How far are you going with prepping?

[NorthernRaider]

Guys may I ask how far you in general wish to take your prepping,

Is you intent to go as off grid and self reliant living in Wales, Scotland or the Dales etc

or are you simply intending to modify your current home to improve your preps and self reliance?

What sacrifices do you think you have made towards improving your families preps and what do you think or fear is or has held you back from achieving the levels of prep you want.

What sort of COMMITMENT do you feel you need to be the prepper you want to be?

Respects
NR

[Devonian]

Come on then NR, you start us off

[NorthernRaider]

Nup on this I'm in listening and learning mode, I want to learn about what you guys hope OR INTEND to achieve and over what time period.

I feel my own preps are slipping further and further behind what many others are achieving, I need to reassess my plans, EG on this forum alone there are at least 6 current members who are far further advanced in their preps than me, so I want to understand their thinking and priorities.

[River Song]

I'm not intending bugging out to wales or scotland. Whilst I like my own company, I like people around. Also I don't have the wherewithal to fund that kind of lifestyle.

Within in next few years, I will retire and leave my rural 4 bed detached (job tied) house for a smaller 2 bed bungalow in a small town (there are reasons that are job related i.e. my employer provides me with retirement housing but restricted locations).

I shall modify as far as possible living conditions.

Water = waterbutts filled from gutters and filtered/berked

Food = I'm not keen on bulk storage of particular items but have planned on a weekly cycle of food stored in plastic buckets, i.e. One bucket = 7 days for 2 people. Having a bit of a problem with this as I've noted that some of the items in the bucket have only 3 or 4 months left. I could eat some of it / I know the old saying "store what you eat and eat what you store" but we don't usually eat from cans - our lifestyle is usually fresh food and cooked rather than 'heated'.

I am considering investment in freeze dried foods but it is expensive.

Target is 6 months food - possibly 1 year or 18 months

The lack of cash has what has held us back - that plus OH who tends to get a bit worried about the cash I spend.

For now .... allons-y

[NorthernRaider]

Thanks RS, I can relate to your objectives which appear to be very similar indeed to those of another member of the forum, I appreciate the insight.

[bigpaul]

no I am not going to relocate to Wales, Scotland or the Dales, I'm staying right here, bugging in to begin with, bugging out as needs be. I'm looking at a 12 month food supply with possibly an extra 6 months supply in case of crop failure etc, currently we have about 9 months worth.

[Scythe13]

To be fair, I have not made any sacrifices for my prepping. We selected our house for practical life as well as potential prep reasons. I guess you could say we made a compromise on that front. On the edge of a small village/town, but not in the middle of nowhere.

That aside, the rest of the stuff we have done/gotten is ready, but not necessarily installed and working (although it is all in working condition).

[Devonian]

(11 December 2014, 09:12)NorthernRaider Wrote: Nup on this I'm in listening and learning mode, I want to learn about what you guys hope OR INTEND to achieve and over what time period.

I feel my own preps are slipping further and further behind what many others are achieving, I need to reassess my plans, EG on this forum alone there are at least 6 current members who are far further advanced in their preps than me, so I want to understand their thinking and priorities.

Fair enough, but be nice to know where you are with things as well

For me it’s a 2 stage process, with stage 1 being for the next 5 or 6 years, after which I will move to Stage 2….

Stage 1

Staying where I am now, good sized detached property with reasonable sized garden which is on a small estate (mainly owner occupied) on the edge of a village backing onto NT land where I have good access to farm land; a major tidal river and the coast - all good for hunting, fishing and foraging.

Property and garden is largely secure, not overlooked with additional security installed, but the land with the property is limited and this is my biggest issue as it prevents me rearing livestock such as chickens and pigs and also limits how much food I can grow.

Food and water wise, I could easily hunker down for 6+ months and have several means of procuring additional food.

No plans to bug out to Wales/Dales or the moors etc, though I have options available if needed.

I have plenty of alternative means of cooking and lighting and with the recent addition of the portable 80W Solar panels, this will give me extra flexibility particularly with regards to recharging portable devices.

Like S13 (welcome back again!) I have not really had to make any compromises and I'm quite fortunate to be in the position that I am.

Stage 2

This will involve moving to a more remote location (still in this general area) with some land (couple of acres) and the ‘ability to’ live off-grid if needed.

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(11 December 2014, 09:41)River Song Wrote: I am considering investment in freeze dried foods but it is expensive.

This is something that I'm also giving serious consideration to, but it would be in addition to my normal food supplies to provide a 'long term' supply of store and forget supply of food - ie: no rotation of food stuffs needed and it'll be there for when everything else has been exhausted.

You can get a 6 months supply of the Mountain House freeze dried food for about £800 (or £4.50 a day), now I know that is a lot of money, but, when some people will spend a couple of hundred pounds on a knife or a lot more than that on a football season ticket, then I know which I'd rather have!!

[NorthernRaider]

Yup as I am beginning to fear I am WAY behind many of the community now, not only those who relocated homes, jobs etc and made major sacrifices like HAL and Highlander etc etc, but other more conventional people whose adaptations and efforts such as Scythe and Dev and Tigs . Others such as RS and Spandex have made great adaptations to more conventional lifestyles in order to improve their resilience.


Y'know guys if many of you look at where you were only a few years ago when many of you first said "Hi" and look at where you are now its seriously impressive and you have gained my greatest of admiration.

I'm keen to see this thread continue and get input from others on how they view their present position and how they see themselves in say five years time.

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On the subject of FREEZE DRIED food, yes its expensive and commercially made have you folks considered investing in a food dehydrator or pressure canner to make your own long life foods instead it looks to me as it could be much cheaper than bulk buying US made FD foods?

[Danzord]

Currently im not happy with my levels of anything. I want to relocate to somewhere as currently have no garden or outside space, only have about 5 months of food and am lacking in medical supplies and pretty much everything else. My knowledge is growing but still nowhere near happy with what ive done, hopefully ive got enough time to get to a level im happy with but we shall see.