Posted: 12/18/2008 1:29:54 AM EDT
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We have dozens of thread about what to do to be prepared. What to aquire, practice & who to learn from.
This thread is intended to help other learn from your mistakes. What doesn't work when it's needed? What have you purchased to prep that fell well short of expectations? Last summer I bought a couple twin packs of LED flash lights from Harbor Freight. They were on sale for $2.59 with batteries. I figure at that price they were worth a try. Two of the four fail. They won't turn on. I work with electronics & I figured out what was going on but even after repairing what was wrong, they failed again. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93712 In the pantry there are a couple things that haven't met my expectations. One I just discovered last evening. East and West brand curry flavored Cous Cous is just plain AWFUL. It tastes bad & smells worse. Other flavors have been great especially the roasted garlic flavor. Another, Keystone canned Heat & Serve beef is meh, okay but not high on the list of favorites. Keystone brand Heat & Serve canned chicken is great. That will be added to the pantry when it's on sale. |
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What doesnt work when needed?
Mental fortitude. People panic pretty easily, no amount of gear or preps matter if your a spaz, if you cant make quick decisions, if you cant remain calm, if you cant keep a level head on your shoulders. Most ppl are really gear dependant, rarely do ppl learn and/or practice to do with less. I think this is big downfalls, I rarely see anyone really push themselves. Has there EVER been a thread or campout thread where someone went out with NOTHING but a knife or very limited gear? Not that I can remember. What doesnt work when needed?
Usually spouses and other family members. This is critical, but it is an area that ppl on here (the SF) have been trying to deal with from what ive read. Everyone needs to be onboard, if they arent, atleast they need to let you be in charge and listen and not get in the way, but actually be helpful, even if they dont understand what is going on, etc. What doesnt work when needed?
For me personally, it would be organizational skills. Im pretty well organized,but when doing trips, weather it be hiking or 4x4, I over complicate things by carrying way too much stuff. How is this a problem, 9 times out a 10, its more of a pain in the ass to dig thru everything to find something, so you end up doing without. Might as well not have brought so much. This has happened numerous times. Take what you need and only a lil extra, not the whole kit and kaboodle. |
I think that is a big prep mistake as well. Loading up on special foods that you dont normally eat (MH, MREs, etc) and expect other family members to eat them. We all know this stuff leaves alot to be desired in the taste department. You (we) need to find foods that everyone will moderatly enjoy and every so often have some fun and do the MRE or MH meal at home. Get everyone use to them more or less. When picking out foods, only buy one or two to try. Just cuz something shitty tasteing is on sale, doesnt mean ppl will eat it come SHTF. would sux to starve when there is pantry full of food. And believe me, if someone doesnt like something, they would rather starve it seems. 
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Quoted:
Canned Corned Beef Hash 
Picke up a 3 pack at Sam's.I thought it would be like what I have got before at resturants. Not so. It is like the cheapest can of dog food. I take that back, dog food is better. It went to the food bank You do realize that you have to cook the hash, right? For a long time, actually, if ya like it crispy. |
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What have you purchased to prep that fell well short of expectations? Grunding emergency radios. Bought 4 - one for my car, the wifes car, and two for the house. 2 do not work (one in the house, one in the car). They will not hold a charge and even after putting fresh AA btteries in them, they still will not turn on. Av. |
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Another way one could look at this topic is how vital it is to test your preps before you stock heavy in that item, or before you find yourself actually need to use them.
I bought one of each type of SPAM they make, original, low fat, turkey. I found I really do not like SPAM. And this is from someone who has eaten Monkey and Dog while deployed overseas in the 1980's! I stock alot of the canned chicken, tuna, and ham... |
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Rural King, hand crank cell phone recharger/light, thing is a piece of crap. Flimsy plastic gear strips if you look at it funny, it'd take about a full day's cranking to recharge your phone.
NCStar CETME scope mount, Chinese potmetal piece of shit. There's no way to tighten it sufficiently to keep it on the receiver without breaking off the claws. Should have known better on that one, my skinflint ways bit me again. |
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Always stock what you eat on a regular basis, makes the other crap you will have to do less of a pain if you don't have to do it while your digestive system adapts or rebels to the new food you just tried. Try out all of your equipment on at least a couple day camping trip (keep backups of essential items just in case). It is best to try out something at home to see 1.if you like it 2.if it likes you. As you get older you find your digestive tract is more picky and you have to change your eating habits to suite.
