Diaries of a secret prepper

[mellowguy]

I'm new to the Homesteading Forums. I mean I just registered, because I've been reading up and lurking for quite a while now.

I'm also new to prepping, and a bit embarrassed. Sure, I've tasted the lifestyle and I've occasionally bought a few extra supplies, but I've never labelled myself a prepper. The word comes with quite a bit of stigma, and I don't want to have to explain myself, my beliefs and my fears. It's much easier just to do it in private, and not let people know who I really am.

My family doesn't know. My wife has no idea. Sure, there have been times where she reminded me that I bought too much stuff, but I've often pleaded innocence: "Sorry Honey, I didn't realize that we already had 5 pounds of spaghetti in the pantry". Other times, I've been able to blame it on a good sale: "I know that we need weeks to go through that many cans of diced tomatoes, but it was in special" or on stupidity: "Huh? Don't we always buy the 50lb bag of rice?". I feel dishonest, but each compulsive prep purchase helps me feel more prepared. These misdeeds are still not sufficient though. I'm doing all this for a few weeks of incomplete supplies, without a plan, and I keep thinking that urgency may soon hit.

My wife supports and participates into the gardening and the preserves. She understands my frugal side, which compels me to buy in bulk, but she sees the preparedness lifestyle as a weird phenomenon. I've sometimes tried to innocently bring the subject up to her attention, but never got the kind of feedback that would make it easier to come out of the closet. Explaining to a barely reformed shopping enthusiast that store shelves may someday not fill themselves is like ... well ... it's like trying to explain to a barely reformed shopping enthusiast that store shelves may someday not fill themselves! It's scary stuff and I'm not sure she'd understand unless I could get her to wear my tinfoil hat long enough. If I can't reprogram her, she may very well have me institutionalized. I need to tread carefully.

Embracing this lifestyle in the way I want requires upfront money, but we live below our means and make good incomes. I can easily hide a few hours of such indiscretions from her, and the few hundreds of dollars each month. Whatever my dirty mind buys will take away from our discretionary spending. I have my own credit card, and do all the bill payments. As long as she doesn't snoop in my affairs, and doesn't accidentally discover a suspicious charge on my credit card statement, I should be in the clear. The day that she uncovers a web transaction from a survival supply company is going to be a rough one for me. Cheating husbands live in the fear of their wives finding a credit card transaction at some massage parlor, and I live in the fear of my wife seeing a transaction at some survival supplies store.

I need to seriously ramp up the preps. The food stuff is the hardest, as we both do groceries. Since the kids are old enough to stay home alone, we've even started to consider grocery shopping as a therapeutical couple outing. We sometimes do it alone, but it's always with each other's knowledge and blessing. Doing it in secrecy, without her, feels like cheating. I feel dirty and sullied. Then, there's the fact that we both cook. The store-what-you-eat-and-eat-what-you-store philosophy requires some changes to both our cooking habits, as well as our family's eating habits. I need a plan, and in the interest of keeping up my secret existence, I've put organized food prepping on hold for a few weeks to focus on other things.

Since food preps come with difficult obstacles, I've started up on less critical but satisfying items. In this increasingly egalitarian society, there are still some things that remain my exclusive domain: fuels & maintenance.

We already have a generator and a transfer switch. It's not unusual to get power outages that last hours, and sometimes even a couple of days, so she accepted this investment a while ago. However, we seldom have even enough gas to mow the lawn. Buying and storing gas is entirely my job, so hiding my compulsion is made much easier. I picked up and filled another two 5-gallon jerry cans last week. I'll discreetly rotate them. The bottle of Stabil is hidden, to cover up my tracks and my intentions. If I'm discovered, it's not too big a deal. I live in a lie and I'll keep lying to protect my secret double life. She doesn't know that 10-15 gallons of gas is enough to keep basic necessities powered for weeks. I just need to tell her that the generator is a gas hog.

I also picked up about a year's worth of extra filters for the furnace and the HEPA air exchanger. We often do without water softening salt when we run out, but I still bought a reserve of a couple months. I may get more.

Something I never see mentioned as prep items is a few bottles of Lysol and a good supply of antibacterial soap. One of the most likely SHTF scenarios has got to be a serious pandemic (H1N1 multiplied by 100). I picked up a few cans of Lysol.

