What got you started in Prepping?

Everyone has a story or a reason, what is yours? For me it was a number of things, growing up on a farm, hunting and fishing, gardening, Boy Scouts, reading end of the world science fiction, Civil Defense classes during the Cold War, etc., but the two most influential were Y2K and a BBC broadcast of James Burke's Connections "The Trigger Effect". I recently rewatched "The Trigger Effect" and a short segment called "the Technology Trap", the latter is only 7 minutes, and I recommend it.

 

I'm an old lifelong native Floridian, nuff said. Been through a lot of bad storms and other emergencies. I learned to prep early on.

 

Grew up on a Farm super close to the mountains, so, self sufficiency was baked in, didn't even realize it was prepping, always thought of it as "Normal LIfe" it wasn't until I got to stand on a deserted street corner in a once Beautiful war torn city that had been bombed, destroyed, defaced, and burned to a crisp with nearly naked children clawing through the rubble for any scraps of food or anything else of some use or trade! Seeing mothers, widows and other "Ladies" selling their bodies for food or drugs, often serving a muslim pimp who provided a little food and protection only if they put out! THAT put it all in sharp focus to me! I adjusted my living standards to encompass as many helpful things as I could!

 

Mom always bought crazy amounts of stuff on sale. We always had 100 rolls of toilet paper, a freezer full of meat, an un-opened bag of sugar, things like that. Then after I was out on my own, I took a state job. Pay day was monthly, but I didn't know they held it back a month. I ate all I had during that second month, was down to using Kleenex and finally paper towels as toilet paper. I only had to borrow $10 from my Dad for gas thankfully. I also ate almost every apple from my tree and lost 21 pounds. That made up my mind for me that I would never let myself be in that position again. Now, aside from milk that I seldom use anyway, I could go for quite a while without a paycheck and even longer on food. I don't count on ever getting social security, don't owe a dime to anyone, don't use credit cards, and buy for cash whenever I can. I often trade labor for tangible assets or food. For example, I just set up a guys home office with networking and installed a mini-split for him, so I have 7 hours in labor and got 1/2 a cow for the freezer. I keep the fuel topped off in the vehicles and have 30 days of diesel for the generator (6 kw).
The most amazing part of doing this for the last 40 years is the amount of stress I no longer have. I don't have to go grocery shopping every week or even every month. I don't have to worry about the monthly bills or unexpected expenses. For the life of me I can't understand why everyone does not live this way. You reach a point where it just makes sense to have money for a new ham radio because you don't go to bars or have a huge car payment.

 

TV lies and seeing the >.GOV lie and take ,

 

People that don't prep will never understand the peace of mind it brings, knowing we can survive the coming ordeals.

 

"What got you started in prepping?"

The United States government made me take what I have always considered to be simple prudent measures dead seriously and jacking up my commitment to what is now called 'prepping.'

 

You can do the math

My journey on being 'prepared' is one that changed over time as I aged and gained a family.

As a ten-year old kid, I saw my dad freak out over the Cuban missile kerfuffle. He freaked because he had no plan and the FedGov gave no one any kind of real clue on what to do. It didn't help that we were living at ground zero of a massive atomic bomb magnet - Tucson, Az.

Based on that introduction to reality, I got very active in the Scouting program and focused on what today would be called Bushcraft skills. As in Post-Atomic Attack Survival 101. Eating local plants, cross country navigation with map and compass, finding water sources in the Sonoran Desert, building crystal radios and so on. I was only worried about me - and since I had a focus on Stone Age living, any gear requirements, as I saw things then, were minimal and low cost.

I grew up and started high school, and my outlook changed. Living in a cave and eating raw natural food is a great fantasy. Now that I had grown up, I started working on real survival skills. Gardening, learning to weld and do metal fab work. I kept working at my earlier primitive skill set with camping trips and long hikes. I spend summers working outdoor jobs from camp staff to being a hand on a geophysics field crew. However, during this time - I went from cooking over a campfire to using a single burner Coleman stove.

After starting college and losing a dog fight with the SOBs in the draft office, I joined the Air Force. Now, from the inside, I saw first-hand the horror of what an atomic war could bring as I still saw that as the prime threat. I acquired transport that I could count on and accumulated gear I thought was appropriate.

Marriage and a family changed everything. I mean everything. I had to rethink worst possible case and try to mitigate with limited funding. Here I began to focus on home canning, long term food storage, and building social contacts that might be of value. We established an 'Ark' property in rural Utah with a well and from that point could only hope for the best in terms of advanced warning....

I left the military with a lot of field knowledge, thanks to a multiyear stint of being stationed on an Army post and going out in the field with the Big Army. Along that part of the journey, I acquired a college degree and EMT training, working at the local military ER for several years. I also had a wife and three teens. I was fortunate to be able to settle in Alaska.

The kids have all left home and now have their own families. I try to help them where I can. The priorities now focus more on a resilient home, long term food storage and minimal social networking. At this point in my life, my "Bug Out Bag" is a Eurovan camper, because my days of walking any long distances are gone....as are any fantasy of going it alone. I have a family to work with. We have been debt free for decades now and work hard to stay that way.

