120 Powerful Pieces Of Advice For Preppers

Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and millions of Americans are feverishly preparing for what they consider to be "the end of the world as we know it". In fact, it is estimated that there are now approximately 3 million "preppers" in the United States. But for people that have never done much prepping before, getting started can be both confusing and intimidating. In fact, I get more questions about prepping than anything else. People are constantly asking me how they can prepare for the difficult times that are coming. Well, in this article I have compiled 120 powerful pieces of advice for preppers.
No two situations are exactly the same, and almost every prepper approaches preparation differently, but there are some basic principles that apply to almost everyone. And without a doubt, a lot of people that are not preparing now are going to regret it in the years ahead. The global financial system is falling apart, the United States and Europe are absolutely drowning in debt, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are becoming more frequent, signs of social decay are everywhere and war could erupt in the Middle East at any time. Actually, it is absolutely amazing that there are so many people out there that still believe that "prepping" is not necessary.

When people ask me what they can do to prepare, there is usually one tip that I give above everything else. It is not very "sexy", but it is absolutely foundational.

During the last recession, millions of people lost their jobs, and because a lot of them had no financial cushion, many of them also lost their homes.

For the next couple of years, my number one tip is to build up an emergency fund. If you are a prepper and you are living month to month, then you are in a very vulnerable position.

What is going to happen to all of your preparations if something goes wrong and you suddenly lose your home to foreclosure?

I recommend that everyone have an emergency fund that will be able to cover all bills and expenses for at least six months.

Yes, cash is continually losing value. But during any economic downturn it is absolutely essential that you be able to continue to pay your bills. Having a cash reserve is the smart thing to do.

So what else can people do to start prepping for the tough times that are on the horizon?

In a previous article, I explained that a good place to start is by focusing on the five basics....

*Do not post pictures of money or gold or your preps on Facebook. If you do, you might get some unwelcome visitors to your home.

*Make sure that your preparations are not against the law. If you have any doubt about this, make sure that you do not go on national television and tell all of America what you are doing.

*In the event of a major disaster, there will likely be hordes of "non-preppers" running around looking to take away the things that all of the preppers have been storing up. This is something that you will need to be prepared for.

*The following are 6 excellent privacy tips for preppers that come from an article by an anonymous author that was recently posted on theintelhub.com....

1. Trust no one that you do not personally know. Even the little old lady down the road will rat on you if she is hungry when the SHTF.

2. Keep your prepping to yourself. Again, do not tell anyone you are prepping. If they know you have stores of food, where do you think they will think of first when the SHTF? Oh and don’t forget, the Department of Homeland Security thinks people with stockpiles of food and weapons as potential domestic terrorist.

3. Don’t share any prepping articles on Facebook or other social media. Don’t draw attention to yourself by posting prepping articles or discussing the topic on the website. You may think you are educating your friends, but in reality you are just letting them know of your actions and plans.

4. Make sure boxes are not labeled with the company name if your order emergency supplies. Most companies will publish this in their ordering information. You don’t want to tip off the UPS driver that you just received a year’s worth of freeze dried food.

5. Do not tell anyone what you are up to. You don’t know how hard it is for me not to tell people I meet that I was almost on the National Geographic TV show. That would be a disaster.

6. Be alert to what others are saying. I was sitting in my dental hygienist chair a week ago and she told me about another customer that was storing food. She thought he might be prepping and she said if it ever got bad, she knew where to find some food. I just acknowledged the statement and let it rest.

*In one article that I did about preparation, I listed 10 things that you can start doing right now to get yourself into a better position for the chaos that is coming....

*Would moving to another area of the country be the best choice for you and your family? In an article entitled "What Is The Best Place To Live In The United States To Prepare For The Coming Economic Collapse?" I detailed some of the pros and cons for living in various areas of the country.

*In a recent article posted on shtfplan.com, Norse Prepper shared 11 questions that all preppers should be asking themselves....

*In the years ahead food might cost a whole lot more than it does right now. Your food dollars are never going to go farther than they do right now.

*Many people do not realize this, but you can grow herbs that have tremendous healing properties in your own garden.

