It's been 102 days since I let out on my own,
went off-grid and ended up living my SHTF bug-out scenario. I think we all
envision what life might be like off-grid and without common amenities. The
reality I have found, is not as expected. There are at least 100 things I
would change about my plan, all detailed here for easy access and
consideration. As the list is long, details are limited. I'm happy to
elaborate on any points if asked. So, that said, here's how I changed or
would change my original plan:
1. Bring only dark and neutral color clothing.
White and light are a pain to clean by hand.
2. Non-digital clocks lost time or stopped altogether when cold, even with
new batteries. Digital worked well.
3. I was using a 120V inverter for small appliances. Having converted to 12V,
I use about half the power each day. The inverter runs only large appliances
now.
4. I brought an indoor thermometer alone. I now have a digital indoor/outdoor
and can more accurately record weather.
5. Record daily high and low temperatures on a calendar for SHTF planting,
harvesting, etc.
6. Portion food in single servings. Large #10 tins get boring and the
contents go bad if it is humid.
7. Practice fire-starting skills in poor
weather BEFORE heading out.
8. Bring the wide umbrellas instead of the usual ones. You will remain drier.
9. Pack more warm clothing. Societal normal includes temperature management,
nature doesn't.
10. Leave food canned in tins behind. It creates a lot of garbage and cannot
be frozen. Per calorie, it is very heavy.
11. Bring towels and cloths that are just big enough for the job.
12. A dozen "world's best scrubbers" from Poland would last a
lifetime. Nylon and wool scrubbies didn't work as well or last as long.
13. One is zero and two is one. This is not a universal rule. Use it only on
vital items. I used it on all items and have too much crap.
14. Get inverters that have fuses, or install your own fuses to protect your
electronics. I blew equipment that would have survived if fused.
15. Bring spare fuses of all sizes used in your appliances and power bricks.
16. Cook EVERY one of your SHTF recipes in advance to ensure you like it, and
only then pack the supplies for it away.
17. Make recipe labels/cards and insert them in your mylar bags or dry
canning jars with the required ingredients.
18. Avoid foods with wheat in your preps, or at least document which contain
wheat. I lost $ thousands when I learned I couldn't eat the food I'd stored.
I had a cast-iron stomach until 2008; I could eat anything. Now I can't. If
you think it can't happen to you, think again. I appeared as unsucceptable as
you think you are.
19. Open your curtains and/or let the outdoors in. Enclosed spaces lead to
depression. Get outside at least once a day if it's not Sariavo in your front
yard.
20. Own a hygrometer and only open large tins of food when humidity is normal
or below.
21. Use heated bricks to warm your fridge for hot storage in winter and
containers of cold water to cool it in summer (great if you are short on
energy).
22. Get exercise every day. It's easy to become lethargic if you are inactive
for even a short spell.
23. Forget bringing tea and coffee, which just use up space. Pine needle tea
is as good as gourmet, available in most any forest.
24. 2L pop bottles are better for water storage than the 4 gallon containers.
They take less work to fill, move, and use.
25. Don't drink from the jugs. The water will get rank because you transfer
bacteria.
26. Use a down pillow to keep your ears warm when sleeping through cold
nights. Foam and Dacron pillows don't work for this.
27. Use dish soap for showering. It lasts about 6 times as long by volume.
28. Bring stainless steel drinking containers, utensils, and dishes. They
clean up easier and are less likely to break.
29. Bring music. It's a great means of remaining positive or improving your
mood. Same goes for musical instruments.
30. You'll have no time for unproductive hobbies like puzzles. Establish
functional hobbies instead. The idea of wasting time on hobbies that don't
help you... well it's out the window in survival situations.
31. The library of knowledge was VERY helpful, but I would index it better.
32. Printed instruction came in handy. Should have printed on laser instead
of inkjet though; water wrecked a few pages.
33. Keep your SHTF place clean. Even if it isn't the best of accommodation,
keeping it clean will keep your mind fresh and your spirits up.
34. Don't count on rechargeable L-ion, NiMh, or NiCad batteries to perform in
cold. Own at least a few alkaline and an alkaline recharger such as the Pure
Energy.
35. Don't count on appliances that use battery packs to operate in cold. My
laptop, MP3 player, and more would not operate on their internal batteries at
cold temperatures. They would run off the external battery bank.
