Is it Wise to Keep Prepping?

I suspect that, Y2K has been a bit of a mental let down for many of us. Not that we wanted the world to end or anything, but after the months of preparing, the build up to December 31, and now now, we are left with this empty feelinga loss of momentum to prep. Gee, a little 3-day nationwide power outage wouldnt have hurt anything, right? Attention Pollies: this is partly tongue-in-cheek!

The stores are still full, we have received additional paychecks (hopefully) and have the ability to buy additional items. If Y2K throws us a curve ball, or if some other situation arises, wont we be in a better position if we were wise enough to keep prepping? OK, on to my question: Is anyone else in the prepping mode; i.e., continuing to refine or add to their preps., or are most of us in the start using them up mode?

To any remaining in the prepping mode, what are you buying, and why? Is there any use to go on, or should we all rest on our laurels of prepping???

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000

Answers

For me being prepped is here to stay, however NOW that I am fairly prepped my scenario plan goes like this:

1. Rotate and diversify preps

2. Increase my knowledge base (how to) library for any areas not covered. As well as, take classes for those areas of special interest/need.

3. Purchase logical easy to use storage organizers (IOW, be able to keep track of my pantry and emergency supplies readily).

4. Build/purchase off the grid power and water self-sufficiency items for changeover of my home/farm, purchase in a planned logical manner.

5. Keep rotating stock of Rx at all times

6. Perpetual veggie garden and root cellar

7. Anything else I can think of to keep us self-sustained

-- Sammie (sammiex0@yahoo.com), January 27, 2000.

Thanks for the ideas, Sammie!

I must admit that my preps. are not the most organized. When I first G.I.ed, I built extra shelves in the garage. I started out being very organized; I had an excel spreadsheet that told what I bought, where I got it, the price, and total quantity. As the "prepping frenzy" coninued, I got lazy and kind of placed items in any convenient spot as I purchased them; hence, I have a bag of rice here, another one there, canned chili in about 5 different locations, etc. (To tell the truth, I've lost track of how much chili I have!)

I think I'll continue to refine my solar-electric system that allows me to run ham radios and small appliances off the grid...

Thanks for the encouragement!

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

The date has passed (Y2K) but the underlying issues are still a major point. All of us have lived in a most dependent state for so long, we have lost our ability to be independent of self sufficient. Our best interests would be protected if we each maintained some reserves in those areas where we could be most vulnerable. The possibility of drout is a looming concern in the midwest, and food and water might be a real critical issue. If large portions of the farm belt see major drout, guess what's going to happen to your food prices! We have everything to gain, and nothing to loose by being a little better prepared for whatever comes our way.

-- suzy (suzy@nowhere.com), January 28, 2000.

To any remaining in the prepping mode, what are you buying, and why? Is there any use to go on, or should we all rest on our laurels of prepping???

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000

I'm afraid I can no longer recall who originally said this:

"On the plains of hesitation lay the blackened bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory sat down to rest and so resting, died."

We've won the most important parts of the Y2K war but now is NOT the time to stop prepping. The immediate problem seems to have past which makes it possible to spend a bit more time in reflection on the wisdom of particular preparatory steps but it is vital to continue on with the program.

It seems like there hasn't been a single day since the date roll over that the newspapers didn't have at least one story of a disaster or a crisis where a fair number of folks somewhere needed their preparedness programs to get them through a tight spot or could have seriously used one but were not prepared. Many of those stories took place here in the U.S. or in Western Europe.

There will come a point that you reach your food/water/fuel/etc. storage goals and at that point you begin to rotate items out before they approach the end of their useful storage lives. As you take an item off the front end, replace it on the back end with a fresher item.

It's also the time to begin to make refinements to your program, to reexamine the scenarios you're preparing for to see if your list is still complete, to fill in cracks that were left for a later, less hurried time and to generally contemplate the wisdom of what you're doing. Here at the House we gradually evolved to the idea that we should strive to just be generally prepared rather than concentrate on specific scenarios. Whether it's hurricanes, ice storms, depressions, logistical failures, they all share many preparatory steps in common so if you've covered them all you're pretty much as ready as you can be. Some specific scenarios require specialized preparation so if you're concerned with them you'll have additional steps to carry out but cover the common ones FIRST.

NOW is when you really begin to work on finding ways to prepare all of those storage foods so that you and your family look forward to eating because you want to not because you have a lot of food that'll go bad if you don't. With the immediate survival needs met you can begin to contemplate some of the wider aspects of modern day life and what they mean to self-reliance. The way you prep necessarily must evolve but it should not stop.