My viewpoint and preparations have morphed as my circumstances have altered over the years. I really wouldn't change much from what I have done in the past, with the one real exception of moving to Texas Hill country post military service instead of Alaska...
My preps and skills built and improved upon earlier work. Since I was never a gear head, my equipment spending has been very modest over my lifetime. Early on I realized that I couldn't cover every possibility, so I've done what seems reasonable and will do what I can with what I have on hand.

I certain I'm not alone in my outlooks and beliefs, despite what the mass media would tell you. From here, all I can do - along with everyone else, is hope for the best but be as ready as possible for the worst.

 

After Korea, the Cuban Missile Crises, three tours in Vietnam, and Command and General Staff school, my daddy was fully disillusioned with the military industrial complex. He thought it was all bullshit and they powers that be would eventually bring down civilization through ineptitude.

I grew up dirt ass poor like only east Texas can be. Grandma foraged or gardened for all the greens we ate and we raised goats, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, guineas, ducks, hogs, geese, and pigeons.

I hunted and thought it was a blast. I'd bring home bullfrogs, bass, carp, crappie, perch, quail, dove, rabbits, squirrel, and turtle to eat. We drank powdered milk, ate welfare cheese and Grandma Sopie baked all the bead and biscuits.

I remember thinking we never ran out of .22LR ammo. I figured we were rich in ways other kids weren't.

When I went national and International i saw horribly dependent people who sometimes had what they needed and sometimes didn't.

I figured I was smarter following Grandma but with money than following the majority down the materialistic path. I get a lot more learning about people historically and judging my actions against theirs than I ever would spiritually otherwise.

 

I started because I was fearful of the impending Y2K disaster. Looking back it was a pitiful effort, but I started and learned, made mistakes and am now at a place of reasonable contentment.
It's an evil world, I did my best.

 

I lived in a house in Northern Nevada far from big towns that had real stores. So my wife and I would go to Costco some 150 miles away and buy enormous amounts of food and paper goods. The house had a 4 ft crawl space where we set up shelving and stored several months' worth of goods. It was always cool in there and the temperature never varied a lot.

We were always well supplied. Run short of some canned good? Go shopping in the crawl space and bring up half a dozen of whatever it was.

Then it sort of grew. Attempted to garden but in that neck of the woods it sometimes froze in early August. We had fruit trees so my wife learned to dry apples by slicing them into rings, and a few other things. Elderberries grew wild locally so we'd pick those and she'd can them.

Moved back to the Big City in '07.

A few years following we purchased a Harvest Right, freeze dried meats and vegetables as well as purchased commercially freeze dried products.

Wife is gone but Ill probably continue to purchase commercially freeze-dried preps here and there, although I'm running out of space. Probably won't attempt to freeze dry any more food with the Harvest Right.

I'm turning 71 this December, so old they scrawled my original birth certificate on a stone tablet. I may be reaching a time limit where more preps may not be of much benefit.

 

Yeah, my Y2K preps were pitiful too. A month's supply of food for 12 people, about 100 gals. of gas and some diesel, less than 2000 ds. of ammo, 100 gals. of drinking water in trash cans and some bleach, $1000 in cash and some silver, an RV (with propane heat and refrigerator and a gas generator), firewood, kerosene heater and 5 gals. of kerosene, etc....and I thought I was ready for hell or high water. I still have that list of preps for Y2K somewhere...I need to dig it out for laughs.

 

NO! If you're old at 71, that means that I'm middle aged at 66! You still got a lot of years left to live!

 

Actually that was pretty good compared to most.

 

once I had an interest, "Lights Out!" by HalfFast and FerFal's story were influential... but the start must have been "Lucifer's Hammer" by Pournelle and Niven.

 

Lucifer's Hammer help start me into the more serious prepping. I first read it back in high school in the early/mid 1970s, but didn't start my prepping until I left the service in 1986.
It was those dark years beginning in 2008 and the failed election (I call it the "Immaculate Deception") that I began my serious reloading and stocking ammo back.

 

I bought a year's worth of food for the family, identified all the forgotten wells in the woods within 1 mile, and bought 10 ruger 10/22 rifles.

I guess we were going to go native and turn into either Apaches, Hopis, or the Anasazi.

 

Born in the city raised in the mountains.
My parents came from the age of the 1929 crash, so they understood the value of being prepared.
Mom was always using old means and learning more old means of making do with canning and making soap and such. She taught me how to sew both from patterns and off hand. Her sisters envied her cooking skills and I picked up these ques from her as well.
Though dad was a carpenter he did everything foundation to finish so I learned tons from him as well. He was the neighborhood handyman and being such collected things that needed repair and I learned the courage to dig into things and learn what made things work.
We had gardens and chickens and rabbets fruit trees and all kinds of things none of our neighbors did at all.
Neighbors were too much self-involved keeping up with the Jonses, so they had no interest in emergency preparedness.
When my parents saw the bad influence the neighborhood kids had on me they made plans to move me to the mountains which for me was the greatest thing in the world.
In the mountains the weather and earth quakes kept us on our toes, and fortunately we had a well on the property, so we were never without water.
Being lower middle income has it advantages. I didn't get the latest and greatest stuff, I preferred to let the rich fools to be the R and D test bunnies. I don't need the latest and greatest, and if I wait some one will give it to me. (if I want it) I was into solar before it became popular mostly because it was beating the system.
Today I am completely off grid.