How to Start Prepping

Prepping For Beginners

Worried about yourself and your family if a disaster struck. Are you prepared for a disruption in supply chains or utilities? Take the first step to peace of mind and start prepping today. How to start prepping for beginners is a guide on what to do first. 

In these uncertain times, prepping is on the rise.  For people new to prepping, it may seem daunting. Being self reliant is the goal, prepping is the journey you take to get there.

What Is Prepping?

Prepping is being prepared. To some degree, a vast majority of people are preppers in one form or another. People invest in retirement funds, buy insurance, and have a savings account with some money set aside for a rainy day. They are prepping their finances for a rainy day.

Some people have a week’s worth of food and water in their larders. Others have a month’s worth. They are prepping their food stores, could be they live an inconvenient distance from the nearest grocery store or maybe they just hate to go shopping. These people don’t consider themselves preppers.

So, what is prepping? In a nutshell, prepping is preparing for whatever the future may hold. To some degree or other, most people are preppers.

So who are preppers? well they are mostly just regular folk who have made a conscious decision to be more prepared than the most.

Preppers In the Past

Go back a few decades, and prepping would just be called living. In the past, people had food stores that lasted weeks if not months, many people had gardens where they planted produce, and canned, dried, salted, and preserved food themselves. Go back a century or two and the majority of people were preppers.

Present Day Preppers

Present day preppers are just people who are preparing for as many eventualities as possible. Their aim is to either have a store large enough to ride out the disaster, be it natural or manmade. Or to be self reliant enough to sustain themselves and their families for the long term.

Modern day preppers are learning the skills that their forefathers knew, they are gaining old school skills such as planting, canning, foraging, fishing, hunting and trapping. Preppers enjoy sharing the tips and tricks that they have discovered or learned. Many preppers have families, they want to make sure are safe. No matter what happens.

How To Start Prepping

4 Beginner Steps To Prepping

1. Health is Wealth, and wealth is wealth (Basically look after your health, and personal finances).
2. Prepare your home for 1 to 2 months of living of the grid (water, food, medicine, hygiene, etc).
3. Prepare for emergencies that require you to leave your home (have a bug-out bag and bug-out location prepared). Here is a Free Bug-out bag Checklist for beginners.
4. Learn self reliance skills, run drills, and practice using your gear.

5 Common Prepping Mistakes

1. Trying to prep overnight. Prepping takes planning and time.
2. Buying pre-made survival or prepping kits. They are overpriced and of mediocre quality.
3. Buying prepping / survival gear fads. Hollow handle survival knife with survival gear, or cheap survival paracord bracelets with build in compasses. Do Not Buy. Choose your gear carefully.
4. Having a fixed plan. Having a plan is great, but it needs to have contingencies and be adaptable. Eg: your fixed plan is to stay home, you have 6 months worth of supplies. But there is a wildfire incoming. Do you have a contingency plan? Bug-out bag and Bug-out location.
5. Buying gear and not knowing how to use it.

Learn, Practice, Drill, Repeat

Start reading up on prepping, there is a ton of information on the internet, a mountain of books, and videos galore. When it comes to information about prepping, there is no shortage. Once you learn something, practice it until you have mastered the skill. Than run drills where you can utilize those skills. And repeat.

Prep For Realistic Situations

There is no way to prepare for every eventuality. Luckily basic prepping will cover most scenarios. A properly stocked bug-out bag will have everything you need for most bugging-out scenarios, and a well-stocked home or Bug-out location should serve the same purpose. When prepping consider your environment. Environment refers to geolocation as well as other factors such as social situation. for example, it would be pointless to prepare for a snowstorm on a tropical island. And alien invasions, prepping for those.. well. that’s pretty much a waste of time as well.

Threat assessment

Make a threat assessment for dangers specific to your area or situation, and adjust your prepping plans to encompass those threats. Eg: if your area is prone to snowstorms and you are likely to get snowed in. You will need backup heating methods (generator, firewood). These extras should be added to your basic prepping plans.

