(8 minute read)
One of the biggest misconceptions about prepping is that it focuses on preparing for a major disaster or the big “SHTF” scenario. But this is only partially true. Being ready for ANY scenario that would change your day-to-day life, even if temporary, often gets lost in the conversation.
As I have mentioned in a previous post, other situations may launch a SMSF into survival mode. Maybe you are a widow who now has to figure out how to wrangle a budget that used to have two salaries feeding it. Perhaps you have lost your job. You still need to pay your rent and put food on the table, knowing you must stretch every dollar until it screams. All the while, you are navigating an unreasonable and algorithm-driven job market that wants you to have a Master’s degree to answer the phone for twice the minimum wage…if you’re lucky. Maybe a pipe burst in your house, and since it is during a cold spell in an area with many other homes with burst pipes, you may not have water for a week while you wait for the plumber to get to you.
I have had all of these happen to me in three years, and, on occasion, they even had the nerve to overlap.
I have written about being a widow and emotional and financial difficulties hitting me not once but twice, losing a husband in 2011 and then in 2022. During both marriages, one of us may have been out of work due to layoffs or illness, and finding work again wasn’t easy. Being resourceful came in handy as we had to pare down our expenses as much as possible to ride out whatever unpleasant situation tested our mettle.
My first marriage had patches of broke, which meant I was upping my game in the kitchen with the quickness. We may have been able to afford one big cut of meat that had to last two weeks. I wasn’t a great cook then, but when you have a turkey you’ll be eating off of for a while, you learn how to get creative. For my second marriage, we often dipped into the “emergency” food I had stored away. The canned goods, extra boxes of frozen items I grabbed when I could, the odd cuts of frozen meat that weren’t favorites but were affordable, extra pasta, and the meats and stews I had canned became critical in keeping our grocery bill down. At one point, we had chickens, so we had eggs and could feed them our kitchen scraps.
I lost one of my two jobs in August of 2023, and six months after moving into my new (but old and not maintained) home, a cold snap burst a pipe despite my best protective efforts. That was definitely not what I needed. Not only would it be $1,500 to add to my credit card debt, but the plumber advised they couldn’t come back for another week because there were so many homes with the same issue. Yes, I called others, but they either didn’t bother to answer the phone or when they did, they too were unavailable for a week and were more expensive.
The plumber apologized for the backlog, but I told him I would be fine. And that was true. I was ready.
The challenge was that the cold snap would last a few days. Thankfully, the power had not gone out, so I had to keep the house and the undamaged pipes from freezing. In this situation, going without water was preferable.
I had several 40-count packs of water bottles and three 5-gallon water jugs. I was not stingy because I knew this wasn’t an SHTF scenario and could replace the water I was using. I took full advantage of my free gym membership (part of my medical plan) to work out and use their shower. While I used my paper plates, I own a small portable dishwasher I used for items that needed to be washed that took about 8 bottles of water to fill the reservoir. I kept the 5-gallon water jugs in the bathroom to fill the toilet tank when needed. Some would say just to dump water into the toilet to flush it, but I didn’t want to risk splashback (ew), so I would pour it into the tank and flush like I usually would, but only flushing solids. Even if I didn’t have the benefit of the gym shower, I knew I had enough water at home to heat up and use for bathing. A bottle of water was in the bathroom to use to wash my hands and for brushing my teeth.
I used a couple of portable propane heaters to help heat the house. One was large and required two tanks, but it warmed the house through the night when turned on right before bedtime. The other was smaller, and I faced it under the open kitchen cabinets at night and in the office during the day while I worked. Because I already had several of the 16 oz. propane tanks, I didn’t have to try and beat the crowd to the store. I went to see if I could replace the ones I had used, but there were only six available, so I bought two. I would have been out of luck if I had waited until the last minute to get those tanks. No other area stores had any!
A week later, the plumber came and repaired the old pipes. I was grateful to have running water again, but more grateful that I had what I needed to get through the week without it.
As you can see from the above, preparedness isn’t all about bunkers, zombies, food tubs, and guns. It’s about having what you need when things go from normal to abnormal so you can continue functioning while navigating your situation.
NEXT: The difference between stockpiling and hoarding.
