Practical Prepping - A Common Sense Guide for Preppers - Part One - An Introduction to Prepping

Being prepared usually requires more common sense and time than it does money. There are many ways to incorporate prepping into your daily life-style that cost very little but will put you way ahead of the average person. Simple goals are often the easiest to accomplish and will have more benefit for you and your family on an immediate basis.

Focusing on the details, while keeping an eye on the big picture, is not the easiest of tasks. It helps to view it as a jig-saw puzzle whose pieces merely need to be put in place. Being prepared is a goal that will be easier to accomplish if it is broken down into smaller goals.

Prepping also requires a certain amount of organization to be practical. We all experience a certain amount of disorder in our lives. This is often a result of our own doing as well as unexpected circumstances. We have other things that require our immediate attention and these things can often lead us in a different direction than planned originally. Smaller goals will be easier to achieve if we find ourselves getting off the path to preparedness.

One of the easiest and most basic ways to get started in your prepping is to follow the Rule of Three’s.

THE RULE OF THREES

SECURITY

3 seconds: The amount of time you normally have to respond to any threat.

AIR

3 minutes: The amount of time to obtain breathable air.

SHELTER

3 hours: The amount of time before you will need some form of shelter.

WATER

3 days: The amount of time you will have to find safe drinking water.

FOOD

3weeks: The amount of time to find safe and edible food.

COMPANIONSHIP

3 months: The amount of time before you will need contact with other people.

Using the Rule of Threes, you can now establish your short term goals and get started with your prepping. Most people have limited resources that will affect their level of preparation. Start by examining your current resources in each of these critical areas and organize your efforts accordingly. Look for areas in your current resources that may be lacking and work to improve their status in your preparations. Many of the resources that will be required may already exist. They merely need to be organized in a manner so that they will be readily available when needed.

Time is another important consideration when being prepared. While being prepared for the long term is admirable, it is usually impractical and difficult to achieve for the average person who is focused on being prepared. Focus on being prepared for the short term and slowly increase your levels of preparedness. Eventually, you will reach your long term goals.

Plan to get prepared by being more organized, utilizing more of your current resources and managing your time more efficiently to reach your preparedness goals. If you incorporate preparedness into your everyday lifestyle and make it a part of your daily routine, being prepared is a lot easier to accomplish.

Riverwalker

Merry Christmas from the Texas Preppers Network

Painted Church in Texas

MERRY CHRISTMAS

to

everyone

from

the

TEXAS PREPPERS NETWORK

and

RIVERWALKER

Wild Hogs in Texas

We have this problem at the compound but are not unique whatsoever. Got night vision?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/A-Plague-of-Pigs-in-Texas.html?&submitted=y#comments_submitted

The good thing is they are quite tasty on the barbie...lol

Check out the VA Home Loan Rates currently available.

Frugal Prepping - Starting An Emergency Fund - The Spare Change Method

In order to be prepared, you should expect the unexpected. Things happen that will disrupt your life and they usually occur at the worst possible time. This is what creates the need for a basic emergency fund. You will need to prepare for these unseen emergencies to enable you to avoid a major disruption to your lifestyle. Having extra money set aside is one of the best solutions
for this problem.

There are many types of financial situations where you will need extra funds to get you through a crisis. This could be anything from the loss of your job, increased medical expenses or emergency repairs to your home or vehicle. You don’t want to find yourself in a position where you have to rely on credit cards, personal loans or other similar types of credit which could actually increase your financial problems.

Now starting an emergency fund won’t be easy for the average person. It will be especially difficult if you are living paycheck to paycheck. If you don’t have an emergency fund, the hardest part is getting started. If you find it hard to put aside extra money, you will need to start slowly and work to build a decent emergency fund. This will take time but if you set manageable goals for yourself, you will be able to eventually build your emergency fund up to a point where you will have several months worth of expenses covered by money you've set aside. If you take things one step at a time, you will have a better chance of reaching your goals.

Unfortunately, extra money is hard to come by when you are living paycheck to paycheck. If this the case in your situation, one of the easiest ways to build an emergency fund is the spare change method. There's an old saying " Take care of your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." Saving spare change is one of the simplest ways to save money for an emergency fund. It doesn't require a lot of sacrifice on your part. If given the right amount of attention, you will soon find yourself accumulating the additional money to build a substantial emergency fund.

Just keep a small container of some sort at home and in your vehicle and dump the change from your pockets each day. Don't bother to count it each time or you may find yourself tempted to spend it before it can grow. Once your storage container gets full of spare change, just transfer it to your emergency fund.

You will be surprised just how much extra money can be accumulated in this manner.

Got spare change?

Be aware. Be informed. Be prepared.

Riverwalker