Prepping: Getting Started-Introduction

You may be reading this post because your interest in ‘prepping’ has been piqued and you’re wondering just what you will need to do, if you want to start. Or, maybe you have already decided that you want to be proactive for the possibility that disaster can strike your family in the many ways we mentioned in Why Prepare?

   Emergency Managers and Emergency agencies are aware of the many situations that families can find them selves from something as ‘simple’ as a loss of jobs to an extreme situation from weather, disaster or terrorism. The scale of emergencies is wide.

Whatever the reason, you are sitting there, shaking your head, looking at your screen and asking “Then WHAT DO I DO?” — “HOW do I START?” . Starting is easy. But be warned: Once you start, you are going to find yourself on a life-changing journey that will be a continual process of education. ‘Prepping’ will offer you peace of mind that you have done all that you can to prepare your household & family so that they can weather a small disruptive event (like unemployment of a family breadwinner) or a major event that effects not just your family, but your local community or our country-at-large.

So, what to do? We’ll help you with some basic ‘How-To’ Information in this forum.

Here's a good article for how to start your preps for the beginner who plans on bugging in during a grid down situation:


https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-bug-in-what-you-need-to-know-to-survive-a-grid-down-disaster/

Thanks to ReadyMom's posts today   , I was introduced to foodinsurance.com. So after looking at the site and reading various items, I came across this for the beginner. You may have to wait about 30 seconds in order for it to come up, but it's worth the wait:

https://blog.foodinsurance.com/category/preparedness-basics/

Where and How Do You Start Preparing?
https://blog.foodinsurance.com/where-and-how-do-you-start-preparing/

Perhaps you’ve decided your family needs an emergency preparedness plan, but you’re a little overwhelmed at all there is to do.  Maybe you’ve gone as far as to make a list of things to buy and how to store them, along with some information about surviving an emergency, but putting your plan into action seems a little daunting.  For those who have a desire to get their families better prepared and aren’t quite sure where to start, here are some simple steps.   ---CONTINUED---

What is preparation or prepping? A brief breakdown.
http://www.grainstorehouse.com/?p=384

What does it mean to ‘Be prepared’? Of course it used to be the Boy Scout Motto (maybe it still is, but I’m not a Boy Scout). Also, what is this new word “prepping”? Isn’t that what doctors do prior to surgery?

Well, both of these questions lead to the need of explaining exactly what preparation or prepping actually is. It is a little easier to breakdown the things that preparation, prepping or living the preparedness lifestyle actually include rather than saying what it is or isn’t because it looks different for every family.

Some things that it should NOT include though are: Fearful hording, panic or paranoia.

So with that out of the way, let’s look at the wide variety of things that prepping include. ---CONTINUED---

Start Preparing HERE:
https://thesurvivalmom.com/start-preparing-here/

Don't worry, be ready!

If you're new to the idea of preparedness, you can start your journey right here, right now. Check out these basic steps, start small, but keep a steady pace.

Includes info on:

Baby Step #1: Plan for a Short-Term Emergency
Baby Step #2: Prepare Your Vehicle:
Baby Step #4: Get Home, No Matter What
Baby Step #5 Simple Steps to Preparedness
Baby Step #6 Quick Ways to Increase Your Survival Education

Urban Survival Food Storage, Rations, and Supply
http://www.urbansurvivalnetwork.com/featured/urban-survival-food-storage-rations-and-supply/

If you’ve planned well and have an emergency survival kit that includes food rations, you have a better chance of getting through the survival situation smoothly than those who did not put aside rations for such a contingency. Your food supply will get you through the difficult challenges that will come at you in the initial phase, such as assessing the situation, figuring out an action plan, and considering any natural food sources that might be in the vicinity. Your emergency rations might be all you need, since statistics show that in the majority of survival situations, people are rescued or escape unaided within 72 hours.

The importance of having a food supply on hand for a survival situation is crucial. Due to the fact that in our everyday lives, with food sources abundant and close by, we don’t concern ourselves with the possibility that our food supply might one day be cut off. It’s only in a sudden situation, when for example a political crisis or a natural disaster and you’re cut off from the usual food sources that you’ll quickly realize that your very existence is going to depend on your ability to feed yourself. ---CONTINUED---

Includes:
What is the Ultimate Survival Food?
What Kind of Containers Are best for Storage?
Preventing “Appetite Fatigue”
Should You Store Vitamins?
The Fast ‘n Easy and Mood Boosters
Having a Variety in Your Food Storage
Storing an Adequate Amount of Staple Items
Get Familiar with Your Storage Items

What a Prepper Should Do Around The House
http://www.askaprepper.com/what-a-prepper-should-do-around-the-house/

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing something today.

