Getting Prepared for Beginners #17 A Case for Long Term Preparedness

This series has primarily focused on short-term preparedness, getting ready to keep your family safe and comfortable after a storm or other acute "all of the sudden" event. We have made it clear that until you are ready to deal with a hurricane, you will never be ready for the zombie apocalypse. Even now when we talk about longer term preparedness, we are not going to try to get ready for a Global Polar Ice Shift.

For the purpose of this discussion short-term preparedness is anything 10 days or less. So long term preparedness by default would be anything 11 days or more. You will have to look at preparedness a little differently when you consider longer-term preparedness.

What are some of the reasons that people who would never appear on Doom's Day Preppers get ready for that would be long term? Oh I am so glad you asked. So here we go.

Job Loss

Everyone has either been laid off from a job or knows someone who has. This is a very common event and there is nothing "out there" about it. I have found that the older you are and the higher you are on the pay scale the more difficult it is to find a comparable job when you lose one. 

If either my wife or myself were to lose our job our income would be cut in half. Ouch! It is very difficult to imagine how we would make it. I know that there would be unemployment, but that only pays a very small part of what either of us would normally make. Talk about painful. 

Enter preparedness. Say you have been prepping for some time and have accumulated, say a 4 month food supply. You have accumulated it a little at a time. The deep pantry has given you confidence. Now is a time to use those supplies. I am sure there are some that are saying, "But that is for an emergency." Here is the deal. For your family, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. Just imagine how much stress can be taken away if you only had to buy very little food for 4 months while you are searching for another job. The money that you would have been spending on groceries can now be spent on other things that are needed. You can always put them back after you are working again.

Extended Illness

All of the things I said above also apply here, but there is more. If you have the opportunity to obtain short-term disability affordably through your work place, do it. Disability insurance pays better than unemployment would, but it is still not the full amount that you would normally get. In this case you might only use part of your food supplies, you might have to use some of your medical or first aid supplies. 

Skill Development

This is one place where a multitude of skills may come into place. Unless you are completely incapacitated you can still do something, even if you cannot perform your normal job duties. Small craft skills are great. If you can knit or crochet you can provide yourself a small trickle of income to assist the income you have from disability insurance. Gloves, toboggans, and scarves sell fairly well. I have even heard of people typing resumes and proofreading papers for college kids for some extra income. Get creative every little bit helps. 

A Death in the Family

I know this one sounds odd until you think about it. If you have small children or an aging parent and your spouse or parent dies you will have to step up and take care of the members of your family that are still with you. It takes time to get everything in order after a loved one passes. Trust me unless you have been through it you have no idea what you will have to go through.. 

When my grandfather died in April of this year, as bad as it hurt me, that was nothing compared to what my grandmother went through. My dad, aunt, and uncle had to slowly and methodically go through all of the insurance plans, all of the bills, file all of the paperwork to take care of my grandmother. In the end my dad and step mom moved in with my grandmother to assist her with the bills and because of her health. Dad and my stepmother had to change jobs and move in order to make sure that someone was always there for my grandmother. It was a big deal and a huge change. If it were not for food preservation and a lot of cost cutting, this situation could have been devastating. 

Preparedness Just Makes Sense

See, no zombies, no dirty bombs or anything like that. Just life. Life is so much easier if you are prepared. Four months of food is not excessive. Even a years worth (if you have the storage) is not a bad idea. You never know what life is going to throw at you, so it is better to be prepared.

Have you gone through something that was made or could have been made easier if you had been prepared? I would love to hear your story.  Please share this post with someone who is not preparedness minded. It just might make them look at things a little differently. I hope this post has made you stop and think about what you can do to secure your

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Other posts in this series:

#1 Why Prepare

#2 The Preparedness Mindset

#3 Priorities List

#4 Getting to My Family

#5 The Backpack

#6 Food Storage

#7 Basic Energy

#8 Water
#9 Security
#10 Medical
#11 Travel and Communications
#12 Fuel Storage
#13 Keep It Quiet aka OPSEC
#14 Building Community and Helping Others
#15 Skill Development (Home)
#16 Don't Fear the Reaper

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