What's the difference between common sense and prepping?
Monday afternoon I got one of those texts that makes your heart skip a beat. "Come home now, broken rib" from the wife. I didn't bother going by my bosses desk to ask permission, I flew out the door and called on my run to the car. She was with a friend visiting from out of state, showing off her mad innertubing skills to the friend's five year old when she lost control and hit the fence, taking out a 2x4 in the process. We met at the hospital and everything went about as smoothly as any ER visit will (meaning lots of waiting, very little care).
In the end, the damage was not life threatening, "just" three broken ribs. However, it means she won't be bringing home a paycheck for the next 4-6 weeks while she recovers.
Here's where the common sense/prepping comes in: 20 months ago we ignored the fact that we "qualified" for a home that was more than twice what we paid and bought something affordable enough that we only need one income to support the mortgage and regular bills. As a result, there's no pressure on her to go back to work before she's ready, there's no pressure on me to work overtime to make ends meet, and we can come out on the other side without having more debt than we started with.
So in a way, we're using our preps, but other than normal food rotation, we're not touching the food storage, we're not falling back on our cash reserves, and probably the only changes I'll be making is that a little less will be going into savings this month and I will put off a few purchases that I was planning before this happened. As someone else said in their signature, prepping turns emergencies into mere inconveniences.
