Welcome to 2016! Have any survival & preparedness related plans for the new year?
Both last year and the year before that, we set ourselves some goals that weren’t too difficult to accomplish, but like the vast majority of people who set goals for themselves, we fell short. In 2014 we did a lot better with our goals than in the 2015 year that just passed, so let’s see if we can remedy this by having an even better year for working on resolutions this year!
If you’re a goal-setter like us, let us know what your resolutions for the new year are in the comments section! Or, pop on over to the New Year’s Res(v)olutions thread on Survival Threads to have a peek at even more survival & preparedness related resolutions.
Here are the 5 resolutions we’ve set for ourselves this year!
New Years Resolutions for Survivalists
1. Do inventory – figure out what’s currently in the stockpile.
It’s a lot easier to just buy what you feel like you need and throw it into the corner of a supply room, but if you’ve been at this prepping thing for a while, you may not be as accurate as you think you are with regards to the type of inventory you have. You may have more or less of many different types of preps than you thought. Taking inventory will help you to accurately determine what you need to buy more (or less) of – which is why this is an important one for us this year.
2. Organize preps – start a storage system that works well.
While busy doing inventory of our stockpile, why not take some time to figure out if the current storage system we happen to be using is working out well for us? If you haven’t figured out the perfect method of organization (which we really haven’t yet) or you feel like what you’ve done could or should be improved, take some notes. Mull over the ideas for a while and then do your best to take action on them. If keeping a written list of everything you’ve got and where it’s stored is the right course of action for you, start a binder! If labeling and making sure everything can be easily found without reference to a binder is a better option for you, go for it! Try using different containers to see which works ideally. Experiment, and then once you’ve made a choice on the best option, take action.
3. Buff up home security – fix weak points and add natural defenses.
Making sure your front door and door frames are strong and that there are no exceptionally weak points around your home that make it easy to break into is incredibly important. Changing chain locks to dead bolt locks, adding natural defenses, like thorn bushes, to make it tricky to get into your property and into your house is also quite beneficial to home security. This year, we’ll be taking as many of these steps as possible to increase home security.
4. Work on fire safety – add fire extinguishers, fire blankets, etc. where they make sense.
Purchasing fire extinguishers and fire blankets and placing them in appropriate places around your house is a simple and easy way to make sure, if there happens to be a fire in your house, that you’ll be able to get that fire out safely and easily, or at least be able to fight back the flames enough to get yourself and your family members out of the house. Such an easy resolution that can be accomplished in one short trip to the department store.
5. Get into shape – especially concentrating on stamina and strength.
I’m not often one to say I want to get into shape, but this year, I feel I’ll really want to kick myself into trying. Even just simple things like biking more often, hiking more frequently, and lifting weights every other day to increase stamina and strength over time, I would really like to get into the habit of doing. It doesn’t need to be repeated, but getting fit can really help you from a survival perspective.
