Calling all female preppers

[preppingsu]

To be honest the reason must of us prep will not sell your paper, or any paper/magazine etc.

The reasons are very boring and mundane but to us probably have been very real reasons.

The floods of 2007 left thousands of households without running water for weeks, bottled water was limited, water bowsers although in every area where vandalised, pee'ed in etc so rendered useless.
Guess what? I now store bottled water, enough to cook/ wash/drink for my family.

Plenty of people are losing jobs, or are between jobs after retraining. Money is scarce, but bills need to be paid. Some extra food stocks put aside for moments like these take the pressure off and ensures the family are fed.

Preppers learn new skills like gardening, ensuring healthy home grown food for their family. Self sufficiency at its best. Preppers learn alternatives ways of cooking. Cooking over a fire pit or clay oven is a great social things but is very useful if there is a power cut. How many people a few Christmases ago couldn't cook their Turkey? I wouldn't have a problem like that, a power cut wouldn't spoil my Christmas Day.

If I walked down the street you wouldn't look twice. Middle aged woman! shopping with teenage daughter. I'm not dressed in camo, I don't carry a great big backpack but I am situationally aware of what is going on around me and ensure that my daughter is too and she knows how to take care of herself.


Oh I do have a big kick arse knife though! (But I teach Forest School so I need one).

So, that info isn't really going to sell the paper is it?

[Plymtom]

Funny when the Rambo types get mentioned, turns out the camo stuff is hard wearing and cheap, most fo the ones featured on that Preppers UK thing have gotten together into a pretty big youtube community now, portrayed as lone wolves but it turns out they aren't so different to the norm, a bit bushcrafty maybe, yet highly social creatures with normal lives by the looks of it, makes you wonder whether the American preppers are anything like as bad as they are painted IRL also, when you bear in mind the scale of their disasters?

I was hoping some of our female members would pop along and tell it like it is oh and it should be taken into account that we do speculate about major events here from time to time, but we all know it's mostly slight chances of the worst cases ever happening.

[preppingsu]

oh and it should be taken into account that we do speculate about major events here from time to time, but we all know it's mostly slight chances of the worst cases ever happening.

What, you mean, like, ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!

[pseudonym]

What, you mean, like, ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!

Now you've gone and done it

[Decaff]

I'm female, I do my best to prep for my family. If I don't look out for "us" no one else is going to. The thought of "relying on someone else to provide for us" is not acceptable to me. I need to know for my own peace of mind that I can feed us healthy food, be able to cook that food, keep us warm, have safe clean water to hand. I was made redundant (NHS) and having food stocks kept us going until we got used to our reduced income, without it we have gone without.

I like to keep as many of the old traditions alive as I can in my home, sewing, preserving food, fixing and recycling rather than buying new as a first resort. Look back to your grandparents younger days and you will see that there is nothing "weird" about putting something by, think of how hard it was for women to provide food for their families with ration books. Today, shops are cleared out in hours with any mention of bad weather on its way, no bread, no milk. Having the ability to provide these basic staples is common sense to me.

I have no guns, no Rambo tools to speak of, no camo clothing. You wouldn't look twice at me out and about, I look like everyone else getting on with daily living, but aware that it doesn't take much to send the masses into a panic, fighting over bread and milk as deliveries are stuck due to the weather, whilst they panic, I make my way home knowing that I am able to provide for my loved ones, because I thought "what if..."

[Alloneword]

I'm female, I do my best to prep for my family. If I don't look out for "us" no one else is going to. The thought of "relying on someone else to provide for us" is not acceptable to me. I need to know for my own peace of mind that I can feed us healthy food, be able to cook that food, keep us warm, have safe clean water to hand. I was made redundant (NHS) and having food stocks kept us going until we got used to our reduced income, without it we have gone without.

I like to keep as many of the old traditions alive as I can in my home, sewing, preserving food, fixing and recycling rather than buying new as a first resort. Look back to your grandparents younger days and you will see that there is nothing "weird" about putting something by, think of how hard it was for women to provide food for their families with ration books. Today, shops are cleared out in hours with any mention of bad weather on its way, no bread, no milk. Having the ability to provide these basic staples is common sense to me.

