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?

Driver I know some people think its lunacy but at what point do you decide to lay down with your family and kill yourselves?

emergency situation lasting for a week?

emergency situation lasting for a month?

emergency situation lasting for three months?

If none of the above then could you actually cope for those periods of time?

I'd be more concerned about the mental stability of someone who thinks ending it is the right option for their loved ones than those who have prepared to keep themselves and their families fed and safe.

The reality is that very few people would actually just kill themselves and their families. The survival instinct would kick in, if not for yourself then for your children.

What's the difference between making sure you've got some stocks of pasta, beans and packet food to last a few days, and some candles and water, to actual prepping?

I can understand the former. You might get snowed or flooded in. But things like water purifying tablets? If the water goes off, I can't even imagine where anyone in my town would go to get water...

I'm with the others. Unless Rick Grimes turns up, I don't think I'd actually like to survive into The Walking Dead.

If you have water purifying tablets (about £3 for 30 so no big hardship) then you can collect rainwater in this country. Water doesn't tend to be our biggest problem.

I just don't get the mindset of the UK, when I discuss this on here, it feels really obvious I wasn't brought up here. To me, it's normal, sensible, part of takin care of my loved ones. To the British, it's a joke.

I think you've possibly got it, MrsT, for the majority who live in densely populated areas, it would be almost too tough to contemplate if something really awful happened, whereas if you live in a rural area, it's almost part of life - we are used to getting stuck without power, or the occasional snow in. But that's only a few days, and I'm not talking about a long term major fuck up, and I don't understand why you don't all think it's sensible to plan for a few days, at least.

No balcony swiss and toys, books and out of season clothes under the beds.

When my book club read The Road, everyone was firmly in two camps; 'find pills and say goodnight' and 'strap on the rifle and walk the road'. Oddly, it wasn't the people you'd think, either.

I think atticus is right. You don't; watch the news, they say there's a new kind of flu and you take cyanide. Things can get worse gradually but too fast to stockpile.

You also prep based on where you are. Water wouldn't be an issue here necessarily but if I lived in Arizona I would have massively more issues. In a very big city, I think you are pretty buggered TBH.

Driver I know some people think its lunacy but at what point do you decide to lay down with your family and kill yourselves?

emergency situation lasting for a week?

emergency situation lasting for a month?

emergency situation lasting for three months?

It's all conjecture really, since none of those extreme scenarios will ever happen.

You genuinely think there could never be a situation where you have to fend for yourself for a week?

I've been snowed in for longer than that during the past 5 years.

And does anyone actually have access to cyanide ? Or are the suiciders all stockpiling enough tablets to kill their entire families (surely just another form of prepping

It's all conjecture really, since none of those extreme scenarios will ever happen. Do you read the news? I'd love to find before and after pictures for Sarajevo, Baghdad, New Orleans. Normal, civilised places.

Danza I wouldn't "ignore" a starving neighbours kid, it's just that there's nothing I could do for them. I've got supplies for me, not them, so anything I give them shortens the amount of time I'm able to last - that's not something I'm willing to do. I wouldn't share because starving people don't think rationally, and once they knew I had food they would take it by force and divide it up equally giving everyone a "share" of what doesn't belong to them, and I'd be in the same boat as them - starving to death. Well no thanks, I have the foresight to prepare ahead.

Surely then prepping as a community is the best option? I would rather starve to death than see someone else starve.

I think MN "preppers" are doing themselves a disservice by calling the topic "prepping" rather than the far more mainstream "emergency preparedness". I'm afraid (and I'm not British, despite the constant inferences that anybody who questions having 3 months emergency rations must be some soft citydwelling pansy) that the term "prepper" conjures up images of gun nuts in Idaho sitting in a compound following the real Constitution.

There is no credible reason to think that most people in the UK will be without supermarkets, electricity and emergency services for more than a handful of days (and even that would be extremely unlikely). I don't have 3 months rations for the same reason that I don't have a tsunami evacuation plan, and I no longer perform earthquake drills. Those things made sense when I lived in coastal California, but they are not reasonable things to prepare for in South East England.

