That’s right, I said it. You’re not really a prepper unless you practice. “Practice what?” you may ask. Before I get to that, I want to make it clear that just because you have 10 years of stored emergency food, all the ammo you could ever need, and a perfectly packed ‘portable hospital’, you are still not a real prepper. Stuff doesn’t make you a prepper, skills do. Let me explain.
This post will likely tick off people and I’m perfectly OK with that. In fact, I hope it does because maybe it will spur them into action. Action is the key word to prepping. Like I said above, stuff is not the most important thing when it comes to prepping. Sure, it helps and it can make a difference but what about when all those supplies runs out? Once you open that last can of stewed tomatoes that was sitting in the very back of the cupboard so long, the expiration date faded out, what then? Do you have any real idea or skills in getting more food? So what if you read about gardening, do you have any actual skill or practice growing food? No? Then all you have are theories.
Theories are great in the right setting. When it comes to surviving a disaster, the last thing you want to be doing is sitting down with the instructions for your ‘survival gear’ to try and learn how it works. What you’ve done by your choice to buy and store it is render that gear almost useless (when you need it most) and now it turns into a liability, not an asset. The item you were relying on to boil water fast needed a special fuel canister that you didn’t know about until you opened it…in the middle of a disaster.
Congratulations! You’ve just created a mini disaster inside a larger one! And now you have no easy, portable way to boil water and the kids are screaming because they are thirsty but you know if you don’t boil the water first (because you don’t know other ways to purify water), they will get sick. Talk about a nightmare situation that could have so easily been avoided.
I could go on and on about the folly of people who buy stuff, toss it into a closet and then consider themselves ‘prepped.’ Especially when they have no criteria set on standards and uses. One of my favorite ones to tell is about the city guy who has never gone camping a night in his life. He decides he wants to be prepared to ‘get out of Dodge’ if things get too bad. He buys all this really great gear, top of the line in yuppie wear and camping supplies from REI and packs it away in his brand new long-trip backpacking pack. It is filled with all the coolest little gadgets for this and that, a tent and sleeping bag, stuff to cook with, in, and on…he is set! Then he stores it all into a closet, believing he is ready in case something bad happens and he has to get out.
Then, it happens. He wakes to chaos and grabs his pack, “Whoa! This is heavy!” he thinks to himself as he slings it on. He is worried about water so along with the gallon already in his pack, he gets another large container and fills it, thinking he will just carry it. Then, he sets out. Even if he is in good shape, after a few hours (at most), he will be very tired, the straps digging in to his shoulders from being so heavy and his back aching. He finds a spot to camp and then realizes that he doesn’t have a clue how to put the tent up, let alone making sure the ground he is setting up on is suitable. He spends half the night trying to get it set up, a fire going and food cooked, only to be robbed of all his belongings because he just didn’t know any better. He set up in a bad spot, never got fully set up and lost it all in the end anyway.
Pretty dismal and yes, on the extreme side. It’s also very possible and even probable. If only the guy would have taken that bag on a one mile hike first, maybe to a location he could have taken his time to really figure out the tent set up: he would have learned what worked, what didn’t and adjusted. Of course, once won’t tell the full story or give you the feedback you really need when trying something new but – it’s better than nothing!
Ways to Practice Being Prepared
- Go hiking into the backwoods with your ‘bug out bag’ to test it out.
- Go camping for a night or two to learn how to use all that equipment.
- Cook one meal a week over a fire. Hamburgers and hotdogs don’t count. You need to practice cooking as in actual meal making. This will include the proper cleaning and storage of your equipment.
- Go without electricity for 24 hours. If that just isn’t possible, start with 12 hours on a day off. Of course, you don’t want to turn the fridge and freezer off so for those, pretend they don’t really exist. Now you have to cook, clean, be entertained, and stay warm without all those conveniences. Could you do it? Would you know what to do?
- Cook using only food from your cupboard. Nothing fresh, unless you can go out and forage it right then.
- Roleplaying. There are so many options with this one, all it takes is your imagination! Imagine you are injured half a mile from your home and cannot drive or walk back. What do you do? What do the people with you do? How about playing out a scenario where you are hunkered down in your home and there is a knock at the door – persons unknown. How would you handle it? It is better to play these out when things are safe than having to decide which way to go when in the middle of a disaster!
- Testing Yourself on how far you could get with limited supplies or tools. Do you know how to make a shelter if you don’t have a tent? Can you build a fire for heat versus cooking versus drying clothes (yes, there is a difference)? Pretending you have nothing other than a knife and a pack with the most basic supplies is a great way to show yourself how much you already know and what you need to focus on learning next.
