thosethings to go south.
I mean, if you have to abusethem for them to not last.
They last practically forever,okay?
And you buy your mason jars, youknow, and your and your lids and
your rings and all that.

(31:19):
And there's a little bit ofbasic equipment to get started
doing pressure canning.
But the reason I like pressurecanning is because it allows you
to take all your fresh veggies.
So let's say you are in the uh,you know, in the garden and
you're doing some gardening.
So I would say having your owngarden is a really great way to
stock a lot of food.
You can grow a bunch of corn,you can grow a bunch of green

(31:41):
beans, you can grow a bunch ofstuff that's easy to pressure
can, potatoes, all these sortsof stuff.
You can buy meat in bulk, likeMatt talked about, and you can
pressure can your meat and haveit ready to go.
It's ready to eat right out ofthe jar.
Now, does pressure canned foodlast as long as freeze-dried?
No.
A pressure now, there's somecontention about how long a food

(32:05):
can actually be stored long-termin a pressure can, like, you
know, properly canned, becausepeople worry about botulism and
they worry about, you know,bacteria and things.
And yes, it can have botulism init if you're not careful.
You know, if you look around thering and you see rust or you see
mold or you see anything weirdlike that, you need to discard

(32:26):
that item.
If you push the little popperthing and it's popping, guess
what?
That it's it's compromised.
Okay.
Yeah.
If you open that food, youshould pop that lid.
The underside of that lid shouldbe clean.
You smell it, it smells good, itsmells normal, you're probably
fine, right?
Again, botulism is a concern,but it's only a concern if you

(32:48):
don't follow the proper protocoland fill the jars to the proper
headspace and lubricate the topsof the lids and clean them and
sanitize them like you'resupposed to.
There's a whole process to do inpressure canning.
As long as you are disciplinedand methodical, you will always
have good, healthy food.
You can do shredded chicken, uh,you can do beef.

(33:09):
You can, if you shoot deer, youcan have you know pressure can
all your deer meat and have itready to go.
You can do ground beef, thoughthere's nothing better than
having ground beef from deer,from venison.
Venison, ground, ground venison,and then take that out of the
jar and warm it up in a pan withsome veggies and make yourself
some freaking tacos with deermeat.

(33:30):
Ain't nothing better than somedeer meat tacos.
Add some taco seasoning, andman, you got your good healthy
meal, and it's so cheap.
If you go out and do your ownhunting and harvest your own
animals, grow your own food,you'd be surprised that your
long-term food viability isactually gonna be quite good as
long as you're not afraid to putin a little work.

(33:51):
So I think that both pressurecanning and um freeze drying
both have their place.
Now, how long can a pressure canitem last?
If you keep it in a cool, darkenvironment and it's properly
done from day one, I mean,you're talking anywhere from
eight to 12 years, you know, aconsiderably long time, possibly
longer.
Again, it is an honest point ofcontention.

(34:14):
Some people go, Oh, I've gotpressure canned stuff I've been
eating after 15 years.
Well, I think the bulk of peoplewould have the attitude that if
you keep something that long,you probably should have
consumed it way before then,right?
Is that to say it won't lastthat long?
That's a big if.
I think from my point of view, Iwould prefer to regularly

(34:35):
consume and use those itemsbefore they get, you know, a few
years old.
You know, two or three years,yeah, you're perfectly within
the bounds of what's acceptablefor long-term food storage from
a pressure can, a jar, you know,jarred food.
When you start getting past thatfour or five year mark, I mean,
yes, it is edible.
The quality of the food degradesconsiderably.

(34:57):
Now, how long does freeze-driedfood last?
Now, Matt had mentioned going onFacebook Marketplace and buying
yourself a harvest right freezedryer for half off.
That is a fantastic idea.
Yes, you can save your food fora long time.
You have to use mylar, which arethose silver-looking packages,
kind of like a little thin metalalmost, right?
Or tin or whatever you want tocall it.

(35:20):
Freeze-dried food packaged inmylar and sealed properly can
last upwards of 25 years.

SPEAKER_00 (35:26):
Yep.
With the oxygen savers and yourI mean, that's a long dang time.

