After looking at all my gear someone asked me how can I afford all this. Well, first, to quote my friend Myakka (its his screen name) "Skills beats stuff"! And I agree with him 1,000%. In fact, if you look at my second blog entry where I establish my definition of prepping I focus on time shifting and said "Prepping is about performing tasks, acquiring goods, products, resources, and or tools, and gaining or learning skills at a time of convenience, low cost, or availability". But you have to get stuff, right? and of course stuff is expensive, right? So what do we do? Now there are a few independently wealthy preppers. Most of which are featured on Nat Geo's Doomsday Preppers, buying bunkers, and tanks, and all kinds of gadgets, but that isn't practical for most of us. Then to top it off, we all have these things called "lives", where washing machines break, and cars need transmissions, and kids need collage tuition and all of that needs to fit in somewhere.
Well, i'm going to let you in on a little secret of how I afford all this gear... ok, don't tell anyone, you ready? I buy it used. Yeah, you heard me USED. Ebay, Craigslist, and yard sales are my best friend. Now, I do my research on the products I want first. I work out my plan first, and I only buy quality brands. I have a list of things I'm looking to add as part of my load out, and I know enough about the different models to see if what i'm looking at has been abused, or is still fresh. Then I patiently wait until I can win a bid cheap, or run across it somewhere when Grandpa has to clean out his garage.
Since most of my survival gear comes from the camping and outdoor arena, thats where I focus. Thats not to say my plan is to go live in the woods in a crisis, but camping life means no stove, no fridge, no store, no running water, and alternative sources of heat, light, power. And basically all those things parallel surviving at home in a crisis that impacts the grid in a major way. Anyway, you would be amazed how may guys buy the latest greatest gear and have the pervious year or twos model sitting around with no milage. I figure why pay retail and all that mark up for something that is designed for heavy use but may have seen outdoors once or twice. I've picked up an 80 dollar lantern for 10 bucks and it never had fuel put in it, fishing gear that got used once, a 300 dollar tent that saw one weekend of use for 45 dollars, because the guys wife didn't like camping.
Secondly, a lot of recreational gear double as prepps. Throw fashion out the window and shop the end of season sales. Buying winter hiking gear in April may look funny but guess what, I guarantee we have another winter coming around again. Winters are funny like that. And i'm sure those 135 dollar Columbia mountain boots and 20 dollar wool socks will feel so much better on the trails in November when you only paid 48 and 5 for them on clearance.
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