Preparedness for when

fuddle

kezlou wrote: »

phew what a day, been sorting out stores, food, bedding etc
Part of our SHTF is being able to accommodate family / friends at a moments notice. Daft i know but its a part of who i am.

Another part is shifting debt, got it hate it dont regret it because at the time i needed it when we were both unemployed and had no income or benefits other child benefit and child tax credit. So used for rent etc We have also been funding my father who has dementia and various family members monetarily and emotionally.

Because our budget is so tight, i try to keep at least £10 a month spare for anything. I know its not much but can be worth loads when you have nothing.

I think the idea of saying clearing debt is absurd is quite frankly ignorant. Not everyone is debt free whether is be from paying off, bankruptcy or saving. What ever the reason.
Generally paying off debt is in a part of when SHTF when something happens whether that losing job, flood, unexpected happenings. Its just one less thing to worry about.

Started stage 3 of the plan, growing veg and fruit. So right now we have two raspberry canes and strawberries planted in the garden. Gooseberry is coming alive and planted another rose tree. Hopefully all these will attract and help the populations of bees.

I think that's another thing to think about regarding preps is the outside environment. Its all well and good being able to leave in a rush but what do you if the insect population diminishes dramatically.sorry im being very forthright.

daz and gq TUPE is a nightmare.
thriftwizard and kittie sending light and blessings to you both.

I didn't say that I thought the idea of clearing debt was absurd. Goodness gracious. I am a bankrupt after all. There comes a time when you just cannot function because of the noose that debt is. When in that state there's no preparing, it's all about getting through the day.

What I said was that I felt it wrong to say that debt/mortgage clearing was the basis to prepping. At a very basic level people can prepare their food stocks, clothing layers, blankets, fuel for heating etc without having the free income available to clear debt. I am so sure there are people amongst us that are living hand to mouth, that are trying very hard to build the smallest of cushion while not being able to pay off debt at rates that are needed. I think it's fair to say that debt clearance is part of prepping but sometimes it can't be seen as the basis of prepping.

GreyQueen

I've been to an extra archery class, at a different venue (same peeps and Teach), and had a brill evening and got several golds, including smacking the 'cross' out of the centre of one target. Deep joy. Plus a fellow archer gave me a lift home, saving a mile-and-a-bit walk, their kindness was much appreciated.



I guess the thing about prepping is that it can be anything you want it to be. Some people spend every penny they earn, and then some, and some of it on trivia and trash, even though their employment is very insecure. When joblessness strikes, they have no reserves and are instantly up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

A person cannot protect him or herself against every possible eventuality. You can only look at the most probable, and try to mitigate against that. I expect most of us have smoke detectors in our homes, but we don't seriously expect our homes to catch fire, do we? But some homes catch fire and some people die who could have been saved by being roused by smoke detectors, so we try to play the odds into our favour by having them in our own homes.

In a long term (more than the 1-2 years' worth of meds I have by me) SHTF situation I'd die. I'd die because I should have died about 20 years ago, had nature taken its course. Even in a modern western country, it took a world-famous teaching hospital 6 months and the use of several million pounds' worth of equipment to work out what was wrong with me. The fix is about 40p of medicine every few weeks, but it requires a functional pharmaceutical industry to manufacture the meds.

I can assist my fellow human beans by having meds by me, so that if there was a shorter term crisis I wouldn't be collapsed and needing intensive care, which may not be available. Even dead, I'd be a biohazard to be disposed of, taking up time and resources the living need. By having the meds, I can prevent myself becoming an early casualty and, hopefully, contribute positively to some other peoples' lives.

Most of prepping is what housewives and husbandmen of yore would have called keeping a good pantry, keeping the linen in good order, having some homemade remedies to look after the fowls and the kine. They'd have laughed themselves silly to see how gormless many of we moderns are about looking after ourselves. At least once a month, I have to explain to people that we won't be sending electricians to change their lightbulbs for them, fer cryin' out loud.

Righty, time for a bit of interwebulation before beddy-byes. Did I mention I got a gold (bullseye?) In fact I got several. One was on a target alongside the target I was aiming at, so technically was a miss by about 10 inches, but hey, who's gonna tell Teach?

daz378

my dad helps the local church as usher and helper .....so il have to ring on monday..... hes very independent doesn't trust doctors.....yet if i have a sniffle .....he urges me to go to doctors...... hes started turning off the stoptap except for when he needs water....... money wise he manages his bills and expenses responsibly and modest funds as buffer in bank...he still walks 3 miles to the cemetary although every 2 weeks instead of weekly .... on the whole he manages quite well....hope im as lively at that age.

moneyistooshorttomention

I must say that, by now, having lived my own life and watched other people live theirs for quite some years, I would say THE biggest thing when it comes to prepping is Don't Make Expensive Decisions You Cant Afford.

The number of times I've seen people do things like:

- not buy a house of their own when they had the chance to do so
- give up owning their own house and going into rented accommodation (ie when they had enough money to keep the place)
- having children they couldn't afford. I'll admit to total astonishment when someone announces that they are pregnant when the finances dictate otherwise (eg in rented accommodation and/or in debt).
- not having a bit of "f*ck you" money to hand in case of employer problems (whilst having spent money on luxuries).

