Author of The Blackout Book and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted
For as long as I’ve been involved in preparedness, it’s revolved around a combination of skills and stuff – but mostly stuff. Go to just about any website, including my own, and you’ll see gear reviews, cupboards full of food, flashlights, generators, and all sorts of…well…stuff.
But prepping has to change. No longer can we focus just on the “stuff” aspect, amassing things for our stockpiles and expecting that to save us. Instead, our focus should be on building the resilience we need to weather the unexpected. Because let’s face it – the future is looking anything but predictable.
Preparedness is entering a new era and if you want to be ready, you’re going to need to adapt. All of the things I’m going to talk about here have been mentioned in the past, but now they take on an entirely different level of importance.
Why is preparedness changing?
Lately, anyone who has turned on the news or opened a news website has been hit with a barrage of news that we never would have dreamed possible even a year ago. Cancel culture is in overdrive, a new administration is taking power, and innocent activities like stocking up on some extra cans of creamed corn are enough to make someone, somewhere point and wail, “Hoarder!”
While I will not delve into the politics of this, I think we are at a point at which the potential for civil war is increasingly high. Tempers are flaring and the media is busily fanning the flames.
Add to this the pandemic and subsequent restrictions. This has caused economic devastation for many families who can now barely afford this month’s bills, much less fund a stockpile run to Costco. And, there’s less to buy as our supply chain continues to devolve.
Over the past year, we’ve learned that bad things can really happen anywhere and that no society is above a collapse, especially when certain people are using a crisis to benefit themselves. We’ve watched some of the same events that led up to the collapse of Venezuela happen right here in the United States.
So, things look a whole lot different now than they did previously, making the following suggestions of the utmost importance.
Knowledge is something nobody can take from you.
No matter what happens to your carefully chosen supplies, regardless of where yourself when all hell breaks loose, and whether or not you plan to hunker down and make your stand, the importance of knowledge cannot be overstated.
Learning skills and retaining important information are two ways that anyone, on any budget, can become better prepared. Several of us have written about this topic. Learn more in the following articles.
- No Money? 9 Ways to Prep for FREE (or Almost Free) by Fabian
- Here’s How to Prep for 2021 by me
- Selco: Are You TRULY Adaptable Enough to Leave Everything Behind to Survive? by Selco
- Why Preppers Should Spend More Time Learning (and Less Time Shopping) by me
- SELCO: Strategy and Mobility Are More Important Than Storing Lots of Physical Things for the SHTF by Selco
It isn’t just the skills you need to learn. Retaining information is also very important. Your knowledge of a foreign language, a cultural difference, landmarks, random facts, or history could come in incredibly handy in the future.
Knowledge and skills are the backbone of resilience.
You still need some stuff.
At the same time that I’m telling you not to focus on stuff, I want to be clear and say that you do still need some stuff. Good quality basics like the items I keep in my bag and the ones Toby recommends that are often-overlooked are just a few of the tools you need to give yourself the best possible chances of survival.
As well, the more food and personal hygiene supplies you can stash away, the better off you’ll be. I have gotten many emails over the past year from people who told me that their stockpiles really saved their bacon when they lost their jobs due to pandemic mandates, or when they could no longer make a living for other reasons last year. I’ve experienced the same thing myself. Back when I got laid off from my job for several months, the items I had on hand in closets and pantries fed us, kept us clean, and even provided some birthday gifts. I didn’t have to spend my very limited money on food for months because we had plenty.
So as far as stockpiling is concerned, do what you can. Here are a few resources.
- Here are things I grab to put back every time I go to the store.
- This book is about stockpiling healthy food on a tight budget.
- Here are preps you can get for a dollar or less.
- Here are 50 pantry meals and here are some $1 meals – great stockpile items!
Every single thing you can put back helps you feed your family during difficult times. If you are starting to produce your own food, don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s as easy as throwing a handful of seeds at some turned over soil and collecting clean, colorful eggs from friendly hens. You’ll probably see more failure than success when you first start out and you need supplies as a backup in the event your food production plan fails. True resilience (there’s that word again) means you have something to fall back on if Plan A doesn’t work.
You need to become a producer.