Then there is the idea that when you are starving even dog food would be appreciated. |
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Quoted:
I'm glad I only bought 1 can of spam to try before I included it in my preps. lol. i brought home a can to try and my wife informed me that she does not do spam. evidently she ate it a lot growing up. she said she's now averse to it and starts to get the dry heaves just thinking about it. i told her, i'd buy more. 
what has not worked for me has been cheap gas cans. the blitz "self venting" ones w/ two handles are a POS IMHO. they do not self vent. and the little yellow cap that goes on the nozzle always gets lost. things from harbor freight have been hit or miss. the chicago electric stuff has worked, but some of the other brand electric tools have not (pressure washer and sump pump to name the most frustrating). |
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I have seen and tried way too many "firestarters" that were either overly complicated, too expensive or just didn't work.
FWIW- I have found keeping a cheap BIC lighter and a 35mm film canister filled with Vasilene soaked cotton balls to be MY best option. I have about two dozen of these combinations between my vehicles, tackle box, BOB, hunting gear, tools boxes, jacket pockets, etc. |
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Canned Corned Beef Hash
Picke up a 3 pack at Sam's.I thought it would be like what I have got before at resturants. Not so. It is like the cheapest can of dog food. I take that back, dog food is better. It went to the food bank You do realize that you have to cook the hash, right? For a long time, actually, if ya like it crispy. Are you talking about the Hormel corned beef? I thought it tasted pretty much exactly like canned Alpo dog food, too. Not that I've ever tried Alpo, but it looked and smelled exactly like it. You need to cook that stuff? Then what does it taste like? |
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In the firearms catagory of preps I found that only factory pistol magazines are worth the $$$.
I had a Beretta 96 with one factory mag. I bought a cheap MecGar (or whatever it was called) to try out since at the time I couldn't find anything from the factory for less than $40. Junk! Pure junk. I held out and soon found a guy selling 5 used factory mags for a decent price. Don't cheap on the magazines! |
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My mistakes:
1) Buying food I don't eat. I don't like tuna. But its cheap and its protien. I bought a fair bit. Since I do not like it, I never eat it, it goes way past expiration date and I chuck it out. I know buy only food I eat, so I can rotate regularly. No waste. 2) Buying cheap equipment because its cheap. Example: Knives and flashlights. I have a bunch of cheap knives that look good. The metallurgy sucks. They don't take or hold a good edge. I then bought a 'real' knife (S30V steel) for $120. It was worth every dime. Ditto for axes: Forget anything at Walmart, homedepot, lowes, etc. Buy a Gransfors Brux. 3) Trying to own every caliber in the world. I have owned literally dozens of calibers. .22 LR, .22 Mag, .218 Bee, .310 Martini Cadet, .222, .223, etc etc etc. The end result is mayhem. You end up with a small amount of ammo for each rifle, but NONE of it shoots to the same point of impact. I still own a substantial # of calibers, but those are for hunting reasons. Survival firearms (and therefore firearms for which I deliberately stock large amounts of ammo) are limited in caliber and type. Find a platform (AR, AK, whatever). Stock parts, mags, and ammo. Buy your ammo by the 1000. 1000 rounds of the same ammo (ie. Winchester White Box 55 gr) is MUCH more useful than 100 rounds of this, 200 rounds of that... Similarly, one 8# jug of Winchester 748 is more useful to me than 16 half empty one-lb cans of assorted everything from Bullseye and Unique to H4831...... 4) Focusing on the extreme instead of the expected. An invasion by the russians possible (but unlikely). A three week power outage and small scale spike in crime is not nearly so dramatic but far more likely. Don't prepare for World War Three until you'l adequately prepared for storms, floods, layoff, job loss, illness, etc. |
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My mistakes:
1) Over-estimating how much food I have on hand. Lots of shelves full of canned goods is a reassuring sight......but you don't really know how much food you have until you sit down, take inventory and figure out how many meals you can deliver. 2) Losing focus. I'm not rich and don't have a trust fund. Consequently, when I buy one thing, I can't (or have to wait) to buy another. Sometimes I don't always follow the plan. For example, I recently bought an expensive meat grinder. While that item has utility (not like I bought a big screen TV  ), buying it doesn't get me any further along with my tractor fund either. Which brings me to......
3) Failing to distinguish between "I want it" and "I need it." I'm sometimes guilty of spending money on things just because I want them........while bullshitting myself into believing I "need" them. I'm a lot better about that than I was at one time......but I still fall into that trap now and then. |
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In the firearms catagory of preps I found that only factory pistol magazines are worth the $$$. I had a Beretta 96 with one factory mag. I bought a cheap MecGar (or whatever it was called) to try out since at the time I couldn't find anything from the factory for less than $40. Junk! Pure junk. I held out and soon found a guy selling 5 used factory mags for a decent price. Don't cheap on the magazines! Actually MecGar makes all "factory" Beretta mags and many other OEM mags including CZ, Walther and XD. I believe they are owned by Beretta. but you are correct I have never trusted ProMag, Trip-K, USA mags or any other aftermarket manufacturer. |
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Loading up on special foods that you dont normally eat (MH, MREs, etc) and expect other family members to eat them. I only stock up on the items that the family has tried and likes. As you've said, there's no point in having ten cases of "X" if nobody will eat it because it tastes like canned ass. As I expand the variety, I buy a can or two of whatever, we have a taste-test dinner one night trying a variety of things, and plan accordingly from there. (If the items being tested are too bad, we always have a pizza in the freezer for just such emergencies!)
