The World is a Mess: A Quick Primer for Beginner Preppers

This article was originally published by Tess Pennington at ReadyNutrition.com

Tess is the author of The Prepper’s Blueprint: A Step-By-Step Guide To Prepare For Any Disaster

For seven years, my family and I have been preparing ourselves for a long-term economic depression to occur. I have watched events unfold that affected our food supply and our transportation. I have seen diseases and illness that were considered eradicated in this country make a come back and threaten our wellbeing. I held my breath hoping these disasters wouldn’t be the triggering event that would cause our great country to go under, and used those catastrophes to see holes in my preps and filled them the best I could. I knew the only control I had was to prepare for them; so I kept my head down and pressed on. I am writing this today because I feel that we are quickly approaching a time when action must be taken. Sadly, a vast majority of the population refuses to see the economic storm approaching in the distance and will be ill-equipped to survive such an ordeal.

Admit to yourself that in the past five years, our country has drastically changed. Localized events are now increasing with more and more volatility. Former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright said it best, “The world is a mess.” Quite literally, the world as we know is being altered from the once easygoing lifestyles we have grown accustomed to into a unstable mercurial powder keg ready to explode. At the forefront of these issues is the economic disasters playing out in Greece and China causing many to wonder whether or not the dominoes will finally drop. In the U.S., many believe the Federal Reserve hasn’t done enough to prepare the markets for this type of instability. Food prices are inflating because many of the food staples we have grown accustomed to have reached their peak. Increased government taxation will also cause a slow degradation to our once flourishing nation. Additionally, due to the continued dissonance amongst races, we have watched our cities become battle grounds. And, perhaps the most heart-breaking of all is how quickly the once “land of the free” is showing clear signs of becoming a police state.

How can a new prepper prepare?

I realize that the preparations new preppers are looking at are daunting and may seem overwhelming. While many seasoned preppers were able to collect their preps over a longer period of time, new preppers are scrambling to catch up. First things first, breathe and focus on what your goal is. When I wrote The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster, I emphasized the importance of breaking down your preparedness endeavors into short-term and long-term emergency scenarios. Organizing it in this manner, takes some of the stress off and helps you stay more focused with your preparedness goals.

Shift your perspective. To live long term in a economic depression-like event, you need to look at things differently and stop allowing consumer marketing companies to tell you what to buy. Secondly, make the realization that planned obsolescence is wasting your hard earned money. Planned obsolescence is when businesses design a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time. An example of this would be the cellular phone fads. The rationale behind the strategy is to generate short-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases until customers catch on and move to another product platform. Many companies are doing this, and recognizing you are being deceived is the first step in stopping it.

Learn to be more sustainable. The next step is to find a more sustainable approach to living your life and investing in products. You need to focus on sustainable ways to make the most of what you have. The adage, “Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without,” needs to be your motto from here on out. Here are 50 ways to make the most of items you have around the house.

What’s your plan? Waiting for this ticking time bomb to detonate is a horrible way to spend precious time. You can start making a plan. According to this article, here are nine steps to take to prepare for an economic depression are:

1. Hold no debt (for most people this means renting)


2. Hold cash and cash equivalents (short term treasuries) under your own control.


3. Don’t trust the banking system, deposit insurance or no deposit insurance


4. Sell equities, real estate, most bonds, commodities, collectibles (or short if you can afford to gamble)


5.  Gain some control over the necessities of your own existence if you can afford it


6.  Be prepared to work with others through bartering networks as that will give you far greater scope for resilience and security


7.  If you have done all that and still have spare resources, consider precious metals as an insurance policy


8.  Be worth more to your employer than he is paying you


9.  Look after your health!

Take action. Rather than paying for luxury items like cable television, and those morning coffee runs, use your money for wisely and invest in long term items like shelf stable foods, food preservation tools. As well, if your job dictates that you live in the city, talk to country cousins and make plans to live there if times get unbearable. Sending money to set up long-term food stores, off grid tools, etc., would be very beneficial and you will have peace of mind knowing your family has a place to go if you have to leave the city. Here’s an article on how to get started with the basics of prepping. As well, check out this food calculator to see how much food your family needs. Also, consider these eight prepper items to help you through a disaster. In addition, our health system is becoming unsustainable. Recently, an article exposed the unfeasible $153,000 hospital bill to care for a rattlesnake bite. Who can afford this? Start looking at natural alternatives to care for certain ailments. Medical conditions that can be cured with natural medicine such as herbs and tinctures can save you a fortune.

Our world is changing, and in order to survive, you must adapt to the changes or pay the price. World economic events are beginning to increase the possibility of a world-wide depression. If you haven’t begun to prepare, now is the time to make plans. I urge all of you to begin actively putting survival items away. Mark my words, you cannot hide from what is about to go down. There are two choices: 1. Ignore the signs and hope the event changes course, or, 2. Acknowledge there are economic storms in the future and prepare for them the best you can. The bottom line is, there is no safety net to fall into when an economic emergency occurs. How easily you land depends on how insulated you were from the disaster to begin with.

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Additional Resources:

The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster

The Prepper’s Cookbook: 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals

Prepper’s Home Defense: Security Strategies to Protect Your Family by Any Means Necessary

The Survival Medicine Handbook: A Guide for When Help is Not on the Way

SAS Survival Handbook, Revised Edition: For Any Climate, in Any Situation

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Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Blueprint, a comprehensive guide that uses real-life scenarios to help you prepare for any disaster. Because a crisis rarely stops with a triggering event the aftermath can spiral, having the capacity to cripple our normal ways of life. The well-rounded, multi-layered approach outlined in the Blueprint helps you make sense of a wide array of preparedness concepts through easily digestible action items and supply lists.

