I’ve spent the last three years interviewing survivors of economic and societal collapses.
People who lived through the siege of Sarajevo.
Venezuelans who watched their country go from prosperity to poverty.
Argentinians who survived multiple currency crashes and hyperinflation.
A guy in Bosnia who spent 1,425 days under siege without water, electricity, or food.
These aren’t YouTube preppers with tactical gear and theories.
These are regular people, accountants, teachers, engineers, who one day woke up to find their modern, civilized country had stopped functioning.
And you know what I learned? Everything we think we know about preparedness is wrong.
Not incomplete. Not slightly off. Wrong.
The gear we stockpile. The plans we make. The scenarios we prepare for. Most of it won’t matter when things actually fall apart. Because collapse doesn’t look like the movies. It doesn’t happen overnight. And the things that save you aren’t the things you think.
Here are eleven brutal lessons from people who actually lived through it.
Lesson 1: Your Wealth Will Disappear Faster Than You Think
In 2013, if you were upper-middle class in Venezuela, you were doing well. Nice apartment. Car. Savings in the bank. You could afford imported goods, vacations, restaurant meals.
By 2017, those same people were rummaging through garbage for food.
Four years. That’s how long it took for an entire social class to disappear.
Argentina’s been through this multiple times. In 2002, unemployment topped 20 percent and inflation hit 20 percent monthly. Middle-class Argentinians who’d saved money in banks found their life savings cut by 70 percent overnight when the government restructured debt.
Here’s what nobody tells you about economic collapse: your money doesn’t just lose value gradually. It evaporates in waves. First, hyperinflation destroys purchasing power. Then banking restrictions prevent you from accessing what’s left. Finally, currency resets or restructuring wipe out whatever remains.
I talked to a Venezuelan prepper who’d been stacking cash since 2012. Smart guy. He understood inflation was coming. By 2015, his carefully saved money wasn’t enough to buy a week’s worth of food. The currency he’d been hoarding became worthless paper.
What actually saved people:
Hard currency, specifically US dollars, held outside the banking system. One survivor told me he kept $500 in cash hidden in his apartment. That $500, converted to local currency as needed, fed his family for eight months when hyperinflation peaked.
Tangible assets that hold value. Tools. Bicycles. Quality clothing. Anything that can be traded or used. When Argentina’s banking system froze deposits in 2001, people who’d bought practical goods beforehand came out ahead.
Skills that generate income regardless of currency. A Venezuelan I interviewed taught himself to repair electronics. He bartered repairs for food, never touching worthless currency. His knowledge was his only hedge against economic collapse.
The lesson? Don’t just save money. Convert wealth into things that’ll retain value when money doesn’t. And keep some actual dollars, not digital dollars, physical cash, somewhere the government can’t freeze or devalue it.
Lesson 2: You Can’t Eat Your Preps If You Don’t Have Them With You
This one kills me because it’s so obvious, yet every prepper I know gets it wrong.
During the Bosnian War, Sarajevo went from modern European city to war zone almost overnight. The siege lasted 1,425 days, nearly four years without reliable water, electricity, or supplies.
One survivor I talked to had a cabin outside the city stocked with six months of food, tools, and supplies. Perfect bug-out location. He’d spent years preparing it.
He never made it there. The siege happened faster than anyone expected. Roads were cut off within days. His perfect prep location sat unused while he starved in his apartment.
The reality of modern collapse: You probably won’t bug out. Most people don’t evacuate until it’s too late. Even when warnings are clear, human psychology makes us wait, hoping things will improve.
During Hurricane Katrina, people had days of warning. Many still didn’t leave. Some couldn’t, no transportation, no money, nowhere to go. Others just didn’t believe it would be that bad.
The Venezuelan example is even clearer: The collapse took years. At what point do you abandon your job, your home, your life and bug out? When inflation hits 100%? 500%? 1,000%? Over 6.8 million Venezuelans have fled since 2014, but most left after losing everything, not before.
What works better:
Preps where you actually live. Food stored in your house. Water filtration at home. Tools in your basement. If you can’t access your bug-out location, at least you’ve got something.
