PreppingPingu wrote:I prep for social and ecomomic reasons. I prep for me and my immediately family. As mentioned in another thread, it was the unemployment bit that came true for our family. But I take seriously adverse weather, pandemics - (surely we are over due for one in our over crowed world?) and for any future ecomomic reasons. I say prep, but I use the term loosely as I suppose I dabble with prepping really. 3 months worth of food will help but I don't have that much water and I am not self-sufficient - would like to be - but am not self-sufficient from a fuel or food point of view. So I prep to make me feel better about myself and my life. I joined the forum to get ideas and information so I feel better prepared for what ever the future throws at me. (Thats part of the battle after all.) Another thing that I am preping for is to learn new skills or re-learn old skills lost in the modern way of life that in a SHtF senario will be useful once more.
I think you are on the right lines. I too have prepped for the here and now. That has happened for me and mine. Cool, we have resources. However, if REAL crap went down, my preps would still be relevant.
Good and bad comes in many guises I have learnt.
In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: It goes on.
Robert Frost.
Covid 19: After that level of weirdness ,any situation is certainly possible.
What are we prepping for? Well asides from all the eotwawki stuff we watch and research the likelihood of which has had us doing a little of it for years, in the way of survival/camping equipment, since my wife became disabled and I inherited the shopping/cooking etc. side of things, I continued the sensible over stocking of as many basics as is practical, simply from the perspective of not always being able to do it,(car breaks down, family gets flu, that type of thing) during those years on many occasion overstocking has enabled continued normality for us when supermarkets Mainly Tesco extra runs out of and lets us down on our preferred (basic value cheaper) product options, small inconvenience it may have been having to pay twice the price to wipe ones arse, slightly more so having cats that will not go in anything other than their usual litter, cheap cola, tea bags, no doubt all sounding familiar to you folks?
So expanding this to an imagined thus far scenario where we could not, or dare not, or would achieve nothing if we did go out of the door to procure provisions, for a given period of time, we stock enough stuff initially to last either a snowed in or no money scenario, (we never have been truly snowed in living this close to the coast, but have been effected by transport links being clogged or slowed by it, and have chosen to remain in as opposed to risking falling down fetching supplies we have enough to last of) hopefully very temporary a week or two to a month, baking our own bread and using powdered milk.
Then we have to consider what if things were worse, no money, no shops and no utilities, it would be a minor disaster (we are insured freezer-wise but that’s no help for the unusual calamity) to loose electricity, water, or drainage, less so in the short term gas, for more than a few hours without notice and 24 with it, to be screwed for simply flushing the toilet, or knowing that the sewers would clog anyway without power for the pumps in our locality after what may be only a short while, is something we should all consider how to endure for a week or two, so we needed plastic bags not just TP, and water storage.
So small disasters for the most part is all we can cover, unable to bug out due to illness, besides I have been out and about to many places, coming to the conclusion that getting away from others is not a realistic goal, not living close to the sea with an escape route which would mean crossing almost the entire city before being on our way, bugging out by road at least part or most of the way offers better chance, yet realistically in a SHTF scenario staying put, making allies, even fighting to the death are the only options, yet small disasters thus far have occurred and though by the skin of our teeth we have come through, which proves the sensibility of prepping, finding forums full of fellow preppers does much to restore my faith in my own sanity, prepping in any way you can is just like taking a raincoat in the UK… not an altogether bad idea.
I have a strategy, it's not written in stone, nor can it be, this scenario has too many variables, everything about it depends on those variables, being specific is not possible.
Personally I try not to think too much of the causes, but rather the effects. I find that if I start thinking about economic collapse or severe floods or civil unrest or whatever, it just gets me overly concerned that it's going to happen!
However, if I focus on the effects, such as no access to money, no grid electricity or whatever, it keeps things less emotional.
So for me I'm focusing on living without physical cash, without grid electricity and without easy access to essential supplies such as food and water, regardless of what causes them. Although my preference would be an alien invasion to be honest
I'm prepping for an economic collapse, i see more and more that we are in a downward spiral in markets and the cost of living rising. I see more and more people getting selfish and taking advantage. And that's just now, imagine when they are starving and cold.
Maddie_cat wrote:
But if it does go pear-shaped, I can see a societal collapse, - riots etc. Just look at how quickly the riots started last year and does anyone really remember why it started? If we are lucky, there will be sufficient superstructure to contain the riots but I suspect that as prices increase, riots will start all over the place leading to wholesale collapse.
That is the reason I prep - plus of course the imminent Zombie invasion!
couldn't agree with you more, and the zombie apocalypse is a running joke in my house to lighten the mood when prepping.. sadly the people at the archery club didn't find it half as amusing but they're all slightly far gone anyway so i'm not too worried what they think
Interesting thread! I was asked this question about 5 years ago and after thinking about it I said economic collapse. That wasn't specifically what I was prepping for, so I didn't truthfully answer the question, economic collapse was my perception of the greatest danger to the UK. I was proved right, the recession started shortly after and I, stupidly decided to ditch my job and go back to being self employed......
Our preps came into their own in the following 3 or 4 months as we were on a really limited budget. It was that period that persuaded the wife that my 'madness' had actually been something incredibly useful.
I started prepping because I enjoy it. It also makes financial sense, food prices arnt going to get any cheaper. Putting a few kilos a of rice into Mylar for 10 years, you might even make money in all honesty I prep for the worst, anything better than that is a bonus.
Hi,all, im prepping for hyper inflation and pandemic, the civil disruption will come with both of these.With the pandemic, the powers that be will quarrantine cities and whole parts of the country to try and stop the spread.{which will be pointless ie comuters and delivery drivers are up and down the country}. Im preparing to bug in for 2to 3 months if possible to get the worst over with, then move to my bug out area,which sadly is way behind in being prepared for long term use.Hyper inflation will see thousands if not millions starve, 44million alone are on food stamps in the states ,poverty is rife in this great country, and if the worse happened the government would give up trying to feed everybody,as it just is not possible, so best to keep mum about your prepping or your stocks could be taken.
