Posted: 10/16/2013 12:46:53 PM EDT
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Prepper mindset-lifestyle changes
This is about something I feel is important and people I run into ask me about sometimes, so just trying to organize thoughts here, and write it all down so I can e-mail/post it and not blather on. Prepper mindset = An everyday lifestyle change, just a few simple concepts really, but plenty of examples. So i'll just list some that we observe and hopefully that gets the idea across better than I can explain it, and others chime in with their habits. Like most preppers, we have stored food and water, defense equipment, meds etc. But that's not what this is about, that subject has been covered pretty completely already. But prepping is not just about accumulating supplies and learning new skills like canning or gardening or building things. This is about everyday habits, active-mindset stuff. Gas: The first simple thing that probably everydody already knows and observes. Don't run on empty before you fill, gas up/top off when you get down to 3/4 or even 7/8 of a tank, so you'll always have plenty. Buy extra gas cans, they can be found frequently at flea markets cheap, keep them full with a couple of ounces of gas stabilizer added, change out the gas in the cans yearly so it's as fresh as possible. Laundry: Here's one a lot of people don't think about, a veteran housewife will usually keep all the clothes in the house clean at all times for the most part, but folks without washer/dryer that have to utilize laundromat, or even a lot of single folks who have them in-house, will not wash until everything is dirty. But if the power goes out and water goes off, washing clothes will turn into a real pain, so why not start off with everything clean, clean laundry is a real luxury. So wash a load every time one builds up, don't wait for everything to pile up. Dishes: Same thing, don't let a nasty stinky batch of dishes sit, just suck it up and wash after you are done eating, every time, only takes a minute. Food shopping: Sure, we all have stash food, but we also have "regular" food, the stuff we keep in the fridge and on the shelves, and no reason not to have extra here too, plus it's a ton cheaper to shop when you don't need to, this is a hard thing for some to wrap their heads around, and they look at me like i'm crazy when I say i'm going to shop the local mom-and-pop grocery store instead of the big-box down farther, but here's the thing: I don't NEED anything ever. That's the simple deal, we always have everything we need already, we are at a point of equilibrium, so I only buy what's on sale, and when it's a really good sale, I buy a lot. The small grocery store are frequently more likely to have a higher discount on the sale items than the big-box stores, the big-boxes average better prices across the board, and sometimes they have good sales too, but it pays to shop the local store at least once a week. Buy a bunch of the stuff when it's on sale, and it's very likely you'll still have some until it goes on sale again. Everything eventually goes on sale, and multiple times throughout a year. If you are completely out of a product and it's not on sale, then just buy enough to get by, dollar-cost averaging works. And the bonus besides drastically reduced food costs, is a doubling or tripling of the immediately available food and other household good supply in your house at all times. Weather: Don't ever have to ask, just know, several days in advance, keep a weather widget on your home and work computers, phones, and tablets. Get in the habit of checking extended forecast twice a day. Parking your car, parking your butt: The people closest to whatever building you are in are gonna clog things up real fast as they panic, so unless you are right by the door inside whatever structure you are in, park at the outside area of a parking lot with nothing but a curb between you and getting away from a multi-car pile-up inside a parking lot. The extra walk is good exercise, get in the habit of doing that, take the stairs instead of the elevator unless you like being stuck in closed areas when the power goes out. If you are in a restaurant or anywhere else for that matter, try to sit close to the door always, and your back to a wall is always better than sitting in the middle. Plate glass windows make for good viewing, but also make hellish shrapnel, go outside and catch the view, but sit elsewhere while you are inside. Hyper-Awareness: This means condition yellow, not condition orange or red, and not freaky paranoia, this means living in the moment, the right-here right-now, it means expecting the unexpected and not standing there in dis-belief paralyzed and unable to act. It means when the lights go out and everything goes dark, you smile because you've prepared and have your EDC flashlight out in a split-second. It means you notice everything. It is not a condition that wears on you, that