36. Build a food reference book for your area. Each time you find a wild
edible, glue a sample to a page and dry it. Put it in a plastic sleeve next
to a picture of it growing in its natural environment. Document the uses for
the plant. This will improve your foraging skill tremendously.
37. Never eat ALL of a wild edible you harvest. Should you feel ill, you will
need at least a small sample to figure out where you went wrong and what to
do about it.
38. Read up on the predators in the area so you know how to respond if you
encounter one.
39. Cheap rain ponchos are useless. Get a good rain suit like the road
flaggers use. Also get a spare. Rain suits wear out.
40. Journal daily temperatures, weather conditions, animal sightings (with
location), etc. Write the date on each new entry.
41. Expect nature to provide less green food than you anticipate. What you
pick takes time to regrow. What seems an abundance is not. In my case, I have
been here three months and could still not sustain myself on natural foliage.
Living off the land Without my preps, I would hunt or I would starve.
42. Stainless steel cookware is useless over a wood fire. Get cast iron in
standardized sizes (two of each size, large and medium for a family, medium
and small for couples).
43. Get the type of cast iron where the lid can be flipped and used as a
frying pan. Mine are rounded, so I effectively have half the cookware.
44. Expect roof leaks. Having roofing tar or some sort of patch material. RV
shops sell clear roof tar if color matters.
45. Two Sleeps, as Misty suggested, are great for OPSEC. People are most
likely to spot you using power if it's 1-2 hours after sunset, but not at 3
am. I've switched to this schedule and find it comfortable.
46. Portable fridges are not energy efficient by default, nor are 12V
coolers. Get a thermostatic or timer control so you can control when power
kicks in and out. You'll cut power consumption for refrigeration in half.
47. Buy good padlocks. American Lock makes very sound locks good for decades.
I got three years from mine, and they were no cheaper.
48. To hide an outside key, use a keybox like realtors install. You can put
one in an inconspicuous place and you will never be locked out.
49. Make furniture multi-purpose. For example, my side bench is also a
dehydrator. This enables me to fit more into the same space without clutter.
50. Get dental and medical work done NOW! I have two cavities in back teeth.
If it were SHTF now, I'd dread the idea of pulling them personally if it
could have been avoided through diligence instead.
51. Bring treatments for common pests and know how to use them. I recommend
flea shampoo, vinegar, and witch hazel.
52. Label anything you or your spouse might not remember. In my case, I
cooked an inverter because I did not label odd power cables.
53. Know what your battery bank is at each day. Don't let it fall low, as
poor weather can always set in unexpectedly.
54. Don't under-size your solar panels. I figured I over-sized my battery
bank, but what I really did was get the right size battery bank and too few
solar panels. As a result, I can tap my batteries if I don't watch. It takes
a month at current charge/consumption rates to fill my batteries with surplus
power. I'd like it to take half that.
55. Remember to adjust for power loss in the conversion to and from your
battery bank. In my case, 100 watt hours put into my batteries will give me
80 watt hours out. 20% is lost in conversion for storage.
56. A wash pot is better than a wash basin. I just put the stainless steel
wash pot over the fire and when the water is hot, take it off to clean dishes
/ laundry. When the water cools, put the pot back on the fire for another go.
Easy as pie!
57. I was low on space, so I purchased and installed closet organizer
hangers. Now I fit five articles in the place of one.
58. Test every appliance with your inverters/backup power. In a few
instances, I had appliances which needed a pure-sine inverter to work.
Pure-sine inverters are much less efficient. I ended up getting appliances
that work with regular inverters and replaced a couple wall-warts.
59. Bring lots of extra socks! Also bring a darning needle and egg. I'm
getting 1/4 the usual lifespan because of the extra activity and this more
gritty environment.
60. Have a GOOD bag even when you are bugged out. I did not and realized that
if something went wrong, I couldn't leave.
61. Pack in plastic bins instead of cardboard. The bins are reusable, whereas
cardboard quickly fails.
62. It is easy to get putt off your hygiene routine. In my case, I could be
more diligent about brushing teeth.
63. Test all your food preservation techniques in the natural environment. Do
it all without modern conveniences you won't have it SHTF. In my case, I
found many of my planned food preservation techniques did not transfer well
to the wild.
64. I learned I can cook a full week on a pound of propane (if I am careful).
I need to stock up. Three 20 lb cylinders could do for a full year. Given how
much more forgiving propane is than wood, it makes sense to have propane to
ease transition.
