Detailed below are four common mistakes that preppers make and how to avoid them.
Not prioritizing your physical fitness
A prepper doesn't waste time by watching TV all day. You need to be physically fit and healthy to easily accomplish the various chores in your home or garden, such as lifting heavy supplies or tilling the soil.
Try to exercise regularly. You don't need chiseled abs to become a prepper, but you have to be fit enough to handle manual labor. If you prefer outdoor activities instead of going to the gym, you can get a regular workout by cycling or hiking. (Related: Emergency preparedness: 7 Common mistakes preppers often make.)
Not developing your prepping skills
Before you start any prepping projects, assess your skills. Don't make any purchases until you know you can maximize new tools or appliances with your current skill set.
Setting up a survival stockpile is important, but there's more to prepping than mindless hoarding. Prepping is a lifestyle that focuses on developing important skills and learning how to use them when SHTF, not hoarding items you can't use properly.
Become a well-rounded prepper by learning and gradually mastering these important skills:
- Basic home repair (e.g., electrical, general carpentry, operating power tools, plumbing, and welding)
- Defense (e.g., how to properly use self-defense weapons and marksmanship)
- First aid (e.g., basic wound care, suturing, and herbal remedies)
- Gardening
- Home-keeping (e.g., cooking from scratch, food preservation, and sewing)
- Outdoor skills (e.g., build a shelter, butchering, finding and purifying water, firestarting, foraging, and hunting)
Not taking obvious threats seriously and focusing on less-probable events
Don't spend too much time prepping for the "big one" or other low-probability events while you ignore preps for survival events that are common in your location, like forest fires, hurricanes, or tornadoes.
As a prepper, you must balance realistic threat assessments with large-scale SHTF scenarios.
Common scenarios you must regularly prepare for include:
- Traffic accidents – Always wear your seat belt, maintain your car, and prepare a bug-out bag for your vehicle.
- Long-term power outages – Rotate the supplies in your stockpile and prepare important tools and gear like flashlights, extra batteries, and various supplies you'll need around the house.
- Natural disasters – Regularly check your home for much-needed repairs, monitor the news, and set up a survival supply stockpile.
Thinking you can buy gear and supplies to qualify as a prepper
Anyone can buy food, water filters, and survival gear, but that doesn't automatically make them a prepper. A well-rounded prepper develops his current skills, learns new skills that can improve his chances of surviving when SHTF, and utilizes these skills to make his homestead function like a well-oiled machine.
Before you purchase anything for your homestead or stockpile, you must already have a detailed plan on how to incorporate these items or gear with your existing preps to make the most of every dollar that you spend.
For example, a seed vault is an incredibly useful item for an experienced home gardener. But if you live in an apartment, you might not have enough use for a seed vault.
Before you invest in a seed vault, you need the necessary gardening tools, a garden with quality soil, fencing to keep out pests and critters, and an irrigation system that doesn’t depend on municipal water.
The same goes for firearms. Select a weapon that suits your hunting or self-defense needs, acquire the necessary permits, and train with your gun so you can learn how to use it well and responsibly.
Avoid these prepping pitfalls and master the necessary prepping skills so you can survive when SHTF.
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