Tomorrow is never certain.  We never know when there might be a dissonance which can disrupt the comfortable nature we are used to on a daily basis. There are many different emergency events which some people prepare for but, unfortunately, most of us tend to ignore. At some point in our lives, we will have to deal with some form of natural calamity, and that is exactly why we put together this post.  In the following article, we’ll highlight some of our favorite survival skills for natural calamities for you to learn from.

Survival Skills

1. Making Shelter

You should consider your situation before planning or building any survival structure. Your shelter must be able to provide protection from excessive wind, sun, rain, snow or any kind of weather. A shelter is mostly for comfort and protection. It should protect you against animals, weather or from insects. Likewise, it must be relatively comfortable since you will have to sleep in it.

A shelter may have many different forms:

• Natural shelters include caves or fallen thick-foliaged trees
• Intermediate shelters include a ditch dug next to a tree log and covered with leafs, debris shelter, or snow caves
• Completely man-made structures which may include houses, tents or tarps

2. Gathering & Filtering Water

Human beings are able to survive for an average of 3 to 4 days without water intake. Water is highly needed in hotter temperatures. The need of water also may increase with exercise. A normal person may lose between 2 and 4 liters of water in a day under the normal condition – more in extreme weather conditions. It is suggested that you consume between 3 and 6 liters of water per day to stave off dehydration.

In survival situations where running water is not available, you need to have an adequate water supply or a way to consistently produce clean water. Without clean water, you won’t survive a prolonged calamity and therefore, you need a source that will not only provide clean water but also easily accessible every time without going long distance. Other sources of water may include; having secrete water reserves, rainwater harvesting, or storing the large quantity of clean water.  There are numerous ways to generate clean water from questionable sources filtering, purifying and boiling.

3. Creating Fire

Fire have been recognized to significantly increase an ability to survive from both the mental and physical states. It can help you warm your body, boil water, cook food, or dry your clothes. In addition, fire can also provide a psychological support by creating a sense of the safety and security.

Lighting fire without matches or lighters is a common subject in survival books and courses. You should, therefore, practice the fire making tactics before venturing to wilderness. Making the fire in adverse conditions have been made easier by introductions of fire equipment such as fire piston and solar spark lighters.

4. Food Storage

You might be surprised seeing food being low on a survival skills list. We can survive without food for much longer compared with other basic needs. According to the rule of three, a typical person can survive for up to three weeks without food.  That being said, surviving and being somewhat comfortable can be two very different things.

Having food stores in place prior to a calamity is the best way to ensure you don’t go hungry during a natural disaster.  In the off chance you’ve run out of everything, you can resort to the following means of food acquisition:

• Hunting
• Foraging
• Trading

Please make sure you can properly identify edible plants if you intend to forage.

5. Improve Your Outdoor Skills

The more you understand the nature, the better you will be able to survive. For instance, to effectively locate wild animals you will need highly tuned wildlife tracking skills.The best way to acquire basic natural knowledge is to read about plants and animals in your area and then get outside and tune your knowledge. This approach will allow you identify means of survival in the outdoors in good times or bad.

6. Improve Your Attitude

Attitude is very important in survival skills. It can even determine whether you are going to make it out of a situation alive. Your attitude will help you plan for your situation and, by doing so, you will keep your body and mind active. A positive attitude is also contagious.  If you are in a group of folks who are in dire straits, a positive attitude may help bring people together and allow them to get to safety.

7. Build Your Relationships

Solid relationships with other community members is an essential aspect of survival and readiness. One individual can’t do as much as two can do. If you involved your friend or a neighbor about it, they might agree and create a readiness plan for the entire community. Solid relationships will add an extra reliability which will help you prepared for anything.

8. Communication Is King

Communication is one of the most critical survival skills to keep up to date with.  Ensure that you have backup forms of communication such as radios, radio phones, auxiliary phone chargers or satellite phones. All these are a flexible and viable form of communication.

Moreover, have a communication plan and make sure that you practice in calm times to make sure that your plan works when things go sideways.

