Doomsday Preppers are Socially Selfish (posted 11/29)
Doomsday Preppers vs Disaster Preppers (posted 12/2)
Doomsday Preppers: Mea Culpa (posted 12/4)
OK, I get it. Preppers Are Not Selfish. I was wrong. I apologize. (posted 12/6)
The Case for the Lifestyle Prepper (posted 12/8)
Merging Preppers with Emergency Management (posted 12/11)
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NOTE: My blog about Doomsday Preppers touched a lot of nerves in the prepper community. When I apologized, I offered space for preppers to describe who they are, what they do and how they do it. This was from a self-described “new” prepper, who started her email to me by saying: “I doubt that you will publish what I have to say because I am so new to prepping. However, I wanted to share with you a bit of WHY I prep now and what our family is doing as new preppers.”
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I started thinking about prepping when I came across a presentation about 37 things to stock up on in case of a crisis. I went ahead and bought some of the books that were being sold and read them. I had not really thought about prepping much - although we have often bought in case lot sales and purchased “loss leaders" from stores to stock up ahead a bit. My mom often talked about the depression and how hard it was - but how when she talked to friends later they talked about how lucky she was to have lived on a farm because at least she had "something" to eat - whereby they often went to bed hungry. I think that is part of why I liked to keep a full pantry.
As I started thinking about stocking up more on food, I also started thinking about things like "what if the power goes out?" and "Oh yeah...we need water too". I got my family together and we split up some of the researching tasks to look into gardening, herbal medicine, water storage and purification, solar energy, etc.
In the last month we've planted fruit trees and bushes, ordered books on some of these topics, started a garden using "square foot gardening" methods, and more. We're researching the best solar backup for our electricity - and yes - even looking into purchasing guns and ammunition - because we believe that at some point in the future that right will be taken away from us....so we're going to get them now.
Part of my problem is that I have friends I care about that don't formally prepare at all - unless perhaps a hurricane is bearing down on them. One family has a new baby and while the baby is still being breastfed, I found myself worrying about them running out of water for mom and dad or their apartment getting too cold due to the electric going off. I worry how they'll cook food for themselves or if they even have anything on hand to cook for themselves. I have other friends in the Tx/La area that have been through hurricanes and I know that they prepare somewhat ahead of time when they get a warning … but what if something else happened and their power went down or something?
My biggest concern right now though is inflation and how it is going to affect people and their ability to buy food. Let me give you an example. According to the LDS Preparedness Manual (I am not LDS) - they have a list of recommended food for one person for one year. Every year they price those same items - and between 2008 and January of 2012 - those items went up....33%. That is right - a 33% increase in food in 4 years.
That sounds bad - right?
I had heard earlier to expect wheat-based and corn-based products to start going up in price around the first of the year due to the crops (and as my son has since pointed out - expect meat and chicken to go up too) - so I was going to focus my "stocking-up" in December on wheat-based products. (I am trying to save up one year's worth of groceries in case my husband were to lose his job or we had friends in need, etc).
So now I am VERY concerned about inflation and when we get my husband's Christmas bonus on the 14th, you can believe we're stocking up on wheat-based products - probably up to 18 months worth - to give time for a new crop to come in.
Anyway - as I said, I'm a new prepper. Right now I'm still in the "let's store up some food" stage and "let's get a garden going and some fruit trees and bushes going" and I'm learning skills like canning and dehydrating and looking forward to making herbal medicines, etc.
This way - if we ever have a disaster happen in our area - FEMA will have four less mouths to feed....and we can take care of ourselves.
Peg (aka TexasMama)
