8 Things Preppers Overdo & Often Focus on Too Much

As preppers, one of the hardest things that we can do is find balance in our preps. For various reasons we tend to overdo or neglect. In today’s article & it’s accompanying podcast, we take a look at eight different things we as preppers overdo or tend to emphasize too much or spend “way too much time and money” on. 

We published an article and podcast last week about “Six Things Preppers Don’t Do Enough Of (CLICKY)“, so we thought it was time to go ahead and look at the other side of the coin.

Note on Spice’s holding the gun… she finds it very uncomfortable to extend her index finger on this gun, so she wraps her finger on the grip behind the trigger, Not quite as fast as “normal” but entirely safe since here finger blocks the trigger from being pulled.

Here are eight things that a lot of preppers overdo:

1. Preppers Overdo Guns – I love guns. I’m a bit of a firearms fanatic. As far as I’m concerned, the more guns the better. The problem is, for prepping purposes, owning several safes full of guns is both unnecessary and it limits the amount of resources that are available for the rest of our preps.
2. Preppers Overdo Knives – Sorry, knife guys, I hate to put this one out there but I know preppers who spend an absolutely RIDICULOUS amount of money on knives and call it prepping. It’s not. Just like guns, buy what you need and don’t scrimp on the quality, buy adequate spares, and move on. It’s OK to have knife and gun collecting as a hobby, but don’t use money needed for other preps to fund your obsession.
3. Preppers Overdo Tacticool Gear – I go to gun shops, gun shows and “prepper shows” from time to time, and I have to admit I have actually laughed out loud at some of the pointless and patently ridiculous tacticool junk being sold and purchased. Hey, if you want to dress like a member of a SWAT team, that’s your business. I don’t care. But if your AR-15 weighs in at 17 pounds because it’s so loaded with tacticool garbage you will never use, well… you may want to back it off a bit.
4. Preppers Overdo Fire Starters – I have to chuckle at some of the absolutely ridiculous threads I’ve read on prepper forums about the various fire starting methods, and the inordinate amount of time and effort put into alternative fire starters. Here’s a hint, we are PREPPERS, not Bear Whatshisname. If you want to have fire starters to last you for years, buy a case of Bic lighters and you are good to go.  If it’s a long-term situation … you have years to master that bow drill.
5. Preppers Overdo Thirty-Year Shelf Life Food – I know it happens every day; somebody realizes how much prepping is needed for survival, so they decide to knock out the food problem and order one of those “Year’s Supply Of Food” things from one of the big freeze-dried prepping food companies. Other than we find most of those ads horribly misleading (expect to see a story series on this in the future), there’s nothing wrong with having long-term storage food. The problem is when people stop at that and think they have it covered. It’s far more important to be able to GROW your own food than have X-many years worth in storage, because one of two things is likely to happen. A) You never use it; B) You use it, then when it’s gone if you are not growing your own by then, you starve. Better to implement a food growing system which you supplement with long term storage than having the long term stuff being your only option.  Besides…do you really want to eat nothing that doesn’t come out of a 5 gallon bucket for years at a time?  Not to mention the likely vitamin deficiencies…
6. Preppers Overdo Electronic gadgets. So many times I see people prepping with electronic gadgets. While there is nothing wrong with having a few electronic items (as long as you have a way to charge them) if we get into an extended situation, they cannot be counted on. They can also be trashed immediately by an EMP, or have their use degraded very quickly by limited access to recharging; and they tend to be fairly fragile.
7. Preppers Overdo Cell phones instead of a solid communication plan for families. A friend of mine lives in the US Virgin Islands. The three days before the recent hurricane arrived, know what the cell phone companies did? They disassembled their cell phone towers and lashed the parts to the ground. They then flew their workers out of the path of the storm. Good thing they did, it saved them a ton of money because the storm would have just destroyed the towers if they were up. Cell phone service in a grid-down scenario cannot be counted on. Cell service in any emergency can’t be counted upon in fact, as history has shown the system tends to overload.  Instead, we need to have a sound, pre-determined meet-up plan with our loved ones, so we know if the SHTF where they will go.
8. Preppers Overdo Critical devices like heaters that require electricity. Preppers that live in areas that get cold need to have a way to heat their houses that doesn’t use electricity. Additionally, they need to learn things like how to both shut off the water in their houses at the main valve and drain the system, in case of a long term outage in the winter (so pipes won’t burst). Trust nothing that requires power in an emergency.

SO… there are 8 items, there are many more we could have mentioned, so you can expect a follow up article in the future.

We don’t expect you to agree with all of them, our goal is to encourage you to think about it and debate whether we are right or are full of beans.

Like this post? Try 12 Prepper Lessons We Can Learn From Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Book “The Long Winter”!