Well some think bug out. Some think bug in. Well lets consider the options should I stay or should I go? If I stay what do I have food, water" if its not on the grid" and shelter. Great but I also have my address on file, Number in the phonebook, probably a picture of my house on google earth. Or do you hopefully not.

If none of the bad applies to you then stay home just be sure you have enough of each to wait it out.

If you bug out. What are you bugging out with? Do you have enough supplies to last you? What about your family? Does your family have skills to bug out? do you have a plan in place? Where are you going to go? What are you going to do when you get there? is there enough supplies on you person to survive however long this crisis may last? Does everyone hve the skills needed to "live off the land"? This is just wrote to get you thinking. I hope everyone has took all of this into consideration. If so Great. You can avoid alot of "learning the hard way" If you do. I hope for anyone reading all your dreams come true. GOD BLESS

Also consider medical needs. Diabetes, Asthma, heart disease etc usually require specific meds and equipment. Just something else to consider.

for those thinking of bugging out to a friends or relations don't forget..they might have to bugout to you

We live in a small rural / Mennonite town where every one knows each other. For the most part we are all like minded (personalities aside) and the minority druggies or scum that wont last long wtshtf.

We have always planned on staying put and have a plan to B.O. just in case. But we have always planned on staying in place and defending what is ours.

Our home is well stocked and we have done tons of research on "living off the grid" but haven't actually done it. We grow our own veggies in season and have a rather large stock of rotated can goods.

I have plans in place to secure my home if and when needed to keep unwanted people out.

I am looking at building a Ice house in Spring just to have in case we ever forced off the Grid long term do to natural or man made events.

I also have plans to build a outdoor Stove/ oven on our rear porch that I have a hard copy of plans for.

One thing we cant agree on is power. I want to get/ build a Gasifier and my wife thinks we should go solar. I think the Gasifier would be cheaper and more reliable in the long run, But we are still debating that.

combination of passive solar and gassification.

IMHO gassification will see it's real use SHTF as an alternative for combustion engines

I guess this is the best place to post this. I could use some opinions about what our priority should be re bugging in or out. We live several miles outside a small city of 38 - 40K in the southeastern US. We are approximately 70 miles from a major city of 500k. We are 25 miles from any interstate. We have a brick home with basement on just less than 2 acres one block off a 4 lane highway in a rural area.
We have been exploring property farther out in more secluded areas. Our major limitations are:
Money (of course!) We have less that 70,000 total we could scrape together for another place.
Family - we are taking care of my elderly mother in law and our 20 year old autistic son.
Age/Health - We are late 58 and 60. I have back and joint problems and my husband has had injuries to ankle/foot from fall.

We have been prepping for over a year, have food, water stored. Food for year so far for us, less if feeding our grandkids in area.
We have been debating putting money into securing home we live in, providing water source with well, etc., more fencing for security, or, putting what little we have into a place farther out and trying to make it liveable for all of us.

We are concerned we don't have the money or strength left to fully develop another place, but are worried that in a major SHTF event our current house wouldn't be secure regardless of what we do. Especially if government, LEO start confiscating all the things they might want.

I'm sorry this is so long, but needed to explain our thought process and limitations. Should we try to be farther out? With our age and limitations are we just kidding ourselves that it would make any significant difference in the long run. We could just stay here and go out in a blaze of glory!!!! Any suggestions appreciated.

gypsy..if you care to start a new thread on this you would be in all likelihood to get a lot of suggestions and questions.

sorry about the thread drift folks.

Thanks, I'm new at this, not sure how to do that. Sorry if I posted wrong

This is something our group has done extensively. We go through our thoughts on this. Most of us are in a place where bugging in is an option. Those who aren't staying put are hooked up with someone who is and have set up gas caches along to way to get to them. We have maps, safe houses and different routes planned for each location.
We have taken the time to plan how each bug in can be protected, how each bug out should take place. Rather than get complacent, we also took each bug IN locale and came up with scenarios on why they might need to bug out (fire, gang attack etc) and decided on several safe places for them to go along with maps and different routes and discussed how to travel on foot or vehicle and what to take.

It's all just part of planning. Our state is large with several major cities and a LOT of people including gangs. Should something major happen, there would be a large "golden horde", so many routes andoptions were chosen. We want to come out of any event as survivors, so it's worth the time to do these kinds of discussions.

Wife and I are similar to you in several ways GAGypsy - I am 59 ans She is 58. We both have Health issues - she is really arthritic, has Replacement knees. We both have Blood pressure meds.

We have decided that Option 1 is to stay here, so have an extensive store of supplies and defense measures in place here. Hospitals and Pharmacies are near.

Option 2 is to bug out with our "Lifeboat" (a Coleman Tent trailer, optioned out and loaded up with Auxiliary stores). I know a wilderness at altitude, and on a very rough and difficult road less than half tank of fuel away for either tow vehicle, where we could easily live for three months or so (If there is water available). Game is plentiful there. Hospitals, pharmacies and services are distant and difficult to get to.

Option 3 is to go to a farm place of a good friend, where an international border is handy if necessary to dodge out of the U.S. It is two or three tanks of fuel away. We would take the Coleman here also. Game is plentiful here also. Pharmacy is not too far, but Hospital is a distant.

Option 4 is keeping moving, again with the Coleman, but could also be done with just the two vehicles, or even one.

That is all we have considered at this time...