65. One lb propane cylinders are refillable. I need to buy the attachment for
a 20 lb tank. One lb bottles are easy to get free at your local campgrounds.
Just ask. Check the web for filling techniques.
66. Confirm your local resources. What do you have around that would be of
use? I took too long to scout around; next time I'll be diligent.
67. Grocery bags are excellent for garbage, but also for toilet liners. If
you haul your own water like me, they can save a lot of work. Put them in a
stainless steel pot with a lid, and use it in your toilet bowl or as a
chamber pot.
68. Water shoes make great sandals and are very cheap this time of year.
Again, sandals wear out quickly in this environment. Stock up.
69. Shoes, shoes, shoes. Take a lesson from the women and get a few extra
pairs. You'll wear them out much faster in the wild. Also learn how to sole
your own shoes and give it a try.
70. Tanning hides is a learned skill. I never learned and I have yet to
succeed. I intend to fix this once I'm licensed to hunt.
71. Rodents are a pain. The rat traps don't work on squirrels in my
experience. Stainless snares do. They also take less space.
72. Tattler lids are a good choice for sustainability, but own some one-time
use lids too. Swap the one-time lids in place of Tattler when you first open
a jar of spice, or something else that will be used over a long period. It
will save you having to deal with the seal every time you use the contents.
73. Bears, wildcats, and wild dogs do not like human urine. Spread some
around your site to mark territory as animals do. Either do it daily, or
replace it after rain.
74. Confirm you have all the tools you think you have. In my case, I was
missing my drill! It's an essential tool. I had to buy a replacement, but
what if I couldn't?
75. Do not underestimate the importance of space. Cutting the crap from my
supplies, I doubled my living area. Nothing I lost was important... it was
all 'maybe' stuff that, when I think about it, I don't need.
76. Have a pot to piss in. When it's dark outside and you hear noises, you
might just prefer it to the outhouse.
77. Do you have digestion issues with certain foods? Figure them out now
while its convenient. There's nothing worse than problems on the trail. If
you have the trots for a few days, you can get quite dehydrated. If you get
them a lot and don't know why, you may be Celiac. Cases of the disorder
exploded in 2008 when wheat farmers started desiccating their crops with
Round-up. That's when it hit me. Also check for dairy and other
possibilities. You need to know NOW so you can be certain your food is
compatible with the SHTF you, and that your ability to travel distances isn't
hampered.
78. I stored a lot of spices, but should have mixed them in advance. It's a
lot easier to pull out one jar tht says fajita seasoning rather than the six
ingredients.
79. I have only a few types of seed. In hindsight, I should have 5-6 times
the variety I do, and more quantity as well. Sown in the wild, plants tend to
yield only 20% of the typical crop... and while I intend on taking good care
of my plants, there are circumstances I do not control... weather, pests,
grazing wildlife (if I don't spot them in time to get meat), etc.
80. Ever try making lye soap? I can and I will in a pinch, but I'm buying
laundry soap in volume now. A $10 dollar supply is equal to two weeks of soap
making effort. Yes I'm being literal. A full day of work produced about 8
ounces of weak soap. I burnt my skin on the lye and had a jolly good time.
No, if I can purchase soap instead of making it, I will.
81. Laundry soap makes great dish detergent. I brought bottled dish soap, but
learned that 2 Tbsp of laundry soap in a 750ml bottle topped with water is
just as effective. That saves a lot of space too.
82. I have found my skills more important than stuff in 90% of scenarios, yet
when we think of preps, we think of stuff. I think we invest too little in
learning and doing in advance; I know I did. I'm changing that.
83. Deodorant is consumable and takes up much more space than a deodorant
stone. Buy the rock.
84. Pack things to be accessible. If you cannot, at least make a written
index of where everything is. You'll forget otherwise, and have to dig
through everything... pain in the butt and waste of time.
85. Keep your ammo handy! Yes, this is my greatest error. My crossbow is easy
to reach, but the bolts are buried. Lots of good they do there! Even if you
think it's a short term bug out (I was supposed to be reestablished in a
week), you never know. If you have to dig for hours to get to your ammo like
I did, what good is it?
86. Spare glasses. I have only one pair. You can get replacement sets for as
little as $15 online. I can function without my glasses, but not as well. I
want to own at least 5, instead of the current one. With shipping, it would
be less than $100 invested.
87. Knives - I think I have a fetish. I have over 100 knives right now. They
are good to have, but some of that money could have been diverted to other
preps and I think it would have been more useful.
