Five Huge Prepping Mistakes

 5 Big Prepping Mistakes

There are more than five mistakes people can make obviously. These are five of the big ones that I see people make all of the time. I am not going to elaborate too deeply on these at this time to keep the posts short, memorable, and not too boring. Keep in mind that I will expand on these 5 key mistakes and others.

1) Not enough water

Clean water is one of the most important things you can have. No matter how much you have stored, you can only take so much with you if you have to leave your house. Keep water purification and bleach on hand. Do you know how to make a filter?

2) Watch out for what is trendy

Someone will come up with a good idea and suddenly it is everywhere. Read, study, learn. Just because everyone says you have to have it doesn't mean you do. Everyone wants to make a buck, and some will make theirs at the expense of anyone. Research what you are buying and ask yourself how practical it is. Can you take it with you? How much can you take with you?

3) Living off your supply/Rotation

Many will tell you not to eat your food storage. I say that depends. If you have 30 year shelf life storage, then keep it stored. When you are buying rice,wheat,flour in bulk to have storage use it up and keep buying. In other words rotate. But don't eat up your storage. Keep buying what you need to feed yourselves and remember FIFO (first in first out). You don't want to need it and find out it's bad.

4) Storing what you need

Most people store what they need. What about what everyone else needs. This is one of the most important things you can do for prepping. If you want to be able to take care of your family, you need to be prepared to take care of others. This is going to have to be an entire post/subject all on its own (Actually it will be the next post)

You also should be able to protect what you have. (also an entire series)

5) Knot having enough knowledge

Can you tie a knot to save your life?

So many people are storing food/guns&ammo/medicine but how prepared are you to use what you have? Yea, I got a satellite phone. Too bad I can't get a hold of anyone.

Yea. I got 150 lbs of wheat. How do you cook wheat?

I am out of lighter fluid. Now how do I build a fire?

Read, Study, Learn 

A handful of books that tell you how to survive are handy for more than just paper to start a  fire with. There are many good survival books out there. Make sure you are getting one that makes good sense.

Be Prepared

You will notice that there are no ads on my blog. This is not here to squeeze every penny I can out of some dupe who stumbled across my site. Every once and a while I will boost something that I think makes good sense, but you will find most supplies and food local through someone that you know for a decent price.

Why do emergency preparedness?

There are many of us like minded folks out there that are now nicknamed "preppers". We prepare ourselves for hard times and believe one day we may need to use our provisions. While we all have different motivators for preparing, we all try to have a complete ration of supplies for hard times.  I personally am not an “end of the world” or “zombie apocalypse” kind of guy, but I do believe history repeats itself. 

Just because we live in the United States of America does not mean that war cannot visit our shores.  I also live in Oregon right at the base of the Cascade Mountain Range (literally).  This is an active volcanic range with active bulges growing right now on the South Sister in Bend and Mt. St. Helens in Washington.  We have many siezemic monitors located throughout my town for study and warnings.  So what? Will they erupt again in my lifetime? Probably not, but if they do and the food supply is cut off, roads or bridges destroyed, or no power for weeks, I will be able to still feed my family. 

A few years ago I was working on a utility crew for 6 days a week and long hours in the day.  All of the sudden we went from a work crew of 26 to 6 and a work week of 6 days to 3.  Ouch!  For the next year my family lived of our food storage and other supplies without having to get help from family, friends, or our highly funded government.  So it is not always the major disasters to prepare for, but the small and turbulent events of everyday life.

So I encourage all to be prepared for the unexpected.  I tell people I plan for the future as if nothing will ever happen (I have big dreams for me and my family I want to come true), but I prepare as if everything that can go wrong will.  This ensures that either way, my family will  have a good future.