(A series in which I ramble some personal perspective on ICYDAK's "30 Proven Tactics to Resist Authoritarianism in Daily Life," because most of this stuff is just default daily life to me.)
ICYDAK: 30 Proven Tactics to Resist Authoritarianism in Everyday Life
#1: know your rights
#2: secure your communications
#3: diversify your news sources
The more self-sufficient you are, the harder it is for the system to punish you. Reduce debt, learn new skills, and, if possible, avoid reliance on government aid that can be weaponized.
I've written about this before in a slightly different context:
drmollytov: what does it mean to "become ungovernable"?
Here, though, I'm going to hit on each of these three points above, with whatever tidbits I think might possibly be useful to someone who isn't me.
If you haven't skipped this part, it's probably because you have debt. So me saying "the best way to do this is never to go into debt" doesn't help either of us, even if it is the thing my parents drilled into my head as a kid.
So here is the number one most important most valuable nay I daresay the SINGLE MOST ESSENTIAL thing I have learned a person can do to get their debt under control. Here it is. The Holy Grail of debt management:
STOP ADDING TO YOUR DEBT. RIGHT NOW. TODAY. FOREVERMORE.
No, really. It's THE most useful thing. Why?
1. the debt stops getting bigger, giving you a real chance at making it smaller.
2. you are forced to learn how to live a cash-only existence.
3. #2 builds both the skills and habits you need to stay out of debt once you get out.
So cancel the credit cards, close the HELOC, tell your friends/parents to cut you off, hiss like a child in need of an exorcism whenever you see the Klarna logo. Whatever you have to do. Stop. Adding. To. Your. Debt.
The second most helpful thing I ever did to get my debt under control was to track every single penny I spent. I started with a spreadsheet that tracked every penny from the previous months (minus the cash I couldn't remember), then I tracked every. single. red. cent. for about half a year.
Don't get judgmental. Just write it down. It is *incredibly* revealing.
I swear, every personal finance book that tells you to "learn new skills" uses it as a lead-in to "and then you can get a better job/monetize your side hustle/make more income!" I am not going to say this. I do not find this useful. Dependency on employment income is dependency on employment income, full stop.
Instead, focus on learning new skills that let you *spend less.* Does your tracking of your expenses reveal you eat out A LOT? Learn to cook/prep foods so you don't have to order something. Learn to do basic mending so you can make your clothes last longer. Cut your own hair. Grow a tomato plant in a pot on your balcony and get one teeny step closer to not requiring a grocery store to live.
Basically, if there's something you pay someone else to do, ask yourself "Could I learn to do this?" If the learning curve is not bonkers steep or expensive, learn it.
(For example: I learned how to install my own light fixtures a couple years ago. I would definitely not swap out my whole electrical box.)
If you end up enjoying a skill set so much you decide to get a higher-paying job with it, cool. I'm certainly not going to tell you NOT to get that paycheck. But as someone who has survived three major recessions in her working years and had six or seven distinct "careers" as a result, I will say that chasing "in-demand skills" is a fool's errand. Chase skills that solve real, immediate personal needs for you and your household. These are the skills you can barter in the apocalypse.
Government aid does basically the same thing debt does: it plants a hook in you. If the powers that be want you to behave a certain way, they can use it as leverage. See, e.g., SNAP work requirements (which are as much about getting you to quit using SNAP as they are about getting you to work).
Sometimes, you need the help you need. If that's the case, don't put yourself in mortal danger by foregoing the help you need for housing, food, or medical care. But if you have the option to get away from government benefits, do it.
(Without going into debt. Trading benefits for debt is just trading one problem for another.)
...okay, this is the one place I'll say "skill helps me directly" and "skill is marketable" are equally important considerations.
"Avoiding reliance on government aid" has an unspoken bit I think is very important. So important I'm going to give it its own subheading, because it deserves its own section:
Government aid is a fairly new idea, as human civilizations go. For millennia, we relied on family, friends, neighbors, kin, clan and tribe rather than on a bureaucratized entity when we needed support.
The stronger your communities are, the less you may need to rely on government aid, debt, or other things that can be weaponized. Mutual aid is real and it works y'all.
Here's an article on creating mutual aid networks, which has several links to additional sources:
American Friends Service Committee: How to Create a Mutual Aid Network
For me, one of the biggest steps to expanding my financial independence was realizing that, ultimately, money is a thing I trade for goods and services. If I can find other means of acquiring said goods and services, I don't need to trade money for them. I'm thus free of the "money problem," at least when it comes to that particular good or service.
Some things I've been working on lately to develop such independence:
I'm sure there are other options, which I look forward to finding. The most fun part of this process is getting to be curious - to ask "is there a better way to get this thing I am thinking of paying money for?" Sometimes there's not (I bought a couple thumb drives recently, for instance, because that's not something I can whip up from scratch). But often there is (I borrowed a 30 year old movie from my state's interlibrary loan system instead of paying to "rent" it online). Get curious! Get creative!
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