Are you prepared? Trying to be more self sufficient

Thanks I’ll check that out

 

I’d prefer to trade skills. If somebody is in a mag with me, at that point, I’d trust them enough to help or trade most stuff. I have 3-4 friends I’d trust in a mag. All of us are older which has its positives and negatives pretty much like most things do. Our drawback is that we are all about 10 miles apart with me in the middle. Depending on the situation it could be difficult to give or receive help. Kinda why I’d like to get neighbors on board

 

So it seems to be a fairly reasonable scenario for you.
My scenario is this. Too much private land here so hunting is difficult at best unless you are on a lease. Leases can be crazy expensive. This area doesn't have basements. I live in the city so very little land to grow vegetables. Water storage is also diffuse due to space restrictions.
My best scenario is my generator and I have 8 - 5 gallon gas cans. Plus I basically need more ammo than the next guy.

 

My hat is off to you I’m not brave enough to live in a city.
If you have a balcony or small space you can container garden. At least you can grow something.
Store foods in closets or under beds.
Water storage? Check out water bricks. You can stack them or slide under a bed.

another resource for long term food storage most people never look at is the Mormon website. Prices are great and the food is already sealed and stored in #10 cans.
Or, store enough freeze dried you could bug out with and find a destination outside the city. A friends or relatives maybe. Just a thought

 

I currently have enough food to last about 6 to 9 months based on only me. Primarily frozen goods and things like rice and beans. Enough ammo to take someone else's stuff if things got too crazy. All my family is 2000 miles away. Going outside the city to private land here in Texas will put you in harms way.

Your other ideas are food food for thought.

 

Some interesting reading. Here's my take on the subject. If things go down here, in the United States, for more than a couple weeks or so they aren't coming back for a very long time. If that's the case you have a couple of ways to make it long-term. First be so far off the grid that you're away from people and can self-sustain. The second way, I was listening to Joe Rogan and he was talking about going out into the countryside and starting a complex where he and all his comedian friends could go if things went South. This kind of strength in numbers concept might work. But if you are a single person or a family somewhere near what used to be a population center, it just stands to reason sooner or later someone is going to come along with the ability to take your s***. Whether it's just superior firepower, or a willingness to send their 8-year-old daughter in, praying on your sympathies, and then she pulls a gun out and kills you and your family, in my mind you have a slim to no chance.

 

I love all the ideas on here, old Boy Scout, “Always Be Prepared “. I really hope it never comes to this, however.

 

This is the part I don't think most people realize...if the grid goes down, even in only one section of the country, millions of people are going to die in a short period of time. A couple of weeks. Most will starve to death and a large number due to people killing each other. It will be mass chaos. if it goes down large scale it will be stone age times and a better part of 90% of the population wouldn't survive. Sounds dramatic but almost everyone lacks the skills to truly provide for themselves and their families, we've become dependent on people and companies to provide everything for us. Not to mention how dependent we are on other nations for many critical needs. When I was a kid i would always hear things like "we need to be a global economy" and I would think yes, but only to a point. We're well past that point.

 

This is purely my opinion and not intended to offend anyone.

Some things to think about:

Guns are loud and attract a lot of attention, especially in a world that's gone silent.
Are you willing to murder someone? What will you do with the remains? Do you have the skills to defend yourself silently? Humans survived a long time before guns were invented. Hunted and gathered. Are you willing to risk your position to kill a rabbit? Do you have a sharp knife? Do you have a way to keep that knife sharp? Do you have rope or paracord? Can you just restrain a person until you are away from them instead of taking their life?

Reference the great TP debacle. Maybe people misunderstood SHTF and thought there was gonna be a lot of shit. Society will react the same way. Clean out the store shelves and hoard paper for their butt holes.

Do you have a spare pair of glasses if you wear them? Do you have aspirin/ibuprofen etc? Do you have extra prescription medications? Do you have a way to clean and treat wounds? Do you have a way to pull out that sliver?

Buying prepper meals etc - are you willing to eat that food? Seriously, try it now. Can you prepare it and survive on only that food for even a week?
Do you know how to start a fire? Can you boil water? Do you really think it's safe to use a propane camping stove indoors?

Where will you shelter in bad weather? When winter comes, do you have a way to deal with subzero temps and inches or feet of snow?

Where are you going to drive your vehicle to? What are you going to do when you get there? What is the goal? Are you going to rebuild society? When was the last time you walked 5 miles? How much weight can you carry and walk 5 miles?

I'm sure I've rambled on far too long without even touching the tip of the iceberg. None of these questions are meant to be answered here.. just ones that you can ask yourself.

 

While I agree with this outlook I vary in opinion a little. This is hopefully all for nothing but in the event something awful happens I am hoping that by making these preparations and considering all the different options and scenarios I can come up with, that I can at least buy myself some time to figure out how to sustain myself in what would be a new world minus all our comforts.

