The Survival Weekly Dispatch - Volume 11, Issue 30

Hey folks, thanks for checking out the newsletter this week. We have a fair bit to cover, so let’s get right to it.

Our new podcast debuted this week. How to Survive 2025 is available through all podcast platforms. Here’s the link for Spotify. It might be a few days before it’s up on Apple. I’m joined by two co-hosts. Brian Keene is an internationally bestselling author who also happens to be a longtime prepper. Dacia M Arnold is known as “Dystopian Mom” and is a military vet who, among other things, assisted with setting up combat hospitals in the Middle East. The goal of the podcast is simple – to share practical preparedness information that’s free of politics, fear mongering, and other nonsense. I’ve had a ton of people ask me about doing a podcast, so let’s see how this goes. I hope you’ll check it out.

By the way, subscribers to my Patreon will be getting these episodes about a week in advance. Just sayin’.

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Prepper Tip -- Preparedness Journal

While I realize most of us do the majority of our recordkeeping digitally, give some thought to grabbing a notebook and turning it into a preparedness journal. Here are a few things to use it for.

Weather tracking – keeping track of weather can be a great tool for helping you predict what’s coming.

Packing lists – while many of us have the basics down pat when it comes to packing for a trip into the field, having a checklist of some sort will help reduce the risk of forgetting something. You could also use the list to note what you actually used and what you didn’t need.

Diary – yeah, I know the preferred term these days is journaling, but really, it’s pretty much the same thing. Jot down personal reflections, events from the day, ideas to explore later, all that fun stuff.

Purchases – maybe not your typical day-to-day buys, but notable things like big ticket items such as a generator, a high-end knife, freeze-dryer, and what not could be noted here. What you bought, the date, and price would all be potentially useful info down the road, should you decide to sell or trade it. In this same vein, a knife collector I knew used to put a note in the box of every knife he bought with the date, the price paid, where or from whom he bought it, and any other pertinent info. After he passed, his family went through the collection and selected certain ones to keep. Those notes went a long way toward helping to ascertain accurate prices for the ones they decided to sell.

This doesn’t need to be anything fancy. It’s Back to School season and you can find a spiral notebook pretty cheap. Another option, albeit a little more expensive, is to grab something from Rite in the Rain.

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As of last week, I’ve started writing for GAT Daily. I’ll be doing about ten articles a month, concentrating on prepping as well as knife and gear reviews.

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I’ve started plans to put together a small preparedness-themed expo or fair. I’m partnering with my county Emergency Management team on this. We’re just in the very beginning stage of this, but I’m excited. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but there’s no way I could pull it off all by myself. As details get finalized, I’ll be sure to share them here. I can tell you that it’ll be held somewhere in Walworth County, Wisconsin and we’re looking at April or May 2025.

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This came up in a recent offline discussion. It’s been a bit since I shared it here, so thought I’d repost it.

My Prepping Philosophy

There are many different approaches to preparedness. I hesitate to say that there are no wrong ways, as there are certainly some that I feel are questionable at best. But, I felt it might be a good idea to share some of my own perspectives on the subject. Many of you have been around a long time and know most or all of this, but I’m always adding new people to the circle.

First and foremost, I encourage people to be realistic with their plans. We all have limitations, including physical and/or budgetary, and some are more difficult to overcome than others. But, I firmly believe that there are always things we can do to move forward, provided we approach the problem with a distinct absence of fantasy. Keep plans practical and down to earth.

Another touchstone for me is financial preparedness. I believe this is just as important as stocking up on food and other necessities. In fact, I think this should be the foundation of your overall prep plan, it is that critical. I also highly encourage the development of so-called soft skills, like communication, interpersonal conflict resolution, and critical thinking. These are things that can only benefit you, in your day-to-day life as well as in a crisis.

See, I truly feel that prepping isn’t something that should just be limited to the extremes, like hurricanes or EMP. Rather, it involves being prepared for, well, life in general. What I mean is that prepping means being ready for all sorts of situations, from vehicle breakdowns to the death of a loved one, natural disasters to manmade catastrophes. I believe far too many survivalists and preppers have their eye focused on the end of the world and lose sight of the more mundane, but far more likely, things that can and do happen all the time.

In general, though, I’m not so much concerned about WHY someone preps as I’m focused on HOW a person preps. That said, I have very little patience for alarmist bullshit and scare tactics that are geared toward gaining clicks and follows. I feel that sort of nonsense not only degrades the focus of preparedness, it risks becoming a “boy who cried wolf” situation. I’m also very critical of divisiveness and encourage people to understand that we’re all in this together.

Prepping is a lifestyle, yes. But, here’s the thing. It shouldn’t run your life. Prep to live, don’t live to prep, as the saying goes. Make intelligent, informed decisions, but never lose sight of the fact that life is meant to be lived. Spending your existence in fear of what might happen one day isn’t the best use of the limited time we each get.

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For our hike this week, we’d planned to go to a certain county park as I had some knife photos to take and there are a couple of spots there I like to use as backdrops. But when we arrived, we found that the park is closed and will be for another few weeks. The plan had been to visit our college son after the hike, so we ended up hitting a trail system that runs adjacent to his campus.

Survival Tip – EDC Nice-to-Haves

I don’t carry all of these every single day, but I’ve found each of them to be useful on occasion. None of these live in my pockets, though. If I have them, they’ll be found in my EDC pack or bag.

Magnifying glass – I’ve reached the age that reading the fine print on a package can sometimes be a struggle. One approach is to take a photo of it with my phone, then enlarge the image. But using a small magnifying glass is quicker. Plus, I can use it to help me see splinters in my hand and other things of that nature.

Sharpie Marker – you can leave far more visible notes with a marker than with pencil or pen.

Zip Lock Bag – I keep a gallon size freezer bag in most of my packs and haversacks. They work well for foraged items and materials, such as natural tinder. They weigh virtually nothing and roll up into a small size when not in use.

Tweezers – many Swiss Army Knives have tweezers, but they’re not all that awesome. I like to have a good pair of tweezers when it comes to dealing with splinters and the like.

Duct tape – it has a million and one uses, right? A roll is a bit too large and heavy to lug around, but you can wrap tape around an old gift card several times, then toss that into your pack.

Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide

For those new to my little corner of the Internet, I am the Editor in Chief for Prepper Survival Guide and Backwoods Survival Guide magazines. Here are the covers for the current issues that are available in stores right now. Note - for those who might not have heard, Prepper Survival Guide has been canceled by the publisher. The issue shown here is the last one that will be printed. We are still doing Backwoods Survival Guide.

You can find them just about anywhere magazines are sold, including:

• Walmart

• Sam's Club

• Costco

• Publix

• Walgreens

• Rite Aid

• CVS

• Tractor Supply

• Fleet Farm

• Barnes & Noble

Subscriptions to both titles are available here.

Questions, Comments, Complaints, Concerns?

I am always just an email away - jim@survivalweekly.com.