How my wife became a prepper

[theadob]

I started listing to Jack's shows about 6 months ago.  I was deaf, dumb, and blind when it came to prepping prior to that.  When i started talking to my wife about it, she thought I was out of my mind.  I quickly came to recognize the importance of prepping but I didnt know how to convince my wife so I started off slow.

This summer i taught her to can and dehydrate foods from a garden i had started earlier in the year.  I was raised on preserving foods so I knew that home canned foods would reduce our grocery bill.  Over the summer, i reduced our grocery bill by $100 a month by not having to buy veggies.  She got on board with canning pretty quickly when she started seeing the results. (heck we even saved money at Christmas by giving away canned items for presents.)

Because she was canning with me, I asked her to listen to show #320 on the 5 rules of Food Storage for Modern Survivalists.  She said after that that she thought having extra food on hand might not be such a bad idea.  (HOOK! - now i have to reel slowly)  I agreed and we started our collection - we have 3 months on hand right now.

I started talking about the benefits of buying a generator.  Just in passing.  She wasnt on board.  We had a huge snow storm this past weekend and I brought up the fact that if we would lose power in the middle of it, we would be in the dark and cold.  A generator could help. (She is allergic to kerosene, or I would have suggested a kerosene heater).

Last night I was talking about wanting the Excaliber dehydrator.  Her comment back is, "i really think we should save for the generator first."  WOOHOO!  I'm married to a prepper!  What you dont know about my wife if three months ago, she would have said, "lets go get one and put it on the credit card."  Now she's is saying we need a generator and we have to SAVE for it!

For those of you married to an anti-prepper, be patient.  Dont ram it down their throat.  Be patient and let them come to it just like she did.

[TwoBluesMama]

Oh good - more ants!  Nice job on the conversion!

[Morning Sunshine]

I love it - great job!!!

[womule]

Congradulations!  I wish I could get Mrs. Womule to do the same.

I've talked to her about it but it never gets through her thick head. She says we should but never takes any steps towards the goal.

[Imperial Goat]

Great job!  Slowly and surely wins the race.  Just ask Mrs. Goat 

[Pathfinder]

My GF claims to be on board, and she is a heck of a good canner. We still have 20-some jars of the wild plum jam she put up last summer.

BUT - I still get yelled at when I buy extra of anything, like cereal on sale or the other day when I bought 2 extra cans of condensed milk for the shelf. Some things she just doesn't get.

[Sister Wolf]

Pathfinder, try showing her how much food has gone up in the last year, and how much it promises to go up in the coming year.  Stocking up on food is a better investment than putting money in a savings account.  For reals.

Buying food now saves loads of money later.

[theadob]

This evening she asked if we could go take the concealed permit class together.  I have created a monster and love it.

[phargolf]

Better that monster, than 1 that doesn't care. My wife tolerates my prepping as long as she doesn't have to give up anything (luckily i make a pretty good living) and i don't mean that to be ugly, just the way reality is right now. Can this change? I certainly hope so, but i rather doubt it unless it can somehow be tied to our grandkids

[OC Celtic Lass]

This is awesome to actually finally get a prepper wife! Sounds great!

[The Wilderness]

Congratulations theadob!

It is great that your wife is coming around.

TW

[Capt Cook]

I'll tell you my condensed story on how my wife became a beginner prepper....

She wasn't on the boat yet but she had one foot in & all I needed to do was pull gently to get her fully on board.

My wife & I lived in Arkansas in the 90's & had little money. I convinced her to go to the Aldi store in MO to avoid food tax & get cheaper food. Aldi is the "Stock Up Store" so we did just that, cases of this & that & boxes full of stuff we used. "Better to get more now so we don't have to come back for a month or two." We had stored 2 months of food & she still didn't know she was prepping.
Guns were taboo to her but I still had my .410 shotgun. We talked about them but it was No-Go, that is till she saw some TV show & now she tells me I "Need to get a Gun!" The Prepping continues & we make the move to Missouri. Again she tells me I need to get a gun cuz she listens to her Police Scanner & crime is all over our neighborhood. Now with some money I do get a gun & my CCW, which she encouraged me to get since armed & unarmed robberies are all over her Police Scanner.

Enter the Ice Storm of 2007.....
Losing power for 13 days was what it took for my skeptic wife to become my Awesome Wife & Prepper Companion!!
Living by candlelight, a borrowed kerosene heater which also doubled as our stove & washing up in the sink every morning was the straw that broke the skeptics back!
She was a real trooper & didn't complain or cry till day 12. I really love my wife & give her a lot of credit for lasting that long before breaking down just a bit. She still kept her chin up & knew things were going to be all right in a day or two.

Things have changed since then & financial difficulties prevent us from purchasing high dollar items right now.
We are prepping for 5 now so things will just be taken a step at a time but we keep on stepping together now, instead of apart.

For all of you with skeptical wives I can give you this advice.
Show her the crime statistics for your area for the last 2 years & she will most likely tell you to get a gun.
Show her food price increases over the last 2 years & she will tell you to stock food you eat all the time.
Take her to Lowes & walk her by the heaters and generators & mention how that would really come in handy if we had a  snow/ice storm or disaster like they had in Katrina, etc... She will probably tell you "we need to get one of those when we can afford it."

For my wife, having a police scanner was something she always wanted & when she heard all the stuff going on, the "real life stuff", she knew there was trouble brewing. From there it was little steps in the direction of prepping.
I doubt you will hear on the news how a man was stabbed this Christmas morning while his roommate called for Police and the burglar was downstairs, but hearing it on the scanner, while it happens, is a totally real thing!

[OC Celtic Lass]

Awesome! I already like your wife.......she is cool!

[ncjeeper]

My wife tolerates my prepping, but she still isn't on board with it yet
Oh well, Rome wasn't built over night.

[OC Celtic Lass]

I like your wife too! She just doesn't know you are building Rome yet. Ha     

[inthego]

I had a prepper's spirit all my life but went though times when I did not practice what I knew.  I got crap for y2k and as such I went dormant.  But for over a year now I have been slowly doing what needs to be done to prep for good times and possibly bad.  I am fortunately blessed with a wife that is very pragmatic and so all I did was (slowly) show her the logic of keeping more on hand and so on that she is coming along.