Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile

Today, we offer another practical but critical part of homesteading, survival prepping, and self-sufficiency: Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile. As the old sayings go, the more you know, the more choices you have, and knowing is half the battle. This may not be exactly true, but the idea is sound.

Please note, this is general in formation. It is for information, education, and entertainment only. Whether it is gardening, farming, animal care, survival, emergency, self-sufficient lifestyle, DIY projects, or herbal preparations this is for info-sharing only. It is not meant to replace urgent medical care. As we have said, we are not doctors, vets, or professionals of any kind. This info is not meant for medical diagnosis or as treatment advice. We do not guarantee any results that we have gotten for any of the projects that we share with you. We share info that has worked for us. For more info, please see the Out Standing in the Field disclaimer page.

Please note, this talk may contain affiliate links. If you use one of these links and make a purchase through it, we will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

This is the Table of contents for Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile. The title is in bold black at the top. There is a list of four topic sections on the left with drawn pictures to represent the topics on the right. Picture one shows a beagle wearing reading glasses asleep on a book with other books, a digital tablet, and a digital flash drive near him. Picture two shows off line digital storage items: a laptop computer, a printer, and a flash drive. Picture three shows four squares with warnings in them. There is a picture for no fire, no water, no rats or bugs, and no electrical shock. Picture four shows a frog sitting on a shroom doing yoga. There is a large book at his feet that says “How-To Stay Calm Under Pressure”. Above the frog is a large hornets nest with angry hornets flying around. The background is white with a thin, border frame that goes from a light purple to a light mint green.

You may remember from our other talks that we love books. Every member of our family is a “Bookaholic”. We have books everywhere, info books, text books, recipe books, reading fun books, we love them all. Each member of our family has their own preference, but there are plenty of books to go around for everyone. Old books are the best, you can find all kinds of info in the older books.

In recent years, some of us have gone to E-Books and online sources, but it still counts because it is reading. Do not get us wrong, we still have all of our old books, but newer ones may be digital.

One of the most essential things you will need for any kind of homesteading, survival prepping, and self-sufficiency is access to information. Unless you have many decades of experience, chances are you either lack specific knowledge and skills about how to survive in various circumstances, or you will forget certain things that you knew at some point.

Even if you do have a wealth of knowledge, it is important to be able to always double-check anything you might need to know and also easily pass it along to your family. If you want to ensure success in the face of any difficulties, you should stock up on as much information as you can, both physically and digitally.

Physical information usually comes in the form of books, printouts, laminates, or any other printed media, such as pamphlets and field guides.

Digital information comes in many different formats, but for the sake of saving space, you should aim to stick to just text files where possible.

It may seem strange to rely on digital information, given that many survival situations would involve a lack of Internet access, but by downloading it and keeping it on you securely, you can access a wealth of knowledge in a very compact format without having to rely on Internet usage.

This is the section header for Utilize Physical and Digital Storage. The title is in bold black. The picture shows a beagle wearing reading glasses asleep on a book with other books, a digital tablet, and a digital flash drive near him. The background is white with a thin, border frame that goes from a light purple to a light mint green.

The first thing, to consider in Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile is using both physical and digital storage, and the differences between the two.

A. Utilize Physical and Digital Storage

Instead of picking one or the other, you should stock up on as many informational guides as you can in both forms of media. Since there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to have access to electricity in order to use your digital storage, you need to have physical guides for the most important things, like first aid, shelter creation, and food identification.

If you have downloaded digital media, you should still be able to access it as long as you can generate some kind of electricity. This might come from a solar charger for your laptop or phone if you’re on the move, or a gas-powered generator if you’re hunkering down at home.

While it will be harder to access digital media since it requires electricity, it does have many advantages that physical media does not. The most obvious one is the amount of space it takes up physically.

A couple of books can take up a lot of room, especially if they’re larger hardbacks. On a small external hard drive or SSD, you can store thousands of books with ease. The amount of space on newer portable flash drives and SSDs is incredible, and you can get something that stores multiple terabytes for less than $100.

With 2 terabytes, you can store every book you could ever want or need to read, and still have space to spare. That remaining space can be used for other forms of digital media, such as image-based guides and even video guides.

You can create cheat sheets and checklists from the larger data and print these out, and laminate them. Keep a copy at home and put a copy in the bug-out bags of you and your loved ones.

By keeping a combination of physical and digital information on you, you’ll be able to face any survival challenges without worry, since you’ll have detailed guides on how to do anything you may need to do.

This is the section header for Offline Digital Storage May Prove to Be Essential. The title is in bold black. The picture shows off line digital storage items: a laptop computer, a printer, and a flash drive. The background is white with a thin, border frame that goes from a light purple to a light mint green.

Another point to think about to Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile is storing your digital info offline for safety.

B. Offline Digital Storage May Prove to Be Essential

Given how much more information you can store on a flash drive or portable SSD, it seems like a no-brainer that you would want to keep one on you if you have a means of generating electricity, like a solar charger.

You will want to keep your laptop and whatever external storage device you’re using in a protective case, so that they don’t get damaged. It would also be best to get the most durable ones you can to begin with, so that you run as little risk as possible of damaging them.

Once you have your digital storage devices, you just have to pick out what you want to download. You can find many free PDFs of things like military survival guides and identification guides as well. You can stock up on hundreds of these without coming close to exceeding your storage limitations.

One resource that may be very useful for you is Wikipedia. It may seem unusable since it’s an entire website that would require Internet, but Wikipedia itself encourages you to download the entirety of it for free, and it only takes up a hundred gigabytes or so in total. On a multiple-terabyte drive, this would hardly make a dent.

Having the entirety of one of the largest encyclopedias you can find would be helpful in a number of ways, and it’s fairly easy to access as you can find it directly through Wikipedia’s own website.

