Budget Preparedness with 3DR Survival/Bushcraft [Feature Friday]

Today on Feature Friday, we’re featuring a survivalist/bushcraft trio who are trying to be more self-reliant, but stress that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to be prepared.

You can find them on Instagram & Facebook.

How did we get involved with preparedness:

Well it started about 6 years ago and we had a weird and significant wind event in Ohio. We’re talking wind up to 90 MPH and the State power companies were in overload. We didn’t have power for 8 days and we lost everything in our fridge and burned thru the candles and batteries we had in a day. And I decided then that we weren’t ready for anything. So we started small scale and it really picked up and we got involved in prepping and Survival seriously during the last Ebola outbreak when we heard it’ll never happen in America and boom we got 2-3 reported cases and we could see the denial in some and panic in others. At that point we shifted to a more long term preps and understanding of survival.

Favorite budget tips:

Dollar Tree, Dollar General and couponing. Let’s be honest most people have maybe a week to 10 days of food in there house maybe less. And prepping isn’t cheap when you consider you’re buying food for normal use and what if. So we decided to think about sales and 10 for 10 sales things like this. Putting a pantry together and being organized. Read the fliers stores put out and do things gradually not all at one time. 3 days, two weeks then a month or more of supplies on hand.

Our favorite DIY:

Don’t think of prepping as a I’ve got to go buy a years worth of freeze dried food together and stuff it in my basement. Our thing is put a well organized thought out pantry together. Think meal preps from a pantry perspective. Also go to Goodwill get a dehydrator and vacuum sealer and learn food preservation.

Tips for more people who want to be more self-reliant:

Being self reliant is a broad term and we picked up that philosophy from Dave Canterbury. I’ve been a hunter since I’ve been a kid so for us is being self reliant is all about skills. Wether it’s hunting or trapping, gardening whatever if you’re not doing it now then how do you expect those skills to be razor sharp in a SHTF or any event really. Those skills take time and experimenting that leads to experience and then it becomes a skill. So my advice is if you want to be more self reliant is learn those skills that matter the most. Be self reliant or ease into self reliance and augment using things we have available now and ease into it.

5 things I take with me when I travel:

My Jeep which has my Get Home Bag and supplies in it. I don’t fly to go on vacation one of the things I’ve realized as someone self-reliant I’ve become aware of ignoring large events and not traveling far from home. It’s not paranoia but I think if your constantly thinking safety first and that’s a big part of prepping. Then you’ve kinda got to adjust your mindset of planning a vacation or some other activity.