*In a recent article, I detailed some of the things that you will want to consider in the event of a major economic collapse....

#2 Medicine Is One Of The First Things That Becomes Scarce During An Economic Collapse

*You need to have a plan for what you will do if a massive wildfire comes sweeping through your area. This is especially true if you live in the western half of the United States.

*In a previous article entitled "20 Things You Will Need To Survive When The Economy Collapses And The Next Great Depression Begins", I made a list of 20 things that you will need when you are not able to rely on Wal-Mart or the grocery store any longer....

*In the comments following that article, my readers suggested a number of additional items to add to that list....

*There are more preppers out there than you might think. Don't be afraid to reach out and make new friends.

*In a recent article, Brandon Smith shared some of the factors to consider when choosing a location for a survival retreat....

*Almost everyone can grow a survival garden. Even if you only have an apartment, you can still grow a few things on your balcony.

*Don't underestimate the impact a major transportation disruption could have on our daily lives.

*You would be surprised what you can actually do with limited resources. For example, there is one family that is actually producing 6000 pounds of produce a year on just 1/10th of an acre right in the middle of Pasadena, California.

*Survival Mom once shared the top ten survival tips that nobody wants to talk about....

3. You may not receive any government benefits or payment from your place of employment during a disaster.

*An EMP burst caused by a high altitude nuke or by a major solar event could fry most of your electronics. What are you going to do if that happens?

*Spending a million dollars on a "survival condo" in an abandoned missile silo in Kansas is probably not a very efficient use of your limited resources.

*Off Grid Survival recently posted a list of four powerful traits that most survivors have in common....

*You can always learn more. Organizations such as The American Preppers Network enable preppers to network and learn from one another.

*During the difficult times that are coming, in addition to physical preparation it is going to be absolutely crucial to be both mentally and spiritually tough.

Many have accused me of being a "doom and gloomer", but I don't see anything negative about being prepared.

In fact, having a plan can give you a tremendous amount of hope. There will be a lot of people out there that will be tremendously blessed in the midst of the chaos that is coming. Victory often goes to those who are most prepared.

But if you choose simply to have blind faith in the system and you choose to stick your head in the sand, you might find that "ignorance is bliss" for a little while but when the stuff hits the fan it is going to be incredibly painful for you.

Previous generations understood that it was wise to store up supplies in the good years in order to make things easier in the lean years.

Unfortunately, most people these days have never been through truly hard times so they have no idea what they are like.

Just because the world has enjoyed a tremendous amount of prosperity for the last several decades does not mean that things will always be this way.

Wake up, take a look at the storm on the horizon and get prepared while you still can.

Here It Is: An Effective Plan To Convince Your Loved Ones To Prepare

David Nash
June 22nd, 2012
Shepherd School

(This article was originally published by David Nash of Shepherd School at The Survival Mom web site.)

Any person who has begun to seriously prepare has had to make compromises between current wants and future needs, how much to spend on preparations, and how many people to stock supplies for. If you’re married, you need to have a spouse that shares your concerns or you’re going to fight over every #10 can the mailman delivers. I don’t need to go into detail on how much you should store, how to store it, or what makes the cut on your List of Lists. The purpose of this article is to help communicate the need to prepare with those in your family that you want to help without alienating them or downgrading your own preparedness plans.

I am a professional firearms instructor and am also employed full time as an emergency management planner. Due to my job, my hobbies, and my personal beliefs, my former mother-in-law delighted in trying to insult me by calling me “Sgt. Tackleberry”. She was unreachable, and I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to convince her of the importance in prepping. She would rather buy timeshares of vacation property than spend money on a basic 72 hour kit. That works for her, and I cannot judge her, but she would not be invited to,“come live with me if it ever did happen,” as she believed.

Other members of my family have thought my preparations were a, “phase”, or some harmless idiosyncrasy. Those family members did not have a negative view of my preparations. They mostly looked at my preparations with amusement. They tolerated my teenage experiments with wild foods or earthquake kits. As I have grown older and they have seen things on the horizon that will personally impact them, they have begun to ask me for my opinion on coming winter storms or whether they should buy gold or guns.

