12 easy things you can do to help yourself get Survival Ready - By Montezuma

• My wife taught me all about BOGOs!!!
• Women's clothing and shoe stores do it all the time... BOGO - Buy One Get One and you should do it too. When you go to the store for your weekly supplies, pick up an extra item here and there for your survival pantry (bottled water, canned goods, dry goods, shot gun shells)

• Learn how to bake bread.
• In our modern society many of the things that our grandparents knew how to do have been lost with us... and we are sure to be exposed in a SHTF scenario. Even if you are baking bread, you are probably using a bread making machine. Give it a try without the machine. I've followed several recipes and my bread still isn't exactly right, but it will do in a pinch. Next, I want to learn how to bake bread on a grill.

• Add survival into your mental checklist; Make survival a priority.
• Notice that I say make it A priority... Life requires balance. Spend some time on planning for the future..., but don't forget to live for today.

• Learn how to shoot.
• Many gun ranges (the good ones anyway) will provide you with a variety of fire arms to rent for use at the range and there are regularly scheduled safety and instructional courses as well. Not only is it a great way to educate yourself for survival or home defense, it is also a great way to blow off some steam after a hectic week or maybe an idea for a something different to do on date night (maybe not the best idea for a first date). 

• Make a fire.
• I'm not talking about lighting a bag of charcoals here. Get yourself a fire steel, some materials that you might have available in a survival scenario and build one. For extra credit, you might want to try making a bow drill

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  Go shoe shopping.
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  If you are like me, you probably have usually purchased shoes based on asthetics and very few of my shoes were actually designed to serve a true purpose. Once I started thinking about a survival situation and not knowing when it was going to hit, I started to realize that my flip-flops and CROCS weren't going to serve me very well for a long walk and that my Go-Fasters (jogging shoes) were as equally dismal for the purpose of survival. Think long distance hiking, keeping your feet dry and comfortable.

• Wean yourself away from cotton.
• There is a common saying in the hiking community -- "Cotton Kills". Basically, cotton is a great material if you are not going to get wet, but is horrible in the event that moisture is in your future (Think wearing soaking wet blue jeans and trying to go for a hike --- MISERABLE). Much like the shoes, start thinking about the materials that you are putting on your body and how they may fair in a survival scenario.

• Start a garden.
• Much like with baking bread, growing and harvesting our own food has really become a lost art. Give yourself the opportunity to gain some confidence by growing some food for yourself and your family. You may want to just start with something simple... Grow a tomato plant... and then expand from there. This is also a great project for the whole family (kids LOVE it).

• Eat a salad.
• Eat a salad and lose a few pounds... a good survival mindset needs to be physically fit too.
• Just a thought... A great form of exercise is hiking.

• Get a bag and a box.
• There are TONS or resources online that can give you specifics on Bug Out Bags (BOB)and Get Home Bag (GHB)... this isn't going to be a how to on how to build one (they are very personal and need to meet your needs)... the point here is get them. I keep a BOB/72 hour kit for myself and the family at home... in the event that we need to grab and go, I have a nice cache of gear (and documents stored on a water proof flash drive) stored and ready to go. I keep an emergency kit and Get Home Bag in my vehicles.

• Read a book.
• Not all survival books are how to manuals... many of them are light hearted in nature and actually quite fun to read. Like the Survivor's Club
• Some aren't "survival books" at all, but provide you with information that just might give you some insight on current events that allow you to react to a world event while the rest of the "sheeple" are still trying to figure it out. I highly recommend Epicenter by Joel Rosenberg

• Go for a drive.
• Go for a "Sunday Drive" --- heck, make a picnic out of it. Think about alternate routes, areas that you may be able to use as safe havens... perhaps "roads" that aren't actually roads. Look at your surroundings... and make notes on your map (water here, service tunnel here, etc).

At the end of the day, it can really all be summed up with this... take a step... and then take another. What are some quick preps that you suggest?