What are you ( not ) Prepping for ?

[drt4lfe]

We live in a wonderful place and a place that will you kill you in heartbeat.....IMO there is no way anyone, even the uber rich can cover all the bases....I do no prepping for any NBC type of scenarios, after serving in the Military and knowing what it takes resource wise to survive in a NBC situation and knowing I will never have the very large amount of money to do it properly I just resign myself that if it happens close to me and bad enough I will be a casualty buried in a large mass grave.....I do not buy gold, silver, diamonds and such as a backup as possible money if a mass failure happens.....I concentrate on having enough of the basics to stay out of harms way....If it's bad enough that order is never properly restored and it comes down to groups holding territory or towns there will be a lot of well fed vultures.....wonder if they are edible ?

 

[Maverick]

That's pretty much my thought, We plan to stay away from the masses or any group of people outside of who we already have on the property. Right now we are ok and have pretty good sustainment for year around food and water as long as nature doesn't throw a monkey wrench into things.

 

[drt4lfe]

I see too many people who are less prepared than they think they are because they are trying to be ready for everything......you have to base what you do on where you live and the dangers in that area....don't waste money on gear or equipment that will get dusty if something happens....

 

[Maverick]

I see a lot of that, we have people in these parts prepping for war but very little for water and food including the cold winters we have here. Your right about people about people trying to prep for everything or in some of the cases here, for one specific event.

 

[Marv.Schmitz87]

I try to cover my bases. Food, water, shelter, medicine and saftey. Anything beyond that is a bonus.
I don't pay much attention to barter articles like gold, silver etc.
Knowledge is priceless as well.

 

[WGregMiller]

We went to a prepper show last month. People were swarming the weaponry and weaponry parts, lots more so than the bugout bags, seed peddlers, medical stuff and so on. It kinda amazed me. The guy selling equipment to seal mylar bags (and the bags and oxy absorbers) looked pretty lonely, but I got a good deal on more bags, lol.

I realize that I live in Alabama and everyone has guns, but damn. This show was in a midsized city of about 200,000. In 2011, a tornado blew through the county to the west (where I live). Okay, there were 2. One had winds of over 200 mph.... Missed the local nuclear power plant by several miles, but sure didn't miss the massive power lines east of it. My county gets its power from a dam, and at home we lost power for 3 hours. The city where the prepper show was gets its power from the nuke plant and it lost power for the better part of a week.

Every generator within 100 miles got sold the next day. Problem was, you can't buy gas for a generator if there isn't power to pump it. They came to my county..... It was like the 70's when the Saudis decided to cut off our oil. Cars 20 to 30 deep at each and every pump (oh yeah, the cars were running too). At least I had enough sense to fill everything up the day before the storms....

Where I'm going with this: Food, water and safety come first. Those people didn't have jack after a couple days......

In case you guys need a primer on a tornado, this is video of one of the tornados I was talking about:

 

[drt4lfe]

Most gas stations in my area have the big gensets to run the business and pumps during power outages......after a couple bad storms in years past mostly in the winter they got smart....more homes now have the home natural gas genset setups that start and run automatically when power goes out...6-10k is out of most peoples price range....

 

[WGregMiller]

Lol. Our gas stations don't. What I find funny is during that our 3 hour outage, we were bailing the dump pit out in the basement and dumping the water down the drain. After that, my wife declared that we were getting a generator. So my dumb ### was thinking a small Honda for the sump pump.... no... 14kw whole house....

 

[Brent S]

Lol. Our gas stations don't. What I find funny is during that our 3 hour outage, we were bailing the dump pit out in the basement and dumping the water down the drain. After that, my wife declared that we were getting a generator. So my dumb ### was thinking a small Honda for the sump pump.... no... 14kw whole house....

I posted a thread here on the conversion I did with my Miller welder from gasoline to propane. I'm not a mechanic by any stretch, but tinker some. It was pretty easy to set up. Anyways, it's got a 10k generator that is barely big enough to run the whole house if you cycle the big things like air/heat and water heater. I was tempted to buy a new generator, but since I already had this one it made more sense. Nothing automatic here, I fire it up once a month or so to keep the battery charged and the engine lubed up. This reminds me, it's time to change the oil. I usually change all the small and yard stuffs oil each spring before the season starts.

