Author of The Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival and the online course SHTF Survival Boot Camp
Sometimes, real survival/prepping can be nicely organized and presented in a form of lists and tasks that you check off on your way of prepping. But no list of supplies to hoard can prepare you for the fluidity of the situation when the SHTF actually happens.
You can easily get done some preps in terms of what stuff you need and how much of it, what is really important and whatnot. A lot of that knowledge is available online and some people did a very good job putting that information together.
For example, you can find info what kind water filter is best for the time when clean water is not available, you can find reviews of that filter online, you can buy the item, and you are prepared.
Same with weapons, ammo, clothes…or whatever.
Same with the amount of the things that you need, there are simple tools for calculating how much of what items you need for how much persons for how long.
Information is available, you just need to research it and buy it.
But prepping in its essence should not be the simple hoarding of items. It should not be because it might easily lead you into paranoia, and another important reason is that most of us do not have means to store everything that we might need for a longer period of time.
You have to expect the fluidity of the situation
Very often you can miss the whole point if you do not count on something that I call “the fluidity of the situation”.
SHTF has at its core that “fluidity of the situation” and it can crush all your preparing or at least shock you if you do not count on it in your preps.
That fluidity means that the situation and value and importance of all your preps, solutions and plans might change all the time, and many times during the SHTF.
It sounds a bit vague but it is actually simple, and it is best to describe it is with real-life examples, particularly the example of food.
The value and importance of food changed based on a few subjects: personal needs, regional circumstances, psychological needs.
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Personal needs
It is very simple – do not store food that you do not like to eat.
You might think” oh but I might use it for trade” but there is not too much sense in that, because you might get into a situation that you’ll have to eat it.
With all of the problems that SHTF will bring, you do not need food that will depress you even more or that makes you even more miserable.
Chances are high that eventually if the situation is really prolonged you’ll end up eating stuff that you do not like. It does not have to be food that you actually bought and stored.
Check your needs, allergies, medical conditions, and what kind of food makes sense for you or members of your family.
Regional circumstances
Depending on your surroundings, it makes sense to store some foods more than others.
It may be different in different parts of the worlds, but look around you and check what food will be available more than others once when SHTF.
Are you living in an urban area or in rural settings? Do you live close to some major food sources of any kind?
I’ll use a personal example here for a very usual item – salt.
In my case during the whole period of SHTF, salt was available more or less all the time. You could go out and find salt through the process of trade and it was not expensive.
Or to be more precise, the trade value of salt went up 2-3 times maybe while the trade value of some other food items went up 10-15 times.
In that same period of time, in a region maybe 300 km away, salt was so rare that some people had medical problems because of the lack of it. In that region, people would take very dangerous trips through the enemy territory over the mountains just to get some salt from another city.
It was rare.
Now I am not even sure why it was like that, probably the level of salt in some warehouses was much higher in my case when SHTF, or something else. I do not know.
But it is important to understand how different it was from region to region.
So it makes sense to figure that salt will be available easily if you live close to the sea for example. In that case, you do not need to have a huge stockpile of salt. You need other things.
(Need help building your food stores? Check out our free QUICKSTART Guide on building a 3-layer food storage plan.)
Psychological needs
The psychological need for food items is a bit weird and hard to explain, and of course, it might be different for each one of us, but I’ll use examples again.
Once during the war and hunger, I stumbled upon a lot of small packages of sweet cocoa-milk cream spreads in some abandoned house.
I cannot properly explain here what that meant for me. I ate that until I got sick and it was not about being hungry. It was about having something that reminded me of peacetime and normal life, maybe even childhood. Who knows?
I ate that spread. I was dirty, hungry, scared… there was carnage around me and the city was burning in hundreds of fires, but I think I felt like I was normal again and everything else was normal around me just for that moment.
I knew a man who was crawling for an hour slowly, over the open area with few burned cars as a cover, over the area where snipers killed many folks, he was literally crawling over the dead bodies only to check if there maybe any lollipops in the small burned shop remains.
He was a big tough guy, and all that did not make sense maybe, but at the same time it made perfect sense.
