Category: Survival Mindset

Post-TEOTWAWKI: Groups and Retreats, Pt. 1, by E.M.

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There are many articles on the internet concerning the benefits of forming a group of like-minded individuals who could support each other when times get “spicy” for months or even years, either in their own neighborhood or at a remote retreat.  These groups are sometimes referred to as mutual assistance groups. These articles are based on the premise that choosing a “lone wolf” approach after TEOTWAWKI is unsustainable in the long run, and that even expecting a single family to live and thrive on a remote mountaintop after a societal meltdown is unrealistic and ripe for tragedy in the long …


Our Wildfire Evacuation, Part 5, by SoCal9mm

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(Continued from Part 4. This installment concludes the article series.) OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT: Make sure you wait until the last moment to do your Christmas shopping – seriously, I never have to worry about “rescuing presents” when I procrastinate. Stupid “get-stuff-done-early”… Laundry – have enough clothes so that you don’t have to go commando next to the washer, waiting for your lone pair of choners to get clean. Trust me, not cool. Air – we worry about food, water, shelter, protection, etc., but we rarely worry about preps for air. Dust and ash are (relatively) easily removed from breathing air …


Picking a BOL by Pete Thorsen

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Many people think that there are very troubled times ahead for the United States. Some who think that realize if that comes to pass their current residence could make their very survival problematic. So what to do? Move now or if tied down, like because of a job, etc, then maybe set up a bug-out-location (BOL). Great but where would you go? And what would be the determining factors in BOL selection? The “where” and the many deciding factors will likely be different for just about everyone. And anyone who has ever been house hunting knows that buying a house …


Estate Planning For The Prepared, by David E.

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As Benjamin Franklin once observed, nothing is certain except Death and Taxes.  If you’re like most people, though, you find the topic of planning for your own passing uncomfortable.  In fact, it’s more comfortable planning for TEOTWAWKI than planning for one’s own death.  Many find it so uncomfortable that they avoid planning for it at all. A lack of a good plan, however, leaves your loved ones in bad shape: they could be saddled with months or even years of legal proceedings, have to pay onerous taxes that could have been avoided, and your years of preparing and saving could …


Commerce Model Prepping: A Re-Evaluation, by B.H. in North Idaho

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Editor’s Introductory Note:  This article serves as an update to B.H.’s original piece on this topic, published in SurvivalBlog back in March of 2013. Introduction Over the years since I first read the novel Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles and made the decision to embrace prepping my idea of prepping has changed. It started when I recognized that friends, acquaintances and strangers all had varying ideas and degrees of preparedness even within very similar prepping models. The greatest characteristic of Survivalblog.com is that there is something for everyone presented in articles and information. Regardless of your station you’ll find information …


Life in the 12th Century, by Edge

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The following article may offend some miserable gits with no sense of humour. If you are a miserable git, then you have been warned. Don’t come whining to me. To envisage a life after electricity, we must look back to a time without it. Most people can think as far back as the American Civil War for a lifestyle but that is modern history with Morse Code (1844), Railways (1804) and Steam Ships (1787) and not where we need to look at all. We need to go right back. In the 12th century there was a rural population of around …


Property Scouting in the Redoubt, by Pickled Prepper

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Like many others SurivivalBlog readers, I hope to one day move to the American Redoubt. In the summer of 2018, my wife and I took the first step: an eight-day trip to Montana and Idaho to look at properties, get a feel for the places in which we were interested, and to meet people. Our goal was not to buy a house or property this trip, but to start what may be a multi-year process that ensures that when we pull the trigger we hit our target rather than making a decision we come to regret. We also want to …


Un-Zeroed Rifles are Just Voodoo Talismans

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I’ve encountered an attitude and habit among some of my consulting clients that is alarming: Very few of them have properly zeroed all of their guns. Granted, many of these clients own more than 100 guns and have busy lives as doctors, lawyers, and business executives. But there is no excuse for them failing to at least zero their core defensive and hunting gun batteries. The “I’m planning to get around to that…” excuse doesn’t suffice. I suppose that I should take a step back here, and address a more fundamental issue in family preparedness: This is the issue of …


Preparedness Lessons from the 1930s – Part 2, by J. E.

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(Continued from Part 1. This part concludes the article.) Twice a year the cabin was emptied of everything. The walls, floors, and ceilings were scrubbed with lye soap and a bristle brush. All the belongings were also cleaned before they came back into the house. This was pest control and it was needed until DDT became available. Even then, bedbugs, lice, ticks and other creepy crawlies were a fact of life and were controlled by brute force. Failure to do so left you in misery and maybe ill. Foods were stored in bug proof containers. The most popular was fifteen …


Preparedness Lessons from the 1930s – Part 1, by J. E.

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It’s one or two years after an EMP attack and you are safely tucked away in your retreat somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Your storage foods have mostly been used and your high tech electronics is useless. The really bad stuff is mostly past. Now it’s try to stay fed and alive and pray that civilization as you know it is coming back. You’re going to have to work your environment to live. Ever wonder what life might be like to Homestead? What would it really be like to have no running water, electricity, sewer, newspaper or Internet? No …


Prepper Complacency, by Wood Tamer

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In this writing I will be referencing Hurricane Michael. This is not just a narrative about my experiences with this hurricane but rather a reflection on my life experiences as a prepared individual, family, and neighborhood. Throughout my life I could probably be defined as an individual more prepared for unexpected events than most others. That was not necessarily by design but rather necessity and lifestyle. I was raised in a large family and we always needed to make ends meet. As an adult I have been blessed with an abundant life without much adversity or concern until I heard …


Our Path Towards Preparation, by SBC

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On our curious and sometimes convoluted path towards being prepared for TEOTWAWKI, I have sometimes impressed, often confounded and occasionally amused myself and family with our brilliance and stupidity. Here follows the outline of the story of our adventure in the hope that it will inspire or amuse or warn you and help your own journey be a bit easier and the load a bit lighter. We began our journey after Hurricane Katrina when FEMA so effectively demonstrated how inadequate the federal support system was dealing with large scale disasters. So what began as a ah-ha moment of “perhaps we …


1803: The Preps of Lewis and Clark, by S.K.

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Prepping is many things to a great and growing number of people. Americans have been prepping since the entire European presence was behind a wall, back there in the Jamestown Colony.  As a people, we have this written in our DNA.  The long trek west and the adversarial relationship of native and non-native is a compelling story filled with survival lessons for everyone. And none is more spellbinding than the story of the Corps of Discovery.  How did Lewis and Clark do it, and what was in their “G.O.O.D. bags”? Thomas Jefferson had been interested in exploring the American West …


The Myth of Stored Food, by Pete Thorsen

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Many preppers think if they merely store food then they are done–that they have saved their family. And that might be true if they experience a natural disaster in their area which does not allow shopping for a week or so. They have their stored food and just use that during the emergency. Later–if they remember they buy replacements for the food they used–they made their family much more comfortable during that emergency by having that stored food. Plus one for the prepper family. But what about a long term nationwide disaster? What if it is a total economic collapse, …


Phase Three of the Internet Censorship War

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Back in October of 2017, I wrote this article: Internet Censorship is Now Rampant — It is High Time to Bookmark Your Alternatives.  That was back in what I now refer to as Phase One of the Internet censorship war. I didn’t know it then, but that was back when the censorship campaign was still fairly mild and relatively subtle. Then, in early August of 2018, Alex Jones was systematically banned by more than 10 social media services and sites. Eventually, even Twitter jumped on the “Ban Alex” Band Wagon. When the Alex Jones mass banning was reported in the …