Maintaining a Low Profile
When a SHTF situation occurs, life will change in an instant. The polite rules of society will no longer be in effect. In a world where people will have to scramble to survive, it will become an every man for himself way of life.
This is when being more of an observer and not a talker can make the difference in your survival. You don’t want people to know that you have supplies. If they know that you have them, the odds are very high that they’re going to attempt to take them.
And what happens in a stressful situation is that people panic. If you get a group of people that didn’t plan and don’t have supplies, they’re going to do things that they normally might not do.
If others find out that you have supplies, it’s highly likely that they’ll spread the word. Complaining and resentment will kick in among a group of people. Then the herd mentality will start up.
Before you realize what’s happening, there will be a run on your supplies and there will be too many people for you to be able to defend what your family needs.
In times of panic, there will always be those who will resent you for being prepared. They will see nothing wrong with making sure that you give them what they need – even if they have to take it by force.
There will also be those will take it simply because they want it to add to their own supplies. Difficult times always create a looting mentality. People will take things, even if they don’t need it simply because it’s there and they can.
You might not be the type of person who goes around saying what you have – and that’s very wise. But it’s important that you make sure that your children don’t talk about it, either.
Kids don’t always understand the importance of discretion, and sometimes they like to brag or think it’s neat – but in this case, you’ll want to make sure that they understand they have to keep quiet.
Any other family member or friend who knows about your supply should also be taught the importance of keeping your supply location a secret. What some people do to prepare for a SHTF situation when it comes to their supplies is to have two locations in case one of them is compromised.
It can be inconvenient to do this, but it will still cost the same. You’ll just have to expend energy to find another storage area and keep up with two supply lists. But it’s for your benefit, because this way if you do get one location’s supplies taken from you, your family would still be able to survive.
Self-Defense
You never know when you’re going to need to defend yourself or your family from people who would think nothing of harming or killing. In a perfect scenario, there wouldn’t be a SHTF situation.
But they happen, so you have to be prepared to defend what’s yours. And in a SHTF situation, everything would work out for you to be able to defend yourself and your loved ones.
But you might be off scouting. You could be cutting firewood or a number of other things to do with your survival. If someone finds your loved ones alone, without the ability to defend themselves, that could easily turn into an ugly situation.
Every single member of your family needs to know how to shoot a gun. Even a small child can be properly taught about the seriousness of guns and how to safely use them.
You want your children to be able to defend themselves from harm whether that harm is in human or animal form. If a wild animal attacks your child or other family member, you want him to be able to fight to save his life.
Your family should be trained in gun safety and use long before it becomes a necessity. You can teach them or they can take classes at a local gun range. Each member of your family should regularly practice shooting until it becomes easy for them.
Every member of your family should know how to clean a gun. They need to know how to strip it down and reassemble it. They need to understand the different types of ammunition and why each kind is used.
They need to know how to unload ammunition and how to quickly load it – and how to handle glitches in a firearm. You should practice different scenarios with each family member so they’ll know what to do if there ever is a threat.
When you practice, each family member will learn what to do automatically. This will help them be able to react quickly to any threats. Sometimes, despite your best efforts to keep everything quiet, you could find yourself and your family under attack.
This is one of the most difficult situations that you’ll face. When you have to defend those you love and you know that they’re counting on you to keep them safe, it can raise your adrenaline level.
Some people react very well to a serious threat. Others freeze. Those who freeze usually do it because they’re not sure what to do. They don’t know how to react because they didn’t plan on needing to react to a threat like the one that they’re facing.
When a SHTF situation happens, your family could very well come under attack – even from the people that you know and currently trust. Bad situations will often rob people of their normal moral behaviors.
They’ll do things they never imagined that they’d do. An attack on your family can be scary. You might be called on to use lethal force to defend yourself and them. Remember that if you can remain calm, it will help your family.
If they see that you’re okay, they’ll be calmer and you need them to keep their cool, too. Prepare before the event of an attack. Know right now what you’re going to do and what each family member is going to do.
Establishing a Code Word
One of he first things that you should do is to establish a family safety or code word. The code word should be clear and not associated with anything else. You want this word to be one that in the event you have to use it, your family knows that it’s serious and they know that a potentially dangerous situation has suddenly arisen.
You don’t want to choose a word that’s associated with anything else because it can be confusing for younger kids. For example, if you were to yell, “Run!” then your children might not realize exactly what you’re talking about.
You want to give your family plenty of time to escape a bad situation. So choose a word associated with your plan. It can be something like “Go Time” or “Survive!”
Don’t choose words like fire unless your family knows to get out of the house or the area to a predetermined safe area. You also want to make sure that you choose one or two words.
This will help make it clear and easily understood. The more words in a phrase that you use, the greater the chance that someone won’t understand what you’re saying.
