Survival Prepping for Beginners

Survival Prepping for Beginners -Why and How to Start Prepping?

Survival prepping for beginners starts with knowing the importance of prepping now to lay a foundation for preparedness.   Because of the current pandemic,  previous disease outbreaks, the Ebola Virus, H1N1 Flu, SARS,  and political and nuclear instability, you now know emergencies and disasters can happen anywhere, anytime.  It’s common sense to start prepping now.  Keep reading to learn how.

Some things to consider when SHTF( stuff hits the fan) is the availability of clean water; Water may be cut off, as well as gas and electricity supplies. Also, food shortages and lack of access to hospitals could occur. Each family member needs to start acquiring a survival mindset and survival training.

How to Start Prepping: 5 Things To Do Now for Any Emergency Situation

Preparing for any and every survival situation can be a daunting task. Where do you start? To make this easy, start with the easy stuff first. Here are a few suggestions. 

1. Gather essential documents.

• Bank information
• Birth certificates
• Credit cards
• Deed to your house
• Driver’s license
• Insurance
• Marriage license
• Passport, get if you don’t have
• Social security card
• Vehicle registration, if you have

Make sure you have them for yourself and everyone in your family. Make copies to keep in the bank.

Put the original in a fire-safe box inside a ready-to-go binder.

Ensure they are in a watertight zip lock bag, and put them in your binder in a sheet protector. Also, put your binder in a waterproof container.

2. Refill your gas tank when it’s half-empty.
It will be inconvenient, but imagine how awkward it will be if the gas stations run out of gas and the needle points to empty.

3. Build an emergency fund. Start saying your change every day. Put the pennies and others in two separate containers; this helps to start being organized.

Track where you spend your money and see if you can use free sources. Use your public library for books, magazines, and movies. Go digital for access to more libraries.

Do you need an HBO, Showtime, Starz, Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix subscription? Keep only one subscription, then rotate your membership. Designate an amount to save automatically from your monthly paycheck and increase it when possible.

4.  Create a survival library.  Learning survival skills gives you confidence, which helps maintain a positive mindset. Buy some survival books because you may not always have access to the internet to check for information. You can also print articles, laminate them, and keep them in a three-ring binder.

5.  Research where you live. What are some natural disasters that might happen where you live? Prepare accordingly.

Survival Prepping For Beginners -How to Start Prepping your first lines of defense

Your defense during a disaster is three levels deep.

1. The first consists of your survival instinct,
2. Your knowledge and skills of disaster preparedness
3. and the emergency supplies, tools, and equipment you’ve prepared in advance.

 Why is your will to live important in a survival situation?

Your survival instinct is your will to live. The more you understand what drives you and others as human beings, the more attention you will pay to prioritizing and fulfilling these needs in a survival scenario.

There are fundamental physical needs and safety needs.

Your physical needs are for water, food, and a stable internal environment, while your safety needs cover physical safety, health, and financial and resource security. These are needs that are primary in a survival scenario.

Psychological needs take into account our need for belonging and love, as well as self-esteem.

We need friends, family, intimate relationships, respect and feelings of accomplishment. What we will not do for ourselves, we will do so that others can survive or that we can make it home for our family.

Our last need is self-actualization.

We will do things to achieve self-fulfillment. We have to be creative and reach our potential. Preparing for survival forces us to be creative and learn new things to help us and our families prepare for emergencies.

 Knowing When You Should Be Bugging In or Bugging Out?

Another key aspect of prepping as a beginning is knowing if it’s safer to shelter in place, where you have supplies that you have gathered, a roof over your head, and possibly some creature comforts,  or is it better to evacuate with your supplies in your bug-out bag?

Survival Prepping for Beginners- Skills You Need Now

• Learn first aid

>>Check here for a guide to practical medicine for your household

A stocked first aid kit won’t do you much good if you don’t know how to use it. Take a first-aid and CPR cardiopulmonary resuscitation) class; look for free classes if money is tight. Performing CPR can save someone’s life.

• Get more exercise

Walk more; instead of the elevator, take the stairs. Pick an exercise and do it for 1-5 minutes during commercials or at the beginning of every hour when you are home. Survival prepping is not for couch potatoes.

The 3 Scenarios You Will Encounter During A Disaster

You and your family will experience three basic scenarios when disaster strikes.

1. You will stay inside your home until everything is over; we can call this bugging in.
2. The other two scenarios are forms of bugging out. You must leave your home to a designated area or find safety elsewhere in one situation.
3. For the last scenario, you are away from home and did not get the opportunity to return for any supplies.

Bugging in Basic Supplies

The basics of “bugging in” focus on storing food and water at home and gathering equipment.

Fresh food lasts briefly during a prolonged disaster, so start storing extra food.  Focus on canned and boxed items as well as dried or preserved foods.

10  quick tips for storing and maintaining your food stash at home

•  Start now. Buy an extra can when you are out shopping. Check the date to see when it will expire.
• Designate an area to store your supplies. Look for an elevated shelf or cupboard where the food will be fresh and far from direct sunlight.
•  Never store foods in open containers, plates, or bowls.  Use glass jars with covers that screw on(e.g., mason jars of different sizes).
• Containers and jars should be opened neatly and carefully.  This will make it possible for you to reseal them easily.
• Wrap leftover foods tightly in clear plastic. Place these wrapped parcels in containers with lids or covers.
•  Remove dry foods such as nuts and grains from their packaging. Transfer dry goods to larger, more durable containers with covers.
• Prepare a bag out bag with food and water. Replace the food items periodically, preferably every half year, so that 100% of the food will be usable during an emergency.
• Add a bottle of multivitamins to your food stash. This will ensure that your family will have adequate trace nutrients during a prolonged stay away from home.
• Inspect emergency food stash before consuming.  Use your sight and smell to determine the freshness of food if no expiration date is indicated.
•  Rationing food is necessary to prolong food supplies. Everyone should have at least one full meal during the day with plenty of calories daily to prevent sickness. Rationing smaller meals in the evening as activity winds down is easier.

