Cash Is King! (in what kingdom?)

Young, adventurous, and undisciplined - yeah, life as twenty-something dinks was a blast. We traveled extensively and when we weren't air-borne, we were antiquing or sailing. We knew it couldn't last and, in our economic self-awareness, we always said the sailboat
would be the last thing to go. It was. It went. Boys and bills and non-exponentially increasing income cut a swath through our bright prospects. Through our 30s and 40s, we were chopping wood and trying to get right side up on mortgages, car payments, yada, yada, yada. Now that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little brighter, I'm trying to look forward at what an off-the-grid economy is going to look like.

First of all, all my Plan B investing and preparations are going to be cash. Although, I guess I could be talked out of that... if the grid goes down and we are all swept into survival mode instantaneously, I don't think having an unpaid loan at the bank is going to be the thing I wake up in the morning thinking about. I'll have to stew on that one some more.

The real thing that I'm curious about is currency and media of exchange in the post-apocalypse. A friend has got me buying silver which sounds good. As things deteriorate in the world economy (as they are now, in 2009), precious metal stocks are going up. So, I've got a good hedge working for me pre-apocalypse. But I'm wondering what happens when we round the corner into "the brave new world". What will have value then? Who will need and want gold? If I have $10,000 in silver coins, what value will they have to my neighbor who, like me, is living off the land and is raising chickens and corn? It may be that my ability to carve oak bowls or plows will have more value to him than my shiny metal disks.

Are there other commodities that would have greater value than precious metals in the post-apoc world? Would seeds have higher value? Tools? Books? Heck, if I'm going to suddenly take up this agrarian survivalist lifestyle, there's more than a few things I'm going to need to learn and quickly. Maybe I need to subscribe to Mother Earth News and The Old Farmer's Almanac so I have something that tells me what to do. I reckon if I could travel the country-side showing survivors how to build water mills, I could build myself a pretty cushy lifestyle... just like I did when I was twenty-something.