Start Slow

Prepare a Bug Out Bag, this is essentially going to be your 72 hour emergency store for bugging-out. And while 72 hours is the time recommended by FEMA for bugging-in. And some sites recommend 2 weeks. We recommend 30 to 60 days worth of stock (more if you are so inclined). Now there is no need to rush out and buy 2 months worth of goods. Instead every-time there is a grocery run, stock up a little extra.

Prepping is a journey, create small goals and work towards those. Imagine if the goal was one years worth of food and water. Buying all that in one go would require hiring a truck to haul it to your home. But increasing the weekly grocery list and stocking up a little extra every week will build up stock relatively quickly (and inconspicuously).

Step One: get a decent bug-out bag (recommendation 5.11 Rush 72) and pack it everything you need for 72 hours or longer (Ultimate bug-out bag checklist).

Step Two: Start stocking up on essentials at home. Water, food, medicine, hygiene items, etc. A simple way to stock up is, to keep all shopping receipts for a couple of weeks. Note down items bought regularly, and start doubling up on them.

Essential Prepper Skills

Optimally preppers should aim to increase their skillset. If the SHTF ever happens, goods may run out, but skills are forever. Some skills can be used to barter for essential items. Handy skills to have are:

These are just a few of the essential skills a prepper can learn to prepare for when the SHTF. Preppers are usually individuals who strive to be self-reliant, a major part of which is having a variety of skills. Some recommended books in Best Survival Books.

Prepper Terms

As with any community, slang and jargon naturally evolve. For beginning preppers this can be a little bit confusing. So here is a short list of commonly used terms in the prepper community.

BOB (Bug-out Bag), a bag with essential supplies and gear that will sustain a person until they can reach their BOL.

• BOL (Bug-out Location), a pre-planned safe location to retreat to when the SHTF
• SHTF (Shit Hit The Fan), when disaster has struck, such as TEOTWAWKI.
• TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It), this could be a natural disaster, or social unrest, or WWL situation.
• WWL (World Without Law), when law enforcement is unable to maintain law and order, or in other words WROL.
• WROL (Without Rule of Law), essentially the same as WWL, sometimes in situations like these, it is best to Bug-in
• Bug-In, is when it has been decided that it is best to hunker down and ride out the disaster at home. While Bug-out is the exact opposite.
• Bug-out plans should always be kept OPSEC.
• OPSEC (Operational Security), means keeping all plans on a 100% need-to-know basis, or it could easily get FUBAR.
• FUBAR (F-ed Up Beyond All Recognition), to seriously mess things up or a very messed up situation. Such as forgetting an IFAK while GOOD.
• IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit), a trauma kit that deals with serious trauma. It should be part of everyone’s EDC.
• EDC (Everyday Carry), items that are carried by a person every day at all times while out of the home, eg: wallet, phone, pocket-knife, flashlight. Most often EDC gear is carried by a person, in their pockets. But some people prefer to have an EDC bag or pouch to carry it all in, some take it one step further and carry a GHB to and from work.
• GHB (Get Home Bag), a small lightweight bag that contains essential items to get home in times of emergency. Essentially the opposite of a GOOD situation.
• GOOD (Get Out Of Dodge), when it’s time to evacuate the area and get away from the impending threat.

Prepping On A Budget

A common concern among newbie preppers is that it’s going to cost a small fortune. This is a common misconception. Prepping on a budget is doable. For example, instead of buying MRE’s and Dehydrated or freeze dried foods. Start by buying canned foods and stable foods like pasta, rice, beans and flour when there are sales in grocery store.

It is not necessary to buy the most expensive gear out there, often prepper and survival sites are run by enthusiastic people. They spend a small fortune on getting the best of the best. And that is what they recommend.

High Quality Budget Options

But for every expensive option, there is a budget version. Eg: for something as simple as a survival knife, some people spend hundreds of dollars on premium versions from brands like Fallkniven A1 (Which makes exceptional knives). For those on a leaner budget, there is always ESEE (ESEE makes fantastic knives). What are preppers who are on very tight budgets to do? well, there is always Morakniv knives (Best Budget Knife EVER).

