How to be a Prepper

[keven]

Hello everyone, I am doing a research project on prepping and have some questions that I was hoping you could answer! There are kind of a lot of them but I appreciate any answers:
1. What are you prepping for? Why?
2. How much money have you spent on prepping?
3. What are the most important items in your bug out bag?
4. Should you need to defend yourself, how would you do it?
5. Do you prefer to prep alone or with others?
6. What skills do you think are necessary to have in order to survive a catastrophe?
7. What special survival skills do you have?
8. What is the best way to build a shelter?
9. What is the biggest threat facing the world? Why?
10. What would be your ideal bug out location?
11. What would be your ideal bug out bag?
12. How do you learn new survival strategies?
13. How many days worth of food and water do you think is necessary?
14. How soon do you think a disaster will occur?
15. What items do you stockpile?
16. How prepared do you think you are should a disaster occur today?
17. How many bug out locations do you have?
18. Would you call your prepping extreme?
19. How often do you practice bugging out?
20. Where do you think is the safest place to be during a crisis?
21. What type of bug out vehicle do you have?
22. What advice would you give to someone new to prepping?
23. What drove you to start prepping?
24. How do you think the world views preppers?
25. Do you think shows like Doomsday Preppers gives preppers a good or bad name? Why?
Thank you for the help!

 

[lonewolf]

look up the meaning of OPSEC !!!

 

[Maverick]

1. What are you prepping for? Why?
All emergencies, self explanatory

2. How much money have you spent on prepping?
What I can afford for the month (fluid) I don't keep track

3. What are the most important items in your bug out bag?
No such item, all items are the most important (knife/fire)

4. Should you need to defend yourself, how would you do it?
What is available at the time

5. Do you prefer to prep alone or with others?
Depends

6. What skills do you think are necessary to have in order to survive a catastrophe?
Knowledge and Avoidance

7. What special survival skills do you have?
Enough that is required of me in my given geographic

8. What is the best way to build a shelter?
No best way, anything that shelters you from the elements

9. What is the biggest threat facing the world? Why?
Complacency, complacency

10. What would be your ideal bug out location?
Any place that offers security, food and water

11. What would be your ideal bug out bag?
Anything that you can comfortably carry

12. How do you learn new survival strategies?
Practice, Learn what and didn't work from the past

13. How many days worth of food and water do you think is necessary?
Minimum 2 weeks to a year

14. How soon do you think a disaster will occur?
Impossible to answer

15. What items do you stockpile?
Water and food

16. How prepared do you think you are should a disaster occur today?
The best I could be given what I had to work with (no such thing as a 100%)

17. How many bug out locations do you have?
3

18. Would you call your prepping extreme?
No such thing

19. How often do you practice bugging out?
Every time I walk outside

20. Where do you think is the safest place to be during a crisis?
Where you feel the most comfortable at

21. What type of bug out vehicle do you have?
feet, horse, quad, truck

22. What advice would you give to someone new to prepping?
Learn the old ways, stock water, learn to forage

23. What drove you to start prepping?
Nothing drove me to it, I was taught to be ready for emergencies

24. How do you think the world views preppers?
better then the 80s and 90s

25. Do you think shows like Doomsday Preppers gives preppers a good or bad name? Why?
Thank you for the help!
Makes us look like nuts

 

[Gazrok]

1. What are you prepping for? Why?

Short-term and long-term interruptions to our daily life, whether as temporary as a bad storm, or as permanent as losing the electrical grid. For why, mostly because I've already benefited from such preps. Here in FL, we prep a little for hurricane season, so this is really just an extension of that.

2. How much money have you spent on prepping?

Hard to say. And hard to quantify, as most of our preps have an immediate benefit also.

3. What are the most important items in your bug out bag?

My pistol, my metal water bottles, my knife, and my Zippo lighter. Plenty of other items, but these are the most essential. Anything else, I could do without. (would even do without these, but would be better to have them).