Multiple smaller cache locations instead of one perfect retreat. The Sarajevo survivor who made it told me his family survived partly because they’d scattered supplies, some at his apartment, some at his parents’ place across town, some at a friend’s house. When one location became inaccessible, others weren’t.
Skills and knowledge you carry with you. You can’t lose what’s in your head. The ability to purify water, treat injuries, repair equipment, start fires, these go with you anywhere.
I’m not saying don’t have a bug-out location. I’m saying don’t bet everything on reaching it. Because when collapse comes, you’ll probably be exactly where you are right now, trying to survive with whatever you have on hand.
Lesson 3: Social Connections Matter More Than Stockpiles
Every survival manual emphasizes self-reliance. Store food. Learn skills. Be independent. That’s great advice for a two-week power outage.
It’s terrible advice for extended collapse.
During the siege of Sarajevo, neighbors formed tight-knit support systems, pooling resources and skills for collective survival. People who tried to survive alone generally didn’t.
One Bosnian survivor put it bluntly: “The loners died first. You need a community. Not just for resources, but for information, security, and sanity.”
Here’s why:
You can’t guard your home 24/7 alone. During the siege, families took shifts watching for threats. One person can’t stay alert continuously for days, weeks, months. Groups can.
You don’t know everything. Maybe you know first aid but can’t fix a generator. Your neighbor knows generators but has no medical skills. Together, you both survive. Alone, you die from either injury or lack of power.
Resources go further when shared. It’s more efficient to heat one large space with multiple families than four separate apartments. It’s safer to send two people to gather water than one.
The Venezuela situation reinforced this. Communities formed unofficial barter networks, sharing information about where to find supplies and which areas were safe. People who isolated themselves struggled more than those who maintained connections.
A Venezuelan I interviewed told me about his neighborhood’s system: different families specialized in different survival tasks. One family had a generator and charged phones and radios. Another had a small garden and shared produce. A third had medical training and provided basic healthcare. They traded and supported each other.
What you need to do now:
Know your neighbors. Not Facebook-friend know. Actually know them. Who has useful skills? Who can you trust? Who would help in a crisis?
Build relationships before you need them. Join a community group. Help neighbors with projects. Be the person people remember when things get hard.
Don’t advertise your preps, but don’t be a ghost either. The goal isn’t to be the mysterious prepper nobody knows. It’s to be a valued community member who happens to have skills and resources.
I know this advice runs counter to OPSEC paranoia. But talk to actual collapse survivors and they’ll tell you: isolation kills. Community survives.
Lesson 4: Normal Life Continues (Sort Of)
This one surprised me more than anything else.
During the 1,425-day siege of Sarajevo, people held concerts in library ruins, organized beauty contests, and filled salons getting hair done when power temporarily returned.
At first, this sounds insane. Why risk your life for a concert? Why waste precious soap on makeup?
A survivor explained it: “The feeling that you’re human can fade pretty fast. People traded meals for toothpaste, cologne, or just to feel normal for an hour.”
Here’s the pattern I saw across every collapse: After the initial shock, people try desperately to maintain normalcy. Kids still play. Adults still joke. Life continues, just harder.
In Venezuela, even as people starved, soccer matches continued. Restaurants stayed open, serving increasingly small portions of increasingly terrible food. People still celebrated birthdays, got married, had children.
Argentina during its crisis? Worker cooperatives reopened closed factories and continued production. They didn’t have regular paychecks anymore, but work gave structure and purpose.
Why this matters for preparedness:
Pack entertainment. Books. Cards. Games. Board games kept Bosnian families sane during months in basements. You will not spend every waking hour fighting for survival, most of collapse is boring, terrifying waiting.
Maintain routines when possible. The Sarajevo survivor I talked to said his family still ate dinner together every night. Still told stories. Still celebrated holidays with whatever they had. The routine kept them mentally stable.
Don’t underestimate the psychological toll. More people break mentally than physically during collapse. The ones who kept their humanity, through small luxuries, continued traditions, maintaining appearance, survived better than those who descended into pure survival mode.
The uncomfortable truth: You won’t just be surviving. You’ll be living a harder, scarier version of normal life for months or years. Prepare for that reality, not just for a two-week camping trip.
Lesson 5: The First Things to Disappear Aren’t What You Think
Ask a prepper what disappears first in a crisis. They’ll say food, water, ammo. Standard answers.
