Preparedness for when

thriftwizard

We are a team, in this household, just as long as everybody remembers who is The Boss - and it's me, naturally! Bugging in is our best option, as we're pretty well situated from most points of view, but bugging out is also perfectly doable after years of family camping "holidays" - in fact, neighbourhood camping holidays, as most of the time we had other people's offspring along with us too, and occasionally parents too. And we still have the kit, used regularly, up to date & ready to roll. And a Plan, known by those who currently live away.

OPsec-wise - we're hiding in plain sight. And always building community and keeping ears to the ground. There are disaster possibilities that are too remote, or too big, for me to worry about & prep for; attitude, ideas & skills will have to see us through if any of those should come to pass. I get teased about the size of my "larder" but patiently explain that it's enough to see 6 people through a few days of feeling too ill to go to the supermarket, say. How many people would do the maths & work out that it's actually several months supply? Constantly rotated and all things that we like & use regularly.

There are holes in my preps - it's not possible to store "enough" water, for example, due to space constraints, but we live close-ish to a river, have water butts & a pond & ways of cleaning/filtering water. But thanks to this thread & the calm & sensible people on here, I'm fairly well aware of them & what I can - and can't - do about them.

Perplexed_Pineapple

Excellent points, thriftwizard, and it sounds as though you are pretty well sorted out for bugging in. We are not as well positioned as that, but have supplies sufficient for a few weeks, possibly even a few months allowing for some tedium in our diet. Bugging in is a much more sensible approach because it covers the likely personal catastrophes - illness, unemployment, snowed in etc as well as the less likely (ebola outbreak, martial law, zombie apocalypse...). When it comes to bugging out the themes of most websites centre around retreating to rural areas, which is just not practical in a country with the population density of the UK. So for me bugging out has three levels: Personal - our house uninhabitable (fire, flood, what have you) so bug out locally but realistically on to a friend's sofa rather than camping in the woods. Secondly, regional - flooding again, environmental, nuclear contamination, that kind of thing, in which case decamping to a different part of the country, but still most probably going to stay with friends or family for a shorter or longer time. Finally, national - the economy collapses totally, widespread disorder, get out of the UK and make a new life kind of bugging out. That's the kind of bugging out which I've known people do IRL - from the former Yugoslavia, from Somalia, and in the older generations from the divisions of WW2. I've talked to quite a few people who have had to flee their country of origin to escape an oppressive regime and so far as I can see what you need is determination, ideally a transferable skill set whether that be plumbing or rocket science, and also some language skills. Not much call for bug-out bags on the whole. I still have mine at the ready, though :cool:

Frugalsod

greenbee wrote: »

I think you'll find that there is a team. Buggalugs is the leader, and you're the one taking orders...

Because Buggalugs already knows that and Bob doesn't explains why Buggalugs has taken charge. He is just letting Bob work it out for himself.

GreyQueen

I think the problem with the preppersphere is that it's heavily weighted by tthe view of US preppers who have a continent-spanning country with many climatic zones and large areas of sparse habitation. The very opposite of us crowded Brits in a smallish, wettish and mostly chilly island.

There would be limited use of fleeing your home to die a few days later of exposure. Most of us here have probably done some camping, but we're essentially domesticated homo saps, accustomed to living behind weatherproof walls and under raintight roofs and would fare poorly with long term wilderness living. I'd be very reluctant to try to survive on Rannoch Moor, up in the Welsh mountain tops, or on Dartmoor. There are very good climatic reasons, which still pertain, why the south and south-east of England have been the most heavily-settled parts of the UK for thousands of years.

And though I have travelled through the whole of the Outer Hebrides, from top to tail, and the Highlands, my thoughts were to wonder, despite it's frequent beauty, why the hell everyone hadn't emigrated to somewhere more clement, with easier livings and fewer biting insects. Oh, those midges......!

I do encounter a lot of people, perfectly intelligent and nice people, who haven't made the most elementary provision for such likely scenarios as unemployment. Used to work for an organisation on a fixed term contract, which was being re-bid for but which we didn't get. We were redundant with 3 months' notice. Most of my colleagues did not have the next month's mortgage payment saved-for, despite the several years that they had known the end of the contract. They had money for beauticians' services, hoidays, smoking, drinking, cinema visits, eating out on our not-big white-collar wages, but didn't even have £300 in the bank for next month's mortgage.

And I saw the incredible stress as they scrabbled for work before the end of our contract (we all got it, btw, with days to go in some cases) whilst staring down the gun barrel of OMG!! and wondered why the hell these intelligent, able people had exposed themselves to such a predicatable risk by being without savings in a thin job market.