9. Have An Escape Plan

Having a plan to escape from different situations is key in a survival situation.  Your plans should start with your central location – do you have an escape plan for your house if it’s on fire – and build outwards.  Where do you go from work if there’s a disaster? Where do your kids go if they are at school? Where do you go if your primary escape route is blocked? Do you have a tertiary escape route?

10. First Aid Knowledge

Don’t let its ranking fool you – first aid knowledge is one of the most critical of the survival skills that you should develop. Build up your first aid kits both in your homes and in your vehicles and, above all else, build up your knowledge to treat everything from simple to severe situations. You can enroll in basic first aid classes and other natural survival tactics at some of the institutions such as Red Cross. Additionally, you can read more books that provide first aid information. Once you’ve developed your basic first aid skills, you may want to develop a knowledge of medicinal herbs and remedies.

Conclusion

Natural calamities come at the most unanticipated times.  Only developing proper survival skills will allow you to make it through these situations as unscathed as possible.

What do you think of these tens tips? Let us know in the comments below.

I love bartering. I’ve been bartering since lunch period in elementary school where I would often trade a chocolate milk for a Lunchable pizza. I’ve bartered everything from CDs to subwoofers to paintball guns to high-end letterpress business cards from Lithuania.

Sure, bartering has its downfalls. Situations like…

• Louis needs a cow and has chickens to trade. How many chickens equal a cow? Are they egg laying chickens? How old is the cow? There are a lot of variables and it is almost never a completely even trade.
• Jennifer needs wool and has beans to swap. Chris has wool but doesn’t need beans, he needs corn. So now Jennifer has to find someone with corn who needs beans. This can get very complicated quickly

It’s easy to see why every culture has created some form of standardized currency to make these exchanges fair and simple.

Bartering During Currency Failures

Currency could fail for various reasons such as hyperinflation, natural disasters and a general SHTF scenario where the access to hard currency is limited or nonexistent.

In situations like hyperinflation, bartering would simply take the place of everyday currency transactions. Your life will continue as normal, you will simply trade items instead of money.

However, in a situation where access to hard currency is all but impossible, the dynamic changes to where people are worried about just surviving. Items like food, water, and medicine become high commodities in these kinds of situations. These are the types of scenarios you should be preparing for and ready to barter within.

Preparing For Bartering

So what should you do to prepare for these types of situation? It’s actually pretty easy to get started.

Bartering is just about trading something of value for something else of value. Price isn’t the factor, need and usability are. Just like in the movies where the hero on the run trades an expensive watch for a phone call. That call can save their lives but the watch won’t, even though it costs exponentially more during normal times.

Preparing for a bartering economy doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t need to hoard rooms full of stores. Things as simple and cheap as canned food, lighters, batteries, bottled water, etc can be worth quite a lot in times of crisis. Many of the items that are great for bartering after SHTF are things you should already be stocking up on in case of an emergency anyway.

Here’s a short list of essential items (in no particular order) that will be worth their weight in gold if SHTF:

Short Term

• Lighters
• Water (and water filtration devices)
• Canned food
• Fresh food – fruits, vegetables, meat
• Medicine – antibiotics, bandages, etc
• Flashlights
• Power – batteries, gas generator, solar generator, etc
• Weapons – guns, ammo, etc
• Tools – knives, pry bars, axes, shovels, etc
• Clothing
• Alcohol – disinfecting, fire, cooking, forgetting that SHTF
• Cordage – depends on the situation
• Duct tape

Longer Term

• Seeds
• Animals for food – chickens, goats, cows, fish, etc
• Building materials
• Coffee
• Toiletries – Toothbrushes, feminine hygiene products, soap, etc
• Salt

These lists are in no way exhaustive or complete. I’m sure you can think of plenty more.

The best part is that the majority of these items are inexpensive so next time you’re at the store, just pick up a couple extra things. You’ll have a decent collection in no time and it’ll only cost you a few extra dollars every shopping trip.

Bartering Away From Home

What if you have to leave your home and/or cache of stores behind and can only grab your bug out bag? No worries. Remember that bartering is about trading something of value for something else of value. You can still provide value to someone with a service.

