20 Things You Need for a TEOTWAWKI Scenario

The world is going to Hell in a hand basket.  There are infectious diseases, rioting, economies on the verge of collapse, etc etc.  Of course people have been saying this since Socrates.  My grandfather said this numerous times as he moved from the beginning of the 1900s when he was born to the late 1900s when he died.  Now I am saying the same things ("kids today! arrgghh").  Perhaps I am just getting old.

Since this blog is basically about survival and how to deal with disaster situations, I will give you a task list of 20 things that you should do before the world really teeters off the coil...

1. Build a small house, with cash, on land you own, in a ruralish part of the country.
2. Make the house as off-the-grid as possible (your own well, your own septic tank, solar energy, etc).
3. Have multiple streams of income that don't require you to go to a 9-5 job (if you must go to a 9-5 job, make it temporary and as high paying as possible).
4. Learn how to do for yourself as much as possible.  Grow your own food, raise your own animals, do your own construction and plumbing work, fix your own car, mend your own clothes, build your own computer, make your own candles, etc.  The more you know how to do, the less you are dependent on the regular economy to meet your needs.
5. Know your neighbors.  Barter with them, help them out when possible, ask for help when needed.  Build a rural, neighbor-helping-neighbor network as this will be the network you will rely on when TSHTF.
6. Have multiple sources of savings.  You should have some investment in the stock market, some cash, some gold, some barterable items, some items that hold their value (like guns), etc.
7. Raise your kids right.  This is perhaps the greatest gift you can give the world.
8. Never stop changing and adapting.  Change is constant, learning how to roll with change, and perhaps, be on the leading edge of change, is useful.
9. Enjoy life.  You can enjoy life with very little money and very little in the way of consumer goods.  Always worrying about what might happen in the future is a depressing way to live on a day-to-day basis.
10. Cut down on your news and social media consumption by 75%.  Fear-mongering has turned into a national pass time.
11. Be prepared for whatever might happen.  You might not be able to get to the store for a month (stockpile food), someone might try to break into your home (know how to defend yourself and your home), you may become ill (have some medical skills and try to keep yourself as healthy as possible), etc.
12. Don't discard new things just because they are new.  Yes, life was much simpler before cell phones and apps and GPS.  That doesn't mean I don't use cell phones and apps and GPS.  I enjoy these and other new tech items because they are useful and efficient but on the flip side, if I had to throw all of these things away and live without them I would survive (not so sure about the kids and grandkids because such things are all they have ever known).  tldr; enjoy new things but don't forget about the old ways.
13. Don't be afraid to experiment.  See a video on YouTube about making a cat food can stove?  Give it a shot.  You may not now need nor ever need a cat food can stove but the usefulness is in the learning (plus it is a better time waster than reddit or Facebook).
14. When it comes right down to it, the only thing you can depend on (and it isn't gear and it isn't money) is yourself.  If you become a refugee or a disaster survivor, you may walk away with the clothes on your back and the knowledge in your head and nothing else.  Prepare accordingly.
15. Make your current situation work for now.  If you can't build your own small house in a ruralish area and are, in fact, living in the middle of a huge city, do your best to prepare for TEOTWAWKI in your current location.  Really, it is all you have to work with at the present time and doing something to prepare is better than doing nothing (plus, there will be more to scavenge after a disaster in a large city than in the rural countryside).
16. Obsess more about what works than what is considered the hottest gear on your favorite subreddit (ie: you need A FLASHLIGHT THAT WORKS, not necessarily a Surefire UBR Invictus flashlight.  You need A SHARP KNIFE, not necessarily a Rockstead Japanese fixed-blade blah blah blah).
17. Never turn down an opportunity to learn more.  This weekend you can sit on the sofa watching football or you can attend a CPR class, go on a hike with a local hiking group, take a concealed carry class, can some in-season vegetables, and watch a YouTube video on how to give your kid a haircut then practice on said child (this works better when they are younger).
18. Don't make excuses.  As soon as you hear yourself saying "I can't do such and such because...", stop and consider how you can do such and such.  Think out of the proverbial box, consider how you could make such a thing happen if someone's life actually depended on you making such and such happen.
19. Go on a microadventure.  It will do wonders to get you out of your rut and make you think (and react) out of the box.
20. Share your knowledge.  Surly there are things that you know, useful things, that you could share with others.  This will help others prepare for disaster, make "preparedness" more of a mainstream thing and not a "survivalist with many guns" thing, and possibly even increase your own knowledge on said topic with input from the hive mind.