Welcome!
Welcome to Prep-101! This is Month #1 (Create a Preparedness Plan), the overview. You can find details on the entire course here. You can also follow me (and others) as we progress through this course on Instagram with hastag #Yohsprep101 and join our facebook group HERE.
Do you have a plan?
I’ve spent about 5 years now interacting heavily with the “prepping” community (aka those who believe that being prepared is an essential part of life). I’ve “met” (mostly online) many in this prepping community and there are a huge variety of people and beliefs and practices! Some preppers have multiple emergency bags for different situations, and a fully stocked bunker that no one knows the location to. Others simply have some extra food and water on hand. But I’ve learned one surprising truth about “preppers” over the last 5 years:
Most “preppers” don’t have a plan
It’s true! Sure, they may have an evacuation plan, but many don’t have plan for how they are going to get better prepared. They have no systematic way of going about their “prepping,” and often don’t know exactly what they are preparing for. Because of this, many don’t start with the most important things for their family in their situation. They don’t plan what (or how much) food or water they may need. As such, they fail to prepare in an efficient manner that makes the best use of their time and money and prepares them for the right things.
I want you to be different!
Preparedness 101: Month 1 Chapter 1 (The Overview)
This month, I want you to lay out a plan for what you will do to be better prepared in December 2015 than you are today. That plan will be the foundation of everything you do for the 11 months that follow. Your plan, what you start with, what you prepare for, the budget you allocate etc will be different than my plan or anyone else’s. So, this month, create your plan. I’ll help you out with as many resources a possible. Check out what I’ve got below and don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post.
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Section Chapters:
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Free Printables:
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Helpful Products:
If you are interested in some time saving products that will help you create a preparedness plan for your family quickly, click HERE or on the image below to learn more!
Giveaway:
Just starting out my journey to being prepared this would help bunches
I hope the entire course helps! But if you mean the binder, yes, it is amazing!
This is just what I need! I got sidetracked last year with family obligations and this will get me back into the right mindset again. It’s all been kind of haphazard lately, but no more! Yay!
I’m so glad Ruth. Welcome!
Wow, am I excited to “try this on for size”. I am hoping it’ll help take the “overwhelm” out of getting a plan together. Thanks!
Taking out the “overwhelm” is the goal EmQue!
To start dehydrating food, easy to carry and store.
I’m so looking forward to this course! My husband and I have been doing a bit to be prepared, but we don’t have a plan. Thank you for doing this!
Thanks for this “course”. Kind of fell off the wagon last year and this is something I hope to use to get me back into things. Much appreciated!
Yay! Welcome back.
I’ve been looking forward to PREP 101 since you sent out the initial e-mail & I was so excited when I received the e-mail yesterday with Chapter 1 Section 1 & 2! I’ve been trying to organize our emergency plan along with an evacuation plan, but it can be overwhelming. I get so excited that I can sometimes complicated things. ; ) I am happy to say that I did create an excel spreadsheet with all our emergency items in our vehicle! I know what we have, where it is located inside our vehicle, & when it was updated. Thanks for all your hard work & your willingness to do this. I would like to suggest that you include your e-book “Your own 72hr kit plan” in the above list of helpful products. I purchased your book a while back but haven’t had time to sit down & organize my information, but with your list of tasks it will be possible for me because it’s broken down into doable tasks. Your book is a great resource to have & along with the PREP 101 I will finally have my emergency plan & maybe even my food prep information together & organized! Thanks again!
Patti, you made me smile! THANK YOU! I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the e-book. I will most certainly include it as a resource when we talk about kits (it’s a few months down the road). SO SO thrilled to know you are excited about the course! Great job on your spreadsheet!
Never really thought about these things until recently learning about “reality”. It is scary and overwhelming. I am hopeful your site will gently walk me through the many decisions to be made. Thank you.
Gently and simply is my goal Vivian! Welcome.
This course came at the righ time for me. I started collecting prepper gear last year. My food suppy needs to be better organized, as does my budget for prepping. Your sensible advice drew me to your course, and I am excited to learn how to put order at the top of my prepping list.
Thanks for the kind comment Jo Ann! I’m glad to have you here and sincerely hope you find it helpful!
Thanks for putting this together. I’m working on gathering all the important docs like you suggested.
Awesome. If you need some help, here is a post! https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/survival-kit-series-week-23-important-documents/
Both my husband and I have been randomly prepping about our home, but have finally sat down together to work on a plan. Thank you for the motivation!!
