This week Lisa and I had the pleasure of welcoming back Sara to the podcast. Sara was on a little while back talking about her book Day After Disaster and this time she was here to talk about her new book Without Land as well as a few other subjects including leadership skills.

We also talked about gun control laws in the tinfoil hat time segment of the show and you can watch that video below…

SPP127 Interview With Sara Hathaway Author of Without Land

I didn’t read the book yet but Lisa did, and here is what she has to say about it…

So I had the pleasure of reading Sara F. Hathaway’s latest book, Without Land, and it was incredible! If you are just getting into preparedness, or you have been doing it along time, you would do yourself a favor by giving yourself a break and taking the time to read this book. You might learn a thing or two.

If you have read Day After Disaster (Sara’s first book) you are already familiar with her characters. The story takes place 9 years after the big quake annihilated California, and creates a very realistic look of what a future after an SHTF scenario could be like.

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to live in a FEMA camp, read this book.

If you have ever wondered how you would react in the event of an ultimate collapse of our great nation, read this book.

If you have ever thought about what it would be like if all luxuries, and modern conveniences were gone, or not in your control, read this book.

If you want a fast paced story with a really interesting twist in the end, read this book!

Many of the characters that Sara created in her first book are back, 9 years later. She gives us a glimpse into their lives, and we get a front row seat to every dilemma they are faced with and how they handle themselves in those situations.

I think one of the best things about her book is it is easy to insert yourself into the place of the characters, and it makes you think about how would you react if that situation presented itself for you? What would you do?

I don’t like giving spoilers about the story, so I’m sorry, I won’t tell you what happens, but I will tell you this book is definitely worth your time.

So buy the book for yourself, or family and friends that show an interest in prepping. You still have time to get it, and will have a really thoughtful gift for someone special, as well as supporting a very talented writer.

Make sure and head over to Sara’s website and have a look at everything she is up to.

Leadership Skills

In today’s show we also talked about why leadership is important in any prepping group whether that group is formed now, or out of necessity because of a SHTF scenario. Leadership is more than telling people what to do and bossing them around, leadership is more than being “the boss.”

Leadership doesn’t necessarily mean leading the entire group, there will be the need for leaders in subsets of the group as well as the main leader. Just like in the corporate world the boss will pick a few managers that need to lead the people below them.

Leadership Style: There isn’t one kind of effective leader, and being “the boss” does not make you a good leader. A good leader can be straight forward and by the book, or a good leader can be more empathetic. Regardless of their leadership style they will be able to get the most out of the people surrounding them.

Delegation: A good leader also knows that they can’t do everything themselves. Knowing how to use the resources around them and putting the right people in the right places is critical to any groups success.

When it comes to a preppers food storage, one size does not fit all. We all have certain limitation whether that be financial or storage space. Our list of what we feel like we need to have, and our list of what we actually have can be to entirely different things.

Storage space is something we can overcome with a little critical thinking, but not having the funds for food storage can put a kink in our preparedness plans.

In this article we are going to go over a few of the different methods of storing food, and not wasting money on food because of improper storage or loss caused by expiration.

Saving Money on Your Food Storage

Store What you Eat: You probably hear this all the time, but if you don’t want to waste money on food storage it is good advice. If your family doesn’t like peas, just because canned peas are on sale doesn’t mean you should buy them. A good deal can turn into wasted money down the line.

Keep in mind that some sacrifices will have to be made, refrigerated foods and foods with short shelf lives will not be around for long in a disaster situation. There are some alternatives that we will go over below, but nothing beats the real thing.

Make a list of what foods you eat all the time, the foods you eat occasionally and the foods you rarely eat.

Proper Food Rotation: Everyone has their own method of doing this, but I can tell you from experience that the more food you store the harder it is to keep track of. This is especially true for canned goods because they tend to hide in the back corners of your cabinets.

I usually do inventory twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring, as well as trying my best to keep everything rotated the whole time. I use this worksheet  that you can download that helps me keep track of what I have, what I need and what I need to use soon.