Spend within your budget, don’t let your plan to be better prepared put a strain on your finances.

Make A Plan

Now that you know what a prepper is, some of the terminology used by the prepping/survivalist community, to start slow, assess the threat, and to stay within your budget. It is time to make a plan, every preppers plan is going to be different, depending on the goals and the type of threat.

A plan needs to be made, but it also needs to be flexible. Remember Murphy’s Law (what can go wrong will go wrong), so make a plan. But be prepared to Adapt, Improvise and Overcome (does that sound familiar? 😁).

Theory Vs Practical

Reading, watching videos and doing research on prepping is great. But that isn’t going to do much good if the knowledge is only in theory. There NEEDs to be some practical training of what is learned in theory.

Prepping and survival skills are a mix of knowledge and skills. Theoretical and practical. Reading about how to hunt is not the same as actually hunting. I have seen people pack 75-pound bug-out bags, because that is what they read online that people should be able to carry. That may be true for those people who trained, but for the majority of people that is way too heavy.

 Prepping Is A Way Of Life

Prepping is a way of life, and for people and families that are just starting out prepping, realize that. It is not just going to a store, buying a ton of goods and than forgetting about it. It is planning, learning new (or should I say old) skills, it is about learning to be self sufficient and preparing for rainy days or even SHTF days.

Join A Prepper Community nearby, Join prepper forums, Read up on prepping, and watch videos on them.

Perceived Skills Vs Real Skills.

Majority of people think that they are more skilled than they actually are. People read up on prepping, buy all the right gear. Pack a bug-out bag. And think they are ready.

A surprising number of people have never tested their skills or gear.

Never test new gear or skills far away from home. A new winter sleeping bag graded to -10c, test it in your backyard. Sleep outside for a couple of nights at -10c or lower to see if the product lives up to its claims.

You don’t want to be camping out in the wild, when a snowstorm blows in only to find out that your sleeping bag does not keep the cold out.

4 Stages Of Competency

To improve skills apply The Theory of Four Stages of Competency.

Unconscious Incompetence

A person sees a video on YouTube about primitive fire starting, on how to use a bow-drill to start a fire.

Conscious Incompetence

The person watches the video, and realizes that they need to learn this skill.

Conscious Incompetence

The person learns enough to make a bow-drill and start a fire with a lot of effort and trial and error.

Unconscious Incompetence

The person has mastered the art of starting a fire using the bow-drill method.

When it comes to prepping/survival, a surprising number of people are in the first 2 categories. And when the SHTF, it will be a little late to reach stage 4.

Run Drills

Try having an off-grid experience, hunker down at home, and simulate a SHTF scenario. Do NOT use any utilities for a week. No gas, water or electricity.

Practice skills by running drills. Start near to home if possible, in your garden/backyard.
Build a fire, cook over that fire, setup a shelter, build traps, plant vegetables and herbs. Want to know the basics about Fires, have a peek at The Key to Survival is a Good Fire.
Take a compass and map, and practice using it around your neighborhood, once you are confident, use it in parks.

Carry your fully loaded bug-out bag and take a walk around the streets for a few kilometers. Now try taking your bug-out bag for a hike. If that’s easy, try bugging out to your (BOL) bug-out location and surviving there for a few days using only the skills and gear you have with you. Always maintain safety protocols, and make sure a family member or friend knows your route and schedule.

Always Test Plan A

Plans are great, but having a plan that has been tested is much better. During drills people will realize what skills they are lacking and what skills need more practice to reach a level of unconscious competency.

Prepare A Contingency Plan

Contingency plans are essential, do not expect disasters to go as planned. Planning to bug-out in your car, what if roads are destroyed due to earthquake? Planning to bug-in, what happens if there is a forest fire coming your way? Have a plan B, and even better a plan C. But most important of all. Be adaptable.

Murphy’s Law

Remember no matter how good a plan may be, or how many times it has been tested, have a plan B and even better a plan C in place. Just in case.