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It’s time for the changing of the guard; the old year is going away and a new one is replacing it. With it, many people look to “start over” in various parts of their lives. It’s a time of reflection and introspection. It’s also a time of looking forward with excitement to what the new year might hold in store for us.
New Year’s Resolutions: Do They Ever Work?
As part of this, many people make their “resolutions” for the new year, most of which won’t make it to the end of the month… let alone see the end of the year. That’s why I’m not into New Year’s resolutions. I know I’m not any better at sticking to those than anyone else. This reality can be seen by the number of times I’ve said I was going to start a diet, and yet I didn’t even make it through the first day.
Have you ever noticed how many people invite you out to eat when you decide to go on a diet? Their timing is uncanny. That’s even more likely to happen when you go on a spiritual fast rather than a physical diet. Either way, it’s hard to say “no” when they offer to take you to your favorite restaurant.
Perhaps you’ve made a “resolution” to start prepping sometime before. On the other hand, maybe you already are a prepper and you have “resolved” to get more serious about it. Furthermore, you may want to do something new that you’ve been talking about but you’ve never started. Regardless, as long as you are depending on your resolutions to get you there, you’re going to stay right where you are. You’ll be spinning your wheels and going nowhere.
A Lifestyle Change Is The Key To A Better Year In 2019
What you and I need is what’s referred to as a lifestyle change. I made one of those a few years ago when I found out that my blood pressure was high, my blood sugar was high, my triglycerides were high, my cholesterol was high, and I was fat to boot. I had a choice to make; either change my eating habits or spend my old age sick, in pain, and with a multitude of health problems. Ultimately, I decided to change.
That’s what prepping is; it’s a lifestyle change. If all you’ve ever done is made a resolution to start prepping, you’ve probably got a bag of beans and a bag of rice in the basement and that’s it. You keep telling yourself you’ll do more, but somehow that never happens. You just can’t seem to keep going.
Make A Commitment To Start Prepping And You’ll Save Money
Well, we’ve got a new year starting once again, and like always, we all see it as a time of new beginnings. But this time, why not do something different and forget about the New Year’s resolution? Instead, make a commitment to start a real lifestyle change. If you’re married, do this as a couple so that you can help each other to keep the commitment. If not, see if you can find someone else to make that commitment together with you.
It’s always easier to keep a commitment when you make it public. It’s hard to keep the private ones. So, making that commitment together with someone else is one of the best things you can do to ensure that you actually follow through and keep it. You and your partner can keep each other accountable and encourage one another to go on and succeed.
Let me get rid of one big excuse here, one that a lot of people use – that is, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to start prepping. Yes, there is a lot to prepping that costs money, like building a stockpile of supplies and buying survival gear. However, there is also a lot you can do to start getting yourself ready which isn’t going to cost you a dime. In fact, prepping should help you save money in the long run. Here are a few of those things you can do to prepare:
Lose Weight, Get In Shape When You Start Prepping
None of us want to admit it, but there are a lot of preppers out there who are overweight. I’m one of them. That’s why I’m going back on my diet to finish losing the weight I started losing a year ago. I’ve still got another 50 pounds to go.
Losing weight will help your health and so prepping isn’t the only reason to do so. Nevertheless, in a survival situation, that weight loss will make it much easier for you to survive and the lower calorie intake will make it easier to feed yourself. You won’t be going through your stockpile so fast if you eat 1,500 calories a day rather than eating 3,000.
Yet, losing weight isn’t enough. You need to get in shape as well and that means exercise. Surviving is a very physical activity and we’re going to need to do a lot of physical work when the time comes. Building muscle mass now will not only help us to lose weight, but it will make it much easier to chop firewood later on.
Start Learning Survival Skills
I don’t care what anyone says, skills trump supplies any day. When push comes to shove, that survival stockpile will only keep you alive as long as it lasts. Once you’ve eaten your way through it, you’ll be in as bad a shape as everyone else unless you know how to grow your own.
Nonetheless, growing food isn’t the only skill you need to know; there are countless others. Depending on the disaster that ultimately strikes, you could need anything from the ability to start fires to blacksmithing. Knowing the right sorts of skills will help ensure that you can survive over the long-term rather than merely over the short-term. Isn’t that what matters more in the end?
Redo Your Family Finances To Reduce Debt
The average American family lives on 110% of their income, using debt to make up for the difference. No wonder so few of us think we can afford to prepare for a disaster. We’re still trying to figure out how to pay for our new cars and the Christmas presents we bought on credit.
You will never be able to afford to prepare if you don’t get your finances under control. That means it’s time to quit trying to keep up with the Joneses. They’re probably just trying to keep up with you anyway. That new car they bought wasn’t to make you jealous, it was because they were jealous of yours.
The massive debt that most of us live under could destroy us if we’re ever faced with a financial collapse or even simply the loss of a job. We can’t assume that our debts will be automatically canceled in the event of a major financial disaster, especially our home mortgage. If anything, those debts will help fuel the crisis, thereby making us victims of it.
Start Prepping And Develop A Bug Out Plan
While bugging out costs money, planning for it doesn’t. Should a natural disaster strike your region, the ability to bug out quickly could make all the difference in the world for you. Let’s say you stick to an urban bug out plan but you travel to another city or even a small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere. You still should be able to do that without having all the survival gear in the world.
Every year, people are forced to evacuate their homes due to hurricanes and forest fires. In other words, they have no choice but to bug out. Few of those people are preppers and even those who are don’t necessarily depend on the things packed in their bug out bags to see them through. Nor are they counting on a fancy, 4×4 bug out vehicle. They’re just trying to get to a place of safety while they can.
You may also enjoy reading an additional Off The Grid News article: Remote Supply Cache: Why Decentralizing Your Stockpile Is So Important
