Is Survival Prepping For You?

(SurvivalDaily.com) – If you believe what the media’s telling you, preppers are a pretty weird bunch — and maybe you’re thinking you don’t want to be lumped in with something so odd. Let’s look at this from a different angle, though.

What’s the Point of Prepping?

Prepping is about more than being ready for The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI in prepper-speak). Any event where the SHTF (you know what that stands for) will be a lot easier to get through if you’re prepared. That could be a bad storm, civil unrest or a pandemic — not all preppers are worried about nuclear war or alien invasion.

Some people think prepping is pointless, for very different reasons:

Some think they’ll never be able to afford a fortified bunker stocked with guns and five years’ worth of food, so why bother?
Others think that there isn’t going to be a major disaster anyway, so any time and money they spend on prepping will be wasted.
And still others think the government will provide for them if anything does happen.

We don’t agree. Prepping is never a bad idea, even if you only do a little of it. Say you stockpile enough extra food to last a week; that’s not much compared to the three-month supply you’d expect to find in a nuclear bunker, but if a blizzard prevents you from getting to the store for six days, you’ll be glad to have it.

If the same blizzard takes down the power lines, how happy are you going to be if you have an emergency generator out back and the hardware to get essential appliances running again? Pretty happy, most likely.

Prepping is for Everyday Life

Prepping doesn’t just give you a better chance of surviving a major crisis — it lets you take smaller ones in stride. As you pick up skills, you’ll start to save money, too; preppers quickly become experts at repairing or repurposing things. You’ll also develop the positive attitude that comes from feeling confident and as you work through it all, you’ll improve your powers of critical thinking.

Everyone can get some benefits from prepping. You don’t have to throw yourself into it headlong, spend all your money on equipment and start digging a fallout shelter; just spending an extra $5 a week on groceries will quickly give you a valuable head start in an emergency. But regardless of how you go about it, choosing to prep for whatever might come is just responsible, not weird.