SPEAKER_02 (35:32):
We're talking steaks, even.
You can have a steak in a bagand const reconstitute that bad
boy 25 years later.
Now I don't and the thing aboutfreeze-dried food is that it
retains a hundred percent of thenutritional value.
Pressure canning food does breakdown some of the nutritional
content and the processing whenyou do it.

(35:54):
So those are your options forthose.

SPEAKER_00 (35:57):
I mean, I I'm a I'm a huge fan of freeze-dried food.
It has its place.
It does if you're it stores verycompact, it's very light, um
it's good for traveling, it'sgood for storage.
If you have a space in yourhouse, like we have a whole
closet where we just keep all ofour buckets of of freeze-dried

(36:19):
food.
If you have access to plenty ofwater, it's great.
If you have access to no water,it's horrible.
You can't eat it.
You might as well, you might aswell just be looking at sand in
the desert.
Like, what are you gonna do withit?
So, you know, pick and choosewisely, maybe mix and match.
But um, you know, every everystyle has its has its place.

(36:41):
Um, I would say you know, umjarred food is great, but you
did nail you nailed it when yousaid after about the four-year
mark, it starts the consistencyof the actual texture of the
food starts to break down.
Um, if it's like green beans,kind of mushy.

(37:02):
Um, yeah, like ground meat, kindof spongy a little bit.
If you could, I mean, again, ifyou can deal with it, that's
great.
Um, but I mean that just remindsme of when we would go to deer
camp, we'd you know, drop someoff, and every year you go back
to deer camp, you have foodthere.
Like you're just like, hey, deertacos, like this.
Like, so you you you're kind oflike consuming it as you go.

SPEAKER_02 (37:24):
So it's just as good as the day it was came.

SPEAKER_00 (37:26):
It was great, man.
We had like deer tacos onenight, we had like um backstrap
steaks the other night.
Like it's it is, man.
It's it's good.
And as long as you're consumingit and rotating it out, you're
fine.

SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
So that lays out some basic ways that the average
person can begin to increasetheir overall food stores.
Um, and and of course, there aredifferent, you know, tiers of
uh, let's just say,approachability in terms of what
it's gonna cost to get set up.
I mean, buying food as you go isan option, then one tier up is

(37:58):
doing pressure canning, thenanother tier up is doing um
freeze drying.
Freeze drying is certainly goingto represent the highest cost of
food preparation and foodstorage of those things.
Now, speaking of food storage, Iwant to give a quick shout out
to the show's um next sponsor,and that is my Patriot Supply.
So if you're ever, you know,looking for, let's just say, a

(38:20):
situation where you know youwant to buy some freeze-dried
food already made, and you don'twant to have to uh you know
necessarily do it yourself, uh,there is an option of going
through places like my PatriotSupply.
So let's check it out.
Cold weather will be here beforeyou know it.
And you know what that Irealized the other day?
If the power goes out when it'sreally cold, I have no way to

(38:40):
keep myself and my family warm.
Isn't that crazy?
We could actually freeze.
But when I heard about the Vestaoff-grid space heater from our
friends at My Patriot Supply,it's a space heater that doesn't
use electricity.
It runs on something calledcanned heat, which is an indoor
safe fuel with a Vesta stashedin my closet.
I know we can keep warm nomatter what, and it doubles as a

(39:00):
stove to boil water or cookfood, which is pretty cool.
Like in the case of what wetalked about on today's show.
If you have your, you know, youneed to reconstitute your um
your food, you can do so.
Nice.
Now, the best part is that youcan get yourself a Vesta and a
bunch of other free gifts whenyou order the winter prep
special from my Patriot Supply.
Just go to mypatriotsupply.comforward slash LLP to see

(39:24):
everything that's included.
This offer won't last long, andneither will this nice fall
weather.
So go to mypatriotsupply.comslash LLP today.
That's mypatriotsupply.comforward slash LLP.
That's Lima Lima Papa.
Now, even if you don't uh engagewith the Vesta heater deal that
uh we mentioned here on today'sshow, you can absolutely check

(39:45):
out their um their freeze-driedoptions.
They have a ton of long-termstorage food for all of your
needs.
So they are a great sponsor fortoday's show because that they
they sell the stuff that we'retalking about absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 (39:56):
Absolutely.
Yep.

