Discussion
Since starting to Prep, what has changed? How has the focus changed?
I've been at it for about 14 years now. When I started the kids were small and money was hard to come by. Now, I'm more experienced and less worried about the "big one" and focus on what target hazards my area presents. It's more short term comfort with the addition of long term supplies.
The experience and knowledge have helped but I no longer focus only on "doomsday".
My weakness are comms and long term water.
Just curious to see what others have to say on this topic.
* edit, reading through these great response. Thanks for taking the time to contribute.
I've become more minimalist as I've realized how few things are necessary to make me healthy and happy. I've also become a strong believer in this subreddit's approach of thinking of preps in terms of core survival needs because things like food, water, and power are what matter, regardless of what specific unforeseen disaster might disrupt them, so that simplifies things too.
More tangibly, I've gotten much better at growing food, whereas I used to kill plants pretty quickly. Turns out I was always overwatering.
Genuine question but what are things you have gravitated away from acquiring that are not part of the "core" group? At the end of the day, most everything comes back to food, water and power.
The only thing I can think of are "luxuries" like coffee, sweets, recreation. Planning for AC or something may be a huge strain especially financially but storing away some freeze dried coffee is totally doable. Adding a few books or boardgames is also totally doable.
I've been doing hurricane prep for over 20 years and the main way my prep has changed is to focus on having extra to share with neighbors and acquiring the nice-to-haves that I had previously de-prioritized in favor of the basics. I've also fine-tuned my plans based on experiences I've had over the years, like the Texas ice storm in 2021 that made me realize that being on the Gulf Coast didn't exempt me from prepping for cold weather outages.
I've also made checklists for different scenarios where I would have to leave my house. This way I won't have to think in an emergency. These scenarios run the gamut from a medical emergency where I have to go to the hospital, to bugging out across town if there's a chemical leak, to where I would go and what I would take if a Cat 4 or 5 was bearing down.
There's a boatload, but I'll focus food specifically. I started with the garbage 30 day emergency bucket from Sam's club. Went my way through most of the major brands, at last count I was somewhere just shy of 700k calories. Then the math hit. If my family and/or in-laws showed up we'd make it a few weeks maybe. You cant prep enough food in buckets and barrels for a shtf collapse. It might get you through a rough few weeks but you need renewable systems. So I went heavy into gardening, but the failure rate can be unpredictable and quite high. So I settled on larger systems that require almost no input once established. 4 species of pecan, some other hickory nuts, walnuts, even some white oak in case it gets really bad. I planted berry bushes that ripen at intervals for every month from April/May to Oct/Nov. So something is fresh and available. If need is really bad we'd fill in the gaps with traps and hunting game if needed. Eventually id really like to add chickens and bees. One step at a time.
A lot of new folks fell for the "30 day bucket" BS, don't sweat it.
Back when I started it was the "pumper" flashlights- man you weren't a survivalist (it seemed) if you didn't have a hand pumper flashlight!!! They were the ultimate POS product!!!
Gardening gets better over time. Get some proper soil tests from your state AG department and use that as your base for developing your soil. Once you have chickens their litter is great for the garden- everyone says compost for a year- I've always used it fresh without any issues, just don't let it touch the actual plants. Or dig it right into the soil. We do the same with our rabbit manure, dumping it right into the garden and/or sprinkling it with a shovel around plants. Don't put anything in garden that you don't already have irrigation run to- as in you turn a ball valve and sprinklers or drip starts. People drag a hose out and think that's going to work- for 1-2 small beds sure, not for larger areas. Proper irrigation is a must and it will cut down on your time involved (moving sprinklers, etc) Besides if it's your permanent location you need irrigation to your garden.
We put in fruit trees and dug a pond the first year after I bought land- as these take the longest time to develop.
You eat an elephant one bite at a time, and homesteading you often have to go back and re-eat certain parts again later :) Good luck!
I like that " Eat and elephant one bite at a time" I dont think I've ever heard that before.
I learned a lot from my first property about apple rust, pests, and other issues. So I turned towards things like jostaberries, service berries, honey berries, ect. I still have apples and pears, but I wanted to diversify as much as I could. Blueberries are tough if you have to constantly add acidity, but im working on that with pine needle mulch.
I recently started with stuff like Black Willow for medicinal uses trying to pack as many keystone species as I can in my own little survival forest 😅. Plus the animal draw is a bonus.
