Practice & Adjust Your Preps

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Preps are always good to have, but those preps aren’t any good if they aren’t able to be used or if you don’t know how to use them.

Therefore, your skills and knowledge are just as important as the preps that you have.

Have a Designated Location for Your Preps

When disaster or emergency strikes, speed is usually of utmost importance and can, in many cases, be the difference between life and death. That being said, it is important that everyone knows the following about your preps:

• Where the preps are
  • Depending on your preps, your living situation and many other factors, everyone in your family or group should know where the preps are located and have the ability to get to them in the event of emergencies.
  • In most, if not all cases, secrecy of your preps and what you have should only be shared with the friends, family, and members of your group. This will provide security for you and your group, along with your stash itself.
• What preps you have
  • It would be wise to setup an inventory system of your preps
  • Some would put this on a computer file, likely in a spreadsheet format. This would be good to have, but remember to print out a new version after updates are made so that you have the most recent version available in hard copy so you have the needed information should your power or wifi be an issue and you can’t easily get the information in hard copy format quickly.
  • With a hard copy inventory sheet, remember to have:
    • Backups
    • A way to note update version/date
    • Waterproof storage
  • Recommendations of Columns for Inventory Sheet:
    • Item Name
    • When Added to Stockpile
    • Location stored in stockpile
    • Date of expiration (if valid)
    • Person responsible for maintenance/replenishment/use/etc.
• How to use them
  • In this case, it is recommended to have a binder or some other way of storing user manuals for items that have them provided. If a user manual isn’t provided, have the group experts on the products use create one and add it to your binder or user-manual storage system.
  • Remember to have backups of these user manuals and also be sure that you have a way to store them in a waterproof format.
  • Depending on your situation, it may be beneficial to have your user-manuals joined with your inventory list.
• Who is responsible/skilled/knowledgeable for which preps
  • This will likely be noted on the Inventory Sheet.
  • Have at least two people in your group that know how to use each item.
  • Take time to teach each other how the items work or how to use them in general.
  • In the event of a bug-out situation, who will be responsible for retrieving and transporting the item on behalf of the group?
• When they were last checked for replenishment (batteries, food, and other perishable items)
  • This will be a good item to track on the Inventory Sheet
  • Have a system in place for how frequently perishable items are used and replaced. At the very least, this should be done twice a year.
  • If you are in a group, determine how these items will be rotated over time should they not be needed in a disaster or survival situation.
  • Remember to update the inventory sheet when removing and adding items to and from the storage.

Practice Using your Preps

Whether your plans are to bug-in or bug-out in a situation, it is important to practice using your preps and plans for both scenarios. It’s better to be prepared for something that will hopefully not become a reality, than to be ill prepared for a situation you aren’t prepared for that has become an unfortunate reality.

There are many who take weekends, long weekends, or vacation time to practice their preparedness for a bug-in situation at various seasons of the year by spending that time cutting off the power and water. For a bug-out situation, in a similar fashion, a camping trip is usually done with only the bug-out supplies and skills presently available over different seasons.

Some would say that this is an extreme method. However, by doing so, it puts you in a “worst case” scenario and forces you to realize just how much you really do depend on those everyday modern conveniences. By putting yourself in this situation, it helps you see what your capabilities are with your current stockpile, skills and preps. It also shows you where you need to improve and what further considerations you need to make for your stockpile, skills and preps along with any other observations or insights you find.

Once noting the different issues experienced over different seasons, these areas would then be addressed, improved and/or corrected so they can be further evaluated in the next “test run”.

When doing such tests and preparation situations, it is best to do them as if it was the real-life situation – so all people, pets, etc. should be involved in these practice simulations. Remember to work on improvements as a group, since you will be in the group should the simulation become a reality.

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