Ultimate Guide to Prepper: What Is A Prepper

The disasters are often unexpected and range from anything, such as armed conflicts, economic and political crises, hurricanes, heatwaves, and floods. What is a prepper, you ask? You will prepare for it if you're about to find yourself in any of these situations. The list could include food supply, water, medical equipment, and power backup options.

Thus, a prepper is someone who prepares for calamities by gathering the resources they'll need for survival. Jackery Solar Generators can be a life-saving power backup option that harnesses solar energy for a consistent and reliable electrical supply. This can be very helpful in an emergency, providing a way to charge smartphones or other essential devices and appliances.

Key Takeaways

Here are some of the key takeaways from this guide to give you a sense of the basics:

• A prepper is an individual who believes in the likelihood of a man-made or natural disaster and prepares for it by accumulating resources.
• Prepping can help you survive for anywhere from a day to three months, allowing you to live indefinitely off the grid.
• A prepper and a survivalist are different. The latter develops skills to survive on a daily basis and lives off nature's bounty.

What is a Prepper?

In the simplest of terms, a prepper is someone responsible for gathering all the essentials they'll need to survive a natural or man-made calamity or disaster. These could include riots, armed conflicts, extended power outages due to heat waves, or natural disasters like tornadoes or hurricanes.

So, while a prepper is someone who gathers all these essentials, the process of doing so itself is referred to as prepping. Several factors could motivate a prepper, including:

• Wanting to be self-sufficient during such disasters and not having to rely on others around them
• Wanting to take care of their families
• Not trusting the government enough to care for them during such disasters.

The prepping movement grew from the survivalist movement, which began towards the end of the world wars. Many people use the terms "prepper" and "survivalist" interchangeably, and while they are, in some ways, similar, the prepping movement has differentiated itself from the survivalist one.

The looming dangers of nuclear conflict during the Cold War even resulted in President Kennedy recommending the use of shelters, which in turn led to a surge in private purchasing of these shelters in the event of a nuclear threat.

With time, the survivalist movement became more extreme and included the use of combat to survive dangerous situations, whereas prepping relied on the principle of safety and self-sufficiency.

Reasons for Becoming a Prepper

Different people have different reasons for wanting to become preppers. Some, for example, are preparing for the end of the world, whereas others are doing so to keep their families safe regardless of the situation they find themselves in.

Here are some of the reasons why people become preppers:

• Being prepared: Preppers often find inspiration in the Boy Scouts' tagline of being prepared for a calamity in your body and mind.
• Keeping yourself ready for challenges: Preppers are ready to face any challenges life may throw at them and have the best chance at survival and health as a result.
• Humans are genetically wired to prep: Previous generations prepared enough supplies for winter, making them natural preppers.
• Preppers can be incredibly efficient: As a prepper, you're bound to know how to do more with less, especially in an emergency. This can be a helpful skill in trying times.
• They help build stronger communities: A self-sufficient individual has the time and resources to help those around them, creating stronger communities.
• Avoiding debt: A prepper's efficiency teaches them how to manage with what they have, helping them prevent debt traps that others often find themselves in.
• Ensures survival: Calamities leave people with little time to prepare, which makes prepping crucial. Individuals with all their essentials stalked up stand a higher chance of survival.
• They're not government-dependent: Unlike a lot of people, preppers strive to be independent of the government, be it for subsidies or even for relief during calamities.

Types of Preppers

Preppers are a broad category, and several different types are based on their approach to their process. In this section, we'll discuss the various kinds of preppers.

Novice Preppers

As the name suggests, a novice prepper is new to prepping and is just getting started with their journey of getting ready for a disaster or emergency. Their primary motivations are the desire to be more self-sufficient or less dependent on others or the government in the event of a calamity.

They usually start by becoming aware of the basic principles of preparedness, building a basic emergency kit, and equipping themselves with basic survival skills. During a disaster, they can typically survive for one to three days.

Casual Preppers

A casual prepper is more aware of the basic idea of preparedness and can thus survive for anywhere between a day and a whole month in an emergency. They can be found in urban and rural areas, and they're more aware of what they need to do to survive during trying times.