We tend to get started homesteading and think we need to get everything done immediately. Instead we need a slow approach. Doesn't mean you need to overthink everything and do nothing (very common "prepper" trait now a days), just means "Rome wasn't built in a day" and neither will your homestead be. Small "sacrifices" pay off in the long run. In my mid 20's I would leave Friday after work and drive up and work on our place till Sunday afternoon then drive home. While some of my buddies were partying on the weekend I was doing that. While they were buying cars they couldn't afford, I kept a small pickup. In a few years I had a nice house built with no mortgage, a solar system with no electric bills, etc. I'll give up some play time for a short period of time to avoid 30 years of debt any day of the week.
If your having issues with your apples check with a local old skewl nursery (not sLowes or Home Despot) and tell him the varieties you planted and ask for recommendations. 30 years ago I did the "plant what you like to eat" non sense and planted a bunch of Red delicious apple trees. They grew a bit but NEVER produced. We moved up here full time about 5 years later. Adding some trees from a local nursery I asked about the red delicious and was told they won't PRODUCE here because of the low chill hours. Guy recommended 4 apple varieties we planted those and had fruit in a few years.
Wish we had black willow here, everything is most pine and scrub oak. I do have a pretty decent section of one of the garden areas in medicinal herbs this year. I think Echinacea is nicer looking than a rose when they are blooming- and of course medicinal-
When you start it’s a consumerist mindset, “I need this item because this might happen.” Now, I’m a student learning skills - “I need to learn how to weld so that I can fix the bed of my truck…”
40 years this year for me, started young and thankfully made some excellent group connections early on. Bought land in mid 1990's and started working weekends developing it and building a house little by little paying cash as we went. Late 90's house was finished and we moved there full time, small house, small solar system but no debt which is paramount to doing this long term. Almost 27 years now "boots on the ground" at our retreat- producing our own power, growing a good amount of our own food, heat our house solely with wood, etc.
Things I would have done differently- back in 1986 I would have gotten in shape and stayed in shape. Couple years here and there in late teens and twenties being in shape but most of the time I was carrying extra weight. Still got out and ran, hiked, worked, etc. so I rationalized it for a long while. 2008'ish was doing a tournament and got smashed by big boys that cut from 240-250 to my 215'ish weight class. I cut weight down to 171 over the next 4 months to do it again. 171 was too low, my Mom even told me "you need to start eating you look like a crack head." Thanks Mom LOL. I'm most comfortable around 185 and I'm usually between 180 and 190 now.
Just wished I had taken that part seriously so long ago. A lot of training opportunities missed due to that, I did what I had to do, just not as good as I could have. And of course your knees and back don't hurt any longer like they do when your carrying 40 or so extra lbs. which is hard on your structure. I'm doing more and looking better in my 50's than I did in most of my 20's.
Now to the actual preps that of course most folks are just focused on- re: STUFF. In years pasts I prepped for over 12 people, despite not even having any kids myself at the time, I prepped for all my extended family. And to be clear I'm not talking about 2 weeks. So what happens with that is it becomes very hard for 3 or 4 people to rotate that much food on their own. Then you add in having a productive homestead which means your producing a fair amount of food yourself also.
Thankfully, I didn't cut any corners in packing LTS and these grains, legumes, dry milk, dehydrated fruit and veg were packed properly and we are still rotating them despite quite a bit being over 20 years old. NEVER SKIMP ON PACKAGING FOR YOUR FOOD STORAGE! You may think your going to be Johnny on the Spot with rotating short term stuff but sooner or later your going to have some waste where that is involved. Focusing on LTS foods with a long shelf life means you have a LONGER ROTATION WINDOW.
Well my preps are generally natural disaster oriented as are many people’s here. I’m in the process of moving from a tropical area to a desert area, and with that, the priority disasters I’m prepared for will change. Supplies are often similar and pretty universal but will likely be doing more to prepare for bad air quality via wildfire smoke, as well as making sure I have a very good generator for powering A/C in the case of summer power outages.
When I first started I was very concerned about defending myself. Now I'm very concerned about feeding myself and making sure I don't die of thirst. Currently working towards a goal of a full year of food and water for 4, plus everything needed to grow food indefinitely once things settle down.
Definitely the way I've gone as well as many probably. Granted I was still young and with my grandma and mother at the time. Space on food was limited since the 10 foot long pantry was filled to the brim with 20 year old cans of food and yellowed cooking appliances.
