What is your status with your preps?

[Tibbs735]

I was wondering where everyone else currently “is” with their preps. I ask because I see world events going all over the place (but when are they not haha) and varying levels of activity on forums etc. My own activity has been low over the last few months as I am currently juggling spiritual/family/education issues, whilst continuing to prep here and there. Me and my brother hope to eventually find somewhere to rent together so we can better prepare.

Food, I am currently struggling to find affordable sources of bulk staples (milling wheat, beans, lentils etc) though I have been able to put up some long term rice. Securing this along with the other food is difficult; mouse traps are set in the shed, and certain family members fail to grasp that stored preps should be left alone, or replaced soon if used.
Water, a recent power cut made me realise that beyond camping stoves, I have no way to reliably boil large amount of water. This could be solved by obtaining some steel kettles and/or cauldrons for wood fires.
Sanitation, currently no thought out way to clean clothes or bed linen, or to shower etc. I have put aside toothpaste, babywipes and soap.
Garden, I’ve persuaded my family to expand the garden plots we have, we have put most of them down to winter cover crops to improve fertility (Agriculture degree is paying off!) We have sown phacelia and a legume mix, and will incorporate them before spring planting.

The biggest change I’ve made since the new year is my spiritual preparedness. I’ve started attending a church, and I am doing pre-baptism bible study. Aside from the obvious benefits of salvation and a new understanding of the unfolding world events, I have also gained a new community. It’s a Seventh Day Adventist church (Saturday sabbath church rather than sunday, lots of vegetarians/vegans, fairly conservative and strong rather than the stereotype of the Church of England.) Many Adventists are medically skilled, and as a church they see the writing on the wall. The idea of having to flee to the mountains, as well as getting out of the cities and getting more in touch with nature to prepare for difficult times is discussed quite regularly.


Please feel free to contribute any thoughts, I am currently on college internet so please don’t do anything to trigger the silly filter or I won’t be able to reply to my own thread.

[NorthernRaider]

My food stocks vary all the time depending on cash available and what risks I see rolling over the horizon, we are OK on foods for probably 5 to 6 months, its slightly down on my last check because my son has a girlfriend who has just about taken up residence here.

Heating fuel (wood / coalite / gas bottles) still within accepted boundaries 5 to 6 months

Domestic consumables like Detol, Flash, bog role, baby wipes, kitchen roll, bin bags, bleach, soap, shampoo toothpaste etc always got a years supply in.

Medical kit inc suturing gear, dental gear, script meds all good for over a year.

Garden providing carrots , onions, blueberries but not much else because this year was spent rebuilding the inside of the house to increase kitchen and storage capacity

Clothing / footwear within acceptable limits though perhaps we all could do with a few extra pairs of approach shoes

Tools and equipment all fine though short on rope and paracord. 4 new Minus 18 sleeping bags bought, just got to make some nice washable liners for them.

House maintenance got most of the jobs done but need to get the house render painted and some new fencing up.

Caches, I've cut them down to 2 from 4 as my plans have evolved somewhat

Comms OK (ish)

I'm currently not working with any other preppers because of various issues, reliability, location, different objectives but its not turned out to be an issue as the family is taking up the slack. Still meeting up with other preppers for some gentle RVing.

Transport is doing the job but not what I actually want ( a 4x4 and another van)

No religion within our group / family it always proved to be far to divisive on so many issues.

[bigpaul]

I (and OH) would love to know how to get a years supply of prescription drugs? our GP will only give us 28 days supply at a time, even putting in repeat requests slightly earlier only results in 2 months supply maximum.

