Category: Survival Mindset

Simple Defense Tactics That Can Save Your Life, by Belle Ringer

As a woman, I had heretofore never envisioned myself in the scenarios I am about to describe.  The decay of our society and culture has made it necessary for me to know how to defend myself.  It hasn’t been an easy decision to make, but professional training in proper handgun handling has empowered me.   Through hours of practice, I am learning to be a responsible and proficient handgun owner.  I take my privilege of carrying a gun seriously, and recent national events should serve to inform all of us to avoid violent encounters whenever possible.  I carry a gun …


Ninja Prepping: Learning from the Medieval Mystery Warriors of Japan, by Alex N.

Imagining guys running around in black pajamas and swords, disappearing in a puff of smoke? Well let’s start with a proper… non Hollywood idea of what the Ninja were… or are… and then see what we can learn from them. Today we have this image of the Ninja as evil assassins sneaking around Japanese castles and killing under cover of night. What most people don’t know is that the Ninja were simple farmers, priests and shopkeepers who were forced out of Japanese society and hunted by their own government. They were the ultimate survivors. In fact the word Ninja in …


Predator or Prey: The Single Parent Survival Guide, by Sarah B.

While the majority of single parents are women, men too can be found in this situation. Generally speaking, single women with children are usually on the lower end of the economic spectrum. Let’s face it, poorer young mothers (or fathers) with very young children need to learn survival skills as much as anyone else, and do not have the financial resources to buy all they need.  So what do you do if you are a single woman with a babe-in-arms and two toddlers and have no money? I can tell you what you can’t do, you can’t sit around and …


Communication Skills: Key Tools for Survival, by S.S.F.

Most people wouldn’t keep .22 shells on hand for their .30-06 rifle.  They likely wouldn’t waste space in their pantry, storage, garden or go-bag for foodstuffs that were not calorically or nutritionally dense compared with the space they occupied Each serious or well-intentioned survivalist knows how precious resources, energy, space and time can be, and would likely strive for a high level of efficiency.  Being well prepared and resourceful is a cornerstone of success when it comes to survival. And yet, there is a fundamental tool that is oft overlooked- effective communication strategies. The tools in a survivalist’s arsenal should …


Selling the Truth, by Ben S.

I am not sure on when it happened, or how it happened, all I know is that it happened. I woke up one morning and realized that I didn’t have a plan and I didn’t know what I needed a plan for. Something inside of me was tearing at my chest, not in the form of fear, but in the form of urgency. I started to react instantly and in an almost frantic way because I knew that there was something very important I needed to do. After a couple of weeks I stopped myself and took two steps back …


Letter Re: Change Your Mind, Save Your Life

Jim, There seems to be a lot of debate on ‘should I head for the hills, post-SHTF‘. In my opinion, what most people miss is: Yes, it is a bad idea to head for the hills with no firmly established destination. Either move now or establish a place you are welcome to before the SHTF. I doubt a small town will be welcoming strangers in that situation. As for the fantasy of ‘living off the land’, you and 85 million other people? Ever try to bag a deer during hunting season with the limits in place today? – Ross JWR …


Change Your Mind, Save Your Life, by Marc P.

Apocalypse: en route or ongoing? I won’t argue whether something terrible will happen. It’s a flawed premise. Something terrible is already happening, just not where your computer is plugged in. It is not necessary for the entire planet to be threatened for a single region to be thrown into chaos. It wasn’t necessary for the whole state of Louisiana to be in peril before New Orleans turned medieval after Katrina. The mistake in logic occurs with the base assumption that a survival scenario is the end game. If that’s your assumption, there’s no need for extensive preparations. All you can …


Musings of a Newbie Prepper, by Tyson D.