SPEAKER_02 (39:57):
Um, and the nice thing about that type of food is
it's really for a long-termstorage.
You want to have some food onhand for in case things get
really bad.
You know, the nice thing aboutpurchasing food like that in the
containers is one, is it'ssealed up really well.
You can leave it sealed.
But two, let's say that yourbudget, maybe you don't have the
storage space to, you know,store extra rice or other things

(40:22):
in your cupboard along with yournormal food you're consuming.
You can still go to the storeand buy all the normal food that
you would consume on a regularbasis.
And then maybe once a month youbudget in for a certain amount
of freeze-dried rations, havethose sent out, and wow, before
a year uh is up, you realizethat wow, I've got a little
hidden area in my house or alittle, you know, room out in
the garage full of freeze-driedfood.

(40:44):
And each of those largecontainers, I think, is like a
45-day supply or 30-day supplyfor an average family.
So, yes, it is a little bitexpensive to buy freeze-dried
food in that way and like abucket ready to go and sealed
up.
But let's say that money isn'tan option and you want a much
easier and direct way to justboom, have the instant uh

(41:04):
security.
That is a great way to haveinstant security.
Okay.
So just keep that in mind.
If money's not an option, youcan just buy the freeze-dried
buckets and boom, you're good.

SPEAKER_00 (41:14):
And it's it's fast, guys.
Uh, we we're talking about waysto save money.
And when you save money,typically that means you have to
do it yourself.
So a little bit of sweat equity,right?
I remember like uh you you uhEric would do like canning days
when you get like uh a deer, acouple deer, or a hog.
We went and got those hogs, likeit took days, days to like can a

(41:38):
bunch of stuff.
Here, go online, click, click,boom.
You can literally have an entireyear's worth, 365 days worth of
food dropped on your doorstep.
Yeah, like and it'll bedelivered in a couple days, like
and it's good, and it's good.

(41:59):
You couldn't freeze-dry thatmuch food with home equipment if
you wanted to, like, it takes along time to do it.

SPEAKER_02 (42:04):
So you could, but you'd have to be very
disciplined and it would take awhile.
And like Matt said, you know,yes, if you are gonna save money
on food preparation, and reallyit could be anything, whether
it's you know, gun practice,like we talked about gun
training in the previousepisode, whether you're you
know, looking for cheaper waysto practice with your firearm,
or you're looking for cheaperways to um, you know, grow your

(42:26):
own food or produce your ownfood or and otherwise prepare
and save for the future, whetheryou're saving money, whatever
you're trying to save or putback for tomorrow, yes, it will
often require a bit of sweatequity when you're not
necessarily rolling in thedough.
I mean, let's face it, not allof us are rolling in the dough,
and that's understandable.

(42:47):
We've all been there.
We've all been in situationswhere we want to increase our
overall survivability, we wantto have more food on hand, we
want to be better prepared tosurvive adversity.
I mean, let's face it, the worldis not necessarily getting to be
an easier place to live in.
And, you know, the more and morethese governments uh meddle in
our affairs and create all ofthese problems for us, the

(43:09):
harder it is for average peopleto meet their basic needs.
And, you know, I don't thinkwe're at a point of no return.
We certainly are not.
Uh, we are well, well far awayfrom the point of no return.
However, it does make onebelieve man.
Um, it does begin to sow theideas of uncertainty in people

(43:29):
who might not have had the ideaof uncertainty in their head.
And it's not, okay, the sky isfalling, chicken little complex,
and everyone's worried about X,Y, Z.
It's just a general feeling ofuncertainty.
And when these uncertainties umsurface mat, what gen what tends
to happen is the economy doessome really weird things.
Like people hold on to theirmoney, they don't spend as much.

