Episode 500 feels like a milestone—and it’s the perfect time to share the story of what built the Survival Punk philosophy. Prepping isn’t just something I read in a book or picked up from watching TV. It’s something forged in the fires of real life, hard lessons, and a stubborn streak of DIY that’s been with me from the start.

I’ve been homeless more than once in my life. When you’ve got nothing but a backpack and the streets, “preparedness” stops being a concept and becomes survival. You learn fast how to make do, how to improvise, and how to keep moving forward. That experience taught me resilience in a way no checklist ever could.

It wasn’t fun, but it planted the seed for the mindset I carry today: self-reliance, adaptability, and the belief that no matter how bad things get, you can claw your way back.

Long before I called myself a prepper, I was into building, tinkering, and fixing. My father had a love for DIY, and I picked that up young. If something was broken, we didn’t throw it away—we fixed it. If we couldn’t afford it, we figured out how to make it.

That spirit carried over into prepping. Survival isn’t always about buying the fanciest piece of gear. It’s about knowing how to use what you have, repair what breaks, and create solutions when none are obvious.

In 2008, I stumbled onto the old Zombie Squad forums. That was a turning point. Suddenly, I wasn’t just some guy patching together survival ideas—I found a community of like-minded people who thought the same way.

The forums mixed humor, realism, and practical prepping in a way that clicked with me. Zombies might have been the hook, but the conversations were about real preparedness. Reading those threads opened my eyes to what prepping could be: practical, community-driven, and yes, even fun.

From those roots—homelessness, DIY blood, and a scrappy online community—Survival Punk was born. I wanted to take the lessons I learned and share them. I wanted to carve out a space where prepping wasn’t doom-and-gloom or just consumerism, but practical, DIY, and punk at its core.

500 episodes later, here we are. Still DIY. Still skeptical of authority. Still focused on solutions over fear.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: survival isn’t about stockpiles or bunkers. It’s about mindset. It’s about refusing to quit, finding creative solutions, and building resilience out of whatever life throws at you.

Thanks for being part of this journey, whether you’ve been here since Episode 1 or just tuned in. Survival Punk has always been about community, and I’m glad you’re part of it.

Here’s to the next 500.

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