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So, you’ve heard about prepping, either on social media or in the local pub, and now you’re wandering what is prepping, actually. You’re in the right place, because we’re going to discuss this matter right now. And you’re here at the right time, because luckily for all of us most of what real preppers fear has not yet happened. But that’s the point – getting and staying prepared.
Following the dictionary (Oxford in this case), the “what is prepping” question gives the explanation that prepping is the action or process of preparing something, or preparing for something.
The same dictionary expands the definition by stating that prepping is
The practice of making active preparations for a possible catastrophic disaster or emergency, typically by stockpiling food, ammunition, and other supplies.
Prepping is a way of life and there is always something new to learn, tasks to do, and gear to purchase.
So, for the scope of this post, prepping includes creating plans, gathering resources and developing various skills to overcome possible emergencies, disasters, and survival threatening situations. The scope of this task is rather wide and ranges from simple short-time power outages all the way to apocalyptic events. Such events include natural disasters like floods, huricane or volcano eruption, but also wars and political problems.
Nowadays, being more and more a society of a “digital nature”, also various digital events may almost count as “natural” disasters. Just imagine Internet dying for a week – can you honestly imagine everything such an event would impact?
Various sources state that a vast majority of people in America have taken at least a step towards prepareness for emergency situations. This may include something as simple as buying a generator and all the way to building shelters. The later includes people who are willing to spend time and money to up their level of preparedness, some to a bit crazy levels, and these people are generally called preppers.
And while the dictionaries are right (they usually are), the definition therein is far from complete.
Prepping, as a way of life, has many levels and different motivations and can therefore be completely tailored to the single individual.
There are Minimalist preppers that hardly stockpile any supplies, but are favoring learning skills and building communities’ disaster response. The so-called Doomsday preppers harbor the idea that the apocalypse is a risk worth preparing for, and this includes a whole other set of assets. Then, there are so-called Liberal and Conservative preppers that usually wear their political brand on their sleeve.
Literally, there are subcultures within subcultures, but even so there are still many basic elements of preparedness, self-sufficiency, and resilience that we can discuss. And, of course, it’s a free world; just about any prepper can adopt a label (or not), and even create their own unique brand of prepping (or not).
Absolutely not. There have been situations throughout history that found certain people more ready for whatever hit them than the others. Of course, it’s hardly on me to even try to discuss their reasons, or even possibilities for that.
But whatever they were expecting, either because of certain political instability situations or real weather problems, many somehow found a way to get prepared for them in a certain way.
Lately, prepping has become even more popular. It’s not really strange, because things happening all around us (illnesses and pandemic, political stories, wars, terrorist atacks, and so on…) are making us more and more aware of how vulnerable we as a species really are.
A special field of danger that no other generation experienced is our modern way of life. This of course includes our total dependency on electrical power and modern communication channels like Internet and TV, and nonetheless our financial dependency on all that. Without the power, there’s no Internet. Without the Internet, you can’t even get your cash from the bank, let alone anything else. See what I mean?
According to our own definition in the previous text, a prepper is someone who makes plans, gathers resources that are important for survival, and works on developing certain skills that are valued as important in dangerous situations.
In other words, preppers are people who think a bit differently than many, which means thinking about possibly dangerous tomorrow. Besides that, they are completely normal people that walk among us every day. Well, there are exceptions, of course, but that’s not our thing to judge. If someone sells everything in order to build an underground shelter and forces the whole family to live there because something special might happen, that, my friend, is a bit crazy in my humble opinion. But such people are rare, probably as rare as special geniuses who understand quantum mechanics. Most preppers do things the other ways.
Now, let’s make something clear. Neither me nor my colleagues are what you might think of as conspiracy theory believers. People who believe in various conspiracy theories are always nervous and possibly make a part of the crazy preppers mentioned above. Nope. Rather, we know what we like, and we’re trying to make it possible for ourselves. This includes us liking our way of life and thinking about how to make it possible if something breaks.
