So, first a quick rundown on my family circumstances. I am a lawyer by training. My spouse, a former teacher, is midway through dental school. We own a (mortgaged) home in the Virginia suburbs of a large city. My spouse is from a western state, having grown up around guns, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, etc. By contrast, I grew up in a small city, in a house without guns. I was in the Cub Scouts for a few years, but various other interests took over and I never got to do the majority of the important skill-building that being in the Boy Scouts allows. I was, however, a varsity athlete in high school and college, as was my spouse, and we still retain some of the drive toward fitness that preparedness requires. I am a relatively recent convert to the prepping mindset, thanks in large part, surprisingly, to my dad. Several years ago, he was caught out, overnight, on a major highway because of a bad tractor-trailer accident in horrendous weather.
He had nothing in the car to eat, or to keep warm. Luckily, he was able to pull onto the shoulder and drive around cars until he reached a nearby exit, where there was a gas station on a back road, which was covered in ice. He couldn’t drive home, but the gas station allowed him to eat junk food and to keep warm without completely depleting his gas on the road. He also had his cell phone (no car charger, though), and between us, we coordinated with his neighbors to feed the dog, etc., while he was away. He was lucky, and he began immediately afterward to stockpile food at the house, keep needed items in the car, and generally to begin preparing for various minimal disaster scenarios. His experience impacted me, as well, and we began talking about what we might do in the event something serious happened, creating a loose framework of family responses to various emergencies.
My Own Planning
I began to research and came across ww.survivalblog.com, which I consider to be the finest resource available for relevant information on the topic of prepping. After reading up on the admittedly overwhelming range of considerations that a complete approach to prepping requires, I started planning. As the literature says to do, I first determined which scenarios I thought were most likely to occur, and decided what we could do on our meager budget (most lawyers these days work in smaller firms or in solo practices and do not make anywhere near what the general public is led to believe) to prepare. Knowing how my wife thinks, and thinking that it might be counterproductive if I just brought the whole thing up out of nowhere, I began discussing prepping with her slowly. We had a couple of conversations, and I suggested a few books (S.M. Stirling’s Dies the Fire
We already had one handgun and 100 rounds of ammunition due to a previous situation with a crazy neighbor, but that was all we started with. We didn’t feel that compelled to increase either the number of guns or the number of rounds we stockpiled because we both worked within a mile of our home, and we decided that our priorities for preparing actually first lay with making sure we had enough to eat. Over time, we stockpiled several months of food and water at the house, my wife got a cell phone (which she hated at first), and I started planning for both bug-out and bug-in situations. I began building a bug-out bag for each of us. We bought an all-wheel drive vehicle. We started thinking about what we would do with our pets if we had to leave the house. My wife received a prestigious military scholarship that paid for the vast majority of her expensive tuition and provided a small stipend while she is in school. Everything was coming together, if slowly.
Everything Changes
Then everything changed. About 18 months ago, I got laid off because of the combination of the sheer number of attorneys in town in my particular practice area and the dwindling number of paying clients. Due to the horrendous job market for attorneys, I had to take a job out of town, about 150 miles away. My wife stayed behind in our house. We did this to allow her to complete the dental school program she was in.
We talked at length before we made this decision, focusing mainly on the risks and benefits of living apart. Our plan was (and is) that I should have an apartment near my job where I stay during the week, and I come home to our house on the weekends. The salary at my new job is nearly double what I was making before, and even accounting for the additional expense of gas and of an apartment in another city, we can still afford to make substantial payments toward eliminating our credit card debt. We have paid off two credit cards, and are moving quickly toward being completely free of credit card debt. We only have one small car payment, which is the next target after the credit card debt is gone. Her dental school education is supremely important, not only because it’s what she has dreamed for years of doing, but because being a dentist has a certain value all its own. Reading any of the survival fiction available, it’s a common (and reasonable) theme that, in a SHTF scenario, in communities where resources are scarce, only those who can contribute will be welcome. As a stopgap measure, then, her dental skills may become very useful.
But there was an obvious complication. All of my careful planning and preparing had resulted in plans we could no longer really use. Everything was different, so I had to go back to the drawing board.
Implementing Changes
We had to re-think everything. First, we decided that protection was now of primary importance. Having only one handgun between us was not enough, not if I was going to be living somewhere out of town and driving 150 miles, one way. Let me say now that my wife is an excellent shot, much better than I am, in fact. This is to be expected because she has been shooting since she was a young child (the first gun she ever shot was a .357 Magnum – and that is a really funny story that I won’t go into here). Her father was an excellent teacher. But we couldn’t very well do much with one handgun between us. So we bought my wife a Glock pistol, which she loves. Then, I bought a Kel-Tec PF9, really for concealed carry (I already had my CCW License), because my other handgun was too big to carry (a Taurus Millennium Pro). I also got a great deal on a Mossberg shotgun to keep at the house. I also began to stockpile ammunition. We do not live in a place where a large-caliber rifle is going to do much good, but in the event of a SHTF situation, I do have a slingshot for squirrels and a .22 rifle is next on the purchase list. Those might help for a few critical days if we decide to bug in, and could be good on the road either as protection or for hunting. The upshot of all of this is that I now am able to carry a gun plus keep a spare in my B.O.B. at all times. My wife is much better able to defend the house if she needs to because she has her own handgun (for carry) and a shotgun for last-ditch protection at home. We also now have made a commitment to regular range training and I am looking into additional personal defense training. In one sense, then, making this drastic life decision forced us to drastically improve our defense capability. Hunting is another story, but our increased budget has allowed us to stockpile more food.
