Prepping

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Discussion

Countdown

39,824 posts

196 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
quotequote all
Cotty said:
Countdown said:
When was the last time in the last 2000 years when there were "no shops open"?
I agree if you want to be silly and state that there will always be a shop open somewhere in the world due to time differences. However lots of shops do close, walk down any UK highstreet at 10pm and see how many shops are open.
Please give me an example of one event that is likely to happen where a bug out bag / Prepping kit is going to make me better prepared than a credit card or £1k in cash?

Cotty said:
Plus if there is no power to run the tills or the shops are closed as they are under 3 foot of water, or like Katrina the shops have been knocked down, you will not be able to buy anything.
I would drive to the next State and put myself and my family up in a hotel. Surely that's far more preferable than taking them out to the woods somewhere?

Cotty

39,498 posts

284 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
quotequote all
Countdown said:
Please give me an example of one event that is likely to happen where a bug out bag / Prepping kit is going to make me better prepared than a credit card or £1k in cash?
I already gave it, when the shops are closed, are you being obtuse?



Edited by Cotty on Sunday 3rd July 17:44

bobtail4x4

3,715 posts

109 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
quotequote all
and there is no fuel to buy

Countdown

39,824 posts

196 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
quotequote all
Cotty said:
Countdown said:
Please give me an example of one event that is likely to happen where a bug out bag / Prepping kit is going to make me better prepared than a credit card or £1k in cash?
I already gave it, when the shops are closed, are you being obtuse?



Edited by Cotty on Sunday 3rd July 17:44
FFS, the "shops being closed" (in itself) isn't an event that requires people to "bug out".

A wildfire/earthquake/swarm of locusts (pretty much everything apart from a nuclear war or biological plague.... all of these can be dealt with by driving far away and using money.

Countdown

39,824 posts

196 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
quotequote all
bobtail4x4 said:
and there is no fuel to buy
How are the preppers going to get to their remote mountain hideaway?

FlyingMeeces

9,932 posts

211 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
quotequote all
Cotty said:
Countdown said:
Please give me an example of one event that is likely to happen where a bug out bag / Prepping kit is going to make me better prepared than a credit card or £1k in cash?
I already gave it, when the shops are closed, are you being obtuse?



Edited by Cotty on Sunday 3rd July 17:44
But short of actual, literal nuclear strike or similar near-unsurvivable event (bug-out bag or no), not going to be able to pop down the shops, or learning you need relocate in good time, does not happen to people with the sense and the means to keep an eye on the news and the weather forecasts. It might, arguably, be a little different if any of us lived somewhere where serious wildfires, major earthquakes or similar could be expected, but we don't.

Arguably a decent battery powered or wind-up radio, and the knowledge to use it, so that a more-than-a-few-hours power cut won't knock out your access to information via the short-lived smartphone battery might be the only really useful thing that the majority even of relatively sensible people don't currently have.

Some Gump

12,687 posts

186 months

Sunday 3rd July 2016
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5ohmustang said:
I do not have a debt, sorry credit card any more, I am free of that slavery..
???

Just pay it off each month, you epic muppet.

Efbe

9,251 posts

166 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
Some Gump said:
5ohmustang said:
I do not have a debt, sorry credit card any more, I am free of that slavery..
???

Just pay it off each month, you epic muppet.
srsly won't work.

when it gets to the end of the month the nuclear holocaust will wipe out your bank so you won't be able to pay your credit card off!

so obvious rly.

leglessAlex

5,434 posts

141 months

Monday 4th July 2016
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5ohmustang said:
Some Gump said:
???

Just pay it off each month, you epic muppet.
Why use it if you already have the money genius? Oh you're one of those. Good luck.
One of those what? I'm genuinely curious, what's so bad about having a credit card?

I have one, I use it for things like fuel and pay it off in full each month. I never spend much on it, but it does help keep my credit rating good and that's a useful thing to have. How is that slavery?

jdw100

4,102 posts

164 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
5ohmustang said:
On a large scale Argentina 2001, The Great Depression, WW2, Cuba post collapse of the USSR, Hurricane Katrina, Andrew, Sandy, The winter of discontent, American indians.

Prepping can be any form of preparing for hard times, without even realising it. It was part of our ancestors lifestyles, the only difference being the term survivalist or prepper was not coined.
Yeah, I wasn't talking about for the storing of food that was the norm before large scale distribution and supply chains.

I meant in the UK or USA an event that meant one would yell:

"Maureen grab the bug out bags and the kids we have to immediately head out for our secure location in the hills due to this unexpected event/imminent collapse of society"

Or:

"Janet, lower the reinforced shutters on the house, lock the kids in the prepared safe area and grab your gun to prepare to defend ourselves against our neighbours/ravening bands of marauders/the government"

The above two are what the prepping websites are full of....not storing a bit of food before the invention of Tesco.

In my lifetime in UK:

- threat of nuclear war
- IRA
- storm of '87 (day of my driving test....didn't make it to the test centre!)
- riots in '80s and again in 2012 in London.
- that winter we had a few years back, ooh the pavements were icy in St. Albans!
- 7/7, unless you were directly involved worst thing was you had to do was walk home/crash at office or hotel..
- avian flu thing that didn't happen
- Brexit.

That's all I can come up with right now.....should I have bugged out for any of those? Headed for the hills?

Just been on Skype with my Dad (born 1943) - he's scratching is head as well. Had whole area cut off from water for a week once; but the council sent water trucks round. Various bomb evacuations (worked at Heathrow all his life) but no need to come home grab us kids and head off. River got dangerously close to bursting its banks but neighbours had a plan together to get furniture up from everyone's ground floors.....

Had a policeman point a pistol at him in Nigeria and then a soldier point a rifle at Policeman...he figures that it was best to let them get on with it and not to bend down to draw his pistol from his ankle holster...