88. I have about two dozen blankets, mostly wool and purchased for about $4
each at a thrift. They were the deal of a lifetime, but wool is scratchy. I
should have gotten some soft oversheets to go with the wool. Flannel sheets
would have been ideal.
88. I have about two dozen blankets, mostly wool and purchased for about $4
each at a thrift. They were the deal of a lifetime, but wool is scratchy. I
should have gotten some soft oversheets to go with the wool. Flannel sheets
would have been ideal.
89. My iPhone isn't holding a charge as it used to. I can fix it if I have
the cell, but consider this... if SHTF, I would not. If SHTF, I would disable
the radio on my iPhone and I use it for apps and portable documents. I should
have a spare battery, as the device is known to go about 3 years on a cell.
It was a given that the battery would weaken, but I didn't prepare for that.
Same goes for other devices with proprietary batteries.
90. If SHTF, I will lose weight and so will you. I have clothes for my
smaller size, but not coats. A loose fitting coat is not a warm coat.
91. Beware the weak nylon zipper! I have lost three coats in as many months
due to poor zipper technology. I've also had a tent zipper fail. Best check
all zippers on your clothing and equipment. Maybe even buy a couple good long
zippers you can use for replacements. Zippers can always be shortened, but
there's no lengthening them.
92. I brought enough fishing gear for a lifetime and then some... line and
all... only to have the river flood out and the fish killed. Fishing was a
very big part of my food plan. I needed to prepare for alternate options
better. The same can happen with diseased game and other food sources. I was
short diversification and will extend options.
93. Five gallon buckets with lids are a godsend. I only have six; I should
have 60 or more. They are the best food storage and stacking system I think
I've seen...now that I've used them. There is wasted space between, but the
lids seal well and they handle heavy stacking much better than all other
storage containers I've purchased.
94. Some stand-alone software doesn't work if you are disconnected from
Internet for too long. I have Office 2010 Starter and I've learned it does
NOT continue to work if it can't report back to MS. I'm changing software
suites.
95. Similar to the above issue, some software cannot be installed without
Internet or phone verification. This is another vulnerability I need to get
rid of.
96. Frozen pencils seem more reliable than frozen pens.
97. I store my critical files on USB and SDHC cards. A couple cheap cards
have failed. I have other backups, but could potentially have lost
everything. I now keep two copies of each card. One is for use, and one is in
an anti-static bag tucked away. Because the cards and bags are small, they
should not need a Faraday cage, but it wouldn't hurt to use one.
98. I brought WAY too little comfort food. In hindsight, I should have
probably tripled the amount. The smartest thing would be to make my own in
the wild (smoked fish and jerky, etc) and I will, but I'd still triple what I
bring in.
99. Rope is one of the most useful tools I have. I wish I'd brought more.
100. A few things I purchased were simply not durable. I have a jar of
bungees for example... 100 within but they all have plastic hooks. Mistakes
like that are unforgivable, but I think we all make them. In my case, I
figured the price was right, but if they fail... was it really?
101. Money was trim, but supplies solid when I left. Now that I've seen all
the wasted money I used to procure things I didn't need, I feel a bit of
regret. I wish I'd been more smart about purchases when I had the coin. Then
I'd have what I needed AND some extra cash. Things would be easier.
102. People talk a lot about the importance of O2 packs, but not desiccants.
In my experience, I think moisture is the biggest threat to preps we make in
the wild. I would buy a pack of 500 desiccants and use one in every post-SHTF
dry can. They can be re-used after drying over a fire. Costs are ridiculously
low, in fact, you could probably just start saving the ones in your case
goods and you'd have a good stack in just a few months.
Well, those are the 102 things I have changed
or would change about my strategy. Perhaps you have more right than I did,
perhaps not. Undoubtedly there are a few gems in there for everyone. Enjoy!
http://www.goldismoney2.com/showthread.php?51882-102-Prepping-choices-I-would-change
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Having and
maintaining a positive attitude is vital for success in life and business.
Zig Ziglar gets it right when he says, "It is your attitude, not your
aptitude, that determines your altitude." Sure you need skills, but you
can learn skills - in fact a positive attitude will make it much more likely
that you will learn the skills necessary to succeed. If you take two people
with an equal skill set the person with the better attitude will win.
you. Reading requires that you sit
still and focus, and by focusing on something positive it helps you to keep a
positive mindset throughout the day. (My favorite books can be found here.)