They’re wrong.
In Sarajevo, the first critical shortage wasn’t food. It was water. Then candles and lighters. Then batteries. Then, and this surprised everyone, cigarettes became more valuable than food for trading.
People bartered candles, lighters, antibiotics, fuel, batteries, ammunition, and food, with currency and banking systems virtually nonexistent.
In Venezuela, the first things to vanish from stores were toilet paper, diapers, and feminine hygiene products. Then soap and shampoo. Then medicine. Food shortages came later but were actually more manageable because people could adapt. The hygiene product shortage created immediate, desperate problems.
The Argentina pattern was different but equally revealing. When banks froze accounts, cash became instantly valuable, not because it bought much, but because credit cards stopped working. People who had physical cash could still transact. Those relying on digital banking were locked out of the economy.
What actually matters in the first 30 days:
Clean water and a way to purify more. This is non-negotiable. People died in Sarajevo trying to fill containers at water sources under sniper fire. Having even basic filtration meant avoiding that risk.
Light sources. Candles, flashlights, batteries, or better yet, methods that don’t require consumables. Solar lights. Hand-crank flashlights. The ability to see after dark isn’t optional.
Basic hygiene supplies. This isn’t about comfort. It’s about disease prevention and mental health. Trying to maintain dignity without soap or toilet paper destroys morale faster than hunger.
Medicine for chronic conditions. If you take daily medication, you need more than two weeks’ supply. Multiple collapse survivors told me the same thing: people died from lack of insulin, blood pressure meds, and other routine prescriptions long before they starved.
Items worth stockpiling for barter:
Antibiotics (if you can legally obtain them), lighters by the dozen, batteries in common sizes, alcohol (for trading, not drinking, drunk people make bad decisions), cigarettes even if you don’t smoke, coffee and tea, salt, soap and hygiene products.
One Bosnian survivor became wealthy during the siege by stockpiling lighters before the war. He’d bought 500 disposable lighters for pocket change. During the siege, each lighter traded for a week’s worth of food. His $30 investment kept his family fed for years.
Lesson 6: Skills Beat Stuff
I talked to a Venezuelan engineer who lost his job when oil production collapsed. He had a master’s degree, spoke three languages, and had worked for international companies.
None of that mattered when the economy crashed.
What saved him? He’d learned to repair small engines as a hobby. During the collapse, he fixed generators, motorcycles, and water pumps. People paid him in food, medicine, and other essentials.
“My knowledge was my wealth. The ability to fix things is more valuable than gold. Items and supplies will inevitably run out, but your skills will keep you fed.”
The pattern holds across every collapse:
In Sarajevo, people with carpentry skills stayed employed repairing homes damaged by shelling. Medical knowledge, even basic first aid, became incredibly valuable when hospitals stopped functioning. Electricians who could jury-rig power systems from car batteries and salvaged parts were in constant demand.
In Argentina during hyperinflation, tradespeople survived better than office workers. Plumbers, electricians, mechanics, they could still work regardless of currency chaos. They traded services directly for goods.
The skills that actually mattered:
Basic medical care beyond band-aids. Treating wounds, recognizing infections, managing fever, dealing with common illnesses without doctors or hospitals.
Food preservation without refrigeration. Smoking, salting, drying, fermenting. When power’s out, you need to prevent spoilage or you’ll lose everything.
Repair and improvisation. Fixing broken items with limited tools and parts. Making do with whatever’s available. This saved more lives than any other single skill.
Starting fires in difficult conditions. It sounds basic, but when you need fire for heat, cooking, and water purification, and you don’t have easy fuel or lighters, this becomes critical.
Water purification multiple ways. Not just having a filter, knowing how to boil, how to use bleach, how to assess water sources, how to store water safely.
Growing food in limited space. Balcony gardens in Sarajevo provided supplemental nutrition. They didn’t feed families completely, but they helped.
What doesn’t help as much as you think:
Tactical training. Firearms skills matter for security, but combat skills are less useful than the ability to avoid conflict. The people who survived collapses weren’t the best shooters. They were the ones who stayed unnoticed.