I've been keeping a stash of toilet paper rolls conveniently stored in one of my secret hiding places above the shower stall. I'm waiting for another sale on TP to add quite a bit more to my stash. I'll also have room to store a years' worth of bathroom stuff and cleaning products up there, so that's my next task. I made a list of what I need, including rough quantities, and I'll be working on that this week: toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, soap, razors, shaving gel, Qtips, cleaning products, bleach, etc. I'll spread my purchases over multiple stores, to keep my embarrassing habit secret. Everything but about 100 rolls of TP will fit in my hiding place above the shower stall, where a step-ladder is required to access or even see the stash. As a bonus, I can even deal with rotating the few perishable bathroom items in the privacy and secrecy of a locked bathroom door.

I haven't got a plan for feminine hygiene products yet. They've got to be much more important than a lot of stuff I bought so far. Remember, I live with 3 women. However, there's no way I'm filling up a cart full of that stuff at Wally World and checking out with a straight face.

I know these are not the kinds of things that are most urgent, but I need to start somewhere. These preps allow me to feel like something is finally completed. They make the whole task less burdening and more manageable. I'll move on to organizing the food prep in the next few weeks. In the mean time, I'll keep accidentally buying too much groceries here and there.

[ldc]

Hilarious! Keep up the "good" deception!!! LOL times 10!!! ldc

[Spinner]

Is this a fun story or a true story? I can imagine that being real in millions of homes across the country. It's pretty close to true in my house!

[firegirl969]

Welcome, Mellowguy! What a great post. I needed a good laugh today, and you provided it!!! I can understand where you are coming from in reality though. It is difficult to prep without the understanding of your DW. I have a thought for you though. What about telling her you want to consider taking her on some family outings at state parks and that you need to learn to use a camp stove (stove, spare pots and pans, fuel), build a fire in a dirt pit (shovel, axe, wood supply, matches, lighters), maybe take up camping so the need to acquire sleeping bags, a tent, a clothesline and clothespins (for the wet bathing suits, of course), and lanterns and flashlights with an extra supply of batteries. You see where I am headed? Also, you mentioned that ya'll have power outages for sometimes several days, so don't you think that maybe a case (or a few) of canned peaches, pears, fruit cocktail, tuna, spam, ravioli, etc, that would be easy to eat without power might make sense. Don't forget the bottled water or better yet, a water filter. You have done a wonderful job of covering your hind-end thus far, just use your imagination and the possibilites are endless. Blessings, firegirl

[unregistered29228]

You should have a talk with your wife, and see if you can get her on board. I know my life became a lot easier once I just laid it out on the line for my hubby. He still thought it was kind of cute and quaint, but once the economy took a nosedive and I could prove how much I'd saved buying things a year ago, he was a lot more understanding. It's hard to sneak and buy and play dumb long term, even if you have the opportunity to say "I told you so!" later....

[iLori]

This is very funny. I do love being single! When I was married, I used to buy stuff that always created havoc on the home front. We used to have a spare bedroom we used for storage and I'd buy something and put it behind all the stuff, then I'd move things around so you could just see part of it, then after awhile, I'd move things again so when you walked by you might see it sitting back there under something else...eventually, I'd bring it out and he'd say "where did that come from, I don't remember that" and I'd say "Oh yeah, we've had that awhile". He'd been seeing it without seeing it for awhile and he'd just shrug and figure it was sort of familiar.

Have you tried something like what the Red Cross or FEMA recommends? They all suggest being prepared for emergencies so you could say you just want to do what's responsible, not that it's any big deal, just another chore like covering the outdoor faucets in the winter and checking the oil in the cars. Discuss setting aside some garage or attic space for this "chore" and you'll get to it when you have time. If she agrees to something like that you can use your manly packing skills to pack well and get a good organized little chunk going.

[radiofish]

Gee when I was married, I would have approached my wife's frugal side. Be realistic and actually discuss with her, on how it is economically better to prep and be ready now. Rather than when you do need it, and no amount of money can get it!! Be creative but realistic with the defination of "it"...

