Do your “transferable skills” include survival skills?  If you work in financial markets, accounting, tourism, real estate, university-level teaching (certain fields), administration, human resources, and a number of other fields whose central activities are not connected in any real way to the basic “stuff” of living, it is more likely that you are lacking in basic skill sets that could really help out in the case of an emergency – or less dramatically, in the event that there are larger disruptions in the usual functioning of the global economic system.

I was talking with Jacob from Early Retirement Extreme last night on Twitter about some of these issues.  Jacob is really on the ball with paying attention to what really matters in life – things and people that present real value and teaching oneself real skills.  In the time that I’ve been following his site over the past six months or so, I’ve known him to take up boating, sword fighting practice, martial arts training, watchmaking and DIY just about anything.

Jacob asked, “what skills could one learn now to barter them if the economy fails?“  Here’s a list of some of our ideas.

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10 Survival Skills You Should Learn In Case of Widespread Unemployment or Financial Collapse

1. Growing your own food.

Don’t learn it because it’s the latest cool thing – this is a skill we used to know and have forgotten.  But there are more than a few important reasons now why growing your own fruits and vegetables is becoming more and more important.  I’ve done some basic gardening and growing of vegetables myself, and it’s really not that hard.  You need patience, and you need a certain knack for caring about how your plants are doing.  You can’t treat the garden hose like a gun and shoot your crops with it, for example.  Not only can you teach others gardening skills for bartering purposes, but you can trade with the veggies themselves.

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2.  Food Preservation.

It’s one thing to buy and store extra cans of beans, but do you know how to can your own fruit, or vacuum-pack or dry other goods?  This would be a valuable skill to have no matter what.  I have to say I know little of food preservation myself – beyond using the convenient freezer that runs on a constant supply of electricity.

3.  Cooking and preparing food from scratch.

Again, it’s one thing to be able to make a nice pasta dinner, but can you make your own granola? How about catch, cook and clean your own fish?  I don’t even know how to make my own bread.  Ideally, I’d subsist on a diet of beans, veggies, fruit and rice – but it’s possible to conceive of situations in which one would still benefit from eating bread and other “filler” foods.  You could also teach fasting.

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4.  Make a Fire With No Matches or Fuel.

This should be #1 for obvious reasons.  But it’s also a great skill to have if you wanted to barter with someone for some other skill.  I have tried, but never succeeding in making my own fire.  Ideally you’d just carry matches around at all times, but nothing can substitute for Prometheus himself.

5. Catch and store your own rainwater.

Just because the economy-as-we-know-it fails doesn’t mean you’ll be living in the woods in the middle of nowhere – but this would still be a really valuable skill to have which you could also teach others.  I’ve read about it, but haven’t tried it.  You can make solar stills to convert sunshine and humidity into water and catch it in a cup.  This is so simple and basic we should all know how to do it.

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6. Tying Knots.

Another basic “girl/boy scout” type of skill, but very handy, especially if you ever really needed it.  Not all knots are equal!  Jacob says there’s “thousands of knots, but on a boat you only need bowline, reef knot, cleat, and a slipknot more or less.”

7. Learning languages.

You can teach basic Mandarin to anyone hoping to go over and work in China – Arabic is another language that I can imagine getting quite a premium if other English-speakers ever decided they needed it.  I suspect that English is not always going to be the “dominant” global language – so it could be quite valuable if you know one of the languages of the populations experiencing the most growth right now.  During the holocaust, in fact, there were many who were spared because they were able to communicate in German as well as Hebrew or Polish or Russian, and they were able to teach the language to members of the SS.

8. Personal Training/Fitness.

If you’re a personal trainer, and you’re actually really good at teaching, inspiring, and motivating in addition to getting results – you’d have no problem bartering that for other skills if unemployment levels peaked dramatically.  Fitness is something everyone needs and something everyone can stand to learn something about.  It’s the most basic form of health insurance, and you’re completely in control of it.

9. Sewing, Knitting, Crocheting.

Sewing sounds boring to me, but I can do it.  Some people can’t.  Far less people can knit.  Sewing for mending purposes is a really basic skill that would be easy enough to teach.  If you had to, you could make your own mats, rooves, and blankets if you knew basic sewing and knitting skills.

10. Your Idea Here?

I’m sure there are other skills you’ve thought of that would fit here – and it all depends on the types of situations we’re imagining.  Maybe there is just massive unemployment.  We’re all at home sitting watching our tvs or tweeting on the internet.  What would you want or need to learn in that situation?  What would you be able to teach or trade with others who might come over to fix your plumbing or electricity?

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We don’t have to imagine hyperinflation or social unrest to find ourselves in a situation in which we might have to barter in order to get by.  It could simply be a large bout of unemployment or the inability of the government to continue paying out social security, medicaid or medicare.  It could be a devastating natural disaster like the calamitous earthquake in Haiti that literally brings the basic infrastructure of everyday life to ruin.

We talk a lot about having emergency funds, but what about an emergency plan?  How covered are you, really?  I had an interesting time thinking about some of these questions.  You should try, too.  You might realize how little you really know.

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