My grand-parents spent all their time and energy growing gardens, raising livestock, churning butter, drying fruit and vegatables, making cheese, canning food, curing hams and bacon, tending their orchards, making jams and jellies. Recreation was going to the creek and catching a mess of trout for breakfast or going squirrel hunting. The work my grandfather did in his cabinet shop and what he made from logging his farm went to savings, just in case or for the purchase of what was needed to make the rest of their preparation more effecient. They did this their whole lives and I never heard them talk about some BS namby-pamby buyers remorse; WTF? Have we become such a suck-up generation that we feel Nintendos are an essential element? I can feed my family weekly from my job and we can go to Disneyland! If the SHTF, Big Brother will take good care of me. So you feel buyers remorse for planning to take charge of your own life and the security of your family rather than sticking your head in the sand and pretending that everything is ok? Forget that every thing you buy today will cost three times as much in a year. You all probably got lots of friends that you can mooch off of, right? I mean, everybody know at least a few survivalists? I tripled my preps during Y2K and folks teased me about it but they don't realize that the gold I am spending now at $1400.00 an ounce, I got for $225.00 an ounce or less.
Road trip - make it a dual purpose trip, try out that GPS and cash some stuff, but also do the fishing thing and see if your lures work, see if the bug spray is really effective or not. Try out that tent & sleeping bag & cook stove, make sure that you bring that sing along with Charlie Danials Tape or what ever the whole family can listen to. If the weather go's bad make sure that there's enough to stay at a hotel. Make it fun for the kids and give them pocket knives to make walking sticks & to carve there initials into and not each other. Hobo fishing poles is another thing kids can do. I've been there & done it once or twice. Above all don't get mad at the family if things don't go according to plans. It's as much for them as your self.