For my family, our buying patterns will change little but we have been doing this since long before we ever heard of Y2K anyway. When particular canned goods reach a certain level we'll buy more. The same for grains, beans, dry milk and other foods. We have what we call the "reserve amount" where we never allow stocks to fall below that amount and then there is the "use amount" which is where we take our every day food from. The newest food goes into the reserve amount and the older food is automatically pushed forward into the use amount. This insures constant rotation while not falling below minimum levels. I inventory everything every four months to make sure we haven't overlooked something. That takes generally less than an hour.

My wife thinks I'm nuts because the family has to take their baths using face soap because we're down to only the reserve amount of bath soap and I won't let her use any of it. Perhaps so, but that reserve amount will be there when we really, truly need it and it's a great motivator to pay more attention to inventory levels when we're making up the shopping list. It's way, way too easy to just say "I'll replace it tonight when I get off of work" and then forget it during the course of the day. What if it hits the fan that night? You'll then be that much short of whatever commodity it is that you drew down without replacing?

We probably will draw down our fuel storage somewhat. Y2K concerns led us to more than double our usual storage which will make for a rotation nusiance come the summer but we're going to wait a bit longer before we actually do it. I want to see how the oil thing is going to play itself out first.

For me being prepped is here to stay, however NOW that I am fairly prepped my scenario plan goes like this:

1. Rotate and diversify preps

2. Increase my knowledge base (how to) library for any areas not covered. As well as, take classes for those areas of special interest/need.

3. Purchase logical easy to use storage organizers (IOW, be able to keep track of my pantry and emergency supplies readily).

4. Build/purchase off the grid power and water self-sufficiency items for changeover of my home/farm, purchase in a planned logical manner.

5. Keep rotating stock of Rx at all times

6. Perpetual veggie garden and root cellar

7. Anything else I can think of to keep us self-sustained

-- Sammie (sammiex0@yahoo.com), January 27, 2000.

That's a good plan Sammie. It's the evolutionary pattern that most "survivalism" inevitably leads to - survive the immediate apparent crisis to developing a lifestyle of self-reliance. Going to be some surprises in there, I'm sure, but a lot of satisfaction as well. Luck to you.

I must admit that my preps. are not the most organized. When I first G.I.ed, I built extra shelves in the garage. I started out being very organized; I had an excel spreadsheet that told what I bought, where I got it, the price, and total quantity. As the "prepping frenzy" coninued, I got lazy and kind of placed items in any convenient spot as I purchased them; hence, I have a bag of rice here, another one there, canned chili in about 5 different locations, etc. (To tell the truth, I've lost track of how much chili I have!)

-- No Polly (nopolly@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

This is one of the thornier problems in any kind of in-depth preparedness program. Finding a place to put it all and then keeping track of it. In the beginning it does take up what seems like an inordinate amount of time. Eventually you have to find a system that works for you and most importantly you have to make it a habit of using your system. I've gone through a number of systems so far and may go through another if I think one up that works better than what we're dong now. Getting the family into the mindset of rotation and using the storage foods has been one of my greatest challenges. "I was in a hurry so I didn't put the new foods in the back" can quickly lead to a really messed up pantry, particularly if they didn't also date the cans before they put them in the pantry. There are no across the board solutions, you just study what others have done and then try to use their ideas to craft a solution that works for your particular set of circumstances.

Man, this is a long post. I'm feeling gabby this morning.

.......Alan.

The Providence Cooperative - A great source of preparedness information

http://www.providenceco-op.com

-- A.T. Hagan (athagan@netscape.net), January 28, 2000.

No Polly

Y2K was a big unknown before roll over. If embeddeds were a big immediate problem in the power industry we would have faced the worst case scenario. Now we know we will still have power and water.

We don't know how much they will cost and if we'll eventually loose our jobs due to Y2K failures at our company or our business partners. We don't know if problems with oil production will start inflation, pop the stock bubble and cause a depression. So you might want to shift your emphasis to finacial preperations. I'm not a finacial expert so I won't offer a strategy on that. But there has been plenty of good advice here on managing the checkbook and setting aside a nest egg. I plan to keep a years supply of food for my immediate family and a few others. This means I will be drawing down all the food stores above that. That transilates in to savings at the grocery store that I can apply to finacial disaster insurance. Your investment in extra food can be recouped, so if you have enough to draw from and still follow Alans sound advice above you too should have some additional funding in the form of savings from grocery bills. Build up a cash reserve and fing out how to preserve that wealth in the face of a possibe economic crisis.

If you don't have a years supply of food....well, as I said, food is an investment all on it's own if you preserve it correctly.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), January 28, 2000.