It’s a new year and that means the traditional time of making new goals for yourself. Hopefully you added a few goals to be better prepared this year.
I keep an ongoing list of things I want to learn, do, and purchase for preparedness. I call it the “Big List” and keep it in a notebook in my purse. It keeps me working toward a goal and learning and preparing. But sometimes looking at the “Big List” is daunting. There is a lot on there! And it seems like every time I cross something off the list, I add two more things. How will I ever accomplish it all? And for sure how will I ever purchase it all on our little income?
This could be a cause of great anxiety and even bring on “preparedness panic shut-down” where you decide that rather than tackle that huge list, you’ll just put your rose colored happy glasses back on and do nothing. Because really, there’s no way you can get it all done and it’s causing stress just thinking about it.
Know anybody like that? Yeah, it happens.
So here are four questions to ask yourself to make prioritizing your goals easier when your preparedness to-do list seems a bit overwhelming.
1. “Is this item/skill/etc. going to keep me or my family alive if the stuff hits the fan and all heck breaks loose?” Focus on those things that will keep you and your family alive first. Having a supply of clean water, short term food supply, medical training, and maybe firearms along with the training to use them should be on the list above things like “learn to can my own food”. Food preservation is absolutely a skill you want to have in your arsenal, however, if you can’t live through the first few days post disaster due to contaminated water, your food preservation skills will do you no good.
2. “Which items/skills on my list will be of most use to me?” For example, you want an alternative way to cook food if the power is out. Before jumping in and purchasing a Sun Oven, make sure you get enough days of sunshine without clouds and/or strong winds to make that option more useful than a rocket stove or some other means of off-grid cooking. Or maybe you have a special situation in your family like a baby, medical condition, or special needs family member that needs to be taken into consideration before making decisions. Just because something is a good choice for your neighbor, friend, or favorite blog author, doesn’t mean it’s a good choice for you.
3. “What is the most cost effective way?” If you have tons of money, go ahead and spend whatever you want on preparedness. However, most of us have limited funds and budgets. As much as I love the Country Living grain mill and because of quality, flexibility, and warranty would recommend it if you have $429 for a grain mill, if you only have $429 total to spend on preparedness and you need a grain mill, you can purchase a less expensive, but still quality built, mill like the Wonder Junior mill, and still have money left for a little water filter, a stove, a CPR class, an inexpensive rifle off your local classifieds, and/or some canned goods from the case lot sale.
4. “Do I need that?” This kind of goes along with number 3, and can help manage your money and time as you work toward being more prepared. I’ve been wanting a gravity fed water filter like a Big Berkey filter system. Clean water is extremely important, but the filter is kind of pricey. It hasn’t made the “Buy Me” cut yet because I have a few smaller water filters (water bottle filters, hiking size pump filter, and LifeStraw), lots of water stored in jugs, and methods to purify water from iodine type tablets to heating water on a stove/fire or in my Sun Oven. Same with training opportunities. If you are CPR certified and a CPR class comes available, you could take it again, but do you need to? Could you use that time to learn something in an area you don’t already have skills in?
Keep an open mind with your prioritizing. If a pressure canner is on your list after 5 other big ticket items and an opportunity presents itself to buy one at a yard sale for cheap, by all means take that baby home with you! But in general, asking these few questions will help you figure out where on your list of preparedness goals to begin and hopefully you’ll stay out of the panic shut-down and be on your way to becoming better prepared for whatever may come.
Keep preparing! Angela
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This is great! There are so many lists out there of what we need and not enough lists of how to prioritize those lists. Thank you for this post:) It can be daunting and overwhelming.
Love these ideas. I tend to be a bit overzealous with my goals and think I need to be doing just what everyone else is doing. I like the idea of focusing on what really is best for ME and my family and keeping things in priority order.
I do tend to think I need something and then think really hard about it, deciding that maybe I have enough things to use in place of the item in mind. Taking advantage of yard sale opportunities has been great. Of course, I go to yard sales just to see what is there, often finding something on a mental list of nice to have–like a second water-bath canner (useful for other things), windup flashlight (never had one before a yard sale), cast iron pans for the whole family if they want one. I bought the Lodge Lid and the other dozen+ were given to me from friends or Freecycle. I won’t cook with an aluminum pot, but got two free ones for other uses. (heat water for bath, wash dishes, heat wax, carry chicken food, etc)
Thanks for reminding us of these things.
I am so glad to see good common sense suggestions for emergency preparedness. Thaks for your help to all those looking for it ! God Bless !
Yeah always a good reminder, I find myself often focusing on complex stuff like building solar panels, when I don’t have enough water stored, lol.
Here’s a list I came up with of some of the top priorities in order:
1) air- obviously key, nothing matters without a good air supply, you’re done in minutes.
2) water- next in line- either a water supply or a reliable filtration/purification method. You’re done in days without it.
3) food- you can go weeks without food, but your ability to function will be affected after days.
4) Shelter- protection from the elements. Might be #3. Either way, these are the big 4, the short-term essentials.
5) Heat/energy- are you warm? Can you cook your food?
6) A clean/healthy environment- to avoid illness.
7) security/protection- whatever that means in your situation. Protection from animals, from other people, etc.
Just some ideas I came up with on the fly.
RamboMoe
Prioritizing is an ongoing thing and one of the hardest things to do, especially when funds are short. It’s important to make sure you’re getting a good buy when you decide not to opt for the more expensive grain mill or water filter because you want it to last and be reliable when you need it most. In other words, while you prioritize now, don’t cut yourself short for the long term.
This is a wonderful post, very well thought out and great information. I stumbled across this from prepperwebsite’s fb page post and came here because the title was interesting.
I’m always looking for inspiration for my own sites articles. I got much more than i’d hoped for by reading this. thanks for much for sharing your knowledge.
Great way to organize your thoughts.
Prepping does not have to cost a lot of money. So also think about options – there are excellent and FAR cheaper sun ovens without having to spring for the one in capital letters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n43jOur81Ss. Rocket stoves are great, check out the 6 concrete block, dual burner model at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSKj3xYe3T8 and don’t forget about rocket heaters to replace your non-functional central HVAC system.
A Berkey system is pretty pricey; buy the filter elements and make your own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYG_TLoI9O4. Also, your pressure cooker, a length of hi-temp rubber tubing and 10 feet of thin walled copper coil makes a dandy setup for distilling water for drinking, medical needs or Colloidal Silver but you want to add back the minerals that distillation removes so do a bit of research on that before relying on it for drinking water. As a bonus you can also make your own alcohol for medicinal needs or to run small engines but don’t break any laws in the process – be sure to denature your product. After a good cleaning, it will still be good for pot roast with all the trimmings.
Finally, you should realize by now that, as the saying goes, “no man is an island”. Even the mountain men of old had to go down to town from time to time for the products they simply could not produce themselves. Community is everything so make friends, build your survival community and learn skills that will enhance and supplement those of other members.