Tess is also the author of the highly rated Prepper’s Cookbook, which helps you to create a plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply and includes over 300 recipes for nutritious, delicious, life-saving meals. 

Visit her web site at ReadyNutrition.com for an extensive compilation of free information on preparedness, homesteading, and healthy living.

Stockpiling 101: What To Buy & How To Store It

Image source: Pixabay.com

Are you thinking about starting a food storage stockpile but you aren’t sure where to start? Do you want to stop stocking up on supplies – hurriedly — in advance of severe storms? Are you just beginning to store extra food, but you aren’t sure if you’re doing it right?

If so, then read on. We’ll tell you what to buy, how to get good deals, and ways to store extra food so you are prepared to shelter in place with plenty of supplies on hand.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

How to best stockpile? Slowly and steadily is the best way to build a food supply. You don’t want the large expense and rush of trying to get everything at once. In addition, building a food supply gradually gives you the advantage of personalizing your plan, and adjusting for things you may have missed when you initially began.

How should you start the stockpile process? First, think about the meals you consistently prepare week in and week out. These meals and dishes are your mainstays, or simply the foods you and your family are accustomed to eating and that you know and like. When you are first beginning to stockpile, you should first stock up on these familiar ingredients to prepare your mainstay dishes. With a supply of these foods always on hand, you will be well-prepared in the event of a storm without having to make a rushed and crowded grocery run.

We’ll go into more detail about what exactly to buy below, but you should start by picking up a few items each week with your regular grocery runs. Initially, these extra items will be foods you already eat and like and use to prepare the mainstay dishes we talked about above. With a few items each week, you will build a supply of food that will last a week, and from there you can carefully and gradually double that to a two-week supply. Once you have a two-week supply of food, you will repeat the process until you again double and have enough of a supply to last a month, then two or three months. Step by step, week by week, you will gradually accumulate a stockpile to tide you through potential shortages.

Don’t Put all Your Eggs in one Basket (Diversify)

You might see suggestions to stock up on one item at a time; for example, to start with water and to stockpile only water until you have your supply of water all stored. This sounds efficient and well-planned, but it is not ideal at all. What if a situation occurs before your stockpile is finished? You might have plenty of water or flour, but not much else. It is better to buy a few different items at one time. Do not stockpile “one item at a time.” Instead, buy several different things: a jug or two of water, a jar of peanut butter, and then a mainstay dish ingredient or two.

Just 30 Grams Of This Superfood Provides More Nutrition Than An Entire Meal!

Water can be tricky to store. Evaluate whether you have a dependable source of water, and if you don’t, you will have to stockpile water in containers, and/or water filtration or treatments to make water from natural sources drinkable or potable (drinking untreated water from a river or a stream can make you seriously ill).

Practice Makes Perfect: Use Your Stockpile

Image source: Pixabay.com

Yes, we really mean it: You need to use your stockpile. It might go against your instincts, but incorporating your stockpile into your meal preparation is important because when you eventually build a longer-term stockpile, you will go shopping to replenish your stockpile, not your cupboards. Why? All foods have a shelf life, and many have an expiration date. If you don’t use the items from your stockpile, it will (at some point) age past the point of use. You don’t want a stockpile of expired or ancient food. By incorporating items from your stockpile into your daily or weekly meals, you will keep the items in your supply fresh. This is known as “rotating” your stockpile — pulling older items out for use, and then shopping to replenish them. This is also why you should take a close look at whether MRE (meals ready to eat) rations and types of stockpiles really suit your purposes. They do expire, and unless you actually use them on a regular basis, you may find yourself one day with very expensive and totally inedible food.

As you use your stockpile and replenish it, take notes of items you are using the most to prepare meals. If there are items you use that you are not yet stockpiling, then add those items to the extras you pick up on your grocery runs.

What to Buy

As mentioned above, focus first on the ingredients needed to prepare your mainstay dishes, plus water. Other good staples to consider are:

• Grains such as pasta, rice, & oatmeal


• Peanut butter


• Crackers


• Cereal


• Nuts and trail mix or granola bars/power bars


• Dried fruit


• Tuna fish


• Canned soups


• Canned vegetables


• Vinegar, oil, mayonnaise, salt, seasonings


• Water in containers and/or water treatments

Also, consider paper goods, food packaging, garbage bags, dish soap, personal toiletries and an upgraded first-aid kit and offline reference materials and skills.

How do you get the best deals? Conserving resources is important, so try to shop any deals that you spot. If there’s a sale on items you regularly use, then pick up one or two extra for your stockpiled food supply. Research whether coupons or buying in bulk for some items makes sense for your particular situation. Break down the cost per item by dividing the total price by the number of items to see if you are actually getting a deal buying a larger quantity.

Ways to Store Extra Food

The trick is to have your stockpile easily accessible so you can rotate items. You also need to protect your stockpile from pests, temperature extremes and humidity. Many people find that the basement or cellar is an ideal spot for stockpiling, using shelves or airtight and waterproof packaging (5-gallon buckets, jars, metal trash cans lined with food safe bags).

You also can add space to your cupboards by getting risers to create another level inside the cupboard, or racks to store items behind the cupboard door itself (take time to make sure your cabinets are securely fastened to the wall before adding the extra weight of canned goods). Consider extra unused or underutilized space in closets, under the bed, or in the back of deep kitchen cupboards. Are you storing empty suitcases? Why not fill those with food since they are taking up space anyway? Create shelving in odd spaces such as under stairs or above the clothes washer and dryer, or around the top edge of a garage wall.

So you see, it’s not hard to find and store items for your own stockpile. You can take the first steps to build a food stockpile easily and gradually during your weekly grocery shopping so that you can weather an emergency without having to make any runs to the grocery store.

What advice would you add? Share your tips in the section below: