Newbie looking for advise on where to start

[Patitur]

Hi there

After a previous false start I'm now wanting to focus on this preparedness lark as I've personally seen a number of people let down by the government system that they bought into ,literally for years, just when they needed it the most. It made me realise that the need to self insure is becoming ever more important so I throw myself open to your wisdom in the hope that I can help protect those that matter to me.

Cheers

P

[Arzosah]

Welcome, Patitur ... what kind of thing would you be prepping against, do you think? What are the risks in your area? That will tell you what part of the forum to focus on and read through, and decide what actions to take. Most people start by getting extra groceries, and more water - buy the food that you like, that doesn't take too much cooking. Thats very generic advice, and will stand you in good stead if the employer doesn't pay you one week, you get snowed in for 3 weeks, or space-alien-zombies land and try to take over the world! That last bit is just a hint to not obsess about it - you've found the forum now, you're getting things going, thats great! Just stick at it, you'll find your way.

[tigs]

hello Patitur and welcome to the forum

[pseudonym]

Hello and welcome to the Forum.

[Patitur]

Hi all. Thanks for the warm welcome. I think most of the people that have been affected by situations around me were predominantly financially based due to sickness and loss of income. Not so different to a financially meltdown just a bit more localised and I just wished I could help them more so I guess that is my main concern at the moment. In b the long term however it's slowly becoming my dream to be more self sufficient as I think that will be good for our kids too so that's also one of my aims.

Cheers again.

P

[nickdutch]

Maybe start with £100 of tesco value food tins, the kind of thing that you can incorporate into a recipe or eat straight when cooked up, a few 2Kg bags of lentils, a few 5 Kg bags of rice, a few stoves (being alcohol and camping gas), hot water bottles, first aid kit, tubes of tomato puree, kelley kettle (for water purification), camping kettle, cooking implements, blankets, warm clothes, and maybe any tools you can lay your hands upon. Then after that maybe move on to things that are more specialized, chains for the car wheels, chains for shoes, ibuprofen, cold cures, allergy tablets, asprin, a canner, a dehydrator, slingshot, and other fun toys.

Do it your way, all we can do is suggest.

[Patitur]

Wow. Thanks for the list and the early suggestions. I've started to get a good pantry going but my main next concern is water. We don't have any space in the house for bottles left and no garage so I was hoping to get a purifyer of some sort and source rain water or local streams if required. We do have a hot and cold water tank as part of our supply so that could be used for washing etc but drinking water is definitely an issue..

[nickdutch]

Wow. Thanks for the list and the early suggestions. I've started to get a good pantry going but my main next concern is water. We don't have any space in the house for bottles left and no garage so I was hoping to get a purifyer of some sort and source rain water or local streams if required. We do have a hot and cold water tank as part of our supply so that could be used for washing etc but drinking water is definitely an issue..

If you can get some cash together there are some UVC (Ultra Violet "C" radiation) devices on the market that are specifically designed for sterilizing water that you may already ave filtered the solid debris out of. Some are more like "pen" shaped devices (steripen) and another uses crank handle operation (no batteries) to power the UVC bulb / tube. Its called the "sidewinder" and although I haven't got one or tried one, the technology seems sound for small scale water sterilization after filtration. However, it wont get heavy metals and other evils out of the water, you might need to use something more filter based for that.