(43:52):
So it's not necessarily thatpeople aren't making decent
money, they're not, you know,holding on to money.
They're simply just not spendingmoney on crap they don't need.
So consumer confidence as awhole begins to be something
that is very much a factor inall of these things, right?
We see that anytime that thethat the Trump, let's just say a

(44:13):
Republican administration is incharge and we have a Republican
majority, a minority, and apresident that's Republican,
like what we have now, or I'msorry, majority in the House,
Senate, presidency.
Let's just say, for all intentsand purposes, a
Republican-controlledgovernment.
Yeah, like the gun industrytends to go down because people
aren't quite so much worriedabout their rights anymore.

(44:35):
And they think, oh, well, I'mnot under any kind of threat
because the Republicans are incharge.
What do they do?
Well, right now the economy is alittle in shambles, maybe not so
much in shambles for somepeople, but let's just say for
average people, yeah, there arethings that make it a little
harder to survive that are goingon that are beyond people's
direct control.
Yeah, people don't purchase asmany firearms during um

(44:57):
Republican control government.
So there are always gonna bethese societal factors that can
make consumer confidence lower,right?
Whether it's consumer confidenceor by virtue of, okay, they're
not worried about the governmentgoing after this particular
widget or whatever it might be.
So therefore, I'm not gonnareally focus on that because I
don't really uh feel like I haveto do this in a timely manner

(45:20):
because it's not under attackright now.
So there are many factors thatdetermine the way that people
spend money and how they spendtheir money, how they save their
money.
So I'm not gonna have thischicken little complex of
saying, well, the reason arethings are the way they are is
simply because people don't havemoney.
I don't think it's that peopledon't have money, y'all.

(45:40):
I think they're just being very,very, very stingy with it and
they're holding on to it andthey're being careful and
they're speculating accordingly,and and they're choosing not to
buy crap that they don't needout of uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 (45:54):
Noah, uh it's true.
I mean, you know, we obviouslywe own you guys know that I own
a jiu-jitsu academy, and youknow, we have memberships.
Like you pay to come train withus.
It's and it many times it's youknow, you'll see that you know,
students have to cut back.
They're like, oh, you know, uh,I'm a little uh uncertain about

(46:15):
you know my job, or I'muncertain about you know this
next promotion.
It's not inexpensive by anymeans.
I mean, it's a monthlymembership, but you do see it,
and I see it quite a bit.
And when those things happen, wetry our best.
We're like a family, we extendthem like, hey, don't worry
about it.
Just continue to train, we'llfigure it out, especially like

(46:36):
parents with kids.
We want to make sure that theyremain with us and they still,
you know, are part of thefamily.
Um, but you know, unfortunately,you do see that, Eric.
And it's like, hey, you know,what does the future hold
financially?
Um, and I think we talked aboutit.
There are people that are livinga little bit outside their
means.
Um, and when they need to saveand they need to cut back, uh,

(46:59):
unfortunately, they never cutback on the things that people
that they that they want peopleto see, like the car payments or
the house, because that's youknow, you have to give the
illusion that everything isfine.
They start cutting back on thethings that people don't see,
which is oh, maybe uh, you know,the tutoring, maybe the school.

(47:20):
I know people that had to pulltheir kids out of private
school, you know, stuff likethat.
Yeah.
Um, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02 (47:26):
Or maybe they're taking less trips, buying less
things, you know.
Oh, well, we were thinking aboutreplacing the washer and dryer
this year.
Let's hold off, et cetera, etcetera.

SPEAKER_00 (47:36):
Yeah, I was gonna, you know, we had to sell a
couple of the horses, wecouldn't afford the upkeep on
the feed, you know, thegroundskeeper, we had to let him
go.
Yeah, you know, so it's like hitits own.

SPEAKER_02 (47:46):
And all of those things trickle downhill to the
in-person.
I mean, you know, when you thinkabout all the goods and services
that are changing hands and theway they're doing it, um, that
is your economy.
That is, you know, the economyin motion.
And, you know, when when thewhen the groundskeeper doesn't
have a job, when all the thesubset of people begin to not

(48:07):
have jobs, that stuff floatsdownhill to uh the greater part
of society.
I mean, so it's it's kind of aninteresting thing that's going
on right now.
I mean, yeah, I understand thetariffs are bringing in money,
but who's it benefiting?
I mean, because at the end ofthe day, the consumers pay it
more.

