{"id":25361,"date":"2019-03-30T11:01:40","date_gmt":"2019-03-30T18:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/offgridsurvival.com\/?p=25361"},"modified":"2023-10-31T22:39:20","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T05:39:20","slug":"personalshtf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/offgridsurvival.com\/personalshtf\/","title":{"rendered":"SHTF Plan: Are you ready to survive your own SHTF Moment?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to preparedness information, far too many of the so-called survival experts focus on events that quite honestly don\u2019t come close to having a one in a billion chance of happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While talking about asteroids slamming into the earth or some dystopian vision of the apocalypse might be a good way to get attention, the reality of those events happening in your life is probably pretty unlikely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what type of events should we be planning for?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not that the big\nnation-destroying events will *never* happen, it\u2019s just that smaller individual-destroying\nevents are far more common. Also, those big SHTF events rarely take the form of\na big announcement: just take a look at\nsome of the actual disasters people have suffered over the years, like\nHurricane Katrina and Venezuela\u2019s latest economic collapse. It\u2019s not as if\npeople couldn\u2019t see these events coming, but it\u2019s also not as if they all\nhappened in one day and were announced in a special news bulletin the way you\ntypically see such events occur in disaster movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Hurricane Katrina, the catastrophe took several weeks to\nunfold; Katrina began as just one more of a\nnumber of tropical storms, most of which never amounted to anything\nserious. As this particular storm grew and moved into the Gulf of Mexico,\nanyone with half a brain could see this was as good a time as any for people on\nthe shorelines to bug out and head inland. In short, Hurricane Katrina was\nhardly an unexpected disaster, though some could certainly fault the local\nleadership of the affected areas for not having acted more effectively to\nevacuate their people and fix the damage afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Venezuela, anyone with a grasp of history could have\nforeseen that electing a power-hungry Marxist dictator like Hugo Chavez to\noffice was bound to lead to economic disaster, as Communism always has. If\nanything, the only thing nobody could anticipate was that the economic collapse\nwould take as long to unfold as it did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As late as 2013, fool leftists were praising Venezuela for being a \u201cworking\u201d socialist state. Meanwhile, anyone with half a brain had already either fled Venezuela for a country with freer markets and more civil liberties or was busy storing and hiding supplies for the imminent disaster. Also worth noting, is that martial law has never really officially been \u201cdeclared\u201d there either, it was just gradually imposed through a series of enabling acts and policing actions. As Venezuela\u2019s collapse ought to demonstrate, you don\u2019t \u201cwake up one morning\u201d (as even some prepper websites like to say) to discover your nation\u2019s economy has collapsed; what actually happens is that you watch the economy slide into ruin day by day, gradually at first, and then more and more rapidly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not to say that huge nation-destroying SHTF events never begin with a huge announcement either; just that the onset will tend to take longer than a \u201cmoment\u201d or a day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to putting together a SHTF Plan, you should be looking at real-world historical disasters!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is for most, a SHTF disaster could be as simple as losing your job or a summer storm causing thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of damage to your home when you\u2019re already strapped for cash. In all likelihood, those are the types of crisis situations that are most likely to happen. Unfortunately, these are not the types of threats that receive attention on prepping websites. Not many people share articles about the dangers of losing your job!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s your SHTF Plan? Are you prepping for Personal and Localized Disasters?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from prepping; hell, even the people who are prepping for events like a zombie apocalypse are probably going to be better off during a small-scale event than their unprepared neighbors. That being said, as someone who regularly talks about preparedness, I think it\u2019s important to really think about what you\u2019re actually preparing for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How realistic are your preparedness plans?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The reality of prepping is that when you reach that metaphorical SHTF moment, there is a very high chance that the event will be either hyper-personal or extremely localized in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A job loss, a freak winter storm that shuts down your city, or even an event like Hurricane Katrina are all examples of localized or personal disasters. While they aren\u2019t the Walking Dead, they are things that can feel like an end of the world event when you\u2019re living through the situation firsthand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re not prepared financially, then you’re not prepared.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\"Payday<\/figure><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another aspect of prepping, one that is sadly often ignored, is the area of personal financial security. It\u2019s certainly not as exciting as the Doomsday Preppers Crap that a lot of people try selling, but the reality of the situation is that if you are not prepared financially, you’re not prepared for anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The odds of losing your job or being hit with a major personal financial crisis are much higher than an asteroid slamming into your local Costco. Hey, if the Asteroid keeps you up at night then have at it, but I\u2019m telling you that if you\u2019re not preparing for these mundane small-scale events, you\u2019re not preparing for the reality of the world we live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you do to Plan and Prepare SHTF Moments?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Truck<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In most areas of the world, including the United States, most people are already living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, according to almost every published study, 40% of Americans cannot handle or pay for a $400 emergency expense. If that number hits $1,000, only only 39% of Americans have ability to cover the emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about that for a minute; that means that for many Americans something as simple as a refrigerator breaking down could be their SHTF moment. While romanticizing preparedness might be a good time for some, logically thinking about the reality of your situation is the only way to truly solve your preparedness equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Preparedness Planning needs to include realistically figuring out how long you can actually last without an income.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you lost your job today, how long could you and your family go before you hit that Crisis moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start taking a personal inventory of what you have, how long it will last, and how much money you have in reserves. Next, start thinking of ways to build up your stockpiles of food, water, emergency supplies, and all of the other essential necessities of life \u2013 that includes the boring things that nobody ever writes about like socks, toilet paper, bath soaps, and the things you know you will use on a daily basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you do today to fix your situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n