Welcome to the Sensible Survivalists!

This preppers’ guide is here to help anybody curious about prepping learn more about what being prepared actually means, why you might want to prep and how you can go about becoming a prepper as a beginner. We’ll be updating this guide frequently, as we want it to be one of the most comprehensive beginner’s guides out there. Please email jack@sensiblesurvivalists.com with any suggestions.

What is prepping and why should I prep?

If you’re a veteran prepper, the answer to both of the above questions may seem obvious to you. If your only introduction to prepping has been through shows like the Doomsday Preppers, you may be less clear on why anybody would want to be a prepper.

Hopefully, this guide to prepping for beginners will clear up any misconceptions and help you on your journey towards preparedness.

So what actually is prepping and how do you become a prepper? Essentially, it is planning and training towards being prepared in emergency situations. You don’t have to be preparing for a zombie apocalypse or nuclear holocaust to be a prepper. You could be keeping a snow shovel and some food in your car, or teaching yourself first aid skills.

A prepper, or survivalist, is somebody who focuses on improving their ability to survive any emergency situation, even the most seemingly mundane.

Why should you want to prep? Well, survival is a pretty basic human instinct, and so is the drive to protect friends and family. Given that a few fairly simple preps, such as keeping a store of food at home, can save you in an emergency situation, why should you not want to prep?

Most national governments, including the US government, encourage preparedness among citizens. This makes sense – if there is a wildfire or flood, or a prolonged snowstorm, those citizens who have planned for the situation and are prepared are more likely to come out of the situation safe and sound. To be prepared for at least a few common emergency scenarios is just plain sensible.

If you’re still not convinced, we wrote this roundup of reasons different kind of people (such as parents, teachers or environmentalists) might have for prepping. Check it out and see if you can find yourself in our outlines.

How do I start prepping?

The good news is that prepping doesn’t need to be expensive or even all that complicated. You don’t need to buy guns and bunkers or make your family go through emergency drills.

If preparedness is so easy, why is this beginner’s guide to prepping even necessary?

Basically, it’s a matter of knowing where to start. Sensible survivalism is about prepping smart – working out what’s important to you in your situation and then figuring out what could go wrong and what to do about it. This guide is here to help you prep smart.

It starts with the absolute, fundamental basics, which are pretty much the same for everybody. Then it helps you work out what specifics are most relevant to you and your own situation. This will make you become prepared most efficiently and likely cheaply, because you will have a better idea of where your focus should lie.

This guide is broken into survival checklists.

The first checklist is the most important one. It details what your basic steps should be in preparing yourself, and provides links to resources which can help you in your preparedness journey.

The second checklist details the areas of emergency preparedness you should inform yourself about and the plans you’ll want to make. We’ve put it in order of priority and noted where, and how, you can get hold of the information required.

The third checklist summarises the supplies required for preparedness, again in order of priority. It is essentially a master checklist of sub-checklists (such as bug out bags, home food stores and so on). It’s pretty detailed, and we work on it regularly. Where we can, we’ve provided links to further information on how to get hold of prepper supplies.

The fourth and final checklist is a list of preparedness skills. Unlike the others, this one is not listed by order of priority. Instead, it is divided into categories (such as Health, Food and Defense) and then put in order of how basic the skills are and how straightforward it should be to acquire them.

Good luck with your prepping! If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or get in touch directly.

The Checklists

We’d recommend bookmarking these so you can keep coming back to them.

Checklist 1: What to do

Know what prepping is and why you should be prepared

This site should help you inform yourself. Read posts such as this one. Inform yourself about realistic emergency situations for you and your area and plan for them using checklist 2

This step is vital in order to focus your planning later on. Prep at least two weeks of supplies at home and for emergency evacuation, using checklist 3

Tailor this to your needs according to Step 2. Be prepared to evacuate fast

Plan your evacuation route. Every year, whole towns and cities have to evacuate due to wildfire, floods and other events. Don’t be part of the chaos – know what to do. Improve your preparedness skills using checklist 4 Develop a preparedness community – know who you can depend on and who can help you in an emergency situation

Checklist 2: What to know

Be mindful of your own current personal and financial situation

Review your finances. If something happened, such as injury or job loss, how precarious would your situation be? Try to improve your financial stability if possible. Consider your friends and family and think about who may become dependent on you in times of crisis

This will help you know what preparations you need to make. Research potential emergencies in your local area including Natural disasters likely to happen in your area

Any instabilities such as local elections which might cause upset

Weather patterns – do you regularly get droughts or snow? List your personal most likely emergency scenarios, and put them in order of likelihood and priority

Here is a list of potential SHTF scenarios. Know the details of all local emergency services, and have them to hand at all times Plan evacuation routes, including from your workplace to your home, and from your home to a safe place (such as in the case of a wildfire)

Checklist 3: What to have

You may be surprised to see that survival gear is pretty low down on our list of vital prepper items. This is because sensible survival is not necessarily about tacticool gear – it’s about having enough of what you actually need to survive first.

