Prepping vs Hoarding
Hoarding
Hoarding is when a person acquires items in excess and has an inability to part with or discard them. Often their homes are crowded and they are not able to function or live comfortably in their home because of the accumulation of things. This affects their quality of life and their ability to be productive and interferes in their relationships with others especially those they live with.
One might also refer to someone who takes all of a scarce supply leaving none for others in need.
Prepping
Prepping is the act of being prepared for future events, either by learning skills or acquiring items for later use. They often rotate their supplies and practice their skills daily. They view preparedness as a type of insurance and/or benefit they would have in a disaster or other type of hardship.
A prepper stocks up on supplies when there is no shortage and takes nothing away from people who need things in tough times.
Prep Organization
I believe the best preps are knowledge and skills. That being said, there are time to stock up on certain items.
Therefore preppers tend to have preps that need to be organized.
11 Tips for Organizing Your Preps
Take Stock–Don’t just look around at what you have. Take an inventory! Actually, make multiple inventories. Make one for food, for water, for lights, for off-grid cooking gear, for bug-out bags, for seeds, and every other prep you have. It’s important to know what you have so you know what you need and what you don’t need. This will save you money and sanity.
Make Time To clean And Organize–Homes with a lot of preps tend to get cluttered and dusty. Make time to clean and organize what you have. This helps you with taking an inventory and knowing the location of things.
Make Room For Your Preps–You have to be practical here. You need living space, however you can also get creative and store things in unusual areas. Many people have made furniture that has storage space inside. You can store things under beds and in attics. Always be aware of the temperature; food especially will not last long in extreme temperatures (or extreme temperature swings).
Don’t Store Non-Prep Items–If you want to store preps you might have to make some hard decisions. You may have to part with something that won’t do you any good in an emergency situation. It’s probably not doing you any good now, anyway. If you haven’t used it in 6 months then consider getting rid of it or donating it.
Get A System–There are a lot of organization systems out there. I like labeling things and storing things in transparent container so that I can see what’s inside the box. Consider storing like items together. Whatever system you decide to use, whether it’s color coding or inventory sheets, make sure you stick to it and continue to implement.
Create A Map With The Location Of Your Preps–Create a map to the location of your different preps. This will come in handy when you really need things and are too distracted to remember or too busy to rummage.
Create Your Own Kits –Consider creating your own kits for specific things. Create your own first aid kit, or your own car kit, or your own power outage kit. You can gather all the supplies you need or have needed in the past and make them into a kit. This will allow you to grab what you need quickly.
Rotate–This is especially true with food. You should have a rotation system and stick to it. However, it’s a good idea with all consumables. Paper products get old after a few years, medical supplies expire, vitamins expire, batteries lose their charge. You get the idea. Rotation is a good idea for all preps.
Don’t Store What You Don’t Eat–This is a big one that I know a lot of people are guilty of. Don’t store what you don’t eat, or what you don’t like. If you don’t like it or don’t eat it then it probably won’t be part of your rotation, so you run the risk of it going bad or expiring. Plus, it’s taking up valuable real estate in your home.
Keep A Shopping List–It’s great when things go on sale and it’s certainly a good idea to stock up when they do, except if you really don’t need the item. So keep a list of things that you need so you don’t buy things that you don’t, and can afford to buy the things you do.
Keep Things In Their Place–An organization system is only as good as the person using it. If you don’t put things back in their place then your system of organization will not be usable and you’ll wind up with a big mess.
