The Late Prepper with JD Rucker

Walk into any grocery store in America right now and you’ll see it before you reach the meat case. Beef prices aren’t just high — they’re historic. And unlike most price spikes, this one isn’t going away next quarter, next year, or even the year after that.This is not inflation. This is biology. And if you understand what’s actually happening in the American cattle industry, you still have time to get ahead of it.The Numbers Don’t LieHere’s where things stand as of mid-2026:* Ground beef hit a record $6.89 per pound earlier this year, and the USDA projects beef prices will climb another 10% through the rest of 2026.* Ground beef is up roughly 72% since January 2020, when it averaged about $3.88 a pound.* The U.S. cattle herd stands at 86.2 million head — a 75-year low. The last time the herd was this small, it was 1951 and the U.S. population was half what it is today.* Beef and veal prices rose 15% year-over-year in January — while chicken rose just 1.1% and milk was essentially flat.Few in Washington are treating this like a crisis. Your grocery receipt knows better.Why This Won’t Fix ItselfMost price spikes correct themselves. Supply catches up, demand cools off, prices settle. Not this one. Here’s why:The drought gutted the breeding herd. Eight years of persistent drought across the Great Plains and Southwest destroyed grazing land and forced ranchers to sell off breeding stock rather than pay to feed animals on land that could no longer support them.Cheap beef was the warning sign. Here’s the cruel irony: that wave of liquidation temporarily flooded the market with beef. The bargain prices Americans enjoyed a few years ago were the sound of the industry eating its own seed corn. The long-term damage to the herd’s reproductive capacity was hidden behind full meat cases.Biology doesn’t do bailouts. You can print money. You cannot print cattle. Even if every rancher in America started rebuilding their herd today, new supply wouldn’t meaningfully reach grocery shelves until 2028 at the earliest. A heifer held back for breeding today is a steak in three years — that’s the production lag, and there is no shortcut through it.And rebuilding isn’t happening. Record cattle prices should be incentivizing ranchers to expand. Livestock economists say it isn’t happening yet — and warn the herd may not have even hit bottom.Then, there are the wars. The impact from Iran and Ukraine will be felt for a long time.The pressure is stacking from every direction:* Roughly 75% of the U.S. beef cow herd is currently in drought conditions.* The New World screwworm outbreak disrupted live-cattle imports from Mexico.* Four meatpackers control roughly 85% of the fed-cattle market, and packing plants in Nebraska, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee have already closed or cut hours this year.* America has been losing its ranching base for decades — hundreds of thousands of cattle operations gone since the late 1990s.The Late Prepper PlaybookIf you’re just now waking up to this, good news: you’re late, but you’re not too late. The window between now and 2028 is your window. Here are four moves, ordered from cheapest to biggest commitment.1. Buy the freezer before the beef* A small chest freezer runs $150–250 and pays for itself in one good sale cycle.* Grocery stores still run loss-leader promotions on ground beef and roasts. When they do, buy deep — not one package, ten.* Don’t tell me you don’t have space. A small chest freezer fits in a condo, a garage corner, an apartment closet.2. Go half-cow or quarter-cow, direct from a rancher* Buying in bulk directly from a local rancher and processor routinely beats retail per-pound pricing — often dramatically.* You get better cuts, you know where your meat came from, and you’re supporting the exact people getting squeezed out of this industry.* Find a neighbor or two to split a half if a full share is too much. This is how it was done for generations.3. Learn pressure canning* Freezers fail when the grid fails. Canned beef is shelf-stable for years and needs no electricity to keep.* A pressure canner is a one-time investment that lets you put up complete, ready-to-eat meals in jars.* This is the difference between a stocked freezer and true food security.4. Freeze drying* Freeze dried beef, cooked or raw, can last 25 years if properly stored.* Freeze dryers are expensive but over time they pay for themselves versus buying freeze dried survival beef.* Pre-packaged freeze dried beef is fine, but I haven’t found any good ones yet.5. Build a substitution strategy* The price divergence is the whole argument: beef up 15%, chicken up 1.1%, milk flat. The market is handing you a roadmap.* Stretch the beef you have: chili, meatloaf, casseroles, and soups turn one pound into two meals.* Rotate chicken, pork, eggs, and dried beans into the weekly menu now, so the habit is built before you need it.The Bottom LineThe market is telling you the truth even when the headlines aren’t. The people who paid attention to tight cattle inventories two years ago are eating $4 ground beef out of their freezers right now. The people who waited are paying seven dollars a pound and complaining about it.You’re not late until 2028 arrives and you did nothing.Stock the freezer. Call a rancher. Learn to can. Change the menu.The beef problem isn’t coming. It’s here. The only question is whether you get ahead of the next leg up — because the USDA says it’s coming, and this time, the biology backs them up. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

In this Survivopedia article, Alec Deacon warns that digital ID systems and centralized records create dangerous single points of failure for preppers, turning identity, movement, and access into dependencies that can be locked, corrupted, or weaponized when systems fail or turn against the individual.* Digital ID relies on phones, apps, networks, servers, and databases; a dead battery, locked account, outage, or data error can instantly cut off access that a physical document would still provide.* Centralized records link licenses, medical files, banking, taxes, benefits, and travel into one connected profile, so a single mistake or breach can cascade across every part of a person’s life.* Everyday digital trails—fuel purchases, pharmacy visits, food storage orders, travel patterns, and smart-device data—create detailed profiles that can later be used to pressure, price, deny, or expose someone during hard times.* Privacy and discretion are presented as normal and essential; broadcasting every purchase, location, and household detail is a modern habit that preppers must deliberately reverse.* Practical steps include keeping waterproof paper copies of licenses, passports, birth certificates, titles, medical summaries, and key account information in multiple secure locations.* Phone hygiene is critical: delete unused apps, restrict location and sensor permissions, use strong passcodes, and avoid logging everything through a single social-media account.* Separate email addresses and unique passwords for banking versus shopping limit damage if one account is compromised; avoid cloud-synced photos of pantries, safes, or home layouts.* Cash, local relationships with farmers and tradesmen, and correct physical records provide resilience that pure digital dependence cannot match, allowing a family to remain functional when systems treat people as data rather than citizens.Read the full story:https://www.survivopedia.com/the-new-battle-for-your-data-why-preppers-should-care-about-digital-id-and-centralized-records/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The most important prepper activity is to get spiritually prepared by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. After that, the next distant priority is making ourselves as healthy as possible while abundance is available. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

In the predawn hours of January 3, the lights went out across Caracas. No transmission towers were bombed and no power lines were severed. The blackout was accomplished through precise manipulation of the industrial control systems that manage the flow of electricity, synchronized with the American operation that pulled Nicolás Maduro out of his palace and, as ZeroHedge reported, onto a plane bound for an American courtroom. A capital city of millions went dark because someone, somewhere, typed the right commands.That was a preview. Five months later, on May 5, the federal government quietly told every power company, water utility, and pipeline operator in America to plan as though the same thing could happen here. Not as a thought experiment. As a baseline operating assumption.The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency calls the initiative CI Fortify, and buried in its bureaucratic language is one of the most remarkable admissions Washington has ever made. Operators are instructed to assume that in a conflict scenario, third-party connections such as telecommunications, internet, vendors, and service providers will be unreliable, and that threat actors will already have some access to their operational technology networks. Read that again. The agency responsible for defending American infrastructure is telling the people who run that infrastructure to plan as if the enemy is already inside, the phones are dead, and nobody is coming to help.Read More: https://www.lateprepper.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The technocrats are getting their bunkers and preparing like things are about to happen. Should the rest of us be doing the same thing? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The censorship regime is real. They're already playing in the UK. They're coming to America. And disguised within the debacle of censorship are the mechanisms to control more than just our speech. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Daisy Luther over at The Organic Prepper put together a very nice list of items that we may need in the event of long-term emergencies. We often think about food, water, meds, and ammo, but what about nail clippers?Here’s the list itself, though I recommend reading her whole article and using the links that she supplies:* Soap* Laundry products* Shampoo and Conditioner* Disposable razors* Band-Aids* First Aid supplies* Calamine lotion* Dish soap* Feminine hygiene items* Toilet paper* Paper towels* Baby wipes* Shower gel* Cosmetics if you use them* Coconut oil* Peroxide* Rubbing alcohol* Hand sanitizer* Bleach* White vinegar* Cleaning supplies* Garbage bags* Kitty litter* Pet food* Flea and tick medication for pets* Nail clippers/files* Lotion and moisturizer* Sunscreen* Extra filters and parts for your water filtration device* Spare parts for important equipment like canners or tools* Matches* Lighters* Long-burning candles* Batteries* Stationary/school/office supplies* Lip balm* Toothbrushes and toothpaste* Sewing/mending supplies* Hair elastics* Over-the-counter remedies for common ailments like heartburn, nausea, congestion, coughing, and pain relief* Insect repellant* Deodorant* Duct tape* Paper plates and disposable cutlery* Tin foil* Ziplock bags in a variety of sizes* Cotton balls and cotton swabs* Hardware like nails and screws for emergency repairs* Vitamins* Ammo…duh!!! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Daisy Luther over at The Organic Prepper put together a very nice list of items that we may need in the event of long-term emergencies. We often think about food, water, meds, and ammo, but what about nail clippers?Here's the list itself, though I recommend reading her whole article and using the links that she supplies:SoapLaundry productsShampoo and ConditionerDisposable razorsBand-AidsFirst Aid suppliesCalamine lotionDish soapFeminine hygiene itemsToilet paperPaper towelsBaby wipesShower gelCosmetics if you use themCoconut oilPeroxideRubbing alcoholHand sanitizerBleachWhite vinegarCleaning suppliesGarbage bagsKitty litterPet foodFlea and tick medication for petsNail clippers/filesLotion and moisturizerSunscreenExtra filters and parts for your water filtration deviceSpare parts for important equipment like canners or toolsMatchesLightersLong-burning candlesBatteriesStationary/school/office suppliesLip balmToothbrushes and toothpasteSewing/mending suppliesHair elasticsOver-the-counter remedies for common ailments like heartburn, nausea, congestion, coughing, and pain reliefInsect repellantDeodorantDuct tapePaper plates and disposable cutleryTin foilZiplock bags in a variety of sizesCotton balls and cotton swabsHardware like nails and screws for emergncy repairseVitaminsAmmo…duh!!!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most prepping conversations focus on food, water, shelter, and security. Those are the right instincts. But there is a category of vulnerability that doesn’t get nearly enough attention, and for millions of Americans, it may be the most urgent one of all. What happens to the person managing high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, a thyroid condition, or a seizure disorder when the supply chain breaks down and the pharmacy down the street is no longer an option?This is not a hypothetical problem reserved for Hollywood disaster scripts. Supply chain fragility, grid vulnerabilities, civil unrest, and cascading infrastructure failures are real and documented risks. The question is not whether disruption is possible. The question is whether you are prepared for it — and for those who depend on daily, weekly, or monthly medications, preparation requires a specific and deliberate plan that goes well beyond a 72-hour bug-out bag.According to the Centers for Disease Control, roughly 6 in 10 American adults live with at least one chronic disease. A significant portion of those people depend on prescription medication to function — and in some cases, to survive. Without a plan, a prolonged grid-down or societal disruption scenario doesn’t just become uncomfortable. It becomes life-threatening. Here is a framework for thinking through your options now, while there is still time to act.Option 1: Have an Honest Conversation With Your DoctorThe most straightforward starting point is also the most underutilized. Go to your physician and tell them exactly what you are concerned about. Be transparent. Explain that you are paying attention to global instability, that you have read about supply chain vulnerabilities, and that you want to begin building an extended supply of whatever medications you depend on. Ask whether a rotating one-year supply is feasible given your specific prescriptions.Many doctors are more receptive to this conversation than patients expect — particularly in the current climate. Some medications can be prescribed in 90-day supplies rather than 30, which alone gives you room to begin stockpiling through careful rotation. The key principle is rotation: always using your oldest supply first and replenishing from the front, so nothing expires unused.It is also worth knowing that expiration dates on pharmaceuticals are more conservative than they appear. A landmark study conducted for the U.S. Department of Defense tested medications well past their labeled expiration dates and found that 88 percent of tested drug lots remained stable and effective. Proper storage — cool, dry, dark, and sealed — extends viability considerably beyond what the label suggests. Your doctor can advise on which of your specific medications are good candidates for longer-term storage and which are not.If your physician is dismissive or unwilling to engage with a medically reasonable request, that itself is useful information. A doctor who won’t work with a prepared patient may not be the right long-term partner for your health.Option 2: Explore Telehealth and Long-Term Storage Medication ServicesThe telehealth industry has expanded significantly in recent years, and with it, access to physicians who operate outside the traditional brick-and-mortar model. Services designed specifically for preppers and self-reliant families now exist that allow patients to consult with licensed physicians remotely and obtain prescriptions for medications intended for long-term storage.One such resource is Jase Medical, accessible through patriot.tv/meds. Their model is built around exactly this problem — connecting patients with physicians who understand the preparedness mindset and can work with them to build a meaningful pharmaceutical reserve. For those who have struggled to have this conversation with a traditional provider, this is a practical alternative worth exploring.Option 3: Connect With a Compounding PharmacyCompounding pharmacies operate differently from chain pharmacies. Rather than dispensing mass-produced medications, they prepare custom formulations based on a physician’s prescription — mixing ingredients to the exact strength, dosage form, and delivery method a patient needs. For preppers, this flexibility is significant.A compounding pharmacist can work with your doctor to create formulations that are better suited to long-term storage, or to produce a medication in a form that is easier to administer without typical medical infrastructure. They are often more willing than chain pharmacies to engage in extended supply planning, and they can prepare medications that may be difficult to obtain through conventional channels. Ask your physician for a referral, or search for an accredited compounding pharmacy in your region through the Professional Compounding Centers of America.Option 4: Research Natural and Homeopathic AlternativesFor some chronic conditions, nature has provided options that predate the pharmaceutical industry by centuries. This is not a suggestion to abandon proven medication without medical guidance — it is a suggestion to know your alternatives before you need them.Certain herbal and nutritional interventions have documented effects on blood pressure, blood sugar, inflammation, and anxiety. Berberine, for instance, has been studied for its effects on glucose metabolism. Hawthorn extract has a long history in cardiovascular support. Valerian root and magnesium have well-documented roles in sleep and nervous system regulation. None of these are drop-in replacements for prescription medications, but they may help bridge a gap or reduce dependency in a prolonged disruption scenario.The right approach is to begin this research now, in consultation with a physician or naturopath who takes integrative medicine seriously, and to understand what a reasonable transition or supplementation plan might look like for your specific condition. Do not wait until the crisis arrives to discover that you had options you never investigated.Option 5: Investigate International Pharmacy AccessAmericans are often surprised to learn how differently pharmaceuticals are regulated and dispensed in other countries. In Mexico, Canada, and across much of Latin America and Eastern Europe, medications that require a prescription in the United States are available over the counter or through far more accessible channels. Many of these are chemically identical to their American counterparts — same active ingredient, same manufacturer, fraction of the price.For those who travel, building a modest reserve through international pharmacy visits is a legitimate and widely practiced strategy. Cross-border pharmacy access from states like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California is a long-established reality. Online international pharmacy options also exist, though they require careful vetting to ensure legitimacy and product quality. Research the specific regulations governing importation of your medications, understand what quantities are legally permissible, and treat this as one layer of a broader strategy rather than a standalone solution.Option 6: Know the Veterinary and Agricultural Pharmaceutical LandscapeThis option requires the clearest disclaimer of all: this is informational, not a recommendation, and nothing here should be acted on without thorough research and ideally professional guidance. With that said, the reality is that many medications used in veterinary and agricultural settings are chemically identical to human formulations. Amoxicillin, doxycycline, metronidazole, and other antibiotics are among the most frequently cited examples. Fish antibiotics, in particular, have long been discussed in prepper communities as a contingency measure.The concerns are real and should not be dismissed. Dosing equivalency, purity standards, and the absence of FDA oversight for human use are all legitimate issues. But in a true grid-down scenario where no physician or pharmacist is available, and where the alternative is going without any antibiotic treatment at all, the calculus changes. Know this landscape exists. Understand the risks. Make informed decisions for your specific situation before a crisis forces an uninformed one.Option 7: Reduce Dependency Through Lifestyle ModificationThe most durable long-term strategy is also the one that requires the most discipline. Many of the chronic conditions that drive pharmaceutical dependency in America — hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, anxiety, and others — are significantly influenced by lifestyle factors. Diet, exercise, sleep quality, stress management, and body composition all play documented roles in the progression or regression of these conditions.The prepper who spends the next 12 months reducing processed food intake, walking daily, cutting alcohol, managing stress through prayer and community, and reaching a healthier body weight may find that his medication requirements have decreased significantly — or disappeared. This is not wishful thinking. It is well-documented medicine. The bonus is that these changes also improve resilience across virtually every other dimension of preparedness.Isaiah 40:29 puts it plainly: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.” That promise has always carried a cooperative dimension — we are called to steward the health and resources we have been given, not merely to ask for rescue when we have neglected what was within our reach.Build the Plan Before You Need ItNone of these options works as a last-minute solution. A doctor won’t build you a year’s supply of medication the week the grid goes down. A compounding pharmacy won’t be open after a prolonged infrastructure failure. The time to have these conversations, make these connections, and build these reserves is now — while the system is still functioning and while you still have options.Chronic medication dependency is one of the most personal and serious vulnerabilities a prepper can carry. It is also one of the most solvable — if you take it seriously before the moment of crisis. Work through each of these options with your specific conditions and medications in mind, seek qualified medical input at every step, and build a layered plan that doesn’t depend on any single solution holding up under pressure. That is what genuine preparedness looks like.Nothing in this article constitutes medical advice. Consult a licensed physician before making any changes to your medication regimen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most prepping conversations focus on food, water, shelter, and security. Those are the right instincts. But there is a category of vulnerability that doesn’t get nearly enough attention, and for millions of Americans, it may be the most urgent one of all. What happens to the person managing high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, a thyroid condition, or a seizure disorder when the supply chain breaks down and the pharmacy down the street is no longer an option?This is not a hypothetical problem reserved for Hollywood disaster scripts. Supply chain fragility, grid vulnerabilities, civil unrest, and cascading infrastructure failures are real and documented risks. The question is not whether disruption is possible. The question is whether you are prepared for it — and for those who depend on daily, weekly, or monthly medications, preparation requires a specific and deliberate plan that goes well beyond a 72-hour bug-out bag.Read More: https://www.lateprepper.com/p/how-to-handle-chronic-medicationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

