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Beginners Basic Prepping style
7 August 2016, 15:33,
#1
Beginners Basic Prepping style
By basic prepping I mean simple useful stuff to keep me alive if something did happen. If it’s something major like a nuclear strike then forget it, we would be dead and if you weren’t you would wish you were. So being a practical person and understanding so many things could seriously affect our very pampered soft living we enjoy now, even the lack of electricity would stop our society in its tracks very rapidly.
Making a homestead and self-sufficiency is a nice life idea, but if things did turn bad you would be overrun by a group of younger, fitter people more than willing to take it from you by force. The same principle is followed by stocking up a mobile home, camper van or any vehicle. You won’t get far before the roads are at a standstill and then someone bigger and stronger will just take it from you anyway. It’s not going to be pretty or fun in any way, it’s going to be a scary frightening situation and I hope it never does occur. But it might, hence the reason to think about what is practical and realistic in the real world.
So it’s not how strong or smart you are, it’s how adaptable you are to change to a new style to survive until the main threat is over.
I had thought of what I might do if something terrible happened, and if I had no food in the cupboards. Even hurting my back recently brought this subject up again as I could not get out to the shops. So prepping for me is not just for a major manmade or natural disaster, but also for those smaller personal problems that occur when we least expect or need them! After reading through a lot on Survivaluk.net web site, I realised that water was the first priority. I have always made my own wine at home, and use bags in boxes to store my wine now as it’s much easier than bottles. But I still had the fifty empty bottles in their racks, so now they are filled with tap water. I started collecting the empty lemonade bottles I use to mix with orange juice, and my collection of empty 2Ltr plastic bottles filled with tap water in a dark cold kitchen cupboard has grown quite quickly too.
Next was food, and of cause I started by collecting the extra tin of something each week, baked beans, tuna, tinned fruit etc. Setting up my stock in different cupboard’s by their use by date. I bought a basic vacuum sealer £40. To seal food for longer storage, such as rice, powdered mash potato, sugar, salt etc. I freeze everything for as long as I can, until I run out of space and then box it up and move it to my pantry. Freezing kills any bugs and lava eggs that might be present. A bag of rice or basic mash flakes are only 40p each, so no real outlay there if you simply buy one a week.
Heat and light was my next thought. So I visited my local pound shops and got a pack of lighters (5), and tea light candles (30). I searched you tube for “flower pot heater” and made one from stuff I had in the garden shed and green house. I tested it last winter, and it was ok. Needed 4 tea lights at a time, to raise room temp to anything useful. So stocking up on more tea light packs throughout the upcoming year. Searched you tube for “100 hour candles”, and found many homemade candles. Simply a standard 6” candle in an empty jam jar filled with a Crisco shortening (it’s called Trex in the uk). Also searched “Vegetable oil lamp for emergency’s”, and made and tested those also, ok this is becoming fun finding this stuff out!
Whilst doing all this basic stuff I bought a large 80ltr water proof ruck sack £20. For possible last resort bugging out, or for a must leave at a moment’s notice scenario. I started filling it with the basics, tarp, sleeping bag, first aid kit, basic tools, kettle and stuff, wash bag, etc. Wow it soon gets filled up! I think I will need to play around with what I really need and can actually carry! (You really need to sort this stuff out way before you’re going to use it.) This is a real eye opener on how unprepared we really are if something was to happen!!! I still need an OS map of my area, even though I have a planned out possible locations not far from water within walking distance. Who knows if they will still be suitable or safe at the time. But google maps are a great way to find local areas with water that you simply did not know about. Having a bugout bag and no plan is kind of a big fail is it not… Most of this being ‘prepared’ cost nothing but time and a little effort.
After searching through my shed and tool boxes and the loft, I found many items I would have needed to buy. Such as a foldable multi tool (blade, scissors, saw etc), no idea where that come from, a trowel, a compass, an axe and the list goes on. My advice is to have a major rummage before you buy anything. I even found a sleeping bag in the loft, which is good as new after a wash.
I bought a camping gas stove for £10 and a few gas canisters at £1 each. This could be used bugging in or out.
Bugging out this would mean no camp fire smoke, if stealth is needed. Often many peoples best protection is to evade detection at all cost, or lose all your stuff.
Bugging in if gas and electric is dead, as cooking in the back yard with hungry desperate neighbours looking at your food could be just as dangerous.
I also bought a solar/windup torch (£14) to go with my already owned solar/windup radio both a simple must I think. So this has been my simple small budget way to prepare for a bad situation, thinking of ways to keep me going in my home or out of it. I keep a look out at other things weekly, as just when I have thought of everything something else pops up. I just bought an ‘edible wild plant’ small pocket book; I did not know you can eat so many plants and their roots. Weeds could keep you alive in a desperate time. But I feel much better and at ease that I have and continue to have some basic prep to cope with a fair amount of time depending on how bad the situation may get.
I also vacuum seal wet wipes for washing and hygiene, hard mints for the sugar energy.
Many people could die quite quickly even in a minor event, simply because they don’t understand the basics of water, food, warmth. For such an advanced society many of us have less chance of surviving than an orphaned Indian street child. Many will be more concerned why their mobile does not work, and why ‘someone else’ has not come to save them. But by then it’s probably already too late. Shops being emptied by panic buyers and looters taking anything not fixed down.
So my basic prepping is because it’s not about having the best items, or lots of stock. It’s more about planning and knowledge, adapting to the new environment. I think that most scenarios would mean bunkering down in the home for weeks / months to outlast the event or its primary phase, before maybe being forced to flee to a secret location with what you could carry. Hopefully your well fed and fit healthy state at the flee stage, would almost certainly give you the edge and an upper hand, even if it’s only running away from weaker starving desperate people.
My golden rule about prepping, “Tell no one you know, that you’re prepping.” That’s why this web site is so valuable. The sharing of knowledge and good ideas are worth more than anything in a bad situation.
Reply
7 August 2016, 19:26,
#2
RE: Beginners Basic Prepping style
Well, Ali, it sounds as if you can gone a bit further than just basic prepping. In fact you sound pretty well up to speed. Hope you find lots of new info on the Forum.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Reply
7 August 2016, 19:31,
#3
RE: Beginners Basic Prepping style
Great post Ali but you need to space/use paragraphs, the way its written is a pain to read chap (or chappess)

"By basic prepping I mean simple useful stuff to keep me alive if something did happen. If it’s something major like a nuclear strike then forget it, we would be dead and if you weren’t you would wish you were.

So being a practical person and understanding so many things could seriously affect our very pampered soft living we enjoy now, even the lack of electricity would stop our society in its tracks very rapidly.

Making a homestead and self-sufficiency is a nice life idea, but if things did turn bad you would be overrun by a group of younger, fitter people more than willing to take it from you by force. The same principle is followed by stocking up a mobile home, camper van or any vehicle. You won’t get far before the roads are at a standstill and then someone bigger and stronger will just take it from you anyway. It’s not going to be pretty or fun in any way, it’s going to be a scary frightening situation and I hope it never does occur. But it might, hence the reason to think about what is practical and realistic in the real world.

So it’s not how strong or smart you are, it’s how adaptable you are to change to a new style to survive until the main threat is over."

I had thought of what I might do if something terrible happened, and if I had no food in the cupboards. Even hurting my back recently brought this subject up again as I could not get out to the shops. So prepping for me is not just for a major man made or natural disaster, but also for those smaller personal problems that occur when we least expect or need them!

After reading through a lot on Survivaluk.net web site, I realised that water was the first priority. I have always made my own wine at home, and use bags in boxes to store my wine now as it’s much easier than bottles. But I still had the fifty empty bottles in their racks, so now they are filled with tap water. I started collecting the empty lemonade bottles I use to mix with orange juice, and my collection of empty 2Ltr plastic bottles filled with tap water in a dark cold kitchen cupboard has grown quite quickly too.

Next was food, and of cause I started by collecting the extra tin of something each week, baked beans, tuna, tinned fruit etc. Setting up my stock in different cupboard’s by their use by date. I bought a basic vacuum sealer £40. To seal food for longer storage, such as rice, powdered mash potato, sugar, salt etc. I freeze everything for as long as I can, until I run out of space and then box it up and move it to my pantry. Freezing kills any bugs and lava eggs that might be present. A bag of rice or basic mash flakes are only 40p each, so no real outlay there if you simply buy one a week.