They're also the most common preppers you'll find and equip themselves with the knowledge they need to survive when things go down.

Urban Preppers

Like a casual prepper, an urban prepper has enough knowledge and skills to survive between a single day and a whole month. However, unlike those who often live in rural areas, urban preppers have to deal with city space limitations. This lack of space also drives them to store their essentials more organized and compactly.

Their dependence on resources also leads them to look to equip their homes with alternative sources of energy, such as solar power or even a small wind turbine.

Suburban Preppers

The urban prepper and suburban prepper are similar in one way: they need to contend with space limitations and the proximity to neighbors. As a result, you'll often find them effectively utilizing whatever outdoor spaces they have access to by building supply caches or even producing their own food on a small patch of land beside their home.

They can often survive for anywhere between a day and three whole months because the added space (compared to urban preppers) allows them to equip themselves with more supplies.

Rural Preppers

A rural prepper actively finds ways to build a backup of supplies that can save them during a disaster, which allows them to often prepare themselves to survive for a whole year. They equip themselves with skills like food preparation, gardening, and even hunting, often relying on the bounty of nature to keep themselves alive and relatively healthy.

They also prioritize engaging with their local communities to build a strong support system, which, as you've seen, is also among the biggest motivations for a prepper. They even prioritize building shelters for rare yet life-threatening emergencies to keep themselves and their families safe.

Homesteaders

If you were someone who strived to live off their own land and not depend on any third person for their survival, you'd likely be a homesteader. Homesteaders can survive for more than five years or even indefinitely because they ensure their independence in all aspects of their lives.

While being a lifestyle choice in some sense, it also requires a mindset of being absolutely independent, which is why you'll often find these kinds of people in rural settings. With large plots of land, they cultivate all the crops they'd ever need and rear livestock if their dietary needs demand it.

Off-Grid Preppers

When you don't rely on public utilities like water, electricity, and gas, you're referred to as someone who lives off the grid. An off-grid prepper follows the same pattern, using alternative methods of producing energy and ensuring their supply of water or other such essentials isn't dependent on the government or a third party.

From practicing gardening, sustainable livestock farming, or even foraging or hunting, they ensure they're self-sufficient in every sense of the word.

Doomsday Preppers

A doomsday prepper prepares for the "doomsday" or the end of society or the world as we know it. They prepare themselves to survive disasters like pandemics or even a complete economic collapse when supply chains witness complete scarcity or might even become obsolete.

Aside from practicing self-sufficient activities like farming or foraging, they may even acquire tools or weapons to keep themselves and their families safe in the event of a violent incident.

Levels of Prepping

There are different types of preppers, but there are also various levels of prepping based on how long you set yourself up to survive in a calamity. This section explains these different levels one by one.

Basic Prepping (One Day, Three Day)

The idea of basic preparedness is that an individual and their family must have enough food, water, gas, or other supplies to last them anywhere between a day and three days in the event of a disaster. Typically, supermarkets witness immense rushes right before a calamity, and preparing for them beforehand saves you the trouble of dealing with the rush.

One-Month Prepping

Unlike basic prepping, one-month prepping involves gathering resources and materials to survive for a whole month in the event of a prolonged disaster, be it natural, man-made, or economic. It involves the same principles as basic prepping, but just on a larger scale.

The only downside is that the longer the duration, the more space you need to stock up on supplies. This can be challenging for those in cities or small apartments.

Prepping for Three Months

Three months is much longer, and the best approach to surviving such a prolonged duration without essential supplies or public utilities is to stock up on food, water, or other medical essentials.

Harvesting rainwater and using more sustainable food sources are great options for such long durations, and preppers usually build multiple survival kits to last them this long.

Prepping for a Year and Beyond

Prepping for a year requires an approach that's almost the equivalent of indefinite survival and can be complex for people in urban areas simply because of the lack of space. Some people prepping for a year or beyond might even invest in a bug-out vehicle with all the essentials to evacuate immediately.