JD recently did an episode of The Late Prepper that addresses three ways Americans can prepare for food shortages.* Stockpile: Build up the cupboard and pantry* Preserve: Freeze dry or can everything, especially leftovers* Produce: Build a garden and get chickensHere’s the story that inspired it:Florida’s Oranges, America’s Beef, and Winter Wheat Are Harbingers of Coming Food ShortagesAmerica’s capacity to feed itself is under unprecedented strain. Florida’s orange production has collapsed by 95 percent from its 1996 peak, the national cattle herd has shrunk to its smallest size since 1951 despite a population more than double that of the early postwar years, and severe drought across the Southern Plains is suffocating the wheat crop that supplies much of the nation’s flour. These are not isolated setbacks. They form a pattern of vulnerability that policymakers and the public ignore at their peril.* This article is inspiration for the latest episode of The Late Prepper titled, “Three Basic Moves to Make Ahead of the Coming Food Shortages.”Once-symbolic industries that helped define American abundance now signal fragility. Florida’s citrus groves, long a source of national pride and economic vitality, face near-total erosion. Ranchers have liquidated herds amid persistent dry conditions and soaring costs. Wheat fields that should yield the staff of life stand parched and stunted. The question is no longer whether food prices will rise, but how sharply and for how long—and whether the underlying productive base can recover before broader consequences set in.The Florida orange story is particularly stark. What was once an industry producing enough fruit for nearly every American now barely registers on the national plate. Citrus greening, a bacterial infection delivered by an invasive insect, slowly chokes the trees’ vascular systems. By the time symptoms appear, the damage is irreversible. Decades of hurricanes, freezes, and suburban development have accelerated the retreat of groves, but the disease remains the mortal wound. California and imports may fill some gaps, yet the loss of Florida’s historic production capacity cannot be waved away by substitution alone.Meanwhile, cattle producers confront biology and weather in unforgiving tandem. The nation’s herd has been culled relentlessly since drought scorched pastures and feed costs climbed. Rebuilding takes years—cows must be retained rather than sent to slaughter, and calves must mature. With supplies tight, beef prices have already reached records and show little prospect of meaningful relief. The arrival of the New World screwworm near the border adds another layer of risk; this flesh-eating parasite can devastate herds if it crosses into Texas. Ranchers who have weathered cycles before now face a contraction that coincides with record domestic demand.Winter wheat tells a parallel tale of environmental pressure. Hard red winter wheat, the high-protein variety essential for bread and everyday flour, depends on timely moisture across the Great Plains. Prolonged drought has left fields in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in poor condition, with good-to-excellent ratings plunging. Traders have responded by widening premiums for hard red over softer varieties, a market signal that tighter supplies and higher prices for wheat-derived products lie ahead. When the breadbasket struggles, the ripple reaches every grocery aisle and school lunch program.Compounding these domestic woes is the global fertilizer crunch. Conflict-related disruptions in key shipping corridors have tightened supplies of nitrogen, phosphate, and other inputs at precisely the moment American farmers need them for planting and growth. Surveys indicate most producers anticipate shortfalls, forcing difficult choices between reduced application rates—which lower yields—or higher costs that squeeze margins. Diesel prices, already volatile, threaten to compound the burden for machinery-dependent operations.These developments expose a deeper tension in modern agriculture. Reliance on just-in-time global supply chains for inputs, combined with environmental and biological pressures that defy quick political fixes, leaves the system brittle. Decades of policy that favored consolidation and export-driven models have not always prioritized resilience at home. When disease, drought, and geopolitical shocks converge, the illusion of endless abundance cracks.Observers may point to technological advances or alternative sourcing as solutions, and innovation certainly has a role. Yet history reminds us that productive land, healthy livestock, and favorable weather form the irreplaceable foundation. Neglect or mismanagement of that foundation carries consequences that compound over time.The biblical account in Genesis 41 of seven years of plenty followed by seven of famine underscores the wisdom of stewardship and preparation in the face of uncertainty. Joseph’s counsel to Pharaoh was not panic but prudent storage and foresight during good seasons. In our own day, the prudent course lies in honest assessment of vulnerabilities rather than reflexive optimism that markets or government will simply adjust.America retains immense agricultural strength—vast acreage, skilled producers, and research capacity unmatched elsewhere. That strength, however, is not self-sustaining. Restoring citrus groves, rebuilding cattle herds, and safeguarding wheat lands will require sustained attention to plant and animal health, water management, input availability, and trade policies that do not undermine domestic capacity.Ignoring the warning signs in Florida’s empty groves, shrinking pastures, and thirsty wheat fields risks turning temporary hardship into structural scarcity. The stakes extend beyond grocery bills to the stability and self-reliance that have long defined the American experiment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

America’s capacity to feed itself is under unprecedented strain. Florida’s orange production has collapsed by 95 percent from its 1996 peak, the national cattle herd has shrunk to its smallest size since 1951 despite a population more than double that of the early postwar years, and severe drought across the Southern Plains is suffocating the wheat crop that supplies much of the nation’s flour. These are not isolated setbacks. They form a pattern of vulnerability that policymakers and the public ignore at their peril.Once-symbolic industries that helped define American abundance now signal fragility. Florida’s citrus groves, long a source of national pride and economic vitality, face near-total erosion. Ranchers have liquidated herds amid persistent dry conditions and soaring costs. Wheat fields that should yield the staff of life stand parched and stunted. The question is no longer whether food prices will rise, but how sharply and for how long—and whether the underlying productive base can recover before broader consequences set in.Read More: https://discern.tv/floridas-oranges-americas-beef-and-winter-wheat-are-harbingers-of-coming-food-shortages/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Here I sit on day 10 of a pure water fast, sipping nothing but H2O while my body quietly shifts into a deeper state of ketosis. My blood pressure has dropped nicely, ketones are holding steady in that elevated range that signals fat-burning mode, and my blood sugar remains low and stable. I feel clearer-headed than I have in months. Hunger pangs faded days ago. I have no firm end date in mind. I’ll stop when it feels right—maybe soon, maybe not. My previous longest water fast hit 15 days, cut short only by an unavoidable business lunch. This time feels different. It feels purposeful.As someone deeply invested in preparedness—stockpiling food, water, gear, and skills for whatever storms may come—I’ve come to a strong conviction. Overweight preppers especially need to take a hard look at extended water fasting as part of their overall readiness plan. This isn’t reckless advice. It comes with serious caveats. Always consult your physician before starting any fast. Do thorough research on proper protocols. Experts widely recommend full medical supervision for anything beyond 72 hours. And if you lack sufficient excess body fat, prolonged fasting risks muscle degradation and other complications. Done incorrectly, it can harm rather than help. But approached wisely, with monitoring and common sense, it offers powerful benefits that align perfectly with the prepper mindset.Let me walk you through why I believe some preppers should seriously consider climbing aboard the fasting train. These insights come from my current experience, prior fasts, and a growing body of science and scriptural wisdom that points to fasting as both practical and profound preparation.First, fasting builds genuine physical resilience—the kind that matters when supply chains collapse or daily life turns chaotic. Many of us in the preparedness community carry extra weight from years of abundant food and sedentary planning sessions. That excess becomes a liability in a crisis. Water fasting forces the body to burn stored fat for fuel, often leading to meaningful weight loss while triggering autophagy, the cellular “housecleaning” process where damaged components get recycled. Studies show improvements in insulin sensitivity, reduced inflammation, lower blood pressure, and better metabolic markers during supervised fasts. My own readings confirm this: blood pressure trending down, stable energy once past the initial adjustment, and a digestive system that feels reset.Imagine a scenario where catastrophe hits—grid down, stores empty, movement restricted. The last thing you want is reduced mobility, high blood pressure straining your heart during stress, or insulin resistance making energy crashes more likely. Fasting gives you a head start on shedding that vulnerability. It’s proactive health maintenance, not vanity. Preppers already invest in firearms, generators, and long-term food storage. Why not invest in the most important asset of all—your own body? A healthier, leaner frame can hike farther with a bug-out bag, defend your family longer, or simply endure hardship without folding early. The anti-inflammatory effects and cellular repair that ramp up after several days could mean fewer chronic issues flaring up precisely when medical care disappears.Second, fasting trains your body and mind for the involuntary food shortages that preppers know may come. In a real SHTF event, rationing becomes survival math. Families will face tough choices about who eats what. Having practiced extended water fasting removes the panic and physical shock of sudden calorie deprivation. You learn the rhythm: the first few days of adjustment, the mental fog lifting as ketones rise, the surprising mental clarity that follows. I’ve experienced it now multiple times. Once you’ve walked through that valley voluntarily, a future forced fast feels less like crisis and more like familiar territory.This preparation extends practically. You can conserve family rations by fasting strategically, allowing children or elderly loved ones priority access to limited stores. Solo preppers gain the confidence that they can stretch supplies dramatically if needed. The metabolic flexibility developed during a water fast—shifting efficiently from glucose to fat and ketones—means your body wastes less energy panicking over empty cupboards. Science backs the adaptation: after glycogen depletes, fat mobilization kicks in strongly, and the brain runs cleaner on ketones. That edge could be the difference between functioning effectively for weeks versus collapsing after days. Preppers stock months of food, but training the body to need less for periods builds redundancy that no pantry can match.Third, and perhaps most importantly for many in our community, fasting deepens spiritual connection and mental fortitude. The Bible repeatedly shows fasting as a discipline for humbling oneself before God, seeking clarity, and gaining strength against overwhelming odds. Jesus fasted 40 days before launching His ministry. He told His disciples that certain spiritual battles require prayer and fasting. Old Testament figures like Moses, David, Esther, and Nehemiah turned to fasting in times of national crisis or personal need. It wasn’t casual dieting—it was deliberate denial of the flesh to draw nearer to the divine.Even for those approaching it secularly, the neurological benefits are real. Elevated ketones and norepinephrine during extended fasts often bring sharper focus, reduced anxiety, and a profound sense of calm. In my experience on day 10, prayer flows more naturally. Distractions fade. You confront your own weaknesses without the numbing buffer of constant eating. That mental and spiritual toughness prepares you for the fear, uncertainty, and moral decisions a collapse will demand. Preppers talk constantly about mindset. Fasting forges it in fire—teaching dependence on something greater than daily bread, whether that’s faith in God or simply inner resolve.Of course, balance and wisdom remain essential. Not everyone should attempt this. Those with certain medical conditions, low body fat, or who are pregnant or nursing must steer clear or proceed only under close doctor oversight. Electrolyte management, hydration, and careful refeeding matter enormously to avoid refeeding syndrome or other setbacks. I track my vitals daily because preparation without prudence is foolishness. The goal isn’t suffering for its own sake but strategic strengthening.As I continue this fast, watching the numbers and listening to my body, the conviction grows stronger. Preparedness isn’t just about beans, bullets, and bandages. It’s holistic—body, mind, and spirit aligned for whatever lies ahead. Water fasting, when done responsibly, delivers on all three fronts. It trims physical weakness, builds adaptive resilience against hunger, and sharpens the inner compass we’ll all need in dark days.If you’re an overweight prepper staring at potential hard times, consider adding fasting to your training regimen. Start small if needed—intermittent fasting or shorter water fasts—to build tolerance. Research deeply. Get medical guidance. Then experience for yourself what days of disciplined denial can unlock.I don’t know exactly when this current fast will end, but I already know it won’t be my last. The clarity, the health markers, the spiritual depth—they all point toward a tool too valuable for serious preppers to ignore. The fasting train isn’t a fad. For those willing to board it wisely, it may prove one of the most practical and powerful preparations we can make.Stay vigilant, stay healthy, and keep building that readiness—inside and out. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Here I sit on day 10 of a pure water fast, sipping nothing but H2O while my body quietly shifts into a deeper state of ketosis. My blood pressure has dropped nicely, ketones are holding steady in that elevated range that signals fat-burning mode, and my blood sugar remains low and stable. I feel clearer-headed than I have in months. Hunger pangs faded days ago. I have no firm end date in mind. I’ll stop when it feels right—maybe soon, maybe not. My previous longest water fast hit 15 days, cut short only by an unavoidable business lunch. This time feels different. It feels purposeful.As someone deeply invested in preparedness—stockpiling food, water, gear, and skills for whatever storms may come—I’ve come to a strong conviction. Overweight preppers especially need to take a hard look at extended water fasting as part of their overall readiness plan. This isn’t reckless advice. It comes with serious caveats. Always consult your physician before starting any fast. Do thorough research on proper protocols. Experts widely recommend full medical supervision for anything beyond 72 hours. And if you lack sufficient excess body fat, prolonged fasting risks muscle degradation and other complications. Done incorrectly, it can harm rather than help. But approached wisely, with monitoring and common sense, it offers powerful benefits that align perfectly with the prepper mindset.Let me walk you through why I believe some preppers should seriously consider climbing aboard the fasting train. These insights come from my current experience, prior fasts, and a growing body of science and scriptural wisdom that points to fasting as both practical and profound preparation.First, fasting builds genuine physical resilience—the kind that matters when supply chains collapse or daily life turns chaotic. Many of us in the preparedness community carry extra weight from years of abundant food and sedentary planning sessions. That excess becomes a liability in a crisis. Water fasting forces the body to burn stored fat for fuel, often leading to meaningful weight loss while triggering autophagy, the cellular “housecleaning” process where damaged components get recycled. Studies show improvements in insulin sensitivity, reduced inflammation, lower blood pressure, and better metabolic markers during supervised fasts. My own readings confirm this: blood pressure trending down, stable energy once past the initial adjustment, and a digestive system that feels reset.Imagine a scenario where catastrophe hits—grid down, stores empty, movement restricted. The last thing you want is reduced mobility, high blood pressure straining your heart during stress, or insulin resistance making energy crashes more likely. Fasting gives you a head start on shedding that vulnerability. It’s proactive health maintenance, not vanity. Preppers already invest in firearms, generators, and long-term food storage. Why not invest in the most important asset of all—your own body? A healthier, leaner frame can hike farther with a bug-out bag, defend your family longer, or simply endure hardship without folding early. The anti-inflammatory effects and cellular repair that ramp up after several days could mean fewer chronic issues flaring up precisely when medical care disappears.Second, fasting trains your body and mind for the involuntary food shortages that preppers know may come. In a real SHTF event, rationing becomes survival math. Families will face tough choices about who eats what. Having practiced extended water fasting removes the panic and physical shock of sudden calorie deprivation. You learn the rhythm: the first few days of adjustment, the mental fog lifting as ketones rise, the surprising mental clarity that follows. I’ve experienced it now multiple times. Once you’ve walked through that valley voluntarily, a future forced fast feels less like crisis and more like familiar territory.This preparation extends practically. You can conserve family rations by fasting strategically, allowing children or elderly loved ones priority access to limited stores. Solo preppers gain the confidence that they can stretch supplies dramatically if needed. The metabolic flexibility developed during a water fast—shifting efficiently from glucose to fat and ketones—means your body wastes less energy panicking over empty cupboards. Science backs the adaptation: after glycogen depletes, fat mobilization kicks in strongly, and the brain runs cleaner on ketones. That edge could be the difference between functioning effectively for weeks versus collapsing after days. Preppers stock months of food, but training the body to need less for periods builds redundancy that no pantry can match.Third, and perhaps most importantly for many in our community, fasting deepens spiritual connection and mental fortitude. The Bible repeatedly shows fasting as a discipline for humbling oneself before God, seeking clarity, and gaining strength against overwhelming odds. Jesus fasted 40 days before launching His ministry. He told His disciples that certain spiritual battles require prayer and fasting. Old Testament figures like Moses, David, Esther, and Nehemiah turned to fasting in times of national crisis or personal need. It wasn’t casual dieting—it was deliberate denial of the flesh to draw nearer to the divine.Even for those approaching it secularly, the neurological benefits are real. Elevated ketones and norepinephrine during extended fasts often bring sharper focus, reduced anxiety, and a profound sense of calm. In my experience on day 10, prayer flows more naturally. Distractions fade. You confront your own weaknesses without the numbing buffer of constant eating. That mental and spiritual toughness prepares you for the fear, uncertainty, and moral decisions a collapse will demand. Preppers talk constantly about mindset. Fasting forges it in fire—teaching dependence on something greater than daily bread, whether that’s faith in God or simply inner resolve.Of course, balance and wisdom remain essential. Not everyone should attempt this. Those with certain medical conditions, low body fat, or who are pregnant or nursing must steer clear or proceed only under close doctor oversight. Electrolyte management, hydration, and careful refeeding matter enormously to avoid refeeding syndrome or other setbacks. I track my vitals daily because preparation without prudence is foolishness. The goal isn’t suffering for its own sake but strategic strengthening.As I continue this fast, watching the numbers and listening to my body, the conviction grows stronger. Preparedness isn’t just about beans, bullets, and bandages. It’s holistic—body, mind, and spirit aligned for whatever lies ahead. Water fasting, when done responsibly, delivers on all three fronts. It trims physical weakness, builds adaptive resilience against hunger, and sharpens the inner compass we’ll all need in dark days.If you’re an overweight prepper staring at potential hard times, consider adding fasting to your training regimen. Start small if needed—intermittent fasting or shorter water fasts—to build tolerance. Research deeply. Get medical guidance. Then experience for yourself what days of disciplined denial can unlock.I don’t know exactly when this current fast will end, but I already know it won’t be my last. The clarity, the health markers, the spiritual depth—they all point toward a tool too valuable for serious preppers to ignore. The fasting train isn’t a fad. For those willing to board it wisely, it may prove one of the most practical and powerful preparations we can make.Stay vigilant, stay healthy, and keep building that readiness—inside and out.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

