New From Derbyshire

[Beth]

Hi,

I’m from Derbyshire and have recently got into prepping - it’s something that I got an interest in after starting self defence lessons. I’ve always been in to outdoors activities also!

I’ve signed up here to find some advice, especially on where to start for beginners! Am keen for any good reading material or podcasts etc - I've been listening to The Survivalist Prepper podcast. I’d also like to learn some useful skills, bushcraft etc. so any advice on that would be much appreciated.

Many thanks for reading,
Beth

[Yorkshire Andy]

Welcome

Best place to start is with a pen and paper, and a degree of logic along with hiding the credit card . .

It's VERY VERY EASY to be sucked into prepping and blowing a kings ransom on stuff to sit on a shelf forever ........


Forget the "bug out bag" for now but think of a "few nights away" bag eg hen do / weekend away... Travel lodge would be rightfully concerned if you walked in at 3am looking like a Rambo / gi Jane reject a bug out bag full of knives / axes / paracord and plastic sheeting won't help ...

Change of clothes, few days worth of "smalls" personal hygiene and medication and a few quid for the hotels vending machine... Add a list of family / important phone numbers. Eg your house hold insurance company and policy number.... And a blanket / jacket

Why....


Well imagine your flooded / house catches fire / someone digs up a 1000kg ww2 bomb and the police bang on your door and tell you to get out now and meet at the red lion to be taken to a sports hall .. whilst they deal with the above


Now a extra few times of food each week or a bottle of water to stash won't go amiss either

Be it bad weather or a local suppliers problem you won't go hungry without hurting your bank account.

In a year one "tinned meal" eg all day breakfast each week = 52 meals..... It's easy to stock up thinking this way BUT

Buy What You Eat,, Rotate And Use What You Store! And replace it!!!

Or you might as well throw your money away!

[xplosiv1]

hey welcome to the site, there's weeks worth of reading here alone, stuff thats been tried, tested , failed or acomplished..... the good the bad and the ugly its all in the archives.

regarding advice, i'd say start with the basics .... food ,water and warmth (as were heading into winter) then branch out from there.

on the subject of food, i'd say try to buy stuff you actually like that way you can rotate into your normal meal plans before it expires and replace your stocks.

a good goal to start with would be a 1 month supply then depending on exactly what you're prepping for they're might be some specific items you need.

ideally in any situation (as i dont know what your prepping for) you want food, water, light source with spare batteries or a solar charger, something to cook with and most prepping situations include a lack of public utilities so also include a means of keeping yourself warm and a hand crank or battery radio.

i'm not really sure where to point you regarding podcasts / YouTube videos as the vast majority are american and mostly revolve around "protection" lol ..... and we steer clear of that kind of chat here ( people in Scotland get arrested for potato peelers .... true story http://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/16 ... lic_place/ )

I follow a few people on youtube but it's mostly homestead kind of stuff based around self reliance/ agriculture/ hunting etc.

if you follow up with another post stating exactly what your prepping for i'm sure much more knowledgeable people than me will throw in their opinions.

for practical skills .... mostly i've just done my own stuff over the years, even growing up my mum n dads back garden was 500 acres of forest .... I went wild lol

since moving to scotland all I've really done to keep skills fresh is some infrequent hiking trips but recently I've been thinking of doing a course, heard nothing but good things about these guys https://www.backcountrysurvival.co.uk/


start slow is probably the best advice I can give.

[Deeps]

Welcome to the forum, as Andy says, take the time to work out what will work for YOU. That might well be different to me or some uberprepper on youtube. Take your time and do your research, if you've recently got the prepper bug that's probably not what you want to hear but outside of getting in water and food (and something to cook it on if you don't have anything already) then there's no point buying stuff that with a bit more knowledge you realise was a waste of money that could have been better spent. Most of us have done it.

If you are in a mad rush to spend, do it on stuff like torches and first aid equipment, you can get stuff pretty cheaply that will do a job and as and when you feel like upgrading they'll still be useful as spares.

Have a rummage through the forum and see what catches your eye, prepping is quite a broad subject and enjoy it, its a lot of fun.

[Arzosah]

Welcome to the forum

Sound advice from the guys here - especially the "few nights away" bag rather than a bug out bag. Though if you work far away from home, I'd have a think about getting home in some sort of emergency. Some of that is winter preps for your car, if you have one, or transport might not be available at all - electrical overloads and terrorist attacks have both stopped transport in its tracks in this country, sometimes overnight. So preps would be about making yourself comfortable where you are (I've had to sleep the night at Gatwick Airport, before I was into preparedness, and I would have slept a lot better if I'd just had a disposable poncho with me) or about getting home under your own steam, if you're close enough (shoes that are good enough to walk in).

[Med85]

Hi beth
Welcome to the site. im in Nottinghamshire so not far. New to prepping also.
Do you (or anyone else out there) know many preppers around you, or are we finding that preppers are few and far between?

How do you go about building up a prepper community?

sorry im letting my thoughts wonder. welcome to the site. Iv seen a few youtube vids but nothing targeted at uk prepping really. theres also doomsday preppers on Netflix which is alright for some ideas.

[Deeps]

There are some UK based preppers on youtube, Funkyprepper probably being the most 'famous' for lack of a better word. Depending on what you consider prepping there are a lot of other useful youtubers too. Plenty bushcrafters etc but also people who dehydrate and make things.

[Beth]

Hey,

Thanks for all the advice everyone, that's given me a great place to start and looking forward to reading into some topics on the forum! I'm definitely going to take it slow in terms of spend, make sure a lot of the things I buy I can also make use of on camping trips etc. in daily life.

I've seen before that there are exhibitions/conference events on prepping - is this more of an American thing or are there some good ones in the UK?

Thanks.

[Yorkshire Andy]

I've never visited a UK event a few do happen however...

Plan for the day to day events as they are a good foot on the ladder to bigger events...


Power cut.....

House fire

Local evacuation

Loss of water

For examples