In America today, there are millions of "preppers" that are working feverishly to get prepared for what they fear is going to happen to America. There is a very good chance that some of your neighbors or co-workers may be preppers. You may even have noticed that some of your relatives and friends have been storing up food and have been trying to convince you that we are on the verge of "the end of the world as we know it". A lot of preppers like to keep their preparations quiet, but everyone agrees that the prepper movement is growing. Some estimate that there are four million preppers in the United States today. Others claim that there are a lot more than that. In any event, there are certainly a lot of preppers out there. So exactly what are all these preppers so busy preparing for?
Well, the truth is that the motivation for prepping is different for each person. Some preppers believe that a complete collapse of the economy is coming. Others saw what happened to so many during Hurricane Katrina are are determined not to let that happen to them. Some preppers just want to become more independent and self-sufficient. There are yet others that are deeply concerned about "end of the world as we know it" scenarios such as terrorists using weapons of mass destruction, killer pandemics, alien invasions, World War III or EMP attacks.
But whatever the motivation is, the prepper movement is clearly growing. Today, millions of Americans are converting spare rooms into storage pantries, learning how to grow survival gardens and stocking up on everything from gas masks to auxiliary generators.
Recently, the Salina Journal gathered together about two dozen preppers. What they found is that there is a tremendous amount of diversity among preppers, but that they also clearly share a common passion....
It was a diverse bunch. All different shapes, sizes, ages, gender and political persuasions.
Some were ex-military. Some never served. Some were unemployed, some had jobs. A few were retired.
But they all shared a common bond: They call themselves Preppers, and they had gathered to share ideas, demonstrate various skills, enjoy each other's company and to put faces to the online names they use to disguise their identity.
Never before in U.S. history have we seen anything like this. We are at peace and most of us still have a relatively high standard of living and yet millions of Americans feel called to start preparing for the worst.
A lot of preppers don't like to publicize the fact that they are prepping. As the Salina Journal discovered, a lot of preppers try very hard to keep their prepping to themselves.....
They are trying to keep their passion for prepping hidden from neighbors and, in some cases, employers who they said would frown on their association with such a group. Two admitted their appearance here would probably get them fired if their companies found out.
Many people believe that it takes a lot of money and resources to be a prepper, but that is not necessarily the case.
For some, the best way to get prepared is to radically simplify things.
For example, a recent article posted on Yahoo Finance profiled a man that lives in his RV and that survives on about $11,000 a year....
I had an apartment in Burbank and was the typical Los Angeles apartment dweller. I started to feel a strong desire to simplify my life. I had a garage full of stuff I never used, my closets were full, and I started to see that it was costing me money to have an apartment big enough to hold all the stuff I never use.
My initial plan was to scale back and move into a smaller apartment. Before long, I realized I didn't need too much to be happy. I could fit into a small space. That's when the RV idea occurred to me. I was just sitting in traffic and an RV pulled up. I said, "I could probably fit in that thing." The more I looked into it, the more I realized how practical it would be. For what I was paying for rent in LA, I could own my "house" free and clear and not pay rent, and own my car as well.
Other people make the most of what they already have. It is absolutely amazing what some families are able to do with limited resources.
For example, there is one family that is actually producing 6000 pounds of produce a year on just 1/10th of an acre right in the middle of Pasadena, California.
This family grows more food than they need and they sell the excess to restaurants in the surrounding area. You can see video of their amazing garden right here.
Other Americans take prepping to the other extreme. For example, Steven Huff is building a 72,000 square foot "home" (some call it a fortress) in Missouri. Huff is the chairman of Wisconsin-based TF Concrete Forming Systems, and he wants to show off what his firm is capable of. Huff claims that this will be "a home that uses very low energy, as well as having strong resistance to tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fire, flood and insect damage".
In reality, what Huff is building kind of resembles a castle. You can see pictures of this remarkable "home" right here.
But Huff is not the only one taking things to extremes.
In a recent article, I detailed how renowned Texas investor Kyle Bass appears to be very well prepared for the horrible economic collapse that he believes is coming. The following is how one reporter described his recent visit to the 40,000 square foot "fortress" owned by Bass....
"We hopped into his Hummer, decorated with bumper stickers (God Bless Our Troops, Especially Our Snipers) and customized to maximize the amount of fun its owner could have in it: for instance, he could press a button and, James Bond–like, coat the road behind him in giant tacks. We roared out into the Texas hill country, where, with the fortune he’d made off the subprime crisis, Kyle Bass had purchased what amounted to a fort: a forty-thousand-square-foot ranch house on thousands of acres in the middle of nowhere, with its own water supply, and an arsenal of automatic weapons and sniper rifles and small explosives to equip a battalion."