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In the firearms catagory of preps I found that only factory pistol magazines are worth the $$$. I had a Beretta 96 with one factory mag. I bought a cheap MecGar (or whatever it was called) to try out since at the time I couldn't find anything from the factory for less than $40. Junk! Pure junk. I held out and soon found a guy selling 5 used factory mags for a decent price. Don't cheap on the magazines! Actually MecGar makes all "factory" Beretta mags and many other OEM mags including CZ, Walther and XD. I believe they are owned by Beretta. but you are correct I have never trusted ProMag, Trip-K, USA mags or any other aftermarket manufacturer. This could very well be. It's been years since that mag and I'm not totaly sure who made it. All I know was this was NOT a factory mag. First time out it jammed like 4 times trying to empty 10 rounds. It has been the only gun related item I ever threw in the trash. |
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-Bought a couple flats of canned corn. on sale, but i never ate it, threw it out.
-cheap survival "trinkets" like waterproof matches, match cases little horse shit 1st aid kits. i bought them on sale, but in reality they're all junk, and im better served by kitchen matches in vac sealed bags. -Rival brand vac seal bags. wait for the food saver ones to come on sale. I bought the rival ones once, and they are alot thinner, and my dehydrated jerky kept poking holes in the bag. -cheap battery jump starters i used to have more of a tendency to buy cheap, but now its only save until i can buy it nice |
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I'm of two minds on the stock what you eat school of thought.
On the one hand, it makes sense, but not necessarily practical, especially if refrigeration becomes an issue. On the other, what you or I might turn up our noses at today, when we have options and the luxury to be picky will seem like manna from heaven when faced with real hunger. |
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Quoted:
Canned Corned Beef Hash
Picke up a 3 pack at Sam's.I thought it would be like what I have got before at resturants. Not so. It is like the cheapest can of dog food. I take that back, dog food is better. It went to the food bank Buy a can of hormel corn beef and a bag of hasbrowns. put em in a big skillet and add some oil. Fry it up. 100X better than the canned hash |
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CB Walkie Talkies
The HTs run though batteries like crap through a goose. And they need about 8 fresh batteries at a time. Even better, their effective range, when worn on the belt is about 100 meters. On a good day. FRS radios have been a major leap forward in progress. Aguila "Shorty" 12-ga. slugs These were a great idea when they came out. Or so it seemed. Until you tried to use them in your semi-auto and they cycle about 50% of the time. And in your pump guns, if you have a skeletonized elevator, you're in for a lot of fun. Sure, you can get a dozen rounds in your extended magazine, but you'll also be loading a half-dozen malfunctions. All is not lost though. They are great malfunction training aids, because they will generate all sorts of nasty malfunctions. Once you've had some training, these will keep you sharp and improve your skills clearing malfunctions. "Foldable" plastic 5-gallon water containers. 
Yeah, those. I bought a half-dozen of these to supplement my existing conventional "cubes". Had em in the garage attic for a few years. Decided to take one out to carry some water for some purpose or another. It leaked. Seems the plastic fails where it folds up on itself in the corners. Every last one of them had the same failure. Some where bigger holes than others, but they all leaked. Badly. There's three mistakes I made in my preps. Let them serve as a lighthouse for others. John |
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I'm glad I only bought 1 can of spam to try before I included it in my preps. 