Bushcraft and wilderness survival. Most collapses happen in cities where you’ll stay. Knowing how to build a debris shelter in the forest doesn’t help when you’re trapped in an apartment.
Start learning practical skills now. Take first aid training beyond CPR. Learn basic plumbing and electrical work. Figure out food preservation. These skills will be worth more than any amount of stored gear when systems fail.
Lesson 7: The Government Is Both Enemy and Lifeline
Every prepper I know thinks the government will either save everyone or become the enemy. It’s more complicated and more frustrating than either scenario.
In Venezuela, the government caused the collapse through mismanagement and then became the only source for some critical supplies. People who opposed the regime still depended on government-controlled food distribution. It was a nightmare of contradictions.
The healthcare system collapsed, with preventable diseases spreading and dramatic surges in infectious diseases once eradicated. Yet government hospitals, as dysfunctional as they were, remained the only medical option for most people.
Argentina showed the same pattern. The government froze bank deposits in 2001, destroying people’s savings, but also provided the only functioning currency and eventually negotiated with creditors to restore some services.
The reality nobody wants to hear:
Governments rarely disappear completely. They become inefficient, corrupt, and often oppressive, but they continue to exist and control key infrastructure.
You’ll hate them and need them simultaneously. They’ll restrict your freedom while providing your only access to essentials. They’ll seize private property while claiming to protect citizens.
What Sarajevo taught about this. The government during the siege was barely functional, but it still ran rudimentary services. It attempted to distribute water and food. It organized defense. It maintained some semblance of law.
Was it effective? Not really. Did people still depend on it? Yes, because there was no alternative.
How to navigate this:
Don’t be openly hostile to government, but don’t depend on it completely. The survivors who did best maintained minimal government contact while building parallel systems.
Have official documents secured and accessible. Passports, birth certificates, property records. Governments love paperwork even when they can’t provide basic services.
Understand that government assistance will be unreliable and often corrupt. When it shows up, take advantage. When it doesn’t, have backup plans.
Never assume the government will protect your property rights, savings, or freedom. They won’t. Plan accordingly.
Stay under the radar. People who attracted attention, either as dissidents or as visibly wealthy, suffered more than those who stayed unnoticed.
This isn’t the apocalypse scenario where governments evaporate. It’s worse: governments remain just functional enough to interfere with your survival but too broken to actually help.
Lesson 8: Cash, Then Silver, Then Gold (In That Order)
Every prepper forum argues about precious metals. Should you buy gold? Silver? How much?
Collapse survivors have a clear answer: dollars first, silver eventually, gold almost never.
Here’s what actually happened:
In Venezuela, US dollars became the de facto currency even when officially banned. People traded dollars on black markets. Stores secretly accepted dollars. Dollars held value when the bolivar collapsed into nothing.
Silver had some use for medium-sized transactions. But here’s the reality, most daily transactions during collapse are small. You’re buying eggs, vegetables, a lighter. Silver coins work okay for this. Gold bars? Useless.
A Venezuelan told me he tried trading a small gold coin for food early in the collapse. Nobody wanted it. Gold was too valuable to make change for, and everyone was desperate for small-denomination currency they could actually use.
The Argentina experience proved the same pattern. When the peso collapsed, people who’d converted savings to US dollars preserved their wealth; those holding pesos lost everything. Gold provided some protection but was difficult to trade in daily life.
What works in order of usefulness:
Physical US dollars in small denominations. Twenties, tens, fives, ones. Keep them hidden at home, not in a bank. This is your first line of defense against currency collapse.
Everyday trade goods. Lighters, soap, batteries, medicine, cigarettes, coffee, alcohol. These trade easily and hold value better than local currency during hyperinflation.
Silver coins or small bars. These work for mid-sized purchases when dollars become scarce or dangerous to use. Junk silver (pre-1965 US coins) trades easier than bullion.
Gold only for escaping or rebuilding. Gold is wealth preservation for after the collapse, not during it. It’s too valuable for daily use, too difficult to divide, too easy to steal.
The brutal lesson: During collapse, liquidity and utility matter more than intrinsic value. A lighter you can trade for food today beats a gold coin you can’t use for anything.
Lesson 9: Sanitation Failures Kill More Than Starvation
This is the lesson nobody wants to hear because it’s disgusting. But it’s critical.