Look honey how much money we can save by buying "these items" in bulk. We will use "these items" within the next year anyways, and with all of the money we will save by stocking up and buying sales items on all of the household requirements - we can go to (insert your choice of destination) for a nice vacation!! If the outcome (no matter how you get there/ within reason - deceit is questionable to me..) is to her advantage, then you may have won half the battle!!! Psychological Warfare is a wonderful thing!! Get a piece of paper/ or use a spreadsheet, use realistic numbers, and crunch them for a years worth of household expenses. You might be amazed on how you can actually save money by comparison shopping and paying attention of the price per unit..

Appeal to saving 'X' amount of money by buying the 'loss-leaders' at the grocery stores, and hit the sales for clothing and other necessities! Hey even used equipment such as hand tools, and such can be found by a good scrounger at yard and moving sales!

Being divorced, I still buy items when they are on sale/ I hate and refuse to pay retail prices if at all possible!!!! I get as much as I can of the items on sale that I use.. Plus I like the concept of 'cash and carry', leaving no paper trail or Credit Card statements! If you have to hide it (prepping) from your wife........

Keep nibbling away at it, and keep track of what you have. "Rome was not built in a day!!" - is my personal mantra, when taking on any major task.. My problem now is I am running out of storage space in the house (less than 1,000 sq. ft.), and need to secure a rodent/ moisture proof secured space, in one of the outbuildings soon!!

Now I could see if your wife were to question your spending a large amount of money on --> firearms and ammunition (if you can find them..). Small Kids in the household, and maybe your wife doesn't like any 'guns' in the house.. Those are two issues that you will have to deal with, on your own.....

My ex-wife hesitantly accepted the fact that I was and I still am a "Gun Happy Marine", and have had 'guns' and ammunition in my life for decades. My current lady friend is quite supportive on this issue, and my having a CCW license to carry a concealed weapon is just fine with her! Some women run the other direction, when they find that fact out!! Her dad was a U.S. Navy 'Frogman' (before the Navy Seals) during late WWII, Korea, and early Viet Nam eras with 20+ years of active duty and retired as a Master Chief Petty Officer! He is Gun Happy also, so his daughter likes to go shootin' here on the property! She even has her own weapons and ammunition!!

[Buffy in Dallas]

Go rent a small storage unit. Have the bill sent to your office. Keep your prepping addiction secret while you give her hints about looming disaster.
Send her links to the appropriate sites. Order homesteading magazines.
Watch the news with her. When she's ready start bringing your preps home slowly.
Ya, I'm a sneaky one!!!

What she doesn't know won't hurt her and may save her life!

[AR Transplant]

Never lie to your wife, it causes so many problems even if it is in her best interest. How about some serious honesty? "I am really concerned about the state of this country, I think we should prepare for if things go south, it would make me feel better if we stocked up on things, and even if nothing happened we would not be out anything." My guess is a wife would be thrilled that the dh was taking the time to keep the family safe.

Just don't lie, that is really really not cool

[texican]

Do you have insurance on your home, your car, your life?

Think of prepping as living insurance, and it's a little more palatable to the non believers. All of the 'regular' insurance policies are worthless, if the system fails. Your prep 'living' insurance is always there... if the system fails, you can cash in your 'premiums', and eat them. If the system doesn't fail, you can cash in your premiums, and eat them.

As long as you're alive, there's no downside to prepping, as long as you prep what you use.

[mellowguy]

Originally Posted by radiofish

...Appeal to saving 'X' amount of money by ...

I already do most of what you suggest. That only takes me so far. The other thing that I should mention is that although I'm generally frugal, I'm approaching this ramp-up of my prepping activities as a rather urgent problem which may be incompatible with my frugality. What I'm saying is that I don't want to wait for all these preps to be discounted before I buy them. For my family's safety and for my piece of mind, I actually believe it's worth paying a bit extra to get part-way there. I'll make sure I get a good deal, but I'm not waiting for the best deal. We're living in very uncertain and scary times, and I don't want to be without supplies because I wanted to save a handful of dollars. We're not rich, but we're blessed with our current financial situation, so it's time to invest money into this thing. On the other hand, I could spend time waiting for the discounts, and put the difference in my constantly declining retirement egg nest

Originally Posted by radiofish

Now I could see if your wife were to question your spending a large amount of money on --> firearms and ammunition (if you can find them..). Small Kids in the household, and maybe your wife doesn't like any 'guns' in the house.. Those are two issues that you will have to deal with, on your own.....