When we’ll have no running water, no extra food, no electricity… then we’ll truly understand this old saying… the hard way. Or we can make sure that our houses offer a decent level of protection. ---CONTINUED---

Quick-Start Guide for Preparedness Newbies
https://survivalblog.com/?s=Quick-Start+Guide+for+Preparedness+Newbies

I often get e-mails from folks that have just found SurvivalBlog or that have just finished a copy of my my novel "Patriots" , that they received as a gift from a relative or a friend. Their response is surprisingly uniform: People feel overwhelmed by the enormity of what it takes to get a family prepared.

First, take a deep breath and relax. Just realizing that you need to get prepared has already put you ahead of 70% of your neighbors, who are sadly little more than clueless sheeple. If you accumulate a one-month food supply then elevates your preparedness into the 80th percentile of preparedness. And by the time you work your way up to a one year supply, you'll be in the 98th percentile. It's not very difficult, its not very expensive, and its not very time-consuming. Just do it one step at a time. ---CONTINUED---

Includes:
   First Things First
   Start with a "List of Lists"
   Where to Buy
   Don't Overlook Searching the Archives
   he TEOTWAWKI Weekend Experiment
   The Ultimate in Preparedness--A Rural Retreat

Nine meals from anarchy, Part 4: Start slow if you must, but get started!
http://survivalprepdotnet.blogspot.com/2010/03/nine-meals-from-anarchy-part-4-start.html

Excerpt:

Food will always be on the grocery shelves when we need it, right?

Let's recap a video from a few days ago: ---CONTINUED---

10 Things You Can Do Right Now
https://modernsurvivalonline.com/10-things-you-can-do-right-now/

(SNIP) ... With the massive violence and turmoil going on in the Middle East to the terrible and ever dangerous situation in Japan – along with the ripple of effects that are coming from both – it would be a good idea to shore up your preparations as rapidly as possible. If everything turns out just fine and dandy – great! If not – you will be glad to have taken action when you did.

Here we go:   ---CONTINUED---

The Habit of Preparedness
https://preparednessmama.com/habit-of-preparedness/

Preparedness Is More Than a Checklist

I’ve been at the business of being prepared for quite some time. Its something we talk about being “done” with. But are we really ever “done” with being prepared?

Take your survival kit for example. You race to finish it for National Preparedness Month last year. Check! Guess what it’s obsolete already.

Had a new baby? Now you’re missing a person. Your kids grew, now the clothes don’t fit. Even gaining weight can make your kit obsolete.

Haven’t consistently rotated your food? Take a look, with a trash can handy, you’ll probably find something that should have been used long ago.

Preparedness is like Laundry and Dishes ...   ---CONTINUED---

RM, is there a gardening thread in here that I am not seeing?

Yup. Here you go: Gardening

 OAR! Glad to see you found us oke!  Old & I go waaaaaaaay back to the early days of prepping. He's got some GREAT (and often humorous) prep ideas! His poop cannon is a classic!  . . .

OMG you would have to mention the "poop cannon"

That was modified into a poop catapult so it could be used without gun powder or air pressure. We tried it, with cow pies, at a Get-together we had here way back. Worked well.

Background one his was what to do with waste if in an apartment building or even cooped up in a house. Liquids are easy to dispose of but solids are a different problem.

Using a small home built catapult, you could toss bags a ways from the house instead of just trying to toss out a window. Win-win situation as you would be creating a land mine area around the place.

Simple and cheap to build. We used tarp straps to power the sling.

oldasrocks wrote:OMG you would have to mention the "poop cannon"

That was modified into a poop catapult so it could be used without gun powder or air pressure.  We tried it, with cow pies, at a Get-together we had here way back. Worked well.

Background one his was what to do with waste if in an apartment building or even cooped up in a house. Liquids are easy to dispose of but solids are a different problem.

Using a small home built catapult, you could toss bags a ways from the house instead of just trying to toss out a window. Win-win situation as you would be creating a land mine area around the place.

Simple and cheap to build. We used tarp straps to power the  sling.

Hi OAR, I remember the poop canon too   . Glad to see ya, looks like RM is getting some of the old timers from the old APN.

Yeah a few of us are still above ground.

Hope a few newbies show up so we can educate them.

How To Start Prepping- The Five First Steps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozc9QWjVuhY

This is a list of the first five steps for anyone looking to start prepping.

One thing I never hear mentioned in these discussions is how much space is required to store all this stuff. My initial estimate, on a moderately dense storage system is about 100 cu.ft. (or a little more) per person, for one year of supplies. (Everything, not just food.)

