Low Budget Knife Selection for a Novice, by S.G.

I. The World of Knives On the top of all new “prepper” lists is a good survival knife. The knife is a low-tech, multipurpose tool that has served humankind since before the dawn of civilization. To these early men, the side of a chipped flint could butcher an animal carcass for food and clothing. To the modern man, however, there is a dizzying array of choices when it comes to knife selection. This article documents my ongoing journey of knife selection, with my own frugal, low budget perspective. Now, when talking “low budget”, I do not mean cheap. When I …


Prepping on a Budget, by C.G. – Part 2

Weapons/Defense Now for the most contentious issue– guns. Let me preface this by saying that everyone has their pet favorite, and to them that is the only gun that will ever work and it will do everything. Being chased by a grizzly bear, someone will tell you how you can totally take that bear out with your 10/22. Want to go dove hunting? Somebody will tell you how you really need a Barrett .50 cal. to take those tough little suckers down. The reality is that the only gun you will ever need is the one in your hand when …


Prepping on a Budget, by C.G. – Part 1

For many people, prepping seems like something only people with a good deal of time and/or disposable income can do. Shows like NatGeo’s Doomsday Preppers and, unfortunately, some YouTube channels give the impression that if you don’t have several years of food and enough weapons and ammo to outfit a small militia stored somewhere in a mountain bunker you can’t join the prepper club. Remember that the TV show is, at least partly, scripted, staged, and creatively edited, and some of the more questionable YouTube channels are run by gear/gun snobs. There are, however, ways to prep on a budget. …


Getting Home, by D.K. Vet

Now, I feel relatively secure in my prepping, having been at it for several years. Food, check. Arms and ammo, check. Water, tent, first aid supplies, heating sources, et cetera, check, check, check. All is well and good, as long as I am home or near home and can shelter in place or pack up and move out of Dodge. However, there are several times every year when I am away from home and not just in the next county. We spend time in Florida and go to vet conferences in other states. When we’re somewhere else, we are totally …


Practical Personality Assessment, by M.B. – Part 2

Reasons I’d like to articulate three powerful reasons to become a student of personality types. 1) To Explain Preparedness in a Way that Others Will Accept “A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction.” (Prov. 16:23) One of the best reasons to try to discover someone’s personality type is so that you can more effectively communicate with him or her.  We probably all have family members or friends who refuse to listen, despite our best attempts to convince them of the need to prepare.  Sometimes part of this is because of personality differences.  For example, you …


Practical Personality Assessment, by M.B. – Part 1

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” – Sun Tzu If I could take the liberty of adding a little to this famous piece of wisdom, I would say that we should also make every effort to know our friends and allies.  Nowhere is knowing yourself and those around you more critical than in a survival situation.  We often equate knowing ourselves and others to knowing what skill sets we possess– he’s handy with a rifle, she knows medicinal herbs, and I can repair small engines, and so on.  …


Accommodations for the Dietary Requirements of Infants, by L.C.

Infants have specific nutritive needs that at the present moment may be met in two ways: breast milk and formula. In a collapse or post-collapse scenario, the supply of formula may dry up and no longer be an option. There are several strategies to cope with this as well as breastfeeding supplies that can easily be acquired now. I’m the mother of five kids under the age of six with the youngest being six weeks old, so for the past six years I’ve been pregnant, nursing, or both. I breastfed my first four exclusively, until we started solids between 6-7 …


EMP-Hardened Ham Radio Communications, by PrepperDoc

3

EMP attack is often considered the most rigorous of survivalist situations, due to the likely complete loss of electrical grid, many vehicles, and many transistorized/computerized products. Our group worked to provide post-EMP communications that would allow effective communications post-event. We had two major requirements: Short Range Communications. Two, separate, defense-hardened homes that were approximately 30 miles apart had to be able to communicate across a medium-sized city, and Long Range Communications. Both homes had to be able to receive news from in-state and out-of-state sources. These were considered necessary to receive adequate advance warning of defense issues, such as advancing …


The Time Has Come, by JTH

Suddenly it hit me. We are DOING IT! After years of dreaming about moving to the Redoubt, planning, plotting, learning new skills, understanding what is important, we are finally doing it. I am scared and excited at the same time. We have two more months of frantic remodeling and updating our home, in order to get top dollar, and then we’ll put the house on the market. After searching for property in Idaho online and with the help of several couples who live in Idaho and a realtor recommendation, it’s time to make a couple of trips out and get …


Reaching Out to the Un-Prepped, by Mark C. – Part 2

Here’s Why The vast majority of the population exists in cities or very near them. We’ve already seen what happens in places like New York and Watts when power was lost for just three days. There are riots, looting, and violence. Imagine a long-term or even permanent loss of power. Imagine that the gasoline supply is what is in your vehicle’s gas tank right now, and that’s it. Food in your pantry is what you have, and that’s it. Water? Fill your bathtub, sinks, or anything else you can find, but that’s it. Toilets? You better dig a hole in …


Reaching Out to the Un-Prepped, by Mark C. – Part 1

If you are reading this and you have a high interest in prepping but maybe someone you know or someone close to you does not, read on. You’ve tried to reason with them, but the result is the same. Whether it’s your passion or persistence, they get overwhelmed and simply glaze over. Or, maybe they become unsettled or scared. Either way you lose them, and that frustrates you because you feel time is running out. If they would just read Patriots or survivalblog.com! Right? Well, print this out and give it to them. Now, if you’re reading this because you’re …


Defending The Castle, by R.T.

Numerous articles and blogs have appeared over the last couple of years, targeting the prepper community and those people associated with standing up for our God-given rights as well as those rights afforded us from within the Constitution. These articles are generally positive, and they supply the reader with a fair amount of good quality advice in regards to surviving a “grid down” situation or some other catastrophe that may come about. Being that it is nearly impossible to know which impending event might suddenly occur with little or no notice, it is extremely difficult to plan for ALL possible …


Your Brain On Paper—How to Write Useful Operating Instructions, by M.R. – Part 3

Responsibilities I designed the storage system and have assumed all responsibilities for filling the water containers and replacing the water every two years. In my absence, that responsibility falls to the oldest member of the remaining family who is also responsible for the continued upkeep of this operating instruction and ensuring that it is available to all group members. If group discipline problems erupt in using the water, that person acts with the authority of a group leader. I may be gone, but I’m watching from heaven! Policy Refreshing Water: The blue, plastic, storage containers at the ranch and in …


Your Brain On Paper—How to Write Useful Operating Instructions, by M.R. – Part 2

Topic Areas for Operating Instructions Topics will vary for different groups, depending upon the extent of their preparations and unique specifics. I live in the mountains of California. You will find earthquake instruction in my binder, but you will not find one concerning hurricanes. Choose one or two areas important to you, and start with them. This will allow you to learn and test the format and save a lot of re-do time. On the bright side, you may find that the operating instructions and the binder provide a place to organize and include papers and information that you have …


Your Brain On Paper—How to Write Useful Operating Instructions, by M.R. – Part 1

Do you have any idea how much of your prepper knowledge is actually recorded in your head and nowhere else? I’m talking about details that you think are common knowledge but aren’t actually common among those in your survival party. If you are the key member of the group—the one who has done the lion’s share of planning and training, it’s likely that others don’t know as much as you think they know or that they will be able to remember as much as you think they will. If you drop off your twig unexpectedly or suffer a mentally-incapacitating illness …