You are so very welcome Erin!
We received a dehydrator for Christmas, a recipe/how to book, and a mandoline slicer so I really want to crack down on the exact meals I can use for long term storage that my family eats, and get them prepared in a way that will allow them to be stored.
Yahoo for an awesome Christmas gift! We will talk food storage and meals etc in a couple months! (-: But meanwhile, you can find lots of recipes here (https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/2008/03/100-thrive-recipes/)
This month, we are planning to check expiration dates. And buy another rain barrel.
We will talk about rotating food later in the course so that expiration dates are no longer an issue! (-:
Misty, I am glad you sent me the email that you were starting this. I do not plan to evacuate as we have nowhere to go and I will not stay in some shelter. I do have a bag in our vehicle that will help us in getting home. We have several rain barrels set up, mostly for the garden but if we needed to it can provide emergency drinking water. One big thing in having food storage is that it has to be organized so that you know what you have. I would love to have the planner especially for my family if something were to happen to me. We have been eating out of our stored food for a few weeks. This month we will begin to restock our store.
The 2nd planner (this one: https://arewecrazyorwhat.net/introducing-the-preparedness-planner/?affiliates=43) is the one that helps with food storage planning / inventory etc. The one I’m giving away helps you get a firm preparedness plan in place and gives you a spot for all your important documents.
And make sure you comment often Brenda! I know you have lots of great tips to share!
They both sound like great tools. I will comment often Misty.
I have been wanting one of these binders for awhile now, but never seem to have the money. To win one would be amazing. Good luck to everyone!
And good luck to you too Carla!
I have been prepping all my life – mostly for hurricanes – but I am learning so much more to prep for in this crazy world of ours. I am looking forward to this series and thank you ahead of time for the info.
I just bought a large stainless dehydrator and am looking forward to using it next week on the green beans I got today.
Glad to have you here Maggi! Make sure you share some of your knowledge with us over the weeks. I’m sure you will have much to add!
This sounds fantastic–I can certainly use a hand with a plan.
I think we all can Heather! (-:
This is REALLY going to help me!!!
Yay!!!! So good to hear!
I started a simple spreadsheet to keep track of food storage but this planner would be perfect. Thanks for the opportunity to win it. Good luck everyone.
The Planner I’m giving away doesn’t actually keep track of food storage. It is meant for helping you create an overall preparedness plan. But the other planner (this one: https://arewecrazyorwhat.net/introducing-the-preparedness-planner/?affiliates=43) does just that!
Awesome information!
Glad you found it helpful Karen!
I’m going to get serious about being deliberate about food storage. I saw a plan online about things to pick up for $5 a month. While I’m not sure that list is “it”, it did get me thinking about being more deliberate about picking up something specific each month for my food storage. I love the idea of ending the year seeing some progress.
We will talk about food storage in a couple months, but my main piece of advice there is to not just pick up random extra food, but to plan 8 meals / week instead of 7. One meal should be completely shelf stable. So, you buy the ingredients for one extra meal instead. That way, you can more easily use what you buy!
Genius!! Thank you for that tip! I’ll definitely incorporate that right away!
Yay!
My goal is to organize and prepare all that important paperwork. The binder would be awesome for that! My husband and I need to prepare our wills, and we need a much more detailed evacuation plan. I do most the organization of all our different insurance paperwork, passwords and bills. I really need to organize all that in one place so if something ever happened to me, my husband would be able to take over the bills and everything else.
You would like this post (https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/survival-kit-series-week-23-important-documents/) Jamie (or the binder…it is awesome). And we will be talking about evacuation plans soon! (-:
The binder looks great!
Glad you like it DJ! What are you doing / will you be doing to create your preparedness plan this month?
I have basic kits put together. I’m going to label breaker box switches and learn where water, gas, electricity shut-offs are locaated.
I’m really excited about this class! New to prepping, and definitely without a coherent plan. Really hoping to win the binder, looks like a great tool!
Yay! So glad to hear you are excited. That makes a huge difference. Can’t wait to hear what you do this month about getting that plan in place.
We have been working on water. Water is the hard one to figure out. Where to store….what is the best containers…how much to store, etc, etc, etc.
Water can be so tough! It will actually be the focus of the course next month! A great beginning step. What are you doing / will you be doing to create an overall preparedness plan this month?