Think about going to your daily job.  You’re really just bartering your time and skills for currency. The same principle applies in a SHTF scenario. But, instead of time and skills for currency, you’ll be bartering for supplies.

Here are some skills that will be valuable after a disaster that you could be learning right now:

• Repair – small engine, sewing, firearms, etc.
• Medical – Treating wounds, diagnosing rashes, knowing which plants cure ailments, etc.
• Hunting – Can catch game to trade or go on hunting parties for a group
• Building – Carpentry, welding, simple architecture, etc.
• Farming – Crops, livestock, animal husbandry, etc.
• Bushcraft – Shelter, foraging, trapping, fire building, tracking, navigation, etc.
• Cooking/Baking

Skill can be traded for one-time payments (fix an engine for a crate of food) or for more long-term scenarios (be the camp cook in exchange for protection and inclusion in the group).

Conclusion

Remember that society existed well before the invention of currency and can do so again without it. Bartering is one of our oldest skills and will continue to be important whether you’re trading pudding cups or cans of tuna.

You will not have the luxury of eating what you feel like when a catastrophe hits. In such situations, you should know what survival foods are best in terms of nourishment, vitality, energy and taste.  They should be also easy to carry around in case you need to bug out.

Here is a list of six survival foods regarded as the best by some of the top preppers:

Top Six Survival Foods

Canned Alaskan Wild Salmon

Salmon is rich in protein and sound fats like omega 3s. Many variations of Alaskan wild salmon will come canned with little to none of the contaminants that can appear in cans of other types of fish. The Inuit people (local individuals of Alaska and northern Canada) regularly eat Alaskan wild salmon.  Likewise, they are known for low rates of heart attack and stroke.  This phenomenon is credited to their regular salmon consumption. Like tuna fish, you can eat canned Alaskan wild salmon right out of the can without cooking. Leftovers must be refrigerated and will keep for 3 – 4 days.

Dried Beans

Many beans are high in calories and contain a decent amount of protein per serving.  They also contain key vitamins and minerals.  You could try these beans if you’re interested:

• Kidney Beans
• Garbanzo Beans
• Black Beans
• Lima Beans
• Pinto Beans

The main thing to remember is that most beans need to soak for a few hours before eating. Finally, dried beans have a long shelf life. Dried beans will stay great in the back of your vehicle, your office survival unit and, obviously, your survival foods home pantry.

Brown Rice

Brown rice is high in calories and also contains key vitamins and minerals. As a dry, non-perishable food item, it additionally has a long shelf life. Simply add high-temperature water and let it soak for 1 – 2 hours, or until the rice extends(eat rice after it’s extended).

Bulk Nuts

Look for bulk nuts in the seed/nut area of your supermarket.  You should look particularly for unsalted and unshelled nuts. Peanuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, and various different nuts/seeds ordinarily sold in food markets are high in fundamental vitamins, minerals, vital unsaturated fats and have a decent amount of protein. They’re also lightweight; a serving size may be as little as a 1/4 container.

Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter is packed with protein and crucial unsaturated fats. It also contains numerous fundamental vitamins and minerals. For the best wellbeing, pick natural brands that are well known for organic food. A few tablespoons a day of peanut butter can provide assistance with surviving during long durations of constrained food intake. Amid a debacle, one of your procedures to survive needs to incorporate an understanding that it’s an ideal opportunity to cut calories. Many people eat a greater number of calories every day than they really need to survive. Cutting calories implies your food will last longer.

Energy Bars and Chocolate Bars

There’s an energy bar for each taste these days. Search for brands with a high-calorie count as well as a lot of protein. Chocolate bars can be a quick source of vitality and an awesome morale booster among children while being liberal in calories.

Conclusion

As you can see, these six survival foods are nutrient and calorie dense foods which are easy to carry and store.  They can be acquired for relatively little money and allow you to build a quality survival food pantry relatively quickly.

Do you agree with our suggestions? Disagree? Let us know in the comments!

There’s no doubt that preparing for an SHTF scenario is not something you can do in a week or two. It takes time, a little bit of money and a little bit of work.

