Prepping 101: What is Prepping?

One of my 2012 goals is to write a series on prepping.  So, with colder weather impeding my gardening efforts, February seems to be just the time to think about all things preparedness.  To that end, I will be writing one post a week during this month on prepping.

The proper place to start, I think, is to define "prepping" for the FC&G audience.  Many of my readers already have their own definition.  If you have found my blog through The Survival Mom Blog Ring or other prepping-related sites, you undoubtedly know what prepping is and have a start on your own preps.  If you are new, you will need a definition.

Prepping is, essentially, preparing for situations that might take you temporarily or permanently out of contact with the resources that typically support your lifestyle, such as grocery stores, gas stations, cell service, heating oil, or the electrical/power grid.  If you spend an afternoon searching for web sites dedicated to prepping, you will discover that people prep for all sorts of potential emergencies, including but not limited to:

• Weather-related disasters, like blizzards, hurricanes, and floods
• Economic concerns, ranging from personal job-loss to full-scale global economic collapse
• Political disasters, ranging from localized protests to governmental breakdown
• Energy-related disasters, which can be as "minor" as a local power outage or as major as grid collapse from an electromagnetic pulse
• Any change in resource availability that might require you to be more self-sufficient than usual

Now, with all due respect to my prepping colleagues online, I must warn you that if you do decide to spend the afternoon hunting for prepping web sites online, it will probably scare the snot out of you at first.  Some of the best-prepared among us seem to have every contingency covered:  They own rural property in an undisclosed location on which they have a few acres for garden and livestock, a water filtration system, back up generators and communications equipment, and their choice of ways to defend it all.  Truly, these folks are all set with the prepper basics of "beans, bullets, and Band-aids."

On the other hand, most of the rest of us are guilty of lapses in judgement that could be very harmful in the wrong situation.  I know that I have occasionally ventured out in the winter wearing peep-toe heels and with a quarter-tank of gas in the car.  What if a snow storm hit and I got caught in a snow drift?  What if I had to transport a family member or colleague with a medical emergency?  

For the remainder of the month, these posts will focus on getting us all to be a little more prepared for emergencies, which is truly the cousin of living sustainably.  Being able to be independent in a tough situation is part of the reason we all want to live more sustainably.  And sometimes, buying a few extra Band-aids is a good first step.

What are you doing to prep?

Related posts:

On Being Prepared

On Being Prepared, Pt. II