Preparedness Philosophy

I believe that most people who do any sort of emergency preparedness do not think about it a lot. I don't fit into to that 
frame of mind at all. I did a lot of soul searching before I began any preparedness and much more before I began writing this blog.

It seems to me that you can do some form of emergency preparedness with very little thought involved. I think the preppers that do their preparedness without thinking about it are much like ants. This has its value for both ants and humans. 

I don't want to discourage anyone who takes the ant approach to preparedness, I would, however, like for some of you ant preparedness types to put a little more thought into your preparedness. I believe that if you do this, not only will you be prepared more thoroughly for a greater range of kinds of emergencies, but your daily life will be better as well.

Sometimes I mention little sayings in my blog posts that apply to preparedness philosophy. One of these is, "eat what you store and store what you eat".

The reason that saying makes a difference in being better prepared for more emergencies is that if you pay attention to making sure that everything that is in your storage is something that you already eat regularly, then you will eat it and know how to prepare it during an emergency.

The reason that saying makes life better every day, is that small personal emergencies can be made easier because if you run short on money at the end of the month, you will never go hungry or have to sneak into a restaurant and steal packets of ketchup to make soup which is not very tasty or nourishing and hurts your spirit by stealing.

An added, but big bonus from paying attention to the saying, "eat what you store and store what you eat", is that when you eat what you have stored and replace it with new, fresher food, your stored foods will always be fresh. You will not be faced with wormy, stale, rotten, or otherwise bad food when you open it during an emergency.

This saying also helps make daily life better because it saves you money. It is obvious that if you keep your stored food fresh by using and replacing it regularly, it will save you money by not making you throw away spoiled food. It is less obvious that a cushion of stored food will allow you to save money because of inflation and price fluctuations.

If there is a bad year for wheat in the bigger wheat producing region that serves where you live, you know that the price of wheat will rise for a a year or so. If you have a few months or a year of wheat in your food storage, using that wheat in your daily food will even out that cost increase for your budget.

If you choose your stored foods carefully, it will include items that may not be absolutely necessary, but give you comfort. At times when we feel bad, like during a job loss or other economic doldrums, we may not have the extra money available to buy that comfort food. If that comfort is in your storage in adequate amounts, you can take it out of your storage and use it then. 

Sometimes we can feed the need for a comfort food so much that it makes us do stupid or irrational behavior to get it. Some people I know have hocked something valuable in order to get junk food, and then not been able to replace the hocked item. The value of the hocked item was not always strictly money. Sometimes it meant something special and that could never be replaced.

That kind of use for stored foods is especially valuable. The stored comfort food can not only provide comfort when needed, but prevent irrational behavior and the bad feelings that come to you afterwards.

This is only a small part of why thinking about your preparedness can help you in your daily life. I will probably write more about that once in a while later on.

I am thinking about splitting this blog up into smaller ones on different subjects. It may take me a little while to figure out the best way to do it. I will probably have several different subjects or at least sub-headings. It is likely that I will not post as frequently on each one of the new blogs. I will give as much warning as I can manage about the changes. I will provide links between the blogs to make it easy for readers to find all of them.