Northeast Preppers?

[pernox]

I took the slow approach with my wife, and she got right on board. See if you can get her involved; if she's on a shopping trip, get her to look for the "24-hour" candles, if she's doing groceries, ask her to look for a good buy on dry beans. Talk about bad things happening; Haiti disaster, Japan quake, Katrina, the '08(right?) ice storm.. Get her to be a part of it and it won't seem so broad and all-encompassing.

And as Timber said, don't let her hesitation stop you from doing what you need to do. It's still your job, even if she doesn't want to see you doing it.

[BigAce74]

I started out talking in big SHTF/TEOTWAWKI scenarios at first with my wife which just kind of got weird looks from her. It wasn't until I started talking small & realistic situations (unexpected unemployement, natural disasters like floods, tornadoes, etc.) that she began to see the importance of prepping. The recent tornado in western mass helped the discussion as well.

[excoastie]

My wife and friends thought that I was crazy until the recent tornado hit Sturbridge. Then, when there were trees down on power lines, and trees on people’s homes and trees on the roads, suddenly I was the go-to guy! It is MY tarps that are on the roofs of my neighbors protecting their belongings because they were not prepared. It is MY ropes holding MY tarps on their roofs again, because they were not prepared. It is my freezer and refrigerator that was still running and could keep their foods properly maintained because they were unprepared. It was my chainsaw ripping through the wood to clear the roads and homes. See a pattern?

Let them think that you are crazy! When the human feces strike the oscillating blades, you will be the only one prepared. And that is why you own brass!

BTW, the wife now buys extra food for storage. And we can meat. Dehydrate and seal foods. We are buying barrels for long-term water storage. So, time will prove us right!

[mis4mike]

Gardening is a good hobby and victory gardens are a proud American tradition. Ammo is cheaper in bulk. Wheat berries from 5 gallon buckets are delicious (or so I've been told)...

As far as prepping, I agree with everyone who said ice storms - those are the most threatening natural disaster we have up here. TEOTWAWKI has yet to strike, but empires collapse as surely as they rise. My mom went to Russia when I was a kid and brought back stories about people boiling leather suitcases for food. These things do happen.

Tell your crunchy granola friends you're ready for climate change. Tell your right-wingnut buddies the fed is going to cause another great depression through hyper-inflation. Look at the economy RIGHT NOW: unemployment, financial insanity, sovereign debt crises - Gold and silver are fine, but the best hedge against anything is a deep larder.

[Duxprep]

Anything can happen at any time.

Ask your girlfriends/wives/friends if the residents in Japan near Fukushima woke up that day thinking there would be an earthquake, Tsunami and a nuclear disaster. People who give me crap about prepping I ask, " do you own a fire extinguisher?, Do you have homeowners insurance?, do you have car insurance, do you have life insurance? Prepping is another form of insurance - Food Insurance, heat insurance, light insurance, cooking insurance, and a great hedge against inflation. Over the past 50-75 years most of us have lost nearly all skills to be self reliant. Our ancestors knew how to grow food, raise animals create a pantry for hard times etc etc etc. The beauty and fun of prepping is re-learning these lost skills, teaching them to my children and becoming more self reliant in the process

[SheepDog_B]

Prepping! Sheesh. You folks ARE crazy! Barry would never let that happen! Besides, if there is a natural disaster like New Orleans, they'll just send the national guard to give us food, water, shelter. They'll hold you preppers at gun point, take you're guns, generators, water, food and supplies to distribute among the unpaired all while keeping the peace...

[Rider]

First, don't discuss prepping with most folks except 'ha ha ha - zombie apocalypse - ha ha ha'. That way they will know you are joking...and you will find that there are a lot of people who seem to know quite a bit about prepping.

Second, actually do go to the CDC zombie apocalypse web site. I'm not kidding. This site explains how to survive a zombie apocalypse, and they mention that their suggestions are also helpful for more common natural disasters.

While you're at it, maybe have your wife check out the NASA disaster preparedness web site. They have a program whose goal is to have all NASA employees and their families be prepared for a disaster, to include three day rations, bug out bags, bug out plans/routes, etc. Pretty good thinking if you live in Florida, but still, it makes you wonder, if the rocket scientists are prepping...

I'm not really sure how to bring your wife on board, except to say that there are a lot of very rational people, and government organizations, who recommend that you have some level of disaster preparedness plan. If you start out slow, get the basics, and go from there, maybe she'll see the wisdom in it. As another poster pointed out, you really don't need MRE's. A larder or shelf in the basement with a few packs of soup, chili, stew, pasta, and beans from BJ's is cheap, and you can rotate it into your regular cooking.

One problem excoastie highlights is that if you are the good citizen in normal times, should you experience a SHTF scenario, everyone knows where to go for food/shelter/guns/etc. It's not easy to balance being a good neighbor and having good infosec when it comes to prepping.

Disclaimer: I'm not a prepper, don't know anything about it, got no supplies at my house, move along. Also, take my opinions or leave them.

[mikecrom83]

Thanks to the boneheads in Washington, convincing a once resistant girlfriend has become much easier. I'd almost put her at joining/encouraging state.

[atmay]

With my wife, it was easy once we moved to where we live now. I started with "but hunny, we have well water. If the power goes out, we should really have a whole bunch of water on hand, since the well pump won't work". It also worked out well that the tap water tastes like bigfoots dick anyway, so we drink bottled water anyway.

After that, picking up a can of spam here, a jar of sauce there kinda slides by her, and the pantry keeps filling up further.

[digitaldon37]

I am trying but it's hard. My wife is on board more and more all the time and is actually starting to get excited the more she sees our panrty fill up. Still, I don't think she sees the larger threat; that we could be on our own with no income or connection to services for a substantial amount of time. Some of my perperations I just choose not to bring up.

This. It helps to get the wife on board. Having been through a job layoff and drastic cuts to the family budget helped convince her that we need to be ready for the worse.

My wife has been buying a little extra every time she does grocery shopping. We have (1) month set aside; next goal is (3) months.