When Prepping Just Isn’t Enough

Water

Clean drinking water is one of the most important requirements for survival. Now is the time to figure out how you will get water if your stored water runs out. Some ideas might be:

• Rain barrels (which are beginning to be illegal in some states)
• Less obvious water collection containers like pools and ponds (don’t forget the roof if you live in an apartment building
• Water purification methods
• Locate nearby lakes, rivers and streams
• Wells (including non-electric pumps)

Food production

Many people believe that they will just be able to stick some seeds in the ground and feed their families year round. It isn’t that easy. You can only learn the foibles of your bit of ground through trial and error. It takes a lot more veggies than most people think to feed a family for a year. Anything from a blight to bad weather to a horde of hungry bunnies can wipe out all of your hard work and leave you without a bite to store away. Look into some of these methods:

• Gardening in your backyard or on a balcony
• An aquaponics or hydroponics system
• Raising chickens and other micro-livestock
• Sprouting
• Hunting and foraging (a nice supplement to your diet but a risky plan for long term survival when everyone else has the same idea)
• Full-scale farming
• Rooftop gardening
• Greenhouses and cold-frames

Food preservation

Not all of us are lucky enough to live in a place where we can grow food outdoors all year long. For the rest of us, food preservation is a lifeline in the winter. A few basic supplies and tools are needed. Just like food production, it’s important to practices food preservation and work out the kinks now, while you still have moderately affordable groceries as a back up. As well, this allows you to rely on healthy, non-GMO foods instead of the inexpensive, highly processed garbage at the stores. Learn the following skills:

• Canning
• Freezing
• Dehydrating/drying
• Pickling
• Fermentation
• Salting and curing
• Root cellaring

Reduce dependence on utilities

Whether you live in the country or in a high-rise apartment, you need to take steps to reduce your dependence on electricity at the flip of a switch, water from the tap, heat from the thermostat, and cooking at the turn of a dial. As the divide between the rich and the poor widen, there could one day be a choice between food and electricity. Your priorities are:

• Water
• Sanitation
• Heat
• Electrical power
• Lights
• Refrigeration or other method of safe food storage
• Cooking methods

Every situation is unique so start now to amass the necessary tools to meet your needs should the lights go out on a long term basis.

Personal defense
This is the sticking point for many people. But if you can’t defend your supplies, your home, and your garden, you don’t really have them at all – you are just using them until someone better armed or tougher comes and takes these things away from you. Look at Argentina’s economic collapse as an example of what could happen – violent crime there increased by 35% in one year. One study went so far as to call property crime a tool of redistribution: ”Overall, these results suggest that property crime has been used as a redistributive tool for the poorest to compensate for their impoverishment during the last decade and in particular during the ultimate crisis in Argentina.

Some solutions for personal defense:

• Arm yourself and learn to use your weapon of choice
• Stock up on ammo while it is still available
• Have secondary methods of defense in which you are proficient
• Learn basic hand-to-hand self-defense skills

Home security

Not only should you be prepared to defend your home, but you should try to avoid the fight in the first place by securing your property.

• Make your property less accessible by fencing it
• Install heavy doors in reinforced frames
• Install sturdy brackets to hold a bar in place on either side of the doors
• Growing thorny inhospitable plants under windows and on fences
• Place alarms on windows and doors
• Install security cameras (even if they are fake and just have a blinking light)
• Keep a low profile – if no one else has lights or power, cover your windows thoroughly so that they cannot see that you have them
• Don’t be ostentatious – keep your property looking similar to everyone else’s in your neighborhood
• Keep all windows and doors securely locked
• Consider the potential necessity of standing watch in shifts if the situation has thoroughly devolved

Change your perspective on finances

Devastating financial changes are coming to a location near you. Wouldn’t you prefer to make the cuts now and adjust accordingly, instead of having them forced upon you through evictions, foreclosures, repossessions, and other painful methods? Making some difficult changes now can provide a stable standard of living in a world that is going downhill at breakneck speed. By decreasing your monthly output, you can hang on to necessities.

• Redefine what necessities mean to you
• Get your money out of the banks
• Convert fiat currency to tangibles like seeds, ammo, food, medical supplies, real estate, and precious metals
• Don’t be in debt
• Reduce your monthly expenditures to the bare minimum
• Spend more time at home 
• Learn to enjoy productive hobbies
• Prepare for a potential barter-based economy – what skills do you have that could be traded for essential goods and services?

The economic collapse is not some far-fetched, end-of-the-world fantasy. It is the reality that is occurring all around us, incrementally. The collapse that has been occurring since 2008 has been one of 1000 small cuts as income goes down and expenses go up.

No matter how much food you buy, it may not be enough to get you through these difficult times. You must learn to be self-sufficient in order to remain free from the control of those who would offer you sustenance and shelter in return for your fealty.

Instead of a huge, life-changing calamity, consider that it may be the culmination of many small events, rising prices and lower incomes, and the deliberate erosion of our self-sufficiency by those who would control us that cause TEOTWAWKI. (The End Of The World As We Know It).

The lists above aren’t comprehensive – they are jumping off points to apply to your own situations. Wherever you are planted, you need to come to grips with the fact that the world as we know it is undergoing massive changes. Figure out now how to make the best of it and not only survive with your family, but thrive.

Ask the people in Greece whether they regret not having stocked up on food supplies when those items were abundantly available. Ask the people in Argentina whether they feel the need to be armed against roving gangs and home invaders.

Hunger, cold, crime and fear are the daily realities in many countries that once enjoyed a similar standard of living to that of the average North American. Our debt-based standard of living is unsustainable, and you must be able to connect these trends with what is happening in your own country in order to see the need for preparation.

Today, you still have stores at every corner, reliable utilities, and social safety nets in place. These may soon become a thing of the past and if you wait before preparing, your window of opportunity may slam shut.

I’m not suggesting that you stop prepping – your stockpile is vital insurance that can help to cushion you when things go downhill. But along with your food storage and your rocket stoves and your medical supplies, begin creating a self-sufficient lifestyle that will carry you far beyond what mere prepping ever could.