Preparing on a Shoestring: In the Beginning
OK, you’re here, so you must know that you really should prepare for difficult times, but all those goodies and nifty gadgets you read about on all the forums and websites are expensive! This collection of articles will discuss some ideas to help you get around some of that expense and absorb what you can’t work around without a second mortgage. Hopefully, they will help you prioritize your plans and acquisitions in such a way that you will avoid frustration, make steady progress, and not break the bank.
Let’s start with an overview of the sort of things that need to be provided for. The most basic needs for life are food & water, shelter (including clothing), and safety…in that order. These should be the first things addressed in any preparedness program. That is not to say that other needs and wants cannot be addressed at the same time. It is only to say that these three things are the most basic and most necessary. These should receive priority in the early stages of a preparedness plan. As it happens, these are often among the easiest things to address.
The second part of preparedness is as cheap as free can be. It is tied into the plans involving all the other things and can be the hardest part of any preparedness program. This is the part where you decide what you want your life to look like after the balloon goes up, what you want your future to develop into, and what you must, can’t, will, and won’t do to achieve it.
From there, we progress to those things that we need to enhance and augment our ability to satisfy our basic needs and our wants. These are the items that will allow us to not only survive, but to thrive. There are some tangibles like tools and materials, but also some intangible ones like skills, training, and knowledge. This part of a preparedness program includes things that vary from the cheap or free to the relatively expensive, from the easy to the difficult to obtain. Even if the price is high, these items and abilities are worth the money, at any price.
The fourth part of preparedness is our wants. These are the things we would like to have, the things that make surviving easier and more bearable. These are the “toys”, if you will, that will make the aftermath something like enjoyable every now and then. These things are not always necessary. Their necessity depends upon your plans. Even then, some of these considerations are nice in normal times and would be considered real luxuries when and after the balloon goes up. These are the things that will help keep you sane and remember why you wanted to survive in the first place. In other cases, they will help you achieve the life you want in the aftermath.
The last part of a preparedness program is maintenance. The best plan and most complete preparations will do you no good if you don’t keep them current. Many things do have a shelf life. Food is only one of those things. Equipment must be maintained if you want it to work when you need it. Skills need to be practiced if you are to keep them sharp. Knowledge can always be increased. No matter how much you know, it won’t be enough. More is always, always better. Training, simply put, is the repetition and improvement of skills. The more you train, the more likely you are to be able to put your skills to use without the need to think consciously about those skills. Correctly executed actions that essentially bypass conscious thought can make all the difference. In a couple of areas, it can literally mean the difference between life and death.
It is my hope that with the help of these articles, you will have a good idea of what needs to be done in your program and how to go about doing it. I know what it is to work with limited funds. I know the financial hardships even a simple preparedness program can impose upon those working with limited funds. I also have a thorough understanding of the rewards a well executed preparedness plan can provide. Even early on, when your plan is far from done, it can make all the difference if bad turns to worse. It is my goal in these articles to help all I can to minimize the hardships and maximize the rewards for you by explaining some of the things that have worked for me and others.
Good luck and happy prepping!
