Category: Contest

Prepping from a Wheelchair, by The Petite Prepper

Howdy, friends. I am a 57-year-old, pint-sized, handicapped, widowed prepper. My awakening happened in 2011, when Congress voted yet again to raise the debt ceiling. I had desperately hoped that our elected leaders would do the right thing and get our government spending under control. When they didn’t, it dawned on me that they probably never would (was I right?) and that our nation was on a collision course with disaster. I started asking God to show me how to get off this runaway train before it goes over the cliff. Well, friends, there is no getting off. Not only …


“Yuppie” Turns Prepper, by J.T.

My conversion to become a “born again&rdqu o; prepper started in the summer of 2011, when I was settling down to bed and surfing the net with my iPad. Performing some calculations on the national debt, as a Certified Public Accountant, I understood one thing– all the money in the world from every country wouldn’t or couldn’t be enough to even make a dent in its reduction, let alone a complete pay off. At that time, I had even calculated that approximately 18% of the Gross National Product (GDP) was used to pay just the interest on the national debt… …


Average American Preparation Begins, by C.H.

I am writing this article to inform other average Americans of how I began prepping, in hopes that my suggestions will be helpful for those who are just beginning. I began prepping after watching numerous shows on the National Geographic channel in connection with current news channels. Recognizing that America is vulnerable in several aspects (i.e. our power grid, internal terrorists, and weather events), I began to visualize how unprepared my family and I were in the event of a national emergency. Now you may be saying to yourself “in the event of an emergency, our government will take care …


Not Ready Yet!, by Sara

I started prepping back in 2008, when the financial crash hit our family hard. We were going about our business, both my husband and I working ourselves to death enjoying the “American dream”– a mortgage, a couple of car payments, kids in college, and a disposable income that was quickly gobbled up each month by luxuries that included the latest iPhone, every child having his or her own computer, rib eye steaks for dinner, rounds of golf, and things like this. When the financial free fall started, we were not prepared. We lost everything! On top of that, my husband …


Your Friends, by D.D.

Most people don’t see the need to prepare. To them, these funny stories about the end of the world (in one form or another) are nothing but a passing amusement, at best, or the ravings of paranoid doomsayers, at worst. Still, though, they have a backup, fool-proof plan, just in case they are wrong. This plan, of course, is to come to your house. As soon as they hear of any of your preparations, they casually invite themselves over: “If anything does happen, I know where I’m going…” They speak as if you’re preparing to carry their burden, too, and …


How to Make a Rope Out of Plastic Bags, by Zac T.

Here’s a little about me. I am a graduate student striving towards my Master’s in Public Health, which means I spend most of my time studying infectious diseases, what food people need during emergencies, and how to fight bioterrorism. When I am not pondering these problems, I enjoy backpacking, lifting weights, and growing bell peppers. You wander from aisle to aisle, flashlight in hand, down what used to be your local tool supply store. When the first case showed up over the mountain about three months ago, most of the stores in town were looted pretty heavily. This place is …


Taking Care of Your Feet When the SHTF, by J.C.

One January when I was a Boy Scout, my troop and I went camping in Missouri to participate in an event known as “Trappers’ Rendezvous,” an annual gathering of around 6,000 Boy Scouts to trade (almost) anything, from folding knives and rabbit pelts to books and video games. This was an experience I’m very grateful to have had, as I learned not only a lot about bartering (something every serious survivalist should learn) but also a lot about caring for my extremities in cold weather. The thing about Missouri in the winter is…it’s cold! Now that I live in Colorado, …


Slimming Down, by Dan from Alaska

No, this is not an article on weight loss, though it should be; I need to take off a bunch of pounds. It’s more about how I readjusted my lifestyle and budget after a loss of a paycheck. Both my wife and I have been working steadily since our teens, and I consider us to not be rich, per se, but in the comfortably middle class. We have been married for the past 10 years, and we both met each other at work. That is when I first heard the moniker, DINK– Dual Income No Kids. As I stated, we …