How to produce clean drinking water during an emergency

A steady water source will become a primary concern in temporary shelters or prolonged time at home.

Here are some things to consider for making your water source potable and safe to drink.

• Disinfected or Purified water has sediment. There will be some bacteria and maybe residues left in your water.
• Boil water to kill bacteria. Boiling the water will kill most bacteria that can cause diarrhea and other diseases.  Boiling water does not remove solid sediments such as soil. If you notice visible contaminants, be sure to filter the water with several cloth layers before boiling.
• Purify water through distillation.  Pour water into a pot; place the lid of the pot upside down. Hang a cup from the pot’s handle. The evaporated water will distill and eventually drop back into the cup. The larger contaminants will not be able to evaporate along with the water.
• Unscented bleach may also be used to disinfect water if no other purifying method is available. The average bleach quantity needed is 6 -8 drops for every 1 gallon of water.
• Let the bleach perform its work for one hour before inspecting the water. If the water does not have a slight bleach scent, you may have to disinfect again with half as much bleach for another half hour before safely consuming the water.

How to Start Prepping for Survival, the Basic Equipment

• Buy fewer high-quality things than the cheap stuff that will fail when you need them most if on a budget. You can prep without much money, focus on DIY, do it yourself, and purchase second-hand equipment.
• Keep your bug-out bag equipment exclusively for your bug-out bag. Do not use this equipment because it is convenient. Always have your bag ready to grab and go.
• The equipment and items you should have in your bug-out bag focus on providing for your basic needs and getting back home.  These would include first-aid items, water purification tablets, a portable filtration system, fire starting, signaling equipment, and things to obtain food and build a shelter.

The following videos discuss additional items that you should have in your shelter-in-place kit.

Bugging Out Basics

You have to consider both contingencies. Nothing guarantees you will be able to stay in your home. If you have to bug out and leave your home, have the following prepared in advance.

• Plan evacuation routes
If you have to evacuate, designate a spot, know how to get there, meet your loved ones; also, and know which ways you can take out of town. Have several maps highlighted with routes that are generally not crowded.

Also, have a way to plan a way to get home during a disaster. Be aware of and become familiar with your surroundings. You have to know your way around. Travel different routes to the same destination and pay attention to how trafficked they are.

• Conduct emergency drills.

These drills can focus on getting out of the house and meeting at a designated place if there is a fire. The more you practice, the less your loved ones will likely panic when there is a real disaster.

Try to have fun. Come up with a different type of disaster each time. Have a designated practice time, maybe every season or even every other month.

• Have Your bug out bag disaster kits prepared

>>Click here for your emergency kit

Your Bug Out Bag should be a complete survival system for your basic needs. They should also contain your documents, medication, survival tools, and emergency supplies.

These supplies should include familiar food and water purification drops, lighter, waterproof matches, rope, a signaling mirror, a compass, laminated maps, rope, fish hooks, a knife, a first aid kit, a solar blanket, and needle and thread.

Ideally, there should be two places with survival kits: the ones at home in your closet for each family member and an emergency disaster kit that is always in your car.

Make sure you are familiar with the weight of your bug-out bag and practice carrying it.

Also, consider that you may not even have the luxury of being at home when disaster strikes. In this case, you will not have a bug-out bag with you, but you can keep some items on you or in your everyday bag.

These can include a multipurpose utility tool, a flashlight, and solar-powered or mechanical equipment turned by hand.

Away from Home, Keep a Bug Out Bag in Your Car or at Work

>>Click here for emergency kits for car and work

If you encounter a scenario where you cannot go back home for your bug-out bag, you will need to prepare a smaller one to stay in your car or your desk at work.  If these are not options, carry multipurpose equipment in your bag whenever you leave the house.

Survival Prepping from Beginner to Expert Survivalist

Now that you know you have to start prepping for emergencies, you need to continue with your growth mindset. It is fun learning new skills. Being outside, trying out new equipment, and socializing as part of a group and community is fun. These will only strengthen your will to survive when a disaster happens.

When you learn these advanced survival skills, you go from a beginner to an expert survivalist, boosting your sense of belonging and self-esteem.

• Prepping is better when you connect with like-minded people.
Try to take classes with your family and connect with others through local groups and clubs. Look for survival classes, amateur radio clubs, and hiking clubs in your area.

• Learn Land Navigation and Map Reading
These skills are not just for Boy Scouts. Anyone can get lost in any terrain and have to find their way out. You must learn the basics, navigate the land with a map and compass, and navigate by other means.

• Learn Canning and Food Preservation
While many people store canned or boxed food for disasters, you can also explore canning and preserving food for later use. Plus, homemade preserved food is much tastier and healthier than processed food.

• Learn to Garden
>>Check Here To Learn Gardening

Learning gardening may be something you do if you have land or a big backyard, but you can garden in containers, and some vegetables, herbs, and salads grow fast; if you are evacuating in a car, place one or two container plants in your vehicle. Also, gardening helps you recognize edible plant foods.

Conclusion

Survival Prepping for Beginners- How to Start Prepping took you from the initial realization that disasters can happen to anyone at any time to the importance of learning and practicing survival skills and continuing to plan for any future survival scenario.

I believe you will enjoy the journey once you have started to prepare.  I hope to see you reading future articles.