When you yell out the code word, each one of your family members must know what he or she is supposed to do. If you have small children, they should know that they either need to find an older sibling or a parent.
Designate a Safe Room
You can also get family members to go to a predestined area and wait so that they’re not in the way. What some people do is choose a room within the house that’s a room where they can go to be safe.
If that’s what you choose to do, this room should not be easily accessed from the outside. If it has a door that leads to the outside, someone trying to get in could very well find that door and have access to your family.
You don’t want your family in a room where someone could easily break in through a window, either. Families that use a designated room in the
house, know that if the code word is called out, that they’re to get to that room.
When everyone is in the room, the entrance way should blocked. But you should be aware that if someone is determined to get to you or your family, they might not stop trying until they do gain access.
For this reason, you need to make sure that you have a weapon with you. Since you can’t always plan to have your weapon on you unless it’s part of your daily habit, the room in your home where everyone runs to should have an accessible weapon for the adults to be able to use as defense.
The room should also have a supply of ammunition. You don’t want to lose your family to an attack because you ran out of ammunition. The room should also be fortified with a means of communication.
Always Have a Backup Plan
You’ll need a way to call out to alert someone else as to what’s happening. In the event of catastrophic SHTF situations, you can’t rely on the police coming in to fight off the attackers.
The whole 911 system could be overloaded. You’ll want to have a way to reach others by having a couple of different communication devices in the room. Remember that your goal is to stay alive and keep your family alive.
If attackers breach the door of the room where you are, you’ll need to be prepared to stop them from getting any closer to you. Sometimes, it won’t be safe to even stay in a designated room in your home.
This is why you should always have a plan B. Every member of your family should understand what to do if it’s not safe. An adult can make the call simply by using a word that’s associated with a location outside the home.
Make sure that everyone knows they go to the outdoor location and they don’t leave. It can be tempting for a family member to want to run back to try and save material possessions, but remember – it’s about safety and survival – not fighting for what’s inside your home.
Running to a second location can be a better defense than staying when you’re outnumbered. There’s no doubt that every part of surviving is going to cost you. Some of the costs will be as simple as taking the time to create a plan.
Acquiring and Storing Supplies
Another part of survival is knowing what to do, and when. But a great deal of the survival is making sure that you can fund your plan. This is where having a strategy can help.
You can’t build a castle overnight. It’s just not possible. However, stone by stone, you will get that castle built. It’s the same for making sure that you have all of the survival supplies that you need.
Don’t look at the big picture once you create your list. You might not be able to spend the thousands of dollars that you need to set aside a storage of food. You don’t have to.
Instead, what you do is every time you go to the grocery store, you make sure that you pick up extra goods. You buy more than you need. You take advantage of the buy one get one free deals.
You use coupons. You barter for goods. Each time you get more than you need, you put it in your survivalist storage area. It might take you several months, but you can stockpile your survival needs this way.
You start out by creating a list and you work on it until you get all of the items on that list. You can also spend extra money on your supply needs. Instead of spending the gift card you get on another material thing that will only clutter your house, you put it toward buying something on your list.
Once you get all of the supplies that you need, you will have to periodically check on them. Your storage area will have to be checked to make sure that the environment is still suitable for storage.
You’ll also have to rotate the supplies. This isn’t something that will happen right away unless you buy foods that have a shorter expiration date. You don’t want to do that.
When you shop, you always want to pay attention to the expiration date. You’ll also want to make sure that you if you group like items together in a storage bin, such as pastas, that you write on the outside of the container.
You’ll want to clearly mark the expiration dates. When you store foods that need to remain in a cool, dark place, you can’t keep opening the storage container just to check the date.
That defeats the purpose of storing it. As the expiration dates draw near, you can use them yourself as part of your monthly grocery needs. Because of buying in bulk, it might be difficult for you to use large quantities before the expiration if you’re not careful with the planning.
You might not be able to use a 25 pound bag of flour in a month, but if you pay attention to the expiration date, you’ll know when to pull that flour to use so that nothing goes to waste.
Conclusion
Survival preparation was once an idea that very few implemented and many ridiculed. Over time, the masses started seeing horrific images unfold on live TV where natural disasters and man-made attacks caused the loss of lives.
Now, it’s an idea becoming more mainstream. But there are always those who are resigned to preparing a plan to steal, rather than survive. If possible, save up for some out of the way land that you can use to build a new homestead property for a SHTF situation.
Worst case scenario, or best case, depending on how you look at the investment, is that your survival place is never needed – and you can pass the property down to your offspring.
Prepping isn’t something you do at the last minute. It’s also not something you do haphazardly. It requires a methodical process of stocking up and knowing what your family’s needs are long before you’re caught in the crosshairs of a disaster that could spell the end for many individuals.
