7 Worst Rookie Prepper Mistakes & How to Avoid Them (Video & Transcript)
5 min read
Video By Sno Multimedia
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Transcription provided by American Preppers Network
Number of speakers: 1 (Manny Edwards)
Duration: 6 min 59 sec
7 Worst Rookie Prepper Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
Manny: “By some estimates, there are 3 million Americans who call themselves preppers and Joel estimates that for every one of them there are ten more who are thinking about it. Thinking maybe they need to be preppers. If you’re one of those you need to know the top 7 worst rookie mistakes.”
“Number 1 issue is obsessing about doomsday. If a nuclear strike is what you’re most concerned about you don’t need to think about moving into a bunker. You need to move away from there. You need to prepare for likely events. So if you’re in Texas you need to worry about tornadoes. If you’re on the gulf you need to worry about hurricanes. If you’re in southern California you need to worry about earth quakes. And wherever you live you need to think about ice storms, power outages, cuts in the water supply. That kind of thing happens all the time, every year to thousands, tens of thousands of people. That is the kind of thing you need to prepare for. NOT doomsday. In a sense you are just preparing for life. Take a realistic assessment of the risks where you live and get ready for that.”
“Mistake #2 – Relying on gadgets in stead of skills. You know, I love gadgets, I love things that, you know, a new tool that does something cool. A new way to start a fire. A new way to cook over a fire. A new camp stove, whatever. There is all kinds of new gadgets out there, but what people really need to do is gain knowledge and develop skills. I’ll do all the product reviews and you don’t have to okay. I buy that stuff, I do the reviews and then you don’t have to. You can just watch my reviews and you can decide which of these gadgets you want to get. Don’t spend a lot of money on gadgets. Spend money on a few things that are really gonna be useful to you. The main thing you want to do is focus on knowledge and skills.”
“Mistake #3 – Obsessing about bugging out. I get it. There is something very much alluring about the idea of getting a back pack and a knife and hitting the road and concerning nature and getting to your bug out location unscathed. That is cool okay, but realistically, you can’t walk across the state. You’re not in shape to do it. OR you might be, but someone in your family, someone you’re responsible for is not able to do that. What you really need to do is prepare to hunker down. You need to have a bug in plan. If there was some major catastrophe in the city that you live in, or in the suburbs where you live. You’re not going to be able to leave anyways. You’d have to leave on foot and you can’t practically do that. It is more dangerous to hit the road in a situation like that than it is to hunker down where you are. At least for a couple of weeks until some of the traffic clears and the panic has gone or at least subdued a little bit. So, you really need a plan that has you hunkering down where you are and not obsess about bugging out.”
“Mistake #4 – Not having an evacuation plan. Okay. You need both. You need to be prepared to hunker down. No question about it, but you might have to leave. You don’t want to be making plans to leave the day you have to leave. you cant be thinking about that under stress. Figuring out where you’re going to go and how to get there. It can not be taken lightly and should not be planned on the day you have to do it. You need to plan that ahead of time.”
“Rookie prepper mistake #5 – Putting all your eggs in one basket. We just illustrated that in the idea of you know, you want to be prepared to bug out but you want to be prepared to stay home to. You want to be prepared to stay home, but you need an evacuation plan to. Well, apply that to everything. Don’t hide all of your food stock in one place. Don’t put all of your bullets in one place. Don’t have just one route to your safe retreat or bug out location. You need an alternate route. You need to learn contingency planning.”
“Mistake #6 – Not having a support and communications network. That usually stems from and obsession with OPSEC. OPSEC is operational security. Now, don’t get me wrong. OPSEC is important. It is a necessary part of your plan. You need to be wise about who you share information with. Who knows. You know, where your stuff is but don’t get obsessed about it because you have to have support. Our grandparents had a support and communications network and they called it neighbors. Nobody knows their neighbors anymore because we are to busy watching TV , staying in the air conditioning and playing the play station. You need to turn those things off and go outside and meet those people that live across the street from you because they are potentially your most valuable resource in the event of an emergency some sort of catastrophe. No man is an island. I can’t do this on my own and I wouldn’t want to. There is so much to be gained from developing tight relationships with friends, families, neighbors. You need to get out there and do that. Build those communications and support network. It will be an essential part of rebuilding a communities after a disaster.”
“Rookie Mistake #7 – Failure to practice. Would you build a car and sell it without test driving? No, you would not. Would you make a soup and serve it to your guest with out tasting it? No. What is a fire drill for? The purpose of a fire drill is to make sure that when there is a fire you know how to get out. Because you practiced. You need to actually practice your evacuation plan. You need to get your back pack on, put on your boots and walk to your bug out location. I’ve got several more bonus mistakes at the blog at survivalnewsonline.com. Go check ’em out. If you know of any others put ’em in the comments. I’ll see you at the blog. “
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Excellent set of reality-based points. The quote in paragraph #6 should have been “No man is an island.”
Thank you for the correction. 🙂
Nice tips, thank you to whoever wrote a transcript, I hate videos only for a guide (: (harder to print off a video too)
You are very welcome. 🙂
A big istake is buying into the Prepper, TV, Movie idea that you need $5,000 worth of black guns, the latest high-capacity handguns.
All this is fine if you have other things squared away, but to buy a lot of expensive guns at the expense of food and other preps will likely have you using those guns to steal food for your family because you planed poorly.
And I don’t buy that all the latest black guns are needed to be a prepper despite what JWR and the TV and movies say.
I didn’t know when it was coming but back in the late 1980’s I knew serious gun control was coming. I bought my guns accordingly. My lever-action 357 Mag may not put out as much ammo as an AR, but it holds 10-rounds, can be loaded on the fly without the need to take it out of service (as a mag swap does) and no one will shrug off a 357 Mag round out of a rifle that fires it 600 feet per second faster then a handgun will. All my guns are deadly and likely to survive the first wave of serious gun bans that I think we all know is coming at some point.
But they still allow me a good defense if bad guys come calling. And they cost a lot less then the black guns did and do. My lever 357 Mag was $209.00 when I bought it in 1987 and at that time the HK-93 was $550.00 (Had one of them for a while.)The lever gun looks less threatening then a black gun and yet it still puts out a respectable amount of bullets.
Gun prices today seem way too high but what does a new gun owner do? If they want a gun (or 10 or 20, or 30, I lost count of how many I have?) they have to pay the going price. I’m glad I bought all my guns, ammo and reloading supplies decades ago. I don’t know if I would be able to do it today.
Having two locations and traveling between them every other week, I have most everything at point “A” but in limited quantities, and a surplus of everything at point “B”. “B” being final destination. I find it funny that people will pack a 50lb pack,(two of everything they don’t need), 20+ lbs of weapons and ammo, maybe some wise food and a bottle of water, and expect to get far…..My Trek is a two hundred mile hike(worst case scenario), so what I carry will depend on the Season(mainly), I will acquire most of what I need along the way(most of what’s in the bag, will be available somewhere along my path)….a lighter load means less time taking rest stops, calories go farther, and being a little more “nimble” …Start walking, won’t take long to figure out that the tent in your pack is killing you…..Good info by tha way…
Excellent points, particularly this one-Relying on gadgets instead of skills.