5 Best Fast Track Survival Prepping Tips
For decades, many people have gone about their lives never considering the worst case scenario. They have access to a nice home, daily electricity, fully stocked stores, and gas at almost every corner.
It never occurred to them that things can change in the blink of an eye. Not only has this happened in the past, but more recently, many events have caused men and women around the world to wake up and take stock of their situation.
They are often filled with anxiety when they realize how dependent they are on the normal running of society. These individuals often feel panic and anxiety over their need to hurry up and prep for survival situations.
They look around their home and realize they couldn’t make it more than a few weeks at most. Sometimes, they may not even have a few days’ worth of supplies. If you are one of the people who has suddenly gained an interest in fast tracking your survival prepping measures, you’ll want to start with five of the most important areas that can keep you and your family safe, stress-free, and healthy.
1. The Most Important Thing Is to Have Water
When it comes to your actual survival in terms of being able to live, water is more important for your body than food is. You can go without food longer than you can go without water.
But most people simply rely on their faucet to turn on whenever they are thirsty or need it to cook with. There are many situations where the water supply may cease to exist for you, whether temporary or permanent.
You want to be prepared for any and all situations that could eliminate your water source. Everyone thinks it couldn’t happen to them until it does. When the unusual freeze occurred in Texas in 2021, the electric grid went down and many homes could not access any water through their faucet because they are connected to the electric grid.
Power was not restored for days. Once an event like this happens, it’s too late. Even if you could drive out on the icy roads, the stores would probably be sold out of bottled water.
You need to make sure that you and your loved ones, as well as your pets, always have an ample supply of water. There may be times when the situation is temporary, such as a weather event.
In these cases, you can simply get a bathtub sized bladder to fill up ahead of time so that it’s available whenever you need it for drinking, washing, and cooking. You also want to have plenty of bottled water on hand.
You want to store this in a cool and dry place so that it is not exposed to direct sunlight. There are many containers you can purchase that are stackable to fit in any area of your home, where you can fill them with water and store them for years.
You also want to have other measures to provide you with a water source. For example, you never know when and if you’re going to have to bug out to another location. If this happens, each of your family members should have a supply of purifying pills or straws that remove the pollutants from a natural water supply, such as a lake or pond.
All of these are good options, so what you want to do is look at your budget and start by adding as much as you can in the near future. Every time you go to the grocery store, add on a couple of gallons of bottled water.
Order the water purifying pills immediately. Have your bathtub bladder and other supplies ready to order as soon as you can afford them. One of the longer-term methods you may want to invest in as you have the money is the ability to gather and clean rainwater.
You can have large, outdoor rainwater barrels and store them on your property. You can also set up an irrigation system to water your crops using that same rainwater if you are growing your own food.
Pay attention to the news and notices about weather events or other situations where your supply may be compromised. Many people invest in an on-property well that keeps them protected from a loss of the city’s water supply or electricity.
[ CHECK OUT “WATER FROM THIN AIR” ]
2. Fast Tracking Your Food Stores
Hunger is one of the first things most people think about when they want to avoid suffering in a SHTF situation. Even though water is more important, you may put a lot of your effort into making sure you and your family stay fed throughout any emergency.
When the pandemic occurred in 2020, we started to see how grocery store shelves were being wiped out from coast to coast very quickly. Everything was gone. There was no fruit, canned goods, frozen goods, or toiletries.
Everyone joked about how there was no toilet paper, but the fact is, food supplies were also very scarce. This was very alarming for some, and they realized the need to begin fast tracking their food stores.
If you are on a budget and you want to make sure that your family has something to eat, then you can go ahead and start with the least expensive food items that will keep for a long period of time.
For example, there is no shame in buying dozens of the $0.25 Ramen noodle packs. While they’re not the most nutritious things, they will provide you with calories that you need to survive.
For the nutrition aspect of your survival, you can find discounted or very inexpensive canned goods that contain a variety of vegetables and fruits that your family can consume alongside the noodles.
Every time you go to the grocery store, be sure to check the flyers to see what’s on sale. There are often good deals where you can buy two get one free or get a large discount the more you buy.
You want to shop smart and begin cutting coupons. Sign up for any supersaver account that your grocery store has, where you will get discounts when you check out and enter your membership card.
Stock up on things that will last your family a long time. Those include things like rice, beans, pasta, and canned meat. If you are not on a budget or you want to save up for something better, you can also invest in large containers of survival food supplies that cover a family for anything from 30 days to 90 days.
You can also invest in some MREs, which are meals ready to eat. These are great because they have self-contained heating elements within them, so even if your electricity goes out, the meal will still feel hot.
Over time, it’s important that you also add items that your family truly enjoys to your food stores. Keep in mind that these will be very stressful times you are under, so having a little bit of hard candy, coffee, and other items on hand will help alleviate the emotional stress and mental toll that a survival situation takes on you.
While these tips above are all based on fast tracking your food stores, you also want to be looking into the possibility of growing your own garden. Whether or not you have ample space outdoors to grow a large crop, you can still grow your own food using containers indoors or out – even on a small balcony in an apartment using a vertical shelving system.
[ CHECKOUT THE “BACKYARD MIRACLE FARM” ]
Don’t forget, when you go to the grocery store to increase your food stores, be sure to pick up some of the important toiletries that will also be sold out during an emergency situation. These include things like toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizer and cleaning agents, as well as medication such as fever reducers, etc.
3. Guarantee You Can Defend Yourself
The year 2020 also showed us that no city or neighborhood is safe from social and civil unrest. You want to make sure that you can defend yourself and your family in the event of a survival situation.