Maybe the most important thing is that we’re all tech guys, and can do many things by ourselves. Plus, we love being a part of nature, so living outside is a hobby. There’s only a tiny step forward to a point where you begin thinking about surviving the wilderness.
The most important thing that practically all preppers have is their wish to be as free of their dependency on infrastructure as possible. This includes power grid, as well as other supplies like water, food and clothing. This is actually a completely legitimate goal, becase in the end, this is the way human kind evolved in the first place. It’s just a bit harder than it used to be.
To be independent of infrastructure, one can go several ways:
Most preppers combine some of the listed tasks, achieving a specific level of preparedness.
There are certain models that can define you or me as achieving a certain level of preparedness. The main point of these levels is knowing (or believeing, at least) what kind of emergency you are prepared for. This means you have to know whether you’re prepared for something like food shortage, for instance, for a week or for a whole year.
No matter how shopping rushes are likely to happen when some crazy situation emerges, it is most probably a rule nowadays that most of the people have some sort of a reserve at hand. Whether it’s basic food like canned beans and spaghety or galons of drinking water does not matter here. Whatever you’re missing is the key and this will define your level of preparedness. It’s simply how long you can go on your own – days, weeks, or more – if situation requests it.
Most people are able to go on their own at least for a few days. Like already mentioned, this means they have some amount of basic resources at hand, such as food, water and some sort of energy. We probably all have these, meaning a cellar filled with a few cans of food, a few bottles of water and possibly at least some firewood behind the house, if not even a generator ready.
The most important difference between most who have all that simply for the sake of not needing to shop every day and people who are preppers is that preppers, however small their stockpile is, have some sort of a plan. A basic emergency plan, like people like to call it.
Honestly, I believe you start being a prepper the moment you start creating a basic emergency plan. Until that very moment, it’s all about making it easy on yourself, even if you’re stockpiling something. Unfortunately, without a plan you will likely miss some of the needed things and have too much of others, or your resources will go bad, or something similar. You’ll not have everything you might need, even if it’s only for a few days or a week. So having a proper basic emergency plan ready is literally the basic thing to achieve the next level and possibly be ready for a few weeks or a whole month.
Following my previous words, that is having a basic emergency plan, getting prepared for a 30-day period is when one can really call oneself a prepper.
In fact, many people believing in their preparedness are often exagerating their own status. For instance, think about the space needed to be prepared for a longer period of time. All stocked resources take room, plus you cannot realistically plan to keep your family in a cellar for so long, so compared to short-term preparedness the available space becomes an issue.
It’s not a problem if you’re settled in a larger house, possibly somewhere closer to the woods. But most people don’t live like that, they live in apartments in modern huge buildings with a strictly defined space, or they own a small home that cannot be expanded easily. So the basic space availability will have some saying in your level of preparedness and the period you can sustain yourself if cut off.
The next thing that becomes an issue at this point is clothes. You will most probably not be able to wash them as you’re used to, so some sort of clothes you can carry for a long time will be needed. These have to be made in such a way to not harm your skin and still be hygienic enough after days and days of wearing. There’s a popular expression for this, EDC (EveryDay Carry). And yes, it requires some planning and spending. Believe me, your ordinary clothes will not do well.
It’s still relatively easy to reach this level of preparedness, simply by doing a little more of everything you’ve done to be basically prepared. Of course, you’ll need more food and water, as well as firewood or gas or whatever you can use for energy. You don’t even have to spend everything your grandmother has left you for that. Still, some planning is needed, and spending wisely as well.
At this point, some sort of an emergency kit, or in-place survial kit, is most probably at hand already.
We are getting serious here, don’t you think?
Being able to survive on your own resources and off-grid and getting prepared for 3 months is no easy task. Food and water stock will have to be much higher, as well as energy resources like gas or wood. This is a point where additional solutions like rain accumulation and sustainable food sources come into plan. If you can grow your food in the backyard, you have much better chances to be self-sufficient for longer than having to rely on the stocked supplies only, therefore your prepping will get easier.