Do you think that Bass is taking things too far?
Well, there are other big names that are busy preparing for the worst as well.
For instance, Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author of the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series of books is now a full-fledged prepper.
He says that he is "prepared for the worst" and that he and his wife "have food, we have water, we have guns, gold and silver, and cash".
So should the rest of us be preparing?
Of course we should be. Our nation is drowning in debt, the U.S. economy is dying, the number of earthquakes and other natural disasters is increasing, and the entire globe is becoming an extremely unstable place. If you read my articles on a regular basis, then you know that there are a whole host of reasons to try to become more independent and self-sufficient.
So what can we all do to get prepared?
Well, in a previous article I listed a few things that can be done by most people....
#1 Become Less Dependent On Your Job
#3 Reduce Expenses
#4 Purchase Land
#5 Learn To Grow Food
#6 Find A Reliable Source Of Water
#7 Explore Alternative Energy Sources
#8 Store Survival Supplies
#9 Protect Your Assets With Gold And Silver
#10 Learn Self-Defense
#11 Keep Yourself Fit
#12 Make Friends
For those interested in learning more about preppers and prepping, there are a lot of really great resources out there....
*In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog
So what do you think about preppers?
Do you think that the prepper movement is going too far?
Do you think that the prepper movement is not going far enough?
Are there legitimate reasons why Americans should be preparing for difficult times ahead?
Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....
[...] to make back room deals with liberals, the country is finished. You might as well join the “preppers,” because the United States of America is on the way out. :Mitt Romney, Newt [...]
If we prep and nothing happens, we have a stockpile of food that cost less than it will in months and years to come. Therefore, we have saved a great deal of money. If we don’t prep and something does happen, we’re screwed.
Prepping is better than insurance. If you need it, it’s there. If you don’t, you still benifit from it. No matter what happens, you’re better off for having done it.
If it isn’t clear to you by now that we are entering into a cycle whereby the number and magnitude of natural disasters are on a sharp increase, and will continue to do so, allow for me to help you understand what’s more is headed our way. The reason this increase in cyclic activity is happening is due the natural rhythmic cycles of our galactic and planetary atmospheres/spaces. We are not just coming upon the change of an age in our precession, but in fact coming to the END of the, “Great Year”, a 26,800 year cycle in which we have now precessed through all 12 of the zodiac signs. And hence, the Great Year ends, and a new Great Year begins. Rather than staying in the grips of fear of what this all means, I’d like to share with you what to actually expect in the very near future as well as how to prepare yourself to be as ready for whats coming as much as is humanly possible. And lastly I will share with you what this new dawning age will stand for and be about. NOW is a most important moment in time to be alive, for this there is no doubt.
What makes for being alive at this precise moment in time so exciting is the fact that our species will soon be enabled with knowledge’s, gifts and abilities far beyond any of those we’ve yet encountered. It will become a time when we don’t just follow God, or walk by God’s side, but we will begin to walk AS GOD. To get to this “Godly” level in our evolution a few more things will need to preface our pathway prior to such Godly gifts becoming manifest. How will it all unfold?
The new Aquarian Age will 1st and foremost stand for Purification, an age whereby our species shall be cleansed and rightfully purified. The 2nd thing that this new age will usher in is that of an all new level of global consciousness, whereby each and every one of us shall realize that regardless of where one lives, or how one speaks, or of what race one is, that each person opposite of us is actually our brother, sister, and family member. Quite righteously we will all finally realize that we are all of, for, and from, the same family. And finally, perhaps both the most exciting and most scary change that shall come about in this new age of Aquarius will be a new level of global spiritualism, the likes of which have never been seen before.
A final important tip I may offer to you all is this: that one should do their VERY best to strive for making peace and balance with any outstanding issues they may have with others, and perhaps above all else they should do their VERY best to have gotten right with themselves. The earlier one reaches for, and attains such personal balance and peace, the faster they shall become enabled with the divine energies of ascension, and the fruits of Godliness.
Quite evident becomes the fact that in our short recorded history, there hasn’t been a more exciting time to be alive. For this is my mission for which you have now been briefed, hence now it is up to you to embrace the divine path that awaits thine true destiny and will.
