Talking To Loved Ones Who Won't Prepare

You probably have some loved ones who just will not do any emergency preparedness. No matter what you do, they will not do anything to get ready to make it through a disaster.


I have a few of those myself. There are some approaches that produce some good results. Unfortunately I found a lot of the approaches that do not produce good results first. Maybe I can share some of this experience with you so that you can avoid some of my mistakes.


One of my more successful attempts to encourage my unprepared relatives to become a little better prepared is through saving money. Even if they stick their fingers in their ears every time they hear the word, "preparedness", they usually want to save money.


If you buy larger quantities at a time, or buy in bulk, you can usually get things cheaper. Fifty pounds of rice, for example, is usually cheaper to buy per pound, than ten pounds at a time. You can also save money by getting extra food that is on sale, than if you buy only a little at a time.


Once your unprepared relatives see for themselves that they can save money by buying in bulk and on sale, they will start to like it and do it more. At some point, instead of having to go to the store to get something for every meal, they will be able to stay home and use what they already have at home to make a meal. At that point you can remind them that they are now saving time and gas money as well. They may like the calmness and peacefulness of not having to rush at the last minute to get a meal together.


It may be helpful to point out how nice this peacefulness is, and that they can have more of it if they plan entire meals and even days of meals ahead of time. They don't have to shop as often, and, "Just think how nice it would be to only need to go to the store to shop once a week or once or twice a month?" 


They might have to make more frequent trips to the store for perishables, but they would not have to stay in the store as long as if they needed a lot of different food.


Another way they could save money by keeping some food at home, would be because of not spending so much time in stores. 


Stores are designed to make you spend money - more than you really need to spend. The less time you are in stores, the less money you spend.


Once your unprepared loved ones see for themselves the benefits of keeping some extra food on hand, they may be more open to other kinds of preparedness. One of these is being prepared for illness or job loss. They may be able to cope with the thought of personal emergencies better than they can general disasters.