Also this is a good begining reading for those of you just starting out or thinking of starting.
Prepper Primer for Your Non-prepper Loved Ones, by T.S. - Part 2
Preppers’ PING!!
Preppers’ PING!!
Its your choice you can prep or you can stand around on a bridge waiting for FEMA to bring you a bottle of water, a MRE, a warm blanket and a kiss for your boo-boo and maybe you can even get your picture as you stand there on the national news.
Look what happens every Black Friday and that’s just Christmas shopping, look what happened recently during the winter storms in the south and now the northeast.
So listen to what the bible says: A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it. NIV Proverbs 22:3
One of the things Selco covers on his blog SHTF School is the fact that many will not accept that a breakdown is occurring even as they watch it happening before their eyes. Why don’t they realize it? It’s caused by a condition called ‘Normalcy Bias’ a mental state people enter when facing a disaster.
It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.
A good article on ‘Normalcy Bias’ is on our own ChocChipCookies Blog The Survival Mom:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/12/29/normalcy-bias/
You either prepare and stand on your own beholden to no one or you become dependent on others to provide your basic needs and become their ‘serf’. Me I don’t want to be beholden to anyone for providing what is needed for me and mine. I certainly don’t want to have to kiss some ‘gubberment’ third class bureaucratic to try and coax some help from them, I don’t want some ‘jack booted’ thug herding me in line and telling me where to stand, sit, eat or sleep. And last but not least I don’t want to be shut up in with a bunch of ‘zombies’ and have to worry about not only trying to get basic necessities but having to fight to keep what I manage to get.
There is a Great article in my Preparedness Manual on building your on Bug Out Bag titled: A Highly-Mobility 72 Hour Kit-by Ward Dorrity. You can download the whole manual at:
http://tomeaker.com/kart/Preparedness1j.pdf NOTE! THIS IS A FREE DOWNLOAD. I DO NOT MAKE ONE CENT OFF MY PREPAREDNESS MANUAL!
For those of you who haven’t started already it’s time to prepare almost past time maybe. You needed to be stocking up on food guns, ammo, basic household supplies like soap, papergoods, cleaning supplies, good sturdy clothes including extra socks, underwear and extra shoes and boots, cash (I myself have been putting up change for the past few years both for the metal content and the fact that using change places to make what purchases you can will move you down the the list of possible marks during shtf), tools, things you buy everyday start buying two and put one up.
As the LDS say “When the emergency is upon us the time for preparedness has past.”
Again I like to recomend FReeper’s ChocoChipCookie Blog The Survival Mom (Please Blog Police let this one slide!) Where you can get lots of useful information like:
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/11/20/8-morale-boosters-for-any-worst-case-scenario/
http://thesurvivalmom.com/2010/02/02/survival-priorities-the-rule-of-three/
And More
Also there is Ferfal’s Blog a survivor of Argentina’s first collapse:
And there is Selco’s Blog a Bosnian War survivor at:
“There is no greater disaster than to underestimate danger. Underestimation can be fatal.”
Prepper ping
M4L
If there ever comes a time when I am prepared and friends and family come begging to me to help I shall refer to the handbook “To serve man.”
I tried to warn them, and all they said was I’m a paranoid freak. A freak with lots of BBQ sauce!!!
PREPPER: How much do you pay for home insurance every year?
FRIEND : Oh, a little over $2,200 dollars.
PREPPER: How much do you pay for car insurance?
FRIEND : Almost the same, around $2,200 dollars a year.
PREPPER: If you don't have a claim on the home insurance or an auto accident, how much of that $4,400 do you have at the end of the year?
FRIEND : That's a silly question - we have nothing. The insurance companies have it all.
PREPPER: Okay. Do you have life insurance?
FRIEND : I have a Term Life policy on me.
PREPPER: How much do you pay for the policy?
FRIEND : Around $50 dollars a month.
PREPPER: How much insurance money do you get if you don't die?
FRIEND : You know we don't get anything.
PREPPER: How much do you get when you die?
FRIEND : Well I don't get anything but my beneficiary, my wife, will get the face value of the policy.
PREPPER: So either way, once you pay the $600 dollars each year it is gone - you will never see a penny of it but your wife will be protected.
FRIEND : You know, I never thought of it that way.
PREPPER: Alright. Now, here is why it makes sense to invest in emergencty food as insurance in case of an emergency or a disaster. it costs about $1,600 or less to buy enough food to feed two people for one year in case of an emergency. If you don't eat any of it, how much is that food worth at the end of the year?
FRIEND : Is it still good after a year?
PREPPER: Yes, it is still good. And it is still worth $1,600, maybe even more the way prices are rising.
FRIEND : that's for sure. Every trip to the market costs more than the last one.
PREPPER: So you can think of it this way: For $1,600 you can buy some real life insurance to protect you and your wife in case of an emergency. If there isn't an emergency you still have the $1,600 dollars worth of food - not some insurance company. And you will have that same food insurance stored away at no cost the next year and the years after that.
FRIEND : Are you sure we can buy all that food for $1,600? And what kind of food should we buy?
PREPPER: Yes, in fact you can do it for even less if you're on a tight budget. And most of the foods are things you buy and use anyway. That way you can use something from your emergency food storage and replace it with a fresh one the next time you go shopping. Check out An Affordable One-Year Emergency Food Supply for pointers and a suggested list of foods to get you started.
I have one recommended reading for non-prepper family or friends.
The Catholic Rite of Absolution.
They’re gonna need it.
Neither of the links to the Prepper Primer (Pt 1 & Pt 2) are working for me...
BTTT & PFL