Prepping 101. by PJ **Before you start, try taking the to assess your knowledge!** Let’s face it there is no shortage of information about prepping out there in the world. Books have been written, movies and television shows have been made, companies which specialize in prepper supplies are thriving and there certainly is a proliferation of websites and forums which ooze advice on just about every topic imaginable. Go ahead and type in “best SHTF gun” or “food storage” into google or YouTube and you’ll have 20 hours of reading ahead of you. The point I’m trying to make is that this site should just be considered one source of information if you are just starting your journey as a prepper. The information I am about to relay to you is based on experienced and should solely be considered my opinion. If there was such thing as a P.H.D in prep-ology I would probably consider myself someone who got their undergraduate a few years ago, with a decent amount of experience in the field. Please use my experiences/information as building blocks which hopefully contribute to success in your prepper journey. What you truly should realize is at the end of the day you have to make your own decisions on the best way to prepare yourself and loved ones. If you are someone who is at the starting line or just a few miles into the journey of prepping you could definitely benefit from reading the basic information provided in the list below. Additionally I would ask if you read this article and have more useful information to provide please do so in the comment boxes. This list is not all inclusive but will help you to understand some of the basic concepts and methodologies involved in prepping. You will notice that I avoid certain topics (e.g. alternative energy, farming, canning, precious metals). These are topics that I have dabbled in but do not feel qualified enough to give advice on. Consider this “Prep 101” if you will. With that said let us begin. So you want tostart preparing yourself and family for uncertain times in this world but you have no idea where to start. I’ll go ahead and give you a brief high level view of many of the topics you will begin to explore on your prepper journey. After reading this article move on to for further advice, after that watch this website daily for more information on where to buy prep supplies and links to other well written articles which will keep you informed. Prepper: Congratulations this is now you even if you haven’t yet spent a dime. You have made the mental choice to do something after waking up and realizing the world isn’t what you thought it once was. You feel the need to somehow become more self reliant in order to improve your chances of success when faced of any number of possible situations which would lead to societal upheaval. Preppers are sometimes referred to as survivalists even though the terms do not share the exact same definition. Water: You can live 3 days without water andthen you perish. Of all the items in the prepper inventory water ranks at the top of the list of “must haves.” Water is tough to store because volume/weight/shelf life are your enemy. Your typical one gallon container of water in a jug could probably be stored for at least a year in the basement, if kept off of the concrete floor to prevent leaching. You can also buy larger storage containers and add chemicals to them to increase shelf life for up to 5 years, but at around 7lbs per gallon those things can get very heavy and take up quite a bit of space. The average person needs (more if you include hygenie) so quickly the need for clean water becomes apparent in a survival situation. Besides having a modest amount of water storage on hand it is advisable to find ways to filter water, many systems like the are great and affordable ways to accomplish this task. When looking for filter systems try to find out exactly what they claim to filter (the bad stuff), how many gallons thefilters are good for, and how user friendly the systems themselves are. Food: Yet another prepper staple is the food storage supply. This is a huge topic with many variables so I will try to glaze over it but still give you the basics that you need to know. First of all and probably most important is no matter what type of food you store (dehydrated, freeze dried, canned, MRE, cans from the local store) it needs to be food that you are willing to eat. In a best case scenario you would have a stockpile of food that you continue to rotate slowly through once the shelf life comes to an end for a certain item. Why buy 50 cans of SPAM if you have no intention to ever eat the stuff? You’ll spend money on items that you will eventually just throw away which amounts to setting fire to money or flushing it down the toilet. There are lots of food storage options and the retail outlets that sell products like food buckets, dehydrated/freeze dried meals, grains and legumes can go intodetail much better than I ever could about the specifics. I will tell you that your storage should be diverse in type and more importantly you should know exactly how much you have on hand to feed your family for various time periods. By diverse I mean nobody wants to eat the same 4 meals over and over again for a year, you would eventually reach food fatigue. By knowing exactly what you have on hand I am referring to knowing exactly how many calories you have to serve your family, and subsequently how long that will last you (based on a 2,000 Cal/day diet). Avoid buying items based on “number of servings” as serving size could vary depending on the manufacturer. At the end of the day if you can look at your food storage supply and say that you have enough food in a decent variety to feed 2,000 calories to each person in your family for 30/60/90 days or even 1 year, you will have succeeded in doing more than 99% of the average population. Guns and Ammo: This is probably one ofthe most popular topics out there, with 50 different opinions out of 50 different posts on any given forum you find out there in cyberspace. The most important thing you need to know about guns and ammo is this: one gun that you know how to use well is better than having a safe full of guns that you couldn’t shoot and hit a barn with at 100 yards. Knowing the capabilities and limitations of your gun(s) are very important as well as knowing how to employ them under various conditions and how to get them up and running again once something (e.g. jam, doublefeed, misfire) goes wrong. So many people have a pistol with a box of 50 rounds next to their bed that they have only shot once or maybe never even shot at all. What a shame. In a best case scenario you could have an assortment of guns (rifle, pistol, shotgun) of various calibers which could be used under different circumstances. Maybe the pistol is used for concealed carry provided you are legally allowed to do that. The