In uncertain times, countless families stockpile food for potential emergencies only to discover later that their carefully gathered supplies have become unusable. A recent video from the preparedness community highlights the five most common and costly mistakes preppers make with food storage.Addressing these errors can mean the difference between having dependable sustenance when it matters most and facing empty shelves or spoiled goods at a critical moment.Read More: https://www.lateprepper.com/p/the-5-worst-food-storage-mistakesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The decision between buying commercial survival food and making your own ultimately comes down to four key factors: cost, space, time, and dedication.As preppers, we all want reliable long-term stores that will sustain our families when supply chains fail. Honest self-assessment of these four elements helps you build smarter, avoid wasted money, and create a plan that actually fits your life.Cost: DIY Often Wins Big Over TimeCommercial freeze-dried meals typically cost $7–$14 per serving, with many entrees averaging around $11–$14 for a two-person pouch. In contrast, home-processed food from bulk staples, garden produce, or even leftovers can drop your per-meal cost dramatically — sometimes to under $1 when using a home freeze dryer after the initial investment.Basic pressure canning requires minimal upfront cost (a quality canner under $100 plus jars and lids), while a home freeze dryer runs $2,000–$5,000. Yet many users report breaking even within 18–24 months through massive savings on #10 cans and reduced food waste. Canning leftovers or dehydrating bulk rice, beans, and grains offers some of the cheapest calories available to preppers.Space: Similar Storage Needs, Different Prep DemandsOnce sealed and stored, both purchased buckets/pouches and your own mylar-bagged or canned goods require roughly the same footprint — often estimated at about one cubic foot per person per day for a complete caloric diet. The real space difference shows up during preparation.DIY methods demand a dedicated workspace for cooking, blanching, canning sessions, or running multi-day freeze-dry cycles. If you live in a small apartment without a garage or basement, this can become a serious constraint. Commercial options let you stack buckets and forget them until needed.Time: Buying Wins for Speed and ConvenienceNothing beats the convenience of purchased survival food. A few clicks online or a quick pickup delivers ready-to-store supplies with 25–30 year shelf lives. Making your own requires hours — sometimes days — of shopping bulk ingredients, cooking, processing, packaging, and labeling.Gardening or homesteading adds even more time from planting through harvest and preservation. If your schedule is already packed, buying gets you prepared faster while you slowly build DIY skills on the side.Dedication: The Real Deciding FactorDedication here isn’t just about wanting to survive — it’s about committing to the ongoing work. Canning, dehydrating, and especially maintaining a garden or livestock require consistent effort, learning curves, equipment maintenance, and store rotation.Those willing to invest that time gain tremendous benefits: complete control over ingredients, customization for dietary needs or family tastes, and the deepest self-reliance. Beginners or time-strapped households often start with commercial kits for immediate peace of mind.The Smart Hybrid Approach Most Preppers ChooseMany experienced preppers use a layered strategy: Buy quality commercial buckets and pouches for a solid base of quick-deploy calories and variety. Then layer in home-canned goods, mylar-packed bulk staples (rice, beans, wheat), and freeze-dried favorites from your own kitchen as skills and time allow.This hybrid method balances convenience with cost savings and builds real preparedness without forcing an all-or-nothing commitment. Start where you are today — even small consistent actions compound into serious security.Bottom line for The Late Prepper: If budget is tight and you have the dedication and workspace, lean heavily into making your own. If time is your scarcest resource, invest in reliable commercial supplies to get protected quickly. Most of us land somewhere in the middle — and that balanced path often proves the most sustainable and effective.Whatever route you choose, the most important step is action. Build stores your family will actually eat, rotate them regularly, and keep learning. Preparedness isn’t about perfection — it’s about being ready when it matters most.Have questions about your specific setup — budget, space constraints, or preferred preservation methods? Drop them in the comments or reach out. We’ll help refine your plan. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The decision between buying commercial survival food and making your own ultimately comes down to four key factors: cost, space, time, and dedication.As preppers, we all want reliable long-term stores that will sustain our families when supply chains fail. Honest self-assessment of these four elements helps you build smarter, avoid wasted money, and create a plan that actually fits your life.Read More: https://www.lateprepper.com/p/should-you-buy-survival-food-or-makeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Forward-thinking preppers are redefining what it means to invest. Instead of chasing paper gains in stocks or crypto alone, they focus on tangible assets that strengthen self-reliance today while preserving or even growing real wealth over time. These prepper investments deliver dual returns: they build survival capabilities for uncertain futures and often generate income, cut expenses, or appreciate in value even if “normal” times continue. It is not about speculation or get-rich-quick schemes, but about wise stewardship that echoes ancient wisdom.The Bible offers a powerful model for this approach in the story of Joseph. Pharaoh’s dreams foretold seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Joseph advised storing resources during abundance to survive the lean years ahead. As Genesis 41:35-36 records: “And let them gather all the food of those good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh, and let them keep food in the cities. And that food shall be for store to the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; that the land perish not through the famine.”Joseph’s plan turned potential disaster into security, proving that preparation during good times is both practical and faithful. Modern preppers follow a similar path by channeling resources into assets that feed, shelter, and protect families no matter what comes.One of the strongest prepper investments remains land acquisition. Productive rural or semi-rural property serves as a foundation for food production, water access, and retreat space. Well-chosen acreage often holds or increases in value through appreciation and improvements, while allowing immediate use for gardening, foraging, or small-scale farming. Unlike speculative real estate flips, this land works for you daily, yielding harvests that reduce grocery bills and build long-term soil fertility.Home improvements that double as value-adders offer another smart avenue. Installing solar panels or alternative energy systems can qualify for incentives, lower utility costs, and provide grid-independent power. A permanent backyard grill or outdoor kitchen enhances everyday living and resale appeal while ensuring cooking capability during outages. Expanding into a large garden or greenhouse boosts home equity through landscaping upgrades and delivers fresh produce year-round. These upgrades turn living space into a resilient fortress without sacrificing financial sense.Livestock fits naturally into this strategy for those willing to invest time and initial capital. Chickens, goats, or bees require labor, yet they pay dividends quickly. Eggs, milk, meat, and honey generate savings on store-bought goods and can be sold locally for extra income. A small apiary, for example, produces marketable honey and beeswax while pollinating gardens for higher yields. Over time, these living assets create self-sustaining loops of food and revenue that strengthen household resilience.Property fortification and a second home or homestead provide layered security. Reinforcing structures with storm-proofing, rainwater collection, or secure storage adds measurable value to any property. A modest second location—whether a rural cabin, fortified bunker, or working homestead—functions as both a vacation spot and backup retreat. Even without societal collapse, these properties retain strong resale potential and rental income possibilities, turning preparedness into an appreciating asset rather than a sunk cost. If the apocalypse doesn’t come in our lifetimes, second properties can be passed down.Perhaps the most creative prepper investments involve starting businesses that build supplies on the backend while generating front-end profits. Opening a gun range or firearms training facility allows legal stockpiling of weapons and ammunition without raising red flags, all while serving customers and turning a profit. A small restaurant or food truck creates steady cash flow and the perfect mechanism to rotate and test long-term food storage supplies. Other strong ideas include livestock operation that sells food and supplies, an aquaponics farm producing fish and vegetables for market, or a seed-saving and heirloom gardening business that stocks vast varieties for personal use while shipping to customers. A woodworking shop can craft and sell durable goods while accumulating tools and raw materials that double as preparedness inventory. Each venture turns daily operations into strategic prepping.Ultimately, prepper investing is about aligning resources with reality. It honors the diligence of the ant in Proverbs and the foresight of Joseph, building stores during plenty so families stand firm when times tighten. By choosing assets that produce, protect, and appreciate, preppers secure not only survival but a measure of peace and prosperity—regardless of what the future holds. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Forward-thinking preppers are redefining what it means to invest. Instead of chasing paper gains in stocks or crypto alone, they focus on tangible assets that strengthen self-reliance today while preserving or even growing real wealth over time. These prepper investments deliver dual returns: they build survival capabilities for uncertain futures and often generate income, cut expenses, or appreciate in value even if “normal” times continue. It is not about speculation or get-rich-quick schemes, but about wise stewardship that echoes ancient wisdom.Read More: https://www.lateprepper.com/p/prepper-investing-how-to-build-yourSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The Disasters Most Americans Ignore Until It’s Too Late* Most people prepare for dramatic, Hollywood-style disasters while ignoring the far more likely threats.* Power grid failures, supply chain disruptions, and cyberattacks are among the most realistic risks.* Short-term disruptions can quickly spiral into long-term crises if systems do not recover quickly.* Grocery stores, fuel systems, and banking all rely on fragile, interconnected infrastructure.* The first 72 hours of any crisis often determine how severe the situation becomes.* Preparing for common, realistic scenarios is far more effective than planning for rare extremes.* Awareness of these risks allows families to take simple, practical steps to protect themselves.When most people think about disasters, they imagine dramatic events—massive earthquakes, apocalyptic storms, or cinematic scenarios that feel distant and unlikely. But history shows that the most disruptive crises are often far less dramatic and far more common. The real danger is not the spectacular event everyone sees coming. It is the quiet vulnerability built into the systems we rely on every day.Grid FailureOne of the most overlooked threats is the fragility of the power grid. Electricity is not just about keeping the lights on. It powers water treatment facilities, fuel pumps, grocery distribution centers, hospitals, and communication networks. If the grid goes down for an extended period, the effects cascade quickly. Water pressure drops, food spoils, gas stations stop working, and communication becomes unreliable. What begins as a power outage can rapidly evolve into a full-scale societal disruption.Supply Chain CollapseClosely tied to this is the vulnerability of the supply chain. Modern logistics operate on a “just-in-time” model, meaning stores receive goods only as they are needed rather than maintaining large reserves. This system is efficient under normal conditions but extremely fragile during disruptions. We saw glimpses of this during the pandemic, when shelves emptied within days. A trucking slowdown, port shutdown, or fuel shortage can trigger similar outcomes. Most households are not prepared for even a short interruption in food availability.CyberattackCyberattacks represent another growing and often underestimated threat. Critical infrastructure—from pipelines to hospitals to financial institutions—is increasingly connected to digital systems. A successful cyberattack can disrupt fuel supplies, disable payment systems, or shut down entire networks. Unlike natural disasters, cyber events can occur without warning and may take longer to diagnose and resolve. For the average family, this could mean being unable to access money, fuel, or essential services at the exact moment they are needed most.Catastrophic WeatherSevere weather events are often dismissed because they feel routine, yet they remain one of the most consistent causes of disruption across the United States. Hurricanes, winter storms, wildfires, and heatwaves regularly knock out power, block transportation routes, and isolate communities. What makes these events dangerous is not just their intensity but their frequency. Many families assume they will “ride it out” as they always have, only to find themselves unprepared when conditions worsen or recovery takes longer than expected.Economic CollapseAnother commonly ignored risk is the fragility of the financial system. Most people assume that access to money is guaranteed, but banking systems depend on electricity, internet connectivity, and institutional stability. During certain crises, access to funds can be delayed or restricted. Even short-term disruptions can create panic, especially when combined with supply shortages. Financial preparedness—having cash on hand and reducing reliance on digital systems—can make a significant difference during uncertain times.What ties all of these threats together is how quickly they can escalate. Disruptions rarely remain isolated. A power outage affects water systems. A cyberattack disrupts fuel distribution. A storm interrupts supply chains. These systems are interconnected, and when one fails, others often follow. This is why the first 72 hours of any crisis are so critical. It is during this window that panic sets in, resources become scarce, and the unprepared find themselves scrambling.The good news is that preparing for these realistic scenarios is not complicated. In fact, it is far simpler than preparing for extreme, unlikely events. Storing extra food and water, maintaining basic emergency supplies, and having a plan for communication and shelter can cover the majority of likely disruptions. The goal is not to predict the exact crisis but to build resilience that applies across many situations.Preparedness is ultimately about recognizing reality rather than fearing it. The systems we depend on are efficient but not invulnerable. By focusing on the disasters most Americans ignore, families can take practical steps that dramatically reduce their risk. When disruption comes—and eventually, it always does—the difference between chaos and stability often comes down to whether someone chose to prepare before it happened. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most people prepare for dramatic, Hollywood-style disasters while ignoring the far more likely threats.Power grid failures, supply chain disruptions, and cyberattacks are among the most realistic risks.Short-term disruptions can quickly spiral into long-term crises if systems do not recover quickly.Grocery stores, fuel systems, and banking all rely on fragile, interconnected infrastructure.The first 72 hours of any crisis often determine how severe the situation becomes.Preparing for common, realistic scenarios is far more effective than planning for rare extremes.Awareness of these risks allows families to take simple, practical steps to protect themselves.Read More: https://www.lateprepper.com/p/the-5-most-likely-disasters-thatSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

It won’t look like a Hollywood disaster. No blaring alarms, no sudden blackout. Just a quiet tightening: fertilizer prices jumping 28–32% in weeks because shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle. Grocery staples becoming patchy. Fuel and shipping costs creeping higher. Spring planting pressures that could push food prices up later this year.The ongoing conflict in Iran, with its effective disruption of one of the world’s most critical chokepoints, reminds us that today’s biggest threats are often “non-emergency” disasters—prolonged supply-chain squeezes that erode normal life one delayed shipment at a time.Here are the five practical steps they took—and that any household can follow right now—to build resilience against the slow creep.1. Build a Rotating 90-Day Pantry BufferWe can (and should) have freeze-dried and canned survival food for the long-term, but the first line of defense in a major supply chain disruption is the rotating pantry. Instead of waiting for empty shelves, we should stock up and plan for acquiring the foods our family already eats.* Aim for at least 2,000 calories per person per day for 90 days.* Prioritize shelf-stable, calorie-dense staples likely to face pressure: rice, beans, oats, canned meats and vegetables, nut butters, powdered milk, and cooking oils.* Watch signals tied to current disruptions—urea and phosphate fertilizer shortages are already tightening global agriculture. Stock a bit more of grains and oils while prices are still manageable.* Use the “first in, first out” rotation so nothing goes to waste. Add 5–10 extra familiar items to every normal shopping trip.You don’t have to have 90-days stocked up immediately. For the sake of budget, build up over time. Just don’t take too much time; the food price spikes from the current situation with fertilizer will dramatically hit food prices in 5-10 months.2. Secure Water and Reliable FiltrationDisruptions don’t always hit food first. Energy and chemical supply issues can indirectly affect municipal water treatment.* Store one gallon per person per day for 30–90 days in food-grade containers or stackable jugs.* Invest in a gravity-fed filter system that doesn’t rely on electricity.* Consider a secondary rainwater collection setup if local codes allow (even simple barrels for non-drinking use).This can get expensive quickly. Depending on your proximity to natural water supplies, it may behoove you to stock up on more than 90-days worth.3. Address Energy and Fuel RealitiesHigher oil prices from Hormuz disruptions raise the cost of trucking groceries, running refrigeration, and producing everyday goods.* Stock extra propane for a camp stove or outdoor grill as a no-electricity cooking backup.* Consider a solar generator or battery system sized for essentials: refrigerator, lights, phone charging, and a hand-crank radio.* Learn simple no-cook meal recipes—overnight oats, canned tuna salads, nut butter sandwiches—so you can stretch resources without panic.* The sun itself can help you cook food, and not just from the energy it delivers to your generator. You can cook directly from sunlight with a good solar oven.A best practice is also to practice skills and use items that require no power at all; a manual can opener is a good example (and have multiple for the long-term in case they break).4. Invest in Skills Over HoardingStuff matters, but skills multiply your options when supply chains stay unpredictable.* Started a modest backyard garden and raised beds with fast-growing greens, herbs, and a few calorie crops.* Learned basic water-bath canning and dehydrating from online tutorials and a knowledgeable neighbor.* Built quiet community connections—knowing who in the neighborhood gardens, keeps chickens, or has mechanical skills creates natural barter opportunities.This used to be something we did as part of life. Our modern amenities combined with having the wealth of human knowledge at our fingertips made learning skills somewhat obsolete. Don’t be stuck not knowing how to do things if the internet and mobile connections go down.5. Practice Financial and Mindset DiscernmentThe greatest danger in a slow-creep scenario is emotional spending that creates debt or waste.* Redirect a portion of your regular grocery budget into extra staples instead of panic-buying.* Track prices on vulnerable items (oils, cereals, imported goods) to spot trends early.* Cultivate a mindset of stewardship: preparation is responsible freedom, not isolation. It positions you to help others when the creep intensifies.The best thing you can do financially, whether the crap hits the fan in the near future or not, is to eliminate as much debt as possible, preferably all of it.Final NoteThe slow creep is already underway. The encouraging truth? You still have time to respond with wisdom instead of worry. Start with one of the five steps this week. Build consistently. Turn uncertainty into quiet strength.Above all else, become spiritually prepared. Knowing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, repenting, and being born again is the only true requirement. If you do that, then whatever this world throws out you will be fleeting compared to eternity. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

It won’t look like a Hollywood disaster. No blaring alarms, no sudden blackout. Just a quiet tightening: fertilizer prices jumping 28–32% in weeks because shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle. Grocery staples becoming patchy. Fuel and shipping costs creeping higher. Spring planting pressures that could push food prices up later this year.The ongoing conflict in Iran, with its effective disruption of one of the world’s most critical chokepoints, reminds us that today’s biggest threats are often “non-emergency” disasters—prolonged supply-chain squeezes that erode normal life one delayed shipment at a time.Here are the five practical steps they took—and that any household can follow right now—to build resilience against the slow creep.Read More: https://discern.tv/the-slow-creep-catastrophe-how-to-prepare-for-non-emergency-disasters-on-the-horizon/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

