Please provide constructive criticism - Cheap and easy ways to prepare for long periods of martial law or civil war without power or water

Please provide constructive criticism - Cheap and easy ways to prepare for long periods of martial law or civil war without power or water (preppers)

submitted 5.7 years ago by ObamasPinkSock

I've been trying to encourage normies to embrace the most basic, cheap and easy solutions for staying alive.

I wanted to avoid advanced and expensive stuff like solar cookers and hunting and advanced water purification and farming techniques in the hopes of not scaring away too many normies.

Please let me know if the following is suitable for most non-preppers and let me know of other suggestions?

CHEAP AND EASY WAYS TO PREPARE FOR LONG PERIODS OF MARTIAL LAW OR CIVIL WAR WITHOUT POWER OR WATER.

Are you and your family prepared for a lengthy period of martial law or civil war without power or water?

During such times, the difference between a helpless family and one that thrives can be a matter of $100, a bit more if you don't already own a gun.

Buy a gun and learn how to use it. Here's a great guide for cheap and reliable guns or consider buying an aluminum baseball bat if you can't afford a gun. Long-handled hammers have many "uses" too.
Have an agreed meeting place for your loved ones if the power and mobile phone network fails.
Do you have an emergency first aid survival kit? You can make one for about $28 if you buy all of this stuff separately and it will be far superior than most $300 kits!
Bottled water lasts forever and large water containers can be filled from the river or rainwater. Treat river and rainwater with pure iodine - just enough so you can start to taste it (about three drops per quart) and leave it to work for an hour. Add food coloring to your iodine so you can easily see what water has already been treated. Pure iodine is far superior to chlorine water purification tablets and a little 50ml bottle will treat about 100 gallons of water. LifeStraw Family cost $69 and will purify 4,755 gallons / three years of water needs for a family of five - see this demonstration video.
Do you have plenty of long-life rations? You don't need fancy stuff, just food with very long expiry dates that you'll use anyway is perfect. These non-perishable foods will last forever... just make sure you have a non-powered can opener!
Do you have plenty of extra blankets to keep warm on cold nights if the power is out? Camping sleeping bags are great when it's cold!
Are you stocked-up on meds that you or your family depend on, such as diabetic medication or heart pills? If not, get extra - you'll use it so the peace of mind won't cost you a cent. If anyone frowns at you, tell your doctor you lost the last script and tell your chemist that you are stocking up for a 3 month vacation in India;
Do you have candles, matches, stove-lighters and a couple of $5 LED hand-crank torches? I have a few hundred little tealights because one of those costs about 20 cents and can provide eight hours of light - which is much nicer than sitting in the dark with your family. Use a mirror to cast extra light in one direction. Put 'em in a glass cup for safety. Solar powered Christmas lights can be cheap and effective too - just leave them outside to charge during the day and bring them in at night. Removing the stems from solar garden lights and keeping them near your windows to charge during the day is effective too.
Do you have a full BBQ gas tank and a cooker to fit it?
Hand-crank or solar USB chargers or even a hand-crank or solar radio will allow you to listen to President Trump's emergency broadcasts if the power is out. Use ear-buds to extend the length of the battery charge and note that not all emergency radios come with headphone jacks. Be warned that "cheap" USB chargers likely won't work with the newer smartphones because even though they provide 5 volt, the newer smartphones require a full ampere of charge which the cheaper solar and hand-crank USB chargers do not provide.

These are just some of the cheap, basics that will dramatically increase your family's ability to survive.

Here's a fantastic bush-craft video on how to start a fire using a ferrocerium rod.

Here's a fantastic bush-craft video on how to cook a simple stew.

How to make hardtack - the bread that lasts forever.

8 comments

bulrush 5.6 years ago

Free barrels. Go to a good-sized printer. Don't ask the front desk, they won't know, ask for the manager of the big 40" printers. Ask them if they have any big plastic barrels to give to you. We can't get rid of ours, they just sit in a back room. They used to contain alcohol for cleaning the ink off the big presses.

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robot7247 5.7 years ago

Talk disaster prep first & foremost w/ normies. A good start is discuss the JIT supply chain and how even a few days interruption of service can have staggering repercussions. Most no longer have any tether as to how things appear in stores. They just do, they always do.

Work backwards from there and engage them with questions. "If no water came from the faucet how would you drink?". "If ATM & credit offline how would you buy anything?". "If you lost power how would you cook?". Some won't want to engage though, you cannot help them.

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jamesed 5.7 years ago

First of all instead of a modern Fire Arm (Ammunition will become unavailable very quickly and 10,000 rounds of stored ammo you cannot move.) think about a Model of 1873 Trapdoor Springfield or a Muzzle loading flint lock or cap lock. They are sufficiently accurate and deadly out to 500 yards. The lead and Black powder used in the weapons can be readily made from scrounged materials and animal fecal material.

Also think about making a firebrick or fired clay sealed oven for the destructive distillation of wood. The products of the destructive distillation of wood are Water, Methanol (wood alcohol) turpentine, creosote and other oils that can be used for preservatives and antiseptics. A manual oil press to extract vegetable oils from seeds. These oils can be used for cooking, preserving leather, (and your skin) and esterized to make bio-diesel for diesel engines. A small fire brick or fired clay forge is very useful. Use it to work scrap iron and steel to make tools and knives, axes etc. Lean to recognize low grade ores such as fools gold, bog iron (found in bogs and swampy areas) cinnabar, (Mercury Sulfide for both Mercury and Sulfur, making black gun powder and percussion powder for percussion caps)

Remember as in all things "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER".

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robot7247 5.7 years ago

How many of these thing have you mastered?

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DammitMan 5.7 years ago

How you prepare will depend a lot on whether you will be staying in place or bugging out. We homestead pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and while we have some provisions cached, our focus has been on fortifying our property. Our biggest asset is the food we've put back. We've spent $5 a week in dry goods; rice, beans, sugar, salt, pastas, berries, etc. We use/ replace them on a regular basis. Something I found on another post in this sub, was using pool shock to disinfect water. The Life Straw is great and we have them, even used them when our water supply was temporarily unavailable. But in a bug in situation, pool shock would be the way to go.

Also for bug in, get a 50w solar panel, a good deep cycle battery, and a 750w inverter. You can charge your phones directly from the battery with a vehicle charge port and usb or convert to AC if you wish.

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22trilionAsecond 5.7 years ago

Get away from cities and make sure you always have someone on lookout. I have heard that you need at least 6 trusted people for this.

first aid skills cant be underestimated.

Also some reliable tools will go a long way.

If you can keep chickens they should help a lot.

If the 2nd great depression or carrington event hit tomorrow I would be pretty fucked. I have a lot of work to do. I also have a feeling that nothing will happen.

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DammitMan 5.7 years ago

Trump will declare martial law for a short time. People will freak. You need some preparations.

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derram 5.7 years ago

https://invidio.us/watch?v=84rUA-GN5ro :

LifeStraw Family 1.0 Demonstration/ Instructional Video - YouTube

https://files.catbox.moe/g14wgg.jpg :

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