Personal 2013 Year in Review

2013 was an inter­est­ing year for me.  I did­n’t blog as much as I have blogged in the past, and I think that was appar­ent to every­one.  I prepped less this year than I have in the past.  In fact by com­par­i­son to the past sev­er­al years, it was most­ly nonex­is­tent.  So what did­n’t I do this year:

• Prep (in gen­er­al),
• Did less camp­ing (weath­er relat­ed and oth­er rea­sons (see below)),
• Took few­er cours­es to improve skills,
• Trav­eled less for work and per­son­al enjoy­ment,
• Bought less food stor­age,
• Bought less ammo, and shot less this year than I have in years
• Planned less

What hap­pened?  A cou­ple of things, actu­al­ly:

• Work became a bear,
• Mon­ey got tighter in 2013,
• I start­ed a side com­pa­ny (a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny) to ser­vice small busi­ness­es,
• My Bug Out Vehi­cle was plagued with issues that need­ed repair (and was for­tu­nate enough to have repaired),
• Got a girl­friend, and a dog (the real high­light of my year),
• Start­ed a new job

Need less to say, there was a lot that dis­tract­ed me this year, and not sure I han­dled the way it could have been han­dled.  I’m thank­ful I was able to start a new job, I’m thank­ful for a lot of things, and that includes my the fan­tas­tic woman that I am in a rela­tion­ship with.  She puts up with me, but still does not under­stand, I think, the full scope of which I prep.  Not that I am fanat­i­cal.  I am not.  But she may ques­tion the lev­el of food stor­age.  How­ev­er, with the addi­tion of my sig­nif­i­cant oth­er in my life, and the dog, I real­ize my food preps have been cut in half or less than half, and must begin prep­ping again.

A few real­iza­tions hit me over the past cou­ple of months, how­ev­er:

1. As men­tioned, I need to ramp up food stor­age for two peo­ple and a dog (and the dog has spe­cial nutri­tion­al needs, so stan­dard dog food is out of the ques­tion) ,
2. My BOV is inad­e­quate for bug­ging out with two peo­ple, the dog, and a trail­er (it’s a Jeep Wran­gler with the rear seat removed and a secu­ri­ty box added).  Although, I am in search of a used SCAMP that is light enough to be pulled by the Jeep,
3. The quest for a seclud­ed BOL is get­ting fur­ther away, as we dis­cuss our future togeth­er and dol­lars must be put into oth­er places that were unan­tic­i­pat­ed (more on this anoth­er time) and it is time to get a bit more cre­ative…,
4. I have to hit the new job hard, as I am in sales, and per­for­mance the cri­te­ria upon which that I am judged,
5. Grow the side com­pa­ny so that it can sup­ple­ment my income with a month­ly recur­ring rev­enue stream and posi­tion it for growth
6. Take more class­es and cours­es to improve skills includ­ing the HAM Radio license, become an NRA instruc­tor, etc. that I have put off for a year.  The HAM Radio gear I bought, is going to waste, cur­rent­ly.  I need to put togeth­er a plan on what I want to learn in 2014, and go after that as well…

I am sure I am miss­ing a few items in the above because I am writ­ing this with­out an out­line.  How­ev­er, one thing weighs on me, and that is that I did not prep much this past year.  I am sure I am not alone, and I am sure there are oth­ers who have dug into their preps for var­i­ous rea­sons oth­er than to rotate them.

I did become clos­er to a cou­ple of self reliant indi­vid­u­als.  Good men and fam­i­lies that have their heads on straight and have been through floods, hur­ri­canes, eco­nom­ic cri­sis and col­lapse, etc. in the past.

I am think­ing about sell­ing the BOV, and pos­si­bly buy­ing a pick up truck that can pull more weight, and a larg­er trail­er.  But this is going to require some plan­ning…  Espe­cial­ly with some of the oth­er men­tioned costs com­ing up that were unan­tic­i­pat­ed costs.

What affect­ed your prep­ping this year?  What are you doing in 2014 to make a change or con­tin­ue ahead?  Feel free to com­ment below, and let me know.