In many other ways, though, we were back at square one. For example, what do we do if and when telephone service is not available? Before, when we were living together and working close to our home, this wasn’t a terribly important consideration. Now, living 150 miles apart most of the week, it’s crucial. Presently, we rely heavily on cell phones, email and Skype to communicate during the week. If the satellites are down, and the roads are impassable for any reason, how do we coordinate our movements? The only viable answer to that question is greater planning and practice during our limited time together so that we can trust in the plans we have made.
But the considerations are myriad.
Bugging-in is relatively simple, but do we plan on my coming back home first before we bug out together? If we do, then we will have to allow for a maximum of three weeks before she executes any fail-safe bug out plan. In the event of road closures, hiking the full 150 miles across two interstates and many other, smaller highways will take at least two weeks, and probably closer to three. In the meantime, will it be safe at the house? If not, where do we go? How do we decide whether or not it’s safe for her to remain at the house? How does she communicate her decision? What is the secondary meet-up point if she has to leave? How long will she stay?
We had to pay closer attention to mapping my route home. Virginia provides free road maps upon request, both of the major roads and the so-called “scenic” roads, which may be useful in mapping alternative routes along more rural properties.
The purpose and contents of my B.O.B. also had to change. Rather than 72 hours, I had to plan for several weeks. A larger bag, a tarp/tent, extra food, means of getting more food, a more robust and capable water filter, etc. Because of the additional gear, the weight of the bag increased, and so versatility of various items also had to increase. Her B.O.B. also had to change. Honestly, we’re still working out how to deal with pets and the additional pet food, etc., but the purpose of her B.O.B. is to sustain her in traveling to our pre-arranged location, where we have cached a number of additional supplies. Ultimately, and tragically, the hard truth is that we may have to leave beloved pets behind. Also, with my wife obligated in the military when she graduates, we will likely be moving some distance away while she is serving. Caching, then, is only a temporary solution to a larger problem, and one which we will have to solve at least a couple more times in the near future.
Our new situation presented us with smaller considerations also. Where I work, I live only several blocks from my office, in a small apartment. However, I have no garage parking. I do have a dedicated parking space at work where, if I wanted, I could leave my car 24 hours a day and walk to and from work. However, the neighborhood near the office is not great, so I normally park at night on the street near my apartment (the few blocks make a big difference). I still don’t want to leave my B.O.B. (and the loaded gun inside it) in the car overnight, so I generally leave the bag in my apartment unless I know I am driving some distance. In terms of OPSEC, I have had to make a hard choice, since it cannot have escaped notice that, occasionally, I move a large, obvious hiking/camping bag to and from the car and the apartment without any apparent reason. I’m still working on how to make that transition less obvious while maintaining the amount of gear I will need in my B.O.B. However, I have done too much work and spent too much money to have the B.O.B. stolen, and as a responsible gun owner, I cannot in good conscience leave the gun in a car on the street to be so easily stolen by thieves.
Finally, our long-term plans have had to be more fluid. Previously, we had planned eventually to purchase land and build a home in a rural area in Virginia. The uncertainty of my wife’s eventual posting, however, has delayed that a bit. We do know that we would like to come back to Virginia after she is done with the military, but that may also change. At the same time, the longer we wait, the more risk we take in not having our retreat available.
Acquiring New Skills
Not being at home during the week, I do have some time to seek to acquire new skills to supplement my formal education, which would be all but useless in a SHTF situation. I have time to go the gym and am improving my fitness. Also, I am currently looking for defensive shooting classes in the area, and with the number of hiking trails around, I have the opportunity to spend some time every week hiking with my pack to begin building up endurance in the event that I have to walk home. I am reading about foraging for edible plants and about the wildlife in the area. Living in the apartment, I have no room to practice gardening, etc., but I feel I am making the best of my situation.
We also have a trip planned for later this year to the Pacific Northwest, to my wife’s parents’ house, where I will be spending time with her dad in order to learn some of the hunting, tracking and fishing skills I lack.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that the major change we were forced to make in our lives has had both benefits and massive complications. It has made us (and allowed us financially to) make some immediate improvements in our preparations, but in general, it has made us revisit our plans and drastically change them to suit our new circumstances. On the bright side, knowing that our living situation will change in the future, we now have the experience of revisiting and changing our plans to adapt to our new circumstances.
SurvivalBlog remains a crucial resource for me, and I have spent hours looking through the archives to gain insight into ways to handle our situation. Thanks to SurvivalBlog’s varied topics of discussion, I feel I have a much better idea of what questions to ask when I am thinking about making or changing plans. Thank you, Mr. Rawles, for your prescience and insight. Keep up the good work!