Helping Friends And Family To Figure Out A Preparedness Plan

For the longest time, the question was how you broach the topic of preparedness to friends and family. How do we make them understand the need for common sense emergency preparedness? Well, they get it now! There are examples all over the world of why we need to be more prepared.

From the highest levels of world governments to the most impoverished, this pandemic has affected everyone. There are lots of people who are looking for answers. So, if you happen upon one of these poor saps who has decided to put prepping off, what do you say and what do you do?

4 Steps to Starting a Preparedness Plan for Friends and Family

Step 1: Clean Up Their Media Diet

We preppers hardly notice it, but we have gone through some extensive training on what to pay attention to and what not to. We are programmed to glean the most important information from reputable news sources.

Preppers can also smell a prepper blog that is in it to sell Mountain House and bugout bags from a mile away!

For new preppers, they can fall into the trap of buying up all the silver on the market before storing any food. Introduce your new prepper to several reputable websites, YouTube channels and podcasts that have their best interest in mind.

Step 2: Build Them a Library

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You cannot be there all the time, and it only takes an Internet disconnect to take all their prepping info away. Therefore, you need to direct them to some of the most important preparedness books on the market.

A fortified prepper library will see them through tremendously hard times. Here is a small list of titles that you should introduce them to:

• The Encyclopedia of Country Living
• The Doomsday Book of Medicine
• Preppers Guide to Natural Medicine
• Bushcraft 101
• Preppers Long Term Survival Guide
• The Prepper’s Blueprint

There are many other great titles out there, but these are some of the best. With a library like this, your collection of new preppers will be able to reference great information from some of the top names in preparedness.

There is real value in that.

Step 3: Give Them This $100 Shopping List for Sam’s Club

It took people about 4 seconds in the local supermarket to realize that there was a problem. Empty shelves, no milk, no meat, and no toilet paper, it all served as a wake-up call to the average person that nothing is forever.

Now, Americans are faced with the reality that they need to store more food. How do you do that? What should you store? What about long-term food storage?

If the grocery stores close and never open again, what does that look like? Therefore, long-term food storage is so important. You need to have an answer when all the food in stores is gone but you still need to feed people.

Give the neophyte preppers this list of goods that can be picked up at any Sam’s Club or Costco location. For someone who is vastly unprepared this list will give them a great base of emergency stores. You will need to show them how to store food in mylar bags and 5-gallon buckets.

• 2 half gallons of vegetable oil
• 50lbs rice
• 10lbs black beans dry
• 10lbs pinto beans dry
• Two 3-lb boxes of Morton’s Salt
• 50lbs or white flour
• 25lbs of sugar

The great thing about this list is you can get it all for about $100! It’s a great way to invest a Ben Franklin into their new goal of being more prepared.

Step 4: Help Them Create a Schedule

Prepping, like anything else, can get old in a hurry. Once the clouds part and the sun is back out, people tend to forget about prepping. This is such an important thing to understand.

We need to be pushed to stay prepared. It’s not like paying bills, most of us won’t just bear down and get it done.

A simple spreadsheet or calendar can help them keep focused on the long term. Here are some of the important areas you want your schedule to focus on for the average new prepper:

• Drills (fire, bugout, shelter in place, ETC)
• Fitness
• Food Production
• Home Inspection
• QC of Bugout Bags
• Training
• Tools

Most of these things are not about checklists but more about scheduling. Schedule some training throughout the year, some QC on bags and survival kits around the home.

The home inspection might surprise you, but your home is your most valuable asset when it comes to survival. It’s your shelter for heaven’s sake!

Preparedness Is a Lifestyle Change

Affecting the preparedness level of a friend or family member is not about just handing them a checklist of things to buy. That is what many people get wrong. Self-reliance and independence are a lifestyle change.

You cannot fill your pantry and call it a lifestyle change. Affecting what people watch, read and how they plan their days and weeks will make better preppers out of them. Of course, you must understand their motivations.

Some will be happy with filling up their pantry, and they will desire nothing else. However, to live truly prepared you must change the way you LIVE. For many of your friends and family that will be the hardest part.

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