Prepping – The act of preparing for an upcoming event, scenario or period of time.

In the past ten years our mainstream culture has witnessed rising energy prices (gasoline, oil, electricity), food prices and general cost of living at a quickening pace. Medications and healthcare are costing us more as well. The unemployment rates are high on top of all of this. These trends have been build momentum for years.Do you have life insurance? For what? Isn’t that prepping for the future? While you may say, “yes, but death is inevitable”, I say, you are still investing money to provide for your family when you are gone. Do you have home or auto insurance? Would you if it was not the law to do so?

Sixty years ago or more, our grandparents and great grandparents would have never called “prepping” anything more than living. The lived in a time where getting a hamburger at 3AM, was only going to happen if you had ground beef in your icebox and were willing to fry it. They could not go out to eat at a moment’s notice and get cooked food. Instead they had food stored in their basements, on shelves in cans. Often they canned food themselves. Washing clothes in a tub was common and they used general soaps, borax and washing soda. Pre-made detergents were not the norm. Pre-processed foods were not available. Water still came from wells in some areas. Their homes were heated with oil or coal.

Today we have moved away from that way of life and we call it progression in technology. I will not list all of the ways our lives have changed because of technology, that is a whole other article. But suffice to say that prepping is more or less a movement back towards the way our grandparents lived. Read the rest of this entry »