My ex-wife hesitantly accepted the fact that I was and I still am a "Gun Happy Marine", and have had 'guns' and ammunition in my life for decades. My current lady friend is quite supportive on this issue, and my having a CCW license to carry a concealed weapon is just fine with her!

Yabbut did I mention I'm Canadian? No handguns and no CCW here. To carry conceal a rifle means walking funny in public. Plus, you'd have to wear baggy pants and try not to shoot yourself in the foot while you walk.

Originally Posted by firegirl969

What about telling her you want to ...
learn to use a camp stove ... build a fire in a dirt pit ... a tent ... a clothesline and clothespins ... You see where I am headed?

Do I see where you're heading ? Yes, unfortunately. You want her to be turned off from all the stuff that's important to me. For what it's worth, we already do "camping" as a family, but we do it in the comfort of a 23' camping trailer, so we do have most of that stuff, although I wish I could keep it all in one place. Everyone keeps moving everything around on me: kids take the sleeping bags out for sleepovers, wife takes pots out for cooking, etc.

Thanks for all the comments. For those that think I should have a talk with her, I just want to say that I know what will happen. She'll laugh a bit, tease a lot, and let me do it if she doesn't have to be involved. Bottom line: it's easier not to come out of the closet until it becomes too obvious, or until I get treated like a savior because SHTF.

I have plenty of sneaky ideas to get most of the way there. There is a master plan, and it will work. I'll share the details as the pieces fall into place.

When the time comes where I have to hone up to it, it will probably be to step up the food preps from a couple of months to 6 or 12 months (i.e. "Ok Honey, let's sit down and I'll tell you why I bought this 5th 100lb bag of rice").

[Jerngen]

Mellowguy - You must be a writer in your "day" job. I really enjoyed reading your posts! Welcome to the forums

[glazed]

Originally Posted by Jerngen

Mellowguy - You must be a writer in your "day" job. I really enjoyed reading your posts! Welcome to the forums

Ditto

[Jakk]

I could have written your post 2 yrs ago. (Well, not really as comical as you did!) My DH was sooo not on board with any type of prepping. I did most prepping in secret. Every so often he would come across some secret stash and accuse me of being like a drug addict that had to hide my habit. I continued to prep and he continued to think I was crazy. I will never forget the day he came across the gas masks and TVP, I really thought he was going to stage an intervention. Oh, and when I brought home five 55 gallon water storage barrels.... the look on his face was priceless.

But then 2 months ago he lost he job. He doesnt start his new job until the first week of August. He sees the light now. It took a personal SHTF for him to understand that the earth doesnt need to explode for it to be the end of our little world as we know it.

We have been living off of our food storage and I am VERY worried about the flu this coming winter and having to SIP. I cant really ramp up our prepping until he starts his new job, but he did build me a HUGE pantry. He helped me take cans and jars out from under the sofa and beds and store them in the new pantry. He kept shaking his head, he couldnt believe how much stuff I had squirreled away without his knowledge. We are a family of six, and I have/had a good 9 months worth of preps, a year or more on some other personal hygiene items and household necessities.

BTW.. did you know that you can buy feminie hygiene supplies from CVS online? No standing in line with a cart full and a red face!

[AngieM2]

welcome to HT and the forum, mellowguy.

You do explain yourself well. I'll be looking forward to reading your posts. maybe someone will have a great idea that will get your wife closer to being like minded.

Angie

[DW]

My husband calls me a closet prepper...but he is always asking...do we have extra ...? He understands.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

a budy of mine , he is out there somewere probably reading this and laughing
was trying to do the secret prep thing , maybe not quit as succesfully as you are but he was getting things here and there , then his wife who works for an institution as a nurse was asked to attend a county meeting , on preperations this was about the time h1n1 hit wisconsin we actualy were running number 2 for a while for #of cases confirmed.

interesting side note the confirmed transfer form swine to human was first discovered just a few miles from were i sit in southern wisconsin at a local pig farm a local vet who was checking and treating the pigs noticed the farm hand come down with very similar sympoms he took blood from both and had it processed at the state crime lab and they had it the same vius in both of them this was in the 70's interestin articel in the local paper.