After being raised on my grandfather’s farm, spending time in the military and being a first responder for the last 15 years, it is strange to find myself being a Newbie in the daunting task of creating an emergency preparedness cache for my family.  I now find myself living in a suburban/rural area of a major metropolitan city and a long way from where I grew up and started learning about some of the skills needed to survive.  I’ve always considered myself to be a prepared, self-sufficient individual.  I’ve hunted small and large game, I’ve backpacked in the backcountry for …


Letter Re: Prospects for the Eastern U.S. in a Societal Collapse

Mr. Rawles, Can you provide more detailed information on what you believe will happen East of the Mississippi River in and around major population centers in the event of a collapse.  You briefly addressed this when you were interviewed by Michael Ruppert in his Collapsenet podcast program last year.  Most of the population simply can’t relocate to the Western mountain states much less realistically get out of debt.  As I believe it was stated on your web site some years ago it will be a “Come as you are collapse” and that is what we all will get.  I’m perhaps …


Preparation Could Mean Survival, by D.S.A.

Some people say you can’t prepare for every situation.  I say, you can because every situation has one common element that can and will hurt you outside of the event itself: other people.  Lets face it, if you die in a storm, a nuclear/biological/chemical event, or terror attack, then you are dead.  There is nothing from stopping God’s will.  You don’t prepare for those events, you prepare for surviving those events.  There are many events, (and not far-fetched crazy extreme events) which people should be prepared to deal with to protect themselves and their families when it’s over and you …


Letter Re: Those Looking For Leadership

Jim, My family and I greatly appreciate all the work you have put into Survival blog and the wealth of knowledge of your readers. I would like to share a situation that happened to me recently. My family has been preparing in some fashion since around Y2K and have really stepped up the pace in the last four years since we found SurvivalBlog. We are hearing God’s calling for us to move to the American Redoubt from behind enemy lines, okay he is no longer calling to us in the quiet voice more like yelling to us: GET TO SAFETY! …


Key Questions For and About Your Children, by M.D.M.

Preparedness is a lifestyle and a state-of-mind. You never know what disaster or emergency will befall you, it could be something you cannot possibly prepare for, for me and my family the times we have had to use our bug-out-bags were not related to national emergencies, but to family and local emergencies. I’m not saying not to prepare, I’m saying to prepare in ways you may not have ever thought to do, and these tips I have learned over the years could help someone else. These are not so much extrinsic items for survival, but intrinsic necessities. When you have …


A Christian’s Call to Prepare, by J.P.

In 1919, the Spanish flu killed around 75 million people in a single year (Knobler, pp. 60–61). In 1931, the China floods killed over two million people (NOVA). In 1945, America dropped two atomic bombs that killed around 200,000 people (Radiation Effects Research Foundation). In 2010, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit Haiti and killed 316,000 people (USGS). In the past century alone, 29 countries have had to deal with hyperinflation, causing severe economic depression, during which millions died from starvation, disease and looting. These events go to show that disaster has always been an unavoidable aspect of …


The Survival Value of Oral and Written Traditions, by K.B.

The importance of keeping a curriculum in your plans In a TEOTWAWKI community, the lifestyle would be more or less the traditional one known to all communities in all times, cultures, and epochs: survival maintenance. Work never ends because, in a traditional community, work is life. Gardening techniques, clothing styles, earthenware, cuisine, tools, art, tapestries, house construction, and all the rest are not ‘pretty things’ at all but artifacts that emerge from survival. They are pretty things when we see them as a Goth’s furry booties in a museum or an Algonquin head wrap in a roadside souvenir shop. Likewise, …


Bugging Out Abroad, by J. in The East

For the preparation conscious world traveler, life abroad means a unique set of considerations must be made to the manner in which you travel/live abroad.  After all, the primary objective of the prepper abroad should be to get back to their family and home.  It was, at least for me.  My time living in Asia during the outbreak of Swine Flu brought the fragility of the infrastructure I was living in to the forefront of my attention and garnered in me an appreciation for the self reliant upbringing my parents instilled in me and made all too frightening the prospect …