Category: Survival Mindset

Letter Re: A Prepared Christmas

Sir; I just finished reading a Prepared Christmas by Hunkerdown and it made me smile as I remembered last year. Emergency Essential ran a special on first aid kits and we sent one to each of our adult children. It consisted of two kits – one for the home and an outdoor kit to take in a vehicle. Right after the holidays, our 16 month old grandson put his hands on a stove (those little critters can move faster than a cheetah) and burned the palms of his hands. He was treated at the emergency room (the burns were very …


A Prepared Christmas, by Hunkerdown

As most folks are running around fiercely to holiday parties and the malls in search of the perfect gift, even in these troubled times, it dawned on me that this is a unique time of the year that preppers can share our enthusiasm for our lifestyle. I started my preparedness journey (Yes, ‘journey’, as I’m now sure there is not a final destination. Can you ever be too prepared?) a little less than a year ago, and through sites like SurvivalBlog, have spent many hours educating myself about the numerous issues we may face in TEOTWAWKI. I often find prepping …


Solo Survival in a Societal Collapse?, by Wry Catcher

When it comes to natural and man-made disasters, I’ve seen my share, and each was a learning experience. Although diverse in type, all of them shared a common factor: a dire impact on the human populations they affected. That impact, in turn, led to dangerous encounters with some rough criminals. Some people cannot cope, so they turn to ruthless behavior. Other people are selfish opportunists. While we may have pity for those who can’t cope with the stress of a survival situation, we should nonetheless remain vigilant for those who would do us harm in any way and for any …


Letter Re: Another COMSEC Warning on Social Networking Web Services

James, This is a communications security (COMSEC) warning: Readers may wish to think about the networking tools used to communicate between friends and associates – Facebook, Linked-In, Jaiku, Pownce, Yammer, and others – and realize that not only do they pose a serious threat to the security of their personal information, but some of them are now apparently being used to bring new people into the non-secure comms environment by falsifying “invitations” from others to join. While tools such as Outlook, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Gmail, Hotmail, Flickr, and MySpace should also be used with caution to limit the damage that …


Ladies’ Needs in TEOTWAWKI–Thinking Beyond Menstrual Supplies, by Jeanan

I’m kind of a weird woman, not really a “girly” girl. I grew up on horseback, helping my Daddy out in his oilfield service company shop (my job was to clean old parts), and playing cowboys and Indians out with my brother. I like my guns and my motorcycle now, and I’ve been preparing for a SHTF scenario for almost a year. My career is also kind of weird, I repair musical instruments. School band instruments, flutes, clarinets, saxophones, that sort of thing. My husband is also an instrument repair technician, and we began our own business about seven years …


Sharing Your Faith After TEOTWAWKI, by D.P.B.

I can’t help but notice there being a correlation between preparedness and Christianity. Most people I know who are getting involved, and most of the stuff I read on line is written by Christians. The one thing I haven’t read too much about though is what it will look like to share our faith after a collapse. In the grand scheme of eternity being able to grow in your relationship with Jesus and help others do the same is the most important part of being prepared.  A friend of mine used to own and operate a Christian bookstore. His family …


A Frugal Wife’s Contributions to Preparedness, by Desert Dawn

This is for the Ladies: take the lead on frugality to finance your family preparedness! Below are things I do and have done, some for years, some for only a few months. You’d be amazed at how much starts accumulating in your checking account when you do these things. I have paid off credit cares and bought a rifle with scope, some junk silver, 1,000 rounds of ammo and a more than three month food supply since I started being more serious about these things. My husband and I are professionals making good salaries – at least for now. We …


Letter Re: Preparing Your Spouse

I really liked the post about preparing your spouse but saw one thing missing or at least not stated explicitly. Your spouse needs to know how to do these things and the only way to really learn most of these practical tasks is to do them with your spouse. Binders [full of information] are great but unless you know how to execute all the steps, where all the necessary tools and pieces are and how to use them binders are not going to help much. To illustrate the importance of actually doing something I will relay a recent tale from …


Letter Re: Preparing Your Spouse

Mr. Rawles,Several years ago I took a serious fall and was out of commission for several months. My husband had to completely take over the household responsibilities during that time. Fortunately, he was working at home and I was available to give him direction and information. Had I not been, he would have really struggled to figure out just how I got things done. As he was buttoning up the house in preparation for winter this year it occurred to me that, if he were suddenly unavailable, I too would be at a loss to remember all of the details …


Three Letters Re: Getting a Christian Wife Involved With Preparedness

Mr. Rawles, Thank you for the time and energy spent on your blog and your books. I read your blog and static pages often and own most of your books. Your writings offer a deep perspective not often found. Your writer from Idaho has hit on one of the most debated topics that has ever been discussed between a man and his wife. How does a man prepare his family without frightening, boring or going overboard? I’ll tell you what has worked in my family. The most important point is to bring your spouse on board, slowly. Rome wasn’t built …


Letter Re: Short Term Survival or Long Term Self-Sufficiency?

Hi James, You have an excellent blog. It is good to find another right-wing Christian who thinks we’re going down the wrong path, and someone who cares about other people. I have to take issue with your blog though. It focuses on survival in the short term (maximum five years after collapse). It does not give direction for how to proceed from there, how to thrive, how to rebuild society (or rather, how to build a better society). Surviving the collapse on modern medicine only to die from disease when it runs out is pointless. Surviving only to find that …


Seven Letters Re: Getting a Christian Wife Involved With Preparedness

Dear Mr. Rawles, I just came across a post that might give some more ideas to the gentleman who wrote in about getting his wife “on board” with preparedness efforts. It’s titled “All Aboard” and was posted over on Kathy Harrison’s The Just In Case Book Blog. (As may be obvious, Kathy is also the author of the [nonfiction preparedness] book entitled Just in Case.) As a side note, my husband and I “came together” on our preps about two years ago while watching the television show Jericho. We had seen some episodes in passing earlier in our marriage, but …


Letter Re: Getting a Christian Wife Involved With Preparedness

Mr. Rawles, I’ve been into the survivalist genre since I first read [the novel] Alas, Babylon [by Pat Frank] about 10 years ago. Since then i’ve read just about every book on the subject I can get hold of. I ran across your novel “Patriots” about six months ago and it has really lit a fire under me. When discussing the subject with my wife, I was surprised when she asked me, “why?”. She said that if our great country collapsed, what would be the point of surviving? Why keep struggling to go on when our Father in Heaven is …


Lessons Leaned from a Wildfire Evacuation, by Daniel in Montana

It was a gorgeous Saturday night, Sept. in Montana’s mountains the weather was hanging onto summer’s 70 degree temperatures, warm and dry. Working all day at the hospital and finishing some of my home preparedness projects gave me a satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Time to relax, I sat down, put my feet up and was sipping my week’s end treat, a cold beer. I phoned my friend, “Brett” to finalize our plans to butcher a few of his farm animals tomorrow. He was finishing a Bible reading with his boys and was putting them to bed, and would call …


Over-Planning: Get Thine Act Together!

I occasionally hear from consulting clients that get stuck in the rut of “over -planning”. They do so much planning for training, and planning for stocking up, that they never seem to get around to doing either! Lengthy “to do” lists are worthless if they never get implemented. This sometimes reaches absurd lengths, as illustrated by one of my clients that showed me a spreadsheet on his laptop PC, in which he not only compared prices from various vendors for ammunition, but also tracked the changes in their prices, over the course of two years. I asked him: “Well, when …