Only problem is that the more we know, the more we feel like we know. So we start absorbing information like a sponge. We end up learning things that we’ve never even considered back when we were unawakened. Some of these things may even be considered weird by the average Joe but we know better.

I have a few interesting survival ideas for you that I think you might like. These are not the common sense ones as that everyone’s talking and writing about. The ones in this article are meant to not only help you but to make you say:

Ahh, I never thought about that. That’s clever!

Ready? Let’s get started with #1.

Idea #1: A Clever Way To Rotate Your Food Stockpile

If you’re stockpiling some of your food under the bed, there’s a neat little trick to easily rotate it. Always deposit the cans on one side of the bed and remove them from the other. This process will naturally push the older ones through and cause you to take the oldest can when you want to use one.

Pretty neat, right?

Idea #2: Need A Dog To Protect Your Home?

Don’t spend hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars on one. There are plenty of dogs in need of adoption that are going to be great friends and faithful protectors.

When you go to the shelter, consider selecting the biggest and strongest dog instead of the cutest, most cuddly puppy. Most people don’t do that as they’re mainly looking for companions.  Not only do the older dogs need love too, but they’ll be an immediate improvement to your home security system.

Idea #3: A Family Photo…That Hides A Secret

Let’s say you buried some of your valuables somewhere on your property. You obviously want to remember exactly where that place is but you don’t want to write it down or leave any marks or clues. How do create a reminder so that only you and your immediate family know the exact location?

Easy. Just take a photo of your loved ones standing on the exact same spot where you’re supposed to dig. Make copies of the photo and have everyone keep it in their wallets and bug out bags. No one will ever know or guess the true purpose of those photos…

Idea #4: Use These Part-Time Weapons To Escape An Attacker

We all know that a having a gun is a great way to provide for your own self-defense. But what if we can’t reach it in time or, even worse, your local laws prevent you from carrying in public? Try out some of the items on my “part-time weapons” list. These are everyday items that can be used to successfully inflict pain and give you those much needed seconds to escape your attacker:

Pens, car keys, high-heeled shoes, bandanas, lollipops – those are all great everyday tools that can be used to hit some of the most vulnerable parts of the human body: the eyes, the cheek, the nose, the groin and so on.

Idea #5: Clean Your Teeth With Baking Soda

It’s obvious that, post-disaster, maintaining good personal hygiene is going to be tough. Keeping your teeth healthy is one of those challenges that, fortunately, has a simple solution: baking soda.

And the recipe for homemade toothpaste is dead-simple. Just mix half a teaspoon of baking soda with half a teaspoon of water until they form a paste. Use a lid to make it. That’s it; all you have to do now is dip your toothbrush inside and start brushing!

(As a side note, baking soda is also known for whitening teeth naturally. Use it for at least a week once a day and notice the results.)

#6. Stock Up On Condoms – They Have Many Uses

The interesting thing about condoms is that they can aid you procuring food, water, they can help you make shelter and – yes –even help you start a fire.

This last use is very interesting. All you need is a condom and some water. Fill the condom with water, tie it up and use it as a magnifying glass to focus the solar flares on some tinder (you will need good tinder, such as straw or tinder fungus).

#7. Light A Wet Match

If you have matches that got wet for whatever reason and you don’t really have dry wood to help you start a fire, there is another way…provided that you have access to direct sunlight and a flashlight.

The trick is to disassemble the flashlight, take out the reflective part and stick one of your matches inside, with the flammable end sticking out where the light bulb used to be. Now hold the flashlight in direct sunlight until the match dries up and starts flaming. You’ll need to quickly remove the match when that happens!

Wrap-Up – Were These Survival Ideas Useful?

Of course, these are just a few of the tricks, tips and tactics that only smart preppers know. When you think about it, there are numerous items that have countless uses (and in many cases save your life). Condoms are such an example, then there’s duct tape, paracord, tampons, chap stick, bandanas, zip ties, bungee cords and even tin cans.

Stay safe and don’t forget, it’s not just about digging for unique survival ideas but also about your set of skills (read more on them here and here).