While you can’t store too many before you start to run out of space, you should be able to keep a few hundred image guides on your drive as well. You should be able to store a decent amount of videos as well.

One thing you should also store, which many people don’t consider, is things like basic entertainment. It is not a necessity, so you shouldn’t prioritize it, but having creature comforts in dangerous situations can calm your nerves and actually make you think more clearly, which would improve your chances of survival.

You should be able to legally source things like audiobook MP3 files, and maybe even things like movies. You have to be sure that it is legal to download, such as the content that has entered the public domain, but even that would be a decent enough source of entertainment and comfort.

Be sure to also have a reliable source of electricity to power your laptop or whatever you plan on using to view the digital media. A solar charger should work well throughout the day to charge the battery over time.

This is the section header for Keep Your Physical Information Protected. The title is in bold black. The picture shows four squares with warnings in them. There is a picture for no fire, no water, no rats or bugs, and no electrical shock. The background is white with a thin, border frame that goes from a light purple to a light mint green.

Keeping your info safe is a critical part of Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile.

C. Keep Your Physical Information Protected

When it comes to physical media, you’re going to be a lot more limited on space, and you also need to take certain precautions with it to make sure that it stays intact. Rough conditions, such as moisture, can cause damage to physical media as well if it’s not properly cared for.

Since paper is a natural material, there’s also a slight risk of it being consumed by insects. No bugs are going to chew through your SSD, but some bugs can and will chew up paper, and if you don’t catch them in time, they can eat up larger sections of your books, rendering them less useful.

One way to make sure your guides and lists are cared for is by laminating them. Laminators are not terribly expensive, and they can be used to ensure that your important papers stay clean, dry, and protected against the elements.

A great way to keep multiple laminated guides neatly organized is by utilizing a three-ring binder. You could hole-punch the edge of the lamination so that it remains sealed, but keep everything neatly organized and easily accessible so that you don’t lose any pages.

Since you are going to be so much more limited with space when it comes to holding on to physical media, you should carefully select what you want to print off to be laminated. Things like maps and identification guides are a given, as well as guides for first aid and doing things like gathering water and making shelter.

Be sure to use your room wisely and only keep the essentials if you plan on using these guides for on-the-move survival, like you would keep in a bug-out bag. If you plan on sheltering in place somewhere like a homestead, you should have far more space for things like bookshelves where you can keep a lot more physical media.

Even at home, it is still important to keep these pieces of physical media protected. Bugs that eat away at paper may still pose a threat if you store your books poorly. For example, if you stored them in a box in a shed, they could be exposed to insects and moisture, meaning there’s a high chance that the books will become unusable over time.

Organization is of the utmost importance for your physical media. In a time when you might need quick access to certain kinds of information, the last thing you want to be doing is scrambling around trying to find the right thing across multiple pages or trying to find the right book.

You should instead organize your books and guides based on topic first, and then utilize sticky notes that stick out of the edge of the book, which are labeled to give you a quick way to find what information you need immediately.

This is the section header for Information Can Help You in Survival Situations. The title is in bold black. The picture shows frog sitting on a shroom doing yoga. There is a large book at his feet that says “How-To Stay Calm Under Pressure”. Above the frog is a large hornets nest with angry hornets flying around. The background is white with a thin, border frame that goes from a light purple to a light mint green.

It is most important to remember that your info is there to help you, and you must use it. That is the key to Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile.

D. Information Can Help You in Survival Situations

While having certain practical skills and physical endurance are of great importance, nothing is more important in a survival situation than knowledge and information. It doesn’t matter how far you can walk if you are unable to locate water or get it clean to make it drinkable.

The three major things you need in a survival situation are food, water, and shelter. It does take some skill to be able to get these, but it is far easier if you have the right information about how you should do so.

Take food, for example. If you wandered out into the woods and found a wealth of mushrooms, you would first need to know whether or not they were poisonous. Unless you already had a lot of experience foraging locally prior to whatever caused this survival situation, you’d be fairly lost.

However, if you had a local identification guide in print or digitally, you would be able to check then and there whether or not they were good for you to eat. Then, if you found that they were safe and knew that the information you had on hand was accurate, you could pick them all and bring back a bountiful supply of food.

The same could be said for getting water. Detailed digital maps of your local area could help you easily identify where you are and where the nearest streams or lakes are to you. This would save you a ton of energy by taking any guesswork out of the equation, preventing you from wandering aimlessly for hours on end looking for a water source.

Building proper shelters can be difficult, even if you have all of the right materials on hand. A video guide that you downloaded far in advance, however, could make things far easier, as it would be like having someone there with you to show you the ropes and follow along with their instructions.

This is a section divider for Be Prepared with a Survival Information Stockpile. There is a single, center line that goes from a light purple to a light mint green. The background is white with a thin, border frame that goes from a light purple to a light mint green.

By having multiple sources of information all well-sorted, you should be able to confidently tackle any problems that you might face in a homesteading, survival prepping, and self-sufficiency situation. This information will help you work through some very tough scenarios, especially those that could be dangerous if you do the wrong thing.

That being said, the best teacher is still experience. If you want to be fully prepared for the worst-case scenarios, you should go out and try some of the things you have learned and familiarize yourself with your local surroundings.

If you have the experience and the muscle memory is there to back up the information that you are using, as well as the physical strength to do these things, you will be very well off in any homesteading, survival prepping, and self-sufficiency situation.

We have put together a Survival Books and References Checklist and a Survival Training Courses Checklist to help you with this. These are general checklists and tips that you may need to tweak to fit your exact needs. Keep in mind every situation will be different so the needs may be a bit different as well. Feel free to download the PDF, print out, and use these pages for yourself.