SPEAKER_00 (48:25):
Yeah.
I mean, the consumer's payingmore, they're passing the buck
along because it was like youthink that the company that
you're buying, whatever thiswidget or clothes or whatever it
may be, but you know, it itdoesn't stop anybody.
That's the problem.
The tariff doesn't stop theconsumer from buying what the

(48:46):
consumer has to buy, it's justmore painful when you buy it.
Um, and I'll use a good example.
Like we had to order a uh uh uhHalloween costume for my
daughter.
And the viewers out there, ifyou have children, and maybe if
you don't have children, uh youprobably know the Netflix uh the

(49:06):
amazing Netflix uh show or moviecalled K-pop Demon Hunters,
which has taken the world bystorm, and every single little
girl wants to be one of theK-pop demon hunter characters.
Uh, my daughter is no exception.
She wants to be Rumi, which isthe lead singer of the group

(49:28):
Huntryx.
Okay.
So we had to go and find aHuntryx or a Rumi costume.
Well, they're all made in China,all right?
They just are.
We ordered it from China, it wasa good price.
Of course, you had tariffs onit, but that's besides the
point.

(49:48):
I will tell you we might be inwe we're cooked, boys and girls.
We are cooked on themanufacturing side.
Because I will tell you, thiscostume came in.
We paid$70,$70 for this costume,and I was expecting like those

(50:12):
kind of costumes you get fromlike the Halloween store where
it's like super thin and likesupplementing, it's gonna fall
apart like a one time bro, bro.
This thing came in and Lisa andI looked at this, and this
costume looks and feels likewhat uh what a performer would

(50:34):
wear on stage, like the jacketis like full sequence, it's got
like custom embroidery on it.
Wow, it's got metalaccoutrements on it.

SPEAKER_02 (50:43):
Really?

SPEAKER_00 (50:44):
Yes, not accoutrements, yes, like all the
chains, that's all metal, like ashoulder gauntlet, like the the
skirt is like leather withsequence and zip, like it all it
blew me away, dude.
Wow, and I mean I'm not one tolike say, hey, China
manufacturing, but to have thatyou know how to make stuff, man.

(51:06):
Dude, I mean I don't I can'texplain it.
I can't explain it, I can'tjustify it, but I can tell you
that's the best dang costumethat I've ever seen, and it was
made the perfect size.
Like, dude, the sizing is likespot on.
If it's like a custom thing, youjust give them the sizing.

(51:27):
Like, how do you how do you likewhat do you do?
I don't know what to do, people.

SPEAKER_02 (51:31):
You know, what's crazy is you know that there's a
lot of situations where whensomeone thinks made in China,
they always typically will say,Oh, it's just it must mean that
it's super cheap.
Like they think like a dollarstore knife or something, you
know, like a cheap knife.
But the thing is, is China makeswhat people tell them to make.

(51:52):
So if they come and say, Hey,make me the cheapest guitar you
can, all right, we'll make you a$99 guitar.
It's gonna be a$99 guitar.
Yeah.
But that same company, let's sayI come to them and I say, make
me a nice guitar.
How much are you gonna charge mefor something nice?
I want this, this, and this, andhigh quality electronics, and I
want, you know, all XYZ, etcetera.

(52:13):
I want like something prettynice.
Yeah, they'll make you a guitarthat you can sell for$1,000, and
it'd be like, whoa, reallyhigh-end for that type of money.
So China makes what people paythem to make, and they have a
sort of a reputation for makingcrap, but that's because people
pay them to make crap.
But they make some reallyhigh-end stuff.

(52:33):
So I was at the knife show one,it was the blade show there in
uh Atlanta.
And the last blade show I wentto, I talked to the owner of
Ricky Knives, and he's Chinese,and he is a very, very, very
good knife maker.
I'm talking, this guy justdoesn't make regular ass knives.
Okay, he makes high-end knives,really high-end knives, knives

(52:56):
that cost four or five thousanddollars for one knife.
Dang.
And I'm talking, man, you lookat this knife and it looks like
something a Space Ranger wouldhave on his belt.
Like it looks like a knife fromthe future.
It doesn't just look like anydamn regular knife, it looks
like a knife that got in a timemachine from 2130.
Like it's crazy what theseknives look like.

