I would love to see those who have yet to prep, but want to, have a guide of where to start and how to go about it.

I have been a prepper for two years now and currently have about 1.5 tons of food stored for the 8 members of my family who live in two homes in the city. I have purchased a bug out location for us and stocked all three locations with the long term storage packed food. I have purchased medical supplies, resource and reference books, equipment and arranged for first aid training for the adults in my family. I set my father and sister up with appropriate licences to own firearms and have given them training on their use and storage.

There is a long list of things to do and many preparations to make, many methods and much advice to be given. When I started all this the hardest thing I found was the very first step, where to start and where to go from There.

Could other preppers perhaps get their experience and advice out here for others new to the prepper culture?

I would like to start with a basic list of things to do, not how but what. Just to start with. What are the first steps to preparation in your opinions? I myself hope to learn some things.

My to do list. First five steps.

1 Assess your geographical location of the most likely events to have an impact on you, develop a plan for evacuation including when to " bug in" or shelter in place.

2 using the evaluation in step one prepare a 3 day and 7 day 'bug out bag' for each member of your family that is appropriate for you situations

3 arrange for training with red cross and other organizations for inexpensive or free first aid, CPR or more advanced medical training.

4 build a library of resources such as gardening books, medical references, survival ect. Talk with your group or family and asses skills and interests and designate subject matter leaders. My sister is the farming/ gardening leader, my father is mechanical, myself hunting and survival, my cousin the EMT is medical ect ect

5 plan for long term food storage using various methods appropriate to you situation, apartment city dwellers and rural or suburban home owners will need to go about this in different fashions. Research long term food storage and get ready to prep.

I hope this helps people out there and others are willing to pitch in. The more people prepared the fewer roving mobs of hopeless starving desperate survivors there will be and the more hope for humanity and a recovery down the road.

The title is misleading. Im certain it doesnt prepare you for when you might be shot in the face?

/Sarcasm

Great post

While I admire your wanting to help lets not instill false hope. There is no such thing as being ready for everything even if someone had an unlimited budget. But anyone wishing to do as much as they can would be best starting with the basic fundamentals of life; water, food, shelter, security. There is a lot of info on ats and other sites like survialblog.com, so much it's easy to become overwhelmed. But it's going to take more than just having, knowing or doing. I don't have the answers to all of this but I can at least identify some of the problems. Having weapons to hunt/defend isn't being prepared if you don't have the range time. Having the seeds doesn't mean you have a "green thumb" and will be able to produce. Experience comes through doing and repetition. Real world knowledge comes through learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of others.

Well, like I said it's not only having the things but the knowledge of how to use them. Unfortunately the acquisition of tools/supplies part obviously takes money. But even though most people think we are broke and its pointless we can still do quite a bit. The net as it stands today is still a very powerful tool as you can find all the knowledge parts with little time and money. When I first started trying to distance myself from dependency on this fragile system it was as simple as this; Whenever I would go to the grocery store even if it was just for milk I would always walk out through the canned food isle. If I saw something was on sale I would start digging through checking expiration dates. If I saw 39 cents and expiration of 2013-14 I'd by a half dozen. In no time we had enough variety of different veggies, fruits and meat to where we could survive for several months if we had to. If you live in near a modest sized city find the Restaurant Depot or its equivalent. This has a catch, it's a free membership but you have to own a business. But it doesn't have to do anything with the food industry. Almost everyone knows someone who owns even a one man lawn cutting business. But places like these or sam's if you must have 25 and 50 lb bags of rice and beans that keep for years and cost very little which give you different options to mix with the different canned foods you buy. Preservation of food is also a underrated skill set that if a truly SHTF scenario happened will mean the difference between life and death. It's what sets us apart from the hunter/gatherer cavemen. Drying food goes back through antiquity. Most people are nervous (fear of the unknown) to jump in and actually get their hands dirty, so to speak (I was no exception). But again that's where the going from possessing the knowledge to having the real world experience comes in. Drying and canning meat is a mental hurdle to overcome, most think "I'll wind up giving myself/ my family food poisoning". It's like overcoming a fear of heights, you just have to do it.

Got to go to work, I'll check back later if I can think of anything else that can help.

Get as much practical / hands on experience as you can now.
You wont always be able to rely on a book in a real situation as there are many surprises the wild throws at you that arent covered in books.
Also learn to get by with the very bare minimum basics the high tech toys wont last forever nor will they last long under extended use conditions.
Lastly get in shape now rather than later. The wild is unforgiving and out of shape people dont last long.

First off the more prepared you are the less paranoid you become. Self sufficiency and the process of learning basic skills as well as brushcraft and other survival skills makes you become very self confident and far more stable then the folks who have done nothing and then panic because the river is rising, or a tornado touched down in the next town.

Ask yourself what is the most likely set of dangers you could face?

1. Extreme weather.
2. Auto accident
3. Fire in the home or work.
4. Assault and/or robbery
5. Now we have social unrest

And there are others. Preppers generally are in the hobby mode when they attempt to tackle things like nuclear war and the other possible but not likely scenarios.

Ask your parents or grand parents. The old timers can point the path.

seems to me you will only survive if you were rich before situation X happened, One and a half tons of food? how much did that cost? how much did the 'cabin in the woods' cost? how much did all those books cost?
As for 'bugging out', if people live in some of the small European countries, Netherlands, Portugal, UK., etc, there is nowhere to 'bug out' to!
Seems Americans, Australians, Russians, south Americans, will survive, the rest of the world?....

The subject line is misleading. Some of the items on the list are long term goals - all very well in an ideal world but we may not have 'long term'. If we are talking about people who are completely unprepared, it would be more useful to list the things that need doing NOW. Priorities have to be food, fuel, water/water purification, meds. Everything after that is a luxury. And yes it takes money. Dear me - there are many just getting by - who can barely afford their day to day expenses never mind buying an extra 'bug out' location and stocking up to the gills.
Neither do we all have millions of acres of wilderness populated with tons of wildlife and the weapons to go with it.
Can we just look at REALISTIC OPTIONS here?
I do agree with the last statement though. People say why bother about the attitude/preparations of others? Because the more of us that are prepared, the more chance we all have.