If anything happens where food is extremely scarce, you will want to be able to protect your food supply and water supply as well. There are many different ways that you can defend yourself, but you want to start with what you can afford and what you can accomplish fast.
Start by fortifying the doors and windows to your home or apartment. You can get a variety of low cost options that will help secure the door and refuse entry to someone trying to break in.
These range from security bars that go under the handle of a door to reinforcement locks you can easily put on for added security. They sell for under $15 and you can get one for each door to prevent a breach.
For windows, you can get inexpensive locks and jammers (for sliding glass doors) that help offer some additional security. You may also want to add an alarm system that is loud to startle intruders, but in a true SHTF situation, that may not matter to them.
Don’t simply rely on electronic systems that notify the police. If there is an extreme survival situation, the police may not be responding to every individual call from a person’s home.
Therefore, you want to stop entry into your home immediately. The next thing you want to do quickly on a budget is invest in some small items that can help you and your loved ones defend yourselves.
These include things like knives, pepper spray and stun guns, but you have to check and see what is legal in your particular location. One of the more expensive routes you can take, but also most effective, is to invest in firearms that can offer you the ultimate in protection.
You never want to have to use this option, but you also want to make sure it’s available to you if you need it. You will want to invest in a firearm that is easy for you to use accurately.
Over time, make sure you are continually ordering the ammunition you need to protect yourself and your loved ones. There are often shortages, so you’ll want to periodically check and see what’s available and have money set aside to order a box.
Because you don’t want things to go wrong, you will also want to sign up and attend some local firearms courses. Not only do they have basic courses that can teach you how to shoot your gun, but they also have self-defense courses and those that teach you how to defend yourself in your home, even specifically in a night-time situation.
[ CHECK OUT “THE PATRIOTS SELF DEFENSE” ]
4. Be Secure with Your Financial Situation
One topic that many people fail to prepare for until it’s too late is their finances. You don’t want to be caught in a precarious situation without the means to provide for your family or buy the things you need most.
First and foremost, you need to set a budget and know where your money is going and what you want to spend it on. You will be spending a portion of it gathering the survival supplies that you feel are most important.
But another thing you want to be doing is paying off debt and setting aside cash for when you need it most. If you have no extra cash to spare, consider doing some side hustle jobs online or elsewhere to accumulate a survival savings.
There are some people who don’t want to have their money in a bank in case of a financial crisis. You can invest in a safe that you keep at home to protect any valuables or cash that you want.
While you can get some safes for a little over $50, you may want to get something bigger and more durable that costs more. The locks on safes that you can get for your home can range from old fashion combination locks to biometric pads.
You can find those that can easily be hidden within your home in plain sight, such as a stealth floor safe or a wall safe that looks like a piece of decor. These safes come in a wide range of sizes, depending on what all you want to keep in there. Many people keep just their cash in them, while others keep other valuables such as documents, jewelry, and their firearms.
5. Make Quick Preparations for Energy
In some situations, the energy grid will go down, leaving you and your family without the typical means to survive. You may need heat or cool air, the ability to cook and draw water from the faucet, not to mention listen to the radio or television for emergency information.
You also need energy to charge your phones, access your computer and Internet, and more. If you are on a budget and want to fast track your energy preparation, then make sure you have a good solar powered charger for the items that are most important to you, such as your cell phone.
You can buy three-panel, solar phone chargers very cheap. You can also purchase a hand crank or solar powered radio that will allow you to tune in to any emergency information you wish to hear.
Always make sure you have plenty of batteries and lighting options, such as oil lamps that do not require electricity to operate. For those not on a restrictive budget, you can immediately purchase a high powered generator to fire up power to your entire home or to whatever items you feel are most important, such as the refrigerator.
There are many solar-generated products that can help make life easier during a survival situation. These include things like solar cookers that allow you to prepare a meal using nothing but the sun.
You never want to be reliant on the traditional system for your energy needs. Always make sure you have a supply of fuel on hand, solar gadgets to help make things easier and accessible, and products that help you start fires or add warmth when needed for cooking and other situations.
With all supplies, start by buying in bulk for the cheapest items and then begin investing in the more expensive, better options. For example, you might start with a bag of charcoal and matches at first – and level up to a whole home generator at a later date.
Stock as many low cost foods up as possible – such as the inexpensive pasta, rice, beans and more – and then later, add the specialize survival food that, while more expensive, can last up to 25 years or more.
So many people worry about spending money on things they may not ever use. But you can look at recent past events and see that it’s always better to be prepared and never need it than to be caught unaware and unprepared in an emergency.
There were people who died during the Texas freeze because they had no way to warm up in their homes, which dipped into the freezing temperatures. You don’t want to become a cautionary tale, where people are saying, “If only he’d had a generator, they’d still be alive.”
Regret is one thing that haunts many people who have been through a survival situation. You don’t know what’s on the horizon. It might be a hurricane or tornado, a freeze or loss of electricity during a sweltering summer.
You might have civil unrest where the water plant or grids are shut down, a time when you have to be armed to the teeth to protect your loved one, or a collapse of the financial institutions that we’ve relied on for so many years.
Start cheap, but be fast about it. Maintain logs of everything you buy so that you know where to spend your next allotment of money you’ve set aside for this purpose. Never second guess yourself for being prepared.
[ CHECKOUT “EASY DIY POWER PLAN” ]
If anything, you’ll simply have access to an on-property store that you can tap into anytime you need it, without having to go to a store and spend money elsewhere. Be sure to check on your supplies to ensure they’re in good shape, and rotate everything out to make sure it goes to good use.