My time, my money, and the physical space in my house are precious resources and wasting them on doomsday scenarios is not a sensible thing to do. Above someone suggested that everybody should keep a bag with clothes and supplies for a week for every family member by their front door, just in case - I don't know how big your hallway is, but for the vast majority of people this would be a very impractical way to live. Someone also suggested we should equip our cars in case we ever need to walk 30 miles to the nearest town - again, some people somewhere may need to do this, but the overwhelming majority of this very densely populated country will never be 30 miles from the nearest house on a deserted road. A small proportion of people who live in remote places with severe weather may worry about being cut off by snow for a week or more - but that will never happen to most of us.

Emergency preparedness is very sensible. Investing disproportionate money and energy into threats that won't happen is not. I have spent thousands on flood defences and preparedness this year since my neighbours and I flooded. I wouldn't recommend everyone else do that though because its only needed in my very narrow and unusual circumstances.

Hopeful yes it would be ideal provided everyone was on the several page. Unfortunately in most neighborhoods you will always get people who want their share but aren't prepared to put in any work for it, and once word gets around that you have supplies they will decide they are entitled to some.

The chances of some situations happening may be low but that doesn't make it a waste of time or disproportionate to have a go bag, or prep. The chances of you crashing your car are very slim, but I bet you still wear a seatbelt. And the chances of your workplace going on fire may be low, but they still have fire extinguishers. Prepping works on the same principle. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have.

Hopeful that's your choice if you'd prefer to starve yourself than see someone else die. It's not the choice I would take though, if I've prepared ahead of time I'm not going to go without so that people who haven't prepared can.

' Surely then prepping as a community is the best option? I would rather starve to death than see someone else starve.'

Foodbanks. Call out the army and the TA. That's what tends to happen.
When the flooding was bad round here, people were evacuated to community centres and church halls. Rather like having communal bomb shelters in areas where households couldn't have their own Anderson.

I wonder how much I'd let my children suffer in order to care for another child. Probably quite a lot, but until the SHTF, no one can say with absolute certainty.

Ye armchair, people forget that any help they give others is coming out of their own mouths or their children's. Why should I reduce my supplies, lowering the amount of time I can last, to help someone else who is starving? If they are the point of starvation they'll die soon anyway, giving them one meal won't help it will buy them a little more time but nothing more - unless they want continued help, in which case just how much of my supplies are they going to take? And will that mean I now no longer have enough?

People will be dying of hypothermia and disease very soon all over the Balkans. I've sent some cash support to relief agencies, but nowhere near as much as I could if I stopped buying stuff other than essentials. That's the tricky part, words are easy to say, but carrying resolutions out, over weeks and months, is much more challenging

I used to work in a role which brought me into contact with people made suddenly, and totally, homeless. Not evictions, disasters such as flooding (unexpected / like burst pipes, in the house or outside), house fires and so on. Homes, clothes and possessions all totally gone. This was in the UK btw. It literally can happen to anyone. Now I have lots and lots and lots of insurance against these eventualities.

Prepping is a bit like insurance. We hope we don't need to use it, the chances are we won't, but if we need it, we really need it.

'There's also a lot of misunderstanding about Hurricane Katrina. The people who were stuck there were stuck because they were poor. Every middle class person loaded up their car and evacuated in good time when they were told and came back when it was safe again.'

And how many of the MC people thought
'Hang on, if I dump half my stuff and abandon some of my extras, I can fit a couple of poor citizens in the car instead, because otherwise they'll be stuffed'?

Absolutely loads of people gave lifts out of the city. And many many more opened their homes to the victims to house them until they were able to return.

That's how people actually behave in these situations.

Surely then prepping as a community is the best option?

It always struck me as quite odd that in the aftermath of Katrina police seemed to be posted outside supermarkets to prevent looting, instead of just using the contents of the store that were safe to use, as emergency rations to be distributed freely by said police officers, to all the people in need in the city.

I don't understand the hostility. Some people spend thousands of pounds on a bike or another hobby. I throw a few extra tins in the trolly at the supermarket.

It doesn't go to waste, I personally have about three months of food in my stockpile but its not sitting there gathering dust, we use it like an extension of the kitchen. If we run out of honey we get some from the store and I buy another few jars when they're next on offer to top up what we've used. I save money by bulk buying things when they're on offer too.

I spend money on my "zombie store", makeup and stuff to make my house look nice. At least the zombie store is useful!

I don't understand the hostility either atticus. It'll be great to just chat on our own topic and anyone who doesn't like it can just hide it.