In Venezuela, the healthcare crisis resulted from a combination of medicine and food shortages with spread of preventable disease, creating a complex humanitarian emergency. Diseases thought eradicated returned. Infant mortality skyrocketed.
Why? Collapsed sanitation systems.
When sewage systems fail, when trash doesn’t get collected, when clean water disappears, disease spreads faster than hunger can kill.
The Sarajevo example is stark. For 1,425 days, sanitation systems barely functioned. Sewage backed up. Trash piled in streets. One survivor told me the smell alone was unbearable, but worse was watching preventable diseases spread through the population.
Cholera. Dysentery. Typhoid. Things we don’t even think about in modern society. They killed people who had food, who had shelter, who’d survived bullets and bombs.
Here’s what preppers get wrong:
We stockpile food and weapons. Few of us think seriously about waste management. But if your toilet doesn’t flush for three months, you’ve got a critical problem that guns and beans won’t solve.
What you actually need:
A plan for human waste that doesn’t require plumbing. Composting toilets, cat litter and buckets, or at minimum knowledge of safe waste disposal. This isn’t optional.
Cleaning supplies beyond just soap. Bleach for disinfection. Trash bags. Gloves. Ways to maintain hygiene when water’s scarce.
Understanding of disease transmission. How cholera spreads. Why dysentery happens. When to boil water versus when filtration is enough. Basic epidemiology saves lives.
Trash disposal strategy. Where does your garbage go when trucks stop coming? Burning? Burying? Leaving it? Each has consequences.
The uncomfortable reality: More people died from dysentery in Sarajevo than from snipers in some areas. In Venezuela, preventable disease killed thousands. This is the unsexy, disgusting side of collapse that nobody wants to practice.
But sanitation failure is one of the first dominoes to fall, and it takes down everything else with it.
Lesson 10: Mobility Becomes Everything
Before the Bosnian War, everyone in Sarajevo owned or had access to cars. During the siege, driving became impossible, streets were destroyed, gasoline vanished, and being in a vehicle made you a target for snipers.
Bicycles became invaluable. A bike helped owners survive sniper fire and was even converted into a generator for radios and electrical devices.
Why? Because you could navigate wreckage. You moved faster than walking but didn’t need fuel. You were a smaller target than a car.
Venezuela taught the same lesson. When gas stations had six-hour lines and fuel cost more than food, people with working bicycles had massive advantages. They could travel to find supplies, work farther from home, and evacuate if needed.
But here’s the critical part: it wasn’t just about having a bike. It was about being physically capable of using it.
The fitness reality nobody discusses:
Collapse is physically exhausting. Gathering water. Hauling supplies. Walking everywhere because vehicles don’t work. Climbing stairs in apartments without elevators. All while malnourished and stressed.
I talked to a Sarajevo survivor who was 32 when the war started. He was in decent shape, or so he thought. Six months into the siege, he’d lost 45 pounds and couldn’t walk a mile without stopping. Not from lack of food alone, but from the constant physical demands combined with inadequate nutrition.
“The people who stayed physically active before the war survived better,” he told me. “The sedentary ones struggled or died. Fitness was a life-or-death factor I never expected.”
What this means for preparation:
Own and maintain a quality bicycle. Not a racing bike, a sturdy, simple model you can repair. Learn basic bike maintenance. Stock spare parts.
Get in shape now. Real shape, not just healthy enough to pass a physical. Can you walk ten miles? Carry 50 pounds for a mile? Climb five flights of stairs? These become baseline requirements.
Build practical strength. Carrying water. Lifting bags of supplies. Moving debris. Functional fitness matters more than how much you bench press.
Practice moving on foot with weight. Grab your bug-out bag and walk five miles. If you can’t, your prep plan has a fatal flaw.
Consider alternative transportation. Cargo bikes for hauling supplies. Kick scooters for kids. Anything that doesn’t require fuel and extends your range.
The survivors I interviewed were unanimous: Mobility determined who could find food, reach safety, and escape danger. The immobile died first.
Lesson 11: The Collapse Started Earlier Than You Think
Here’s the scariest lesson from every collapse I studied: by the time you know for certain it’s happening, it’s too late to prepare.