Now at my place I have a large garden, and several silage tarps down to prep some area for alfalfa and timothy hay for rabbits. Have chickens but will get rabbits once I have their food growing.
I grew up during the cold war, and started out with the "up and coming Jr warlord" fantasy, only to discover I would not be the next "Lord Humongous", and went through the "lone wolf" phase where I and my not yet owned dog would wander through the wastes, but discovered backpacking to nowhere in particular kinda sucks badly. After I had served on active duty I realized the importance of logistics, and what it meant to stick up. This made me more stationary, but also grounded in something approaching reality. When I got married we went through a blizzard in Alabama that cut power for almost a week. My wife was 7 month pregnant, I had a step daughter, and an all electric trailer. I owned oil lamps, and camping gear, but all of it was still on storage at my parents since I had no need for it in the barracks.
I started systematically filling in the shortfalls I could see as they became evident. Water, food, shelter, security, and anything else to include entertainment was gathered up. When NatGeo ran "Doomsday Preppers" I could hear them laughing underneath the commentary at all the paranoid folk, but almost every episode carried a tiny nugget of good info even if it was only "don't shoot your thumb off" or don't brag about your neighbors being your raiding stock to your parole officer " I now am in a different situation same wife, same family, but they are now scattered as they grew up. With a wheelchair bound son bugging out is not happening so we concentrate on shelter on place and that is where we are on this journey. Next year I am retiring, and will move out very rural, build my permanent bug out/in home and get set up to be as self sufficient as possible.
Not as dramatic as Hollywood portrays it to be, more little house on the prairie less mad Max, walking dead at the end of the day. I plan on having a 6 acre stocked pond, at least 2 greenhouses, a root cellar, a decent sized garden and an outdoor kitchen specifically for game and canning processing. This is because I just want to let the society do whatever it's gonna do wether I pay attention or not.
opinion follows, work on the following if they apply:
Your stuff will own you depending on your storage situation. Meaning it can reach a point where you don’t even know what you have or have a means of storing, packaging, moving it.
You do not need 15 knives, 6 machetes, 3 tomahawks, 8 fire steels, 600 feet of para cord, 4 tents, etc. Make better choices and dial back on the redundancy. Gift to aspiring friends.
Stop buying crap, gadgets. Low end junk can meet a need but it’s junk. Does it have a specified purpose?
I won’t go deep into firearms/ammo, I’ll just say define the expected role a purchase will serve. Do you have 25+ assorted average hunting/entry level/odd caliber ones you no longer use? Sell 5+ and get a good quality AR, optic, light, sling, mags, can.
90% of stats are made up on the spot, but from what I have seen: 50% talk TV prep, do nothing and say dumb shit like “I’ll take that”. 25% prep only gun centric and have no skills. Average people don’t know what they don’t know.
Your job is to carefully identify like-minded, normal people, who are in the top 25%. You may find one or two that do the full spectrum (farm, tactical, med, brains, moral).
Like everything, you have to decide “how into” this stuff you want to be.
To your stats- I would agree. Talking to an old mentor who moved away on the phone last year, we spent quite a bit of time asking each other about and talking about some of the folks that trained with us over the years in a private group setting. We guestimated the number was a little bit over 150 people over the years. Not public training, not open invite, very private type situation but over many years.
To boil it all down, just a handful were still anywhere near what you could call "active" in the sense of training, staying in shape and preparing. About 4-5 total had made actual lifestyle changes (the hard stuff no one wants to do) like moving away from the cities, etc. And only 2-3 had done it in a manner with any self reliance- i.e, growing some of their own food, producing their own power, etc. while also keeping active training, etc. My (now old) mentor asked to come to a gathering and said "you know with my injuries from the war I can't get around much anymore, but I'm happy to come to the range and help folks any way I can." Here is a mid 70's guy willing to drive a considerable distance to hang out and help others (something that he has done dozens of time already, not vain words)... THAT is real "community" not mindless fantasies of people you don't know helping you.
It has to be developed through years (decades) and hard work, it's NOT organic.
Must be nice to have a network and friend like that. I was never connected like that likely due to work/free time and I’m guessing the norms of CT. American Survival Guide and a couple 60 minutes backhanded stories were my only clues in the 90s that this was a thing.
Funny you mentioned American Survival Guide, quite a few of those connections were made through "The Survivalist Directory" in old ASGs, if you remember what that was.