sleep-walking oblivion daze that people walk around in, fully absorbed in whatever they are doing on their damn smart phone, is what wears on you. Awareness is on the contrary, a very joyful experience, when the birds stop singing in the forest, you know something is up, perhaps an imminent event, or maybe a predator you need to be ready for...but just prior to that, you were listening to the birds singing....get it? Two is one and one is none: Hey you just got a brand new battery for your car, awesome. What's gonna happen if that one got made on Friday right before the 5:00 whistle blew? Two of everything essential, all vehicles should be rigged with a spare battery, it can literally mean life or death, just do it, don't go cheap and don't procrastinate, when a battery goes bad, you switch over to the spare and drive straight to the auto parts store for another. Practice makes perfect: Ever had 40-50 bucks to spend? Got a couple dollars and 30 minutes a week you can spare? Then why in the world would you NOT use that tiny investment of time and money to buy a BB gun and use it to keep your shooting skills sharp? Shooting practice is mandatory, owning a gun does not make you a good shot anymore than owning a guitar makes you a musician. BB's are cheap, and acquiring a target and pulling a trigger is the same regardless of what you shoot. And I don't mean buying a 200 dollar single-shot air rifle and squatting on a benchrest, I mean a cheap multi or single pump, shooting offhand, and repeating as quickly as possible until muscle memory is learned and you become a solid snap-shooter. And then continue to practice every single week, remember, this is a lifestyle change. Cash is king: So don't keep all your bones in the bank. Lots of different ways the electronic money system can go down, and stay down for a while, doesn't mean it won't be back up at some point and doesn't mean everything is going to go completely to hell. But what it does do is render your plastic useless, if vendors remain open, they will still take cash, so have a stash. Keep some on your person and in other places. Keep a spare 20 in the car somewhere for emergencies, in your hide-a-key box is a good place (you do have one of those, right? Because you already know it's dumb not to have a spare readily available in an emergency, one is none and all that.) Howdy neighbor: Take regular walks in your neighborhood, especially on weekends and when you notice people outside, this is for your health, but not in the way you are thinking, this is so your neighbors get used to the sight of you and recognize you, so make sure you wave and smile and get to know them if possible. There is a small chance that if the SHTF, that you may be outside at some point and carrying a gun, at that point you don't want some frightened paranoid person holed up in their house seeing an armed stanger walking around and deciding to take a potshot at you. Personal health: So you've been putting off that dentist visit because that cavity doesn't hurt at the moment? Need to go to the eye doctor because your precription has changed but think you can make do for another 6 months? BS. Just go get it done, now. Stay ahead of the curve. And keep it that way. Buy a spare set of glasses, and buy a set of goggles too in your prescription, those glasses aren't going to stay on your face when you are running frantically, nor while you are swimming. Had a tetanus shot lately? Why not? You can literally get them at most big grocery stores that have a pharmacy, if they give flu shots, you can get a tetanus shot. Tetanus/lockjaw is a seriously nasty painful way to die. It's possible to even get rabies vaccinations for humans, google it to see how. Cycle your food preps: Been a year or two since you bought that good-for-ten-years can of whatever? Why not eat it and buy another can and extend your time from 8 to 10 years again? Don't just prep and forget, it's an active lifestyle change. Batteries too, those ones you bought 3-4 years ago are starting to lose potency, just habitually buy a few when you see them on sale, see the grocery section above. Apartment dwellers: Keep your tub full of water at all times, re-fill after bathing or showering. Even if you do have cases of water (and you should), you can never have too much, at the least you can get a few more flushes of the toilet, which might seriously become an issue if you have to hole up for days at a time there before things get back to normal or you finally have to bug-out. This is not bad policy even if you are not an apartment dweller. And as long as i'm talking zombie hives here (apartments/condos), you are nuts if you don't keep the small amount of lumber and screws/nails necessary to secure your doors and windows from those who might try to break in and get what you have. Yes I know you're armed to the teeth, but why waste precious bullets on douchebags who will likely just move on to easier targets if they can't break down