(53:18):
And they're made with love andcare and attention, and this guy
is an absolute knife nerd.
So it's funny how everyonethinks China means bad quality,
and that's not necessarilyalways the case.
I mean, they can make anythinguh at any price range and in any
quality range if if that's whatthe uh what they want, what what
someone wants when they buy it.

SPEAKER_00 (53:38):
You know what you you know what I believe we did
when we got that costume.
I saw that like we were kind ofgoing down the rabbit hole
looking for these costumes, andwe saw that same costume on
American websites being sold forlike$400,$500.

(53:59):
I believe we found the source ofthe of the costume, and we got
it for what they like the costof them making it, and then the
people selling them are like thethe drop shippers, so they're
turning around and selling thatsame costume for like four or
five hundred dollars because itfeels like that thing should

(54:21):
cost like it just blew us away.
Really?
Yeah, so I was so I I think thatwe just happen to do enough
digging on the interwebs andwe're like we found it.

SPEAKER_02 (54:30):
Yeah, but hey, and you know what?
That's being savvy.
Yeah, I mean, the thing ispeople are having to hunker down
a little more and be a littlesmarter with their money and a
little bit more stringent withhow they spend their hard-earned
dollars.
I mean, let's face it, thingsare not getting necessarily any
easier.
You know, I think there's beentalks.

(54:51):
It's only talks or or murmurs,if you will.
I've heard that Trump is talkingabout eliminating the income
tax, federal income tax.
I mean, with these tariffs, thatwould be at bare minimum, in my
opinion, would be to at leasteliminate the income tax.

SPEAKER_00 (55:09):
It may justify it.

SPEAKER_02 (55:10):
It would well, the only justification that it needs
to not exist is that itshouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 (55:15):
Well, no, meaning it may justify the tariffs.

SPEAKER_02 (55:17):
It may justify the tariffs, right?

SPEAKER_00 (55:20):
Income tax, no.

SPEAKER_02 (55:20):
Income tax, no.
But but what I'm saying isthere's been talk that they're
gonna potentially do away withthe income tax.
And I think they should, becauseit's it's an antiquated thing.
They only came up with this withthis tax to help pay for wars
and stuff, and it was nevermeant to be permanent.
They know it wasn't meant to bepermanent.
And see, if anything, it's adangerous precedence that gets

(55:41):
set.
Is anytime you give thegovernment a shred of power and
say, here you go, and you'reasking them to actually give up
that power, oh no, forget it.
I mean, think about like a tollroad.
Oh, we're gonna set this tollroad up to pay for the road.
All right.
When the road is paid for, we'llstop collecting the toll.
Nah, nope.
Nope.
Nope.
The infrastructure's here.

(56:02):
We're collecting that toll inperpetuity.

SPEAKER_00 (56:04):
Which we which we have experience with here in
Georgia, with Georgia 400.
They it was originally a tollroad.
It was supposed to stopcollecting tolls, and they
continued collecting tolls forlike the next 10 or 15 years.
Oh, yeah.
Even after the date.
They made money on it.

SPEAKER_02 (56:19):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, they're and they'recontinuing to make money.
And so there are enough lifefees on the table already that
people already have to pay.
There's so many freaking taxeson the table that if you have a
dollar, you might as wellconsider 70 cents of that dollar
going to someone else other thanyou.
But in time, it's all said anddone.

unknown (56:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (56:37):
And the big team of things.
And that's scary.
Like, no person should give up70% of what they own just to
exist within society.
And it should never beacceptable for someone else's
hard-earned money to be takenfrom them, you know, just so
society can have a bunch of freestuff or whatever, whatever it
is, I mean, that that we'resupposed to be paying for here.
And then um, I suppose the otheraspect of it too is you know,

(56:59):
not only is it that concept, butalso property taxes.
Another thing that really getsme on that is even though you
own a piece of property, younever actually own it.
The government, if you don't paythem taxes, can just come and
take it at any time.
And that's even if you own it.
You own it clear and free, itbelongs to you, but it never
really belongs to you.
The two worst taxes are incometax and property tax.