There is a peculiar arrogance embedded in modern American life — the assumption that the lights will always come back on, that the pharmacy will always be stocked, that the grocery store shelves will always be full, and that a repairman is only a Google search away. We have outsourced virtually every competency our grandparents possessed to a complex web of systems, services, and supply chains that most of us couldn’t begin to explain, let alone sustain. We have become, in the precise and damning sense of the word, helpless. Not by nature, but by design — by the seductive convenience of modernity.And modernity is fragile.The 2021 Texas winter storm didn’t care that millions of people had no idea how to survive without electricity. A prolonged cyberattack on the power grid wouldn’t pause for anyone who assumed their water would always run hot. A pandemic, an economic collapse, an EMP event, a cascading infrastructure failure — these are not fever dreams of paranoid hermits. They are documented historical patterns playing out on new stages. What separates the person who endures from the one who perishes in those moments is rarely gear alone. It is knowledge. It is skill. It is the capacity to act when every familiar support system has gone dark.The internet is the greatest library in the history of human civilization. You can learn to suture a wound, identify edible plants, tan a hide, build a solar generator, or speak Morse code — all for free, right now. But that library depends on the same infrastructure you’re trying to learn to live without. The window to acquire these skills using the tools that make them easiest to learn may be shorter than any of us would like to admit. What follows is not a hobbyist’s checklist. It is a serious reckoning with what it means to be genuinely self-sufficient in a world that could, without much warning at all, stop providing for you.Medicine Without a DoctorOf all the comforts modernity has given us, none is more deeply assumed than pharmaceutical medicine. We take pills for blood pressure, for infection, for pain, for anxiety — often without the slightest understanding of what alternatives existed before the corner CVS. Should those supply chains fracture, a routine infection could become a death sentence for those who haven’t prepared accordingly.This is where herbal and natural medicine stops being a quaint hobby and becomes a survival discipline. For centuries before synthetic pharmaceuticals, human beings managed illness through plant medicine — and much of what they used has since been validated by modern research. Garlic (Allium sativum) has well-documented antimicrobial properties. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) has been used for millennia to staunch bleeding and reduce fever. Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) has demonstrated antiviral properties in clinical studies. Plantain leaf — the common “weed” you’ve probably been pulling out of your lawn — draws out infection and speeds wound healing. Usnea lichen, known as Old Man’s Beard, has been called “nature’s antibiotic” for its strong antimicrobial properties.The prepper’s natural medicine cabinet should include working knowledge of:Wound care: Beyond bandaging, you need to understand which plants serve as natural antiseptics. Raw honey — particularly Manuka — has been used clinically for wound dressing. Calendula makes an effective healing salve. A poultice of comfrey or plantain can draw out infection and reduce swelling. Knowing how to pack and dress a wound under pressure, without sterile hospital supplies, is a skill that saves lives.Infection and fever: Echinacea and elderberry can help stimulate immune response during early illness. Willow bark contains salicin — the precursor to aspirin — and can be made into a tea for fever and pain relief. Learning to make tinctures (alcohol-based herbal extracts), infused oils, and decoctions (boiled plant medicines) means you can produce remedies from plants you’ve grown or foraged rather than depending on a supply chain.Respiratory illness: Thyme and mullein have both demonstrated effectiveness as expectorants. A simple steam inhalation with eucalyptus can provide meaningful relief in respiratory infection. Knowing how to make a chest-clearing herbal steam is not folk nonsense — it is practical medicine that will matter greatly when the nearest emergency room is inaccessible.Pain management: St. John’s Wort has been extensively studied for mild to moderate pain and nerve pain. Clove oil has been used for centuries as a topical analgesic, particularly for dental pain — a condition that becomes acutely serious in a world without dentists.Beyond plant medicine, every serious prepper should pursue formal wilderness first aid certification. Courses offered through organizations like NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) or Wilderness Medical Associates teach you to manage trauma, fractures, dislocations, wound closure, and shock in austere environments without access to hospitals. A basic knowledge of CPR is table stakes. Knowing how to recognize signs of sepsis, how to improvise a tourniquet, how to manage a sucking chest wound, or how to reduce a dislocated shoulder — these are the skills that turn panic into action.The Book of Proverbs says: “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 22:3, KJV). It was true three thousand years ago. It is just as true now. The prudent man has a medicine chest that doesn’t depend on FedEx.Food from the Land, Not the StoreThe modern American has become so detached from food production that most children cannot name the plant a carrot grows on. We have reduced “food literacy” to knowing which aisle holds the canned goods. In a grid-down world, that kind of ignorance is dangerous.There are two parallel tracks every prepper should pursue: foraging and cultivation.Foraging for wild edibles is among the oldest human skills and one of the most perishable — because almost no one practices it anymore. The critical point that any honest guide must make at the outset is this: only roughly 5–10 percent of all wild plants are edible. The rest are either indigestible, unpalatable, or lethally toxic. Enthusiasm without knowledge is not just useless here — it is fatal. Elderberries and water hemlock can look similar to the untrained eye, and water hemlock is among the most violently toxic plants in North America.That said, once learned, foraging transforms the landscape around you from inert scenery into a living pantry. Dandelions — despised by every suburban HOA — are entirely edible from root to flower and are rich in vitamins A, C, and K. Cattails, found near virtually any body of freshwater, have been called the “supermarket of the swamp” because every part of the plant — root, shoot, pollen head — is edible depending on the season. Wild garlic mustard, wood sorrel, lamb’s quarter, stinging nettles (once blanched), wild ramps, acorns (leached of tannins), and a vast variety of berries and nuts offer nutritional sustenance to those who know what they’re looking at.The proper way to learn foraging is not by reading a single article or downloading an app. It is by going out with an experienced forager, plant by plant, in your specific bioregion, and building identification knowledge through repeated, confirmed observation. Purchase a high-quality regional field guide — the Peterson Field Guides series and the regional “Medicinal Plants” series (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest) are excellent resources. Learn the edible plants in your county before you need to rely on them. Know their toxic look-alikes. Know which parts are edible and which are not. Know which require cooking and which can be eaten raw.Gardening and food production are the longer game. A kitchen garden that produces tomatoes and zucchini in the summer is a start. But survival gardening demands more: understanding how to save seeds (crucial, since hybrid seeds don’t reproduce true to type), how to extend growing seasons, how to compost and maintain soil fertility without synthetic fertilizers, and how to grow calorie-dense staples like beans, squash, potatoes, and corn alongside nutritionally rich greens and herbs. Learn your USDA hardiness zone. Know your last frost date. Know which crops can be stored through winter without electricity — root cellaring is its own discipline and an extraordinarily valuable one.Hunting, fishing, and trapping round out the protein column. A hunting license is cheap. The skill it licenses is priceless. More preppers should be learning to track game, read wildlife sign, field dress and butcher large animals, and preserve meat through smoking, salting, and curing — without refrigeration. Fishing remains one of the most calorie-efficient forms of wild food procurement available. Learning to set fish traps and snares for small game multiplies your capacity for food acquisition dramatically, particularly when you cannot afford to expend all your energy on active pursuit.Food preservation is the bridge between abundance and survival. Our ancestors understood this intuitively — they canned, fermented, smoked, dried, and pickled not as a hobby but as a necessity. Water-bath canning and pressure canning are learnable skills with a modest upfront investment in equipment. Fermentation — making sauerkraut, kimchi, kvass, and lacto-fermented vegetables — requires nothing more than salt, water, and a clean jar. Dehydrating food for long-term storage extends shelf life dramatically. Learning to smoke and salt meat preserves protein when you have a surplus and no refrigeration. These are not lost arts — they are just temporarily unfashionable.Water: The First and Hardest ProblemA human being can survive roughly three weeks without food. Without clean water, you have three days, and they will be miserable ones. This makes water procurement and purification the single most non-negotiable skill set in any prepper’s repertoire.Municipal water supply depends on electricity for pumping and treatment. When the grid goes down, so does reliable municipal water — often within hours. Every prepper should understand multiple methods of water purification: boiling (the most reliable, kills virtually all pathogens), chemical treatment with iodine or chlorine tablets, mechanical filtration (gravity filters like the Berkey are excellent for base camp use; the LifeStraw and Sawyer Squeeze for personal, portable use), and UV purification (effective but battery-dependent).Beyond purification, water sourcing is its own discipline. Rainwater harvesting — setting up barrels under roof downspouts — is legal in most states and provides a meaningful supplement. Knowing where every natural water source within a ten-mile radius of your home is located is basic operational awareness. Understanding how to read terrain to find water (look for vegetation, valleys, drainage patterns) is more advanced but learnable. Understanding how to dig a seep well or how to extract water from vegetation in dry conditions is the outer edge of the skill set — and worth knowing.Mechanical and Trade Skills: The New AristocracyIn the economy that follows civilization’s disruption, the person who can fix things will be among the wealthiest people alive. The person who can only consume them will be desperate.Consider how completely we have abandoned the mechanical arts. The average American cannot change their own oil, replace a broken window pane, wire a light switch, fix a leaking pipe, or sharpen a hand saw. We call someone. We order it on Amazon. We let the warranty handle it. All of those options disappear the moment the infrastructure that supports them goes dark.Basic automotive mechanics is a starting point. Understanding how an internal combustion engine works, how to do a tune-up, replace belts and hoses, fix a flat, diagnose basic electrical problems, and maintain a fuel system could mean the difference between mobility and being stranded. In a prolonged crisis, older vehicles — those without complex computerized systems — will be more valuable than newer ones, because they can be repaired with hand tools by someone who knows what they’re doing.Carpentry and basic construction become essential when you need to repair or fortify shelter. Knowing how to frame a wall, install a door, patch a roof, build raised garden beds, or construct a root cellar is not just practical — it is leverage. The person with these skills will be in demand in any community trying to rebuild.Plumbing and electrical basics — understanding how your home’s water supply and drainage system works, how to shut off water at the main, how to replace a fixture, how to wire a simple circuit or install solar panels — make you capable of maintaining a habitable home without calling a professional.Blacksmithing and metalworking are longer-term skills that reward serious investment. The ability to fabricate and repair tools from raw steel is, in a truly extended collapse scenario, foundational to any community’s capacity to function.Sewing and textile repair seem mundane until you consider that in a world without manufactured clothing supply chains, the person who can make and repair garments from raw material — or even just mend what exists — provides an extraordinarily valuable service. Learning to sew buttons, patch tears, reinforce seams, and eventually construct basic garments by hand is not optional in a prolonged crisis.Gunsmithing basics deserve mention here as well. Firearms are the prepper’s primary tool of defense and a critical hunting implement. Understanding basic cleaning, maintenance, jam clearing, and common repairs — and, for the advanced, handloading your own ammunition — is the difference between a weapon that functions reliably and a club.Fire, Shelter, and Navigation: The Ancient BasicsIt would be easy in a long article on practical skills to breeze past what every wilderness survival instructor knows are the true fundamentals. They deserve serious attention.Fire craft is more complex than it appears. Starting a fire with a Bic lighter is trivially easy. Starting one in wet conditions, at high altitude, without modern fire-starting tools, using materials you have gathered from your environment — that requires practice. Every prepper should be proficient with a ferrocerium rod, should understand the principles of tinder preparation, fire lay construction, and fire management for both cooking and warmth. Fire starting is a perishable skill — meaning it degrades with disuse. Practice it regularly.Shelter construction — knowing how to build an effective improvised shelter from natural materials — addresses the immediate threat of exposure, which kills far faster than starvation. Understanding the principles of insulation, moisture management, wind protection, and ground insulation allows a person to survive nights in conditions that would otherwise be lethal.Land navigation without GPS is a skill that has been nearly exterminated by the smartphone. The GPS signal can be jammed, can fail, can run out of battery. Map reading — the ability to interpret topographic maps, understand contour lines, identify terrain features, and correlate what you see on a map with what you see on the ground — combined with compass use, including declination adjustment and triangulation, is fundamental. This is not a difficult skill to learn. It simply requires investment and practice. Navigating by the stars — celestial navigation — is a deeper skill that requires more study but provides complete independence from any manufactured technology.Communication When the Grid Is GoneIn a communications blackout, information is power — and the person with a working radio that can send and receive across distance holds enormous community value.Ham radio — amateur radio — is the prepper’s communication answer. With over 750,000 licensed operators in the United States and six million worldwide, the amateur radio network is genuinely robust, and the equipment is increasingly affordable and capable. A Technician class license from the FCC requires roughly ten hours of study and opens access to regional VHF and UHF networks. A General class license opens HF (shortwave) frequencies and enables communication over continental distances — the ability to reach operators hundreds or thousands of miles away without any internet or cellular infrastructure.The important thing about ham radio is that it must be practiced regularly to be useful in crisis. Many preppers purchase a radio and let it sit in a drawer. This is nearly useless. Getting licensed, joining local emergency preparedness nets, practicing the equipment, and learning how to operate under field conditions — including solar-powered charging of equipment — turns a radio purchase into a genuine capability.Beyond ham, every prepper should understand how to signal for help without electronics: signal mirrors, ground-to-air signals, whistle codes, and the basics of Morse code. These are durable skills that require no battery.The Psychological DimensionNo skills list is complete without acknowledging the dimension that determines whether all other skills can actually be deployed: mental resilience. The statistics from wilderness survival emergencies are sobering. People with more gear and more theoretical knowledge than their rescuers have died because they panicked, made poor decisions under stress, and could not tolerate uncertainty.Mental fortitude — the capacity to remain calm in the face of genuine danger, to prioritize clearly when everything is wrong, to tolerate discomfort without becoming paralyzed, and to lead others when leadership is desperately needed — is itself a learnable and practicable skill. Meditation, deliberate exposure to discomfort (cold showers, fasting, difficult physical training), scenario planning and mental rehearsal, and the cultivation of what military psychologists call “stress inoculation” — these are not soft concerns. They are the operating system on which every other skill runs.Community is equally critical. The lone wolf prepper is a Hollywood invention. Real resilience in crisis has always been communal. Know your neighbors. Build relationships with people who have complementary skills. Understand how to negotiate, de-escalate conflict, and maintain social cohesion under pressure. The ability to build and maintain trust in a community that must cooperate to survive is itself one of the most valuable skills on this entire list.The Window Is Open — For NowWe live in an extraordinary moment. Every skill described in this article can be learned through free YouTube videos, downloadable PDFs, online courses, and community workshops — right now, today. The knowledge of centuries has been digitized and made accessible. The herbs our great-grandmothers used, the construction techniques that built this civilization, the navigation methods that opened continents — all of it is available for the learning.That window is only open because the grid is still running.This is the irony the casual observer misses: the very technology that might one day fail us is, right now, the most powerful tool we have for preparing to live without it. Every hour spent learning to start a fire from friction, to identify plantain and yarrow and elderberry in the field, to suture a wound, to read a topographic map, to operate a ham radio, to preserve a harvest — every one of those hours is an investment that cannot be repossessed, cannot be jammed, cannot be taken down by a cyberattack. Skills live in the body and the mind. They do not require a signal.The American tradition of self-reliance — the frontier ethic that shaped this nation’s character — was never just philosophy. It was practice. It was the daily engagement with the real world that produced competent, capable, adaptive human beings. The progressive project has spent a century building systems that replace that competence with dependence. The irony is exquisite: the more we have been taught to trust “the experts,” the systems, the government agencies, the supply chains — the more catastrophically helpless we become when any of those fail.The old wisdom is not obsolete. It is waiting. And the time to retrieve it is now, while the internet still works, while the courses are still accessible, while the seeds can still be ordered online and delivered to your door. Lay up wisdom as a man lays up provisions: before the storm, not during it. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard,” counseled Solomon; “consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest” (Proverbs 6:6–8, KJV).The ant does not wait to see the storm. It works while the season is good.So should we. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

There is a peculiar arrogance embedded in modern American life — the assumption that the lights will always come back on, that the pharmacy will always be stocked, that the grocery store shelves will always be full, and that a repairman is only a Google search away. We have outsourced virtually every competency our grandparents possessed to a complex web of systems, services, and supply chains that most of us couldn't begin to explain, let alone sustain. We have become, in the precise and damning sense of the word, helpless. Not by nature, but by design — by the seductive convenience of modernity.And modernity is fragile.Read More: https://discern.tv/skills-all-preppers-should-be-learning-today-before-something-devastating-happens/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

* Bugging out should only happen when your home becomes untenable—roads, strangers, and limited gear make fleeing far riskier than most realize.* Your home gives you unmatched advantages: full supplies, legal self-defense rights, neighborhood knowledge, and community ties that no temporary location can replicate.* Water storage and purification systems can sustain a family for months without relying on outside aid.* Long-term food stockpiles, alternative cooking methods, and basic gardening turn your pantry into a reliable lifeline.* Home fortification—reinforced entry points, perimeter lighting, and defensive tools—keeps threats at bay while you ride out the crisis.* Backup power, medical kits, and sanitation backups ensure comfort and health even when utilities fail for weeks or longer.* Preparation is an act of wisdom and responsibility, protecting those you love by building stability where you already stand.* When every other option fails, bugging out remains the final desperate measure—not the first impulse.In an era when headlines warn of storms, supply disruptions, civil strain, and uncertainty on every front, the urge to grab a bag and run can feel instinctive. Yet survival experts across decades of real-world disasters consistently deliver the same hard-earned truth: bugging out is the last option. Preparing to bug in—to stay put, fortify your home, and sustain your family where you already live—offers the clearest path to safety and stability for the vast majority of scenarios.The difference between the two approaches is stark. Bugging in means sheltering in place at your residence, using every resource already under your roof. Bugging out means abandoning that roof for an unknown destination, carrying only what fits in a vehicle or on your back. History and practical analysis show that the former wins far more often. Your home already contains the bulk of your food, water, clothing, tools, and medicine. Leaving it behind forces you into a mobile existence filled with variables you cannot control.Consider the simple realities of travel during crisis. Roads clog within hours of any major alert. Fuel stations empty. Bridges and exits become choke points. Families with children, elderly relatives, or pets move slower and draw more attention. Strangers on the highway may be desperate or opportunistic. Meanwhile, your house sits empty—an invitation to looters. The data from hurricanes, wildfires, and blackouts repeatedly demonstrates that those who stayed prepared at home fared better than those who joined the exodus too early.Home carries legal and tactical edges that vanish the moment you leave. In most jurisdictions, the right to defend your property and family is clearest behind your own doors. You know every corner, every weak point, every vantage. Neighbors who know and trust you become allies rather than unknowns. Community networks—church groups, local contacts, mutual-aid agreements—function best when people remain in place. Bugging out severs those ties and replaces them with isolation on unfamiliar ground.The default choice, then, is clear. Shelter where you stand unless a specific, immediate threat renders the house itself unlivable. Government guidance from agencies like FEMA reinforces this principle through shelter-in-place recommendations. Plastic sheeting and duct tape for sealing rooms, basic kits for short-term isolation—these are starting points, but true preparation goes far deeper.Water tops every list for good reason. An average person needs at least a gallon per day for drinking and hygiene. For a family of four facing two months of disruption, that means hundreds of gallons stored safely. Large tanks, bathtub liners, rain barrels, and purification tablets or filters turn potential shortages into manageable supply. Rotate stock, learn gravity-fed systems, and practice using non-potable sources for cleaning. When city pipes run dry, your home becomes its own well.Food follows closely. Stock shelf-stable staples—rice, beans, oats, canned meats, freeze-dried meals—that last years when stored properly. Rotate inventory through normal meals so nothing goes to waste. Add a wood stove, propane backup, or solar oven so cooking continues without electricity. Seeds, gardening tools, and basic livestock knowledge stretch supplies indefinitely. The goal is not bare survival but sustained nutrition that keeps strength and morale intact.Security cannot be an afterthought. Reinforce doors and windows with simple braces or boards. Install motion-sensor lights and basic alarms—even tripwires with bells for low-tech warning. Firearms, ammunition, and maintenance supplies belong in the plan, stored responsibly and practiced regularly. Melee tools and multi-purpose implements double as both defense and repair items. The prepared home projects quiet strength that deters rather than invites trouble.Power independence keeps life livable. A generator wired safely to the breaker box, paired with rotated fuel, covers essentials. Solar panels, batteries, or even hand-crank devices handle lighting and communication. Flashlights, headlamps, and candles with reflectors prevent total darkness. HAM radios or crank-powered receivers maintain contact with the outside world when cell towers fail. These systems do more than provide light—they preserve the rhythm of daily life that prevents despair.Medical readiness saves lives when hospitals overflow. Stock individual first-aid kits scaled for trauma and illness: tourniquets, hemostatic agents, antibiotics, pain relievers, and prescription refills where possible. Learn basic skills—wound care, splinting, CPR—through community classes or reliable manuals. Sanitation backups matter equally: five-gallon bucket toilets, cat litter for odor control, and burial plans keep disease at bay when sewers stop working.Long-term sustainability separates the merely stocked from the truly prepared. Practice 72-hour no-power weekends at home to test systems and reveal gaps. Build relationships with nearby families who share the same values. Develop skills—mechanical repair, food preservation, first aid—that reduce dependence on outside help. The home that can garden, filter water, defend itself, and care for its own becomes a fortress of self-reliance.Faith and wisdom align here. The prudent man sees danger and prepares, much like the ant that stores provisions in summer. Protecting your household is not fear-driven but stewardship-driven. It honors the responsibility given to provide and defend those entrusted to your care. When the world outside grows chaotic, the prepared home stands as testimony to foresight rather than panic.Of course, circumstances can force a change. A house on fire, a mandatory evacuation order with credible enforcement, or direct threat that overwhelms defenses may require leaving. In those rare moments, a pre-packed vehicle with routes mapped, fuel cached, and a destination secured becomes the bridge to safety. But that plan exists only as the final contingency—never the primary strategy.Preparation begins today, quietly and steadily. Assess your space. Inventory what you already have. Add one category at a time—water this month, food next, security after that—until your home can carry the family through weeks, then months. The peace that comes from knowing you can stay put is worth every effort.Bugging out remains the last option because it trades certainty for hazard. Preparing to bug in for as long as possible honors reality: your strongest position is almost always the one you already occupy. Build it strong. Stock it well. Defend it wisely. In doing so, you give your family the greatest gift possible when trouble arrives—the ability to remain exactly where they belong. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Bugging out should only happen when your home becomes untenable—roads, strangers, and limited gear make fleeing far riskier than most realize.Your home gives you unmatched advantages: full supplies, legal self-defense rights, neighborhood knowledge, and community ties that no temporary location can replicate.Water storage and purification systems can sustain a family for months without relying on outside aid.Long-term food stockpiles, alternative cooking methods, and basic gardening turn your pantry into a reliable lifeline.Home fortification—reinforced entry points, perimeter lighting, and defensive tools—keeps threats at bay while you ride out the crisis.Backup power, medical kits, and sanitation backups ensure comfort and health even when utilities fail for weeks or longer.Preparation is an act of wisdom and responsibility, protecting those you love by building stability where you already stand.When every other option fails, bugging out remains the final desperate measure—not the first impulse.Read More: https://discern.tv/bugging-out-is-the-last-option-so-prepare-to-bug-in-for-as-long-as-possible/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