but back to the county meeting she came home ready to build the buncker and stock it full , we ok maybe not the buncker but definitly on board with stocking several months of everything and growing all they could.

start working on her slowly like after a new story here were a food storage ware house in Cudahey Wis was burning the other day, they refrigerat with ammonia they were very concernd the ammonia pipes would burst and spill it into the neighborhood , they had to eveacuate for blocks around and it sent a lot of people to the school gym they had to leave thier houses with no warning. toss out that would have bee a good time to have had a 72 hour bag , i was reading about them on te department of home land security home page the other day they say we should have a change of cloths and canned food and bottled water for 3 days for just such an event (the 72 hour bag info is also in most phone books)

there you have planted a seed , one small step for preping one giant step form dropping the secrecy because the knowledge is one of the biggest parts of prepping , and you can't teach that very well in secret not that she maybe needs to know it all , however you probably want to leave the rest of the family out of the loop for a while your wife loves you and married you and is probably more willing to play if she sees it as a way keep your family safe , letting your extended family know may just lead to a new thing your brother in law can harras you about .

try a book like "Don't get caugth with your pantry down" written for y2k just disregard that chapter

by the way what happened to the notion that canada was all safe and happy free of violent crime with the limited access to guns and that the goverment was helping every one with every thing , i belive that is the line of BS that some in the u.s. have tried to sell us , i have some relitives up there and know it ain't so

[mellowguy]

Thanks for all the ideas. Now I'm overwhelmed.

Originally Posted by GREENCOUNTYPETE

by the way what happened to the notion that canada was all safe and happy free of violent crime with the limited access to guns and that the goverment was helping every one with every thing , i belive that is the line of BS that some in the u.s. have tried to sell us , i have some relitives up there and know it ain't so

Be careful not to let anecdotes and 3rd party opinions replace facts. Per capita murder in US is 3x higher than Canada. Incarceration rate in US is 7x higher. With the economy being worst than here, you probably have to look forward to a lot more crime in the coming years. The most dangerous cities in Ontario are probably Toronto, Ottawa and Windsor. I wouldn't have an issue taking my wife for a 2am walk in the worst parts of these cities. My wallet in my back pocket and her purse over her shoulder. I wouldn't do the same in Detroit, New Orleans, LA, etc. I'm not saying that I agree with Canadian gun laws though.

Originally Posted by Jerngen

Mellowguy - You must be a writer in your "day" job. I really enjoyed reading your posts! Welcome to the forums

I wish I had something interesting to write about that people would pay to read. The freedom and the ability to work from home would be simply incredible. Instead, I have an uninspiring job as a senior manager with a dull company that sells boring services. The money is good, so I'm staying put until debts are paid off, expenses are reduced and we accumulate some savings (or maybe just until they lay me off). Then, I'll work at stuff that pays less, but is more fulfilling. I can tell you it's not going to be a job in an air-conditioned office.

[mellowguy]

Well, I said I'd pick up a slew of bathroom and cleaning products and that's exactly what I've started to do. I didn't pick up more than 4-5 things at each store, and mostly not in out-of-the-ordinary quantities. It's going to take more shopping trips than I thought.

It should not have been a big deal, because I've picked up extra supplies in the past and never had to think twice. These times were different though. I felt like a guilty man. I may as well have been buying a few boxes of condoms and a handful of dirty magazines. I swear that the people working the stores knew what I was doing. I'm telling you people, be careful because I think they read this forum before starting their shifts. They're onto us.

The next part of the plan deals with creating a family recipe book. The children (12 & 13) love to cook, and would like to get more involved in meal preparation this summer while mom and dad are at work, but they've complained that we don't have written recipes for meals. My wife and I pretty much just "wing it" with ingredients and quantities. They bake a lot, and do preserves with us mostly because we take the lead and have recipes for these, but meal preparation for them is limited to salads, KD and meals that come in a box for their at-home lunches while we're at work. I told them that we're going to write down some recipes in a family book over the weekend. It's the first part of my Master Plan to organize food preps. If we come up with 15-20 common recipes, I'll have a good start on my prep ingredients (I read this idea on another thread somewhere).

[firegirl969]

Mellowguy,

You mentioned that your company could lay you off in the future. Maybe tell the DW about this concern and that you think the family should store some stash in the event that you are without your job for a time. Great way to get her started in your program.