He psychologically needed lollipops. Probably it reminded him of normalcy or school, or his mother maybe… who knows.
Anyway, the point is to know what items work for you and to store them. And of course, you can go one step further and check what items comfort people around you in hard times and have that too, for trade.
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Other preps
I used food items above only as examples. Your other preps should follow similar steps and philosophy.
Another example that I always mention is the example of a simple cheap lighter.
It was really interesting how valuable that cheap lighter became when after a couple of months, people needed it very hard badly for fire starting and there were no stores to buy it.
Not to mention that it was a great item for store and trade since it is cheap to get today and easy to carry when SHTF.
Items that you store may have other value when the SHTF simply because again, you can’t predict the fluidity of the situation. No list of things to hoard can predict that.
About Selco:
Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or food distribution. He is currently accepting students for his next physical course here.
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Salt is a great reminder for those of us not near the ocean or a salt mine since it’s needed for preservation as well as nutritionally. Vitamin C is another item to prioritize for those of us who don’t have citrus groves near us. Doesn’t take much vitamin C to ward off scurvy, but as ancient mariners found out…scurvy is no joke. I store both powdered vitamin C and vitamin C pills (most common is 500mg which is 5 to 10 times more than your minimum daily requirement.) I do have access to Apple orchards, but it takes about 7 to 10 Apples per day to guarantee enough vitamin C which isn’t sustainable even with making apple sauce and canning it.
In general, multivitamins are useful to stockpile since they can make up for various deficiencies in your diet – just be careful not to overdose on fat soluble vitamins: A, D, E and K (although it truly takes megadoses of them to become toxic.)
And it’s a good idea to have comfort items for everyone in your group for when things get bleak and you need a psychological boost. For myself it’s sweet tarts, pez and dark chocolate. For my wife it’s hard candies and milk chocolate. I have a couple of 5 gallon buckets devoted to mylar bags full of sweet tarts, pez and hard candies. Chocolate is harder to store long term, but I do have some in mylar bags to try and extend its shelf life.
I’ve always tried to be flexibly in my planning for potential events, but I realize that you can’t plan for everything so I just hope whatever does end up happening is something my family and I can deal with. Thanks for keeping these articles coming. Good to hear from someone who has gone through hell and get some realistic suggestions. Definitely appreciate it.
Interesting. They said to stock up on treats and candy as they add a bit of important reprieve. I know when I eat MRE the thing I look forward to is the dessert and the SHTF didn’t even hit yet.
SATAN wants the whole planet to himself,and the most demonic country to Ever exist will be willing to help him do it,THE UNITED STATES OF SATAN….get ready to stand in front of the LORD america ,your ALL leaving this world soon,and most of you will have your wish granted to be with your Daddy satan forever…….
Well, alrighty then.
I’m not sure what article this comment would be best for, so here is as good as any.
5 days ago I had a problem with my car which caused me to stop driving it until I could get it fixed. The Labor Day weekend through in an extra day so I wasn’t able to get my car fixed until today (Tuesday). I was feeling really stressed out. I’m not sure if it was just being stranded or some kind of control issue not being able to go anywhere. I don’t keep comfort food in the house because I can’t stop myself from eating it. So I hadn’t had any comfort food for 4 days and was really stressed out this morning. I got my car towed to the repair shop this morning and got it back late this after noon. After I got my car back I got some fried chicken, went to the grocery and drug stores and had some of my favorite comfort food (cookies) on the way home. An hour after I got home I realized how relaxed I was feeling. I think the food probably had something to do with it (after 5 days of mostly peanut butter and crackers), but I think it really is because I’m not stranded anymore/back in control of my life because I can go where I want when I want (control).
The point of this story is that when the SHTF we will be isolated in our homes, or retreat, or wherever. We will have to stay there for some period of time. A long time if it’s an EMP. I think the feeling of being stranded will be another whole level of stress on top of the stress we will feel carrying guns around the house all day and night. The stress of being afraid and knowing that we might have to defend our family, ourselves and our property at any moment. The total loss of normalcy will be a hugely stressful burden. I think comfort foods will help with that extra stress.