Basic home supplies

Your first priority is being stocked up with basic human necessities, and copies of anything you would need to take with you if you had to evacuate your home. Then you can start looking at the mid-to-long term. Water: You want 10-20 gallons per person. Food: always have an absolute minimum of one week of non-perishable food in your home. Ideally, aim for over a month of food. Heat: if you have a fire, stock firewood. Have at least a camping gas stove, ideally a generator. Light: candles (and matches), flashlights (and batteries) First aid kit – and know how to use it. Medication: if you need specific meds, have a stock. Copies of important documents, especially ID Bug-Out Bag

Ignore sites telling you to spend thousands on high-tech bags and freeze-dried rations. You need a relatively sturdy bag and some basic supplies – the rest is far less important. Ideally, have one bag in your home and one in your vehicle. Decent backpack Water and light food Valuable documents, copied Gas stove/matches/fire lighters Survival blanket Decent knife Water filter Flashlight Radio and/or spare dumb phone Basic hygiene and first aid items Home Food Storage

In the long run, you want several months of food and basic supplies stored in your home or in a safe location.

Personally, I believe that the ideal is self-sufficiency. We try to grow and can our own food – here is a basic guide to growing food in urban areas.

However, this may not be an option for you. In that case, look at storing non-perishable foods such as canned foods in the medium term and rice and beans in the long run. Survival clothing and items

Have weather-appropriate, hard-wearing clothes on hand.

For other survival clothing and gear, have a click around this website and others like it. There is plenty of stuff out there. The reason we’re not going into more detail here is that we want to encourage focus on the basics first. If you have the enthusiasm and money to buy survival gadgets and guns, then by all means do, but it is not a necessity to beginner survivalism.

Checklist 4: What to learn

Health First Aid skills

Knowing basic first aid is vital in being prepared for emergencies. There are decent online courses available, and your local area almost certainly has courses on offer. Physical strength training and health

Keep fit, eat well. This is such a basic element to being fit and able to survive, and yet so many preppers forgot to focus on this. Home remedies

Get a decent book of home remedies if you think you may have to bug-in long term. Food Basic cooking

It’s one thing to have a decent supply of food in your home, but another to actually know how to prepare it. Learn to cook basic, healthy meals from what you have. Food preservation

Learning to can, salt and preserve food will make food prepping drastically cheaper for you. Food location

Find out where you can get good food relatively cheaply. Outdoors

You know the things Boy Scouts learn to do? A lot of the outdoors and camping skills belong here. Learn a few of them, and you’ll have them under your belt if ever needed. Navigation Fire lighting Finding food – know what foods you can forage in your local area Communication – consider becoming a ham radio operator Self Defense

If you have a gun, know how to use it effectively and safely. Learn basic self-defense skills, especially if you are a woman. Take a look at your home and consider how you could defend it if you have to. Homesteading

These are the skills that could help you provide for yourself and become self-sufficient in the long run, should you need to do so. Mending, Fixing, DIY

Any DIY skills can be useful in a survival situation. Look around your home, and list items which may need fixing. This could include vehicles, clothes, tools and other basic household items. Growing Food

Growing food is not easy. It can sometimes seem as though weather patterns, bad soil types and pests are conspiring against you to stop you from eating. If you plan to become self-sufficient and grow your own food – an increasingly popular route – you need to start learning how to grow food as soon as you can. Animal Husbandry

Keeping chickens, goats, sheep etc is a viable preparedness goal, but one which requires a large amount of knowledge.

Finally, get involved in your local community. In crisis situations, having a strong community can be absolutely invaluable. Here’s more info on how you can do that.

Try to get your family and friends on board with your prepping. Get them involved in your plans and your storing, and help them learn the skills you are learning. Survival is so much easier in a strong community.

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