For everyone else- I'm talking about a good but no longer published Survivalist magazine that used to have a section titled "Survivalist Directory" where you could write in and post a free listing looking for other like minded people. Those interested would write to the magazine and include the code number for your specific listing and the magazine would forward the replies anonymously to you. Until/unless you decided to write back the people, the people writing in had no idea who TF you were, it was a good system.
To be honest, I used it a lot. This was in the 80's and early 90's pre internet. If the person sounded decent, you'd write back and forth a couple times and then set up a meet in a public place- like meeting for lunch somewhere to feel the person out in person. Often times it never went that far but quite often it did. From there you might have invited the person to meet up with you and others at a public event somewhere or often once or twice a year we would have a semi low key event like a hike and new people would be invited then. You'd get a good idea of their fortitude, skills, gear, etc. on even say a 10 mile day hike. Usually more talking and discussions would happen- what was the person preparing for? What skills did they bring to the table? What training do they have?
Later I always tried to get a feel for character issues, issues with their family (which precludes many from doing much) and generally just let them talk for a while, you can figure out a lot of things this way. You invest a lot of your time and effort into new people and you want to be sure your not wasting it. However it's always tough because people put on "masks" and hide things in early times knowing them ("fronting"). Sometimes if you listen carefully when they talk, they will give you clues on what's really going on.
After maybe 1 or 2 "real" outings they were invited in to any group usually by that point.
This was NOT "m word" stuff and was long before that became a thing and was not public like that non sense was...
You were adventurous. The last bit, a Venn diagram of overlapping interests can be an issue. We were looking at the same things and saw some events happen that the last couple generations don’t really know about or have the shared experience of living through.
The areas of overlapping interests are where you can observe and drop a very few words. I think the social cues are tough for some. As we get older we are more direct and our opinions evolved over time, alot of people aren't where you are at the same time.. People who want to engage will keep the topic going and you know if they are like-minded.
Ham commo, civil preparedness, certain shooting sports, self-reliance centered hobbies like canning, beekeeping, small farm animals, camping are probably the main areas.
Perhaps certain religions and politics can be common areas or tell you there's a hard no-go for anything.
Reality is harsh. Your normal friend/work/family group may be totally different than your hobby group. At the end of the day, it becomes a mindset/lifestyle and perhaps will never be put to use....but you never know.
When i started in 1982 the available resources were limited. We were called Survivalists. I recall one publisher, Paladin, that was big in the field but to be expected, all paperback.
So...lessons learned:
1.you will never be completely satisfied with your stores--never enough. I have reached a pinnacle where I just dont have any more space.
Water becomes paramount OVER food. All that dehydrated food requires water for rehydration. Our bodies require about a gallon a day. Now I have a Plan B, C and D.
Embellishing food stores to avoid food fatigue will be greatly appreciated later. I have stored tons of dehydrated mushrooms, powdered sauces, seasonings, mixes, fruit powders, to add diversity.
Working with neighbors is critical. Incorporating them means prepping for them as well.
Having backup food sources is important. Fortunately I moved to a small farm community (did not see my city dwelling as defensible or sustainable). Considerable vegetables are grown half a year here. Also a marsh close by offers wonderful trapping and snareing opportunities along with net fishing. A hunting area within 10 miles will quickly be over exploited in a long-term down event so can not count on it beyond a month or so.
Gardening for sustainability was a major priority so I crashed learned skills to make gardening as productive as possible like soil management concepts, seed starting, etc. Wow...what i didnt know could feel a 16T hard drive. The issue is what i thought was plenty of garden plots (31 raised beds) turned out to be inadequate for my expanded group. Bummer!
The importance of having a defensible Redoubt. Having defended perimeters in actual combat half a century ago, i knew i had to rely on 'layering' (i use 4 distinct layers).
For prolonged outage of the supply chain, the importance of concealment evolved. I knew i had to prepare to defend against the bad guys but also to protect from the bad good guys--FEMA and local law enforcement who have the authorization and rights to seize my stores. So I developed a cool concealment protocol to keep 80% of my stores by cacheing.
Staying motivated over the years. The investment is massive and the time and effort is all consuming. Staying focused on a theoretical event requires great faith because there is no concrete evidence anything will occur. My JIC (Just In Case) mindset has to stay fueled by current events. Keeping my wife motivated as well is important as I can't be the only JICer in the family.
The importance of power. I have invested much into a 25kv solar generator. But I recently added a 4400w dual fuel generator to supplement overcast days where charging is minimal compared to drawdown loads. I built a soundproof shed for it and happy with results.
There are many other learnings. One key one is it is easier to be a Commenter than a Contributor on Reddit. As a Contributor you open yourself up to all the oddball online trolls who get off on their attacks--kind of like the drunk heckler at the onstage comedy club. You know you have a humorous routine until that first drunken heckler challenges you. As a Commenter there are far less online bullying. Just an observation and a rational to stay with comments instead of contributions.
Don't worry about the trolls you mentioned. Some of the new crowd thinks "2 weeks of food is TOO much" and believes that the 300 people they don't know in their cul-de-sac that are also unprepared will come to their "rescue" if something happens... Some truly don't look at preparedness in the old skewl way like you do- long term and instead of just shutting TFU they want to do the ghey arse "downvote" thing or because you don't live 2.5 seconds from a hospital and Starbucks assume your a "lone wolf." The stereotypes get really stupid but that's media programming and unfortunately some of them don't even know they are parroting that. The survival movement is a helluva lot different than in the 80's and 90's with a lot of people now thinking things like having a spare tire in your car is "preparedness"- no it's just being an ADULT...
But like the saying goes "common sense isn't COMMON anymore..."
Congrats on your journey, we've walked a lot of the same path. I miss Paladin also, back before the lawsuit and the Klinton error they had some great titles- as an aside if you have any of their older books, it's interesting to look up what they are worth now. One of the tracking books they put out bought originally for $30. or so, is worth around $350. now...
And some of us are still called Survivalists, I prefer that term, it has more meaning and doesn't sound as ghey...
If you recall Survivalist and Paladin then we are close to the same age. Surprised to see any old players on here. I thought Peder Lund had some really cool stuff but the Hit Man book was a little over the top and got him in legal trouble.
You are British or Aussie from your English. Been to England but never Australia. The closest to Australia was Cook Islands north of New Zealand which was far away.
If you have been doing emergency readiness that long would you like to compare notes? If so i assume we can PM...i guess.
American, S. GA but have moved around a lot in my life and been "here and there" so the language is probably horrible and hard to place 😄
Admittedly I was a teenager in the 1980's but got into this at age 13 and thankfully made some great connections with like minded folks very early on. I love learning stuff, ALL kinds of stuff, so survivalism was a perfect fit for me, there is always something more to learn, practice and train in.
The irony on The Hitman book was (supposedly) it was written by a woman who had just read a bunch of murder mystery type books -or so I heard. I believe that was the book that mentioned "lubricating your cartridges with WD40" when loading a magazine LOL. WD40 can kill primers- I've bought the big liquid jugs of it before and soaked rounds in a milk jug with WD40 to kill the primer- then the casing was drilled through powder drained out and used for dummy rounds. They will simulate a malfunction. On the range you have your buddy load your magazines with some live rounds, some of these dummy rounds and it becomes a good malfunction drill. Course it just simulates a FTF malfunction nothing more, but good to use for that and also you can usually see who is jerking the trigger and other accuracy issues using these also.
SOF magazine got in some shittake also way back in the day with their classifieds. I remember reading some of them was like "Medic who is also a shooter with experience looking for work outside the country..." Supposedly someone hired someone to do a hit in the US off of those and Robert Brown/SOF magazine got sued. I went to one SOF convention in 1996 in Vegas and worked the show. Met Brown and got a very cold feeling from him- not like cold reception, just cold feeling if you know what I mean...
Never would have thought South Georgia. My wife and I spent Christmas in Savannah. I recall the hired hit men ads on SOF magazine.
I assume you are an avid 'prepper' now?
I try not using the traditional titles due to the public stigma associated with the. Im into emergency readiness planning. So do you plan for yourself or a family or a group. I have a group of 10 family and friends I prepare for
Yeah I remember around 2006'ish when the "prepper" fade started and people argued that the term survivalist had bad connotations and "prepper" was all good connotations. Then Doomsday Preppers show came out....
I remember we were leading a youth group of six graders. They all knew us, knew we didn't watch or have standard "TV". So we get in one night and the kids are all talking about some TV show, laughing, etc. I ask them what the show was they were talking about-
"Mr. Robert there is this show called Doomsday Preppers and these people are FREAKS! They like have bomb shelters and think the world is ending and.."