In a recent video post on X, user @unfilteredwkels highlights a concerning cyber attack on Stryker Corporation, a major U.S. medical equipment supplier, and connects it to broader implications for our increasingly digital world. The post urges viewers to recognize patterns that could signal larger disruptions. Drawing from real-world events, it weaves together the Stryker incident with warnings from global figures and recent financial moves by powerhouse firms like BlackRock.Stryker, known for manufacturing and distributing essential medical devices used in hospitals worldwide, confirmed on March 11, 2026, that a cyber attack disrupted its global Microsoft environment. This led to significant interruptions in order processing, manufacturing, and shipping operations. The company emphasized that connected products remain safe for use, but the attack—claimed by the Iran-linked group Handala and described as a destructive wiper operation affecting thousands of devices—underscores the fragility of supply chains in healthcare, especially amid escalating geopolitical tensions.The video points out our heavy reliance on digital systems for banking, payments, supply chains, and hospital infrastructure. A large-scale cyber attack could halt these essentials, echoing warnings from World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab. In 2020, Schwab described such an event as potentially dwarfing the COVID-19 crisis, bringing power supplies, transportation, and societal functions to a standstill. He stressed the need for global collaboration to combat borderless cyber threats.Adding to the intrigue, @unfilteredwkels notes BlackRock’s aggressive investments in critical infrastructure over recent months. The asset management giant has poured billions into energy systems, power grids, AI data centers, and related areas, positioning itself amid surging demand from AI technologies. For instance, BlackRock’s focus on energy infrastructure to power data centers reflects a shift where investors favor power providers over big tech for AI-related plays in 2026. CEO Larry Fink has been vocal about these opportunities, including workforce shortages in skilled trades needed for infrastructure buildout, raising questions about strategic foresight in a volatile world.Meanwhile, Sweden—one of the most cashless societies—issued new guidance in early March 2026, recommending households keep around SEK 1,000 (about $110 USD) in cash per adult to cover a week’s essentials during crises. This move addresses vulnerabilities in highly digitalized payment systems, which could fail in disruptions, wars, or cyber events. The Riksbank’s advice includes diversifying payment methods, like multiple bank cards and apps, to enhance resilience.The post doesn’t predict imminent doom but encourages pattern recognition. If digital grids falter, everyday life—from groceries to medical care—could grind to a halt. European countries like Sweden are steps ahead, preparing citizens for scenarios that could soon echo globally. As cyber threats evolve, tied to geopolitics and tech booms, individuals might heed these signals to bolster personal readiness.In essence, this X post serves as a podcast-style alert, blending news with speculation to provoke thought. While some may dismiss it as alarmist, the substantiated events it references paint a picture of interconnected risks in our tech-dependent era.* Recognize Digital Dependencies: Our reliance on electronic systems for banking, healthcare, and supply chains makes us vulnerable; a major cyber attack could eclipse past crises like COVID-19.* Monitor Geopolitical Ties: Incidents like the Stryker hack, linked to international conflicts, highlight how business connections can invite targeted disruptions.* Track Financial Power Plays: BlackRock’s investments in energy and infrastructure could signal anticipation of grid strains from AI growth, benefiting those who prepare.* Heed Preparedness Advice: Follow Sweden’s lead by keeping cash and alternative payment options on hand to weather potential system failures.* Stay Informed Globally: Watch developments in Europe and beyond, as they often foreshadow worldwide trends in cyber and economic security.Stay vigilant—digital resilience starts with awareness. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

In a recent video post on X, user @unfilteredwkels highlights a concerning cyber attack on Stryker Corporation, a major U.S. medical equipment supplier, and connects it to broader implications for our increasingly digital world. The post urges viewers to recognize patterns that could signal larger disruptions. Drawing from real-world events, it weaves together the Stryker incident with warnings from global figures and recent financial moves by powerhouse firms like BlackRock.Read More: https://discern.tv/cyberattack-headlines-are-being-dismissed-by-most-but-combined-they-point-to-real-threats/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

* Most Americans are only a few days away from serious hardship if supply chains or utilities fail.* Preparedness does not require a bunker, thousands of dollars, or years of experience to begin.* A basic emergency plan is just as important as physical supplies.* The first 30 days of prepping should focus on five core areas: water, food, light, communication, and basic safety.* Building supplies gradually prevents panic spending and helps families stay organized.* Simple items such as bottled water, canned food, flashlights, and backup batteries provide immediate resilience.* Starting small and building consistently is the most realistic path for beginners who feel late to preparedness.Modern life has created an illusion of stability. Grocery stores are always stocked, power flows at the flip of a switch, and help feels like it is always one phone call away. But the truth is that most Americans live only a few days away from serious disruption if supply chains break down, if the power grid fails, or if a natural disaster strikes. The good news is that becoming prepared does not require extreme measures. In fact, the first 30 days of prepping can dramatically increase your family’s security with simple, practical steps.Many people delay preparing because they believe it requires massive investment or specialized knowledge. That assumption stops people from taking the most important step of all: starting. Preparedness is not about building a fortress overnight. It is about gradually strengthening your household so that unexpected events do not immediately become crises.First and foremost, preparedness during the first 30 days should include basic safety planning. Fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, and carbon monoxide detectors should all be checked and replaced if necessary. Families should discuss simple evacuation routes and safe meeting points if they must leave their home quickly. These conversations take only minutes but can prevent confusion and panic when time matters most.Once you have a basic plan in place, the first priority for any new prepper should be water. Human beings can survive weeks without food but only a few days without clean water. A simple rule often recommended by emergency planners is one gallon of water per person per day. For a family of four, even a basic two-week supply means storing about 56 gallons. This may sound like a lot, but it can be achieved quickly with bottled water, refillable containers, or food-grade storage jugs. Along with storage, beginners should also consider simple water filtration or purification methods in case stored water runs out.Once water is secured, the next focus should be food. The goal during the first month is not to build a year-long pantry. Instead, focus on assembling foods your family already eats that store well and require minimal preparation. Canned vegetables, canned meats, rice, pasta, peanut butter, and shelf-stable soups are excellent starting points. Freeze-dried food companies such as Heaven’s Harvest offer longer-term options as well, but beginners should first build a solid base of familiar, easy-to-rotate foods from everyday grocery stores.Light and basic power should come next. Most people underestimate how disruptive a prolonged power outage can be. Without electricity, homes lose lighting, refrigeration, communication devices, and sometimes even running water. In the first 30 days of preparedness, every household should acquire several reliable flashlights, extra batteries, and ideally a few battery-powered lanterns that can light an entire room. Small solar chargers or portable power stations can also keep phones and radios functioning during emergencies.Communication is another critical but often overlooked element of preparedness. During disasters, cell service may be unreliable or overwhelmed. A basic battery-powered or hand-crank emergency radio allows families to receive weather alerts and emergency information when the internet is unavailable. In addition, every household should have a simple family communication plan so members know where to meet or how to reconnect if separated during an emergency.Medical readiness is another key step in the first month. A well-stocked first aid kit can handle many common injuries and illnesses when professional help may be delayed. This should include bandages, antiseptics, pain relievers, basic medications, and any necessary prescriptions. Many people also benefit from learning simple first aid skills, which can make a tremendous difference during emergencies.Perhaps the most important lesson of the first month of prepping is that progress matters more than perfection. Too many people delay preparation because they believe they must do everything at once. In reality, resilience grows one step at a time. Each extra case of water, each additional can of food, and each new skill strengthens a household’s ability to handle unexpected challenges.The goal is not fear. The goal is peace of mind. Prepared families are not constantly worried about disaster because they know they have taken reasonable steps to protect the people they love. In uncertain times, that kind of confidence is one of the most valuable preparations anyone can make. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most Americans are only a few days away from serious hardship if supply chains or utilities fail.Preparedness does not require a bunker, thousands of dollars, or years of experience to begin.A basic emergency plan is just as important as physical supplies.The first 30 days of prepping should focus on five core areas: water, food, light, communication, and basic safety.Building supplies gradually prevents panic spending and helps families stay organized.Simple items such as bottled water, canned food, flashlights, and backup batteries provide immediate resilience.Starting small and building consistently is the most realistic path for beginners who feel late to preparedness.Read More: https://discern.tv/the-first-30-days-of-prepping-a-simple-plan-to-protect-your-family/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

There are many naysayers in the preparedness world who claim everything you store for your preps need to have distinct utility. There are others who claim that barter items such as gold and silver will still hold prominence even in a SHTF scenario. Who’s right?On today’s episode of The Late Prepper, JD was joined by Ira Bershatsky from https://advisorbullion.com to discuss the economy and other things, but with preparedness being on JD’s mind and heart a lot lately, the conversation swiftly shifted to survival. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

There are many naysayers in the preparedness world who claim everything you store for your preps need to have distinct utility. There are others who claim that barter items such as gold and silver will still hold prominence even in a SHTF scenario. Who's right?On today's episode of The Late Prepper, JD was joined by Ira Bershatsky from https://advisorbullion.com to discuss the economy and other things, but with preparedness being on JD's mind and heart a lot lately, the conversation swiftly shifted to survival.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Joseph recognized the coming crisis before it arrived and prepared during the years of abundance.Instead of storing only what was necessary, Egypt stored massive surpluses of grain.When famine struck the region, Egypt became the only reliable source of food.People from surrounding nations came to Egypt to buy grain because they had failed to prepare.Joseph used Egypt’s surplus not just to feed people but to strengthen the nation economically.Those who prepare in advance can help others and gain leverage when scarcity arrives.Preppers should think beyond survival and consider how abundance can become a blessing and a resource.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most Americans are already practicing basic preparedness without realizing it — savings accounts, smoke detectors, spare tires, and first aid kits are all forms of prepping, just never labeled as such.The biggest barrier to preparedness isn't cost or complexity — it's the cultural stigma attached to the word "prepper," a caricature shaped by Hollywood and legacy media that has kept millions of sensible people from taking practical steps.Effective preparedness follows a four-step sequence: assess your risks, make a plan, build your kits, and continuously improve — skipping straight to gear without a risk assessment is one of the most common and costly mistakes beginners make.Realistic threats for most Americans are far less exotic than EMPs or nuclear events — house fires, home invasions, and regional natural disasters top the probability list and deserve preparation priority before anything else.Personal health and financial stability are underrated preparedness factors; a chronic illness left unmanaged or a household with no emergency fund represents a vulnerability no amount of canned goods can offset.A meaningful emergency foundation can be built for under $100 — roughly 30 cans of food, a few gallons of water per person, and a battery-powered emergency weather radio cover the core needs for short-term regional emergencies.FEMA itself recommends households be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours without outside assistance, a figure updated upward after repeated real-world disasters demonstrated that government response consistently takes longer than people expect.Self-reliance is not paranoia — the average American household has only about three days of food on hand, fewer than half have a written emergency plan, and most families have never discussed what they would do in an evacuation scenario.Read More: https://discern.tv/youre-already-a-prepper-you-just-dont-know-it-yet/ Heaven's Harvest: https://patriot.tv/food This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most people stockpile food, water, ammo, and generators. Almost nobody stockpiles soap.In a real collapse scenario — grid down, supply chains frozen, civil unrest spreading — hygiene won’t be about comfort. It will be about survival. Infection, disease, morale collapse, and social breakdown all start with poor sanitation.In this episode of The Late Prepper, we break down the hygiene essentials you’ll actually need when the shelves stay empty. We discuss average shelf life, real-world effectiveness, how to store them properly, and why these items may become some of the most valuable barter tools in a crisis economy.Because when things fall apart, the clean survive longer — and they trade better. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Prepping isn’t just for rural homesteaders with acres and livestock. Millions of Americans live in apartments, condos, or rental homes — and many assume they’re at a disadvantage when it comes to preparedness. That assumption is wrong. In this episode, we break down practical, realistic apartment prepping strategies that work even under space, landlord, and legal constraints. Preparedness is about mindset first — square footage second.Read More: https://basedunderground.com/apartment-prepping-a-practical-guide-to-building-resilience-when-you-rent/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Most Americans think “food prep” means one thing: spend thousands of dollars on freeze-dried buckets and stack them in a closet like you’re preparing for the apocalypse tomorrow. That mindset is not only expensive — it’s strategically backward.In this episode of The Late Prepper, we break down the Survival Food Hierarchy — a layered, biblical-minded preparedness approach that prioritizes wisdom, stewardship, and sustainability. If a disaster forces you into a long-term bug-in situation, the goal is simple: you should not be ripping open your 25-year emergency stash after three days without power.Preparedness is not panic. It’s planning. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

So, you've got your bugout bags, food supplies, water, ammo, alternative power supplies, barter items, and Bibles. You downloaded and printed out important documents and how-to guides in case the internet goes down. You have your plan mapped out and you've done a test run with your family. You're as ready as you can be for whatever happens in the near future, right?Well, maybe. With over 70% of Americans either unfit or suffering from some sort of major medical ailment, chances are you haven't made yourself and your family as ready as you can be in case crap hits the fan. Chances are you can start improving your health situation, whether that means getting more fit or securing long-term medical requirements such as meds and equipment.Get FitThe first challenge isn't easy for most. For some, it's a matter of motivation. For others, you're just not able to make yourself more physically fit based on age, wounds, or conditions. I have a friend in her 70s who simply cannot get around very easily. She neither has nor needs bugout bags but she lives in a nice town, had plenty of food and water, and she carries her .22 wherever she goes.Another friend is a prepping maniac. I'm actually jealous about how well-stocked he is in his suburban home. The challenge is he's nearly 300 pounds and three of the four other members of his family aren't skinny. I had a long conversation with him over the weekend about what he'll do if things get really bad, even in his nice neighborhood. He said he'll grab his shotgun and defend his property. That's good, but it doesn't replace the need to become fit enough to walk long distances, gather supplies, or hunt.My status as a "late prepper" who didn't get going until 2021 sent me down a similar path. I started stocking up on supplies incrementally. My wife started a robust garden. I started learning everything I could about survival and I haven't stopped. Then, the wakeup call came last year. I was helping a friend move a couch and realized I'm not the stout running back that I was in school.I've wasted far too much time before making it important to get fit. I am calling on all of my readers to not make the same mistake I did. When should you start improving your health? Right now. Today. Get started. Don't stop. As I noted, motivation is often the missing ingredient when it comes to eating better, exercising, and changing one's lifestyle. Well, look around. Things are already going crazy and we haven't even gotten to Election Riot Season.Are you able to walk 10 miles with a bugout bag on your back? Could you carry a loved one to safety? Chop down a tree? Build a shelter? Fight? If any of these things are physically impossible for you, then there's nothing you can do other than build relationship with local people who can help. But if you can't do any of these things and you have nothing holding you back other than your physical fitness, then it's time to get motivated.I've been on the keto diet for a while, but mostly for the sake of brain function. I like being as smart as possible and ketones help me to achieve that goal. But recently I've realized that I need to take advantage of the fat burning aspects of ketosis. That means exercising. It's been slower than I'd like but I've lost 15 pounds since Thanksgiving with 40 more to go.I'm not a fan of trying to "guilt" people into doing something, but this is an exception. Don't be that person whose only excuse for not being physically ready to face apocalyptic challenges is that you're to fat, too weak, or generally too unhealthy. If you have the means today to improve your health, do it.And it's not just fat people like me. Even those who are pretty fit can always use improvements. We've all heard many times about eating healthier but what does that really mean? The whole foods craze (not to be confused with the Amazon-owned grocer) is a righteous one on many levels. Sourcing your food, buying local, eliminated processed foods, reducing or eliminating sugars, and staying clear of seed oils are all good starts. Exercise is obviously important as well. I'm neither a nutritionist nor a personal trainer but as a conspiracy theorist I can say that whatever it takes to build back up your God-given body is worth doing now more than ever.Secure MedsMany medications, both minor and life-saving, can be stored for long periods of time. Others can go bad quickly. Now is the time to determine what you'll need if pharmacies are either shut down or taken over by government, in which case you'll need to "qualify" for your meds. That's a discussion for another day.Securing meds that you can store away such as antibiotics, pain medications, and chronic illness drugs requires a bit of "gaming the system." Generally, doctors and pharmacists want you to have a limited supply. Sometimes this is due to positive reasons such as the need to adjust doses. Other times it's simply an opportunity to add more doctor's visits to their billing. So securing long-term stores of prescription medications can be challenging.If you trust your doctor, tell them the truth. You're concerned about things going crazy with the election or whatever and you'd feel more comfortable with a long-term supply of the meds you need. If they object, don't push it. Just thank them and move along.If your doctor won't help you, there are a couple of options. You can research over-the-counter or nature alternatives to the medications you need. Or, you can go through a more "open minded" medical operation such as Jase. For transparency, they're a sponsor, but it's important to note that I made them a sponsor AFTER I started using them. I was a customer first before learning I could get referral bonuses for recommending them. They even gave me a promo code, "RUCKER10", so my referrals could get $10 off.Their system is simple. Sign up for a telehealth call. Talk to your doctor about the meds you need. They prescribe them and have them shipped to your door. The "Jase Case" of antibiotics is incredible (I have two) and the chronic medications they offer for challenges like diabetes and heart conditions are robust.For those who require medicines that expire quickly, it's time to research alternatives. Again, ask your doctor. Tell them your concerns and find out what they recommend if you no longer have access to the medications they prescribe. If that doesn't work, check online. I know there are life-preserving meds that many people need to take that may not have natural or OTC alternatives, but research as best you can.No FearI'm always cognizant of the fact that my prepper discussions can often concern people, even make them fearful. Don't let it get to you. For Bible-believing Christians, we know that times will get challenging but there's a literal light at the end of the tunnel. It's a good thing to be physically ready for whatever is coming our way but that's exponentially less important than being spiritually ready. If all you can do is believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then it's more than enough.Stay frosty and secure yourself and your family as best you can. If you fail because you did your best but it wasn't enough, then so be it. But if you fail because you didn't do your best to get ready, the end will be loaded with regrets. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

