Trav­el­ing again this week and short on time, but want­ed to put some­thing togeth­er for you… I was going over ways in my head to help me re-align some goals and thought I would share a few of them with you…  These are in no par­tic­u­lar oder

1. Plant a gar­den, any gar­den. Go get some pots from Lowes or Home Depot, pick up seeds or sprout­ed veg­etable plants and trans­plant them into the pots.  Take care of them this sum­mer and reap the ben­e­fits of “learn­ing how to gar­den.”  Grow some pep­pers, toma­toes, herbs, and oth­er veg­eta­bles that you enjoy if the pots are large enough to hold them…  You nev­er know when that Bug Out Loca­tion is going to have you as a long term inhab­i­tant and whether or not you will need a gar­den to sur­vive.
2. Get out of debt. I know this can be a pain in the ass and painful to pay off those debts, but if I can do it, any­one can.  I for­get where I heard it, but Dave Ram­sey mar­kets a book with a fan­tas­tic plan, as does David Bach.  Both have mar­ket­ed mul­ti­ple pro­grams and books that make sense in help­ing to invest in your own future.  Pick them up and read them.  Even if you know what you are doing you might learn some­thing new.
3. Put togeth­er a per­son­al or fam­i­ly emer­gency plan. Some time ago I wrote this post on cre­at­ing a fam­i­ly book for each dis­as­ter sit­u­a­tion called “ ‘Your Home Cri­sis Guide­book for a Sur­vival Sit­u­a­tion or a SHTF.”  You could even put this togeth­er for work and make it a stan­dard part of the hir­ing pro­ce­dure in the event there is an emer­gency dur­ing work­ing hours.  In additi0n, plan by prob­a­bil­i­ty based on geog­ra­phy.  i.e. Neigh­bor­hood, Town or city, region, mul­ti-state, nation­al, etc… Start with the small­est first (neigh­bor­hood) and work your way out from there.
4. Build your Bug Out Bags for your­self and for each mem­ber of your fam­i­ly. Make sure you don’t just copy some0ne else’s bag because every­one’s needs are dif­fer­ent because of demo­graph­ics, geog­ra­phy, med­ical needs, etc.  If you are won­der­ing where to start, how­ev­er, here are the con­tents of my Bug Out Bag.  Here is anoth­er list that I found that might help you as well:  http://goo.gl/egXQa
5. If you have not already, get start­ed prep­ping food and water by adding five gal­lons of water  by buy­ing a five gal­lon water con­tain­er, and get your food stor­age start­ed by buy­ing a day’s worth of food for each per­son in y0ur house­hold.  Aim to have 30 days of food stored for one per­son or the whole fam­i­ly in the next 60 days.  It’s okay to start slow­ly…
6. Start get­ting in bet­ter shape. Even I fail at this one quite a bit because I go to the gym in spurts.  The truth is, being com­mit­ted to a health­i­er lifestyle makes you a bet­ter prep­per because you can think faster on y0ur feet, you are in bet­ter con­di­tion to bug out, you pro­long your life, and the list goes on.  Not unlike debt, it can be painful to get start­ed, but once you are on a roll, it is eas­i­er to main­tain than start and stop like I rou­tine­ly do for a myr­i­ad of rea­sons…
7. Under­stand dis­as­ter com­mon­al­i­ty.  This one is not mine.  It is Jack Spirko’s over at The Sur­vival Pod­cast.  Here is the link to the pod­cast on this mat­ter:  http://goo.gl/zPK3A I think it will make more sense once you lis­ten to the show.  It will help you pre­pare your thoughts on prep­ping, gear, and the dis­as­ters you might face.
8. Think about look­ing for a Bug Out Loca­tion or retreat and get it ready in case you had to go there for 30 days or so if you and your fam­i­ly absolute­ly had to.  Land and prop­er­ty has come down in price because peo­ple do not have the mon­ey to buy right now… I only advo­cate doing this if you have paid off your debt first how­ev­er.  Pick up a copy of M.D. Creek­more’s new book, Dirt Cheap Sur­vival Retreat to learn how M.D. did it.  It may or may not be for you, but at least you will get some per­spec­tive on how to do it and save mon­ey at the same time…
9. Learn some basic First Aid because it is my the­o­ry too many peo­ple focus on all the oth­er stuff, but for­get to have the basic skills to save a life.  Check out the Red Cross site here for class­es in your area:   http://goo.gl/o3uAd
10. Get start­ed on at least two of the above items today…  There is no time like the present to get the ball rolling