As we go through our daily lives and form habits and routines, it’s easy to lose track of the big picture. As we do things over a long period of time, we tend to take shortcuts and the small details tend to be overlooked.
It’s especially important to keep this in mind with preparedness because all it takes is one small detail to derail the most thought out preparedness plan. It’s important to reassess our preparedness plans from time to time, and make sure we are doing the things we should be doing.
SPP242 Overlooked or Forgotten Preparedness Supplies & Techniques
This week Lisa and I talked about some of the prepping supplies we tend to forget about or overlook, and some of the details in our preparedness plans that get lost in the shuffle. We tend to focus on the bigger aspects of prepping and forget about the little details that make everything work.
While there are some survival supplies that are more important than others, it takes a well rounded preparedness plan to make everything run as smoothly as possible.
Sometimes we get so focused on food storage, emergency supplies, or large-scale disasters that we forget about what might happen as we go through our daily routines. While it’s important to think about these large-scale disaster scenarios, we can’t forget that bad things can happen at any given time.
Below is a list of some of the things we overlook, forget about, or just didn’t think about that are important to our personal security, and our preparedness plans in general.
Complacency
Over time we tend to become complacent, take shortcuts, and forget about all the details that make up a good preparedness plan. On top of that, it’s inevitable that at one point or another all of us will become complacent about prepping. This could be because of prepper burnout, lack of urgency, or because life gets in the way.
It’s important that we pace ourselves to avoid overwhelm, and make sure we are not giving ourselves too much credit for how prepared we are. Lets say we get to our 6 months preparedness goal, and then we drop the ball for a month or 2, that 6 month figure drops very quickly.
BTW, We do this all the time haha, sometimes it’s just unavoidable.
Critical Thinking
Learning to think critically is a skill that we can hone over time, and could be more important than any prepping supplies you might have in a SHTF scenario. Today when we make the wrong decision we have the luxury of hindsight, in an emergency, the decisions we make may be lifesaving.
Get into a habit of thinking through your preparedness plans, and all the variables involved. Think about what you would do if this happens? and what you would do if that happens? This is why we like to talk about these hypothetical situations and discuss all the “what if’s” involved.
The Details
Sometimes we get so caught up in the large details involved in prepping, that we forget the small stuff. Take food storage for example. The first thing that comes to mind is canned food, pantry food, and long term food. What we tend to overlook is can openers, manual appliances, supplements etc.
It’s these small details that could really derail our preparedness planning, and force us to find less than ideal alternatives. Another example is your car. If you get a flat tire it’s not a big deal right? That is unless you don’t have a tire jack, a lug wrench, or even a spare tire.
The Basics at Home
Lets face it, there is quite a bit to think about when it comes to preparedness. There are the 6 areas of preparedness, along with everything that falls into those categories. Because of this, we sometimes forget about the things that keep us safe on a daily basis.
Some things we tend to overlook are fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, home security, and tools. We may not think of these things as “preparedness supplies” but the odds of something happening at home on a personal level is much greater than a large scale disaster.
EDC Gear
Most of us have our EDC (Every Day Carry) gear that we like to carry on a daily basis, but how often does that get left at home? I have my pocket knife, my lighter, my flashlight and a few other things that if I don’t have (or forget) I feel naked.
My point is, it’s become a habit to have these with me, and have these tools available at any given time. If something goes down, and we forgot to but our bug out bag in the car, or forgot to take our EDC gear with us, it could put us at risk.
I also think of a good pair of walking shoes as EDC gear. If you find yourself having to bug in (get home) on foot, it’s going to be a challenge to say the least with dress shoes or high heels on.
Car Preps and Maintenance
This almost falls into the small details category, but it’s so important it deserves it’s own. Most of us are in our cars on a daily basis, and there are quite a few things that can happen while we are on the road. Your automobile is a great place to keep some gear because of the room available.
It’s also important to keep your car running at peak performance, and the gas tank full. On a daily basis, we don’t want to put ourselves in emergency situations, and in a SHTF type event, we don’t want something that could have been fixed, causing us further problems.
Money on Hand
Because everything we do these days can be done with a card, not many people actually carry cash. I have been guilty of this from time to time, but I can’t overstate how important it is to have a little cash money on hand.
If the power grid were to go down (large or small scale) banks would be useless, ATM’s would be useless, and most people wouldn’t be able to pay for anything. It’s also a good idea to keep some cash around that isn’t in your wallet.
Family Planning
Even though we do all this research, learn these new skills, and think we have a really good preparedness plan, it’s not complete if our family does not know their part. While it can be a tricky situation to get their buy in, They don’t need to be completely on board to do their part.
In this article about getting your family into prepping, I talked about how you shouldn’t start off by talking about EMP’s and conspiracy theories, you should talk to them about disaster scenarios that are more likely, and closer to home. At the very least, we need to know how they will act, what they will do in a disaster scenario.
Practice
Watching YouTube videos and reading articles about preparedness is a fantastic way to learn new skills and prepping techniques, but we need to go further than that. We need to take that information we learned and apply it.
It’s important that we test this stuff out today while we can make mistakes and learn from them. In a SHTF scenario, the last thing we want is to do is something that was avoidable. As you practice you’ll probably find that most things are not as easy as they say it is.
Your Health
Along the same lines as keeping our automobile’s in good working order, our health is important as well. Life during and after a disaster scenario will be physically and mentally taxing, and we need to go into it as healthy as possible.
If we make sure we are as healthy as possible and being proactive about any current health issues, we can reduce the risk that they become bigger issues in any long term disaster.
Operational Security
As people, we are creatures of habit, and tend to do things without even thinking about it. This is perfectly normal in some cases, but can put you at risk in others. Sometimes what we think is totally innocent, can be putting us in harms way.
Doing a S.W.O.T. analysis and a threat assessment can help you uncover some areas of your operational security that could use some fine tuning. Sometimes it’s the simple things that we don’t give a second thought to that need to be changed.
Rotation
We all fall into the trap from time to time of not rotating our food and preparedness supplies. Our bug out bags need to be updated and checked periodically, and it’s almost inevitable that some of our food storage will be expired or spoiled.
We can minimize our losses by checking our supplies a couple times each year. We can not only get a better understanding of how prepared we actually are, we can save money on loss and spoilage.