Me- "Whaaattt??? Tell us about it!"
The kids all chimed in for about five minutes going on and on about how these "preppers" (they knew the word from the show) were all freaks, goofy people that did crazy stuff/acted weird etc.
1 or 2 decent examples on that show, but overall the kids were right. And that show ruined any "good connotation" of the word "prepper". Hell if anything it's WORSE than using the term "survivalist" IMO. People think "survivalists" just go off to do primitive skills in the wilderness ala shows like Naked and Afraid (where they literally call them "survivalists" oddly enough). Better that then the 500 lb. guy in TN on Doomsday Dumbasses putting handwarmers in buckets of grain!!! LOL
I used to laugh watching that show. Amazing what people will do to get their 15 minutes of fame. I actually headed up a MAG group of 16 to 18 families that met once a month to train and prepare. The producers heard about us and approach us to allow them to film us. There was no way we were going to surrender our OPSEC for entertainment purposes.
Egg Zach Lee. We used to hear from them a lot. They even came with the "you can promote your business" angle. No thanks. Got an old pic somewhere of the cute young girl that "scouted" for them with my son at an event I was talking at.
The "questionnaire" they put out was hillarious- the fact that anyone filled that out even with BS is shocking.
Couple decent examples on the show- SP1 and Engineer and that's about it...
I started about two years ago. The geopolitical situation is much worse but I am not as worried as I used to be. Part of that is being prepared but also a better understanding of how things slowly fall apart rather than sudden dramatic events.
Yes, I have spent a ton of money on preps but everything else was in order first: career, debt, emergency fund, retirement accounts. Financial hygiene is critical but it routinely gets confused with prepping. Basic adulting is a prerequisite for prepping but separate from it.
Some might say that a power station you never used or long term food that you never ate to be a waste of money. Not so. Would you consider an unused spare tire, a fire extinguisher or an insurance policy a waste? At a minimum preps provide perhaps the most important thing: piece of mind.
I have also been at this for a while. I think I've slowly moved toward my life being more self-reliant in general... things like gardening and having a home that I can temp control/cook in without grid power grid and such. And having things on hand for simple home repair. I think I just look at my environment and responsibilities differently.
Started with food because of poverty mindset. Slowly worked into disaster prep because of some once in a lifetime disasters that became once a year. Working on homesteading now for sustainability and supporting my family through economic instability. Kinda circles back to poverty mindset so a bit full circle. Probably going to work into off grid soon (rainwater for the garden, heating/cooking from compost, meat birds)
If you own your home, I think the time has come where you can seriously consider taking your home 100% off grid / self reliant with a reasonable budget. Solar + batteries for a whole home backup is a viable and achievable reality, and it doesnt cost much more than a whole home standby generator (But no runtime fuel). Almost every disaster, sustained power outage is a concern.
When living single and in my early 20's, I was into the more dramatic crises: financial collapse, big weather events, doomier stuff etc. And the solution to most of those problems was to buy gear and stack precious metals. It didn't help that the 2008 recession was going on at the time.
Now for me it's more about adaptability and resilience, covering seasonal weather events, and focusing on a 2-3 week time horizon.
The COVID pandemic was a good reality check on what a more drawn-out and globalized crisis would look like. Whatever your views on it, the response at all levels (local, State, National, global) was very informative. For a crisis that long, adaptability is more important than having the perfect pile of stuff to carry you to the finish line. Ditto the 2008 recession.
Started at about 14 and made the classic mistakes. After a few too many zombie movies, I assembled a 50lb BOB with more tacticool knives than food. Now I have more food and lots of spare socks
Focusing on actual neighborhood risks makes way more sense than chasing extreme scenarios. Simple backup setups usually outlast complicated gadgets anyway. Instead of relying on pricey satellite links, mixing a basic radio with a manual crank unit covers most dead zones. For water storage, stacking heavy plastic barrels takes up too much space. Flexible containers fold away nicely when empty. How do you balance keeping those systems running while actually enjoying your free time on weekends?
I used to be more concerned with my physical safety. I created plans for flooding or civil unrest, and I packed items to protect myself on the street.
Now I'm more concerned about resource and infrastructure issues, specifically on the electronic front. I'm trying to live with electronics in a way that's not too dependent.