That doesn't sound like much, until you realize you have to be able to access all the shelves and rotate stocks of food, etc. Then you are talking about a small bedroom to store supplies for two people. For three people, if you custom build your shelving.

Most people, unless they live in a fairly large house, distribute this around, though a half dozen closets and under beds, etc. Over time density can go up, but with a trade off risk, that some stocks will not get rotated because they will be "lost in the system."

I realized all of this, when I moved, just over a year ago.

How to Build an Emergency Food Supply: 20 Items to Kick Start Your Food Storage Plan
https://www.backdoorsurvival.com/20-items-to-kick-start-your-food-storage-plan/

  No matter how many times I write about food, there is always something new to consider or a new and different way to present the same old information in a more useful manner.  With that in mind, today I would like to share a method for getting started with your long-term food storage program in an easy, step by step, and cost effective manner.   ---CONTINUED---

I think this article has good info for beginning preppers to see what they already have on hand, so I put it here, in 'Getting Started'. I think that if you are a more advanced preppers, you have already done the sorting/organizing.

How to Perform a Preparedness Audit (And Why You Need To Do This Every Year)
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/preparedness-audit/

  (SNIP) ... The best way to do a food inventory is to pull ALL your food out into one room and start a physical list of what you have. Yes, you can do this on the computer or on your phone, but if the power goes out, you may not have access to these lists.  If you do the list on your computer, print it out.

(SNIP) ... Next is your supply audit.   ...

7 Steps to Prepare Your Family for Survival
https://rethinksurvival.com/7-steps-to-prepare-your-family-for-survival/

Popular media has made prepping seem like something only paranoid people do. Yet it’s smart who have a plan for emergencies, like an extended power outage or natural disaster — especially if you have a family to take care of.

We’ve all been in a scary situation, whether that’s an earthquake or severe storm. However, while 60% of Americans say preparation for disaster is very important, only 17% are ready for an emergency.

How can you prep for survival with your family? Discover everything you need to know below… ---CONTINUED---

During the pandemic I "started" but its quickly growing into an addiction, I have alot of tools and medical gear all stored in a box. Learned to use alot of the medic gear my friend gave me from the army, like giving myself an IV ahaha

HandyStan wrote:During the pandemic I "started" but its quickly growing into an addiction, I have alot of tools and medical gear all stored in a box. Learned to use alot of the medic gear my friend gave me from the army, like giving myself an IV ahaha

 Hi there HandyStan! Everyone has to start somewhere. Glad to have you part of the EHP family. There's a lot of good folks on here to help with your prep questions, if you have them.

From Beginning Prepper, to Fully-Stocked Retreat: What to Buy, and When
https://survivalblog.com/2010/11/08/from-beginning-prepper-to-full/

It’s easy to see that the world may be heading for more trouble, and we need to prepare for hard times ahead.  But it can be daunting to decide what to do, what to stock, and when to get it.
I’ve been working at this a while, and I’ve figured out a simple balance in what to buy, and when to buy it, that I think will help other Preppers move ahead with confidence.
You could call it my 100/1,000/10,000 system, and I hope it helps you get going, and get to a place where you feel more prepared for the tough times ahead. ---CONTINUED---

My granddaughter came across this video, she said I should post this (for her). So here is her post on 20 foods to keep in your pantry (food storage 101):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G72SZ8h8Pnc

rick1 wrote:My granddaughter came across this video, she said I should post this (for her). So here is her post on 20 foods to keep in your pantry (food storage 101):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G72SZ8h8Pnc

Awww! Tell your granddaughter that I made her an honorary member of the EHP! She is probably now our youngest member!

Thankx RM, I'll let her read your post, she'll love it. She just turned 12 yo, I call her the leader of the pack. She follows me around like a lost puppy dog and does everything I do. Her mother (our daughter), was exactly the same way and then they grow up.

4 page PDF from Backwoods Home Magazine Archive

A Practical Survival Strategy in the Event of Catastrophe
https://archive.org/details/Backwoods_Home/A%20practical%20survival%20strategy%20in%20the%20event%20of%20catastrophe...B/mode/2up

(BIG SNIP) ... What if we got bombed or had some kind of a catastrophe like an earthquake or something? What if water and electricity were knocked out and there was no food? What would we do? We’re not ready for that.

(SNIP) ... think of the things you need in a typical day, things you take for granted.

(SNIP) ... Also, remember, in a typical day there’s a whole passel of services you don't think about but you count on to be there. If there’s a disaster you may have to provide those for yourself. ---CONTINUED---