The concept of "multiple income streams" is common among entrepreneurs and is pretty self-explanatory. It typically refers to setting up a handful of ventures that can all generate income simultaneously. For example, one might run an ecommerce website while at the same time selling products through Amazon, investing in income-generating financial vehicles, and doing consulting on a part-time basis. Lots of work and organization, yes, but the underlying principle is very sound: If one of your income streams takes a hit it'll be a problem, not a catastrophe. On the other hand, if you have just one income stream -- say, a full-time day job -- and something happens to it, you're just screwed. Think of it as income diversification.

As the post-peak world starts to take shape, jobs are becoming more scarce and people are starting to turn to self-employment to generate income. There may be some upswings along the way but I fully expect this trend to continue. In the United States, especially, lack of manufacturing capacity is colliding with lack of capital, and soon enough these will collide with skyrocketing energy costs to manifest a global clusterfuck that will hit the American middle class particularly hard, dependent as it is on wage-slave labor and cheap oil.

In this economic environment the notion of "income" will of morph into synonymity with the notion of "survival" -- already this is the case for millions of people. And in the same way an enterprising middle-class person might devise multiple "income" streams, an enterprising formerly middle-class person can devise multiple peak oil "survival" streams. Really, what other choice is there?

I've put together a simple grid anyone can use to brainstorm potential survival streams, and to help weed out pragmatic choices from the not-so-pragmatic.

The columns are broken down into three modes of the economy everyone in preparation or pre-preparation needs to consider:

The Obama administration's financial death sentence means a huge swath of people -- perhaps most -- will not be able to survive on net monetary income alone. The underground economy will grow of necessity and, no matter how law-abiding anyone wishes to be, basic survival will require doing things that are technically illegal.

Note that barter income is taxable. Any overt community bartering scheme will almost certainly draw the attention of the IRS as the federal tax base shrinks along with business activity, salaries and wages, and payrolls. Hiding barter income will also become necessary.

The underground economy mode of preparations does not get much ink but I strongly feel it is something to which everyone should be paying attention. Therefore I've built it into the grid as part of the full scope of survival streams brainstorming & planning.

The rows are broken down into sectors based on Charles Hugh Smith's identification of the FEW economy:

To Smith's FEW I've added M and H:

Each cell in the grid represents the intersection of a sector with a mode. For example, the first cell is the intersection of the Overt mode and the Food sector. It presents the question: What can I do in the overt economy to secure food for myself and my family? Depending upon your circumstances, your options might include growing a backyard garden, opening a small grocery, or organizing a local-foods buying club.

By way of another example, the cell intersecting Barter and Medicine presents the question: What do I have to barter in order to secure medicine/healthcare for myself and my family? Again, depending upon your circumstances, your options might include trading math tutoring for ongoing acupressure health maintenance, or harvesting wild medicinal herbs to trade with a practitioner for healthcare services.

You get the idea. The goal here is to get all options on the table, even relatively unattainable ones, in order to sort out the few that are actually do-able within anyone's given circumstances.

Here's a sample grid I put together. I chose to hash out options for one of the most vulnerable household types in America: a single, female condominium owner in the suburbs of a large metro area, who owns no other property and is employed for the time being.

Among peakniks, condo life is typically presented as hopeless and being single as a terminal pathology. Everyone needs to marry and run off to some rural commune, and if you can't do that you're shit out of luck. But according to this grid, there are many options available to our single, female condo owner. Some are more realistic than others; as economic conditions change, some options will close while others open.

Different types of households will have different options. A young urban family will have different options than a middle-aged rural couple with grown children. But few are entirely lost just yet.

One last note: filling in the grid should be approached from the point of view of how to attract what one needs, not from the point of view of what one has to contribute. The point here is to figure out a diverse system for securing necessities to cover overt obligations that require actual dollars, to necessities that can be secured without dollars, to necessities that cannot be obtained legally due to lack of money, crushing regulations and the like. Contributions can come later. As Catherine Austin Fitts likes to say, put on your own oxygen mask first so you'll be in a position to help where you can.

I've built a worksheet containing a blank grid for download in two formats: one in Word, and one as a PDF. If you download and use this grid I'd like to hear your thoughts -- please share your experience either in the comments, or by contacting me directly.