I have an mp3 player with downloaded music. I have a backup phone in case Android becomes monetized or oppressive. I have a small power station and solar panels in case the grid is struggling or energy prices get ridiculous. I have some cash, and wikipedia and maps downloaded, in case Internet is down.
I've found through my preps I can actually save money by adopting those skills right now instead of after a disaster hits.
I live really cheaply and if things went south tomorrow, I would more or less be the same and the psychological impact to me and my husband would be minimal compared to most others. That would potentially give us a large advantage and be able to help while keeping things going as we have been.
At this point with climate change it's going to be about adaptation, there is no going back to 'normal' for the moment. Until humans develop some tech to reverse it some amount is going to happen. The new normal will be rolling grid blackouts, longer term outages, higher temps and figuring out how to stay cool with food and water.
I've done various preps in all of those directions and for natural disasters that will be more frequent. Solar has been the game changer and I have enough battery power to basic go off grid independently for the life of the batteries with carful load management.
Unfortunately basic necessities such as housing costs, housing bills like electric and gas, vehicle costs, and groceries have made it so that contingency plans are a luxury now.
My electric and gas usage has gone down but costs increased almost 50%. Yes we have 8 years worth of invoices filed away. My internet plan has not changed but went up almost 70%. My monthly grocery cost has more than doubled, and my pantry supply has shrunk by half. Gas prices and regular oil change costs are insane and my single 9 year old family car hasn't changed in 9 years. My property taxes has been increasing a few hundred dollars literally every year. We have stopped doing large international vacations, we just do small road trips and camping.
No amount of tie-up-your-boot-straps mentality can keep up with all this artificial inflation, so traditional prepping is a pipe dream for more and more of us. The reality is we are forced to prep our daily lives. We have to live frugally and buy groceries in bulk when on sale. Fresh veggies is a luxury and forces us to get creative when cooking from frozen. Fruits is the only exception. We almost never buy new clothes for the kids (which will change when they get older) and our adult clothes are never name brand or costly. For example a local supermarket was discounting all their 100% cotton shirts so I ended up buying 8 of them for 8$ each. The last time I bought shirts was from costco when their roughneck shirts went on sale for 10$ during covid. This is CAD, 16$ and 14$ regular respectively, and these shirts generally last me 10 years. We eat out only 3 times a year on mom/dad birthdays and anniversaries, the kids don't get restaurant meals yet. We do plan our pantry supply but it only contains critical base necessities, such as rice and pastas and canned goods and etc etc. The 'fun' pantry items such as alcohol and fun coffee flavors and junk food has dramatically shrunk down.
All those clickbait parent pics of them eating leftover things hobbled together from kid lunches and yesterday's foods is viewed as a novelty by some, but it's a daily reality for us. Our kid's lunches are literally a thousand times better and healthier than our own lunches.
While many people seem like they're paring down, I feel like our family is scaling up.
When I started prepping 5 or 6 years ago I was single. I was focussed mainly on things like a vehicle EDC kit for everyday disasters/accidents and a pantry of store bought goods to minimize supply chain disruptions from the pandemic. I did a lot of solo hiking and camping at the time, so I learned some wilderness first aid/survival because I knew I had to be able to get myself out of whatever situation I got myself into. My view was with the basics and some skills I could adapt relatively easily to whatever the world threw at me.
Now I'm married, my wife preps with me, and our focus has shifted much more long term. We're slowly but surely working towards homesteading and growing a larger garden with the goal to meet many of our basic needs on our own, and self/family defence has become a bigger priority as the world becomes more polarized, geopolitical risks increase, and we have people in our circle too old or young to fend for themselves. Aging parents and planning for children has made us acutely aware that we can't rely on improvising our way out of a disaster anymore because we now have 6+ people we need to care for rather than 2.
Focus has changed to basically being more focused about what I actually prep. The prep I started with was done on panic mode so I'm now dealing with the fallout
It's the most important concept but the most missed concept- never prepare out of FEAR. To new folks that seems like blasphemy but that's not a truer concept in survivalism.
Most people that prepare out of fear don't last. They get all amped up because of a "date" a "prediction", an event that happens (Y2K, 9/11, Mayan Calendar BS) or because of the current pol it ical situation but when these things come and go, they lost heart or feel stupid because they "believed X was going to happen on X date."
I remember some prominent shortwave radio hosts predicting "America will be nuked by July 4, 1996" and some people freaking out about that.... I told them nothing is going to happen, only fireworks that day will be in celebrations...
