Leaner Times Lead to Prepping

From Lean to Prepared!

Prepper Outreach Contest Submission: 

As a child, we didn’t call what my wife and I do now “prepping”.  I don’t know what it was called, it was just what my family did.  As I got older, I somehow lost those skills and the desire to keep them up.  Shortly after getting married, my wife discovered a new found sense of urgency.  This urgency was to become prepared for whatever might happen.

My wife had an inner sense that something was going to happen, almost foreboding.  This was after 9/11, and I attributed it to some sort of post anxiety.  I made no attempt to stop her prepping activities, and I wasn’t a full time participant either.  I did however offer her suggestions along the way.  Over time, I became more and more involved, re-acquainting myself with the lifestyle of my youth.

Her prepping started out with couponing.  She signed up with a website that would provide her with the weekly sales in combination with the best coupon combination to equate to the best savings.  This worked out great for us, on many levels.  The most simplest and selfish was, I had tons of almost free snacks to munch on while watching movies and sporting events.  The more practical side of this is, I have been laid off twice since 2009, spending a total of 22 months so far unemployed.  I’ve also battled Cancer once during this same time period.  This greatly reduced my hours at work while attending Chemotherapy.  Had my wife not been preparing for “whatever” with her coupon shopping, we would never have made it.

I really got involved in prepping with my wife shortly before I was laid off the first time.  This was when Obama was elected, and I saw the writing on the wall.  My company told us, if Obama was elected, there would be lay offs, 3 months later, there were.  I took my severance pay and purchased some firearms, two safes, ammo for the weapons, a bunch of survival gear and used the rest to live off of as frugally as I could.

I took the time to get my hunters safety.  I had never done that before.  It was one of those things I had done as a child, yet as an adult, had just stopped doing.  I still haven’t been hunting, because of my illness, yet this fall, I will be out there.  I will be bringing my son along to introduce him to the activity, as one of great fun and conservation, as well as very necessary preparedness tool.  I’ve always fished, that was one activity that I had never given up.  I have been teaching my wife and son the different variables involved in fishing, such as live vs artificial bait, and cover vs open water.

My wife and I have also taken up gardening as part of our prepping arsenal.  We are still amateurs.  I was always around gardens as a child, yet unfortunately, I wasn’t taught any of the secrets; I was just a picker.  We have varied success and are eager to learn.  We can everything we can’t eat fresh out of our garden.  We also can whatever we find on sale at the local markets.  This also helps build up our stores as well as keep us fed very well during leaner times, such as we are experiencing now.

R.K. CO

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