 

[WGregMiller]

Ours is connected to natural gas and fires up weekly. Hasn't been used much, fortunately. I'd hate to run it in the summer and it's LOUD when the ac is on.

Since you live in Georgia, have you thought about a heat pump water heater? I put one in the rear of the house and it uses the heat pump on top to convert heat in the house into hot water. Very efficient as well... just a thought for ya. It also keeps the humidity heat back.

 

[Brent S]

Ours is connected to natural gas and fires up weekly. Hasn't been used much, fortunately. I'd hate to run it in the summer and it's LOUD when the ac is on.

Since you live in Georgia, have you thought about a heat pump water heater? I put one in the rear of the house and it uses the heat pump on top to convert heat in the house into hot water. Very efficient as well... just a thought for ya. It also keeps the humidity heat back.

I have. My unit is right at ten years old now, so when I replace it I will do something better. Lowes had one on clearance a year or so ago. It was 1200. Marked down to 100.00, but someone beat me to it by a few minutes. I still feel bad about that deal!

 

[WGregMiller]

You're gonna hate me then.... Lowes here had one that the grille on the heat pump was dented. They had it checked out and it was fine. I have it for a backup.... I paid $250....

I did pay $1100 for the other one but couldn't let that go. It may go to our bug out location on the river....

 

[Brent S]

You're gonna hate me then.... Lowes here had one that the grille on the heat pump was dented. They had it checked out and it was fine. I have it for a backup.... I paid $250....

I did pay $1100 for the other one but couldn't let that go. It may go to our bug out location on the river....

I love scratched and dented deals. The store here was great about marking stuff down to clear it out fast for a long time, but now they are cutting the price less. Guess it's a sign of the times. I do think it's smart to spend a little more to get more efficient appliances. Over the course of time it pays for itself and if I ever do try to go solar it might help.

 

[WGregMiller]

Our other water heater is an on demand. I love it and I'm considering putting one at the river and burying a propane tank in the ground.

 

[Maverick]

I guess I never really answered the original OP question, I'm NOT prepping for war with my fellow Americans, not prepping for global economic collapse in other words hoarding gold silver paper currency, not prepping for a nuclear war though I do have some items, not prepping for the end of the world.

If anything happens it's going to happen and pray that I'm ready to ease the burden, electricity and fuel isn't a major issue. I try to take a practical approach and not buy into all this doom and gloom, I tend not to allow paranoia dictate my approach. We do have cache stashed in various places but that isn't just for SHTF, we also hunt hike camp etc... A lot of the preps I have is too help the women folks ease into the inconveniences of being without electricity.

 

[bigpaul]

I wonder sometimes why this site is called "Doomsday" preppers when so many seem to be prepping for nothing of the sort?

 

[Maverick]

I wonder sometimes why this site is called "Doomsday" preppers when so many seem to be prepping for nothing of the sort?

It's a catchy title, though my definition of dooms day is the end of the world, kindly hard to prep for that. Though I do reckon for some being with out electricity for a long period of time would be considered dooms day In reality not a lot of people know how to cook using alternative means nor make food from scratch so to them it can be dooms day. Unfortunately.

 

[drt4lfe]

I wonder sometimes why this site is called "Doomsday" preppers when so many seem to be prepping for nothing of the sort?

lol...to some Doomsday is losing cell service for 5 minutes.....

 

[bigpaul]

that's what many people think-wrongly, that "The end of the world" is exactly that, big boom no more planet Earth, but it isn't, its the end of the world AS WE KNOW IT, its just a different lifestyle, a different way of life, not "normal " as most know it- welcome to the new normal. but I agree most people wouldn't know the first thing about surviving without electric or a phone signal, well isn't it time they learned??
yeah well, I've been called a dinosaur a few times, I suppose i'm a bit different to most.

 

[Maverick]

A big difference between TEOTWAWKI and Dooms Day (in my opinion). Dooms Day would be like that unknown planet smashing into the Earth or a large meteor hitting Earth or our Galaxy swallowed up by a larger one all of which are impossible to prepare for. A TEOTWAWKI would follow something like a very large CME slamming Earth, global economic collapse or loss of worldwide oil supply etc...