Also, medical supplies become important. You can safely say you’ll survive on Aspirin for a few days if the fever hits, but you’ll probably want some more resources available for a longer period, like bandages, medical alcohol and antibiotics, among others. Prepping for medical problems in disaster situations is very important.
In the same time, since lots of planning has to be done for this level when prepping, it’s somehow natural to expand the prepping plans to even longer periods. In any case, some sort of equipment has to be ready (like a bug-out bag, a get-home bag, etc), and certain specialized kits are welcome that contain the needed resources.
Well, now we’re talking business.
It’s actually very hard to go out there and survive a year without all the bells and whistles of our modern society. Basically, if you can get prepared to survive for a year, you can actually survive indefinitely. It’s for sure not enough just to stockpile some food if you’re planning a year at a time, and you’ll surely want to think much harder about it.
Surviving a year without the modern infrastructure requires serious prepping and an alternate infrastructure in place. Whether it’s a shack in the woods, an underground shelter, a farm somewhere in the hills – it does not really matter. What matters is that you have the basics available – that you can grow your own food and have a water supply nearby, as the first items.
Most people does not have such things available easily, so prepping communities usually look for bug-out locations as the best options for emergencies, especially within urban areas. Also, some sort of transport (a bug-out vehicle) is usually welcome, because the emergency may very well require you to move from one place to another very fast.
The storage spaces and in-place plans are a matter of their own. Just imagine how much of everything a family needs to survive a few months before they can actually eat what has grown in the garden. Plus clothes and every other thing people need all the time – some sort of a large-capacity storage is a must for such level of preparedness.
And simply because the shere amount of resources and solutions gathered in a single place, another important aspect of surviving becomes important: security. Remember the Mad Max movies? There was a legitimate reason why communities always lived within some kind of walls and why the guards were appointed to watch the roads. In case of a real emergency like a natural disaster or a war, there will inevitably be groups of refugees that will not always be nice to you.
Going completely off-grid is not something you would do for a week or even a month. Going off-grid means a complete change of life for you and anyone that you plan to take with you.
There are many TV shows about people building a homestead somewhere in Idaho (for instance), and if you’ve ever seen one, you may be a bit more aware of what it takes. From making sure you have a steady water supply, a way to grow food (or hunt it down, for that matter), to the ways of producing energy for your own needs… It takes a tremendous amount of will and life force to step out of your ordinary life like that.
Additionaly, such situations are a great test of any existing relations. If you know your spouse and kids can’t cope with it, you shouldn’t even try, really. Unfortunately, you’ll know this only when the step is done and when real life problems hit you hard.
Usually, help from your neighbours (if you have any near the homestead) or a supporting prepping community is a very wanted resource that you should look for and be thankful for. It’s all much easier if such relations exist, although still hard to acomplish. Building a community is the best thing you can do, within private borders that are accepted by everyone involved, of course.
This is the point where everything you might ever need has to be ready. This includes a vegetables garden, possibly some live stock, an energy source (like a generator or other way to produce electricity), and all the tools and equipment one might need to survive. A superset of skills will be needed, and last, but not least, some sort of weaponry is mandatory, either for hunting or simply for defence purposes. In accordance with your local laws, of course.
Then, some sort of transportation, of course, although fuel may also be scarse in a really bad situation (again, remember Mad Max….).
It’s a long list of everything that can go wrong, and you must plan for almost anything. The things you won’t have planned will have to be dealt with by improvising, and if you’re really not good at it, there you go – you have a problem already, before problems even start.
At every level of preparedness, we mentioned building and developing certain skills.
The list of skills required varies greatly on the planned level of preparedness, of course. Generally speaking, there is no such thing as knowing too many skills. Even if you live like a king, it doesn’t hurt if you know how to dig a potato, right?
