When the SHTF ~ A Rant

This is about as harsh as I am going to get.. Let other preppers set the doom and gloom tone.

Thinking about all the ways that the SHTF events can impact our lives and what some of us are doing about it makes me think. What about dear friends and family members who are too busy, too caught up, and perhaps not serious about where their lives may be if a situation should occur in their lives that they could have prepared for. Come knocking on my door when it's too late and I am going to want to tell 'em I told ya so, but I won't because I am really not that mean, or can I be???

Fires, storms, riots, unemployment, floods, medical problems, and loss of homes are the SHTF events of today. Preparing for any or all of these crisis can help you to better understand what it takes to prep for a larger event. Starting small and moving onto major survival levels pushes you and your family into a better readiness state and closer to being a family that is ready to survive  and not a family ready to starve, die, or be victimized. 

The emergency teams that are associated with natural disasters do not have time to hold your hand because you neglected to address these issues before these events happened. They need to to find victims who need medical care, locate and prepare the dead, tend to hazards, and organize rescue operations, and deliver emergency first aid to those who need it.

Facing the destruction of all you held dear being gone isn't the time to say I could have done more. It's the time to roll a preparedness plan into action and sustain your family until circumstances turn around and you can be guided back to a reasonable living situation. With the essentials of food, water, shelter, and emergency energy covered you can be ok no matter what you have lost. Your life, your health, and your family with you is more important than the pile of stuff that is no longer there.

Where does one begin?

Gather your emergency 72 hour kit together, now. Arrange a set of emergency supplies that can be stored in the trunk of your car. Sit down with your family and review what measures you need to take for your particular needs. Set aside a stock of food storage. Collect drinking water and energy sources such as batteries, charcoal, sterno, and similar items. Make bed rolls to go with each emergency kit as well as a change of clothes.

Ask anyone in a hurricane zone what's the first things to disappear in the markets? They will all tell you: Bread, Water, Batteries.

Having these life sustaining items in store long before a disaster is on your front step is wonderful insurance for your family.

Preparing to support your family in times of trouble is as important as planning to pay your bills every months and planning to go to work to tend to their needs. Why leave preparedness out of your planning? You plan a family vacation, do you not? Plan a survival team family meeting and implement a contingency plan in your lives.

The more you talk over the needs of emergency preparedness and gather against the SHTF crisis the better off you are going to be, no matter what happens!

More by this author @

www.survival-recovery.com

and 

Home and Family Preparedness

Surprise! The moment you prepared for...

Image Credit: http://www.morguefile.com  taliesin

It wasn't the big one. It wasn't a biological threat. It wasn't Armageddon or the Apocalypse. It wasn't Zombies or anarchy or any of the above.

It may have been a personal crisis in the home.

In our case the emergency was a job change. This entailed weeks of laying aside foods and home goods for the routine changes we were to endure. By setting up the right supplies, we can get through the financial switch. We have had to adjust to a new schedule and a new set of policies and an adjustment in the paycheck temporarily .


By having foods and goods in the home and fortifying our sudden extreme swing in budgeting we are able to make ends meet and supply our family's nutritional needs without much of a sacrifice.

We will be able to have 3 square meals a day through the food supplies already here in the home. This is a good thing, too, for rotating out product that waits for times like this. We prefer to use our stock on a regular basis. This insures our food is always good quality. We can then use the cash we would have spent on fancy meals on other things more pressing.

Other scenarios for preparedness that isn't a global disaster is having the family bread winner take ill or need a hospitalization. There may have been a death in the family or maybe a major expense has arisen that needs to be tended to like a vehicle that needs major repair. In these situations having a few weeks to a few months of supplies in your home eases the tensions and can help facilitate the healing that needs to take place for the finances to get back to normal. Eating right and eating well supplies much needed physical as well as mental strengthening.

Things don't always have to be a civil disaster to be a crisis. Preparedness and survival are a day to day thing for some families. Think ahead. Live frugal. Store extra nutritional support for your family when ever possible. By adding a few extras to the pantry and pinching pennies in this manner you are not only saving for peace of mind, you are spending less on fuel to and from the market and you are spending less time there as well something we could all use a little more of! We know we get a little spoiled with the fast food convenience in our society and that's ok sometimes. 

Plan a frugal month or two. Set a goal to exist off of your food storage supply and test out your abilities to make this as balanced an experience as possible. When you involve the family in an experiment like this use the money you saved for an activity at the end of the month. This conditions you and your family to the foods you have set aside. By consuming these products you can better plan for a future when you really need to have this supply and stock accordingly.

The best reason to do this is to know what your family will REALLY eat!

Make it fun. It doesn't have to be all beans and gruel!

For more info see:

Site: www.Survival-Recovery.com

Nutritional Food Storage Gathering: http://www.squidoo.com/survival-foods-requirements