Want more? Here are Family Prepper Activities for each season!
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Spring Family Prepping Activities
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Summer Family Prepping Activities
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Fall (Autumn) Family Prepping Activities
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Winter Family Prepping Activities
Ask any survivalist or true veteran prepper and they will agree that unless you practice your skills, really hone them until you are at least comfortable performing them, you’re missing the key to truly being prepared for the unknown. When the supplies are gone, you still have your skills! Thoughts? Give us a comment below!
Ticking people off is a fact of life, so be it! Your blog, your post, your opinion. I don’t consider myself a prepper by far, in fact, without ticking anyone off myself, I find survivalist lifestyles and prepping a little over the top. But then I may change my mind when things get bad in my life time right? Your post is a basic to everything in life. Be prepared. And being prepared, like you said, isn’t buying stuff. It’s DOING. In all aspects of life it’s important to know what to do, to have experienced it to know what to expect. Though life is never certain. Knowing what to do physically can help out a lot, but we never quite know how we will deal with situations mentally and emotionally – for that we really can’t prepare. I live in a northern climate where we lose power quite often. We are prepared to live several weeks without power and water. It’s happened quite often over the last few winters here and the emotional toll is unexpected even when the physical preparation is down pat. In 1998 we had a terrible ice storm where most people in the major city here were without power and water for weeks. It was chaos. Nobody knew what to do, there was price gouging, looting…utter chaos. It was scary for me living in a small apartment with my two little dogs alone. Shelters wouldn’t allow dogs and the army was forcing folks to leave their homes so I had to hide basically. We were so cold, thirsty and hungry, it was traumatizing! Not many people learned from it, but I sure did. I was in my twenties and very unprepared. Now in my forties, I know what to do and how to do it. Of course, life is a learning process and we have to learn from our mistakes too.
Thank you for this comment, Fran! I agree, ticking people off IS a fact of life. I just hope it makes them upset enough to see the truth there. 😉
Many of us in our winter season of life have lived the preparedness lifestyle all our lives and have the skills we will need when the time comes. Strength may be another matter but the knowledge is there, strength should return when we start using the skills again. We don’t need to practice so much any more because we have done it so much it’s second nature to us. Our main problem is lack of the necessary basic stuff to actually survive. As we moved into our senior years we gave up the basics. There needs to be a concentrated effort to rebuild that in some way so we are around to share our wisdom with younger ones who haven’t a clue but will wake up fast when the “stuff hits the fan”. I suggest that you include seniors in your “tribe” they are a treasure trove of wisdon.
An EXCELLENT point made. We have a few elders in our tribe that we prepare for. They help us in so many ways! Suggestions here and there about how to do stuff, teaching us a faster or better way (work smarter not harder!), and of course, the wisdom of their years helps us keep things in check. They are a treasure trove indeed. My father used to say “If it weren’t for what us old farts did yesterday, you youngin’s wouldn’t be doing what you are today” and he was right! Thank you for the comment and perspective.
I have come to the conclusion – that if and when SHTF in the USA – the government will do ZERO to help the populace survive. It will also try force people out of their homes and into FEMA camps, there to be interviewed, categorized, sorted, and for many – sent off be terminated!
There will be roving FEDERAL and FOREIGN FORCES looking for PREPPERS, SURVIVALISTS, and HOMESTEADERS to take them down and take everything the have.
If the situation follows multiple Nuclear Detonations – you can pretty much guess what would follow that! ZOMBIE’S!!!!! MAD MAX-FURY ROAD! Or Worse…
Since the GOVERNMENT has already purchased over 2 BILLION ROUNDS of HALLOW POINT AMMO – which is designed to kill – using every lettered agency, including the US Postal Service and National Forestry Service – I think we can pretty much deduce that they aren’t going to be handing out CANDY to the WE the PEOPLE!
The upcoming election is going to seal the fate of gun owning rights in the USA. If the Democrat’s win, they will make the move to disarm the nation! And they have 2 Billion Rounds of Ammo to assure they can outgun those who refuse to relinquish their guns. Without any means of defending ourselves against Government Fascism and Jack Booted Goon Squad boots on our faces… everyone will be out of luck. Pretty hard to prep for that!
Have you read my novels yet? It pretty much covers that but it is the United Nations that does those things. On the left, look for the ad for “Aftermath, A Story of Survival.” There is a lot of what you said in there. You may find it (and book 2, book 3 comes out in November) a good read!
When the time comes I might let some people know that they suddenly need me for what I have and know how to do.