I say this often, but you need to be a producer, not just a consumer. Anyone who has noticed the empty store shelves or barren clothing racks at your local stores can see that the ability to produce your own supplies has never been more important in our lifetime.
- This article has suggestions about becoming a producer.
- Here you can find hundreds of links to articles and books that will teach you self-reliant skills.
- This interview has advice on being more self-reliant no matter where you live.
Everything you can provide for yourself makes you that much more resistant to supply shortages and financial problems. Being able to provide for yourself provides far greater long-term resilience than any stockpile ever could.
Discretion is important.
Here’s the part that a lot of folks consider controversial. I lean strongly toward OpSec when the deck is stacked against self-reliant, critically thinking people. All you have to do is take a look at social media and mainstream outlets to see that you don’t have to be a big Hollywood star to get “canceled.” Any perceived misstep can destroy your ability to make a living, can affect your family, can prevent your kids from getting into their desired colleges, can annihilate your business (which affects your customers and employees as well as you)< and can even cause problems with your living arrangements.
I know that we all want to vent our outrage right now. Trust me – there are so many articles I want to write that I have opted not to because of the reasons listed above.
We all have to make our own decisions with regard to this topic. Should you be out there fighting for freedom, or should you be gray? Is this the best time to make a stand or will you have the advantage later? What does it mean for the people in your life if you are indiscreet? Do the advantages outweigh the potential disadvantages?
That’s not a decision that I can make for you. As for me, I know I don’t want my neighbors to be aware I have a stockpile of food and other gear. You may not want to make it public knowledge that you’re a gun owner. You may wish to keep a low profile on behalf of your family or employees who work for your business. You have to weigh your responsibility to others and decide whether this is the time for you to be upfront about your views or if you’d be better served to wait until you’re in a stronger position. It’s McCarthyism all over again right now and people are not thinking rationally.
You need to be flexible.
While most of the lessons we learned before about preparedness are still applicable, it is vitally important to remember that we’re in a fluid situation. Things are changing rapidly and something that might be great advice during a hurricane would be terrible in our current social climate. Events are occurring right now that we wouldn’t have imagined even two weeks previously.
You must assess the situation realistically as it exists at the moment. Planning is great, but you need to have multiple plans in case your first one goes wrong. Don’t cling too staunchly to one course of action that may well be a mistake while things are evolving.
As new things occur, remember that the rules are always changing. You have to work within the set of rules that exists while you’re trying to survive. You have to be prepared to rapidly abandon Plan A and move through the alphabet. You must adapt to survive, especially when human nature and mob mentality are involved in the equation.
Watch and learn about the things going on in the world, especially those nearby. You may need to change your plan based on where a crowd of angry people are gathering, or you may need to figure out a different way to get the kids safely home from school than you’d initially decided was the best route. Also, keep your finger on the pulse of current events. Being able to accurately analyze things that are occurring and adapt based on this new intelligence is a valuable skill.
Adaptability is true resilience.
Have you made any changes to your preparedness plans?
Are you prepping exactly the same way as you did previously? Have you made any changes due to current events or the economy? What do you think are the most important adaptations a prepper can make? How are you planning to become more resilient?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Yep.
Improvise! Adapt! Overcome!
Semper Gumby!
And learn new skills outside of your norm.
Expand the gardens or if space is an issue, container gardens. Learn to save seeds.
“Improvise! Adapt! Overcome!”
this presumes 1) personal freedom of action and 2) an open environment.
Care to elaborate?
Agreed! If even prisoners can get fit in a tiny cell and learn new skills, we can all do the same. Even without a garden I still have the stuff to do sprouting – nobody can say I can’t do THAT. If I can’t run outside? I can jog in place. The list is endless.
Total gray woman. My neighbors know more than they need to already and that’s plenty. Work quietly, pick up new skills as able, keep my mouth shut on social media. My garden taught me last year that Plan B was definitely a good thing to have. Watch the news but don’t get sucked into the drama. Mirror the group I’m with and keep my other opinions et al to myself. Invisibility is no fun but it might save my life. If I’m trapped in a corner, I won’t go out easily or alone. Stay away from stupid protests.
Mirroring others is a good skill. The fancy term for it is Neuro-Linguistic Programming. My employer offered a course in this and called it something like “Difficult Conversations”. In essence, if you mirror the other person physically and with your cadence and tone of speech, they see you as like them and are more apt to accept you and what you say. It’s a great technique for fitting in or for getting others to agree with you.
This is me, also. I live alone with my dog outside the city on a fenced (inadequately) acre. My neighbors can see everything going on in my yard unfortunately, but with the exception of my “westside” neighbors, I keep to myself, and honestly, I prefer it. We’re in for an even rougher “ride”.
Maybe some pretty flower beds made with edible flowers like nasturtiums and marigolds, with onions and other tasty, quick growing greens hidden between the rows? I hate neighbors when they are nosy.
“Here are things I grab to put back every time I go to the store”
(from the list) bleach only lasts about six months.
gman PLEASE don’t waste your valuable time SUGGESTING something Useful. Keep on with your negative nonsense, we ALL enjoy reading your tidbits of creativity.
Do I NEED to put >sarc< here, are you that unaware?
You spend a great amount of time here, WHY?
BTW I suspect almost everybody who reads prepper sites KNOWS Bleach has a limited lifespan. MAYBE that's WHY Daisy suggests buying it often??? Baking Soda and such has limited life span why not you make a list and post it for us?
“BTW I suspect almost everybody who reads prepper sites KNOWS Bleach has a limited lifespan”
(shrug) this is worth discussing. ok sure you know that, but you then make the leap to EVERYONE knows that – and that’s just not valid. lots of new people on the boards all the time, not just here but everywhere, and they find these points helpful. the list provided earlier made no mention of shelf-life, so I brought it up for those who are new.
My mother complained that my clothes were dingy. Way back “then” we did not know bleach had a short life pan. Up until I joined this club, I did not either. There is alway someone new. I don’t think I even told my children!
re: Knowledge is something nobody can take from you.
Well, I think it depends. If some particular body of knowledge is easy enough to remember without help from books, tech manuals, encyclopedias, digital files, wall posters, audio recordings, etc … then it’s a tougher job for a tyrant to steal it from you. But there are other minefields.
The usefulness of some kinds of knowledge has a bad habit of expiring — especially in this era of technical innovation. Vacuum tube based electronics were replaced by the semiconductor industry. Many small town newspapers have wiped out by the combination of larger newspapers plus the global reach of the internet. There was a time when techies first learned how to use email by using a 1200 baud modem in their DOS computer to dial out over the phone lines to a BBS (electronic bulletin board system). There is still an encryption war going on between techies developing various methods (like Phil Zimmerman’s PGP) to protect your communication privacy versus governments trying to either prohibit its use or forcing developers to create a backdoor for spying. The motives are little different from when England in the late 1500s insisted on opening to read all border crossing incoming and outgoing mail in hopes of getting an early warning of the Spanish Armada’s invasion location plans and timing in 1588. Today users of Parler are scrambling to find alternate methods of communication since Parler’s platform was shut down by political opponents.
Sometimes if you have to move permanently to some area where the climate, altitude, rainfall, soil type, temperature, sunlight amount, and maybe even the legal rules on what you are allowed to grow are all different … your knowledge of growing some kinds of garden or crop plants may have to be replaced with what works in a new place. Selco has emphasized the relevance of being able to pick up and “get out of Dodge.” Sometimes that involves leaving a skillset of some kind behind because it may not be usable in your new location.
Another thing that can wipe out the usefulness of such a skillset is predatory regulation. Often it is a cover to give large businesses (with the budget to be in cahoots with government) a monopoly (or cartel) to force smaller businesses out of that market. That can mean that such small businesses either have to find somewhere else (if possible) to set up shop or get out of that business altogether … which possibly zaps their skillset.
But for knowledge that CAN remain useful despite the risks discussed above … there is the issue of how to preserve the knowledge bases of either large (or complex) bodies of knowledge where written (or digital) records are a must and where human memory simply is not sufficient. Have a library of such reference materials at home (or at work, if that’s different from home) is one thing, but if there’s ever a need to bug out (perhaps permanently) then there’s the issue of how to preserve or recover such materials without loss.
Such books, reference materials, etc that are likely to remain useful can be digitized and stored in multiple locations (at home, off site, and in the “cloud”) that can guard against the risks of bug-out loss, of digital media degradation (such as tapes, CDs, DVDs, or even external hard drives aging) or inability to fund the shipment of a large library or inability to deal with border guard challenges (as was the case with refugees escaping from Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia). This creates an incentive to learn how (both DIY and/or via retail services — as cost and time efficiently as possible) to digitize and duplicate such materials.
The point is that for any body of knowledge a judgment has to be made as to its likely longevity, and whether how-to documentation needs to be preserved, and if so in what different forms (for data longevity and portability) so that the owner/user doesn’t lose the benefit of the expended cost and learning effort plus future use.
–Lewis
You have good points Lewis however the process of learning creates a “Thinking Mind” as described by Aristotle. Even if I am forced to move from my New England area into say the 4 corners area in the desert south west my skills of gardening in NE isn’t lost. I can adapt to the current situation FAR Better than someone who has never gardened at all.
Just because old tech has been superseded by the newer doesn’t mean you cannot use the older tech. I object to the idea of Digitizing critical information BECAUSE of your own argument of tech moving forward and older materials get impossible to read.
If it’s IMPORTANT Hard Copy. All I need is sunshine to read that file 🙂 In case you’ve not noticed the Book Burners are ALREADY doxing and destroying digital webpages. No way they might feel different from your cloud storage and such given the mob mentality and key word searches.
Skills learned teaches you how to THINK. Stuff like stored food and such helps you survive until you get things working again.
Right on, Daisy, right on!
And write on!
We have tried to keep up with the ever changing challenges that seem to pop up overnight. I have been “hoarding” for yrs. We are older and have nowhere to BO to, so plan on defending our home. Next item to be bought, film for accessible windows/doors to slow intrusion. Booby traps ready to go for all areas of ingress. We have taken large sums of money out of bank and put in fireproof safes. We live on a sparsely populated street, neighbors all very close knit. If/when SHTF, everybody has assigned guard duties along with chores to garden/cook/fetch water according to ability. We can treat/store water from the nearby spring that runs year round. I buy cheap barter items at every trip to a store. I have above average medical training and always keep 90 days supply of prescription meds on hand. Also have herbal remedies for various medical issues that many of us are afflicted. I know we are not prepared for everything, but have enough to sleep pretty well at night. Our plan is to be as invisible as possible until we HAVE to take a stand in order to survive.
“Booby traps ready to go for all areas of ingress”
when you post stuff like this on the net it gets cached in permanent data bases and will be recalled at your trial.
@MonkeyGirl,
Not criticizing you, but you mentioned booby-traps.
The other night wife and I were feeling for a classic 80s movie: The Goonies!
“Stef: Data where are you going?
Data: I’m setting booty traps.
Stef: You mean booby traps?
Data: THATS WHAT I SAID! BOOBY TRAPS! God. These Guys!”
A booby trap does not necessarily mean to maul or maim physically, but could be a visual (chem light, flare), or audio device (Data’s Snap-Its).
I’ve not made any changes in my preparedness as much as training plans due to the current environment.
@Matt in OK,
We have opted to not only expand the gardens, but getting veggies that produce sooner, or can be grown in containers.
Also expand on the chickens and ducks.
Two hogs this year.
did old dasy heal up from the bug?
What is also important is the prepper community. Preppers need to come together. There is power in numbers, no man is an island and a prepping community can share food, knowledge and group efforts like a barn raising.
Preppers can share in chores and protection. I am an over-the-road truck driver and there is still lots of land in the USA that can support a group and with some modern technological setups, live where people could not live before!
per Monkeygirl:
“We have taken large sums of money out of bank and put in fireproof safes.”
It’s a sad effort to mention that the US government via the Federal Reserve has been able to steal growing percentages of purchasing power from the US dollars that earners and savers have accumulated ever since Woodrow Wilson signed off on the Fed creation. That legalized the government sanctioned and protected counterfeiting of the currency … just as the Bank of England was created in 1694 for the same purpose.
Since the Fed’s creation it has managed to steal most of that purchasing power (I’ve seen percentages in the high 90s) while the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) regularly lies about the annual level of inflation (the deceit in labeling cover-up for stealing your purchasing power by what was once a crime punishable by death in the 1792 US Coinage Act, Section 17.)
To see a more accurate looking back measure of such counterfeiting (inflation) check the Chapwood index.com at
https://chapwoodindex.com/
to get a twice a year updated figure in major city after city of actual goods and services pricing increase that real people have to pay. That’s why a 3 cent US first class mail postage stamp from the 1950s now costs 55 cents. It’s also why as the federal government’s spending has created a debt in the trillions well over the GNP. It’s also why country after country is bailing out of using the US dollar as fast as possible. Some of the discussions over on zerohedge.com are about whether the dollar will crash this year or the next. The Chapwoodindex.com can only report on what has been already measured — it cannot forecast how badly or quickly the world will rebel as the US government cannot repay the bonds it has issued.
The implications are that trying to store one’s wealth in dollars even if hidden somewhere in secret is zero protection from their value being flatout stolen away by counterfeiting (aka inflation). The point is to keep as little wealth in dollars as possible excepting amounts for routine bill-paying, emergencies, and investments in earning skills or businesses where you have the authority to increase prices as the dollar tanks. Any dollars in excess should be converted into value repositories that the government can’t steal. Whether that might be precious metals, skills, or other assets is up to you.
The lessons from many centuries are that no country in the world has ever been able to resist spending fiat currency into destruction … and we are well overdue. In modern history the Weimar Republic book-ended the 20th century’s early horrific example of hyperinflation in Germany after WWI where a wheelbarrow full of paper money would barely buy a loaf of bread. More recently Venezuela’s currency destruction is more well known to us.
That’s why I really winced at the mention of attempting to save paper dollars in secret. The Fed’s looting method steals the purchasing power of those dollars even without knowing who has them or where.
–Lewis
“Some of the discussions over on zerohedge.com are about whether the dollar will crash this year or the next”
yeah, they’ve been having those discussions for 13 years now ….
Hello Daisy, I was a battalion Commo Chief (Commo Platoon Sergeant) in the army and I had to constantly deal with OpSec, so I appreciate your admonitions regarding that subject. But I just noticed that your ‘About the Author, above is not good Operations security; there is too much data about that we don’t need to know at this point in history; you are a prime target with your down to earth advice and wealth of information. I read you every day ever since my wife kept talking your site. Keep up the good work.
I’m in the throes of weaning myself off the prescribed pain medication that I’ve been taking for close to a decade. The side effects of this weaning are unpleasant, but being reliant on a med that could suddenly become unavailable is worse, especially if going cold turkey.
In terms of becoming more healthy, my diet is gradually changing, as well. Yard work & walking are free! Pills for high cholesterol are not!
Sounds really smart, JustD. Hang in there!
Thank you, Daisy! Battling the detox with chocolate & physical activity.
Congratulations. My brother was a walking pharmacy with all his pain meds for almost 30 years.
He got off Methadone over a long hard summer and then gradually cut his opioids by a huge amount over the next several months. He also quit drinking soda by the caseload and changed his diet to something much healthier.
It was very very hard but he is so glad he did it. Yes- he still has pain now but he had pain then too, only he was taking a lot more drugs.
He’s not drug free but he’s not off the charts anymore either. And if he hit a time with no pharmacy available he would hurt but not have serious withdrawal issues as he would have before he cut down.
And he walks more although he uses a walker because of his many injuries.
If you’re a Believer find someone to carry you in prayer. My brother says that made a lot of difference for him.
“being reliant on a med that could suddenly become unavailable is worse, especially if going cold turkey”
.01 of the population is on ssri’s. going off of ssri’s causes .1 of that population to turn sociopathic/homicidal. that means if the pharmacy system goes off-line you can expect 1/1000 of your local population to go on a rampage.
The change is mostly Opsec, slowly fading from the social media and aggregator site scene by simply not posting as much until I am forgotten. Also trying to minimize anything that might stand out about me.
For the one, don’t buy into the hype. There’s a lot of hype online, and rading/listening/watching it can make YOU hyper, and that’s not very smart.
“Be prepared” Scouts. Whatever happens, be ready. Don’t panic. Power failure? Chill. Empty shelf? No worries, mate. Something’s broken, can’t afford to replace it? Repair it.
