Continuing on...
41. Reduce. Reduce your dependence on the grid; the more you can do this the less you will be impacted by power outages or municipal water issues. Reduce your dependence on the grocery store; the more you can do this (ie by foraging or gardening) the less you will be impacted by skyrocketing grocery prices, shortages at the grocery store, etc. Reduce your dependence on the gas station; by driving a more fuel efficient vehicle, using a motorcycle to save even more gas, or using a bicycle which doesn’t rely on gas at all, the less you will be impacted by things like pipeline shutdowns.
42. Reuse. Reuse leftovers; this saves on food costs and the effort of cooking a meal (just freeze leftovers and pull them out for a quick meal when you don’t feel like cooking). Reuse vegetable scraps; you can grow an entire garden this way. Reuse old clothing; you can make quilts, rags, etc. which saves both money as well as the planet. Reuse old furniture; before you go out and buy a desk, do you have other old furniture that can serve the same purpose? Reuse old wood; with the current lumber shortage, people are even taking apart old pallets to use the wood to create beautiful wood flooring for their homes.
43. Recycle. Recycle your coffee grounds, egg shells, and vegetable peels in your compost pile. Recycle droppings from your chickens as fertilizer for your garden. Recycle metals and plastics to help the environment. When you can no longer use an item, recycle it by donating it to a thrift store or giving it to someone you know who could use it.
44. Make do. The old adage ‘reduce, reuse, recycle, make do or do without’ probably came from old farm families that either didn’t have the money to buy the new widget they wanted or didn’t want to drive the hours to town just to buy the widget. The result was people “making do” with what they had on hand. The next time you need an item, consider how you could make do without it.
45. Do without. Americans have a lot of crap in their houses. We buy a lot of stuff which seems like a good idea at the time but which we soon put away in a box, never to be seen again. The next time you feel like you need something, trying going without it for a week (within reason of course, type 1 diabetics NEED insulin so don’t go without this). Can you survive without this item for a week? What would happen if you never buy this item? If you are patient will this item eventually come to you by way of a great sale, as a gift from a friend, or as an alternative use of another item?
46. Pivot. This is probably a lesson people needed when the pipeline shut down on the east coast a few days ago. When people had options like waiting (the pipeline is back up as of today), staying home (always a good option), driving less (a good option at any time), or using alternate forms of transportation (bike, bus, walking, etc), why would they decide to wait in massively long lines at the gas station, get into physical fights at the gas pumps, or try to save extra gas in plastic bags??? People react poorly in stressful situations which makes it imperative that we look at each individual situation and determine how we can pivot instead of blindly following the panicked crowd. There are always better options than doing what panicked people are doing so make this the first thing you consider in a crisis.
47. Practice. If you want to know how to respond during a disaster, make it a point to practice when there isn’t currently a disaster. If you want real-life experience with medical crisis, volunteer as an EMT. If you want real-life experience using your HAM radio during a disaster, use it now as a hobby. If you want the real-life experience of having to live in your back yard because an earthquake levels your house, practice this now by camping out in your backyard for a week or so. If you want real-life experience bugging out to the wilderness and living off the land, do that now with an extended backpacking trip into the remote wilderness.
48. Prepare. Obviously you can’t practice for every single eventuality but you can prepare. We rarely ever have earthquake where I live and certainly don’t have tsunamis but I do study up on how to deal with both situations (as well as many others) and remain prepared for any possibility. Note that even if, as in my case, we will never ever have a tsunami where I live, the knowledge is still useful when I go on vacation to places near the ocean. Ditto for any sort of preparedness topic—you may never use it in a normal situation but you may find yourself in a different situation where the knowledge and skills you have will come in handy.
49. Experience. Experience different food (go to an Ethiopian store and make a complete meal out of the foodstuff you find there). Experience different people (travel, it’s one of the best learning experiences you can have). Experience different places (camp in the desert, the rain forest, the mountains, the jungle). Experience different hobbies (learn new skills that may prove useful at a later time). The more wide and varied experiences you have, the more opportunities you will have to learn things that may be useful in a SHTF situation.
50. Adapt. This is as much about attitude as it is about knowledge or skills. People will always be challenged by sudden catastrophes (the gas pipeline shutdown, the brutal winter storm in Texas, etc) but it is the way they react that can make the difference between suffering and success. Attitude, of course, plays a big role in this, as does logical thinking, creativity, and resourcefulness. The movie Nomadland is all about adapting to challenging circumstances—people were too poor to pay for their homes so they ended up living in their vehicles. They could have either been the average desperate homeless person living in their car or they could turn their adversity into an adventure which is what this movie was all about (see also Bob Wells and his popular YouTube channel Cheap RV Living for more info on this).
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