This article is a compilation of practical preparedness tips, insights, and lessons learned. It starts with what I call inner resources, or mindset and moves toward the hard, practical items. I offer a rather broad field of experience, including military/industrial electrical work, Christian hospitality in organized retreat settings, hospice/end of life care, and some alternative power experience. I’ll close the article with a Christian exhortation as we head into this Christmas season.
Mindset
You can break the preparedness mindset down into: homesteading, military, social, domestic categories, etc; or synthesize it into one grand holistic prepster/survivalist perspective. Just don’t flunk the need to study and sharpen your mind for the coming times. Adapt your thinking as though the grid is down now. Think and act like the necessities (not the wants, and not the might needs) you can access online and in stores is an unexpected blessing. Do not trust that they will be there tomorrow or next week.
These prompts should spark some recognition in your thinking, which should be enough to start you in the right direction when orienting your prepping compass to true North. In psychology this is called executive function. Some of us are wired to automatically execute the moment our awareness is triggered by cognitive activity, perspective of the outside world, or by external influence. Others of us need some kind of prod to get us going.
WARNING: Don’t wait till the balloon goes up to feel triggered and act. It’s better to prepare a year early than a day late.
A few bullet points to get you thinking:
- Learn to recognize the extent of the system and how much we’ve been absorbed into the consumer mindset. If someone warns you about a psyop or a false flag event: Don’t just dismiss it; check it out. Do your own homework. That’s called OSINT (Open Source INTelligence). Take advantage of it while we can access these resources.
- Determine that you will systematically firewall any further assimilation into the grid.
- Learn to break grid-patterns and routines. Admit that you have patterns and routines that will not advance or support what you need when The World As We Know It changes forever. With the government, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary restriction.
- Do things that you’ve never done before. For some of us, this can be scary. Good. Let it scare you. That means your conscience is alerting you to a threat or a deficit that you can then articulate. So, spell it out. Define what it is that needles your conscience. Look for and study what it takes to get ‘booked up’ and you’ll find that the new knowledge will help dissipate fear. But then you must act on what you know. Challenge your existing skillset. This is becoming my modus operandi.
- Overcoming biases.
- Beware of societal and other biases that require your compliance to gain approval and acceptance. Be cautious and calculate what it takes to reverse direction (going against the flow) without drawing attention to yourself.
- Recognition of cultural and economic patterns like the corporate mindset in America, etc.
- Substituting service economy/JIT (Just In Time) warehousing paradigms for hard times using hard assets. See the Freightwaves websit [1]e for logistics news and supply chain data. The Triggering Event.
- I wrote an emergency communications plan for a search and rescue organization some years ago. The most important item is to adjust your expectations for the notification of an emergency event. Natural disasters are obvious. But, if/when the grid goes down for any reason that triggering event is your notification. No one will notify you. Nobody will come to help you; at least you shouldn’t expect that anyone will come. Cultivating the inner resources to self-activate will make the difference between life and death. It has also been referred to as being proactive.
Some Tips
1. Build a Reference Library
This is a good way to start breaking unprofitable routines. Get curious. You don’t want to do this when it is driven by necessity. Our local WinCo has gone nearly cashless. Honest observation compels us to admit that our world will soon change forever. It is a very compelling reason to plunge into research and start archiving knowledge as well as other resources. Start with: Day One of TEOTWAWKI: A Written Plan, by St. Funogas (See: Part 1 [2], Part 2 [3], Part 3 [4], Part 4 [5], and Part 5 [6] posted in January of 2024.) JWR’s List of Lists spreadsheet [7] will help you get your mind around this.
Look through the SurvivalBlog Archives and print hard copies of any important articles. The sooner the better. My reference library starts with the following:
A. A (low cost-per-page) monochrome printer.
B. A three-hole punch.
C. Decent 3-ring binders, found very inexpensively at local thrift stores.
D. A couple of boxes of printer paper.
E. A used computer with a couple of 5.25” drive bays.
i. One for a DVD-R drive (recordable).
ii. A multi-media card reader (USB, SD/MMC, SDx, etc.)
iii. CDs/DVDs. (They are EMP-proof)
iv. CDs will hold about 700MB. DVDs hold about 4+ GB.