Venezuela’s collapse wasn’t a single event. It was a decade-long descent. Living standards fell 74% between 2013 and 2023. Each year was worse than the last, but each year people thought it couldn’t get worse, that things would stabilize.
At what point should Venezuelans have bugged out? 2010 when inflation started climbing? 2013 when shortages began? 2015 when hyperinflation hit? 2017 when people started starving?
The people who survived best left early. The ones who waited for certainty lost everything.
Argentina showed the same pattern. Between 1960 and 2017, the country suffered several balance of payment crises, three periods of hyperinflation, two defaults on government debt, and three banking crises. Each time, the warning signs were there. Each time, most people ignored them until too late.
The Sarajevo example is even more brutal. Bosnia was a modern, westernized country that hosted the Olympics in 1984; just eight years later it was in brutal civil war.
One survivor told me: “Six months before the war, everything seemed fine. Three months before, there were tensions but nothing serious. One month before, I was worried but thought it would blow over. Then the shooting started and we were trapped.”
Here’s what I’ve learned from all these collapses:
Economic indicators precede social collapse by years. Pay attention to: inflation above 10% annually, currency devaluation, government debt increasing faster than GDP, capital flight (wealthy people leaving), brain drain (educated people emigrating), increasing restrictions on banking or currency.
Social indicators show tensions rising: Political polarization reaching extremes. Ethnic, religious, or class tensions increasing. Media becoming propaganda tools. Opposition being silenced. Scapegoating of minorities. Political violence becoming normalized.
Infrastructure decay indicates systemic failure: Power outages becoming common. Water quality declining. Roads deteriorating. Public services degrading. Police response times increasing. Hospital quality dropping.
By the time everyone knows collapse is here, you’ve missed your window for action.
What you should do:
Have a trigger list, specific indicators that prompt specific actions. If X happens, I move money to cash. If Y happens, I stock extra food. If Z happens, I relocate.
Prepare gradually now. Don’t wait for crisis to start prepping. The people who survived collapses best were those who’d been slowly preparing for years, not those who panic-bought when crisis hit.
Stay informed but filter information. Government statistics lie. Media has agendas. But patterns over time reveal truth. Track multiple sources. Watch what people do, not what officials say.
Accept that you might be too early or wrong. Maybe collapse doesn’t come for decades. That’s fine. The skills, supplies, and mindset you develop preparing won’t go to waste. They make you more resilient regardless.
The survivors all said the same thing: “We knew something was wrong. We ignored our instincts. By the time we acted, options were limited.”
Don’t make that mistake.
What This Actually Means For You
I’ve shared brutal lessons from people who actually lived through collapse. Not theories. Not scenarios. Real experiences from Venezuela, Argentina, Bosnia, and other countries that fell apart in our lifetime.
These weren’t third-world disasters. Venezuela was wealthy. Argentina was developed. Bosnia was modern enough to host the Olympics. They all thought collapse was something that happened to other places.
They were wrong.
Here’s what you do with this information:
Stop preparing for the movie version of collapse. It won’t be zombies or EMP attacks. It’ll be a slow grind into dysfunction, poverty, and danger. Prepare for that reality.
Focus on fundamentals: cash, water, sanitation, skills, fitness, community. Not gear. Not weapons. Not the latest survival gadget. The boring, unglamorous basics.
Build redundancy. One prep location isn’t enough. One skill isn’t enough. One plan isn’t enough. Multiple options, multiple locations, multiple approaches.
Stay informed and trust your instincts. When something feels wrong, even if everyone says it’s fine, pay attention. The survivors ignored warning signs. Don’t repeat their mistakes.
Most importantly: Start now. Not next month. Not when you have more money. Not when the signs are clearer.
The collapses I studied all had survivors who prepared early and suffered less. They had others who waited too long and lost everything. The difference between those groups was often just months of preparation.
You know more now than they knew then. They had to learn these lessons through suffering. You’re learning them through their stories.
Use that advantage. Start preparing today. Build skills. Make connections. Stack supplies. Get fit. Stay aware.
Because the lesson every survivor taught me was this: collapse can happen anywhere, to anyone, faster than you expect, and by the time you’re certain it’s happening, it’s too late to prepare.
Don’t let that be you.