The basic skills include cooking, sewing, making a fire, knowing navigation and similar. And the longer you’re planning to be self-sustained, the more complicated these skills get. At some point you’ll need to build a wall and roof, colect mushrooms (and stay alive), prepare food for your goats and rabbits, dig a hole and find water, catch some meat in the woods… And also defend yourself if needed. So learning is inevitable, and the sooner you start, the better your off-grid life will be.
Among other things, one very important thing I always mention is knowing the plants. You might not think so, but in the meadows and woods there are almost all the flowers and greens that you need for medicinal and health purposes. Knowing them is a whole other thing, of course, and this can be your starting point when you decide to learn about living off-grid. There are plants that will heal your fever, headache or even a broken bone, but there are also plants that will kill you as sure as a bullet. Knowing which are which is a key to survive in the wild of off-grid for prolonged periods.
I can recommend an evergreen resource to you if you’re interested – it’s a book called The Lost Book of Remedies by Dr. Nicole Apelian (sold on ClickBank). If you take a look at her video explaining the book, you’ll quickly know why it’s important to include this in your prepping.
The next thing that’s important are the technical skills. You may not like it, but choping wood is about to become a part of your daily routine. Similarly, repairing a broken tool or solving a technical problem with your vehicle or generator will have to be done. There is a whole universe of things that get done around us without us even noticing them that it gets scary sometimes. But with your partner (partners, kids, …) as a team, you’ll have to accumulate this knowledge simply to be able to survive. Once you are able to create things like tools and machinery by yourself, well, then you’re good. You may start calling yourself Grizzly Adams, if you wish.
Here we are, talking about prepping, building shelters and stockpiling things, like we have all the funds in the world.
For many people (myself included) having enough to fund a massive prepping operation is more or less a dream. Even with a “normal” wage at hand, it’s hard to accumulate enough to be able to stockpile and buy everything needed for that.
Should you rely on credits? Sure, if you can pay them off. That’s one way to fund a prepping operation.
Another way, which actually everybody thinks about, is simply earning more. While it sounds so easy, it’s possibly the hardest thing for many. It’s almost impossible to get a raise, right? And even if you manage a few bucks, it will hardly cover everything needed.
Well, one way I’ve personally tested (besides working three jobs which I’m not ready to do anymore) is affiliate marketing. With Internet being so wildly spread, it’s actually not that hard to earn something extra with relatively little work. You’re probably more interested in something like “no work lots of money”, like I was. Let me disappoint you, there’s no such thing as a free meal (yeah, I invented this). Which means that whatever you’ll be getting, you’ll either pay with your money or your time and efforts. Period. And inputting a little effort to make a little something always beats working your ass off for peanuts in my book.
What I’m talking about is promoting other people’s products and getting paid for it. Ever heard of the idea? It’s actually what I’m doing right now and right here, because if you’ve read our disclaimer, most of the links on our pages lead to affiliate offers of some kind. And whatever you or anyone else buys through these links, I’ll receive a small commission from the seller. This can be as simple as Amazon links or detailed offers from specialised partners. In the end, we’ll all be happy – the seller will make a sale, I will get a few bucks, and you will be happy because you’ve found a good deal to solve your problem.
It’s a way one can make a little extra something month after month, and things accumulate quickly. I was able to fund some hobbies that were impossible before, and I can steer parts of it into my prepping strategy also if I want to. See what I mean?
Anyway, if you’re interested about how this works, you can read a short story about it HERE. You’ll find your way around it then if you find it interesting.
Prepping is an ide as old as the world. I’m pretty sure a caveman had some stones ready for cases when his neighbour started looking at his food. By changing the world, we actually also changed the dangers that threaten us, and getting prepared for disaster or emergency situations is possibly even more important because the sheer amount of things that could go wrong.
Whatever you think of prepping, I urge you to stay aware of your surroundings. It’s never too late to start prepping yourself for bad days, unless the bad day is upon you already.
This post will get upgraded as we go, because there are many things coming to mind when thinking about prepping, getting prepared for emergencies and all that. We’ll add more ideas, so stay tuned.
Good luck!