1) To document our personal journey into how to prepare for a societal collapse/TEOTWAWKI. We’ve noticed that committing to sharing our personal prepping updates and discoveries on a regular basis pushes us to prepare harder.

2) To become more self reliant

3) To expose our weaknesses in our preparedness journey, so that not only do Dave and I discover them before it’s too late… but that you may learn from our mistakes and shortcomings as well. So that all of us can be better prepared.

You see, my brother and I live by one motto, which is…

We both come from pretty successful backgrounds. Backgrounds that have taught us a little bit about what it takes to succeed in life. And if there’s one thing both my brother and I have learned about what it takes to reach any goal you set out to achieve is that the path to success is riddled with failure.

To reach a goal means that you will fail more in each of the steps to achieving your goal then you could ever possibly hope to match in successes. In other words, it’s a process of ten steps forward, nine steps back for each leg of the race. Without those failures, we’d never move forward.

Succeeding in preparing for a societal collapse and TEOTWAWKI is no different.

The biggest mistake that preppers make is thinking they can just go on the internet and look at cool reviews of survival gear… buy that stuff, and think they are prepared.

While that is certainly better then nothing, my experience has ALWAYS shown every time I go to use that cool new gear the first time it does NOT work like I expected. There are a few exceptions but they are rare.

Our vision of this website is to show those mistakes to you, usually of our own making. But also by bringing in expert contributors to this blog that can bring you their wisdom of knowing what sounds good in theory vs. what actually works in the real world.

We want to be the people who test this gear, and test prepping strategies to separate what works from what doesn’t.

There are three categories of preparedness that we want to work all of the kinks out of before a social or economic collapse is upon us; they are:

-Staying Fed (When the supply chain stops)

-Self Defense & Property Defense (When the Police aren’t coming)

-Medical Aid (Where there are no doctors)

There are three main types of strategies for staying fed.

1) Food Storage

2) Food Production

3) Food Preservation

We believe that Food Storage, specifically Freeze Dried Food Storage, is the first priority for you as a prepper. There are some great Freeze Dried Food companies out there that sell great tasting food that you can just stuff away and not have to worry about rotating out or having your food go bad. We review many of these companies, and strategies for getting the most out of these foods.

We believe you should have at least 1 million store-able calories of food per member of your family, and that acquiring this food supply is your first priority. 1 million calories per person is enough calories to feed an adult for one year very well.

This is more then enough food storage to survive any short term crisis for up to a year.

Some experts believe that there are certain crisis that could last for nearly a decade before society is able to recover. I am admittedly no expert on predicting when this societal collapse will occur or for how long it will last, however an EMP over the heartland of America could cripple us for decades, whereas a financial collapse may only injure us for a couple years.

 

My personal belief is that raising chickens or some other form of easy-to-raise livestock needs to be at the foundation of your long term food production plan. If raised correctly an animal like a chicken can be a major fertility booster for your soils. But what do you feed them? What crops will sustain them through winter? What about breeding for meat? These are all questions that I’m learning too, and share with you amongst the pages and articles of this site.

One of the ways we teach you how to meet the food requirements of your livestock is through something called a Permaculture Food Forest. A Food Forest is a style of gardening that imitates natures way of growing things in stacks. It uses trees, bushes, vines and shade loving edible plants to make a more sustainable food producing ecosystem that can be maintained without outside inputs like fertilizers… to feed your livestock, and also feed you.

Certain climates like the one I live in (the Pacific/Maritime Northwest) are not able to grow good vegetable gardens without fertilizer. Stocking fertilizer is an option but learning to grow your own organic fertilizers is something I’m actively doing and show you how to do as well. Did you know there are plants that can be grown that act like fertilizer? We bring you the experts that show you how to find, grow and apply them yourself.

My climate also doesn’t get any rain in our growing season, and attempts at drilling a well have failed… so I’ve had to become an expert at Rainwater Harvesting. We share several creative solutions on how you can harvest rainwater to not only irrigate your gardens and orchards, but also provide clean drinking water.

There’s just one problem with all this long term food production stuff…

Food Production is not something that you’re likely to pull off in the city. It just takes too much space.

Even if you could pull it off you’ll be in an area with way too many other hungry mouths eying your preps.

No thanks.

Finding a survival treat, or bugging out is the safer option. Because most of our jobs are in the cities, bugging out early is not a realistic option for most people. This may mean that you’re forced to bug out too late. Have you thought about building a bug out bag, or finding a bug out vehicle to make it to safety. If not we’ll teach you what you need to have.

Our vision is to help you navigate the logistics of bugging out and to test the gear you may need to save your life and get your family to safety. Will you need to hunt, fish or trap for your food? What is the best long term survival stove? These are the sorts of things we try to show you by doing live demos so you don’t end up getting deficient gear that could get you killed.

You’ve made it to a secure retreat or cabin outside of the major metropolitan cities safely… but that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods.

Emergency medical skills are not something that Dave and I are experts on, but we have a series of experts lined up for you from Herbal Medicine Gurus to Battle Field Medics to Medical Doctors whose goal is to show you what medicines, medical gear, and equipment you’ll be most likely to need if there is no doctor available.

Stuff like how to stave off infection, how to treat a burn, suture a wound, or remedies to bring comfort in a world where there is no ibuprofen. Many of these off-the-grid solutions are currently available under sud0-names without a prescription.

Have you ever played on a sports team where your whole team lines up to try something new?

The first guy always does the worst. The second guy learns from the first’s failures and does better… and after three or four guys have gone, the rest of the team does the exercise perfectly.

There’s a scientific term for this called, Observational Learning, and we hope that by sharing our prepping projects with you, and allowing you to see our failures and shortcomings, that you will be able to better avoid fatal pitfalls that might be your undoing in a societal or economic collapse.

Here’s to more of us making it through to the other side.