First in First Out: The way I recommend rotating your food storage is just like the grocery stores do it, first in, first out. This can be a little easier said than done because the more food you store the more complicated rotation becomes.

Canned goods are especially hard to keep rotated, but you can make it a little easier on yourself if you buy a couple of these can organizers. There are even quite a few DIY ideas that you can use.

Food Storage Shelf Lives: Food doesn’t have to have a shelf life of 25 years to make it good for storage, foods that have a shelf life of less than a year can be ok for food storage as long as it’s properly rotated.

How you store your food is just as important as rotation, this article explains how to properly store foods for maximum shelf life, and this article explains the shelf life of some common foods.

Look for Bargains: Once you know which foods you want to store the most of, and you have your inventory system figured out you can start to look for sales or bargains on that food. Most people wouldn’t see the point of buying 15 cans of corn when they are on sale, but as preppers this fits perfectly into our plans.

Lisa and I recently did a podcast with Traci about prepping and couponing. We also talked about some other ways to save money prepping in that show like

I have to admit, I love this time of year. Not only because it is a perfect opportunity to score some prepping supplies for Christmas, or a great opportunity to get someone interested in preparedness, but the fact that we are able to celebrate holidays like these means everything is “so far so good”

While I’m not much for the stress and planning that leads up to the holidays it is a reminder of why we do what we do. The reason most of us prepare is to keep our family and loved ones safe, and while that in itself is a gift, sometimes people just need a gift or a thankyou that is meant only for them.

On a selfish note, any opportunity to stock up on a few extra supplies and not have to pay for it is a win win in my book, although it usually all come out of my bank account anyway…but that’s beside the point.

This is not a list of the typical prepping supplies like fire starters and flashlights. I tried to think about some unique gifts that preppers might not have, and even if they do, we preppers can never have too many of one item. 2 is 1 and 1 is none right?

SPP125 Prepper Gifts for Christmas

In the podcast (and video) Lisa talked about some DIY gift ideas for preppers and non preppers alike. In this article she wrote a while back “The Gift of Giving Preparedness” she has some great ideas.

EDC Jacket

I found these at ScotteVest.com and they have a wide variety of hoodies and jackets for men and women. The price can be a little high (between $70 and $300) but this is not your average jacket. They also sell some accessories that preppers like me would love.

Titan Paracord

I have done a review on Titan SurvivorCord in the past and this is a must have for any preppers bug out bag. Preppers love multi use items, and this 550 paracord includes fishing line, jute twine and copper wire. You can watch that video here.

Tactical Pens

These are not lifesaving survival tools, but they could be. One of the reasons I like these tactical pens so much is that it’s my pen! Pen’s easily get lost around the house because everyone uses them and rarely put them back where they got them, but I always know where my tactical pen is.

Hidden Gun Shelf

You have no doubt seen these here and there on the internet, I have even done a review on one of them here. These are great to have because the average person would have no idea what is hidden inside.

In the podcast we mentioned a friend of Survivalist Prepper that makes these and offers them for quite a bit cheaper than other online retailers. Here is his video and here is his Facebook page if you want ...

Why and How We Prepare

The recent terror attacks in Paris caused Lisa and I to have a conversation about why prepping is looked upon as overreacting and unnecessary. The answer is very simple…

We don’t live in Mayberry anymore.

With the way preppers are portrayed on television and the internet you would think that all preppers have thousands or rounds of ammunition, enough food to feed an army and a tank parked in the garage. While these people are out there, this is not an accurate representation of preppers.

For anyone who is reading this and is not a prepper, or is wondering what prepping is all about, this article will explain why we preppers aren’t so crazy after all, and why prepping is about more than worst case scenario.

75 to 100 years ago prepping might have been a little excessive, but then again if you look at how people lived 100 years ago it’s not so different than what we preppers strive to be.

