“We often have threads that quote recommendations of others about things you should do to prepare.”
Prepare for what, exactly? No sarcasm intended. And whatever the intelligensia says about it, who or what represents the intellegensia?
Is it preparation for four more years of Obama? Is it the December, 21, 2012 Mayan calendar thing? Biblical prophecy or some other catastrophic geological or astronomical event?
When something like that does not come to pass as expected, how many will be disappointed in the outcome? How many will be disappointed that they will not be able to say “we told you so”?
Well, I anticipated your question.
And if you can’t decide what you are preparing for, then that means you are not preparing for anything.
Besides, you know damn well what I mean. No food at the store. No gas. Even worse, no electricity or running water.
Note bien:
I am asking what people specifically did to prepare. Not whether they should or shouldn;t or even wait for the gummint to give them free cell phones or food stamps...
food stamps with wasabi.... yummmm....
Disasters can be more personal, a lost job, financial situation, whatever. After the market tanked in 2008, I wound up living for over a year on stored food and local forage.
Up until about 60 years ago, almost everyone went into fall with a room full of stored food. It's just conservative prudence to prepare to take care of yourself and your family, regardless of the circumstances.
/johnny
Societal meltdowns happen. Really. Natural, social, political, personal, whatever the cause. Some are partial, a few are total. Prepping isn’t so much concerned with the cause, more with the odds that disasters happen and regardless the cause you may need to operate independently for a year.
The main worry now is economic collapse. Think Great Depression times ten. At least in the GD people were still close enough to the earth to manage gardens and chickens; nowadays the stores empty in 3 days in an emergency and nobody knows how to feed themselves thereafter.
Even if nothing happens, knowing how to care for ones self and family 100% is good for the soul.
I'm preparing for a coronal mass ejection to act like a global EMP, thus causing a run on the banks to deal with peak oil as global warming affects the fluoride in our drinking water to turn everyone into zombie hordes if they aren't imprisoned in FEMA camps ;^)
You didn't know?
Try this:
Shut off your home electricity, water, gas. Cut up the credit/debit/ATM cards.
Now carry on for a month.
No, it’s not far-fetched. It’s how humanity functioned for most of history. Most cellphone weilders today couldn’t make it.
Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Prepping is insurance against whatever might come our way be it any of the above, a job loss or other income sapping event, war, a tornado, illness or transportation problem preventing you from making it to the store, etc. It doesn't have to be a national emergency but a personal one that could cause you to break into your storage. In a drought situation, your water might go dry or if your electric pump broke, you'd have water stored so you'd be able to drink, bathe and use the toilet.
Do you carry a spare in case you have a flat? What if you never had a flat? Would someone laugh and say they told you so?