What is Prepping?
…and what are we “prepping” for?
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It’s giving…WWII…
Certain things come to mind whenever the word “prepper” is thrown around. Underground bunkers. Gas masks. Wads of cash buried under the garden shed. Guns. Body armour. Underground vegetable gardens with their own ventilation system. Camo. Lots and lots of camo.
(We don’t have to live like it’s 1939…unless that’s the aesthetic you’re going for…)
But what about more mundane things? Things like painkillers (for the unexpected headache). A savings account (for a rainy day). A roadside emergency kit and/or a roadside assistance membership (in the event you breakdown on the road). A fire extinguisher/blanket in the kitchen cabinet (for a stove top fire). These are all “prepping things”, that you probably do already - and they’re pretty normalized, because there’s a good chance that you may need these things in the near future and you don’t want to be caught in a situation where you don’t have them. That would be a really shitty day. You’ve probably used a few of these things in the past as well, so you have experience with being at least a little prepared. It makes a huge difference to your day and your life. So you plan and prepare for these things so that when they happen (because they will), you can deal with them, and move on.
“Prepping” is the exact same.
A super simple idea: Be ready for whatever life throws at you AND have it disrupt your life as little as possible so you can deal with it and move on- tailored to you and your life.
In practice, the complexities are endless. Anything could happen at any time, so how can we possibly know how or what to prep if we don’t know what we are prepping for in the first place? After all, prepping for a worldwide pandemic would be quite different from prepping for an ice-storm that knocks out power to your place for a fortnight, right? What if schools shut down for a week due to a massive heat wave or you get laid off at your job and you’re already on a tight budget? These are totally different situations that require totally different plans, right? I’d say, well, not really.
The more I learn about prepping, and the little research that I’ve done, the more I realize that it’s not that complicated really. A good plan will help cover you for most of the “likely” scenarios you may face. And as you delve into the prepping world, you can find what works and what doesn’t for your particular life and situation. Paying attention to things that have happened in the past for you and the area you live, can make it easier to begin to think of a good place to start. (Think of wildfires, water shortages due to drought, a worldwide pandemic, etc.) Then working from the more general to the more specific will help you prioritize the must haves from the nice to haves.
A quick side note: I’m sure some of you are thinking, why not just get one of those emergency 72 hour packs that have everything in them you need to survive? Just grab 4. of those and you’re all done, right? EVERYTHING I’ve read says to avoid those ready-made emergency packs. They seem to have everything you need, and the more you look at them, the more you realize that they are wildly under equipped. Are they better than nothing? Yes. But, if you can take a little time and put together your own, when disaster strikes, you’ll be glad you did. One kit I found only included 3L of water for 2 people for 3 days and the entirety of the food was high caloric granola-like bars (3x 410 cals per person per day). I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to eat granola bars for days on end when the world is falling apart (seemingly). And I wouldn’t be functioning so well on 1230 cals in a day, when my normal intake is up around 3500 a day (hangry much?). So, I’m gonna do what the experts recommend and put together, from scratch, my own bags and kits.
The basics of prepping, and the best place to start IMO, will help you be prepared for 80% of emergencies, no matter where you live or what your life looks like. The great thing about prepping is that the basics will get you to a place where you can do pretty well in almost any scenario (ALMOST any!) The more unlikely scenarios will take more planning, money and equipment, and the skies the limit to how much you can prep (and spend!). But we’re not going there…for now.
I’m gonna focus on the 80%. That’s where my journey into preppiness is going to start.
But WHY prep? I have a fire blanket in my kitchen, and a savings account. I’m covered for most things! Right?
Well…kinda. You’re covered for a small fire in your kitchen and depending on the size of your savings account, a small blip in your expected income. But what about everything else? What about the things that could absolutely derail your best laid plans. There are things that keep me up at night. My brains starts going with what-ifs, and I get anxiety thinking about all the things that I’m really not ready for - that I have now decided I WANT to be ready for. Things like:
water damage from burst pipes in the winter (it gets down to -35 some days where we live)
evacuation due to wildfires in the area (or even just smoke/air quality)
rock falls/landslides that shut down the highway/rail passage leaving shortages of essential items in our stores
water restrictions due to a water main in the town getting hit by construction (this happened last year in our town)
And on. and on. and on.
My main reasons for beginning this prepping journey are basically so I can worry less and chill more. Enjoy more things. Feel safer in all my decisions. Without breaking the bank and getting derailed for the next 3 years and without spending ALL my time planning and prepping. And then, when something happens, I can just say “ya, we can handle that!” and handle it. Like a pro. And crack open a beer around a campfire with my family and talk about how cool we are for being prepared for whatever life throws at us.
So…prepping is about being ready for whatever life throws at you. But where should we start?
Let’s break that down a little so we can start to categorize things and make a plan for each:
Personal/Family Physical and Mental Health
Personal/Family Financial Health
Self-reliance in your home
Evacuation from your home in an emergency
Be able to get home/to your loved ones in the event of an emergency.
Basic skills acquisition/practice.
Continue adding/learning/reviewing plan/gear as life changes
As we can see, these are pretty broad topics that we could spend hours and hours on (and we probably will!). But that basic idea is this:
stay strong and healthy (physically, emotionally and financially), and have a few basic necessities ready so that you can handle a wide range of situations and keep you and your loved ones as safe as possible. Then get back to normal life as seamlessly as you can.
****We’ll tackle these categories in other blog posts as I tackle each one myself!
That’s it. It’s simple:
Hope for the best. Prep for the worst. (But don’t interrupt your entire life with prepping either!)
Have you embarked on your own prepping journey? I’d love to hear about it! :)
