Phase Three: Continuing the Preparation Process and Increasing Your Survival Skill Set

The third phase of your Emergency Preparation is continuing the Preparation Process and Increasing Your Survival Skill Set.  In simpler terms it means continuing to purchase supplies and increasing your knowledge.

I believe that even the best laid plans will fail if you are lacking in the survival skills department. You need to start another list ( I know! I love lists and sometimes go overboard with them but seriously it helps me stay focused) and start writing down what skills you are interested in learning or expanding on. You might even make a list of what skills you have already mastered. I have learned how to preserve food through canning, how to create a pattern and sew clothes, and how to grow a garden, but I want to expand on my food storage and my gardening skills. I also want to learn more about making soaps and candles and other convenient household items that we currently can purchase at a moment's notice. As I mentioned in yesterday's post I also want to expand my knowledge of firearms and practice using them at a firing range.  So I have lots to learn.  Reading anything and everything that I can get my hands on is the way that I increase my knowledge and skill set.

While you are researching and expanding your skills don't forget to keep up your original emergency preparation list. That list should keep changing and evolving as you learn more and more and realize where you need to improve and where you are proficient and prepared.

So my beginning list looked like this:

Set up a first aid kit

Create and store 72 hour kits (I am creating Bug Out Bags with 72 hour kits included)

Purchase and store water (1 gallon per person per day, 3 days worth to start)

Start to store non perishable food items

Now my list looks like this:

·  Set up a first aid kit I have a basic kit completed but I am still adding items (inventoried including expiration dates. I plan to rotate them each daylight savings.)

 

·  72 hour food kits completed (inventoried including expiration dates. I plan to rotate them each daylight savings)

·  Create BOBs or Bug Out Bags, I would say these are only about 40% completed. Still feeling my way around the recommended lists and deciding what to include in mine.

 

·  I currently have 2 gallon containers and 2 full cases of water bottles, plus the water in my 72 hour kits already stored. I also have 2 refillable water reservoirs that will go in mine and my husband's BOBs. My plan was to start with 3 days worth then 1 week, then 1 month and so on. If we can bug in we also have a 12 person hot tub full of water that we can use for washing clothes and flushing toilets.

 ·  I have purchased mylar bags as well as a new foodsaver with canning jar attachment and plan to store food using a combination of both methods. I have been increasing the volume of food in my pantry and storage areas for a few years now and perfecting my organization and rotating methods. I would say I already have about 2 weeks of food stored at all times (in addition to our regular grocery items purchased each week), maybe more. I am concentrating on dry storage right now with items like beans, rice, and salt.

 ·  Obtain a concealed weapons permit and purchase a firearm and the ammunition.

·  Need to research and add water filtration to my emergency prepping.

·  Copy and store all important documents (birth cert., passports etc) in a water tight container

·  Build an emergency cash stash at home in small bills.
 

·  Continue to print and add skills, recipes and plans to your emergency prepping binder that I mentioned in Phase One. That way if you don’t have internet access or power to turn on your computer you will still have a resource available to you.

See what I mean about the list evolving?  I have realized that having a weeks worth of food and water for each member of my family should automatically be the norm for every household in the US.  I have also realized that I could go on and on with prepping. The list will likely never end. As long as I rotate my stored food and I am wasting nothing then I don’t see the harm in being prepared.

Like I mentioned before, there is such peace in knowing that I have something put away in case there was some type of disaster or emergency tomorrow. I have something to keep us going though I know I need to work on much more. How is your list coming?