In Love, and in Light,
13
There’s not much you can do to *physically* prepare for what Jehovah has in store for this planet.
You might assume that someone who once made a living as a survival instructor would automatically be aligned with preppers. No way. I happen to have most of the skills they favor…trained sniper, gardener, carpenter, and so on. But I refuse to indulge in this mentality of paranoia, and often plain silliness. My brother-in-law demonstrated a bit of this last year when he cocked his new shotgun for my benefit to show me that he was ready for the “marauding hordes.” Bullshit. I asked him what he was going to do when he ran out of ammunition. I’m waiting for his answer. I think a lot of the preppers actually hope something terrible will happen, and will spend more time and more in anticipation than they would ever spend doing something for their communities. One woman showed how she had spent $50,000 in the last year on food and supplies, and I had to laugh. Do some reasonable things, for god’s sake, such as making sure you have the tools and supplies anyone would need in the case of, say, a tornado, and from there on, live your life as if tomorrow the sun will shine and people will continue to try to get along together. Don’t live in fear. That’s not life. That’s the desperation that Thoreau described.
Reminds me of what my mother always used to say, “It’s better to have it & not need it, than to need it & not have it.”
This is a great time to learn to be more self-sufficient there is nothing wrong with folks learning to take care of themselves. We all know the government isn’t gonna help us
The world’s population has doubled in my lifetime. There wasn’t enough resources for 3 billion let alone 7 billion now. The oil embargo of the 70′s hasn’t resulted in any meaningful positive changes. A terroristic nuke, dirty bomb, or EMP strike would reck havoc in the country. I think only those who live in rural areas have a chance of even bugging out. I think Martial Law will be declared immediatedly and everyone they find will be disarmed like in New Orleans. I think we will find that our police forces and National Guard will be enforcing laws not in the citizen’s interest. I think decentralization of everything we can think of is a good idea. It is not hard to download entire websites for general knowledge and burned to DVDs for access when the internet doesn’t work. Seems a good idea is to build a faraday cage around a gasoline generator. The gasoline generator can be run from a wood gasifier. Spare laptops and other electronics need to be stored in a faraday cage. Here’s a prepper product idea, a conventional retrokit for a vehicle to bypass all of the fried electronics.
Being prepared is very important.
I am so glad that I learned from a
millionaire what is coming our way
and what to do about it to be ready.
Go to:
http://theelevationgroup.net/presentation/register.php?a_aid=160667&a_bid=e6b01db8&chan=y
The information and advise he gives is priceless.
We are headed for major problems.
Make sure you are prepared.
An EMP strike could happen with as many enemies as the USA has and many have the capability to do that. We are bound by our electronic age where every record is now on a chip somewhere and not likely on hard copy. Am EMP will stop everything electronic that has a computer chip in it and any residual electricity in a chip whether it is on or off will immediately fry into a wad of pcb, solder and what ever else they are made of. No semis will be available to haul food supplies, gasoline, water or medical supplies. Your home computer will be fried as well as your refrigeration, cook stoves, and washing machines. Your personal vehicle won’t start and run unless you have one without a computer in the system. All an enemy has to do is send a rocket with an nuclear devise to explode a couple of hundred miles above the USA and the race would be on! No real estate, homes, buildings etc. would be damaged. Hunger would set in as soon as all the food was raided from the storage and supply and in some places and some faimilies that would be within a week or so. It is unlikely your city water supply will work, so your faucet and bathrooms will not work. It won’t be a pretty sight within a week or so as people realize they are about to die from starvation, so those guys with the food horde will be a bit target for raids.
Has anyone studied Revelation. The rapture will happen before the tribulation begins and world war 3 will be during the tribulation and not before. I must put my faith and trust in Jesus Christ before anything else. I do beleave we will see a lot before the rapture and we do need to be prepared, but the one thing I have not seen anyone put in there prepping equipment is a Bible. don’t you think we should be praying for the return of Jesus Christ before things happen and not after things have happened. Don’t get me wrong, I have done some prepping, but my prepping has been with my Bible and Jesus.
http://ipreping.blogspot.com/2012/04/surviving-economic-collapse.html to learn how to prep
I have lived a long time and haven’t always had enough money. Once I asked for help for me and 3 children, I accepted food stamps 2 months, tried to give back the 2nd month, realizing my way of buying bulk flour, grain, growing and killing wild was better oh well. Survival. This prepper stuff is nothing new. I already know how to dry, can, jerk meat, most of what we’d need. My husband and I are elders.