SPEAKER_01 (57:21):
Yep.

SPEAKER_02 (57:22):
So imagine that you can't actually own it, it's
never actually yours.
I find that to be horse crap.

SPEAKER_00 (57:28):
Well, the problem with the property taxes isn't
that the government will takeyour house because the
government doesn't want yourhouse.
It doesn't do anything for them.
What the government wants is forsomebody else to buy your house
for the tax lien and then chargethem property tax moving
forward.
So it's they just want someoneto take over that obligation of

(57:48):
paying the property taxes.
Um that's jacked up.

SPEAKER_02 (57:51):
What if you're on a you know fixed income?
What if you're that's exactlythe problem?
If you're older and you can'tafford it, you know, what if you
can't work anymore?
It's a you know, it's it'sjacked up.
Like, I think the whole idea ofan inheritance tax is jacked up
too.
Like, you know, if your familyleaves you money and you we have
to pay inheritance taxes, wehave to pay death taxes.
There's all these freaking taxesin place.
It's like everywhere you turn isa freaking life fee.

SPEAKER_00 (58:13):
That's why you put things in a trust, all right.

SPEAKER_02 (58:14):
Well, yeah, put it in a trust, but that's a future
video.

SPEAKER_00 (58:18):
Yeah.
But no, I agree that I meanthere are gonna be states like
Florida and Texas that um youknow have no income taxes that
would be like havens for highincome earners to get.
And they know it.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (58:32):
If you eliminate the federal tax, oh my gosh, that
makes Florida even moreattractive because now you don't
have state tax or federal tax.
Now, granted, the property taxesare high.
But hurricane taxes and all theproperty taxes are really high,
but yeah, you know, I guess allthe tourism, they bring in a lot
of money from all the tourism,and and I guess state taxes,

(58:54):
like you know, all the peoplebuying their Mickey Mouse hats,
I guess that ends up being a lotof dang money.

SPEAKER_00 (58:58):
Yeah, I mean, it is what it is, and you know, taxes
definitely are not not a goodthing because, like you said,
people are losing 30 to 40percent off the rip, like every
dollar.
I mean, imagine, man.
Imagine.
So here's the thing about uhtaxes in general income taxes or
just taxes to your paycheck.

(59:18):
Imagine if you had to pay thoseup front.
How many people would be up inarms?
If you said, hey, we're going tocollect this tax, but you have
to pay for it uh up front, notat the end of the year.
Yeah, like that would be you'dsee a lot more people like up.
They'd be royally pissed.
Oh, yeah, pissed.
They'd be they'd actually dosomething about it.

SPEAKER_02 (59:39):
And they'd have the right to be pissed.

SPEAKER_00 (59:40):
And the government knows what they're doing.
They're like, I'll just keepkicking the can down the road
till the end of the year, andwe'll give you seven thousand
dollars back out of all the.

SPEAKER_02 (59:49):
And even if they don't collect the taxes, they're
still just going to print themoney anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (59:53):
Oh, yeah.
Which is why we have to do that.

SPEAKER_02 (59:54):
But really, the function of collecting taxes is
not about money and revenue,it's about control, it's about
them just.
You know, subjecting you to ahumiliation ritual.
That's really what this all is.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:03):
Well, think about the speeding ticket that you
were just t discussing earlier,Eric, when you said, Oh, you had
to go in and you had to pay afine.
Speeding tickets in general onlyserve one purpose, and that's a
revenue generating uh item.
Because if they really wanted tomake it about uh reforming your
behavior, they would make it towhere the ticket costs nothing.