4. Should you need to defend yourself, how would you do it?

Pistol. Knife as a fallback weapon. Best defense is simply to avoid people though. I'm not looking to be Rambo in the woods, just to get home to the ranch in one piece.

5. Do you prefer to prep alone or with others?

Prepping alone is a recipe for being killed. Look at any real-life SHTF survivor story, and you'll see folks survived in a group, not alone. For me, this is family and friends.

6. What skills do you think are necessary to have in order to survive a catastrophe?

Ability to have renewable water and food sources. Basically, old world skills, like the ability to grow things, keep animals, and collect and purify water, etc. as well as hunt, skin, butcher animals.

7. What special survival skills do you have?

See above. Plus, I'm usually a good problem solver, diplomat, and manager. I'm a hobbyist carpenter, electrician, mechanic, plumber, etc. as we are rural, and penny-pinching, so try and do things ourselves.

8. What is the best way to build a shelter?

Use an existing one. Seriously. If just me and my bug out bag though, I'm simply putting up my tarp.

9. What is the biggest threat facing the world? Why?

We prep for pretty much anything. But I think the biggest threat is economic collapse. The global economy is a house of cards built on promises and lies for the most part. Eventually, something will make it all come crashing down.

10. What would be your ideal bug out location?

My ranch, has everything I'd need, as well as my family (and friends who will be coming, come SHTF).

11. What would be your ideal bug out bag?

Would be a bit long to detail. Basically, an ideal bug out bag (or BOB), is small, light, but still has the essentials for survival, as well as some comforts too.

12. How do you learn new survival strategies?

TV shows on survival, forums like this, talking to other preppers, farmers, etc. Sometimes old books as well.

13. How many days worth of food and water do you think is necessary?

Wrong question. Really, you need to have a RENEWABLE source of these things to truly survive. Otherwise, your days are literally numbered.

14. How soon do you think a disaster will occur?

Probably not even in my lifetime, but likely in my kids' lifetime. However, we've already benefited from our preps during short term disasters, so will see more of these, I'm sure.

15. What items do you stockpile?

Food, Water (even with replenishable sources, good to have backup). Items that aren't easy to make ourselves, or that have to be dehydrated to keep for a long time. (like powdered butter, for example).

16. How prepared do you think you are should a disaster occur today?

Less than I would want to be, but we'd make it. I am just finishing year 1 of a 5 year plan for being where I want to be.

17. How many bug out locations do you have?

Just our home. If we can't stay there, will just have to find someplace else.

18. Would you call your prepping extreme?

No, a bit more than some, not as much as most. Really, most of our preps are more towards being more self-sufficient and not as dependent on society still functioning.

19. How often do you practice bugging out?

We're more into bugging in.

20. Where do you think is the safest place to be during a crisis?

In a rural area, on a place that has good shelter, renewable water, and renewable food.

21. What type of bug out vehicle do you have?

Diesel truck, that can carry enough fuel to more than double the range of even the longest range factory vehicle.

22. What advice would you give to someone new to prepping?

Better to have the skills to find/make what you need, than stockpile it.
Better to have renewable sources of food and water, than stockpile it.

23. What drove you to start prepping?

We inherited a ranch, which already had many things that lent to it, plus my wife and I already always prepped for hurricane season, somewhat. So, this is just an extension of it.

24. How do you think the world views preppers?

As misguided lunatics. Which is funny, considering that:
a) This is exactly what our grandparents did (prep for lean times).
b) This is exactly what our own government recommends doing (i.e. FEMA recommendations).
c) We've already seen that the government can't always help in a disaster, in a timely manner (Katrina, Sandy, etc.)

25. Do you think shows like Doomsday Preppers gives preppers a good or bad name? Why?

Absolutely give us a bad name. No prepper I've ever spoken with, is preparing for just one scenario, which is what the show always tries to pigeonhole. Also, a normal prepper would make for pretty bland TV, so they focus on some really off the wall stuff and ideas.