I’m not saying that preppers are trying to move away from technology, I’m saying we strive to be less dependent on it and learn how to live without it. Just about everything we do these days relies on a computer program in one way or another, and while these are great and convenient it wouldn’t take much to disrupt the system.

As the world gets smaller and technology grows it becomes easier for the bad guys to expend their reach and disrupt our lives from anywhere on the planet. We’re not fighting with swards and shields anymore, were fighting with bombs and technology.

These disaster scenarios that we think about are just symptoms of the real problem. It doesn’t have to be a nuclear attack, or Martial law, or even a financial collapse to turn our lives upside down, it can be something or someone right next door.

First World Problems

In this week’s podcast Lisa and I talked about a number of tipics ranging from why we prepare, to what we prepare for, to digging deeper into why we all do this in the first place. Here are a few subjects we covered in this week’s show.

SPP124 Why We Crazy Preppers Aren’t So Crazy

Why do we apologize for being American? The culture in the United States has changed from people being proud to be American, to people apologizing for being from America. It seems that people have forgotten what made this country the greatest country in the world.

Welcome to Walmart: Most people in this country would have no idea how to fend for themselves if the grocery stores or internet were gone. Very few people these days have the skills that people just 50 years ago had, a good home cooked meal is being taken over by takeout and processed microwave meals.

We also talked about how this “Walmart Mentality” is it killing our country. Everyone knows the price of a product, but they have no idea what the true cost is. These low price products cost us manufacturing jobs, bad legislation because of lobbyists and horrible working conditions for the people making these products for dollars a day.

Political Correctness: Along the same lines as why we feel the need to apologize for being American is the constant need to be politically correct. At some point it became wrong to disagree with someone or to hurt someone’s feelings.

We look the other direction when our politicians do something that should land them in jail, but God forbid you say something about illegal aliens or you will be labeled a racist.

Divide and Concur: The best way for our government to pull the wool over our eyes is to divide us,

If you listen to everything you read or hear about emergency water storage and filtration it can seem like a daunting task, but it is just water right? With all the different additives, proper storage and proper containers all this different information can lead us to overthink a fairly simple process.

Water is essential for our survival, but water itself does not go bad, water gets microorganisms and bacteria in it that we need to remove to make it safe to drink.

With that being said, in theory as long as we can keep the water from evaporating, what water is stored in is more important than how water is stored.

This doesn’t mean you just grab any empty container in the house and fill it with water, there are still a few factors you need to keep in mind when storing water like rotation, the containers you use, storage temperature and where to find water in a SHTF scenario if you run out.

In this week’s show about finding and storing water for preppers Lisa and I talk about why storing water doesn’t have to be brain surgery, and where you can find water if your storage space is limited.

Finding And Storing Water Podcast

We are also doing something a little different this week (and hopefully more often) with the show, we are publishing the podcast in both audio and video. Some of the videos will be available on our Youtube channel, and some will be available exclusively to Academy members.

(Part 1: Water Storage)

Water Storage Containers

As I said earlier, what you store water in is more important than the additives you put into it. There are certain containers that will work to store water, some that are the preferred method and some that you should avoid all together.

Avoid Glass and Milk Jugs: Avoiding glass might be self-explanatory, glass can break if water freezes or it is dropped leaving a huge mess. Milk jugs are not meant for long term storage, they are made with thin plastic and the milk proteins are very hard to completely remove.

With that being said, milk jugs can be used for gray water (bathing and cleaning) for emergencies, but don’t depend on them for long term storage.

Use Thicker Plastic Containers: Containers like 2 liter bottles or Arizona iced tea jugs are a better option for long term storage because the containers themselves were manufactured for longer term storage. If stored properly these will last for years, but they are usually clear (letting light in) and hard to maximize storage space with.

Store Bought Water Containers: These by far are your best bet, but they do include the added cost for storing water. These are specifically made for storing water long term and there are quite a few options.