I think that living through the first couple of weeks will be a huge accomplishment. A couple of months even bigger. It will, hopefully, be mostly downhill after the first winter, safety wise.
I like the idea of storing treats – candies and other goodies. The only trouble is then I know they are there and I keep digging into the stock! No risk of anything going stale there! I’m not storing those kind of things due to lack of self control. My only self control is to not have it around in the first place. Unfortunately. I’d like to store it. But it seems to just call to me from those 5 gallon cans – even with the lids on.
Two methods that might help here – first, stash the treats in small quantities. A quart size ziplock baggie, maybe? Second, put them in areas where it’s work to get to them. A box under the woodpile, in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket filled with other stuff and then buried, that sort of thing. I do like having buckets with a variety of stuff in them, the caveat there is to ensure that one foodstuff or treat doesn’t ruin the rest. Starlight mints are great for long term storage and such, the rice I had with them was all but inedible. Minty rice! (shudder) Cocoa and dried onions shouldn’t be stored in the same bucket either, trust me on this one.
Good info. I was a little confused about what SHTF scenario was being addressed at first. I was thinking WWI or II, until the Balkans was mentioned in the closing comments, heh heh!
The candy issue struck a chord with me, though. Although definitely NOT a SHTF situation, it was starting to feel like it. I was a Navy Corpsman assigned to Marine Corps infantry troops, going through Cold Weather Training. Toward the end of the 3rd day, after humping click after click after click, I felt like I couldn’t take another step. A a “take ten” was ordered, I literally fell to my knees, and worried that I just might not to be able to finish the day. Then, the Platoon Sgt. walked up to me, tapped my helmet(well, I SAY tapped), and said “here, eat this, Doc”. The fleeting thought of exactly where I was going to shove my K-Bar if he was offered me another can of “TURKEY LOAF” quickly dissipated when I saw a half a dozen or so pieces of hard candy in his extended hand. In a ‘salty’ retort, not meant for pleasant company or children, I expressed my desire not to participate in this offering, which he in return, that he would be “extremely hurt and disappointed” if I turned down his generosity, and summoned several companions to assist him in his gratuitous pursuit. So, I took the candy, and at his insistence put it in my mouth, all at one time. As I watched him go up the line, passing out this delectacie,I slowy started feeling better. A calm came over me, and I soon realized I was on my feet. Walking! What “magic elixer” had I been given? After another click, and getting my head clear, I resorted back to my training . Sugar. Blood sugar. The candy booster had boosted my blood sugar, which increased my energy, enabling myself and the Marines to finish out the day! I later found out that the Platoon Sgt had been humping an extra 4lbs of candy for 4 days just in case this very situation occurred! Talk about Adapt, improvise, and overcome!!! Needless to say, I never went to the field again without a bag or 2 of hard candy. And to you, SSGT, SEMPER FI!!????????????????????????
Interesting guy/good man:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUpzpIjJLg&utm_source=getkept&utm_medium=site
Store what you generally eat. Storing food items which you don’t eat is counter productive…Eat what you know and like.
I know people who started storing food over 20 years ago…and yet today, that food is no good. They put food items away which did not have a good shelf life and bought them in bulk. Over 10k worth of food was thrown out. Most of it canned, some MRE’s…none of it was what they generally ate to begin with.
Using an accounting principle with stored food works well…FIFO, first in, first out. Rotating thru your stored food will ensure it is fresh. We have a pantry where the goods are all displayed and placed on the shelf in the manner they are to be used. Its worked for a long time and continues to be our goto method.
One thing I feel many seem to forget when doing many of these tasks in preparing themselves for an event, is creating a level of normalcy around what you do. Incorporate it into your routine, so that it becomes routine. Chances are you will weather the event with less mental stress, if what you do during the event, is factored into your daily life now. make sense?
It has been said, and I find it to be true that no battle plan survives after first contact with the enemy. Same with preps. You never know what will happen so just do the best you can to ensure your survival.