Perusing some preparedness blogs, and found a good post on gloves. I mention it because I’ve bought several pairs of good work gloves…and yet they never seem to be where I can find them when I need them. I’m going to add a set to my car bag and hiking backpack, so at least I know where some are at all times!
This is definitely one of the most unusual checklists on preparedness I’ve come across. It coincides with a lot of the ideas my wife and I try to live by, especially in terms on continual personal improvement. This year my wife and I are determined to get fit, though we gave up most of our more self-destructive habits years ago (smoking).
It’s worth a read for anyone, at the very least as a reminder that there are more important ways to prepare than just stocking food and water. (H/T Instapundit)
While most of my family and friends are supportive of my preparedness lifestyle (and all the supplies and mindset that goes with it), I still get some quizzical looks now and again, and I fairly often hear the question, ‘why are you doing this again’?
My new standard answer is that being prepared is simply another form of insurance. It is insurance that protects my family and I from crises ranging from losing our jobs to a massive interruption of the electrical grid to many emergencies in between.
If you live in the mid-south, you know what it is like when the forecast calls for as little as a half-inch of snow (or in the north-east when a hurricane is approaching). Every store is emptied of milk and bread in a 50-mile radius. Having sufficient supplies on hand at all times means never being that person who has to rush anywhere because we’ve taken care of our needs long before the snowstorm or other weather event was even on the horizon. This allows us to actually plan what we would do if there really is a problem, instead of following the herd to the local Kroger.
For example, we make plans for what will happen if we can’t get to our place of work, such as having the phone numbers of our supervisors readily available. We know what we will do if our sidewalks become icy, or if the power goes out due to ice on the lines. We make sure we have sufficient food and water if we’re stranded, even for a length period of time, and the ability to cook with it.
Yes, all this really is important.
Put another way, I buy car insurance to protect my vehicle, home insurance to protect my house, and health insurance to protect myself. But even in those cases, insurance is like the police…they show up after the problem has already occurred. I want the skills and supplies to actually help me in my times of need until I actually get to the point I can call Farm Bureau or Geico to come cut me a check.
I call this ’emergency insurance’, and I assign resources to it (time and cash), just like I do for any of my other insurances. Take car insurance; I pay about $500, or 5% of the value of my vehicle annually in comprehensive insurance. That indicates that the insurance company thinks I have less than a 5% chance of being in an accident or filing a claim, which seems about right.
My homeowner’s policy costs me .2% of my home value annually (coincidentally, that also comes to $500 a year). The insurance company must think that I have less than a 1 in 500 chance of having my house burn down. Again, that’s probably right.
Somewhere between those two numbers I estimate is the chance to have a major emergency; perhaps 1-3% per year. Of course, there are lots of ‘minor’ emergencies that being prepared for assists in as well, such as the broken tooth that happened yesterday, car breakdowns, job losses or downgrades, electrical outages and the like.
Looking at it like insurance, spending between $500-$1000 a year on preparedness doesn’t seem so out of line, does it? And the difference between ’emergency insurance’ and regular insurance is that even if nothing happens, I still have something to show for it. I’ll likely have my emergency radio
If you’re still on the fence about this stuff, being prepared isn’t different than any of the other multitude of ways we provde for our families.
When it comes to preparing, supplies are the first thing people think of. Many folks imagine wild-eyed survivalists in camo with a stash of MRE’s and canned goods surrounded by a pile of ammunition. In general, it is also one of the first things a new prepper focuses on. While I absolutely believe a prepper should spend as much or more time on learning new skills and developing their fortitude as they do buying and storing supplies, supplies definitely have their place.
So what is that place?
While there are a million things you can acquire, all supplies have one thing in common: they buy you time for life to return to normal. They allow you to take care of yourself and your family for a period of time when you might not be able to get to the store due to a hurricane or ice storm. Jumper cables allow you to get your car running until you can replace your alternator or battery. Flashlights and candles allow you to wait out the power outage in relative comfort.