And, if people start acting ‘whack’, running around doing stupid stuff, don’t get caught up in it. Keep your center. Dose your news intake, maintain mental balance. Don’t invent crises or enemies. Exercise, eat well, get your rest, let the world take care of itself. And, don’t spread anxiety to others. There’s plenty already.
Only $3 cash on hand. Try to keep a full gas tank. Have some food and plenty of seeds for my garden this spring. Social security makes a slim income to work with.
A nice pistol I won has been stolen so what I have left is an old 40lb long bow and just a handful of arrrows. Not where I wanted to be but ok.
Food for a while on hand. We live simple and eat simple. You do what you can do. If i get into town again soon I’ll fill the currently almost empty gas tank then look for canned fruit and chili beans. Pretty much used to living with little so its ok.
My trusted neighbor died of Covid a few months ago. His wife and adult son are now pitching in to help us as much as possible. I appreciate that.
I’ve been weaning off a long prescribed medication. That just seems wise.
I still have a few chickens, ducks, and rabbits. Dogs decided they needed to kill them more than I needed to keep them. Bought a buck rabbit. Hoping for a litter soon.
Building a new chicken coop in-between storms. Will soon have a big pen for chickens and ducks. It’s a canvas roofed carport a neighbor gave me. I’m enclosing it with fence wire. Ducks shelter will be an old shipping crate.
We just live a quiet peaceable rural life. If that dissolves into chaos were here. Husbands health has deteriorated to the point he couldn’t survive a bug out. I’m here with him come what may.
I still have a lot of what I canned from my last garden. That will keep us a while.
Barter and trade. Sitting on a stockpile or barrow full of extra produce is just an expensive way to make compost. We have to build the skills necessary to trade without any form of money. All well and fine that digital currencies are to be enforced, but once you get ‘cancelled’ you will have no way to trade “without the mark of the beast”, whatever you think that mark is.
In other words, we need to focus less on SHTF and more on being ‘cancelled’ in an otherwise “functioning society” where every third person is a morally-compromised snitch poking about the lives of the other two.
Stockpiling supplies and ammunition is a exercise in futility, as are huge plan B gardens. When everyone is starving, and you are not, they will eventually figure that out, and its on.
Stockpiling ammunition goes like this; “315 by 110 fire for effect! (Artillery whistles by) adjust bearing by 25!(Artillery whistles by….BOOM) ON TARGET! FIRE AT WILL!!!!”
This does not seem wise….a plan that does not include the entire societal structure is bound to fail, because otherwise you’re just a hermit in the woods so to speak, prepping is simply ignoring these psychopaths and doing what we know to do and what we know is right in our hearts. If it’s done correctly, prepping could simply be called, living your life without fear.
Which brings me to my last point. You miss daisy, are a fear pornographer, and nothing more. Your “plans” is a waste of time, and all it does is tickle the inner survivalist in these poor people. Survivalist are being set up to use as a excuse to bring on more tyranny, which the survivalist will eventually bring about. And I suggest you know this, miss daisy. The future is predictable, very very much so. Know the outcome, and you can see the journey, as long as nothing stands in the way of that outcome. If you cant see what’s coming miss daisy, then I suggest you are in the WRONG business,which is what survivalism is, a multi billion dollar business.
Leave these people alone, and pass the word along to your fellow controlled opposition friends like Hollywood mike rivero, your time is up! Soon your half truths false promises and exaggerated claims will be exposed, and you will fade away like queen mab.
You are right in some way but the problem is not the food prepping, stockpiling or the gardens. Most people rely on supermarkets for food and if there’s one thing that this pandemic has showed is that corporations are going to keep growing while small businesses are going to slowly disappear.
What happens when corporations take over and they don’t allow you into the store unless you have a vaccine passport or other stuff?
The more time goes by the more I realize that whatever totalitarian state might happen in the future is going to be NOTHING like the ones we had in the past. All of the knowledge about Communist Russia, Romania etc. is useless because they didn’t have a technocratic total surveillance system.
We’re going in a direction where our every move is going to be tracked so people need advice and help on how to blend in or protect themselves in this total surveillance system and people need to keep an eye on the laws that are changing around them.
Classic survivalism is at least partially obsolete, paying money for survivalist courses is a waste of resources, people need info on the current and future societal changes, not the past.
