Can I be prepared for life’s curveballs? How would I do that? Where can I find help with it?
What kind of situations can happen in life?
Many different situations can happen in life. From breaking a bone or cutting yourself open and needing a first aid kit, to the Apocalypse and needing storable foods and an underground bunker to having financial hardships.
In reality we can only be as prepared as we can be. Losing your job. Your car breaking down in the woods, late at night, when you’re on the way home from a long trip with your family is a situation you might not want to be in as well. A fire breaking out in your house. Medical emergencies or surgeries can get expensive, costly and lets face it, a little inconvenient in many ways.
There is a lot of things that can happen but don’t make yourself crazy trying to prepare for EVERYTHING. We will discuss more, in the following sections, on ways to prepare and even ways to think ahead towards these kinds of situations.
The need to be prepared and how it affects my family and I
My family is close to my heart. I’m positive that your family is close to yours as well. When I think about these situations, I think of my family and how they will be impacted.
Will we have to cut back on allowances or even grocery shopping during a financial hardship? How could I protect my house and everyone in it if a fire broke out? If the house or apartment burns down, you most likely lose everything. This includes clothes, social security cards and birth certificates, and items that have sentimental value.
Do we have an emergency rendezvous point in the even of something drastic happening like an earthquake for example and was any of my family hurt? An economic recession hits and food prices go up, and your hours at work get cut if you don’t get laid off in this situation.
No one wants to go hungry. It’s not fun. There are many different ways that you and your family could be impacted, this is why learning to think ahead is fairly important. We won’t always think of everything but we will learn as we go about trying to be prepared for these situations. I am still learning to this day.
How should I go about trying to be prepared?
Some suggestions I have, that I have even applied in my lifestyle, is that I carry a tool kit for my vehicles complete with jumper cables and anything I might need to work on the vehicle to get it running again, whether its under the hood or changing a tire. I’ve even had the opportunity to help others in need, broken down on the side of the road, because I was prepared.
Financial preparation is pretty important and you can get financially prepared or, “educated” is another way of putting it, with the help of financial advisors or planners. There are a lot of free advisors out there you can utilize through charities and community action programs. There are also a lot of books on financial education as well. Being educated on money, credit and banks and how they work is a very real asset and can help you along your path to being financially prepared for hardships or emergencies.
Something as simple as having a fire extinguisher in your home can be valuable in a fire emergency but you can also keep important files all together in one spot for easy evacuation if necessary. In reality most things can be replaced but its a lot easier if you have the important family documents together or just put out that fire fast.
Food storage is a common idea but not a whole lot of people actually take the time to store food or even enough of it to last an entire family any significant amount of time. Then there’s the rotation of that food such as the canned goods because canned food does not keep as long as beans, rice or other dehydrated foods.
Some people even like to do their own canning or jarring which isn’t really hard at all and might be fun for you and the family to learn a fast fading old-world skill. I personally have built a 4 person, 6 month food supply over some time that will support my family and I.
You can do it a little bit here and little bit there while paying attention to expiration dates and before you know it you have a good food storage that will benefit you in the case of an emergency or even financial situation where you need the money normally spent on food to be used for something else like rent or electricity.
Having the knowledge or “know-how” to survive in the wilderness is another valuable asset in my opinion. There are plenty of books that have valuable information on just this subject and getting out to spend time in the outdoors can be refreshing and familiarizing as well. What we call “wilderness survival” is what our ancestors called their way of life. From milking the cows to churning their own butter to making their own tools so they could build their own homes and ranches.
Adapting my thought process.
Developing a certain thought process towards these kinds of situations, or even life in general, will help you to have the tools and things you need to deal with and handle these surprises in life. What could possibly happen? What are all the angles of outcome of a certain situation? What is the cause/effect factor? I could have this “just in case”. As you go about looking at things this way, eventually it will become habit.
Some benefits of a Preparatory Lifestyle.
I hope this has helped you or even opened up your eyes to the possibilities of life drastically changing and has given you ideas or information on how to go about being prepared or ways to find that information.
Some of the things previously mentioned can have immense benefits like the food storage. It could free up finances in the event of a job loss. Even as you go about learning the process of being prepared there are lots of things you can do with the family for fun and teach your family while doing it.
Being prepared means that you are ready or are getting ready and your thought process is one of thinking ahead to life’s challenges, changes and even dangers. As you go about this change in thought process you will see that you are ready for a lot of the things you will face in life and be grateful to yourself that you did it.
