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5 Ways to Improve Your Prepping

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food-prepTake it from me. You never know when your house could go up in flames. I like this advice for prepping from Rex Nanorum at The Loadout Room:

If you’ve been prepping for a little while, you’ve probably got the basics covered.  You have a bug-out bag, a decent stash of MRE’s or #10 cans of freeze-dried food and a plan to keep it all secure once you’re hunkered down.  What’s next?  Besides piling up more supplies, what else can you do to further prepare yourself for a disaster?  Here are 5 ideas you may find useful in going from beginner to intermediate prepper.

1. Bug out picnic/range day/camping

This is a great way to include the family.  If we’re having a slow weekend day and want to have a little adventure I’ll yell “bug out picnic!” and give a time limit for when we’re driving away.  This helps with organization, prioritization and delegation of tasks.  These little adventures are also a good way to cycle out older supplies and shake down your gear for deficiencies.

2.  Skill-of-the month

Reading through accounts of people who have survived through terrible circumstances, you will rarely (if ever) find someone who says “I didn’t know crap but I sure spent a lot on supplies”.  It is a widely held opinion that the most important tool is between your ears.  So, try your hand at a new skill once a month.  I’m not saying go out and buy a full reloading setup to get familiarized; I’m saying once a month you should take a crack at a new skill that you may find useful to add to your mental arsenal.  Don’t just stop at an instructional video or book, get hands-on experience to drive home the lesson.  Some ideas are: lock-picking, primitive fire starting, small game trapping, food preservation techniques, first-aid instruction or celestial navigation.

3.  Spice up your food preps

Look around for new and tasty additions to your foodstores.  Living off a 50 lb bag of rice will get old quick and it doesn’t take much to change up the menu a bit. Search for foods with a long shelf life that are different than what you’ve got a lot of.  Smoked wild Alaskan salmon  with a shelf life of up to 10 years?  Count me in. Honey, bouillon and salt are all essential and have extreme shelf lives.  Some Johnny’s seasoning salt and Tang drink powder are cheap and easy products to literally spice up your meals. Not to mention sustainability years after the apocalypse- throw some seed packets in your cache to offer fresh foods if possible to the end times.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.

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