To examine the concept in another way, I think about one of my mentors, a 20-year Army Special Forces veteran (Green Beret). While he might have supplies stored, he needs fewer, because he has skills that allow him to gather the things he needs to survive on his own. For example, while I may store 50 gallons of water, he stores only 5, because he knows 10 ways to readily access clean drinking water. Having more gallons on hand gives me a time cushion for the situation to return to normal or to allow me to find more.
So what should I store?
As supplies are essentially there to buy time, I recommend preparing your supplies in time increments. For example, your first goal should be to have 3 days worth of supplies for you and your family. Then you can shoot for 7 days, then 30 days, until you have what you feel comfortable with. Don’t fall into the trap some do, which is focusing on getting a year’s worth of one supply, but none of another!
For example, let’s take a look at one of my earlier failures. One of my first supply purchases was 6 months worth of rice. While that might sound ok, I now realize how foolish I was in that purchase. First, I never once thought about how I would cook my rice if I ever needed it. Second, I never thought about where I would acquire the water I needed to cook my rice. Third, I never thought about the fact that 6 months of eating nothing but rice would likely lead to rice poisoning. Just kidding! But it would lead to appetite fatigue, and I would likely never want to eat rice for the rest of my life. Fourth, while nothing but rice might supply my caloric needs, it wouldn’t supply the complete array of vitamins and minerals the human body needs to function at its best.
Seeing my failure, it is obvious it is better to store what one needs incrementally (meaning, store 3 days worth of each of the 6 categories, then 7 days, then 30 days, etc). In order of importance, this is how I recommend you gather your supplies:
and Celox or other clotting agent..Remember, supplies are time. And the more supplies you have, the more time you will be able to go before an emergency turns into a crisis.
One definition of fortitude is: ‘The quality of mind enabling one to face danger or hardship resolutely.’ As I read more about various people’s definitions and examples, I am becoming convinced that my initial separation of fortitude into ‘physical and mental’ aspects is incorrect and redundant.
A strong and fit body, while obviously a benefit, does not automatically guarantee ‘physical fortitude’, just as intelligence and knowledge does not necessarily confer ‘mental fortitude’. In high school I was a good long-distance runner, very fit, with the potential to be great. However, my lack of fortitude, mainly the inability to push through the pain that is the ‘wall’ that runners talk about, meant that I never posted more than average times.
Eighteen years later, I completed the Music City Half Marathon. 15 of those intervening years I smoked like a chimney and otherwise dragged my body down. There is little chance I will ever be as fit as I was when I was younger, and I’ll certainly never be as fast, but the me of 18 years ago could not (or would not) have jogged 13.1 miles. The difference between then and now? Fortitude. I made a choice, every day for the 5 months I trained, to not do the easy thing. Rain or shine, 1 mile became 2, and 2 become 4. And somewhere, unbelievably, 11 became 13. I told myself over and over I would not quit. Even to this day I smile when I realize I didn’t.
Sure, my story isn’t anything when compared to examples of fortitude above and beyond my comprehension, but at least it helps me to understand. For example, consider Aron Ralston, a mountaineer who amputated one of his arms below the elbow in order to survive, and then proceeded to rappel down the side of a mountain and hike 7 miles until he found help. However, when you look at his resume, such as having climbed 49 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot-plus mountains, as well as being an avid outdoorsman, it leads me to understand that fortitude can be developed by the life we lead.
Most of America works so they can lead the easiest life possible, filled with whatever luxuries they can afford. Where we can, we rely on others to provide us with every want and need. Many expect the government, or our parents, or our spouse, to take care of us, to provide us food, or health care, or housing. I believe that attitude is killing us as individuals, as communities, and as a society.
However, just by being here and taking the first baby steps of preparing, we are taking back that responsibility for our own survival. Self-sufficiency is the medicine to cure us from the toxins of our fast-food convenience store society. I’ve made a choice, and I hope you will too. Every day, let us choose to do something hard, something challenging, something that will work our muscles or our minds. Let us choose to be a different.