What area(s) do most preppers lack in?

I faced this question a long time ago. To me drinking water was the most important thing for long term. Storing it was not an option as you have to treat it and all that stuff costs money and takes up space so I looked at my well and said how can I pump water long term with no grid power. The answer was propane. Propane lasts forever and I have a little over 500 gallons here at all times. The Generator is an 8000 watt Generac which uses .5 gallons an hour at half load. Using it for 1/2 hour per week to fill our10 aquatainers(7 gallon cans) and a few other pitchers and jugs we will have water for about 20 years. I have spare parts for the Genny and know how to work on it.

Once I solved water I looked at food. First of all I bought this BOL as my primary residence and it sits on a 209 acre private lake with 6 other homes. I have all the water I need for bathing, watering the animals and flushing toilets. The lake provides us with many other things most people do not think about. Cat tails for one. The roots are tubular and slice up like Potato and can be mashed or fried the same way. Water cress, Lilys, fish, frogs, turtles and migrating birds like ducks and Geese all live here. We moved here because the lake is life. The lake is a pantry all in itself. W e added a meat rabbit operation, Chickens and improved the habitat on our 10 acres and are now drawing in Deer and wild turkey as well. I raise the feed for the rabbits and chickens right here in a garden and two food plots. I planted 40 apple,pear,peach and Cherry trees and are currently helping them to grow to maturity. I learned how to make chicken feed from ground acorns and field corn. So we have all this food and we still put away a two year supply of long term stuff like canned butter, pastas, powdered milk, drink mixes and cases and cases of canned goods.



After we finished the food project we turned to shelter and added two good quality wood stoves. One for the Shop and one for house. This alone saved us 4,000 dollars every year in heating costs. We are surrounded by thousands of acres of oak forests. I cut dead standing and dead down oak now out away from our home and leave the local wood sit for when I do not have the fuel to go get it. I dont cut any wood on my property or anywhere within 5 miles. This way Ill have lots close by if needed. I keep a 4 year supply of gasoline for my chainsaws and lots of oil and spare parts to keep them running. I can cut 10 years worth of wood before I run out of gas. After that Ill be cutting with axe and hand saws.

Defending this lake has been a priority as well. Three of my neighbors are also preppers and they joined me in creating a small but well armed defensive force. I also have several Militia friends who will come here if the shtf. In all we have near 20 men and half a dozen women now to defend the lake. We have very nice selection weapons from long range hunting rifles to AR-15 and shotguns. I would love for one of us to get a Barret Light .50 cal but they are costly. 5 bucks a round. Serbu makes a bolt action for about 2500 bucks. I think today training is often overlooked. What do you do if a group of outlaws come knocking wanting your women and food? How do you dispatch them? How do you follow up ? how do keep them from ever seeing your BOL? Training helps answer all these questions. Today I am working on long term power needs and the going is slow as we are broke. W e can exist for along time here so long as we don't get over run by bandits. Life would get pretty tough and we would all lose weight and struggle to get enough calories to do the work needed to stay warm and fed. A large solar system or at least a solid long term 2500 watt system would go a long way in easing the work load.

What is the most overlooked item by most preppers? all of it. You have to live it now to be able to live it after an event. KF

 

I should add that My wife is a registered nurse and we do have a good supply of medical supplies. But no matter how prepared we are seem to be? I am not happy with what looks to be coming fast. Its all over face book now. Everyone is quickly flying into a panic and things are starting escalate. Im glad its winter here as cold and snow will slow the outspread of thugs from the city. Im getting my winter camo ready . Time to get few extra bales of hay as well. Good luck people. Kf

 

My vote would be knowledge and skills.

I've only been prepping for about 5 years and I still feel woefully unprepared. I still live in the rural suburbs of a small city of a frozen wasteland, I am still reliant on the "system" for my job, income, and the majority of our day to day resources, but my spare time is spent learning and honing my skills. There are so many things that I would like to know but just can't cram it all in. So many additional skills and areas that could be beneficial, I settle for being a journeyman of all trades and master of none. Focusing mainly on the key elements to survive, never really perfecting any of them but making do.

Things will only take you so far, but the main ones that I have been focusing on are water, food, shelter, heat, and protection. Those are pretty much taken care of for a lengthy period, knowledge and skills are always going to be worked on.

I just picked up a 320 gallon water storage system that will make rotating much easier. I had so many different containers it took almost all day to rotate the water out. Yeah it was expensive, but I think of all the money wasted on newbie stuff that I bought the first year only to find it was stupid, wrong, or inadequate.

Coming onto the winter months, I picked up a small wood fed rocket heater from a place called Simple fire, I have a youtube video up on my initial burn, it's pretty cool, combined with propane Mr Heaters, warm durable winter clothing/gear, and winter survival skills, I think we could make it through the winter. I figure if something totally and permanently destabilized the system, there would be many empty homes in my area once winter was done and those that were able to survive the harsh winters here would hopefully try to band together to establish a new community to fight the upcoming marauders. I can hope, right...

Sorry to ramble, but I can feel something is about to happen. I can't explain it, but I can feel it, I sure hope I am wrong, please let this all be just me being stupid or crazy, but I don't think I am.

 

Interesting I should run across this thread again.

A buddy and I were talking the other day about the number of preppers we know who have neglected to prep for a comfortable retirement if it doesn't hit the fan in their lifetime. I mean, nobody's gonna starve or anything, but it's nice to be able to enjoy the good parts that are left in the world...

 

I think the first thing that I worked on was getting out of debt, I think most preppers think the same way about debt. Being debt free with a few exceptions allows me to save more, but more of what ... most of us lack trust in the stock market, even though I still put into my 401K just not as much as I used to. I certainly don't trust the dollar, so where do you put your money? With PM's dropping like mad, it's a big grey area.

I agree though, I told my wife that we don't really any more big purchases, we have enough for a pretty big catastrophic event and I plan to take some time to smell what roses are left.

 

Actually, this is THE MOST LIKELY "SHTF" situation......that we continue a long, slow decline in the purchasing power of the dollar and the economy. The whole history of the Federal Reserve is "making it harder to put food on your table one day after another"......it ought to be their motto !

100 years ago, a $20 paper bill and a $20 US gold coin had exactly the same purchasing power. Today, a $20 paper bill has 1.6% of the purchasing power of that same $20 US gold coin (one ounce).......paper has lost 98.4%.....the vast majority of it in the last 15 years.

Do you think they are suddenly going to see "the error of their ways" and stop ?? ahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......e'll no they aren't. So your ONLY choice for long term savings is in gold and silver. IF you don't understand that, you are going to retire broke. Ask any Russian pensioner.

 

I have been stock piling silver bars, silver coins and a little gold. I put most of my retirement into my company so I am going to have a Job until I die. I agree that the dollar is the biggest threat. Its going fast now with China dropping it. I am hoping the government starts issuing silver backed dollars again. That executive order was signed by Kennedy before they killed him. That order still stands. There is very little hope that the republic can be saved from the debt. When the bubble breaks it will come down hard on anyone who cant survive the transition to dictatorship. W e cashed out the last 403 retirement plan as we didn't want that money to become worthless. Put it into silver. Now Im just fine tuning the preps using the older stuff and replacing with new. I am basically ready when they are.