It’s like being a firearm instructor and people asking you which gun to buy. If you do your homework and build credibility, people respect you more. If you take the long view and work diligently. these members of your family might be “converted” with patience and work. While I cannot assume responsibility for them and make them prepare for disasters, I can be a role model and sounding board to help them understand the issues at play so they can build a plan that works for them.

If the world as we know it collapses, it’s not only about survival. Once your survival needs are met, you’re going to have to rebuild and continue with your life. Having your loved ones with you makes that a lot easier. The problem is that each person I add to my retreat lowers my safety margin IF MY SUPPLY AMOUNTS REMAIN FIXED, but if those people I add to my retreat bring their own supplies, it dramatically increases my safety margin. To me it is definitely worth it to help your family prepare.

I have a few precepts that I use when dealing with family or friends on this subject.

My first precept of dealing with family is not to preach. My preparations are based on my needs and the things that I believe are important. Each person has their own priorities, and preaching that you are right and they are wrong only pushes them away from the direction you need them to go.

My second is never to prepare for a particular event. I am sure there is still a lot of rotting food out there that was bought in bulk specifically for Y2K, and some of those that bought it are convinced it was a waste of money.
I tell my family that my food storage can be used for Y2K, Armageddon, TEOTWAWKI, Pandemic Flu, Nuclear Winter, Job loss, or when I just don’t feel like cooking. By having an all-hazards approach and building capability and skills rather than building for specific events, my planning work gets more bang for the buck.
The first time I read of the “Deep Larder” was an “ah-ha!” moment for me, and changing my terminology has worked well in changing the response I get from my close loved ones.

My last precept of helping my loved ones see the need to prepare is to foster an appropriate mindset instead of concentrating on gear acquisition. I could buy my mom a Springfield Armory M-14 and 10,000 rounds of match ammo, but it would be much more effective to get her to go with me to the range a couple times and practice with a .22. This would likely foster a desire to shoot, and then I could help her choose a firearm that fits her needs and desires.

Whenever the family conversation gets around to disaster preparation I bring up concepts like:

“Buying car insurance is considered a responsible action, but you don’t have any tangible benefit from buying it, if you never get into an accident.”
“With having a deep larder, even if zombies never attack, I still have the food.”

Or as Dave Grossman has said, “You never hear of elementary schools burning down but they all have fire extinguishers.” My favorite is, “Noah built the Ark BEFORE the flood”.
I try to break everything down into manageable bites rather than cram it in and have them tune me out.

The best case scenario is that your loved ones will see the need to prepare for themselves and begin planning and preparing on their own, therefore augmenting your plan. You cannot out-argue someone into adopting your position.
As Dale Carnegie said, “Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.” What has worked for me is a quiet and consistent approach.

I love my family and want what is best for them. The best way I know to do that is to help them become more aware of the need to prepare. My goal is to foster a sense of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, and to help mentor them through the beginning steps of basic preparedness.

Think about how overwhelming it was when you first began to prepare. There is a LOT to learn and even more skills and equipment to acquire. We know that we cannot stock everything needed or prepare too much. The process of preparing is every bit as important as the items you acquire.

Researching and prioritizing is mental prep work so that when a large disaster occurs we are not comatose with emotional overload. If I coddle my loved ones and try to remove their responsibility to prepare by doing it for them, then I am doing them a disservice. When hard times come, they may not be emotionally ready to deal with the collapse.
What’s worse is that making them dependent on my charity would cause strain on otherwise healthy family relationships. Because of this, I feel it is worth supreme effort to work with my loved ones to prepare so that we can grow together in adversity and make our family bonds stronger.

This year I had my breakthrough. My parents asked me what they could do to prepare. We had a very long discussion and came away with a workable plan. At the time of our discussion their location was more favorable for a long-term retreat than my own, and they are going to provide the location and storage space for most of my preps.
We both win in the end. Shortly after that discussion our town had an unusually long cold spell. In the days before it we talked more about our short term plans and communication protocols and procedures. While we did not have to evacuate to my parents, it was nice having all the details ironed out in the event we had to.