Ach well, there's no accounting for other people.

mardatha

I totally agree GQ, re Scotland's weather. It's the pits. Don't bug out up here anybody
....just leave it nice and empty for me

GreyQueen

mardatha wrote: »

I totally agree GQ, re Scotland's weather. It's the pits. Don't bug out up here anybody
....just leave it nice and empty for me

:cool: Thanks, Mar, cash to be sent to the usual place, please; all used twenties. Ta!

Softstuff

Prepping for me in Australia means being covered as best I can for expected events such as storms or flooding, which reduce supplies to our area. I also have a readily grabbable set of items to run with (mainly documents and so forth). I don't worry too much about being hit by those things, since we're insured, we have a strong support network for those events in this country and if I was going to freak out every time we had golf ball sized hail or someone kayaking through the middle of a shopping mall, I'm in the wrong country.

I've always tried to have a bit extra food and a supply of toiletries to hand, not to mention some savings in case of job/pay issues. I also have found it best, for my own sanity too, to learn how to do most things myself (hair cutting, bread making, basic plumbing, DIY and so forth).

But as far as extended SHTF prep, if there was complete societal collapse, after about 12 months I'd be dead in any case (or at least well on the way), since the meds that keep me in the one piece have a pretty short shelf life, there's no way to make any of my own and I can't do without them. So there's a limit to what I'll do and what I worry about.

Frugalsod

One thing re the preppersphere is that so much is US centric so there is an excessive emphasis on guns, knives and bugging out. The best prepper channels that I have seen are by what could be best described as rednecks. One makes a lot of his own equipment including a machete, and his bushcraft is based on affordability using very affordable tarps from Walmart.

The other has serious health concerns but I suspect will cope a lot better than most because of his preps. He had one brilliant source of preps which might actually be available here, but I need to look into that further.

I have also given the idea of what bug out kit to use some considerable thought and I am learning a lot from the ultralight camping channels. Since I want to actually go camping this is also changing my attitude to what kit is needed. Many items for ultralight camping would be viable for a bug out or get home back but considerably lighter so much easier to get home with.

As to financial preparedness I suspect that the vast majority think it will not happen to them. Though I did find an interesting survey about from home owners in Canada that large numbers thought that they were debt free even with car loans mortgages or outstanding credit card debt. What was worse were that many of these were all owners of multiple homes and they still were failing to put adequate sums aside for their retirement. I suspect that this is the same problem here.

I will be free of a loan next March or April and then I will concentrate on clearing the credit card and will be able to do it by the end of the year. So while I am not yet solvent I have cut my living expenses considerably and am even able to build up my bank balance as well as cover massive debt repayments, and all without dropping my standard of living.

[Deleted User]

If you are serious about being prepared for a VERY serious SHTF moment it's one thing having all the equipment, it's one thing having supplies of food, water, medication etc. It's one thing saying you have a bug in and bug out plan but unless you have actually practically done all the things you will need like making that shelter, knowing how to insulate it and make as watertight as possible, unless you have actually gone foraging and made edible and safe food with the wild stuff you harvest, unless you have actually made fire using something that isn't man made you might as well stay home and take your chances, because IF you don't actually KNOW how to do all these things your chances of staying well and safe are very small indeed. You might muddle through for a few days, but hypothermia and starvation kick in very quickly when you are in the middle of nowhere with inadequate shelter.

Frugalsod

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

If you are serious about being prepared for a VERY serious SHTF moment it's one thing having all the equipment, it's one thing having supplies of food, water, medication etc. It's one thing saying you have a bug in and bug out plan but unless you have actually practically done all the things you will need like making that shelter, knowing how to insulate it and make as watertight as possible, unless you have actually gone foraging and made edible and safe food with the wild stuff you harvest, unless you have actually made fire using something that isn't man made you might as well stay home and take your chances, because IF you don't actually KNOW how to do all these things your chances of staying well and safe are very small indeed. You might muddle through for a few days, but hypothermia and starvation kick in very quickly when you are in the middle of nowhere with inadequate shelter.

I agree. Having seen lots of Youtube channels where they list the bug out bag contents very few have adequate shelters within them. Maybe a tarp and an emergency reflective sheet, at most. No sleeping bags or bivi bags, and some of these are in the colder US states. They all have loads of guns, knives and paracord and things that could be useful one day. Personally I would start with the hammock and tarp combo in an ultralight back pack and add on from there. That way I would be alive and warm. Add in a cooking system and water storage and treatment and you are almost there. Spare clothes and water proofs will cover the clothing aspect and the only thing left that you need is food.