From what I've seen in life and on the Forum these seem to cause a high proportion of the shtf of financial type problems that many people have. So, avoiding those avoidable type situations is imo a major part of prepping. Unexpected health or employer problems can and do cause many shtf situations, but at least its possible to avoid some of the possible ones by avoiding EUD's (ie those Expensive Unaffordable Decisions).

By now, its clear there isn't a Knight In Shining Armour that will come to the rescue if EUD's are made - darn it!

[Deleted User]

GQ that is an honest and very feet on the ground post, thank you! You are quite right, our ancestors would be mystified at how we live in only the immediate present in our society. You are also quite right in saying that we can all ONLY do so much towards preparedness for whatever imagined event worries us most. The usefullness of smoke alarms came to home to roost with me yesterday with a vengeance. I lit the woodstove in the mid afternoon as per normal, we are using the old wood from a false ceiling from the utility room chopped small as kindling at present, well, the fire didn't get going very well so I opened the door and popped some more kindling in th 'help it along' and there was an almighty 'POP' and I got a spray of embers which fell on to the brick hearth, or so I thought! I became aware of a strange hot smell and couldn't find where it was coming from, thought maybe we'd got a chimney problem so went outside to look. No problem there. Came back in and the smell was stronger but still couldn't find it, We had a towel on the floor as Docky came back from his walk as I lit the fire and he was wet, he likes to roll on a towel to dry off. I noticed some specks of black on that towel and thought I'd like to shake it out of the back door and as I picked it up I noticed it had a hole in one of the black dots about the size of a 5p piece and then I realised it was smouldering .....as was the carpet beneath it!!!!!! I grabbed the towel, threw it out the door and soaked the carpet which unfortunately now has a dark brown mark on it. I had that thought at that moment of what if we'd got the fire going and had to go out or spent time in the garden. He Who Knows was upstairs painting walls in a bedroom, I was preparing things in the kitchen so neither of us stayed in the room. It doesn't bear thinking about what might have happened if it hadn't been found and dealt with. So smoke alarms might be fitted with no real expectation of there being a problem, sometimes your problem might actually be real, take it seriously folks, prepping might not be quite so whacky an idea as you first thought!!!

Nargleblast

So, to summarise the Preppers Creed.....

Avoid getting into debt if at all possible.

Don't be seduced by advertising into living beyond your means.

If you have debt, including mortgages, do your best to get rid of it within your capabilities.

Ensure your home is sound, well insulated and comfortable.

Ensure you have a sensible stock of essentials, e.g. food, soap, water, medications etc.

Keep an eye on world and local news.

Practise basic life skills and learn new ones, in case of loss of power supplies.

Keep your mouth shut - no telling other people in your vicinity about your preps, otherwise you will be invaded and robbed in the event of a severe SHTF scenario.

And above all, enjoy life, rejoice in simple pleasures, live in the moment while keeping half an eye on the future.

In other words - be an Old Style!

GreyQueen

:eek: Ohmigosh, Lyn, so glad to hear that all was well in the end. Could have been so much worse than a bit of damaged carpet, hey? You can sometimes perform carpet surgery by cutting out the small damaged area and inserting a cutout to match, either from a remnant or harvested from the edge of the room normally hidden behind furniture. The patch would need to be glued down to the floor. An irregular shape is likely to be less obvious than a circle or a square.

In the past 24 hours via work I have helped to deal with interior floods, collapsing highways, missing stoptaps and all sorts of miscellaneous woes. Have also spoken to householders with vermin in storage areas, rats and mice attracted by pet food stored in bags and nesting materials in the form of stored clothes.

One thing which I am constantly aware of is that clutter and disorganisation greatly contribute to the stress of dealing with everyday run-of-the-mill crises, never mind five star SHTF events. Let's say you are taken into hospital as an emergency admission and kept there. Is you home well enough organised that a relative or friend could go in and quickly pack you some nightclothes, undies, toiletries?

Are your storage areas regularly turfed out, to make sure that what is in storage is still in usable condition/ necessary/ ready to roll at a moment's notice? That nothing is being chewed on by critters?

A well-organised home is one which supports the lives of the residents, and that includes supporting them in the bad times as well as the good.

[Deleted User]

It's a big free standing piece of carpet GQ luckily NOT a fitted one so we'll be able to turn it through 180 degrees and the burn mark will be against the back wall of the lounge then and hopefully hidden under furniture. It really does go to show that no matter how careful you are in all things there WILL be occasions when you are caught out and in a certain amount of danger. Thankfully I caught it before it had become a real problem, I've seen footage on the TV of just how quickly fires can take hold and spread and I'll be much more vigilant about tracking down and spits from the stove in the future. I guess we were lucky this time eh?

mardatha

The more clutter and stuff you have, the more complicated it is, to me.
Less is a lot easier and liberating.
MrsL, I don't burn wood for this very reason - it sparks and also it's not very hot compared to coal. I have friends in a wee lodge house who use free wood from the estate and they go through hearth rugs every few months.

[Deleted User]

MAR I think we might find a cheapy rug to go in front of the stove in case this happens again, a neutral unpatterned one so any spits would be obvious from the second they happen. The carpet took the brunt of the smouldering and luckily it didn't burn through the hessian backing and damage the cushionfloor underneath it. We're in a no coal area and use the ashes in the compost heap and feed the garden and allotment with them. The wood is the problem this time and I think I'll have to remove it from the kindling pile and throw it away, it's been treated with some sort of preservative that seems to be volatile. Certainly don't want this to be an ongoing problem!