(01:00:25):
You lose points on your license.
At the end of this, you justsimply get your license
suspended.
And then if you can't drive,which is what they do anyways,
they just charge you for everyticket that you that you get for
the only purpose of generatingrevenue.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:43):
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:44):
If you took that component out, it would still
work the same.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:47):
Imagine what would happen if they said that every
time you got a speeding ticket,you're not gonna pay a fine,
you're gonna get ports on yourpoints on your license, and you
have to spend 30 days in jail.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:55):
Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:57):
Imagine now, granted, there'd be a lot of
people in jail, but you betterbelieve once those people got
out of jail, they wouldn't speedanymore.
You better believe it'd be thelast time they ever sped.
What?
So if it's actually about reformand it was actually about
keeping people from engaging inthe behavior they don't like,
they would make the punishmentway worse.
No, they make the punishmenteasy, they make it where all you
have to do is just pay a lifefee and you can get out of it.

(01:01:17):
Well, if something is legal fora price, is it really illegal in
the first place?

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:22):
Oh, good point.
Why don't they give you achoice?
Why don't they say, hey, youcould do a hundred dollars of
community service or pay thefine?

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:30):
You know what they pay people for community
service?

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:32):
What?

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:33):
If you're working off something, ten dollars an
hour.

unknown (01:01:36):
Wow.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:36):
Like, imagine what kind of person works that has
get paid ten dollars an hour.
Who makes ten dollars an houranymore?
Yeah, nobody.
That's not that's not evenminimum wage.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:45):
Really, it's seven dollars after taxes, right?

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:47):
That's what I'm saying.
That's barely minimum wage.
Like, god dang, you can't evenbill your time for what you're
worth.
Like, damn, that's what you'reworth to them.

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:54):
Oh, jury duty's worse, man.
They pay you like five dollars aday or something like that.
Yeah, it's like you're loot,dude.
You lose absolutely so muchmoney.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:02):
That is bonkers to me that you can be required to
do that, yeah, and they can justsay, Oh, your time isn't worth
anything to us, and and just youget screwed.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:11):
Like, yeah, it's rough, man.
Especially like especiallyyou're talking like single
single parents, they go in, theyget a little sack lunch, five
dollars, and that's it.
Man, that sucks.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:22):
Well, I hope everybody enjoyed today's show.
Um, that's gonna pretty much getus to the end here.
And um, you know, I I hope thatyou guys take something away
from today's uh presentation.
I know we we talked about a lotof different ways that you can
increase your overall foodstores and your survivability
and those sorts of things.
So um hopefully you tooksomething away from today's show
and I hope you enjoyed it.

(01:02:44):
Uh let me know what are some ofthe things, you know, in the
comment section below, let meknow what are some of the things
that you do to increase yourfood supply incrementally, to
harden yourself up and survivethe, you know, weather the
storm, for instance, okay?
What are some of the things thatyou do that we didn't mention?
I'd like to know.
Uh we post every Monday at 9o'clock Eastern Standard Time.

(01:03:06):
Uh, we have been posted onSunday occasionally.
Uh let me know if you preferSunday or Monday in the comment
section below.
But so far, right now, we'reposting every Monday at 9 a.m.
here on YouTube if you want tosee the video form of LLP.
Also, you can find Life,Liberty, and the Pursuit on all
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(01:03:28):
usual suspects.
Make sure you give us a goodrating so that we show up higher
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That would really uh help us alot.
We got a lot of downloads on theshow, so thank you for
listening.
If you're listening in audioform, also if you're watching us
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Again, follow me on Twitter, uhwww.x.com forward slash

(01:03:49):
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SPEAKER_00 (01:04:04):
Yeah, man.
Guys, if you're listening tothis on audio format on uh our
number one uh platform is ApplePodcasts, no surprise there.
Guys, leave leave a good reviewfor us on Apple Podcasts, that
really helps us out.
We have uh, you know, we have anamazing rating with Apple
Podcasts, so don't ruin it.
But at the same time, leave agood comment.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:26):
Absolutely.
Um, guys and girls, thanks somuch for watching today's show
andor listening.
Have a great week and we'll seeyou soon.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:34):
Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:36):
Thanks for listening alike Liberty and Thursdo.
If you enjoyed the show, be sureto subscribe on Apple Podcasts,
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Be sure to leave us a five starreview.
We'd really appreciate that.
You can support us over onBallistic Inc.
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And remember, guys, dangerousfreedom.
Have a good one.