(ThyBlackMan.com) The hardest part of prepping is getting started. Most people who want to get into it need a lot of supplies, training, and specialized knowledge. Here are some ways to get organized and plan for the unthinkable.
Buy $5 Worth Of Extra Canned Goods Every Time You Go To The Grocery Store
Buying a little extra each time you shop gets you into the habit of accumulating abundance in your pantry. You may never need it, and you might need to rotate food stocks, but you should always have extra on-hand just in case.
Canned goods are good because they rarely spoil.
Beans, and other nutrient-dense foods, are preferred if only because they can be eaten cold and still taste good. But, they’re also good because they’re highly nutritious and during an emergency you might not have access to nutrient-dense foods. You might not have access to any other kind of food other than what’s in your pantry.
Get Basic Supplies
Basic supplies, like Sebenza knives, a bug-out bag, and first-aid kit are a good idea too, in addition to the extra food.
Utility knives have an almost infinite number of uses. For example, they can be used to make shelter, cut through wiring or fencing, used to gut animals you catch, and even open cans in a pinch.
Bug-out bags are useful if you have to leave your home in an emergency situation. They contain essentials like fire-starting equipment, a small pick-axe, a shovel, blankets, a change of clothes, something to purify water, and water-proof clothing or blankets.
Basic supplies also include at least 3 ways to make a fire, like magnesium, steel, and flint or some other material capable of sparking.
Get Long-Term Supplies
Long-term supplies include long-term food (vacuum-packed), provisions for at least a month’s worth of clothing, or a way to wash a week’s worth of clothing for at least a month, food that will last at least a month, and up to 6 months or more, a way to filter non-potable water, and multiple ways to start and maintain a fire. Long-term supplies also include generators like solar-powered generators.
Some prepper and survival-oriented companies sell these types of things, which makes your job a lot easier.
Buy Books
Most preppers didn’t learn what they know by randomly surfing around the Internet. They learned by picking up books written by other people who have been living the lifestyle for many years. Of course, today, there are websites that sell books on how to prepare yourself.
For example, Ready4ItAll.org has an extensive library of over 300 books on the topic of being a prepper. Some of the titles include personal safety, how to be your own bodyguard, survival fighting, how to use a gun, survival guns, how to prepare for nuclear or biological warfare, how to build a shelter, and how to make an above-ground disaster shelter.
Save Money
Start saving money now. You should be saving money anyway, but if you’ve ever heard of the phrase “stuffing money under your mattress,” this is what you want to be doing. Maybe you don’t want to literally stuff money under your mattress, but you should have safe with emergency money in it.
Save some dollars, but also consider saving coins and gold just in case. If you have multiple forms of currency, including bills, coins with real monetary value, and monetary metals with intrinsic value (even if they’re not in circulation), you have many means to trade or transact business if you need to.
A general rule of thumb is to keep at least 30 percent of your emergency savings in cash or cash equivalents, and the rest in monetary metals.
Take Up Hunting
Get good at hunting, especially with a bow and arrow. The more you know about hunting, the less reliant you’ll be on others if you need to hunt for your own food.
Start A Garden
Consider starting a garden. Growing your own food eliminates, or dramatically reduces, your reliance on others for your food.
Get A Firearm
This one is a little controversial in some communities, but not in the prepper community. You’d be hard-pressed to find a prepper that didn’t own a firearm of some kind. Why? Basic self-defense and hunting.
Go to a few shooting ranges and test out a variety of firearms – from long-range firearms to pistols. See what you feel most comfortable with. Lots of people claim that the biggest caliber is the best, but the best is really the caliber that gets the job done.
So, for hunting, you’ll want ammo specifically designed for the animal you want to hunt. For self-defense, you want self-defense rounds (hollow point) in a caliber you can control.
You don’t have to go all-out when you’re first getting started, but you should do at least 3 things on this list. Just make sure you’re doing something.
Staff Writer; Jake Peete