* Legacy Foods Water Box

* Water Bricks

*

This week Lisa and I had the opportunity to sit and talk with John on the Contra Radio Show. I must say it’s pretty fun to talk prepping as a guest rather than the host. We really didn’t stick to one preparedness topic in this show, we ran the gambit from topics ranging from why we got started to how we got started prepping, to first aid supplies to how people will react in a SHTF situation.

John has the same rational approach to prepping as we do, and you can listen to his show live on BlogTalk Radio, listen to the replay on iTunes, or use your favorite podcast app.

Here is a list of some of the subjects we covered during the show, but for more detail you will have to listen.

SPP122 Contra Radio Interview

How we started prepping and Survivalist Prepper: You can read about this on our about page, but the short answer is that Lisa talked me into it. I was always interested in the outdoor stuff, but she got me into the preparedness aspect of it.

Academy Coming Additions; Threats and Prioritization: In the next month or so Lisa and I are putting together a course at the Academy about prepping and prioritization. As I said in the show, it does no good worrying about an economic collapse if we can’t live for a week without going to the store.

Taking the time to understand the threats you should prepare for first will save you time and money along your path to preparedness. This course will be available soon, but you can click here to have a look at what we already have available at the Academy.

How Friends & Family React to our Prepping: We also talked about how our family and friends react to our outlook on preparedness and why we feel it is so important. All of our children react differently, but over time we have seen them become more interested in prepping…even if they won’t admit it.

Suburban Prepping Tips; Know Your Neighbor: We got a question from the chat room about some tips about prepping in a suburban area that some people might not think about. We talked about how knowing who your neighbors are is important in defining who will be a threat, and who will be there to help if needed.

Tourniquets, Quick Clot and Celox: Whenever you talk about first aid supplies and prepping there are certain areas that people just don’t agree on. Lisa went over the pros and cons of using tourniquets, Quick Clot and the alternative to Quick Clot which is Celox.

SHTF Reactions: How will people react in a crisis? This is a pretty hot topic among preppers and we talked about what might happen, how long it would take and how people who will be depending on organizations like FEMA will be out of luck.

Fish Antibiotics and Lippincott’s Drug Book: Another hot topic among preppers is fish antibiotics. Because Lisa is an RN this was bound to come up. We talked about what they are, how effective they are and the Lippincotts drug handbook that gives you detailed information on all the drugs you might think of.

We have done a podcast on fish antibiotics in the past and this article goes into detail about what different fish antibiotics have to offer.

Prepper Movies: We recently wrote this article about

This weeks podcast was all listener questions. We had questions ranging from just getting started prepping, to being more efficient with preparing to surviving an economic collapse.

We get quite a few question, and I try to put aside the emails that I think would be helpful to a lot of people who listen to the show. Most of these questions deserve more than just a 1 paragraph answer so Lisa and I decided to answer them on the show.

Because of time constraints we didn’t get to all the questions we had, but I am keeping then set aside for a later show. If you have a question you would like us to answer on the show just send an email to [email protected] and we’ll answer it in the next Q & A show.

SPP121 Listener Questions

LYNN – How Prepared am I?

Your podcasts have kept me company on many a road trip. I decided to join the academy for some more direct skill knowledge and honestly for some of the give always.  I have been “prepping” for about 8 months. While I have the support of my family, other than weapons, it has all been left to me.

I feel like your “squirrel” episode. Being torn in so many directions.  I have two girls away at college.  Both have get home bags and a plan. And a younger daughter at home who is pretty secure with a 9mm.  My husband is extremely smart and has always been physically fit until a trip over a retaining wall in our yard playing soccer shattered his back resulting in 9 surgeries in the last 6 years.  Although the he is still physically fit he has quite a few mobility issues.

We have a good amount of food stored, ammo, water in the pool and purifiers and hopefully most of the other basic items needed to hang on in a SHTF scenario. We learned a lot during the 2011 tornadoes which devastated part of our area but left the whole city without power for a week with very very limited cell phone coverage.  I have no idea if I am truly prepared or not.

I would love for someone to come in and tell me where my holes are.  I guess my questions revolve around skill.  I am suburban girl with absolutely no skills whatsoever. I’m not even sure of the skills I need.  I just started a fall garden but have no idea how to can or hunt and although our family just took a pistol class from tactical response I am a horrible shot.

You talk a lot about practicing skills which is so hard when you have no idea where to start and not a lot of time.  I wanted to make a solar oven but there were so many directions on the Internet and I have no idea which one would work and really didn’t have time to sort through them all- so I just gave up.

So I’m not sure if I directly answered your questions and I probably gave you more information than a gray man should but I guess I’m just hoping to learn.  Squirrel!

Thanks!

TIFFINI – Preparedness Foundation

As new preppers just getting started, there’s so much information out there and so many things to do, what’s the first thing we should focus on? Getting off on the right foot helps to ensure we continue without getting frustrated and possibly giving up.

CHAD – Prepping Efficiently

Hey guys. I just found your podcast this week and have list...

Inventory and Rotation Time

For those of us that live in the northern states it’s that time of year again, and depending on who you are, you either love the winter or hate it. None the less it’s time to get ready for the cold and snow and that means doing inventory of your winter preparedness supplies, rotating your supplies and picking up a few things you might need this winter.

Just like when we pull out the Christmas decorations most of them are fine, but there is always something broken or something that just doesn’t work. Our winter preparedness supplies are a little more important though, if our batteries are dead or our flashlight doesn’t work we need to get that fixed before it becomes a bigger issue.

Not only do we need to make sure we have everything ready to go in our home to prepare for a power outage, we also need to make sure we have the emergency preparedness supplies in our cars that we might need.

Most of us spend at least a couple of hours a day traveling from place to place and during the winter months the weather, road conditions and consequences are far more extreme than the summer months.

This week in the show Lisa and I went over all the supplies you might need to be prepared for the winter months. You might have some of these supplies already, and some of them you might need to replace or buy.

SPP120 Winter Preparedness

Food and water is by far the most important part of preparedness regardless of the time of year, but in the winter you might not be able to get to the grocery store. At the very least make sure you can go a couple of weeks without leaving your home.

After you have food and water covered it’s time to take inventory of what you have and get the few things you might need. Everyone has their own way of doing inventory, but I use this worksheet here if you want to use it also.

Lights out Kit

Because of severe weather power outages are more likely in the winter months. You should have a lights out kit ready to go at all times, but it becomes more important in the winter months.

* Plastic Tote to Put Everything in.(HERE)

* Candles

* Solar Lights (HERE)

* Oil lamps (and fuel)

* Batteries

* Solar Generator (HERE)

* Solar Chargers

When it comes to movies about preparedness and survival I just can’t get enough. I’ll watch everything from Zombie movies, to documentaries to low budget disaster flix if I am in the right frame of mind. In my seemingly never-ending search to find movies or TV shows I’ve never seen before, it’s pretty hard to find prepper movies you can watch free and watch instantly.

Some of the movies about zombies and disaster scenarios can be a little farfetched to say the least, but they do give us the opportunity to ask ourselves “What would I do in that situation?”

This list is not a list of the best movies for preppers and survivalists, this is a list of movies and TV shows you can watch right now (as long as you have Netflix or Amazon Prime) that you might not have heard of.

In the podcast this week Lisa and I made separate lists of the 10 preparedness related movies that we found, but there were 2 conditions. The first was that you had to be able to watch it instantly, and the second was that you didn’t have to pay extra to watch it.

We talked about most of these in the podcast, and I even added a few more that I thought about after we recorded the show.

SPP119 Preparedness Movies

Dale’s Prepper Movie List

Survivors (Series  Netflix) Survivors is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC. It depicts the lives of a group of people who survived a virulent unknown strain of influenza which has wiped out most of the human species

Revolution (Series Netflix) Fifteen years after an unknown event has caused all electricity to stop working, plunging the world into another dark age, people have adjusted to life without planes, high-tech communication, and electricity.