Going Off-Grid

Unlike the previous levels of prepping, going off the grid is about more than just prepping for a disaster; it is about making an entirely different lifestyle change. Here, a prepper completely weans off relying on public services like water, electricity, and gas and provides mechanisms to access these independently.

What Do Preppers Do?

The process of becoming a prepper has various stages, and it all begins with being financially prepared. All the essential supplies you intend to purchase require money, especially if you don't have the space to farm or rear livestock. This section explores each step of the process in detail.

Prepare Financially

The first step is to establish your finances. An emergency fund can come in handy, particularly during a calamity like a pandemic when jobs are easily lost. Setting aside a reasonable amount can help you comfortably purchase all your essentials, even if you don't have any income.

Prep Two Weeks of Supplies

According to an in-depth guide on citizen preparedness released by the Department of Homeland Security, it's crucial to begin with at least 3 days or 72 hours of emergency supplies. However, disasters are known to disrupt supply chains and public utilities for much longer, and two weeks is thus a reasonable amount to begin with.

Your list must include several things, including stocking up on food, water, medicines, and other supplies like gas or a power backup option.

Build a Bug-Out Bag

Like the bug-out vehicle we mentioned earlier, a bug-out bag contains all the essentials and is ready to pick up and go in the event of an emergency. Ideally, it should contain supplies like a tent, sleeping bag, food, medicines, water, multipurpose tools, and even a compass.

Pick up Core Survival Skills and First Aid Knowledge

Survival is about more than just having a stock of essential supplies. It also equates to your mental and physical ability to deal with a disaster. Some core survival skills that can save your life include knowing how to tie a knot, performing basic first-aid on an injury, performing CPR, and so on.

Next, you must also learn certain skills that can be useful depending on where you live. For example, if you live in a place without adequate water, you must know how to conserve energy so your supplies last longer. Similarly, crime tends to increase during economic or other crises, and learning how to defend yourself can be critical to your safety.

Find People You Can Depend On

While the core ideology behind prepping is to be independent or self-sufficient, the truth is that even the most independent people need to count on others during times of crisis. Whether this is your neighbor or a family member, you should know who you can rely on in a medical emergency.

Continue Prepping

Prepping doesn't end with creating a bug-out bag and learning a few skills. It involves continually being aware of your surroundings and changing circumstances and adapting to them. You must keep practicing all your basic skills, ensure that your supplies have a reasonable shelf life, and be equipped to deal with calamities even if they happen several years down the line.  

Purchasing a reliable power supply option is crucial to surviving long spells without electricity. Jackery Solar Generators harness the sun's rays to power up and run all your essential appliances, keeping you connected to the world in an emergency.

Jackery Solar Generators for Preppers

Jackery is one of the leading manufacturers of solar generators, portable power stations, and solar panels. Jackery Solar Generators combine Jackery Portable Power Stations with Jackery SolarSaga Solar Panels. When the solar panels are placed under direct sunlight, they absorb its rays, and the solar energy is converted to DC energy. The pure sine wave inverter in the portable power station converts this into an AC current.

The Jackery Solar Generators offer a renewable way of generating electricity to recharge or run most of your appliances. They can be a lifesaver when public utilities like electricity face outages. The solar panels offer quick solar charging and are also foldable, making them portable. Thus, they make the perfect power backup mechanism to carry in your bug-out vehicle.

Jackery Solar Generator 3000 Pro

The Jackery Solar Generator 3000 Pro is a large-capacity solar generator that can power most of your outdoor appliances and also serve as a power backup supply for your home. If your bug-out vehicle is an RV or you have a home emergency, this can give you the electrical supply you need to run most of your essential appliances, including a CPAP machine. The power station also comes with wheels, making it highly portable, and it is the perfect solution for when you need to evacuate your home without having to carry out a heavy backup option to power up your gadgets.

Appliances Running Time:

• Mobile Phone (29W) = 88.6H
• Laptop (70W) = 36.7H
• Light (20W) = 128.5H
• CPAP Machine (60W) = 42.8H
• Electric Grill (850W) = 3.0H