Prepping skills are the essential skills you should be learning so that you are prepared for emergencies and/or survival situations.
We all fall on hard times and usually, basic skills get us through those times. But would you be prepared in a worst-case scenario?
Do you grow your own food so that you don’t have to depend on a grocery store to feed your family? Is there enough food stored to feed your family members for 3 months, 6 months, or a year if needed?
Do you have a bug-out bag ready if a disaster strikes your area? For the average person, many of these questions are answered with a definite “no”.
In this post, you will learn about preparedness skills and good survival skills to have when an emergency situation occurs.
Prepping Skills
What is Prepping?
Prepping means being prepared or ready for a situation that is basically out of the norm. This may be a weather event or a natural disaster such as a hurricane, an earthquake, or a snowstorm.
It could be for other events such as war, social upheaval, or a pandemic.
Anytime any of these types of events take place, a lot of people suffer because of contaminated water, a lack of or spoilage of food, delayed emergency services, or dangerous conditions.
Therefore it is a good idea to think ahead and start preparing for these tough times.
The easiest way to begin prepping is to learn the prepping basics for survival. These are the prepping skills that can mean the difference between living and dying.
What are the Basic Prepping Skills?
The three basic needs of humans are food, water, and shelter. We need those to stay alive and healthy.
Therefore, a good start would be to learn the basic prepping skills that will provide food, water, and a safe shelter for your entire family.
Below are popular options for skills many preppers learn first. After these simple skills are mastered, you should start learning more advanced skills.
Grow a Garden and Preserve Your Harvest
You can eliminate the worry of not having a grocery store available if you grow your own vegetables, herbs, fruit, and berries on your own property. Don’t worry about not having a large plot of land to start a garden on either.
Many foods can be grown indoors in a sunny window, in pots on a porch or balcony, or in small areas in the yard. Learn square-foot gardening, container gardening, or raised bed gardening so you can grow more in a smaller area. Just make sure to plant what your family eats.
Read Self-Reliant Gardening: An Essential Guide to learn more about gardening skills.
Once you have your edibles growing, learn how to harvest them, save some seeds, and learn to preserve all that food. I don’t mean in the fridge or freezer either.
In the event of a grid failure, that fridge and freezer will not last long and that means wasted food. Instead, learn to use a root cellar.
Other options for preserving your harvest include:
- Water-bath canning
- Dry canning
- Pressure canning
- Dehydrating
- Smoking
- Fermenting
All of the various methods above will allow your food supply to have a long shelf life, which is exactly what you want since some emergencies could last a rather long time.
Fresh food may not be an option as time goes on so make sure you keep in mind the nutrition of young children as well as the elderly. Preserving your harvest provides a level of food security for both you and your family.
If you want to learn about how much food to preserve for your family, check out Easy Prepping’s Food Calculator.
Learn How to Forage for Food and Medicine
When your food supply runs low you may have to look for edible wild plants to feast on. Mushrooms, edible weeds, and even the bark of some trees can be a lifesaver when your food runs low.
Learn which plants are edible and most definitely which ones to watch out for. The best way to learn is to take a local class on foraging so you are learning from someone who knows the ins and outs of foraging in your local area.
Another important skill to learn is to identify and use wild plants for herbal medicine and remedies to be added to your medical supplies.
Natural remedies can be learned almost anywhere you look from the internet and YouTube to your local library. Why not buy a few books so you have a reference while you forage?
Any of the products you create can be added to your first-aid kit for emergencies.
Learn to Start a Fire for Cooking and Providing Heat
Lighting fires is the most basic prepper skill. Once you learn how to start a good fire you can provide heat, and cook. Rubbing two sticks together is hard work and most survival experts recommend learning easier methods.
Did you know that you can start a fire with Doritos? How about vaseline on a cotton ball. Dryer lint stuffed inside a toilet paper tube also makes an excellent fire starter.
You may want to do some research for tools to start a fire with. Matches run out eventually so there will have to be other options available at some point. Check Amazon and prepper sites for tools to start a fire.
Once you have a fire started you have created not only a heat source to keep you and your family warm, but you have also created a way to cook food.
Small game, fish, and other hunted meats can be cooked outside over an open fire or on a hot rock.
Learn to Find a Water Source and Purify It for Drinking
We cannot live more than a few days without water. Aside from rainwater collecting, you may find yourself in search of water sources.
The only water available and nearby might be a lake or a river, maybe a pond. Unfortunately, chances are the water is not drinkable.
You must have a contingency plan. Learning the skill of water purification is a good skill to start with. With some charcoal from the fire, you had the night before, some small rocks, and some sand, you can at least filter the water.
In the post 10 Ways to Purify Water by Survival Skills, you can learn how to do so yourself with a mix of tools and natural resources.
Learn to Protect Yourself and Your Property
The last of the Prepping Skills we will mention today is protection skills. You never know what you may have to do to protect yourself or your family in an emergency.
It could be an aggressive animal in the wild, a rabid animal, or a person trying to break into your home. Whatever the cause protection is important.
Do you own a firearm or another weapon? Do you know to use it correctly and accurately? Can you reload it? How about the arrows of the crossbow or the bullets of that firearm? Can you make your own ammunition and weapons?
Learn how to use the weapons you already have and learn how to make a weapon if the need arises. Take a class in knife making. Maybe consider blacksmithing, it’s almost a lost art.
Can you set a trap on your property? Trapping live animals may be an easy way to feed your family when food storage runs low.
After the Basic Prepping Skills are Learned…
The most important thing you can do for your family is to learn the necessary prepping skills to survive most emergency situations.
Once the basic knowledge of emergency preparedness is learned, start learning different skills that will increase your expertise in an emergency.
Other prepping skills not mentioned here that you may want to consider are:
- Navigational skills
- Scouting Skills
- Self-Defense
- Use of a Ham radio
- Using paracord
- Morse Code
- Medical Skills
What skills have you learned that could help you be prepared for an emergency or a natural disaster? Drop me a message in the comments below and share your talents and skills with me.
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