Category: Survival Mindset

Survival Philosophy 101: The Caveman Survival Index, by Andrew M.

I still remember the first day in my Philosophy of Religion class back in the good ol’ college days.  My professor started the class with the question, “what is philosophy?”  Of course, being the smart-aleck that I still am today, I eagerly raised my hand and responded, “Philosophy is where you think really hard about something, and when you’re done, you know less than when you started.” I got a few laughs (and some angry looks from the philosophy majors), but I was only half joking.  There is some truth to that statement.   What it really means is that, until …


Baby Steps to Preparedness, by Holli S.

While TEOTWAWKI may or may not happen soon, one can never be too prepared. Loss of job or illness can happen any time. Being prepared can lessen the stress in your life and also lead to strengthening your family bonds. Not everyone has the financial or physical means to opt out or bug out at a moments notice. What we can do is start with Baby Steps and work our way up to where we want to be. • Research • Plan • Schedule • Execute • Learn to be thick-skinned • Follow up and be flexible.  Change can sometimes lead to opportunity. • Try new things …


Getting Started, by C.W. in Michigan

I am not like most people; mainly because of the way I was raised as a child.  Hunting, fishing, trapping, and outdoor/survival skills were not only practiced but often encouraged by my father.  In hindsight I can say it wasn’t necessarily that he thought I might need the skills someday.  I think it was more because it was a good way to keep me and my brothers out of trouble.  It seemed to work. My father was always the type of guy to take us out of school for the important things in life.  The opening day of fall firearms …


Beans, Bullets, Band-Aids and Bibles: Faith When the World Falls Apart, by Pastor Terry

As preppers we have all heard of the Three B’s those would be beans, bullets and Band-Aids. An alliteration for food, protection/sufficiency and medical supplies. We should know their importance and for the most part practice it as part of our lifestyle. In our home we utilize a fourth B, the Bible. Let me explain why we feel the Bible is just that important. I am a bi-vocational pastor serving in the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. In case you don’t understand the meaning of bi-vocational I support my wife and I with a full time job while I …


You Are At Your Retreat — What Now?, by D.H.

Many of us have plans to get our family and friends to a retreat once the Schumer hits the fan (SHTF). Many of us have written down plans that tell us what things to grab before we leave (so we don’t forget something important), but how many of you have written down plans for what to do once you’re there, at your retreat? Why write them down? Well, because even though you may know everything you’re going to do once there, maybe the others don’t. For some unforeseen reason, you may not even make it there. Will your family know …


Words To Live By, by Paul Z.

Everybody has a set of words that they live by- have you ever stopped to really think about which words might keep you alive? Time to get motivated. Sounds silly but there are eight very simple words that will get you on your way to becoming a different person, a person that identifies who and where they are in the universe, a person that plans, a person that starts down the road towards self-reliance, a person that is not apathetic, a person that commits to learn, a person that executes and maintains what they learn. You can be this person. …


Next Steps: Prepping for the Middle Expertise, Middle Life, Middle Philosophy Preppers, by A.L.G.

Salutations! And for those of spiritual and religious bent, Blessings, from my wife and I in these troubled time. A few weeks back, after my assistant’s grandson returned to his school year, he brought home a “bug” as the kiddies often do. My assistant naturally fell ill, and a week later, sure enough I found myself on my couch with my wife good-naturedly giving me some grief (and chicken soup…) With some time on my hands, and not much energy to actually do anything, my mind started turning as I laid there and watched an earthquake hit D.C. and a …


Odds And Ends That You Won’t Want To Be Without, by Sonny Jim

I believe in having all the “big” things, to prepare for the possible breakdown of civil society.   I have a large home outside of a small mid-west town, and expect 12 people to arrive to hunker down, if things do fall apart.  I need to be able to feed and supply of them, perhaps for years. So I have 1,200 gallons of Kerosene.  This is intended for heating the home for 3 winters, and I have 3 Kerosene heaters to do the job.  The Kerosene is stored in in 3 large 330 gallon plastic totes, half buried in my back …


Lessons in OPSEC: Hurricane Irene Versus Hurricane Isabel, by Gonzo

In 2003 I lived in what can only be described as “The Hood” when Hurricane Isabel arrived. Today I find myself in a middle class neighborhood for Irene. The difference between the two and how my neighbors are handling these semi-SHTF scenarios gives a very instructive view of operational security (OPSEC) and its effects.  These two hurricanes came ashore about the same place and the same strength, but its two different worlds I have seen the aftermaths effects on. During Isabel I lived in one of the worst sections of Virginia Beach, the sort of place that other people who …


Three Letters Re: Lessons Learned From a Recent California Power Outage

Dear Jim Yesterday at about 4:00 p.m. there was a massive power outage in the southwest. All of San Diego County And other parts of Southern California were without power for almost 12 hours some still are. I learned a few very good lessons from this experience. I do consider myself a prepper but am limited to how much I can store because I live in an apartment. I had concentrated on food, water, and defense measures for the long run, but had completely ignored some more immediate short term supplies. First and foremost, I overlooked cash. I have been …


Start Small, Plan Ahead, and Set a Realistic Timetable, by Christian Rebel

I’ve only been in the survival community for one to two years; I still need quite a bit of work to do before I’d dare say I’m prepared enough to survive a severe blizzard let alone some life changing and significantly prolonged event. I get a little overwhelmed by all the work I still have to do and frustrated by how precious little resources I have to work with. I’m a 21 year old unemployed college student still living at home in an apartment complex 20 minutes from a city, as you can see my options are limited. Limited not …


Letter Re: Hurricane Irene Lessons Learned

James, Thanks to the information presented in your book “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It” we were able to “weather” Hurricane Irene without much difficulty. It was amazing to the pandemonium at the super markets; people were waiting for water to be brought out from the stockroom and wondering whether they would “die of thirst”. If they had only looked over their shoulder they would have seen a pallet filled with cases of soda (on sale: four cases for eleven dollars). The same goes for D-cell batteries; people were lamenting that they didn’t have …


The Little Things, by D.M.L.

So, you think you’re prepared? So did I. Until Hurricane Irene destroyed the infrastructure around here. The roads were blocked to all the local towns, all three routes out of here. If it wasn’t trees down, it was flooded, or power lines and poles leaned over the road in the ‘maybe’ zone (maybe you would hit them and maybe not, but why take a chance on thousands of volts? If not those, it was pieces of somebody’s house across the road. And this was only a Cat 1 storm? Sigh.   Before she hit, I, being confident that we were ‘prepped up’, …


Lessons From Wartime Bosnia-Herzegovina, by Benjamin

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I have been following the survivalist trend on YouTube for about a year now and so far you provide the best and most realistic advice of anyone. Many of the people who offer advice, in my opinion are not qualified based on what they are saying. And I can say this based on my experience. Half of the things I hear other people say cannot be applied to the situation I was in or most situations, but you seem to understand. I was born and raised in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I saw that a fellow Bosnian gave you his story, but he …


The Five Steps of OPSEC Assessment by Stone of Scone

Operational Security (OPSEC) which is the evaluation and control of any critical information that could be used against you by an adversary. The result of good OPSEC is the elimination or withholding of the most damaging information that your adversary has the ability to gather and understand how to use against you. OPSEC happens everyday. When you go on vacation and hold your mail and newspaper delivery, and use timers to turn your radio and lights on and off to make it appear that you are home, you are practicing good OPSEC. Here is a another example of OPSEC. A …