For years, I’ve used the analogy of prepping as a three-legged stool: One leg is supplies, the second leg is skills and knowledge, and the third leg is community. If you remember your high school geometry (three points define a plane), you know a three-legged stool never wobbles—but it won’t stand if it’s missing a leg. Each leg of the stool is equally as important as the others.
Now that prepping has become mainstream, a lot of information is available to help the novice prepper withstand every trial imaginable while keeping the three-legged stool level. Unfortunately, much of this information is misguided, useless, needlessly expensive, or even dangerous. It’s time to examine some rookie prepping mistakes so you don’t fall into these traps.
Planning
Failure to do a threat assessment. Prepping must be problem-oriented. Before throwing money at things, first conduct a threat assessment to determine what you’re prepping for.
A common problem with newbie preppers is the inability to distinguish between realistic threats and hypothetical “zombie” threats. A sustained loss of power due to Mother Nature is far more likely than an asteroid strike.
Obsessing about doomsday is probably one of the biggest rookie prepping mistakes.