(http://endoftheamericandream.com/why-has-prepping-become-so-popular-with-the-left/)—Something really weird is going on.  Traditionally, prepping has been associated with those on the right of the political spectrum.But now we are witnessing a dramatic shift.  These days, many of the most hardcore preppers are actually on the left.  These leftist preppers have become entirely convinced that we are headed for a catastrophic societal meltdown and they are determined to try to survive whatever happens.  And we are starting to see leftist fears about the future being reflected in movies and television shows.For example, a new apocalyptic disaster movie entitled “Leave The World Behind” is getting millions upon millions of views https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/09/leave-the-world-behind-movie-first-look…If society actually did begin to completely break down, you probably would never know exactly how or why. You’d be aware that something was wrong, but the specifics would get cloudy once phones stopped working, the internet was severed, and media networks turned to dead air. Ominous late-night electronic shrieks from the sky; explosions in the distance; planes and boats plowing into the ground, and animals flocking in eerie patterns would only hint at the chaos. A whisper network of survivors might convey contradictory rumors, but how would you know if any of it was true? That’s the unsettling premise of Leave the World Behind, the new Netflix thriller that compounds its terror through uncertainty.This is definitely a movie for preppers, and the trailer for the film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMVBi_e8o-Y…As you can see, this movie explores a number of topics that preppers have been concerned about for a long time.But there is nothing “conservative” about this film at all.It was made by leftists and it is meant to be watched by leftists.  In fact, it is https://nypost.com/2023/12/18/entertainment/leave-the-world-behind-viewers-think-obamas-sending-warning/ from the production company that the Obamas have established…In the movie, the characters have various theories for what’s causing these unsettling events: that it’s the work of hackers; that it’s a government conspiracy; that the US is at war with rogue forces using radiological weapons to make people turn against each other.It’s based on a 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam, and directed, written and produced by “Mr. Robot” creator Sam Esmail. It’s also the first feature film from High Ground, the production company founded by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama in 2018.So why in the world would the Obamas want to make something like this?That is a good question.Hopefully somebody will ask them.Once upon a time, leftists tended to mock preppers, but now anxiety about the 2024 election is motivating many leftists https://nypost.com/2023/12/04/news/why-younger-americans-are-stockpiling-supplies-ahead-of-2024-election/…Doomsday “prepping” is seeping into the mainstream as Americans of all ages and political persuasions are becoming increasingly worried ahead of the 2024 presidential election about the prospect of a civil war.Hoarding food, water and weapons was once associated with libertarian extremists, but as a rematch between President Biden and his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, seems all but inevitable in 2024, prepping has become a bipartisan activity, according to a Monday USA Today report.“On the left, you have people afraid (Trump’s) going to declare himself dictator of the United States and people on the left are going to end up as targets in some sort of authoritarian system,” author Brad Garrett told the paper.There really are lots of people out there that have convinced themselves that if Donald Trump wins the election he will make himself a dictator and establish a “fascist regime” in the United States.Seriously, this is what they actually believe. And the fact that Joe Biden’s approval ratings https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-approval-rating-sinks-all-time-low-new-national-poll only adds to their anxiety…Only one-third of Americans gave President Biden a thumbs up on the job he is doing in the White House, according to a new national public opinion survey.The president stands at 34% approval in a Monmouth University poll released on Monday, with 61% giving Biden a thumbs down on his job performance.The president’s approval is at an all-time low in Monmouth polling since Biden took over the White House nearly three years ago.Many liberals are anticipating that a “worst case scenario” is literally going to play out right in front of their eyes.And Mark Zuckerberg appears to be one of them.In 2020, his money played a major role in what we witnessed in the swing states, but this time around Mark Zuckerberg appears to be https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/18/zuckerberg_hawaii_bunker/…On a remote part of Kauai, the fourth largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, someone with a lot of money is bankrolling an extensive construction project.It’s all very hush-hush. Security guards and cameras watch the perimeter of the 1,400-acre site, a six-foot wall blocks locals from peeking, and vetted workers are subject to strict NDAs preventing discussion of the work.However, those NDAs don’t appear to have functioned as intended because a report in Wired claims the project’s patron is none other than Meta big cheese Mark Zuckerberg.It is https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/tech/mark-zuckerberg-hawaii-compound/ that Zuckerberg’s survivalist compound has a 5,000 square foot underground bunker and will be “completely self-sufficient”…The ranch will have at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms and a network of tree houses that connect some of the rooms, according to Wired.Wired reports that the main residences will be joined by a 5,000-square-foot underground shelter that includes living spaces and an escape hatch. Sources told Wired the compound will be completely self-sufficient, with an 18-foot tall water tank and pump system and food production systems.Even a radical leftist like Mark Zuckerberg can sense that really bad stuff is on the horizon.And so he is taking action.Meanwhile, ordinary Americans are buying gold from Costco https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/we-sold-over-100-million-gold-during-quarter-costco-cfo…Wholesale retailer Costco sold more than $100 million worth of gold in the most recent quarter, with gold bars seeing high demand from customers.“You’ve probably read about the fact that we’re selling one-ounce gold bars. We sold over $100 million of gold during the quarter” ended Sept. 30, Richard Galanti, the chief financial officer of Costco, said during an earnings call on Dec. 14. This was the first quarter of fiscal 2024 at Costco. The wholesale retailer started selling gold online beginning September. In an earnings call late that month, Mr. Galanti had alluded to massive demand for the product.“When we load them [gold bars] on the site, they’re typically gone within a few hours.”So why are so many people hoarding gold right now?The answer is obvious.Inflation http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/it-now-costs-3-4-million-dollars-to-live-the-american-dream-and-the-gap-between-the-wealthy-and-the-rest-of-us-is-bigger-than-ever/ and we really are on the verge of http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/the-truth-about-the-economy-that-the-mainstream-media-is-not-telling-you/. Of course our economic problems are only a small part of a much larger picture.A https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM4ZB9TW is now upon us, and it is going to get a lot more intense during the months ahead.Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention, and it is a sure sign https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/12/18/pope-francis-approves-blessings-for-same-sex-couples/71958167007/…Pope Francis has formally permitted priests to perform blessings for same-sex couples, a move that stops short of sanctioning same-sex marriages, but is still being heralded by some LGBTQ+ advocates as historic.The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office released Monday reaffirmed its previous statements saying marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman. But the document says requests for blessings from same-sex couples should not be denied, so long as the blessing is not conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or with the clothing and gestures that are part of a wedding.Did you ever think that you would live to see that?But this is just the beginning. Things are going to get a whole lot weirder.Millions upon millions of Americans can sense that we are heading into extremely chaotic times, and so they are feverishly getting prepared. Hopefully you are getting prepared too, because the clock is ticking…Michael’s new book entitled https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM4ZB9TW is now available This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

When I was in college, then later as a struggling new father and husband, we learned to eat very inexpensively. There were weeks when I could get by on under $10 with Ramen noodles (the Dollar Store often had them at $0.10 a package), cheap fresh veggies (a cucumber was practically a full meal for less than a quarter), and generic packages of processed meat.It’s a lot harder to do that today with inflation and growing food scarcity, but here’s the thing. If the crap hits the fan in any of an assortment of highly possible ways, many of us will be stuck trying to feed our families without the resources to do so very well.Eating insufficient amounts of food can harm us physically. But even those who have stored away emergency food or are living lifestyles that allows them to produce their own may find themselves with a different challenge. There can be psychological repercussions from major dietary changes. You or members of your family may find eating beans and rice every day drives you a little bonkers.I am hopeful that the current trajectory of the nation and the world can be reversed, but I’m not going to sit around and assume it will all end well. Knowing this, we are currently practicing “lean weeks” in which we live off the survival food we have rather than ordering out or getting fresh food from the grocery store.I discussed this a bit on today’s podcast. I referenced this article by Daisy Luther at The Organic Prepper:Rock-Bottom Meal Plan for Those Weeks When Money Is TightThings are tough in America and they’re likely to get tougher. Many of us are forced to reallocate our money from one necessity to another and often, the thing that suffers first is our diets. If times are tight, you might find this article helpful.It’s a meal plan created from recipes and strategies in my new paperback, What to Eat When You’re Broke. We released this in PDF format recently and readers loved it. We got so many requests to put it in hard copy format that we couldn’t say no! So, it’s available on Amazon now as a paperback.The recipes in this article are all included in the book, which I’m selling just above cost. I hope you enjoy it, and please, give us a review on Amazon to help more people to see it when they’re searching for a way to feed their family during difficult times.Flat Broke Meal PlanThis meal plan is per person per week. Multiply it by the number of people in your family. I’ve tried to make it as varied as possible, and there are a few things included that are not the cheapest on the market. They’ve been added for nutrient value.Obviously, if there are allergies or foods that your family won’t eat, feel free to substitute.I shouldn’t need to say this, but it’s impossible to write one meal plan that will work for every single reader. If you are vegan, gluten-free, diabetic, suffer from food allergies, eat keto, or strictly follow a particular nutritional lifestyle, this may not work for you.With that being said, let’s look at our menu! Stars * indicate that the full recipe is available in the book and you might also have your own recipes for these items.BreakfastDay 1: Oatmeal with brown sugar and bananaDay 2: Cornbread* with butter and jamDay 3: Leftover cornbread, sliced and heated with a butter and brown sugar drizzleDay 4: Peanut butter and crackers, appleDay 5: Rice cooked with milk, brown sugar, and cinnamonDay 6: Biscuits and gravy*Day 7: Scrambled eggs and toast OR homemade pancakes with fruitLunchDay 1: PB&J, appleDay 2: Pasta salad with tuna* (or canned chicken)Day 3: Bean burritoDay 4: Tomato soup* and crackersDay 5: Cold peanut butter noodles with shredded cabbage*Day 6: Tortilla pizzas*Day 7: LeftoversDinnerDay 1: Beef and vegetable soup* with frybread*Day 2: Baked beans with mac and cheese (canned and boxed easy meal for busy days)Day 3: Fried Gnocchi* with canned marinara sauceDay 4: Crockpot white chicken chili*Day 5: Pasta with marinara sauce and parmesan cheese (add ground meat if it’s in the budget)Day 6: Homemade pizza*Day 7: Ham (slice an inexpensive canned ham or picnic ham and use the leftover for split pea soup), scalloped potatoes*, Christmas beans*Six quick tipsHere are some ideas to make the meals more filling if this menu leaves you feeling hungry.1.) Just add bread – whether it’s toast from grocery-store sliced bread, fresh homemade bread, frybread, or cornbread, adding some bread for sopping up sauces and broth makes meals feel more satisfying.2.) Add more carbs – rice or pasta makes everything go a bit further.3.) Add beans for more protein. When you’re making soup or chili, add one more can of beans to the pot.4.) Baked potatoes make everything better. Looking for a cheap, filling, and tasty side? You can’t beat a baked potato. Top it with butter, sour cream or plain yogurt, and chopped green onion. Eating the skin adds fiber and other nutrients to your diet.5.) Add cheap fruit. Bananas and bagged apples tend to be the least expensive fruit. Add one serving per meal to make it more filling and finish off on a sweeter note.6.) Focus most of your money on one meal per day. If you fill up on less expensive items for breakfast and lunch, you can swing a better and more filling dinner.This menu assumes that you probably have the basics in your kitchen, such as seasonings, spices, sugar, and cooking oil. In fact, you probably have much more than that. When I’ve reverted to this menu I am generally able to get very minimal groceries because I have plenty of canned goods and dry goods in my pantry. This just provides me with a great way to use them!Don’t miss out on the paperback!Help us make it to the top of the charts on Amazon by grabbing your copy this weekend! Your purchase means so much to me!As well, please do me a favor and leave a quick review if you feel I’ve earned five stars. Doing this ensures that people searching for a book like this are able to find mine and it makes an enormous difference in sales.I really believe that this book can help you (or someone you know who needs it) to get through hard times. In it, I share many of the strategies that allowed me to keep my children fed when I was a flat-broke single mama. Those times were difficult indeed, but my girls actually look back on that food and consider it their comfort food today.Most of the recipes require little in the way of hands-on time, because, in addition to being broke, I was also working full time, then chauffeuring my daughters to various places after I got off work.  I had a household to manage alone, laundry to do, and other requirements on my time so spending hours in the kitchen simply wasn’t an option. If you have more time, you can cut even more money off these recipes by making each component from scratch.Here’s the table of contents. I tried to make the book a lot of fun!* Introduction* Frugalicious Philosophies* Flat Broke Grocery Shopping* Basic Batches* Ultimate Frugal Formulas* Cheap Eats* Pantry Raid* What a Crock* Food with a Future* Love Your Leftovers* Seasonal Savings* Lazy ala Daisy* About the AuthorI hope you enjoy What to Eat When You’re Broke! Thank you so very much for your support.What about you?What do you eat when money is tight? Share your tastiest and most frugal meal ideas in the comments! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Yes.That's it. That's the article. Well, it could be, because IF you have the means and IF you have the space and IF you're physically capable of raising chickens, then you definitely should consider buying and raising them. I was saying this before eggs became so expensive in the United States that people started smuggling them from Mexican supermarkets. Now, it's really a no-brainer. Here are three reasons why...Better TasteFor a long time I didn't really buy into the notion that fresh eggs were any better than store-bought eggs. Then, I tried some. My aunt raises chickens as does my wife's sister. Both of us had separate opportunities to try actual "farm fresh" eggs that were laid within 24 hours of us eating them by chickens who were raised in backyards. Don't let anyone tell you they are no different from grocery store eggs. It's not even really a comparison. Then, there are the health benefits which I'll leave for you to research, but I've heard farm fresh eggs are simply more nutritious.Cheaper in the Long TermChickens are actually pretty cheap to buy. Building or buying a chicken coop can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars up to however much you want to spend on them. The feed and other regular expenses are rising, though they're not terribly expensive just yet. Compare that to the price of eggs and suddenly it's clear how around one egg per chicken per day can add up in the long-term to tremendous savings.Indefinite Supply of ProteinLet's call it what how we see it. The powers-that-be are in the process of eliminating and eventually outlawing natural forms of protein that aren't insects. They want us eventually eating lab-grown meats or cricketburgers as our primary source of protein, and by "eventually" I hope everyone understands we're talking about months or years, not decades.Chickens properly raised and cared for can produce anywhere from three or four eggs per week to an egg per day each. That's 5-8 grams of protein, not to mention other crucial nutrients, produced per chicken per day. Combine that with a freeze-dried protein bucket (promo code "prep2023" for 10% off or "prep2030" for 15% off orders over $777) and you'll have a long-term supply of real protein from real animals instead of relying on the government's mealworm lines.If you're thinking about buying and raising chickens, you're not alone. According to the article below by Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge, people are becoming more and more interested in the idea...Egg Crisis Sparks Soaring Interest In Backyard FarmsCovid supply chain snarls turned millions of Americans into "preppers" overnight. The run on toilet paper, food, guns, ammunition, and other essential items for survival pushed millions to consider preparedness for a crisis.Remember all those old-school preppers? The media used to refer to them as "extreme" and even called them "tin-foil hat conspiracy" folks, but during the shutdowns, those folks were right, and the mainstream media got it wrong.The next shortage underway is eggs. Readers have seen our notes on supermarkets nationwide running out of eggs. The egg shortage is so severe that last week the US Customs and Border Protection reported that egg smuggling from Mexico erupted.And why is that? Well, a dozen Grade A eggs in the US have topped $4.25 at supermarkets. In Mexico, a 30 count of eggs is about $3.40.US egg prices have topped the national average gasoline per gallon price at the pump.As a result of the egg crisis, internet search trends on Google show Americans are panic searching where to find egg-laying hens for their backyard.The search trend "where to buy chickens near me" erupted to a near multi-decade high."Buy chickens near me" searches explode across the US.Besides the Covid spike, "how to raise chickens" has spiked to levels not seen in a decade.Over the last several years, food insecurity has pushed many Americans to create 'little backyard farms'- something their parents or grandparents did more than half a century ago. Living off the land was standard decades ago, but as metropolises sprung up, people relied more on a corporation (or even the government) to provide food.Soaring distrust in government and corporations had transformed many into preppers following the pandemic shutdowns when some supplies were impossible to find. People don't want to be left empty-handed when the next crisis arises. This has led to a new generation of preppers and the normalization of being prepared.Speaking of BeefOkay, so nobody brought up beef but I will. We are getting into the beef business, expanding our thriving freeze-dried chicken business to include cows. We only bought 10 cows for our initial run so it's first come, first served. We have non-GMO cows that aren't getting the dreaded mRNA vaccines the powers-that-be are pushing now. Grass fed, grain finished. We'll be selling frozen steaks, ground beef, and roasts, PLUS we'll be selling long-term storage freeze dried beef chunks. If you want to be notified when we open for orders, go to my beef page.Alternative Video Sources:* Rumble* Gab* Brighteon* Odysee This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