how can you not like SPAM? i demand that you apologise to SPAM this instant! (walks away mumbling about you not eating spam)
Yeah what the hell man!!!! Spam was developed by Athena to give Apollo extra strength, and was actually Samson's secret food to stay alive (see, they even preped back then) after that woman cut his hair too!!!!!! Seriously, I have to go thru my preps every year to make sure that its al still up to date. And every year we have 'preps meals' cooked by daddy, to make sure we have stored food that everyone will eat. Sean |
| I will take slight offense at the dig at Mountain House. They are actually not too bad, but I did try some before I bought any real amount. So far the spaghetti, lasagna and beef stroganoff are all I have tried, but I wouldn't mind them too much. They are not restaurant quality, but they certainly aren't going to be thrown away. (At least by me) YMMV |
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I'll start by reiterating what some other posters have mentioned:
- Collapsible water bags. Junk. I bought some and tested one to see how it worked. Leaked within a day. I still keep them for temporary moves, but they can't be counted on for storage longer than a day or two. - Buying food you don't normally eat or because it is on sale or you have a coupon. FAIL. I did this for Y2K and ended up with a lot of canned goods that went past expiration. Try it first, if you like it stock it and rotate it. - Letting batteries sit in electronic items. I've lost a flashlight or two because I left batteries in and they corroded out to the point of ruining the flashlight, etc. - O2 absorbers need to be used in one shot. I tried storing some in a sealed ball jar for a few weeks and they did degrade quite a bit. I tripled up and they did work, just not as well as fresh out of the pack. If you aren't using all at once, vacuum seal the remainder. Ball jar OK for no more than a week IMO. |
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My mistakes: 1) Over-estimating how much food I have on hand. Lots of shelves full of canned goods is a reassuring sight......but you don't really know how much food you have until you sit down, take inventory and figure out how many meals you can deliver. 2) Losing focus. I'm not rich and don't have a trust fund. Consequently, when I buy one thing, I can't (or have to wait) to buy another. Sometimes I don't always follow the plan. For example, I recently bought an expensive meat grinder. While that item has utility (not like I bought a big screen TV ), buying it doesn't get me any further along with my tractor fund either. Which brings me to......
3) Failing to distinguish between "I want it" and "I need it." I'm sometimes guilty of spending money on things just because I want them........while bullshitting myself into believing I "need" them. I'm a lot better about that than I was at one time......but I still fall into that trap now and then. The flip side of this is underestimating how much nutritional balance you have stocked. Myself, starches and proteins are fine, but I definitely need more fruit and vegetables for long term prep storage. At least I recognize the problem within my preps. Some posts from people on here seem too obsessed with storing starches (since they are usually cheap), forgetting about nutritional balance. Not everyone is guilty of this, but it does pay to be wary of going off the deep end with certain foodstuffs, while being light in the others. Nutritional variety improves morale as well as overall health. 
Me too. (Probably most of us on here, if everyone is honest with themselves.) Edited for clarity. |
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Water in commercial containers, the milky plastic ones like milk jugs, doesn't work for long.
Banquet One Box meals aren't real tasty. Mary Kitchen makes the best roast beef hash I know of, but a little Lawry's and a little garlic make it even better. Treet > Spam. Canned chili ain't Skyline, but diced onions and grated sharp cheddar, melted, make it pretty damn good. |
Cheap tools . 
From wooden handles that are made of a weak wood that's over soaked in varnish to look like a heavier wood ,to tools that are spray painted with some silver crap but say "chrome plated " on the side . I'll only buy tools made by brands I'm familiar with from now on ,an I'll follow that up with some reliability testing fo each purpose . Getting stuck in deep snow and broke down with a shovel that broke to easily , ratchet that broke ,wrenches that were peeled and rusted after only a month , cheap batteries in a light that died off quickly,ad in an area of no cell phone service can be a learning experience . As well as a long cold walk . |
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I have 2 related to water storage:
Years ago we made up an earthquake kit in a big igloo cooler. It included 2, 1 gallon jugs of water. They split open after a few months and ruined everything in the kit. I later bought some of the Reliance brand aquatainers (they're roughly shaped like a jerry can, turquoise plastic). They split at the seams and slowly leaked out. Then there were some cheap coghlan's brand candles that wouldn't stay lit because the wick was too small. The flame drowned in its own wax puddle. |
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1. If you find your food is nearing the expiration date give it away to a food bank or shelter. They will use it up quickly. There is nothing worse then wasting food so don't do it.
2. While there are foods I would not eat given a choice when it comes down to food I may not like and hunger I'm not going to go hungry. 3. Spices and hot sauce can make anything taste good. |
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I to some extent will stock some stuff because I don't really like it but I will eat it. This is great for stuff with a long shelf life because even in hard times it is there to eat when needed since I did not wander in looking for something I like to eat and eat my preps yet again.
This is not much of a problem these days, but it used to be very effective when money was tight. The biggest thing I have somewhat learned is to really look and search about stuff before getting it. If I don't know about something then I tend to go with the expensive option since they generally work. But depending on what you want your water storage container to do spending money on a scepter military water container vs. the 7 gallon blue aquatainer at walmart is a lot of money. For storing water at home several of the aquatainers work well for me. For in the vehicle I want some of the scepter military versions but have been too cheap to spend the money so far. You have to seperate out the people who never use stuff when running searches about a product but for the most part I would have been way ahead today if I had just spent money for quality the first time around. |