To think 'prepping' is just shopping to ease anxiety

[JeffsanArsehole]

The likelihood of something 'happening' that prepping would have helped is pretty small isn't it?

Isis/alien invasion/zombie apocalypse - all pretty unlikely.

Apart from the pack of candles, a torch, and a 4 pint of milk in the freezer I'm not 'prepped' for anything.

So maybe people just buy 400 tins and a generator to ease anxiety?

Need wood for fuel. How do you chop a tree down without a (metal) axe ? Any flintknappers in ?

Most preppers will have an axe and flints. I have several axes and flints, not for prepping.

First rule of prepping surely should be to not tell anyone you prep?

Also you need to know how to hide it.

We are rural too, TBH I'm beginning to wonder if it is a rural 'thing'. Maybe we are just more self reliant, and don't expect anyone to come running to rescue us.

We were snowed in (v v small 'town', would be a village anywhere else) a few years ago. We (the town, not me) ran out very quickly. There's very little food stock in reserve anywhere, even if you think you're fine because you live next door to a supermarket. That supermarket serves the whole population, and they all want feeding. Don't bank on the shelves staying full, think what they're like Christmas Eve.

Oh, I was absolutely prepping during the zombie apocalypse ebola crisis. That had me panic-stricken. Often times I find I can't make reasonable risk assessments.

I usually have food at home that would last me a week. Beyond that I'd probably start on the cat or something.

It's not "dog eat dog", it's just that I don't want to go without so that others who didn't prepare can have more. If I have enough supplies to last me 2 months, but the neighbhours only have enough for a few days, and it looks like we'll be cut off for several weeks.....then that's their problem and not mine. I can't share with them because if I do, it will spread like wildfire that I have extra and I'll get raided, and end up in the same boat as them, starving to death before help arrives from the outside. That's not fair to expect me to do that. Nope, if you don't want to prepare that's fine but you don't expect those who did to bail you out if you need it. That's the choice you make and you stand by your choices.

Where do you live Dont?

'Live' as in country rather than actual address. I don't want you to think I'll come a-knockin' in case of a crisis.

Don't tell em, Dont.

Dont has it exactly.

You can't scoff at us, then expect us to share. Particularly as that act of sharing is also denying our families. You take care of your family, and we will take care of ours.

Fine by me!

My neighbour used to be homeless and was piss poor for years, he has 4 full freezers now, he lives alone I can't have a conversation with him on the balcony without him without him offering me a tin of something or telling me the price of something in Aldi. He has a fear of hunger I think.

The other thing I haven't seen (although I only scanned the posts) is preparing for an Internet down situation. We are so used to looking up diy type stuff on the Internet to save on trades costs or whatever but this is stuff you may need when you tube isn't available. First aid, basic diy to get you through, how to grow veggies, sterilise water and so on. Information is at our finger tips but it is worth knowing now rather than oh I wish I had looked that up in an emergency situation. Also how to use the supplies and equipment you have before you need them. The last thing you want to do is be poring over a manual on how to work the generator when it is freezing cold and you have no heating!

Crap examples but hopefully you why the gist!

Get! Argh!

MitzyLeFrouf I live in the UK.

Dolphins I can see how that would definitely be useful if we had an internet blackout but still had access to electricity, or at least a laptop with a reasonably good battery life and only used it to quickly check things. And I share your pain with typing, my phone has a mind of its own sometimes in what it types.

My phone drives me bonkers!

Also with the electric and Internet down if you know how to do stuff automatically it is useful. I have ppl I know who save documents on the pc to check if needed with ally heir plans an do also know ppl who print and laminate or bind or staple. Yes I know some oddballs! --mine things are all still saved as bookmarks until
I learn them! Should get a move on really!--

Also, medicine. A good stash can be bartered for services and or food plus you know you aren't going to be taken down by a migraine!

