Skills Vs Preps - Which Way Do You Lean?

Are you focused more on learning skills that will help you survive or on hoarding goods? How did you find a balance between the two?

We started more with basic prepping, like making sure we had enough food and medications for a set period of time. Gradually, we increased that time. I've seen a few prepping blogs where they talk about having enough for a year. We're nowhere near that. Instead, I work on the garden and know that if I need to, I can grow a portion of our food. We keep a small flock of chickens and a few rabbits. Right now, I sell a lot of the chicks to other families wanting hens and most of the bunny babies as pets but if we needed to, I know they could be a source of food. I learned how to can.

 

A good balance is what matters. Knowing basic survival skills, starting fire, crafting primitive tools and such can be really helpful. As for prepping part, there is no much lo0gic behind it. If we would leave livestock out of the story, your best bet would be canned food. If you can't get to the water, knowing how to boil it and make it safe to drink should do the trick, it isn't really anything hard to learn. But a balance between the two is the best thing you could do. If you could store some modern tools aside, that would help you a lot. Crafting tools without any sort of a help can be a real hassle, especially if you are unfamiliar with it. Making decent stone axes, for example. As for knives, you could easily just find a sharp enough rock and deal with it. It's best not to try to sharpen it unless you know how to do it properly. I believe that every house should have some sort of a survival manual given out by their country in case bad things happen.

 

Hell if you have skills down then the world is your store you won't have to hoard it's being minmalist

 

I think its better to be both because its good being prepared at anything. Prepers advantage is they have stocks, lots of stocks. Skilled man's advantage is his body, he can make anything.

 

While I think a balance of both are important, I think I lean more towards the side of skills. It's important to always be prepared, but the items you've prepared will only last you for so long. Once the food is gone, the only option you have left is finding more, and it might not be as simple as walking out of a store with a box full of canned beans. This is where the importance of skill sets in. Prepared content will run out, but as long as you have your health the skills are always there.

 

I think it's wise to have as much of both that you can. You should be stocked up on everything you know you'll need and you should have skills to keep on surviving if your stash runs out. Knowing how to get food from the wild, how to preserve food, knowing how to build an emergency shelter, etc., are all vital skills in real life scenarios where you and your family's survival depends on how you know to live off the wild with nothing.

 

I'm about skills and knowledge first and then supplies and things. The thing is that I can't lose the skills whereas any THING like food or guns can be lost or used up. Now, understand, that is my nature and an ability that I was born with. I never saw a skill that I didn't want to learn and have made a pretty good stab at learning a lot of them. I have always been able to learn and pick up new tricks like a long haired dog can pick up fleas. I got several good jobs in the tough years by reading a book and passing myself off as knowing a lot more than I did. The book gave me the vocabulary and I learned on the job. Since nobody ever had to show me something twice I always managed to carry it off.

I just like to make things and fix things. I turned this desire into a very nice living.

 

Prep.s vs. Skills?

I lean towards skills, however without tools and get-by stores, one is finished. One's tools should include core non-electric items. I have hand-crank drills, for instance. Garden tools are essential, along with the canning jars and lids for harvest/canning season. One must have cooking tools along with fireplace and/or wood-stove.

Firearms: If you can't protect your home, you have nothing. Lower-order "humans" can take that for which they did not labor. Worse, these thieves haven't the skills to make use of that which they have stolen.

Part of preparations is finding potential allies for hard-times. Look for those with military skills and who will be in need of help. Many young soldiers returning to civilian life, are without resources and are just getting by (if that). Often they struggle to keep their family barely afloat. Identify these people. Identify such that are sane and have good hearts. Help them now and later. They can be part of your six-o'clock when the SHTF. Without strong backs and youth with warrior skills, a family/community is endangered. Be a part of building a survival community.

You must have both a literal perimeter and a survival perimeter. Find your optimum size and defend it. Too small, you're dead. Too large = can't form perimeter = death.

 

Were it not for urbanites acting so superior, I'd feel sorry for them. Our economy is not just going to tank, it is going to utterly crumble. Some call this a "correction". I'd call it a monster economic Depression on our doorstep.

The Fed has had put-backs for years -- buying food products to prop up prices. The Gov still has massive hoards of cheese, but how to distribute this when things go sideways?!
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/barbara-hollingsworth/us-stockpile-cheese-highest-level-1984
Other food storage programs may have been depleted.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=4770135&page=1

If anybody reading this is located in or just peripheral to a major urban area, then you must think about relocating now. Bug-out is a base minimum, however counting on being able to bug-out on short notice is a radical gamble. Find a life elsewhere -- preferably, a small community. You'll have to scout such places; just because a place is small sure doesn't mean that it is sane. And unless you currently have or can quickly build ties so such a community, you will be considered an outsider, an interloper.

The Fed will attempt to bring order to megalopolises. The Fed will attempt to relocate urbanites to rural areas and/or re-purposed air bases that were decommissioned decades ago. Their re-worked airbases may pay off, however everything else will fail. Rural areas will not take-in the city folk and if forced, will go to war to prevent any relocation of people to their area. Many deaths will follow.

And the cities will burn.

 

THINGS make it easier but if I had to I could start off with nothing and still come out on top. I could make a weapon that would allow me to obtain a better weapon and then just sort of move up the food chain. As my best friend always says, "Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!" A dangerous man is dangerous even if he is disarmed and butt naked!

Even as Babylon, Sodom, Gomorrah and even unto Rome, Alas all the great cities will end in fire and be as nothing for they are doomed by rot from within!