Sylent Green (youtube) 1973 With the world ravaged by the greenhouse effect and overpopulation, an NYPD detective investigates the murder of a CEO with ties to the world’s main food supply.

Just about every Youtube video of this full movie had been removed. I was able to find this one, but it is poor quality.

Rumors of Wars (Netflix) A student keeps a journal while a one world government takes over the world and requires everyone to be implanted with an RFID chip. Years later, a soldier finds her journal and questions everything he now believes.

Jericho Series (Netflix) A small town in Kansas is literally left in the dark after seeing a mushroom cloud over near-by Denver, Colorado. The townspeople struggle to find answers about the blast and solutions on how to survive.

Snowpiercer: 2013 (Netflix) Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.

Forecast Disaster (Series Netflix) Striking entire regions with no warning, earthquakes devastate infrastructures and leave populations crippled. High-speed winds from tornadoes turn everyday debris in to objects of destruction, while storm surges from hurricanes have engulfed entire cities leaving millions of people without power and water.

Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged (YouTube) This is a feature length documentary film that examines the re-surging interest in Ayn Rand’s epic and controversial 1957 novel and the validity of its dire prediction for America.  Atlas Shrugged part 1 Audio Book is also on YouTube here.

Generation Zero 2010 (YouTube) An examination of the causes o...

Let’s imagine for a second that TEOTWAWKI (The end of the world as we know it) has just happened and our operational security gauge is pinned to the max, how long would it be until you noticed that someone, or some group was headed for your front door?

Perimeter security and alarms on our property in a SHTF event is critical because it could give us the valuable seconds we need to defend ourselves and our family.

This article is not about land mines and booby traps that could get you put in jail for accidentally taking your neighbors leg off, or about high-tech security systems. This article is about some low cost ways to deter someone from entering your property, or alerting you if they do.

SPP118 Perimeter Security and Alarms

These ideas are not just for home security, with a little imagination these can be used on the event you need to bug out or set up camp somewhere other than your home. If you have any perimeter security ideas that aren’t listed here I would love to hear them in the comments below.

Intruder Deterrents

Dogs

This is the lowest tech option here, but affective none the less. You won’t need electricity or extra batteries, but you will need to feed them every day. The dog doesn’t necessarily have to be aggressive, it just needs to sound aggressive and alert you that something is out of the ordinary.

Lisa and I have 1 dog who stays outside and is very protective of his property, and a dog who lives inside that sounds like he would eat your face off, but loves people so long as they are welcome guests. If you can survive his dog style high fives to the crotch, you are probably good to go.

For this application the size and aggressiveness aren’t a factor, the ruckus they make is.

Dog Bones & Scarecrows

Along with owning a dog (and even if you don’t) is having dog toys laying around the front yard. I’m not talking about tennis balls and little dog bones, I’m talking about a dog bone the size of a human leg.

Our dog doesn’t play with tennis balls because they get shredded within minutes. He does play with a flattened basketball however. These 2 signals alone might make someone think twice before entering your property.

This might sound a little like Halloween but think about it, If you had a scarecrow or mannequin set up on your front porch, sitting on a rocking chair and holding a broom stick, what would that look like to someone walking up to your house in the evening? The first thing that comes to my mind is a grumpy old man with a shotgun.

Posted Signage

As I’ll talk about later having a sign posted and a fake security camera that says you have a security system could be a deterrent to an intruder. Most criminals are lazy and are looking for the easiest target with the least amount of risk involved.

In a SHTF situation this might not work as well as because the chances of police coming to help you are minimal. In this case a “beware of dog” sign or a “never mind the dog, beware of owner” sign might be more affective.

Operational Security

As the saying goes “You don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the person next to you.” The same holds true for your home. Your house doesn’t have to look like a junk yard, but you might want it to be less appealing than the rest of the homes in your neighborhood.

Put yourself in the shoes of a criminal or marauder,