F. Suddenly, the stacks of blank CD-Rs that you see at Goodwill and other thrift stores are now worth something to be had for pennies on the dollar. Like thumb drives, they can be stashed/hidden almost anywhere. CDs are primarily good for data, documents, and spreadsheets. PDFs on CDs can be useful for saving sensitive images of birth certificates, firearms training records, etc. Use DVDs for personal media files. Use thumb drives and portable SSDs for your entertainment media.
G. Computer longevity, and some OPSEC, etc: Do your level best to migrate from Windows to Linux and free yourself of that brew of snarls, updates, and new OS releases. Yes, there is a learning curve. I’m going through it now. See: the Linux Professional Institute [8]. Don’t let the name scare you away. If you won’t/can’t take the leap, then at least stay far away from Windows 11. Ditch MS Office and download LibreOffice. It’s free. One Caveat: The latest release of LibreOffice will no longer work on Windows 7 (W7), so get an earlier release if you have a W7 PC.
Also, keep your W7 machine if you can. If you have the space, then keep an airgapped computer free of an Internet connection. A computer that is sanitized of WiFi and Ethernet, even if it is presently networked, is not a bad idea. Don’t put anything on a connected computer that you don’t want on the web (cloud). I keep three backups. Two thumbdrives and an external HD. I back everything up monthly.
Safeguard your browser bookmarks. Rebuilding that little file can take weeks. I mostly use Firefox, and sometimes a Tor browser. One more important layer: Do your level best to say goodbye to wi-fi and hardwire your network with a decent router. They’re not that expensive. Sometimes a long coil, spool or dispenser box of CAT-5 or CAT-6 cable can be found inexpensively at second-hand stores or at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
H. Scan your driver’s license, birth certificate, and all the military field manuals you think you’ll need. More wouldn’t hurt.
I. Buy the SurvivalBlog archive waterproof USB thumb drive.
J. Get a copy of the following books for some insightful backstory:
- Surveillance Valley by Yasha LaVine
- This Is How They Tell Me The World Will End by Nicole Perlroth
H. I built my own little version of the Dewey Decimal System. And yes, it’s much smaller. Do what works for you. Some people like the program Obsidian to organize their projects. I haven’t quite figured out what the draw is, yet.
2. OTC Health Items
Check your healthcare plan provider. A number of them provide a medical supplies stipend. It might be $50 to $150 per month or per quarter. They will give you a ‘spendables card’ that operates like a credit card. It gets reloaded at the beginning of each month or quarter. Go to your local pharmacy and stock up on everything useful: shampoo, gauze, Band-aids, supplements, Hydrogen Peroxide, Isopropyl alcohol, allergy meds, etc. Since the benefit is ‘free’ this could be an opportunity to stock up on what could be charitable items.
3. Save Money (Versus Currency)
Buy silver while it can still be bought. This means two things:
1. That the paper (fiat) currency you have still has (reduced) purchasing power.
2. That the items that you want are still on the shelf.
Most of us think in terms of #2. It means that JIT deliveries will make their scheduled runs and I can get what I want when I want it. This mindset calls for the warning addressing hard assets for hard times. Don’t flunk this lesson. It should not escape our notice that at the present time we can take $55 USD and buy one whole and pure Troy ounce of Silver and keep it in our possession. Also, note that there is a huge difference between personally holding precious metals versus just holding a paper claim [9].
You might like to read a book or two on the complexity and fragility of the supply chain.
4. Sources of Stuff We Want
It is nice to buy new. However, my wife and I have scored wonderfully at yard/estate sales in rural and rural/residential areas. That’s where people like us live, who will have an abundance of this kind of stuff for cheap, especially on the last day of the sale. Where else can you get a near full 120cf tank of Argon for $45? We also haunt Goodwill and other second hand stores. Be very, very nice to all these people. We usually get better deals when we let the (home) owner set the price if it is negotiable. If it is near or on the last day, trust me, they want to get rid of this stuff. I managed to score six angle iron bed frames for free. I trim off the ends and use them for my many welding projects.
For readers living in apartments/suburbs I realize how tough it is to prep for the long term. I’ve been there. And I’ve done it. Seven 5-gallon H2O jugs in the closet, a full reloading bench (handgun caliber), shelf-stable food, some tools, and a bit more. The most difficult item to store for apartment dwellers is energy. Think through your setting and go for it.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)