Salty and I have a family tradition of our own we honor as life allows: On Thanksgiving, we try to go somewhere that reminds us of what we’re thankful for. We’ve spent Thanksgivings everywhere from honoring the courage of Civil War soldiers by walking the Sunken Road by Bloody Pond at Shiloh to feeling the thrum of an underground river on a cave dive. Then, on Black Friday, we get as far away from shopping for Stuff as possible.
Thanksgiving isn’t about The Stuff. Neither is a lot of prepping.
The thing is, buying the stuff gets a lot of attention. It’s a quick, easy hit of Something Accomplished; and there are innumerable sellers anxious to help. But where else should we be spending our prepping attention?
Here’s a podcast we did on the subject:
This is not prepping…
Be able to find the stuff you’ve got
Ok, I started on our own biggest weakness. We started prepping with no master plan, and a lot of the acquisition of stuff was driven by ‘need it sometime and it’s on sale now!’ So much of this stuff is in the most dreaded spot in the Salty and Spice household: “Here Somewhere”. When we need something bought in this phase, it’s always a hassle to find what’s needed.
We’ve had to do the Hard Thing and spend some time reorganizing so things likely to be needed on short notice are easily accessible, and so things that need rotation or maintenance are easy to come at. You can be more clever and make those arrangements as you get the stuff, perhaps.
Know how to use the stuff
Fact of physics: Car batteries are most likely to die on the coldest nights. Spice fact: The morning after the coldest nights, when you’re trying to get to work on time, is a pretty awful time to try to figure out how to use the jump starter. Not, of course, that I’ve made That error. (twice)
So open things up, put them together if they need it, try them out. If it’s something where skill in the moment is important (Firearms!), keep in practice.
It’s nice to figure out what plugs where when it is Not twenty below and you’re trying to hold a flashlight in chattering teeth.
Take care of the stuff
Rotate the food and water supplies. Store things in ways that extend shelf life. Change the stupid batteries on the stupid fire alarms; because if let all your other preps burn up because you ignored something that mundane … well, that’d be pretty stupid.
Here’s one of our ‘take care of it’ projects; a Thrive Life pantry organizer I built to store the dehydrated foods.
Try to keep from needing more stuff…
Particularly stuff that’s really hard to get. Open-heart surgery. Handicapped-accessible bugout bunkers. Even prescription medications can be a bear to get during times of crisis. How do you keep from needing these things? Nothing’s certain; but your best bet is to take care of your physical self. *Trust me* I know this isn’t the most fun aspect of prepping. “Fun” and “lifting weights” are not things that go together in my mind either; but it’s part of taking care of business.
Better to avoid needing it in the first place.
Don’t get killed getting stuff
You don’t want your epitaph to be “He was prepped for anything…except angry shoppers” *
I’ve heard those Black Friday sales can get pretty ugly…
* Thanks to Powhusku from Laramie, WY, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons