Prepping Vs. Hoarding

[00:00:00] All right, welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast, Kevin and Chuck. Today I want to talk about prepping versus hoarding. When does being prepared, one, become where you're just collecting a bunch of junk?

[00:00:32] And two, when people talk about prepping versus hoarding, I think what also comes to mind is, are you the guy who took all the toilet paper? This isn't right. And they worry that you are causing the problem.

[00:00:48] But also if you're the guy who's been buying toilet paper, do you go out there and find out that mice chewed through the whole thing and you have nothing left?

[00:00:57] So we're going to kind of get to the bottom of what you can do, how not to be the bad guy and honestly, how to be a good steward of your resources, right?

[00:01:08] How to take care of stuff where you buy things that are going to be practical and actually helpful to you while at the same time, you know, not really out to screw the next guy either. You don't want to hurt somebody else as you get ahead.

[00:01:24] You know, it's not stepping over somebody's neck to climb your way to the top. You're never going to get rich talking like that, Chuck. I know I'm doing it wrong. All right. So let's kind of dig down. Let's get to the meat within the nut, right? All right.

[00:01:41] My go-to. Kevin, why I think, let me give you my approach and then you can kind of tell me. Tell me your take on it. But basically I think where I go with this in my mind is one, actually having a way to

[00:02:02] properly store and take care of your items. You shouldn't be buying things that you can't take care of because they just get lost. Also I think what also falls into that is putting things where you can actually find them later. If you're not organized, it falls apart.

[00:02:22] And that's a big problem. I can't tell you how many times I've bought like screws or nails or something like that and found another box that I already had piled up underneath a bunch of other junk.

[00:02:36] I have six caulk guns and it's all the fault of me not being organized. Right. Exactly. Organization is the number one thing to protecting your investment. Right. All right. So let's kind of delve into this. Let's talk priorities first.

[00:02:59] And then we'll talk about storage and then kind of go from there. So one, a priority, right? So as a prepper, I think your immediate number one concern is security. And so I think ammo and if you don't have security, you really don't have anything.

[00:03:24] And I think ammo, guns, that kind of stuff, it should be high on the list. But again, things get prioritized. Once you have a defensive weapon, if you're one shooter, you really only need one gun.

[00:03:41] It turns out you don't need, I mean, obviously you're like, well, I need a handgun and a rifle and I need a shotgun, because that's practical and whatever. Let's just dial it back a little bit.

[00:03:54] So maybe it's just a concealed carry gun and you start there and then you start to look at other things. And then once other things get a basic level of preparedness, then I add an AR or something,

[00:04:11] a decent rifle that I can hunt with as well as, I think maybe 300 blackout is the rifle you can bag a deer with it and you can use it as the defense gun and interchangeable. These are the things you might consider, but this isn't a show about guns.

[00:04:29] It's an episode about deciding what your priorities are and where you should be investing your money. So security, then what would be your next go-to on the list? Like after guns? I'd say food and water.

[00:04:45] What do you really need to survive if you don't have income, if things get sketchy? The basic survival needs. If you can protect your food and water, that's a priority right there. What do you have the guns for? So you can protect yourself and your resources.

[00:05:08] Now I know a lot of people talk about this and I've heard this argument several times, like preppers are, they're causing problems for the rest of us. You went and bought all your stuff and now I can't get anything, but I didn't buy it when

[00:05:22] you were buying it. I bought it before when there was plenty of it and you weren't planning ahead. So there's a story in the Bible. Joseph is sold into slavery, into Egypt and becomes, through hard work and whatever, he becomes a valued member of their society.

[00:05:48] The Pharaoh has a dream, a dream of seven cows, seven cows that are healthy and then another dream of seven cows that are sick and ugly. Ugly is the word they used, I don't know why. Joseph said unto Pharaoh, the dreams of Pharaoh are one and the same.

[00:06:07] God has revealed to Pharaoh what he's about to do. Seven good healthy cows, seven lean ugly cows meant that there's going to be seven years of prosperity and seven years of famine.

[00:06:20] So obviously if you know that sort of stuff ahead of time, you can take those seven years prosperity and put some of that aside. So when the famine comes long, everybody else is starving, you still have food. Does that make you an asshole because everybody else is starving?

[00:06:37] Well I mean if you're a good decent Christian, maybe you're sharing all your food with the people that are starving to death and if you're not a good Christian, maybe you're making a lot of money off of that. That's kind of how that shit goes.

[00:06:51] I'm not fighting people in the aisle over toilet paper because I have toilet paper at my house. It's that sort of mindset. A lot of people get that sort of thing like, oh you've got all that toilet paper, you must

[00:07:10] have gone out there when everybody was fighting over it and bought all the toilet paper and you're the one that's causing the problem. But I got my toilet paper way ahead of time. Smart with that toilet paper. It really refers to everything.

[00:07:25] When there's a shortage of something, you need to be prepared for it and that's why we're prepping. Right. And that's one of the things. Once my food storage started escalating and I started getting a decent amount of preps and things, I ended up working into the budget.

[00:07:43] Metal shelves. Now maybe your budget, maybe you have more time than money and making shelves out of plywood or something that works for you, that's cool. Or maybe you can go get pallets pretty much anywhere. You probably make some decent shelving out of pallets.

[00:08:03] All these things are kind of relative, but being able to properly secure it. And the same thing, sometimes spending time and doing the research and looking around and what you can get, but the plastic storage containers in order to protect that toilet paper, that whatever.

[00:08:25] Once you've been doing it a while, you realize that putting the Irish spring soap in the same container as food would be a bad idea because everything smells like a fresh Irish morning. Right? And that sounds delightful, but it's not really when you're-

[00:08:42] Just because strawberry shampoo smells like strawberries doesn't mean it tastes like strawberries. But that's something to think about. So being able to organize things and put it in order, I think it's all about pacing yourself.

[00:09:02] And one of the things like we did an episode a little while back on doing a garden and with the garden, they were like, oh, if you can lay out your property before you actually

[00:09:15] start building things and planning things, you can be so much more efficient and productive. I think that's exactly right with prepping. If you can have a plan of, hey, my goal is a year worth of long-term food storage or

[00:09:34] six months of food storage or two weeks of food storage. And that's the end goal. Having a set aside area that's going to allow for that. Maybe you don't buy all the shelves day one to accommodate a year's worth of food, but

[00:09:51] you have an area kind of set aside. All right, this is what I'm going to do here. Or this is where I'm going to set up my gardens and my efficient thing over there. And setting your preps up, this is how I'm going to store my ammo.

[00:10:06] Maybe I can't afford the big safe, but what I can do is I have a designated area in my mind where the safe is going to be. For now, I keep them in the closet with a safety lock on it or something.

[00:10:21] Whatever it is you feel you do, and that's your go-to for now. That way you can build up to the right thing so that you don't end up with a pile of garbage.

[00:10:32] People end up, oh, I had to move those guns and keep them in the attic where the humidity got them and now they all kind of have rust on them and whatever.

[00:10:42] Or I didn't plan enough time or I bought two guns, but I should have just bought one gun and a good cleaning kit and kept them oiled. That kind of thing. Those are the kinds of things where you take care of it. You start buying tools.

[00:10:58] Sometimes you kind of make do. I always think of the story. It's funny, nobody lives in a world like this anymore. Back when I was young and people move out, some people would like, well, I think it's

[00:11:12] actually even more my parents' generation where they would use a cardboard box or a packing box as an end table. We have a couple of folding chairs in the living room until we can get the couch. You kind of make do with what you got and that's okay.

[00:11:33] I definitely had camping chairs in my living room when I was a young man. Kevin, you were a little more hardcore when you were young. Not more so than now, I just mean you were more hardcore than people your age.

[00:11:48] You kind of were toughing it out and living the giant- Yeah, well, I mean, it's a thing. You can save a lot of money and make a lot of money and get all your shit together.

[00:11:57] Just don't plan on having a social life, which sucks when you're in your 20s. Our buddy Slowburn says those giant spools from Wired for your kitchen table, whatever. It sucks to do. You always see those and you're like, oh, that's pretty cool.

[00:12:15] Well, the thing is, Kevin says no social life, but if you spend half of your money on booze, half your money on food, and then the rest on your pallet furniture, there are ways to be creative if you watch out.

[00:12:33] It's funny, I saw some kind of ridiculous thing on the internet. It was like millionaire cheapskates and they're feeding cat food, tuna fish sandwich to the neighbors and stuff. But the thing is, if you're looking for ways, there are ways that you don't have to really

[00:12:50] spend that much money. I mean, there are certain things that you're obligated to. You're expected to dress a certain way for work or you might have to have special boots or whatever. There are things that we're obligated to, but there's also things that aren't that bad. Yeah.

[00:13:11] Well, there's a lot of stuff. I mean, obviously you don't want to store your freeze dried food in your basement that floods once or twice a year. You want to take care of that stuff. You want to be able to maintain the stuff that you have.

[00:13:28] Things get a little bit out of control. For one, I could say myself right now, I've got two gardens and one of them is completely weeded in great shape and the other one is overgrown and out of control.

[00:13:40] Just because I only have time for the one garden, got to get on it. It's June already. Yeah. But that's how it goes. But also, that's the thing. Buy things that you can manage.

[00:13:56] We just did an episode and we talked about I have a high mileage car, but I do the maintenance on it and I take care of it versus a car that has a big car payment and I wouldn't be able

[00:14:08] to pay for the maintenance or do the repairs that I need. You balance out what you can afford and what you do. It's the same thing with your prepping. You buy the stuff that you can manage and take care of.

[00:14:22] You buy the proper things that you'll be able to store safely that it's going to last long term. Being a good store to things, taking care of the stuff that you have is going to be the way to be a successful prepper.

[00:14:38] That's really what it comes down to. My grandfather once told me it's very expensive to be poor. As I get older, I see that a lot. You can only afford the $30 work boots and you have to buy three a year now.

[00:15:00] You end up spending the 150 that somebody else might buy that lasts the whole year. Right. Exactly. Exactly. But 30 is what you got today. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That sort of living can be more expensive than somebody that has enough money to buy

[00:15:21] the expensive boots, to buy the car that doesn't have the maintenance issues, to buy the house that isn't run down. A lot of places, me personally, I'm a pretty good carpenter. I bought a foreclosed house and I've been working on it for 10 years.

[00:15:40] It's still a piece of shit, but it's a nicer piece of shit than it was 10 years ago. There you go. But you built equity. That's the thing. You're off your sweat and your time. But here's the thing.

[00:15:50] When you were working on your house, you were at home with your younger son. You were at home spending time with people you care about, your animals, hanging out at your property.

[00:16:01] I got to say, when you're working on your house, were you having a better time than when you were at your nine to five job? Right. Exactly. 100%. So you didn't need to make as much money at your nine to five because you were saving

[00:16:16] the money building the equity in your home. And that may be you and your garden. Maybe you're not a carpenter, maybe working in your garden is your go-to skill, or maybe butchering animals and taking care of livestock, that kind of thing. Maybe that's your passion and whatever.

[00:16:33] And it's also something you enjoy. If you hate getting up, going out and feeding the animals at eight o'clock in the morning or nine o'clock in the morning, whatever it is, and that's a pain in the butt for you, that's probably not what you should do.

[00:16:46] If it's easier to be sitting at your job than it is- Eight or nine? Damn, I've been getting up at 530 all this time? Dude, it's way- I could have been sleeping in. I know. You know what it is?

[00:16:57] Well, one, I was smart enough to put the chicken coop far away from the house so I don't hear the damn rooster going in the morning. That's the first trick. Second thing is where it falls apart.

[00:17:11] I have the less desirable shift at work, where I work from 1.30 in the afternoon until 10 at night. So I kind of come home and my schedule's a little off from other people.

[00:17:25] But yes, you're all bougie, but I'm also leaving work at two in the morning half the time too. So don't even push me with all the comments that I get. But that's the thing is, you find a way that your lifestyle works.

[00:17:41] But it's weird because I also get like a shift differential and get paid more money because I work the crappy shift at work. But to me, I get to have the mornings and drink my coffee and enjoy the sunrise kind of already risen at 930, whatever.

[00:17:59] I'm usually up about eight, but I was trying to let you guys feel good about it. But hey, you do you, right? Now it says here, let's talk about price gouging a little bit. I think we all saw that during the pandemic.

[00:18:19] Prices on certain things were going way up. You see it during hurricanes, like all of a sudden bottled water is super expensive or gas is super expensive. All of a sudden, remember that pipeline shutdown? That was a couple of years ago.

[00:18:38] And all of a sudden, everybody's gas prices shot through the roof. It wasn't costing them any extra money. You know what I mean? But also, there is certain price gouging that's kind of beneficial. Oh, tell me more. So I saw there was a law in...

[00:19:03] I forget what state it was, but there was a hurricane coming. It was one of the Southeast states and people were not allowed to raise prices. People were going into grocery stores and buying all the bottled water they had because they can afford it.

[00:19:21] But if you're price gouging, you're only going to buy the amount of water that you need. And maybe it's $7 for a bottle of water, but at least you can afford a bottle of water and you're going to not die.

[00:19:33] Maybe that's benefiting the grocery store or the convenience store, but it's also benefiting you in a way, in a sense, because it means that there's still going to be some left when you get there.

[00:19:45] So maybe you're an asshole if you're price gouging when it is, but maybe you're benefiting the whole community. Maybe being greedy is helpful. I end up falling into the asshole category and I'm not even price gouging. So I mean, whatever, you do you, right?

[00:20:07] But that's the thing, you're right. It does. It limits... It's one of those where people are like, oh, capitalism's evil. Look at these evil people trying to do it. But in a way, it works itself out because it does stop people from hoarding.

[00:20:23] And honestly, it encourages you to prepare, right? Because you're like, oh, every time there's a hurricane, they charge this much for water and bread and I can't get any or there's none on the shelves.

[00:20:37] So now you're going to step up your preps and next time you're going to be like, well, I'm not going to get burned again. And maybe all the stores around are going to be like, hey, I'm going to keep lots of

[00:20:48] water because I know I'll be able to move it. And if I go a dollar less, I'll be able to outsell that guy. That's how the market kind of takes care of itself.

[00:20:59] And I know people think that's wrong and evil, but like you said, it ends up protecting things for the next guy. But all in all, I mean, as a prepper, you are helping out your community by having your stuff already set aside.

[00:21:18] You're the guy who doesn't have to run out and buy stuff at the last minute and wipe out the shelves. You're one guy who's already ahead. And how many of you were like, hey, neighbor, I have some extra rolls of toilet paper if

[00:21:33] you need and you get stuck, I'll help you out. That kind of thing. Maybe it's not toilet paper. Maybe I have coffee when there's a coffee shortage or whatever it is, you have stuff planned aside and ready to go to help people out.

[00:21:50] And we do in a way help people out that we care about more than other people. That guy, Jimmy's always helping everybody. I'm happy to go give Jimmy some extra stuff I got. It looks like he's having a time right now.

[00:22:06] And that's how it should be is you get to decide what you do with your resources. And when you prepare and you have things set aside, you get to be the administrator of that.

[00:22:19] I mean, everyone's like, well, if we had a more efficient way and the government and they could do it. Yeah. Because how's that working out with the government deciding and delegating resources to people? You're not seeing any crony capitalism going on there, right? Right. Mm hmm.

[00:22:39] I mean, shit, I get I get so wound up when I talk about the government and government regulations and that sort of shit. I get so fucking angry and I'm don't I know you're trying to get me started, Chuck. Don't get me started on that.

[00:22:56] Now this is a statement put out by the FTC just a few weeks ago. All right. And it says notably, consumers are facing negative impact of the pandemic's price hikes as the commission's report finds that some of the grocery retail industry seem to have

[00:23:14] used raising rising costs as an opportunity to further rise prices to increase their profits, which remain elevated today. Yeah. Well, wait now. So the profits went up, but the profits to pay the people who invested in something and You know, it's funny. I'm watching.

[00:23:35] I watch this show, Shameless, that has some inappropriate scenes maybe on it. But, you know, that's kind of guy I am. I'm familiar with it. All right. So but the person does what one of the characters does an investment and she invests in a I

[00:23:54] think they're building a retirement home or a community like that. And all of a sudden the government like hit all these roadblocks. Oh, well, you know, you need to develop the street before we're going to, you know, approve

[00:24:09] this and you got to upgrade the sewer out front and the things that aren't even your products because and it's funny because the government putting all these stipulations and ends up costing the end user. And you're like, oh, well, you're greedy taking profits. But guess what?

[00:24:28] If people aren't making profits, they're not going to take risk. They're not going to risk their money and their resources unless they feel they're going to get some kind of return value, you know, on the back end. And that's how the world kind of works.

[00:24:43] I hate to say it. You know, we don't like it, but we want it to all be rainbows and sunshine. I know that's, you know, the fantasy, but it's not the reality. Right. Right. You know, I feel like a lot of, you know, we're talking about hoarding here.

[00:25:02] It was one of our one of our things. Have you ever been in a house like we've all seen it on TV? We've all seen those shows, you know, where, you know, we all get to make fun of the crazy

[00:25:12] person that's got their shit piled up everywhere and, you know, little pathways from one room to another. Yeah. But what they never talk about is the smell. If you've ever been in a hoarder's house. Oh, it's a whole thing.

[00:25:28] It smells like rotten food and vomit and cat piss and cat piss. There's always cats for some reason, always cats. Now one of my one of my my theories on this is my own personal theory. Tell me. You ever heard of toxic toxoplasmosis? Yes. Yes.

[00:25:46] That's the parasite from the cat feces. Right. Yeah. So what it does, it's a it's a bacteria or virus. It's a virus that that rewires a rat's brain or a mouse's brain to seek out to get sexually aroused by the smell of cat waste. Yeah.

[00:26:04] And then the virus reproduces in the gut of a cat. So the cat eats the mouse shits and the you know, the mice come looking for it. And it's just a cycle. And they tell pregnant women not to like clean litter boxes because of this, because you get

[00:26:22] this weird parasite that gets in your brain. It said what is it? 80 percent of fatalities, motorcycle fatalities, fatalities when they examine the brains has toxoplasmosis because it gives you a desire for risky behavior.

[00:26:43] But also it makes you want a motorcycle, makes you well, makes you crazy in the sense that fear is is causing you to like keep all your shit. Because what if I what if I need this? What if I need this broken umbrella and I don't have it?

[00:27:02] You know what I mean? I can fix this umbrella and it goes in the pile. And with the other broken umbrellas that you have that you haven't used in 10 years and you're you go out when you go out shopping, you're buying stuff that you already have

[00:27:15] just like you might need this. I do that a lot of these a lot of preppers have this problem where they're like, oh, I already have 10 pounds of rice, but I better buy another 10 pounds of rice. And maybe it's mental health issue and maybe we're all just crazy.

[00:27:33] But you know, maybe not. Maybe I'm just a man. You're saying I should have titled the episode. Is it prepping or is it toxic? Whatever. Yeah, right. Or you have some sort of brain parasite. I don't know. I'm not making any judgments about anybody. A bad brain parasite.

[00:27:52] Yeah, that this is a judgment free area. I'm not going to give you a hard time about your prepping. But I mean, if you've been in a house of somebody that actually is a hoarder, it's not a pleasant experience.

[00:28:08] Is it prepping or is it a parasite in your head? This is, you know, that's where we should have should have gone with it. Who knows? Maybe maybe we'll redo it. I don't know. Yeah, you're it's crazy, Kevin. It's a crazy world. But so that's it.

[00:28:27] You do always it definitely escalates in your mind. Like it's funny. I'm reading a certain audio books and I'm like, oh, I need to go buy more more silver. Right. Yeah. I got to get get stacking, you know, I mean, I guess that's a good problem to have.

[00:28:43] Like how cool are you when instead of I need to up the Nike shoes in my collection or I need to, you know, up my comic book collection, I need more silver gold that's going to keep stacking and growing. It's probably a better problem to have, especially now.

[00:29:04] I think it's like thirty one sixty an ounce for silver. It's going up. It's going up a little bit. It's going up. I mean, it's going up compared to the inflation for sure. You know, maybe it's just keeping its normal value while cash is going down.

[00:29:23] But I you know, I don't know. I mean, it's definitely a lot safer if you're going to put your money under your mattress. It's a lot safer to put silver under your mattress than cash.

[00:29:33] But it was probably a lot better to hoard a bunch of silver than hoard a bunch of sneakers or sneakers. Yeah. Well, I said that's people like reading records. Records are a big deal. I've got some records myself. I've got some comic books, too.

[00:29:49] But yeah, I'm saying the big difference between a collector and a hoarder is actually organization. Maybe that's what we should be talking about in this episode is is keeping your shirt organized, keeping your stuff in a place that it's not going to get damaged by whatever, you know,

[00:30:09] flooding, humidity, whatever it is. Heat, you know, heat can definitely damage some some food products, moisture. Even if you have canned food, moisture can start those cans rusting. That tin isn't immune to rust, you know?

[00:30:23] No, I always sweat and then I see it and I'm like, damn it. Yeah. But I mean, it's a lot of that sort of stuff is is really keeping your stuff organized,

[00:30:33] keeping it in a safe place that it's not going to get damaged by mice, by, you know, whatever. And, you know, maybe have a cat to protect your stuff from mice and don't change the litter box because it's going to give you a brain parasite.

[00:30:48] And that'll help you with your prepping. And that'll that'll change you from a prepper to a hoarder. Maybe you're slacking in your preps. Maybe cat feces is really. You might need some cat feces. Take it to the next level. Oh yeah.

[00:31:02] No, I actually I had a customer that I used to do in home repairs and I had a customer who was just keeping newspapers and they would stack, you know, three feet high stacks of newspapers.

[00:31:18] And I mean, we're talking probably a hundred stacks of newspapers throughout the house. And it was a small, it was actually an apartment, a smaller apartment, like a hundred stacks, three foot high. And like you'd mentioned, you're literally walking through like a 12 inch gap.

[00:31:37] You know, you got to kind of turn sideways and, and, and navigate through. And I'm with a buddy of mine and we're there and we're looking at the refrigerator or whatever The lady is like, yeah, I'm just, just overwhelmed by it.

[00:31:51] And she was older, you know, 75, 80 years old. I believe there were some cats involved. There's always cats involved. She's like, yeah, you know, I just want to recycle them and, you know, do the right thing

[00:32:06] here and, and every time we'd go, we'd been there a couple of times over the years and the papers were just more and more each year. And she's always like next week I'm getting rid of all of these, you know, like, and, and oh, I'm embarrassed or whatever.

[00:32:22] And so she's like, you know, I just, I'm so overwhelmed. I don't know what to do. And my buddy with me goes, well, you know, I'd start by canceling the subscription.

[00:32:34] And I had to go get something out of the truck because I can't laugh out loud in your face, you know, like, oh my God, you know, Hey, that's, that's how it goes sometimes. Yeah.

[00:32:50] No, I once got hired to, to help somebody evict a hoarder from their apartment. And we went in there and it was a big overweight woman and she was on the second story. I don't know how she got in and out of the house.

[00:33:04] I don't think she ever left, you know? And to a point that it never. Yeah. It's just, I just stay here in this house now and everything's delivered and it just piles up and piles up and the whole house was disgusting.

[00:33:19] We had to, we had to go in with a trash bags and snow shovels and just like scoop the stuff up. And she was around in her room, like digging around, trying to find the one thing she needed or whatever it was.

[00:33:30] And I was thinking like, is she looking for a gun? Where did I leave this gun? But I don't, you know, I don't know. She didn't end up shooting us.

[00:33:38] So I mean, I'd all worked out and, and all her shit ended up in trash bags out in the front street. I don't know where she is now, but she ain't live in that apartment because sometimes you got to clear that shit out.

[00:33:49] And the whole kitchen, it's like she, she cooked food at one point and then just never washed the dishes. So all her dishes were stacked up dirty. There's always that pot with the macaroni and cheese just stuck in there.

[00:34:04] Like just a little bit left that I'm going to get to putting that away or I'm going to eat that later. They never eat it later. They stopped changing the litter box.

[00:34:15] So the cats all, the cat that had babies were all just pissing and shit in the closet. And the closet is the litter box now, you know, you just don't open that door. You leave it cracked for the cats and you just don't use that closet anymore.

[00:34:27] And then you never have to change the litter box again. That is modern problems, modern solutions. There you go. Man, what a world we live in. Yeah, I don't even know where to go on that one. So, all right. So we talked about priorities though.

[00:34:49] So, you know, maybe security, then some food and then, you know, food and water. And then, you know, even coming up with, you start to revisit each one, but I think definitely a part of your prepping plan needs to involve proper storage and coming up with a way.

[00:35:11] You know, people talk about, you see those like can organizers, you know, where it rotates through. And that's put it in the top and you take it at the bottom. You can definitely make, stretch your budget a lot further if you're rotating through stores

[00:35:28] versus buying long-term food storage or something like that. Right. You know, and coming up with a plan to rotate things, to check the dates, to kind of be organized with it. And you know, like a label maker, right?

[00:35:43] If everything's in five gallon buckets, having a label maker and throwing labels on the outside and, you know, putting dates on there, Hey, the stuff in here expires on 20, whatever, you know, then, you know, where did, you know, Hey, I need to grab that one next.

[00:36:02] And that's something that over the years, I kind of learned to incorporate in my preps that I wasn't doing early on. I mean, I definitely, when I started storing stuff, I did approach with some kind of rotation

[00:36:18] and cycling through it, but you just find ways to become more efficient. And that's by dating, labeling, setting up some kind of systematic rotation. And you know, these are the things that are going to make it last, that you don't end up with a bunch of garbage.

[00:36:37] And that's a thing also by the things that you actually need or that solve problems you can't live without. I mean, there are a couple of things that I have that maybe I'll never really use.

[00:36:49] Like I have like a camping shower, you know, if the world ends, I, how I'm going to be like, thank God I got that camping shower. And you know, it's one of these with like a bladder and it kind of, you know, sprays

[00:37:03] out and something that you could easily make on your own, but also they're like 10, 15 bucks when you can, you know, when you can buy it, you know, like, Oh, I can just throw that aside and it's good. Well, that's cool.

[00:37:15] But one, knowing where to find these things when you need them, but to buy things for the most part, use your money to buy things that you actually are going to use on your day to day. Yeah.

[00:37:29] I bought a couple of cases of MREs a few years back and I ate, I ate one or two of them. I gave, you know, one to my kid and I had one and I was like, Oh yeah, these taste like shit. This is terrible. Yeah, that's right.

[00:37:43] Yeah. That sounds like MREs. Yeah. So, so maybe buy stuff that you're going to use anyway. You know what I mean? I go through a lot of like a canned carrots, corn, that sort of stuff. I make a meal and also a can of corn with it.

[00:37:59] You know what I mean? That sort of stuff will last a long time, especially if you rotate it, you know, stuff that you're going to use pasta flour, that sort of stuff that you can store longterm,

[00:38:11] you have to keep using it and rotate it because longterm might be two years and you know, you're opening a can 10 years later and it's all botulistic and bloated and stuff. It's no good. That's no good for you. You know?

[00:38:25] Right now that's exactly, I mean, is one knowing what you have, knowing where it is and knowing how old it is. You know, I mean, I guess that's part of knowing what you have, you know, is knowing, you know, the life cycle.

[00:38:42] But so often like my tools, I end up like I have like a toolbox kind of in the barn. I have a toolbox like where I'm working at a job and I have a toolbox in, you know, where I store my tools, you know? Right.

[00:38:56] And it just is like, you know, when you're an old man, you've gotten enough tools over the years that you can do that. But right, right. And you don't have to.

[00:39:06] And if you know where your shit is, you don't have to go buy a new tool of something you have like me and my cock guns for whatever. I don't know why it was the cock guns that was an issue, but I could never find those

[00:39:17] things when I needed them. But I mean, it's it really is a matter of organization and it can be tricky. I'm not a naturally organized person, but I've had to learn, you know, have to, you know, you have to get to it.

[00:39:33] You figure out what works for you and what really benefits you, you know, over time. And maybe instead of scrolling Facebook or something for two hours, you spend the morning kind of organizing and going through your preps, you know, something like that. You know, that's that's an option.

[00:39:51] What I do is I actually choose to do my Facebook scrolling and everything while I'm at work and getting paid. And then when I'm at home, that's the way to do it. Being super efficient and getting stuff, you know, you do you. Right, right.

[00:40:06] Kevin, you were just telling me a story about being more efficient, about there's some new tools and features, maybe some personal enhancements. Yes, yes. We're not talking about Viagra or extends. We're talking about another thumb. We could get an extra thumb.

[00:40:26] So you could be a lot more efficient if you had an extra thumb. If you have two thumbs on each hand. Yeah. So they've come up with a new robotic thumb. And I don't know what you're doing. Where is the thumb?

[00:40:40] Where it's yeah, it's on the opposite side. It's on the opposite side of your hand. So you've got the one thumb on the top and one thumb on the bottom. And that's how the magic happens, man. I like it. Yeah, it's exciting.

[00:40:56] I don't know what the hell you're using this other thumb for. I mean, maybe if you're playing an instrument, the guitar or the piano or something, you can get hit some extra stuff. I don't know. Imagine, imagine you're a bass player and you like the slapping.

[00:41:11] So your options are limitless, right? You get the double double whammy. Flea or is it Danny Trejo or whatever? What's his name? I don't know. Flea is yeah, the bass player of the Chili Peppers. Danny Trejo, I think he's a Mexican gangster actor. Right, I always...

[00:41:30] That's all right. That's all right. I always botch that one. So my daughter brought it to my attention that I can't listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers anymore because Anthony Kiedis wrote a tell-all book where he was banging a 15 year old. So we got Puff Daddy.

[00:41:57] He's on the line for trafficking women, right? And there was Drake and Michael Jackson was less than those kids. David Bowie, he was in the fucking The Young Girls. Jim Morrison from Doors. Basically you can't listen to music anymore if you're like... I don't support that.

[00:42:23] I don't support this person's shit, but I mean... That's kind of like Kevin Spacey. I'm like, oh, that's pretty good movies. I find them entertaining. Can't watch it anymore. He's raping people. They're all out there raping people. But if you're an artist, you're crazy.

[00:42:38] If you're a good artist, you're even crazier. So I mean, there's not much you can do. If you're trying to be equitable with the music and the art you take in, you're kind of out of luck, dude. Even Michelangelo was a pimp. So I mean...

[00:42:57] Is that a thing? Michelangelo was definitely... He was pimping out hoes. So I mean, I don't know what you're going to do. It is the crazy world that we live in. I don't know. I'm just saying, y'all might want to...

[00:43:15] Maybe we just have to live in our tiny little bubble at home. We're enhancing the whole prepper hoarder thing. If you're into the Catholic Church or Michael Jackson, take the good parts, but take out the molesting children parts. Leave that one alone? Yeah.

[00:43:35] And make the music, but don't sex traffic women. I mean, take it and leave it. You have to decide your own level of interest. All right. All right. Have a little bit of backbone. You don't have to take it all. Don't fuck kids.

[00:43:51] Just like you can listen to the Cerebral and Basic Badass podcast, but not swear all the time? I don't know if that's a possibility. I might be rubbing off on you guys too much. I don't know. All right.

[00:44:05] Well, anyway, I know it's time for everything to come to an end. The one thing I would say is, you guys really, we appreciate it if you like and subscribe. If you leave us a review, that would be great.

[00:44:25] Comments, things you got to say, tell us about your hoarding story. We'd love to see them in the show notes, in the comments there. But that's awesome. We appreciate you guys being here is what I would say.

[00:44:39] So you have questions, concerns, things you want us to know, show ideas, email us at preppingbadassatgmail.com. You can check out stuff related to the show at preppingbadass.com. You also may want to support the show by heading over to patreon.com slant prepping badass,

[00:45:02] where you could actually support the show. With that, I would say stay safe and we will talk to you guys next week.