Disaster preparedness is not a fad or a short term race to buy a lot of cool gear. It’s a lifestyle choice, and one that has a lot of benefits. However, it comes the necessity of taking off the rose colored glasses. Not everyone is ready to do this, but if you want to set an example and truly influence others, you must understand what you do is much louder than what you say.

>>>> DEFENSE <<<< Buy ammo, BUT, keep the following in mind:

COPY & PASTE FROM MY POST ON THE SAME SUBJECT ON SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011 FOLLOWS. FIGURED IT WAS WORTH REPEATING.

Buy ammo. And, do it correctly.....I have a few friends who still don't get it, ie: when I ask, "how much ammo do you have on hand?" I get a few answers of : Got plenty, plus 14 guns in the closet. Have 3 or 4 boxes of 12 ga, a couple for my kids .410, couple of boxes each for my 6 rifles, and a bunch of partial boxes for all my hand guns. I tell them that's fine if they can stay in the house and shoot out the windows, B-U-T if they need to run outside and shoot from behind the car or garage, they may find themselves in the do-do. One can only carry a couple of long guns (of different calibers) and a couple of handguns while on the run, along with their ammo. You shoot up those 3 - 20 round boxes of .30/06, 4 boxes of 7mm, 3 boxes of .45 ACP and you no longer have 3 guns....just 3 clubs.

Designate one shotgun, one rifle and one handgun as your primary "social unrest" home defense weapons and load up on the ammo for them. Having 20 guns doesn't do you any good if all you have is a few rounds for each. Kinda hard to watch out the FRONT living room window where the armed looters are moving around and dig through the BACK bedroom closet for more ammo. ("I KNOW I have at least a half box of .270 somewhere from last deer season......where the hell is it ???").

If you can't afford lots of expensive high caliber ammo, get a few bricks of .22 ammo. 300 rounds flying out that window from your .22 rifle and pistol may not drop a 250 lb man, but a wound in the arm with a .22 will slow him down, take him off the attack and put HIM on defense. Plus, with a bucket of .22 ammo, your wife and kid can easily load one gun while you shot the other.

Don't forget magazines / clips. It's great that you have 1 EXTRA mag that came with your favorite deer rifle, B-U-T a total of 2 mags with only 5 rounds each isn't going to last long until you hear "click" and stop shooting to reload them. If you can't get oversize mags, get a sack full of the "regular" ones.

AND, as noted by another FREEPER after my post; Ensure you have slings on your long guns, so you will have at least one hand free when on the move. If you don't want to "mess up the looks" of your beautiful 375 H & H Magnum with swivels and sling, at least have some precut lengths of small size rope or strapping handy to use for an 'emergency' sling. You can always tie it around the stock and forearm (or barrel) and throw it over your shoulder. It doesn't have to be 'pretty', just a temporary jerry-rig that could save your life.

I have my act together, however family is another thing.

My son is an intelligent grown man and doesn't live near me. He rolls his eyes at my preps and we leave it at that. He is certainly welcome to come here if the need arises.

I have a sister-in-law and husband who are to the left of Stalin - seriously. The sister-in-law thinks preps are fun to talk about but has nothing that I didn't give her and she lives on the coast - she is a fruitcake liberal and I mean it and she knows it.

Her husband is a genuine genius but a fruitcake liberal as well. Because he is so bright, my preps confuse him. He respects my intelligence and can't figure out why someone as smart as I am, would prep. He's afraid to call it nonsense because he knows I'm not nonsense. If I'm doing it, he's thinking maybe I know something he doesn't.

On their last trip here, they had it all figured out. They say the real danger is global warming will prevent crops being grown in their area so they will move to California where his brother is when that happens. Then, they will be safe there, plenty to eat as global warming won't hurt that place.

I know, he is a genius, but really liberal stupid.

I love those two people and they will be welcome if they need to come here, however they need to be dipped in oil and French fried until the liberalism is gone. Did I mention they get their news only from Al Jazeera, as they say they are the only news that tells the truth. They tell me I should watch/hear Al Jazeera if I want the truth about Jews and everything else.

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