That's all he come up with....so in last 70 years he hasn't felt even close to grabbing his wife and children and getting the hel out of there......

Oh and the credit card thing- slavery? Really?

I just bought a flight on mine - gives me travel insurance, if there's issues they'll refund my money....and I'll pay it off at the end of the month so there is no interest. How exactly has that left a whip mark across my back?



jdw100

4,102 posts

164 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
Oh and the other one I thought of....

My ex got trapped in South Africa due to that volcano going off in Iceland or wherever it was.

Stuck for 10 days.

Reduced to fighting others for scraps of corn in the streets.

No not really...she used her evil credit card to extend her hotel booking, work reimbursed her at the end of the month.

Did a safari day - great photos.

Bored in hotel after a while so one of her collegues took her back to meet his family and she stayed there for a few days as well. Which was nice.

jdw100

4,102 posts

164 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
5ohmustang said:
Some Gump said:
???

Just pay it off each month, you epic muppet.
Why use it if you already have the money genius? Oh you're one of those. Good luck.
I stick 5 gold sovereigns up my arse before I leave the house every morning!

Just in case the banking system collapses during the day.


stuckmojo

2,971 posts

188 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
Regardless of the perceived insanity of preppers (each to their own) I do enjoy watching some of those videos because I am a gadget geek.

Spades with edges, knives, GPS trackers, all sorts of paracords and water purification tablets, fishing lines in altoids tins, 8-hour fires, MRE bags. AMAZING!

Now if one just admitted to the wife they've spent 2 grand on a backpack and lots of "proper bit of kit", the better half would go mental and use the spade as weapon (Spetznatz-style). But to tell her that it's for an emergency (Bug out bag might rekindle that fire, you remember them days dogging behind the school fence) has a totally different connotation.

Please, please keep posting reviews of gadgets and videos. (Also at least ONE real life story when any of that kit came useful).


Efbe

9,251 posts

166 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
5ohmustang said:
Some Gump said:
???

Just pay it off each month, you epic muppet.
Why use it if you already have the money genius? Oh you're one of those. Good luck.
50h

this is not a dig at you, it's a genuine thing.
You should really look into the benefits of using a credit card.

it offers a level of protection that is really easy to claim on. Should you buy a holiday and the company goes bust, you can claim back on the credit card. Or if an item was broken, or never arrived in the post.

You can also get rewards for spending money through them.
I get 2.5% cashback on everything I spend, and have setup a direct debit to pay off the balance each month straight after payday, so I don't notice using it.

it also gives me another card to pay with should my first one not work for some reason (updates to the bank's system etc)

anonymous-user

54 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
stuckmojo said:
use the spade as a weapon (Spetznatz-style).
You've spelt "Royal Green Jackets" wrong...

walm

10,609 posts

202 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
Efbe said:
5ohmustang said:
Some Gump said:
???

Just pay it off each month, you epic muppet.
Why use it if you already have the money genius? Oh you're one of those. Good luck.
50h

this is not a dig at you, it's a genuine thing.
You should really look into the benefits of using a credit card.

it offers a level of protection that is really easy to claim on. Should you buy a holiday and the company goes bust, you can claim back on the credit card. Or if an item was broken, or never arrived in the post.

You can also get rewards for spending money through them.
I get 2.5% cashback on everything I spend, and have setup a direct debit to pay off the balance each month straight after payday, so I don't notice using it.

it also gives me another card to pay with should my first one not work for some reason (updates to the bank's system etc)
Where do you get 2.5% cashback!!?

/also "one of those" apparently!

I like using my credit card and pay it off each month.
- Purchase protection.
- Allows me to buy things on this crazy invention called the internet - often cheaper than building those things myself or travelling to China to pay someone to do it for me in cash.
- Cashback - BUT NOT 2.5% dammit!
- Audit trail. Can see how much I have blown on Amazon this month/eating out/petrol etc...
- Quicker than cash with contactless.
- Smaller than a fat wad in my pocket, ruining the line of my expensive Gap chinos. wink

RizzoTheRat

25,140 posts

192 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
walm said:
Where do you get 2.5% cashback!!?
I was about to ask the same question. I get 3% on fuel from Santander, but only 0.5% from Halifax so looking to change that one.

jdw100

4,102 posts

164 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
Offer him a tactical credit card in camo or seal team six black and he'll sign up.

I keep mine in a lead lined wallet so the government can't track it.

Efbe

9,251 posts

166 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
RizzoTheRat said:
walm said:
Where do you get 2.5% cashback!!?
I was about to ask the same question. I get 3% on fuel from Santander, but only 0.5% from Halifax so looking to change that one.
Looks like the deal has changed slightly now, but it was Amex platinum cashback.
Have to spend over £3500 on it to qualify for 2.5%, otherwise 1.25%.

Only issues is not all that many places take amex.

walm

10,609 posts

202 months

Monday 4th July 2016
quotequote all
Efbe said:
RizzoTheRat said:
walm said:
Where do you get 2.5% cashback!!?
I was about to ask the same question. I get 3% on fuel from Santander, but only 0.5% from Halifax so looking to change that one.
Looks like the deal has changed slightly now, but it was Amex platinum cashback.
Have to spend over £3500 on it to qualify for 2.5%, otherwise 1.25%.

Only issues is not all that many places take amex.
I think you have that backwards.
You get the high rate on the first bit and then it drops to 1.25%.

Amex says:
- Get 5% cashback on up to £2,500 of purchases in your first 3 months of Cardmembership.
- Earn 2.5% cashback on all purchases for one month every year if you spend more than £10,001 in your previous 12 months of Cardmembership.
- An ongoing 1.25% cashback on virtually every full pound you spend.