your door easily? Bonus: Covering windows covers the fact that you have light at night while everyone else does not, but be sure and leave yourself some ventilation ports that you can open during the day to change the air out. Traffic: Avoid jam-prone routes like the plague they are, do whatever it takes to bail on a jam coming up, be aware and exit quickly and take the long way home if necessary, get over that road-rage BS, learn to enjoy the ride again, buy a nice stereo for your car. If the fast-zombies hit, you are screwed if you are halted in the middle lane and boxed in on all sides, it's not worth it. I'm not even gonna go into deatil about the backpack you should be carrying in the car with all your just-in-case-the-car-breaks-down gear, that stuff is JUST-IN-CASE-THE-CAR-BREAKS-DOWN, it's not a cure-all for the dumbass move of letting yourself be trapped in traffic. ALWAYS know where the exits are: This I feel strongly enough about, to warrant it's own section instead of just adding to the driving and parking sections above. In the car or at rest, always know at every moment what the quickest way out is, and also alternate routes. As you are driving, be constantly updating where you will swerve to if a bomb goes off in the road ahead of you, if the oncoming traffic all starts swerving into your lane (but you are in the slow lane all the way to the right, because you're smart enough to know that's the easiest way to get off the road if need be, unlike the morons in the fast lane who are only going to get where they are going 30 seconds ahead of you, yet risk their very lives and other people's by driving like crazy in the fast lane, the last thought that goes through their empty head will be how it's so very impossible that the oncoming truck should be about to hit them). Restaurants, offices, stores, same thing. Constantly be updating your basic awareness of human traffic patterns and where the quickest exits are. This whole process, again, is NOT wearisome. Ever drive somewhere, and then when you get there, realize you don't remember much of the trip, or whether you even stopped for the lights? Yep, all of us do that after driving for so long, it's because our brain and muscle memeory has become so adept at that task, that our system delegates that to a certain amount of the unconscious, like a background service on your computer, requiring very little of the CPU's power and quietly doing what's needed. This new process of identifying escape routes on-the-fly constantly, will soon become the same background process. Fuego: Got a lighter in your pocket? Why not? Doesn't matter if you smoke or not, gonna get real cold in winter, are you really that absolutely certain you will be able to get home or to BOL, or even to your vehicle? I can think of a dozen scenarios where you will NOT. Always carry on your person at minimum: a) An appropriate jacket, I don't care if it's summer or not, just do it, we are trying to create habits here, in 100 degree heat, a light jacket can be used to rig up shade where there is none.The jacket pockets can hold the extra minor amount of gear so you don't have to have a bat utility belt. b) A knife, this is non-negotiable, and should require no explanation. And a multitool, just do it. c) A Bic lighter or two at minimum, be one of the cool guys and ALSO carry a cheap flint+magnesium firestarter, you can hang one on your keychain and have it out of the way but always readily available. Let me re-iterate here: ALWAYS HAVE A WAY TO START A FIRE, ON YOUR PERSON AT ALL TIMES. d) Some paracord, a keychain, bracelet or two, wrap something with the stuff, doesn't matter what. A bracelet can hold 10 feet of the stuff, wear one on your ankle if you don't want it to be seen due to office setting or whatever. e) A lifestraw or other personal water filtration device, but keep it small quick and easy. f) Double AA EDC flashlight with an extra battery or two, this is another no-brainer, I carry one that only takes one AA battery and is rated at 160 lumens or so, this is plenty for a personal emergency. AA battery because that's going to be one hell of a lot more common than exotics, so it's likely you can snag extras almost anywhere. g) A gun. h) A bottle of water. You've seen that kinda athletic guy that has a bottle of water in his hand everywhere he goes? Thought he was a little too obsessive about hydration? Guess again. He's always got water. You always have room for at least a small bottle, you can keep one in the inside pocket of that jacket you always carry. i) Bonus items: An mint tin with a few multi-vitamins, some fish-hooks, spare battery etc. A tiny am/fm radio. A pack of jerky. Cash. That's all I got for now, will add as I think of more, so much has become automatic, that I have to really sit and think about my own habits i've developed over the years. Help add to the database, share your ideas about everyday habits to develop that make you safer and more prepared. |