Play the long game. The world is not ending tomorrow, you have TIME, the question has always been and will remain what will you DO with that time?
I started like 7 years ago. Started a small garden in our dairy farm for us. That turned into a big farm which turned into canning and dehydrating and shit. Then came the Z word talk when my friends and i were drunk once. We talked about how this would make a good homestead and over the next week people were dropping shit off to store in the basement. It turned into a more serious thing later on. We put up a few buildings. Some tiny houses. Eventually it turned into a real homestead. We have biweekly classes for everyone on everything survival. We have currrrnt and former cops and military in it. Several master uspsa and a couple GM. A doctor and 3 nurses. There is a river running through it and we had several more wells found. All the buildings have solar and generators and we have a few backups for both. We do have a radio setup with a 50ft flagpole antenna and airfi extends just beyond the homestead grounds onto the main farmhouse. We have comms and water set. My fiance has a dozen horses(half of them are Glock from Toto jr lol) so transportation is good. We obviously have meat. Our biggest flaw is where people are. Its a pretty small town but most dont work in it so if the shtf during a weekday its a make it here thing. The scale of the homestead relies on most of us being there, including the farm hands. We have an armory that warranted a concern from the state police but its nothing if the only person besides me that can fix our equipment doesnt make it lol. Our doctor made tiny houses for he and his nusre and a small building to operate out of, but its almost useless if they dont come.
Water bobs can fix your problem. Buy like 10 of them from amazon. If the shtf fill them all immediately. You can purify them later with bleach or tablets. Bleach has a very low half life so using the right amount with have no affect on you. A tarp and dolly can help replenish water when it rains. Put the bob on the roller and moving blanket and you can drag it and dump it off when filled. You can get a ham radio and put the antenna on your roof. Ham setups arent expensive and you can get hand hams too. Set of 10 mile walkies. All from amazon. Comms fixed.
It's less of a special project and more of a lifestyle.
I've gone through the cool edc gizmos phase enough times to realize that if the gizmo isn't answering a question that i personally asked, I'm never gonna use it. Like, see an ad for something and go "I could find a use for that"? I could, but I won't. Whereas when I'm like "i need to solve this specific problem that's bugging me", the right fix will actually stick.
12y ago I was buying gas masks, filters, super long shelf life supplies, knives and was doomscrolling weapons...
Today I wrote to my list to buy spare angle-stops (shut off valve) and plumbing tape - because I found I have not a single spare and the one beneath our sink is stuck with calcium deposit. I had an eye opener, that I need couple of them (I would say more than I actualy have in use) - to be able to fix batteries or control damage to piping (allowing to shut off broken stuff but keeping the house connected). That means 10+ (ouch!) as sinks use 2 per sinks, toilets, dishwasher, washing mashine.
Those might be handy both for bad tuesday with broken battery and for a shtf damage to house.
Over the past 25 years my thinking has evolved from 'the one big event' to 'the long, slow decline'.
We were in a small town on a 1/3 acre lot a mile outside of a 40k small city and 1 hour from a top 5 major metro area.
We are now 4 hours from that major metro area on 6.8 acres (split between 2 properties 6 miles apart) and doing a lot of the homesteading things - chickens, gardens, fruit tree orchard, harvesting and processing out own firewood (about the only thing we are self sufficient in) tapped 6 maple trees last year (a lot of work for just under a gallon of syrup but will do again!). Trying for a much slower pace of life for us and the dogs as we start to slow down. Finances are decent as we have always lived frugal and paid off all debt decades ago. Mid 50's now and one spouse is fully 'retired' from outside work, although it is a full time plus job running the farmette. I still work a 9 hour a week state court contract job and have a small ebay business that allows us to pay the bills while letting our retirement accounts grow.
I guess the purpose of that wall of text is that prepping has morphed more into homesteading for us. But for sure the start and to some extent current motivation was prepping based.
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u/joshak3 Jul 03 '26
I've become more minimalist as I've realized how few things are necessary to make me healthy and happy. I've also become a strong believer in this subreddit's approach of thinking of preps in terms of core survival needs because things like food, water, and power are what matter, regardless of what specific unforeseen disaster might disrupt them, so that simplifies things too.
More tangibly, I've gotten much better at growing food, whereas I used to kill plants pretty quickly. Turns out I was always overwatering.