Posting has been non-existent for the last few months because I’ve been very busy and very stressed. But barring some bizarre glitch out of nowhere I have landed a good job after over two years of un- and under-employment. While I will deeply miss the game store that my partners and I have dragged into profitability, I’ll be making significantly more than the game store is likely to provide any time soon.

The only trouble is that the new job is in another state. We will need to relocate. Subordinate problems include the fact that we are within a few thousand dollars of the bottom of our savings, the housing market locally is still fairly poor, and the cost of real estate is higher where we are headed. We’re also getting rather low on our food storage. And we’ve got perhaps a month and a half before school starts up again.

So we will be starting over practically from ground zero in a brand new place, and needing to do it quickly. On top of that, I feel a sense of urgency to get back to at least the level of preparation we were in before the recession hit. There are no guarantees that we’re not headed back down again, and I’d like to be able to ride it out again if necessary.

This blog will be taking a bit of a chance of direction. It’s now going to focus on my quest to achieve self-reliance as quickly as possible while trying not to drive my family crazy with severe austerity measures. It’s been a hard two years, and we need a little budgetary relaxation to help us decompress. At the same time, we’ve learned to get by on next to nothing, which will help us stretch my new income farther if we don’t relax too much.

So stay tuned! This could be fun! Oh yeah, on more thing, just to make things interesting: If there’s a “Self-reliance and Emergency Prep Mecca”, it’s Salt Lake City, Utah, and that’s where we’re headed. Self-reliance is practically a tenet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (of which I’m a member), but the Utah “Mormons” have made an industry of it. Some of it is good, and some of it seems rather exploitative. I’ll try to explore the culture and the businesses surrounding it a bit, and call it like I see it.

I may be out of touch again for a little while, though. I start work next week, and my time will be somewhat limited while I prepare to move myself, and then my family. I’ll post when I can, but I make no promises as to when or how often. Thank you for your patience.