America is on the path toward a massive Amoxicillin shortage. Anyone who has tried to get it recently either lucked out on the first try or had to search again and again for a pharmacy that could fulfill the prescription. We are on the verge of a full-blown antibiotic crisis and the Biden-Harris regime has it on the backburner. It's not that they don't want to fix it. It's that the United States is so beholden to China for pharmaceuticals that the regime doesn't have an easy fix.Around 90% of the ingredients used to make drugs like Amoxicillin come from China. This is an ugly situation to be in with a supply chain crisis and tensions rising. Winter is coming. This isn't the time to be short on drugs that can prevent a simple infection from becoming life-threatening.This is why we started working with a company that ships Amoxicillin and four other antibiotics to telehealth patients. Those who have read my work or heard my shows for the past year or so know that proper preparedness has been one of my biggest pushes and being prepared medically is on the top of the list. One does not have to be a full-blown "doomsday prepper" in a bunker to make common sense choices as negative situations continue to rise in America.Of all the problems we face as a nation and as a people, this is the one that has the fewest options available for both our government and for individuals. We can debate the insanity of becoming dependent on China some other time. Today, we need to focus on solving the problem, and for individuals that means stocking up on antibiotics that can be stored long-term (use promo code "RUCKER10" for $10 off).Medical professionals have been ringing the alarm bell of late, but the warnings are getting drowned out by a partnership between government, corporate media, and Big Pharma to focus solely on getting as many people to take the Covid jabs as many times as possible. There's money, power, and access on the line for those who are supposed to be revealing the medical truth and unfortunately for us the Covid jabs are the only priority. According to Prevention:There’s no clear answer. The ASHP lists out several pharmaceutical companies that have reported amoxicillin shortages and noted that they didn’t provide a reason for the lack of supply.But amoxicillin has “become restricted in the supply chain due to increased use,” says Stephanie Field, M.B.A., director of pharmacy business services at Corewell Health West. Meaning, demand for the drug has ramped up as a slew of illnesses circulate.It’s also possible that supply chain issues that have plagued nearly every industry since the pandemic began are at play here, too, says Crystal Tubbs, Pharm.D., associate director of pharmacy services at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “Shortages in general can be caused by supply/demand issues, shortages of raw materials or other ingredients needed to manufacture the drug, logistics interruptions and/or challenges with manufacturing facilities,” she explains.According to Red State:Translation: Big Pharma is too busy counting their billions from the utterly ineffective COVID vaccines they are still pushing to care about mundane drugs that actually work. The problem has become critical, as the Daily Mail notes.The Children’s Hospital Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics joined forces to urge the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to declare a Public Health Emergency in order to assist strapped hospitals.Declaring a state of emergency would allow Secretary Becerra to distribute financial assistance to states, work with companies to produce more treatments and supplies, loosen licencing requirements that will help alleviate healthcare staffing shortages, and expand hospital capacity.Maybe if it was an issue among illegal immigrants they might care. But I digress.A sick child’s parents have no patience for muddled supply chain blaming, even as earlier this year, hungry babies’ parents were in no mood for sanctimonious breastfeeding lectures in lieu of fixing the baby formula shortage. Considering the Biden Administration’s utter ineptitude in solving the baby formula crisis, perhaps we shouldn’t ask them to look at the amoxicillin problem.We chose long ago to only work with sponsors who offered real solutions to our readers. This is why we're not promoting inconsequential sponsored products like "Lordships" or coffee mugs. Those can be extremely profitable, but we make sure all of our sponsors are making a difference for Americans, either with their products like storable antibiotics or their companies like Mike Lindell.It's getting crazier and crazier out there. The midterm elections didn't offer much relief. With the Chinese Communist Party bent on opposing America as well as taking control of Taiwan, it's very likely we will see a full-blown Amoxicillin crisis someday soon. Now is not the time to rely on the Biden-Harris regime or Kevin McCarthy to fix things. In fact, there's NEVER a time to rely on government to do for us what we should be doing for ourselves. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Editor's Commentary: I know the article below only qualifies as a true "late prepper" article for a handful if our audience, but it's an interesting read nonetheless if only to spark ideas that we can use in our lives. As much as I wish we could all just pick up from where we are, find a secluded homestead with all of the necessary survival gear already set up, and wait out the apocalypse quietly tucked away, that's just not reality for most.I will be posting more articles with more useful tips and tricks. To be fair, I've been so busy during election season that I haven't had much time to work on my own preps, let alone offer tips. But the election is done so it's time for me to get into it all again, especially considering the election means we're closer now to whatever might make us use our preps.For those who are actually considering moving to a safer area, it may behoove you to consider one of our newest sponsors and their https://jdrucker.com/bunker. I covered the article below in a short segment on the latest episode of https://rumble.com/v1v91t6-with-election-fraud-deniers-everywhere-is-there-anything-we-can-do-to-fix-t.html. Below is the article by J.G. Martinez at https://www.theorganicprepper.com/micro-retreat/.Most of us are not exactly farmers and will have a https://www.theorganicprepper.com/heres-why-a-prepper-homestead-may-not-a-good-plan-for-survival/ what we intend to eat if we just one day decide to start living off our harvests. It is a fact. https://www.theorganicprepper.com/small-game-hunting-tips-tricks/ and fishers obviously will have an edge after the collapse, but sadly, I am almost sure that in a tribal environment, my social position would not be too high.That said, maybe joining a tribe after some age won’t be as romantic as it seems. Maybe a better idea, in order to live longer, is to https://www.theorganicprepper.com/selco-explains-how-and-why-to-be-the-gray-man/, with only a few close friends and family nearby. At some age, you need some peace.For many https://www.theorganicprepper.com/fathers-of-survivalism/, the proper approach was a complete farm. The amount of work involved with this path is plenty.The more land you have to take care of, the more problems!I’ve seen this a few times. Hard-working people who made a few bucks with three or four crops in a row expanded their business by buying another farm somewhere else, and…bang!With twice the land, their problems multiplied exponentially, and the need for further investment followed.However, maybe for many of us, the ideal location is not a full-size homestead or a large compound.A micro-retreat may be the solution.The word “micro” suggests that something minimal should come to mind. My technical background immediately clicks when I think about anything related to a production facility, and I imagine a highly productive but compact environment.I have always been fascinated by those overlanders’ custom-built rigs over a Mercedes Unimog chassis. They are compact and space-efficient but comfortable enough for prolonged stays. This is a remarkable example of a well-done micro-habitat.Also, think about the https://www.theorganicprepper.com/prepping-lessons-tiny-house/ movement. Some of those properties are designed for boondocking – living away from civilization and services. (Want to know how to keep your family fed when you have to use a micro-retreat? Check out our free https://www.theorganicprepper.com/quickstart-guide-3-layer-food-storage-plan/ to building a 3-layer food storage system.)A micro-retreat doesn’t have to be a micro-producer.Depending on your family group, or whatever the flavor of “clan” you may have, you could craft a small place quite productive with proper planning, provided you know your climate and your skill level. You could even disguise it as a “vacation” property. The beauty of this is that nobody has to know that your gun safe is in a hidden portion of the basement in your “hunting cabin.” Or, nobody has to know that those PVC DIY empty shelves in your basement will be to grow https://www.theorganicprepper.com/growing-greens-and-micro-greens-indoors/ to complement your food supply.Such planning will make your life easier. There will be less investment to make, you will work smarter and not harder (something that will make your senior years more pleasant!), and generally, it will be much easier to keep your place clean and well-maintained.A “micro-retreat” doesn’t mean you have to restrict yourself to the bare minimum land for your needs.A plague could attack your crops. Someone could arrive unexpectedly, and you will need some extra. The ideal setup would be a place secluded enough, but where unexpected visitors will be able to stay, if needed.As an example, you could think of https://www.theorganicprepper.com/using-a-greenhouse-for-food-self-sufficiency/. You must think in terms of vertical expansion (upwards and downwards)if you want to keep the initial cost of a micro-retreat low enough and to maximize the space. I like to think the positive part of a small setup is that it will be much easier to keep hidden. Planting thorny bushes around will make it inextricable in a few years and will hide your orchard, gardens, and buildings. You may combine this with earthbag DIY construction that you can cover with dirt and some weed or grass grows over an ingenious layout, and it will be almost undetectable.You may want it as a semi-permanent, permanent, or temporary residence.The size will depend on what you want, what you need, and what you can afford. That’s the compromise.Planning includes thinking thoroughly and drawing a sketch with the layout you believe you’re going to need. By dividing your needs into sections, or compartments, you will make sure it will be easier to make a much more complete analysis of what you need.You need to know what is next to you!Neighbors? A cliff?A mountainside that could generate a mudslide? A lake? A river that could flood your place under several days of heavy rains? Hunting/fishing areas? And, by extension, https://www.theorganicprepper.com/full-scale-simulation-new-study-reveals-where-to-go-when-civilization-collapses-head-for-the-hills/https://www.theorganicprepper.com/full-scale-simulation-new-study-reveals-where-to-go-when-civilization-collapses-head-for-the-hills/https://www.theorganicprepper.com/full-scale-simulation-new-study-reveals-where-to-go-when-civilization-collapses-head-for-the-hills/Try to keep things at a proper size using scaling.What I like about the concept of a micro-retreat is that you don’t need too much space if you are on your own or have a small family. However, having space outdoors will be a big deal, even if your bedroom is a bunk bed on top of a study or desktop. And, if you build an area to hang out, even better.You may want to use some advice from those who are professionals at https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/advice/11-tips-living-tiny-spaces/.Use vertical space.You may even think on three levels, provided you’re in a place with plenty of sunlight:* Level 1: A terrace with a pergola on top. Place solar panels here for Level 3. Have planters all around with spices or flowers. This level could double as a place to drink coffee, have dinner, or hang out. Or work as a watchtower. Make it easy to access with round stairs. Build it pretty, and make sure the water collected by this roof is collected.* Level 2: Maybe some tanks for tilapia or more plants that don’t need too much sun? Perhaps you may want to start the microgreens growing at this level?. A secondary walk-in pantry? Materials storage, like plumbing, wiring, and car spare parts? Your woodworking shop? Butcher room? Smoker/dry food storage?* Level 3: This is a basement.(Want uninterrupted access to The Organic Prepper? Check out https://selfrelianceandsurvival.com/product/the-official-newsletter-of-the-apocalypse/ https://selfrelianceandsurvival.com/product/the-official-newsletter-of-the-apocalypse/.)Here are a few final thoughts of mine on micro-retreats…https://amzn.to/3tVNzKd, a small pump for the water/nutrition solution mixture, and shelves with the greens will improve your capabilities to produce highly nutritive vegetables in a reduced space. You don’t need to dig too much. Just do good research on this topic.Even better, if you can afford more than one, isn’t it always a good idea to have some redundancy in your survival assets? Why not build yet another micro-retreat in a place further away, just in case, then?You don’t have to “think big.” Especially if This is a public episode. 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Editor's Note: We do everything we can to filter through the various opinions when it comes to prepping. There is no universally agreed upon strategy. Everyone must assess their own situation and come up with a plan. All we can do is offer some guidance.For today's (long overdue) episode of Late Prepper, I referenced the article below by Kevin Hughes at Natural News. As I noted in the show, I don't completely agree with everything that's in the article but it's a good starting point, especially for those who are truly late to the game. Here's Kevin's article...Stockpiling foods that can last for weeks or years is not just a smart way of beating rising food costs. It can also help you save money and be prepared for emergencies.In the event of a long power outage, having even a small supply of long-shelf life foods, such as dry goods, canned goods and freeze-dried foods, can make a big difference. You’ll also be grateful to have a little extra food at home when you get sick and can’t go out to buy groceries. Because of inflation and rising food prices, keeping shelf-stable foods is a good investment.Tips for stocking up on foodRemember to stock up on foods that you actually eat or drink. Don’t stockpile foods that you or your family members are allergic to or won’t touch.When buying groceries, you should also know the exact quantity of food your family consumes on a regular basis; buy some extra. (Related: 10 Tips for stockpiling food.)Foods from a supermarket or grocery all have an expiration date, which indicates when a food product will start to taste bad. However, some food products are still safe to eat well past their expiration date.To determine if you should get rid of an expired food item or not, look for signs that the food has gone bad. Bloated or leaking cans, signs of mold or insect damage and a foul odor are just some warning signs that a product is no longer safe for consumption.You should also stock up on ingredients that you often use in your recipes, like herbs and spices and canned sauces. If your family likes to drink tea or coffee, stock up on them as well.Pay attention to the foods you want to stockpile and learn to experiment in the kitchen. Before buying plenty, try cooking with a certain food or product to make sure that you really like its taste and you’ll consume it.Dry goods like salt, sugar, grains, flour, rice and dried beans can be stored at room temperature. Remember that dry goods are historically crucial food supplies that you need to store in bulk for months or years. To prolong their shelf life, you can store them in Mylar bags or other airtight containers.Ways to extend the shelf life of foodsThere are many ways to extend the shelf life of foods in your stockpile. Here are some tips to follow:* Store food in a cool, dry place. Be mindful of the temperature; some foods are fine with room temperature while others prefer freezing temperatures.* Check the humidity in your storage area. Wheat, flour and other dry goods should be stored in a place with little to no moisture in the air. Fresh foods like fruits and vegetables require a specific humidity level to extend the time they can be in storage.* Fats react with oxygen and easily go rancid, so choose foods with low fat content. These foods will keep for long in storage.* Consider reducing oxygen in your storage area since oxidation causes food to spoil quickly.* Use tightly sealed containers to reduce oxidation and make food last longer.* Store foods away from direct sunlight and in airtight containers.Foods with a long shelf lifeWhen SHTF, having a stockpile of shelf-stable foods will help you and your family survive.Here’s a list of the best long-shelf life foods to store:* Foods that last 25 to 30+ years: White rice, wild rice, rolled oats, corn, buckwheat and red or white winter wheat; legumes like pinto beans, black beans, lentils and peas; waxed cheese; dehydrated fruit slices; freeze-dried eggs and instant coffee; white flour; dried corn like dent or flint corn; hardtack; soy sauce; and freeze-dried meals like MREs (meals ready to eat)* Foods that last 5 to 25 years: Raw molasses, powdered eggs, dehydrated carrots, ghee, powdered low-fat milk, powdered sour cream, canned goods, freeze -dried bacon and freeze-dried fruits* Foods that last 2 to 5 years: Virgin coconut oil, spices, mustard powder, dark chocolate, cocoa powder, pasta products, canned soup and chili, canned tuna, chicken and beef; pemmican, frozen eggs, jelly, jam, canned fruit, pickled veggies, peppercorns and flavored liquor* Foods that last 1 to 2 years: Regular beef jerky, bouillon cubes, canned tomato sauce, salsa and other tomato-based products; vegetable oil, whole powdered milk, peanut butter, dried raisins, cranberries and cherries; homegrown garlic, pancake mix, ground pepper, frozen broccoli, corn off the cob and vacuum-sealed frozen meat* Foods that last 3 to 9 months: Hard winter squash, long storage apples, long storage potatoes, brown rice, short storage potatoes, breakfast cereal, block cheese, farm-fresh (unwashed) eggs, granola bars, homegrown carrots or parsnips, supermarket garlic cloves, vanilla beans, storage onion, sausage, beer and packaged frozen meat* Foods that last a couple of weeks to three months: Sweet onions, minced jarred garlic, pears, short storage apples, supermarket eggs, regular squash, strawberries, walnuts, garden tomatoes, pumpkin, supermarket tomatoes and asparagus* Foods that last indefinitely: Salt, sugar, baking soda and baking powder, if stored properly* Raw honey, a healthy sugar substitute, can last forever.Visit FoodFreedom.news for more articles like this.Watch the video below to learn how to make your own storable food with a long shelf life.This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.More related stories:* Food storage tips and tricks for preppers.* Food storage tips: 11 Superfoods that boost your nutrient intake.* Prepping on a budget: 12 Ways to prep without spending too much.* Food storage tips: How to keep pests out of your survival stockpile.Sources include:* CommonSenseHome.com* DystopianSurvival.com* Brighteon.com* NATURAL NEWS This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Food, water, shelter, medicine, and ammunition/firearms are five things that are essential for survival in a societal collapse. As the possibility of such a collapse increases seemingly every day, more people have been signing up my Late Prepper Substack. It's telling that just a few weeks ago we struggled to get free subscriptions, but today they come in even if we don't publish anything for several days.I've neglected to post things here lately simply because I've been busy prepping myself. But a task I've been working on this week prompted me to take the list I made and share it with others. These are the "non-essential" items we're stocking up on now. By putting "non-essential" in quotes, I'm suggesting that yes, we can technically survive without them, but it's a lot easier if you have a good supply of these items.This is not a comprehensive list by any means. It's just the things that I've logged as items we're stocking up on to make sure we're not caught flatfooted if the crap hits the fan. I made this list based on two criteria — usability and barter value. Some items we can buy cheaply today will be like gold in an end-times scenario.One does not need to be a "doomsday prepper" living off-grid on a homestead in Montana to recognize the need for these items. Even city- and suburb-dwellers may lose access to such supplies if the system fails. Being ready is extraordinarily important, especially when we look at the trajectory of the nation and the world.1. BleachUnscented bleach can literally be a lifesaver as it pertains to making water potable. While we recommend the Alexapure Water Filtration System, a little bit of bleach will do the trick as well. There are many other uses, of course, and perhaps most importantly it's very cheap... for now.2. Batteries, ChargersBatteries generally have a 10-year shelf life when unopened. We like rechargeable batteries, especially if you have a solar generator or other sustainable electricity supply.3. Lighters, Matches, Alternative Fire-StartersFire can be the key to survival. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to produce for most people. Learning how to start and build a fire in a pinch is important, but I'm a big fan of stocking up on things that make it easier.4. Contact Lenses, GlassesDepending on optical and financial situation, it may behoove you to have a long-term supply of contact lenses. Have multiple glasses is definitely a best-practice. As for bartering and use, having a nice supply of inexpensive reading glasses could come in handy as well.5. Super GlueIn a crap-hits-the-fan scenario, being able to fix things as they break is going to be extremely important. Glue is helpful.6. Duct TapeLike super glue, but for different purposes. I have ongoing shipments of six-packs of duct tape heading to my home every month.7. VaselineAs a lubricant and accelerant, few things are more useful than Vaseline, even without considering the medical benefits. A little Vaseline, a cotton ball, and a stick can make a little torch.8. Insect RepellentCall me paranoid, but I'm very concerned about mosquitos and other insects in a post-apocalyptic world. Heck, I'm not crazy about them now. As anyone who has been to Africa knows, mosquito bites can be deadly.9. Soap, Toothpaste, Deodorant, Hygiene ItemsThey last a long time (indefinitely?), are extremely important for you health and wellbeing, and can be excellent barter currency if you have enough available. Besides, if things get better it's not like you won't go through your supply eventually.10. Hand SanitizerPersonally, I'm not a fan of hand sanitizer. But every list mentions them so I suppose a lot of people like it. Call me old-fashioned by I like soap and water.11. Tools and Backups, Nails, ScrewsConsidering we may have to build or repair things in the long term if the crap hits the fan, making sure you have everything you need to accomplish your tasks makes sense. This should NOT be considered a barter item.12. Knives and SawsUnlike most other tools, sharp necessary items like knives and saws wear down rapidly with regular use. It behooves many of us to have plenty of high-quality sharps available.13. Flashlights, Candles, LanternsI'm fan of variety over quality when it comes to lighting. I know many swear by the high-dollar versions of these items, but I'll take cheap and good enough quality in bulk for the same price. Some flashlights you keep should not need batteries; hand-cranked or solar flashlights can be hugely beneficial.14. Paper, Pens, PencilsSo many uses, plus tons of regret if you don't have enough paper and writing instruments.15. Toilet Paper, Paper Towels, and RagsI was extremely annoyed during the Spring of 2020 when stores kept running out of toilet paper. I railed against people who bought two-year supplies of toilet paper. Today, I have a two-year supply of toilet paper. One important note: I'm a big fan of reusable rags and towels. Having disposable items is fine but require disposal and are obviously finite. Having rags you can use, clean, and reuse will be important.16. Bungie Cord, Ropes, String, Zip TiesRepairing an building will likely be required if the crap hits the fan and stays bad for a long time. Bungie cords, ropes, string, and zip ties have unlimited uses.17. SeedsThis is a food items, but it's one that falls outside of the realm of straight food because it doesn't take up much space and can be stored away to be used in the distant future. If you have plenty of seeds, you may never use them, but if you don't have them you'll probably need them.18. TarpsCheap and useful.19. Plastic BagsCheap and useful, too.20. Kids' NeedsDon't forget the kids, especially babies! Diapers, baby wipes, powders... we've seen in our current situation how hard it is to keep baby formula on the shelves. Imagine if the crap hits the fan how other items will also be hard to acquire.21. Baking SodaUnlimited uses, and not just for cooking.22. Fire ExtinguishersIf things continue to go south, it's not inconceivable that basic emergency services will be hard or even impossible to call. One does not want to lose everything over an accident that could have been easily suppressed.Side NoteThe most important thing to stock up on is hope. Read your Bible. Pray. Keep fighting the good fight. Doom and gloom is everywhere and spreading, but it's not hopeless. Not by a long shot.We have multiple long-term food storage sponsors for a variety of choices and needs, plus a pair of quality precious metals sponsors to help you protect wealth and retirement. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