I am not really a prepper but do joke with the family about my zombie apocalypse supplies. I am also of the opinion that it isnt national or global armageddon I am preparing for but possibly illness, weather, strikes or whatever, stopping supplies of food or fuel getting through. I can live without milk and bread but it doesn't take long for shops to run out of basics in bad weather conditions.

I usually keep cheap bottles of water in the house, loads of tinned food such as tuna, beans and tomatoes which I just use as usual and replace. Loo rolls, bin bags, candles etc. I also have several solar powered torches scattered about. I dont keep much as personally I dont want to live through a real meltdown but do want to be comfortable and non stressed during a mini crisis. I do remember telling the family years ago that if bird flu spread through our area as predicted, nobody was leaving the house for weeks. Luckily it didn't become as widespread as were were led to believe.

It doesnt really cost anything to be a little more prepared - when you shop just bung a couple more things in the trolley each time and build up supplies. Just remember to eat the food in rotation and dont buy things you actually dont eat normally.

I must make a Go bag as I woudl hate to have to leave the house in a hurry without some comforts.

We live very ruraly as well, and do have actual skills - hunting(with or without guns), butchering, preserving, know local berries that are OK, grow some veg and all our potatoes (we can do this manually), can plant, chop, split trees (manually if needed we've loads of axes), both know military first aid, know how to sterilise water, light a fire, rear animals .... can't think of much else we know - we couldn't live off the land but we aren't prepping for that.

I want to get though a few weeks power and water cut, with everyones sanity intact and bellies full. We've helped neighbours during short water and power cuts of course we aren't crazy. Still in a hurricane catrina type situation, I'm not sure what we would do. No one knows the extent of our set up, what we do and know etc.

But if I lived in a city I'd just have a few bits in the car incase I'm stuck in traffic for hrs, important documnts copied and stored in a few diff houses, and a few days water, food and a bit of cash in the house. (Filled pop bottles of tap water is fine, so its free more or less.)

I can't help wonder if it is a city bs rural thing.

But then my last corporate job used to encourage us to have stocks at home (maybe the CEO was a prepper). They had a stock of food at the office, blankets pillows etc. During one lot of snow some people couldn't drive to their rural homes. So it helped them out.

They also issued us with a winter pack for our cars every year. 6 cans of de-icer, scraper, hi vis jackets, blankets, the silver tin foil blankets. And they would get a company out to check everyone's tyres. You also got I travel mug and there were reminders sent out to fill it up before you left of the wether was bad and there were free snacks to take as you left incase you were stranded.

They were know to organise staff who had vehicles that were good in snow to go out and take people home or rescue them from the side of the road.

Most people lived in the city. But it was this that got me started on keeping stocks at home.

Would love to know who put that all in place and why.

It's a sliding scale though, how much of a prepper are you?
As Stratter5 has tried to explain, it's not about bunkers and ammo, it's the difference between surviving a crisis and living reasonably comfortably through floods, snowstorms, hurricanes and whatever else might happen.
Very few UK preppers are truly anxious about zombies or pandemics, it's more 'If the power goes out for three or four days, could we manage easily?'
No, I don't talk about being a prepper IRL, why would I? But if a friend wants to borrow an axe, runs out of something at 10pm...I"m the first person they think of 'Oh, Armchair will have..'

Speaking or preppers, look at what happens to the average person in the pre-Christmas run up....panicking about running out of parsnips and shelves in supermarkest cleared of bread. Then a gazillion kilos of fresh food gone manky gets thrown away in the new year.
That's panic, not prepping.
I'm too old and inert to joing the throngs of happy looters and raiders anyway, I'm more the hunker down and wait it out sort, along with my family.

'I usually have food at home that would last me a week. Beyond that I'd probably start on the cat or something.'

There's about the same amount of meat on a cat as on a small rabbit. It's a snack. Better to lure a neighbour in and wack 'em whilst they are drinking tea.

always have WD40 about your person, that's it all you need

On toast? Or with a crumpet?