not sure if a word of that is true, but it's because of shit like this that i will never have a bank account....

That's not going to work out well for you in the future. If you successfully make it to 30 without a bank account I'll be impressed.

a lot of low income ppl dont qualify for bank accounts which is why there are those check cashing places

No, a lot of people with bad credit don't qualify for bank accounts. What your income is has no bearing on weather or not you can have an account.

You know that's about 10x worse than a bank account right? Seriously, just go with a small bank like I do. They have higher returns, the biggest problem is good luck finding a free ATM.

very true. but my whole thought is, our economy is on a 200mph downward spiral..... what happens if there's a crash like before and all money in the bank is suddenly gone?

I have tangible assets. I figure it will be about 10 years before we have what most people would call a crash.

History lesson because I just got home from work and I don't have anything better to do while my meal digests before bed.
Picture yourself as a savvy business man and there is this new-ish thing called the stock market. One day you realize that you can borrow money from the bank in the morning, buy stock with it, then sell the stock in the afternoon and make almost 12% profit. You do this for quite awhile, and suddenly one day you don't make any profit. In fact, you take a loss. No big deal, you'll just make it back tomorrow. But tomorrow comes and you draw another loss. And another and another. Suddenly, you owe the bank thousands of dollars (witch was a small fortune back then) And the bank wants it's money. A person who has money invested in the bank where you were getting your loans wants to withdraw some money the next day but the bank tells him that they can't give him the money because they loaned it all out to you and all the other people doing the same thing as you. That guy is shaken, because that money is all he's got. If he can't get his money out of the bank then he goes hungry. He goes to all his friends and says, "Hey, there's no money left in the banks!" And so you get a run on the banks, everyone trying to get their money out that's no longer there because it was all loaned out. And that's the recipe for a great depression.

i never actually understood the reason the banks were empty.......... thank you very much! but with that knowledge yes i agree with you. we definitely have some wiggle room before we're all bent over to take a fat one........

Remember you want to have something that's not money that people will always want. Toilet paper is a satirical example, wile gold is an over used example.

how about ammo and MREs?

Both are certainly useful, but ammo tends to corrode unless it's packed in just a certain way and MREs only have about a 13 year shelf life despite what people commonly believe. Both would be good to have around assuming the government decides you are allowed to have that kind of thing. They might decide they need that stuff more than you and confiscate it. BIC lighters are one of those things you could use 50 of though.

plenty of lighters. also a lot of flint and hand sparks. i highly doubt the feds will find us this far out in the woods.

Seriously, why stockpile something you can pick up off of the ground? Flint and a piece of iron that is. Ammunition isn't really that big of an issue, by the time you need it it'll be outlawed anyways.

weeeeeell see now that's the thing. my brother and i are a bit paranoid. and we see things going pretty far south sooner than it would take for economic collapse. my our standards we're not even half prepared

You can never be too prepared. Natural disasters are a whole lot more common than the total collapse of society though, so I would start by preparing for those. Food, water, shelter, toilet paper. Seriously, you don't realize how fucking awesome toilet paper is until you don't have any.

dude we live in the center of the bulls-eye for hurricanes...... and we have a hurricane proof steel barn stocked with enough supplies and ammo to last at least 5 months minimum with enough left over for an extra person or 2

Well then it sounds to me like you've got your ducks in a row. Check this out.
http://www.landfallnavigation.com/-sas04.html?cmp=pricegrabber&pg=sasfk&utmsour ce=sasfk&utmmedium=shopping%2Bengine&utm_campaign=pricegrabber