Many of us no longer need motivation to prepare for the future. Economic challenges seem to continue to pop up even as long-standing problems get worse. But if you need even more motivation to turn to your local community and away from China and our own government, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver just gave us another reason.From Fox News [emphasis added]:Silver also pushed back Thursday on criticisms from U.S. lawmakers about the NBA's business relationship with China, noting that the league is just one of many companies to work with the Chinese."From a policy standpoint, virtually every Fortune 100 company is doing business in China," Silver said. "We have an enormous, humongous trade relationship with China. Virtually all the phones in this room, the clothes you are wearing, the shoes you are wearing, are made in China. From a larger societal standpoint, this is something where we have to look to the U.S. government for direction.""And if people are suggesting now that we should no longer have trade relations with China, and I don't think they are, that's a huge global issue where we will follow the lead from our government," he continued.Basically, he's saying the NBA does it because everybody else is doing it. From his perspective, he's pretty sure we're not going to stop buying from China altogether, right?Well, maybe should. In fact, we definitely should. As we approach a possible economic collapse, it behooves us make a concerted effort toward buying as hyper-local as possible, and it's not just to punish big companies or even China. If and when the supply chain completely stops in the United States, we will be forced to turn to local suppliers and producers. Best to make the change now. Call it practice.By making this a practice, we will be keeping our dollars as close to home as possible. Today, we're a global economy with a strong domestic infrastructure. But those who believe we will eventually no longer be able to have everything we need delivered by Amazon or available at Walmart should move as many of their purchases as possible from local producers.It's a prepper thing, but it really is an America thing as well. Adam Silver is right. We are massively tied to China and just about every big business in the nation is. As I called for in today's episode of The JD Rucker Show as well as the Late Prepper podcast, we need to move our dollars to the local community as quickly and completely as possible.Secure your long-term food. Three options are available among our sponsors. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

When even the Biden regime and leaders of financial institutions across the globe are telling us there will be massive food shortages, believe them. It's not common for me to give that advice since politicians and banking leaders are in the business of lying, but this particular narrative seems to be as real as it gets. We're already seeing food shortages hitting here in the United States, and inflation is making it harder and harder to stock up.Generally, I despise "fearmongers" because there is always an ulterior motive to their doomsday predictions, but I'm finding I've been forced to earnestly deliver truths lately that do not bode well for any of us. Food is becoming more scarce and prices are going up, which is why I am ringing the alarm bells and telling people to get prepared immediately.Many of us are struggling just to keep food on the table today, so getting prepared for the future can be very challenging. Here are five ways we prepare our own family that can be cost-effective, helping us stay within budget. We use a dehydrator to store food we accumulate, but you can also use freeze-driers, canning, or other preservation methods. I'm not going to go into detail about any of those today. This article and podcast are all about ways to save money procuring food in this rapidly devolving economy.GardeningLet's get the caveat on this one out of the way up front. Gardening can be very expensive in the beginning. It all depends on your living situation. Some people have the space already available on their land or in their backyards. Perhaps they have the necessary soil and weather conditions to get a garden going easily. All they need are seeds, and those can be very inexpensive even if you go with my recommended organic-heirloom seeds.For some of us, we have to get growbags, special soil, fertilizer, or even grow lights, all of which can be expensive. But if you have the space, time, and enough money to invest in ongoing food security, nothing beats gardening. Homesteading is so appealing because of the prospects of not being beholden to the system and gardening is an extremely important part of that lifestyle. To anyone who has the means of starting or expanding your garden, now would be a good time.Farmer's MarketsSupporting your local community is always a good thing. I'm not a fan of having to use mega-corporations for supplies. Don't get me wrong. I'm not inherently opposed to big corporate giants; I'm a capitalist, after all. But many if not most corporations have gone "woke" in recent years and I don't like supporting those who directly oppose my worldview.But buying food from farmers' markets is about more than just supporting local businesses. It can be far less expensive than grocery stores, especially if you're buying in bulk. The quality is hit-or-miss sometimes, depending on the farmers at the market. It takes a good eye for food to help you pick out the best produce and avoid getting anything you can't really use.InstacartNo, I'm not suggesting having your food delivered as a way to save money. It's not cheap and unless you have physical or transportation challenges, services like Instacart are luxuries. With that said, price-shopping on Instacart or other services can be very rewarding because you can compare prices between different stores very easily.You can also find sales that you can take advantage of, sales that are often not advertised in the junk mail ads they send out. We look for items we need on the homepage of Instacart, then we open up each individual store to see who has the best deals. This can be a time-consuming process if you need to buy a lot of food at once, but it can save you money and alert you to the big price breaks that may come in handy if you're stocking up.Amazon - Walmart - Costco - Plus Don't Forget to Check the SourcesAs dismayed as I get anytime I buy from the big corporate suppliers, I get more dismayed when I overpay for items I need. The big online stores often sell products for cheaper than at local stores, but here's an important note. Do NOT assume that is always the case. There are so many items that are cheaper at your local stores. Amazon, Walmart, Target, Costco, and others rely on the belief that they sell everything at lower prices. This is true sometimes, but they also overprice many items.Another quick tip is to check sources. For example, I used to buy Bob's Red Mill (which I no longer buy because of changes at the company recently) from Amazon. Before making a larger purchase of flour, I checked their website. The bulk bag was priced much cheaper than at Amazon, but the shipping made it more expensive overall. Then, I discovered that if I bought 5-pound bags, I would get free shipping. Buying ten 5-pound bags tallied higher than buying a 50-pound bag, but the free shipping for buying the smaller bags at higher quantities actually made it cheaper than the bulk bag AND cheaper than Amazon.Freeze Dried Food ShoppingFreeze-dried food is not cheap. For those who still need to secure two-years' worth of food, I don't recommend going to freeze dried because it's cheaper to get regular food for short- and mid-term storage than the freeze-dried long-term storage food.Those who are ready for long-term storage should look into freeze-dried because it can last 25 years or more. Getting it all in bulk buys of buckets is the most cost-effective way, but be warned. The problem with buying big packages is that you may not like everything that's included. It's important to know exactly what's in each package. They may promise 300 breakfast meals, but if you don't like or cannot eat some of the products included then do you really get 300? No.I have tested literally dozens (could be hundreds for all I know) of products from long-term storage food companies. I've selected a few that I like based on multiple criteria, the two most important of which are price and quality. Nobody wants to be stuck in the apocalypse with food they dread.We have selected three companies as sponsors based solely on what I would buy for my family. It's funny because the company that pays by far the highest commissions had what I believe to be the worst overall food. That's probably why they pay so much, but I had to pass. I won't take on a sponsor that I don't use myself, which is why we only selected these three so far. I've turned down at least eight other sponsorship offers because I would never buy their foods for my family.There are three reasons we picked multiple companies instead of just sticking with one. First and foremost, I wanted a range of prices available. Nutrient Survival might be the best quality, but they're also by far the most expensive. A 90-day kit sells regularly for $1890. Meanwhile, My Patriot Supply is above-average quality but is far less expensive. Their three-month kit is under $900.The second reason I picked three is because the food shortages are already affecting availability. One of the long-term storage suppliers that I actually like is not shipping anything else until 2023!The third reason is because we need variety of flavors and dishes. As I often say, it's not good to go into a societal collapse situation with nothing but rice, beans, and a couple of other flavors to rotate. I'm a big fan of not only surviving, but thriving. It's good to have variety for the emotional wellbeing of you and your family, not to mention the diversity of nutrients this brings.With all that said, here are the three long-term food storage sponsors we recommend:* My Patriot Supply: Above-average quality at below-average prices* Valley Food Storage: Higher quality, higher prices* Nutrient Survival: Premium long-term foodFinal NoteLike I said in the beginning, I loathe fearmongering. I hate being doom and gloom in my warnings, but I believe they are valid. With that said, I am also always hopeful. God's plan is all that matters, and we cannot know if he plans to pull this nation back from the brink of collapse or not. I hope He does, but I'm preparing for if He doesn't.No matter what, Bible-believing Christians know how the story ends. There will be hard times, but the faithful have eternity before us. Whatever hardships we have in this life will be wiped away in the next. This is a public episode. 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If you're like me, you're concerned that some or all foods will soon be either too expensive to buy or not available at all. It's no secret that I am a "late prepper" who used to dismiss calls to get prepared. I never saw the need to be ready for whatever is to come because I didn't think things would ever get as bad as they are now.I was wrong.On today's episode of The Late Prepper, I discussed seven food items that new preppers need to stock up on as soon as possible. These are items that I and other, more experienced preppers believe are both necessary for long-term survival and that may be hard to get in the coming years, even months. Food isn't everything. We need to have a strong supply of potable water. We need medicines and other supplies. We definitely need a way to protect our supplies when someone tries to take them. But today we're talking about food.Certain items will be harder to get than others. This is always the case, but it will be accentuated during an economic downturn or full-blown collapse. I took that into account as well as two other factors: price and usefulness. You could stock up on Doritos if you'd like, but I don't consider them to be very useful in a crap-hits-the-fan situation.Rice and BeansThis is the no-brainer that every prepper knows and loves. The reason the combination of rice and beans is so important is because it hits all of the necessary qualities. Today, both are relatively cheap but in a near-future collapse scenario, demand will overtake supply and prices will skyrocket. They can be stored for very long times, up to 25 years or more in the right conditions. The nutrition is proven; combining them delivers the right amino acids to form proper proteins. Technically, you could survive on just rice, beans, and water indefinitely.Canned FoodsFor the sake of variety and having foods with mid-term shelf-lives, most canned foods are great. They are also generally inexpensive, though not as inexpensive as fresh foods that you can yourself. But the best part about canned foods like soups, meals, fruits, vegetables, and meats is that they're generally ready-to-eat without necessary preparation. They're better when heated, but they can be eaten right out of the can. Just be sure to have manual can-openers ready.Wheat BerriesThis versatile family of grains can help you meet your daily caloric intake easily. They are nutritious and when stored properly, they can last for decades. Definitely make sure you have a mill that can grind up your wheat berries into flour. We have one electric and one manual. We get ours from 4 Generations Organic.Food BucketsI often tell new preppers to get their freeze-dried foods last. Too often I see people going straight to ordering buckets of long-term food before they have enough regular food to get them to the long-term. Only after cupboards, pantries, refrigerators, and freezers are full should anyone move to food buckets. Once you get your short- and mid-term food covered, buckets can be cost-effective ways of getting a nice variety of long-term food. We recommend one of our sponsors for this, and they currently have a summer sale that just launched.Milk, Butter, Eggs (and Cheese)Fats are going to be the hardest macronutrient to acquire after the crap hits the fan. Most oils do not last longer than a year or two even if they're not opened. This is why we store plenty of powdered milk, butter, and eggs. Milk and butter also have other nutrients that are necessary for survival and if stored right, the can last a decade. As for cheese, we're just now testing out Bega canned cheese. So far, so good. It's expensive, but they claim their cheese can last a decade, so we're starting to stock up.Dehydrated Fruits and VegetablesIf you can afford freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, that's the better way to go. It's definitely more expensive, but it's healthier, tastes better, and lasts longer. We are stocking up on dehydrated fruits and vegetables. They won't last as long, but we will store them for as long as possible as today's fresh fruits and vegetables that are so abundant in the United States may not be so easy to get in the near future.Freeze Dried ChickenWe started a an organic, roasted, freeze-dried chicken company. Okay, so technically it's an organic freeze-dried food company, but our focus is on one product now. We're selling five pounds of chicken that is roasted and then freeze-dried down to a single pound. It's 19 servings with 27 grams of protein per serving. Between bird flu, supply chain, fertilizer and grain prices, and escalating inflation, we believe chicken will be gone or at least cost-prohibitive in the near future. That's why we build the company now.More people have started prepping (even if some don't want to call themselves preppers). Considering the state of the economy, there will soon be two types of people: those who prepared and those in breadlines. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com

The vast majority of my life has been spent in cities and suburbs. I have only lived short periods of time outside of areas like Los Angeles and New York City, so I'm what you might call a "city boy." But I am strongly considering moving my family away from the city and I'd suggest the same to those who have the means and the desire.There are many reasons for this, but a new one has popped up in recent months that would never have swayed me in the past. I've heard over and over how bad things can get in the city in the event of major emergencies or terrorist attacks, but I've always dismissed them. Like I said, I'm a city boy so having access to things has always been important. But the past few months have taught me there's a good chance I won't want my family in the city when the crap starts hitting the fan, and that seems to be possible at any moment.Case-in-Point: The radiological attack response drills that are going on in Austin, Texas, right now. I'll let Ethan Huff from Natural News describe the details below, but it's a compelling reason to consider leaving city life if possible. Many bad events can strike anywhere, city or not, but it seems very likely that a radiological attack would target the heaviest population centers.As I said on the latest episode of The Late Prepper, it isn't all perfect in living more isolated. There are disadvantages and threats to country living that don't exist as much in cities and suburbs. With that said, it still seems like a safer bet for most. Here's Ethan with the details:Dirty Bomb Drills Being Run in Austin, Tex., Ahead of Known Radiological Terror Cells Entering U.S.From May 16 through May 20, the Department of Energy’s (DoE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is holding a drill in Austin, Tex., that involves the use of low-flying aircraft and a simulated radiological attack.Called “Cobalt Magnet 22,” the exercise is supposedly taking place to prepare local, state and federal agencies for the possibility of a future radiological attack. Since these drills tend to go live, however, many want to know: Is this another false flag attack in the making?At “various locations around the city,” an announcement from the NNSA reads, “the exercise will simulate a radiological attack, enabling response personnel to practice protecting public health and safety, providing emergency relief to affected populations, and restoring essential services.”During the exercise, personnel donned in PPE (personal protective equipment) will reportedly be seen moseying around Austin with equipment as they pretend to monitor and detect radiation, presumably from a nuclear attack.First responders “and others,” the announcement adds ominously, will also be “staged at various locations” throughout the Texas capital as part of the drill.“The men and women of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team – or NEST – are trained to provide decision-makers with timely, actionable scientific advice during fearful events,” says Jay Tilden, the DoE’s Deputy Under Secretary for Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation.“Saving lives and reducing the impact of a nuclear incident requires a full understanding of what happened, who will be affected, and what the optimal response should be. NEST’s bread and butter is providing that information to local, state, and federal leaders as rapidly as possible.”Mayor Adler and other local officials: “This is only an exercise”In order to quell the fears of area residents who are concerned about this latest government exercise mysteriously going live, Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a raging liberal Demoncrat with “Get vaccinated!” written prominently on his Twitter handle, wrote the following in a tweet:“During a planning exercise next week, Austinites may see teams in protective clothing using radiological equipment, low-flying aircraft gathering data, and groups of first responders and other staged at various locations. This is only an exercise.”Along with this message, Adler shared a link to an article from The Hill explaining the exercise in further detail.Austin Emergency Management (AEM) tweeted a similar message three days later, emphasizing that the event is “just an exercise” and not to worry or panic.Neither the NNSA nor any other local agencies in Austin have clarified why the simulation is happening there, or whether or not Austin is under any kind of radiological or other threat that would render it a potential target.Cobalt Magnet 22 is reminiscent of the “Jade Helm 15” exercise from 2015 that also took place in this same area of Texas, and under similarly strange circumstances.As you may recall, the Health Ranger visited one of the sites involved in that exercise, which include “guard towers” similar to the ones used in fascist regimes to monitor prisoners being held captive behind barbed-wire fencing.Jade Helm 15 simulated the infiltration of soldiers operating “undetected amongst civilian populations,” the purpose being to see if they could infiltrate and blend in with the general population without being noticed.Concerning this latest exercise in Austin, Adan Salazar, writing for Infowars and Newswars, had this to say:“The exercise comes as NATO and its allies have continued to prop up Ukraine in its war against Russia, provoking the former Soviet nation which has full nuclear capabilities. Agencies did not say the drills were in response to any type of threat from Russia.”For more news and information about this topic, be sure to check out Radiation.news.Sources for this article include:* NewsWars.com* NaturalNews.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lateprepper.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lateprepper.com