Well said if i say so myself.

All1

[jansman]

"Calling all female preppers". I thought all females prepared by default. Most households are run by the women. Mine is! When my Wife was at home looking after the girls in particular, she managed the money I brought in. Made sure the girls had school uniform, the pantry was full, budgeted for all the bills, etc. She still does.

I do not even know how to access our bank account online. I needed a new tyre yesterday for my car. I paid cash for it. When I told Her Maj she reminded me we have a budget for car maintenance, and refilled my wallet. I was rather surprised at what was in the fund!

Women have always been 'Preppers' if that is the label that must be used. My own feeling is that journalists and the general population find 'our' way of life interesting ( more likely amusing) because in the last couple of generations, we have become lazy. We have had it easy, too easy. The shops are full, it is all cheap as chips. The State has always had full teets for the unfortunate to suck on. Not anymore.

The World is a different place now, and regardless of politics, race, gender and all that, you are going to be more responsible for yourself. That alone is why we are the butt of jokes in my opinion. The future is a scary place, and Joe and Joanne Public mock what they fear or don't understand.They have no family memory of how to look out for yourself, someone else does that, don't they?

[Plymtom]

Got to say I'm no Johnny Rambo, but I do enjoy shooting and archery( in fact if it fires something I'm there) but for good clean family fun and as a social activity, I'm no soldier and would feel a fraud to wear camo of the British army kind despite it's affordability and practicality, I do like the real tree/ duck dynasty/ hunter's look though and confess my crossbow is that colour but as yet I do not hunt, and I do not see shooting as a male domain, it's a family activity I partake in with both sexes, and would encourage more women to take it up, they tend to be bloody good at it
As far as prepping goes you could say in some areas my family are better placed than the average in terms of domestic stock, which has saved problems over the last two decades and the reason I would call us preppers, for as a carer if I get ill no shopping would get done, if the car broke down it would be harder, if there were fuel strikes etc, we could manage without a panic

What, you mean, like, ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!

Actually no although Rabies is a remote, very remote chance of going in that direction, Zombies are either entertaining fiction, or far worse, how people might treat one another in the worse case scenarios and I for one wouldn't want to have to go down that road in all honesty, I mean peak oil, climate change, civil unrest, and the hard times any major disaster would bring about most of which are unlikely to be a national event if we continue to work the problems, in any event asides from taking care of my family I would want to be a part of the solution, to reach out, muck in and help should things ever go south, all our conversations lead to the unavoidable fact that eventually we need to be a part of a community, we cannot disappear down a hole, and emerge in a brave new world unscathed, my mind set is to have options in any scenario, I'm a bit cynical so feel sure if I were to settle on the belief in a certain scenario happening, then something else will get me

[itsybitsy]

Hello - I am a journalist at The Times and am looking for female preppers in the UK. I have read so much about prepping but there's an assumption in most of the material I have read that all preppers are men. I don't think this is actually the case and I am wondering whether female preppers have a different outlook or concerns than male preppers. Presumably men and women have different requirements also. If you are a woman and can speak to me, please get in touch. My name is Stefanie Marsh and work at The Times as a feature writer.

Thank you. My email address is stefaniemarsh@yahoo.com.

All the best,

Stefanie

Hello, and welcome, Stephanie. I think you'll see, now that we've allowed the thread to run and evolve for a while, that we are a normal bunch of people, going about our normal business. We simply have a much broader outlook than most and a healthy cynicism about the central/local governments ability to maintain a robust infrastructure for the populous in a disaster situation, or even a few days of adverse weather (which usually brings gridlock and empty supermarket shelves!).

[preppergb]

My wife is a nursing sister/ nurse prescriber / nurse practitioner and a rampant prepper, but she has no interest in playing silly buggers in the woods, my daughter in law is a Journalist at a regional newspaper & a college lecturer on media studies, AND a prepper who also has no interest in running around the woods dressed in cammo.