Heat and light was my next thought. So I visited my local pound shops and got a pack of lighters (5), and tea light candles (30). I searched you tube for “flower pot heater” and made one from stuff I had in the garden shed and green house. I tested it last winter, and it was ok. Needed 4 tea lights at a time, to raise room temp to anything useful. So stocking up on more tea light packs throughout the upcoming year.

Searched you tube for “100 hour candles”, and found many homemade candles. Simply a standard 6” candle in an empty jam jar filled with a Crisco shortening (it’s called Trex in the uk). Also searched “Vegetable oil lamp for emergency’s”, and made and tested those also, ok this is becoming fun finding this stuff out!

Whilst doing all this basic stuff I bought a large 80ltr water proof ruck sack £20. For possible last resort bugging out, or for a must leave at a moment’s notice scenario. I started filling it with the basics, tarp, sleeping bag, first aid kit, basic tools, kettle and stuff, wash bag, etc. Wow it soon gets filled up! I think I will need to play around with what I really need and can actually carry! (You really need to sort this stuff out way before you’re going to use it.)

This is a real eye opener on how unprepared we really are if something was to happen!!! I still need an OS map of my area, even though I have a planned out possible locations not far from water within walking distance. Who knows if they will still be suitable or safe at the time. But google maps are a great way to find local areas with water that you simply did not know about. Having a bugout bag and no plan is kind of a big fail is it not… Most of this being ‘prepared’ cost nothing but time and a little effort.

After searching through my shed and tool boxes and the loft, I found many items I would have needed to buy. Such as a foldable multi tool (blade, scissors, saw etc), no idea where that come from, a trowel, a compass, an axe and the list goes on. My advice is to have a major rummage before you buy anything. I even found a sleeping bag in the loft, which is good as new after a wash.

I bought a camping gas stove for £10 and a few gas canisters at £1 each. This could be used bugging in or out.

Bugging out this would mean no camp fire smoke, if stealth is needed. Often many peoples best protection is to evade detection at all cost, or lose all your stuff.

Bugging in if gas and electric is dead, as cooking in the back yard with hungry desperate neighbours looking at your food could be just as dangerous.

I also bought a solar/windup torch (£14) to go with my already owned solar/windup radio both a simple must I think. So this has been my simple small budget way to prepare for a bad situation, thinking of ways to keep me going in my home or out of it. I keep a look out at other things weekly, as just when I have thought of everything something else pops up. I just bought an ‘edible wild plant’ small pocket book; I did not know you can eat so many plants and their roots. Weeds could keep you alive in a desperate time. But I feel much better and at ease that I have and continue to have some basic prep to cope with a fair amount of time depending on how bad the situation may get.

I also vacuum seal wet wipes for washing and hygiene, hard mints for the sugar energy.

Many people could die quite quickly even in a minor event, simply because they don’t understand the basics of water, food, warmth. For such an advanced society many of us have less chance of surviving than an orphaned Indian street child. Many will be more concerned why their mobile does not work, and why ‘someone else’ has not come to save them. But by then it’s probably already too late. Shops being emptied by panic buyers and looters taking anything not fixed down.

So my basic prepping is because it’s not about having the best items, or lots of stock. It’s more about planning and knowledge, adapting to the new environment. I think that most scenarios would mean bunkering down in the home for weeks / months to outlast the event or its primary phase, before maybe being forced to flee to a secret location with what you could carry. Hopefully your well fed and fit healthy state at the flee stage, would almost certainly give you the edge and an upper hand, even if it’s only running away from weaker starving desperate people.

My golden rule about prepping, “Tell no one you know, that you’re prepping.” That’s why this web site is so valuable. The sharing of knowledge and good ideas are worth more than anything in a bad situation.
ATB
Harry
Reply
8 August 2016, 08:53,
#4
RE: Beginners Basic Prepping style
Good point Harry, maybe a moderator could paste over mine, with your spaced out version.
There seems to be no edit option.
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