What are the best skills to have if SHTF

[Hodgie]

Ain't none of the skills and equipment gonna help if you trip, fall, and break your fool neck.......Ever notice in these SHTF stories/movies: they never address stupid shit happening? Like you fire up that chainsaw and gash your leg, bleeding out in three minutes. Or, falling on broken glass and slicing your hand so bad you need medical care (but they all dead 'cept you).

Best thing to have: another person you trust. Skills & gear can't keep you alive if you get so sick/hurt you can't heal/feed/fix yourself. And thus, we go back to the start of civilization: why tribes survive and loners die off. Don't be the "Iceman" and be found alone and frozen in a few thousand years. Have a "tribe" that will retell stories of your courage and skills thru the ages!

The books I recommended earlier in this thread talk about this kind of stuff in depth. And your right if life were to go back to the 1800’s tomorrow people would die of things they never dreamed of from simple exposure to the elements to tooth infections and simple cuts.

We have it way to easy as Americans right now and one day a wake up call May come that drastically thins the population.

[Baratheon]

I have been in the woods for half my life! Killed more stuff than I can remember even time!!
Truck driver
anything mechanical, and can build anything, farm, electronics ( now studying solar) can lower the water level fishing, plumbing, dang almost anything. I have my real estate license and my general class armature radio license. dang and some stuff I dont want to tell also!

[Hawk]

In any extended survival scenario, prepping for yourself is one thing, prepping for your immediate family is harder.
Then there's your unprepared extended family, what do you do about them?
Then there's your unprepared friends and neighbors you've known for a long time. What do you do when they come asking for your help?
If you're a loner, how do you maintain security by yourself? Sleep with one eye open?
There is much more to "surviving" than just prepping. There is going to be a great mental and emotional factor to it.

Personally, I only prep for localized short term situations (which I believe would be the most likely situation to occur). Shelter/water/food/security to last us for a few weeks.

[WCMG]

Personally I wouldn't have any less then a years worth of food if planning for the long term which is pretty easy to do and affordable if you are willing to eat a few basic choices over that time period.

As for hunting it's a great skill but something that wont last long since everyone and their brother will be out there looking for the same game you are. That resource will dry up rather quickly in any real long term situation.

I have 4 mouths to take care of and it's best doing that by not leaving and staying put, the pressure would be on big time even if you have a years worth of food, water and provisions to keep you going. Some gardening skills, a greenhouse and some chickens are the skills I am more interested in then anything else.

Ammo and gun's are great but you cannot eat a bullet so most of my extra stuff which there is a lot of would become great trade fodder for things that matter.

I disagree, I would estimate 90% of Americans would be dead within 30 days once supermarkets run out of canned food because they have zero skill set from Farm to Table or Hunting to Table and another 9% would probably die off in the next 12 months. The other 1%, well there are vast acreage of woods in north central PA and even more in just hour south of Pittsburgh in appalachian mountains of WV. If you know basic survival skills (how to build a shelter, how to build a fire, how to stay warm, how to kill and cook game/fish) then you are in the top 1% and you just have to hole up in some deep wooden valley until the 99% of the population dies off in less than a year or two. This country has raises an entire generations of weak clueless citizens, they wouldn't have a chance in a SHTF world.

[pacodelahoya]

I'm 55, high blood pressure, bad shoulder, shattered leg that will never be the same.
The best I can hope for is some trigger time and a quick end.

That is not necessarily a bad thing in that situation.

[dannyb]

It's probably impossible to really prep for a true SHTF TEOTWAWKI event. Much would depend on the type of S and the direction that the F is pointing. A more likely scenario is the couple of weeks to a year or so disaster aftermath - either natural, industrial, or terrorist (least likely). The most likely of these unlikely situations being a natural disaster causing interruptions in supply lasting longer than a few days. Assuming staying in place which takes care of shelter, I would put water and the ability to purify water at the top of the list (hey, you remember that fertilizer plant we gave all those tax breaks too? They've been dumping their waste into the reservoir and...). Quality dehydrated food and/or extra-long shelf life canned food would be next along with some way to cook it (camp stove etc.). Finally, a generator of some sort - size and type depending on where you live and what's doable. Firearms are likely already owned by readers of this website.

[fallenleader]

you have to decide, will you be eating your neighbors and raiding their homes or will you be jesus and care for everyone you meet?
i know which type i am and i don't do sandals.

short term prep and defensive stuff is the most likely to happen, it is not unfounded to lose power for a month, for the gas lines to build up and for mobs of hungry masses to form.
a month of food, some low tech prep and storage skills and some proficency with a firearm can work you out of most of that.
we've had cases where police or emergency response takes over an hour to show up, some medical knowledge might help in situations.
there is always the event your car catches fire or you break down 20mi into a rural road with no cell service.

these are all pretty realistic and simple to prepare and plan for.
every now and then we get someone who wants a wood stove for shtf but has no experience splitting wood, no knowledge of wood burning etc.etc. and it makes me scratch my head. sure, go ahead but you're at step 5 and missing the first 4.
like some city convert that doesn't yet realize that when the power goes off, so does the water.

[lts1ow]

The will to survive, without that, everything else is moot.

Personally I have always wondered how in these scenarios it goes from normal life, to SHTF status. Like do you get a heads up? Or is it just, thats all folks, shows over.

[Walleye Hunter]

The will to survive, without that, everything else is moot.

Personally I have always wondered how in these scenarios it goes from normal life, to SHTF status. Like do you get a heads up? Or is it just, thats all folks, shows over.

I don't know but a real prepper has the bunker built, furnished and equipped with enough food and water to hold out for a while.

[JustinR]

The will to survive, without that, everything else is moot.

Personally I have always wondered how in these scenarios it goes from normal life, to SHTF status. Like do you get a heads up? Or is it just, thats all folks, shows over.

Do some reading about Argentina in 2001 - that's about the best analogue we have for an industrialized nation going tits up in modern history.

One night everyone went to sleep, the next morning all of the banks were closed, no one was accepting federal currency due to inflation, stores couldn't stock, gas stations couldn't get refueled.

Not an end of the world situation, but definitely SHTF and no one had any real warning. Just *poof*.