[T-oddity]

I manage to maintain my food, fuel and resources stocks to give us about three months, fairly limited on storage space, though that is a job to work on for the future.
For the immediate future we are concentrating on become far more self reliant than we already are, 2015 saw a long term investment pay off for me that I had intended using to buy that nice little out the way off grid location, but of course with the finacial down turn and the insane increase in house and land prices that idea had to be curtailed some what, plus I was young free and single when I first made the investment with no intention of marraige or family etc to consider, best laid plans of mice and men hay , so its paid off the morgage where we are now, payed for a solar pv system, grid tied, but I intend to build a battery bank back up to give me some power to go along with the genny that I already have and a wood boiler and thermal store are going in the beggining of next year.
Not found anyone locally that is interested in prepping though I'm fortunate that a fare proportion of my extended family and friends have an awareness of prepping and it can be part of normal conversation at family gatherings etc, I am involved with local permaculture and transition groups as I see this as another way of adding to our resilience.
I'm in the same situation as BP in trying to build up a stock pile of my daily drugs and finding it a struggle, I was recently very glad of the small amount that I have built up, due to a change in pharmacy and a mix up with the surgery I was more than a week late getting my last prescription sorted.
Religion, each to there own, personaly I don't.

[Lightspeed]

I started a reply to this and its kinda grown like Topsy... its now more of a status report. Maybe some useful stuff buried in my rablings for someone though?

Here goes...

Food: Food-stocks now starting to be revolved. We live in a remote location and we now use that to our advantage by intentionally running every-day consumables to a low level, thereby forcing us to dip into stores.....which are logged and then replaced the next time we go into town.

Water: No major changes. We are now easily able to ride out unexpected disruptions to mains supply. Switching from mains to stored water and back again is now a procedure that is well practiced. Well now fully operational, with content estimates at 30,000L. We've discovered pipework that appears to connect between lower level of the well and the main house mains supply...we are investigating if a manual lift pump and isolating stop cock could be viably inserted so as to pump well water into the main house plumbing. For time being this is only an idea as well water has still not been analysed by public health lab, so is only used for irrigation clothes washing and toilet flushing.

Washing ( clothes) recovered and refurbed an very ancient tub washing machine ( 1950s vintage I reckon) worked perfectly when main washing machine was out of service due to water cuts in the summer. Lovely old upright spin dryer recovered at the same time and it too came in handy. Now I'm on the lookout for an old mangle like my grandmother used to use.

Toilets / waste: Dry toilet brought into service during water cuts and worked out fine. I expected problems with smell and flies but all was acceptable. Cesspit system did its thing quietly and without any intervention from me...hopefully it will stay that way for another 50 years or so.

House structure: This year I've been pretty busy. Groundwork and land drains refurbished. Façade and walls refurbished and re-coated. Replaced 4 windows with low tech serviceable double glazed units, fortification of external doors. Painting and decorating to keep things homely. Steel roofing working out fine. After a full 12 months with it in place, the house structure now much dryer, likewise lofts and roofing beams. Snow shedding last winter was impressive reducing the snow load considerably from what it used to have to take. Shit off a shovel is the term that comes to mins as snow is now shot a good 3 to 4 metres away from the house walls. As predicted lost temperature swings are more pronounced, but we've adopted a cold loft strategy so that does not cause any ill effect. In spite of what the doubters speculated, this roof is not noisy at all in rainfall. In fact the biggest noise we get from it is when it expands and contracts with heat/cold...and that's only realy apparent when outside the building

Heating and cooking: Chimneys swept. Main range services and flue re-sealed. Considerable energy put into refurbing the wood-store: reorganised stored wood for better management, added fresh stocks, repaired and refurbished roof, repaired gutters, new saw horse, new chainsaw, new chopping block ( stump). Converted sufficient wood ready for the whole season's burning. I still need a log splitter and circular saw, but have work-around for the time being. Overall fuel reserve is in growth.

Coms: Permanent remote multi-band HF antenna now in place and functioning well. Low power coms tested and proven between my station and preppers from English South coast to Wales and Northern Scotland. Lust summer some interesting experiments made with connection of hand held VHF/UHF equipment through our own internet node.... now family who are more than 100miles away can reach us on our walkie talkies even when the mobile network is down. Current project ultra low power resilient coms net using simple, low cost transmitters and simple low tech antennas.

Transport: Preventative maintenance of cars continues unabated with no expected changes to that routine for the foreseeable future.

Spiritual: A good deal of progress in this area... but only in the alcoholic sense:-)