Plandemic…..hoaxavirus
The world is not as dangerous as this elite would have you think, this is our home. It is them, people like gates, who own the largest farmland tracts in this country. Control food, control people. He is also very much behind the hoaxavirus, with event 201, and he funds imperial college, and thier computer models are the reasons for the tyrannical lockdowns, models that never panned out mind you. Those same computers are the ones that pushed the global warming hoax, another gates funded fraud, as with the vaccine alliance, another fraud.
Standing up to Tyranny requires no prepping, just a strong will and a resolve in your heart, to have self respect, and stop cooperating with our own enslavement! Grocers are regular people like us, let’s get the truth out, I seriously doubt the grocers would let mass numbers starve to death. Fear porn.
Just a point you seem to have overlooked.
Grocers may not willingly allow their fellow human being starve, but they are subject to the same restrictions as we are. If there are no supplies because there just aren’t any or if it’s all being diverted to FancyPants Inc. owned and operated by a pal of the powers that be, he’s not going to be able to sell or give away what he ain’t got.
Just sayin.
“I seriously doubt the grocers would let mass numbers starve to death”
the grocers won’t be the ones in control.
“a plan that does not include the entire societal structure is bound to fail”
… so, what you’re saying is, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em?
“You miss daisy, are a fear pornographer”
(shrug) yeah. but the fear seems legitimate.
Right on, Daisy! I am now seeing this pandemic as a marathon, not a sprint. I view my own resilience in terms of my overall health: physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, social. I am now making more effort to feed all these areas, rather than just one or two.
In terms of skills, I am slowly expanding my knowledge in old farm style harvest storage methods like trenching, clamps, and cold room storage of root veggies and squash.
In terms of consuming, I only use liquid castile soap: dishes, counters, hair, floors, clothing, veggies, etc. I am learning to make this myself, too. Instead of lotions, I use almond oil or olive oil. I make my own tooth powder, lip balm. Instead of using soap on my face I just wipe it at night with a cool facecloth. Throw in a natural deodorant crystal and that’s it for all body care products.
Wishing everyone success in building your resilience this year!
Changes in prepping cannot happen until Americans have accepted some basic facts:
*The USA is a DICTATORSHIP; the Dem-Rep is a false dichotomy
*USA politicians (90%) will NEVER put middle class interests above those of the oligarchy
That being said, it does not mean you cannot exploit some loopholes in your favour. If you are starting your preparations from scratch, like I was 2 years ago after bankruptcy, I did the following:
1) Pay your mobile phone, & utility bills on time to build credit rating.
2) When your credit score improves just enough (usually 4 months), you should
3) Apply for a department store credit card with BUY NOW/PAY LATER option at ZERO INTEREST! The emphasise this because typical credit card interest rates can devastate finances. In Canada, the Canadian Tire Mastercard is excellent because:
(a) Their card works across their entire group of stores;
(b) They had 12 months (purchaseC$500) repayment terms. [This was changed to 24 months with purchase=C$150+ due to Covid19.]
(c) Canadian Tire & stores across its group sell everything that Lowes and WalMart sells, except groceries.
[The closest equivalent to Canadian Tire in terms of both credit card terms AND product selection is Lowe’s, & Home Depot, both with 6-months 0% financing.]
Canadian Tire was excellent for me, because it allowed me, at 0% interest, to stock up on:
*Essential consumables: toilet paper, paper towels, baby wipes, all cleaning products, water filters, motor oil & filters, and other car items
*Vegetable seeds & gardening equipment
*Some foods: coffee, salt & spices, baking soda, & chocolate
*Appliances: freezer, vacuum cleaner, microwave, & hair dryer. (Note: induction cooker, refrigerator/freezer combo, & other appliances available.)
*Kitchenware: pots, pans, bakeware, dishes, & utensils
*Tools: full wrench & screw driver set, car scanner (OBDT) tool, & car battery/air compressor unit.
*Baby supplies: car seat, booster seat, & baby wipes.
*Clothing: socks, winter boots, shoes, jeans, & jackets
Even if you declare bankruptcy again the credit card company is not likely to repossess these items, due to lack of viable market. Come on, would you want to buy USED TOILET PAPER?!?!?!