 

I would hope nobody here would find offense to this. You pretty much hit every topic I consider every day which was my purpose in creating this thread. All of those a good and valid questions. I can answer all but a couple for me in my situation.
As far as your question about food. Yes people should be trying different meals and also reading the labels as they tend to be very high in certain things like carbs, not good for a diabetic, or salt, not good for high blood pressure. In my situation I’d only keep about a 2 week supply of survival meals the rest is stuff we dried, bought dried, or canned goods.
Also stock foods you like to eat not just any foods. And stock spices so you can flavor your meals.
Prescription medications are a huge hurdle for a lot of us

 

Call me Mr. Conspiracy Theory.....but again, if the grid does go down for anything past 3-5 days you will see mass panic/chaos. Virtually NO ONE stocks more than a couple of days food in their house. Let alone any other of the essentials. Food will be cleared out of the stores within a couple of days and they don't stock anything anymore. When they run low of products they're dropped shipped from a distribution center somewhere. People will get desperate very quickly. Then there are those who will take advantage of the chaos, and they will just be out to generally cause mayhem...theft, robbery and murder. This will cause more chaos and fear. For everyone here, these are MY opinions! Because I disagree with yours doesn't mean I'm saying you're wrong, please don't take it that way! I have a lot to learn and although I consider myself more prepared than most, I'm still way under prepared for a SHTF scenario.

Absolutely agree with you here! If you and your family can make it to the 30 day mark you'd probably be out living (literally) 85% of the population. Your odds are much better at that point.

 

Good book series to read...Black Autumn by Jeff Kirkham and Jason Ross. One is a former Green Beret and the other is a lifelong survivalist/prepper. Although the book is fiction I believe it hits some of the points that I've mentioned...like how quickly things will go to shit and how violent it will get. Oh, forgot....to the folks (like me) who live in an urban setting who plan on skipping town when the world falls apart...you'd better be really EARLY getting out, like immediately! Hundreds of thousands will have the same idea and roads will become gridlocked very quick. Then you're stuck like Chuck!

 

For those of you who plan to escape the cities...
How will you start?
What if there is gridlock/traffic jam/road block a block from your house/work?
How far do you have to travel to your safe space?
Can you get there in the dark?
How far can you walk?
People talk about bug out bags and the things they would have in it to always be prepared. Challenge yourself to actually build a bag and go hiking or walking and see how far you get.
Research lightweight things that hikers carry with them. Thinks like a flint and steel to go with your straw fire starters. Lightweight cooking gear. Light weight meals. Lightweight sporks for eating.
Paracord wraps around handles make for swell snares and restraints and replacement shoelaces.
What's the weather in your area? What shelter do you need? What clothing will you need?
If shit happened RIGHT NOW, what shoes are you wearing? What is in your pockets?
If you are at work and needed to get home, what are 3 (or more) routes to get there?
If you have to cross a river can you swim?
Can you fish?
Can you identify plants that can kill you?


Practice, practice practice. Do not try to figure out how to do something in the heat of the moment. Practice does not make perfect. Practice makes it permanent. Do not practice until you get it right, Practice until you cannot get it wrong. Practice like you play. If your scenario has you wearing gloves, then practice doing everything with your gloves on.

Again - these questions are not meant to be answered here or replied to. They are just to give you something to think about your unique situation and goals.

 

Those prepper books always make me scratch my head. OpSec is probably one of the top 3 most important things in the "survivalist" wheelhouse. Why would anyone write a whole book divulging their "secrets". To me it's like stock tips. If someone knows them, why would they tell me??? Might as well just post your address and photos of your ammo on Instagram.

 

not necessarily replying but i agree if its something crazy requiring a "bug out" everyone in city is screwed. Roads will be blocked in short time.

 

Kinda like the peppers on Toutube showing a lot of stuff

 

Good questions and isn’t that half the battle the rest is just figuring out the answers

 

Grabbed a screenshot from IG the other day. Could be useful those who have small spaces.

 

For your well pumping solution you could look into a hot air engine like a Rider-Ericsson. Nearly all new ones are sold as casting kits made for hobby machinists to do the finish work on but i bet a complete one could be found. Very rudimentary but pumping water is one of the main reasons they were developed originally and they're actually one of the most efficient types of engine theoretically
https://myersengineworks.com/hot-air-engine/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW4pFAACOhE&ab_channel=riderericsson


That idea also leads into a good general approach to problems revolving around this threads subject. When trying to solve a modern problem without modern tech, just look back at the history of how it was approached before the modern tech. For most things there will be at least a couple analog and or rudimentary ways of dealing with them. Much of the time, the modern solution is just faster or more convenient and not much else.
I know, duh, but it might enlighten somebody that just hasn't thought that way yet so i think it's worth a mention