Survival To Go, by JMD – Part 2

In my checked bag, when flying, I put a small zippered case that contains: A Gerber Folding Sheath Knife, which is a good trade-off between size/weight and capability. I’ve found that most people (LEOs in particular) tend to be a lot less suspicious of folding knives than fixed-blade ones. A Boker Plus Credit Card Knife. I put this in my pocket if I’m going out for an evening and I can’t bring my EDC kit, because it’s completely unobtrusive in a front pocket. It’s not necessarily the most robust knife in the world, but it’s the same size as a …


Survival To Go, by JMD – Part 1

Many of us have invested in learning the skills, stockpiling the tools and supplies, and hiding the caches necessary to survive in the event of a major disaster that impacts our local area, but the reality is that these types of events happen around the world on a daily basis. While skills are useful anywhere and anytime, the best stores and caches are useless if you’re hundreds or even thousands of miles away when a disaster strikes in your current location! While developing my survival strategy, I realized that I had a major gap– I travel a lot on business, …


Kids Can Earn Their Keep, by T.B.

There are so many things to consider when making your plans for when we arrive at TEOTWAWKI that it seems overwhelming at times. One of my own concerns is being able to take care of my grandchildren. My wife and I have five grandchildren (soon to be six) that live close enough that we would be expecting them to join us in the event of an economic or societal collapse. Thinking about that possibility has motivated me to stock up on books, games, crafts, toys, and so forth in order to keep them entertained and maybe a little distracted while …


Ebola Unafraid: A Preliminary Ebola Treatment Protocol, by ShepherdFarmerGeek – Part 2

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PROPOSED EBOLA TREATMENT PROTOCOL Disclaimer: There are many foods and supplements with antiviral properties; some of them are common (Garlic[2]), some of them are exotic (Star Anise[3]). What I’ve tried to do with the recommendations below is focus on the most common and highly recommended. Nobody knows what will work against Ebola, so try your own favorites to see what you can tolerate when ill. None of this is “medical advice” for purposes of federal obfuscation and interference. Consult your doctor, who will have no idea what to do. The information below is not exhaustive; it is not authoritative; and …


Ebola Unafraid: A Preliminary Ebola Treatment Protocol, by ShepherdFarmerGeek – Part 1

In a few days my former-Navy-nurse daughter will fly out to help stand up a brand new 100-bed treatment facility for the International Rescue Committee in Liberia. Ebola is not a theoretical threat anymore. Now it’s personal. My daughter has always loved being in the thick of things and has been fascinated with Ebola since childhood. Now, in just a matter of days, she will walk into a room filled with sick and dying Ebola patients, and all her training, grit, and compassion will be tested. She will eventually come home on a rotation and be under medical isolation here, …


Meat Prices Soar While Deer Populations Explode, by KAW

This headline could sum up a multitude of news reports over the last few years. Droughts and severe winters have left the United States beef herd size at a 63-year low. In response, beef prices have increased steadily with hamburger topping $4 a pound this year. Pork prices have jumped due to porcine epidemic diarrhea that has killed millions of baby pigs. Inflation, a growing human population, and a higher demand for meat in emerging economies also contribute to ever-increasing meat prices. Ironically, America’s deer herd has exploded in the last 30 years. The deer population in North America when the Europeans …


Relocating To A Safer Place, While The Opportunity Still Exists, by MWA

For many reasons, my wife and I, along with our four children, left behind the city life in Florida two years ago. Crime, ranging from home invasions and break-ins to vehicle vandalism and car-jackings, which had spilled outward from the inner city into the suburbs where we owned a home, was increasingly being caught in the crosshairs of criminals. Mobs of rioting teenagers were occurring on the weekends at the local malls. If you were a female, alone, it was not safe to go grocery shopping at night. Locally, the public high schools, where our children were planning to attend …