HS 192 - Practical Preppers with Scott Hunt

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show. This is your host, Jason Hartman, where we talk about protecting the people, places and profits you care about in these uncertain times. We have a great interview for you today and we will be back with that in less than 60 seconds. The holistic Survival Show. And by the way, be sure to visit our website@holisticsurvival.com you can subscribe to. Our blog, which is totally free, has loads of great information and there's just a lot of good content for you on the site. So make sure you take advantage of that@holisticsurvival.com we'll be right back. It's my pleasure to welcome Scott Hunt to the show. He's the owner of Practical Preppers and a consultant for National Geographic show Doomsday Preppers. And Scott, welcome. How are you?

I am doing great. Good to be with you, Jason.

Good, good. Hey, where are you located today?

Yeah, I'm in upstate South Carolina.

Fantastic. Well, let's talk about why prep first? Because you know, you do the show and that, that does some, has some different interesting profiles on that show. But just super quick, why prep? And then let's go into what we're prepping for.

Well, I look at prepping just like you would. Home insurance, car insurance. It's just an insurance program. Insurance policy for your water, for, for your shelter. And we can just be looking at just the crazy weather we deal with. Whether it's droughts or intense rains, hurricanes, depends on where you live, of course. And so there's many reasons just on just weather related issues should motivate us to prepare.

And beyond that, there's all kinds of economic threats and potential military threats, martial law threat, all sorts of things. You look at what happened in Boston just several months ago and that city was under martial law. Basically for people who didn't do anything wrong, you know, they were just, they were just looking for two guys. So it's crazy. But I always like to say that people can become a little bit prepared, which is a lot better than most are doing for as low as maybe 200 bucks. Do you think that's true?

That's probably with their water and food. If you're saying two to three, you know, maybe three days of prep, maybe a week. Yes. Just to have their water and food squared away. I agree with you. And maybe a little bit of extra fuel for their vehicles.

Maybe. Let's look at three prepper profiles if we can. And let's talk about the basic, the most simple prep, the lowest cost prep and then maybe a middle of the road plan and then a big plan.

Okay. Yeah. The basic plan I would have for somebody would be just to have a bug out bag or get out of dodge bag ready to go, that has water, food, minimal shelter, some communication. Just have a bug out bag in case you have to leave your area. And even if you don't, you can still use the contents. If you stay sheltered in place, then you can still use those contents to get you through a few days and everyone in the family should have one.

And these are things you can buy for 50 to 70 bucks. For a basic bug out bag. Is that about the right price?

Yes. I mean there's, I mean again, there's extremes that would be very bare minimum for me, but to have the ability to. I probably have 3, 4, $500 into a bug out bag, but that's, I'm thinking more long term. But $100 probably is going to be your baseline, good, decent bug out bag and you can go sky's the limit from there.

Sure, sure. And so you've got the bugout bag. Now, do you recommend that people keep the bug out bag in the trunk of their car?

It depends on their lifestyle, how far they live away from home. I mean, I work out on the road quite a bit consulting, so I keep mine with me and my bugout bag is really my get home bag. If I, you know, 100, 200 miles away from home, I want to be able to get home and I'm not going to be able to do that easily without some help, without some supplies.

And what's the next level up?

The next level up would be a family sheltering in place in their home. Or it could be an urban, it can be LA or Manhattan. Just having enough supplies to stay in your home for a week to two weeks to be able to weather any storm. I tell people, do not go out if you don't have to stay in place and you need water Stored and food stored. In order to do that, if you can stay warm or cool, depending where you live, and make a little bit of electricity to gather some intel, some information, what's going on, that is very important to be able to figure out what just happened. People freak out if they don't have information. Kind of a water, food, shelter, basically some electricity and lighting and just be able to take care of themselves for say two weeks period of time.

And what's the budget for the middle.

Of the road prepper? I would say a couple thousand dollars.

For how many people though? Family?

Four, Probably a family of four, yeah.

Okay. All right. And what's the next level up now in that middle of the road prepper, though you didn't mention communications. You mentioned maybe make some electricity, you know, like a hand crank radio you're probably talking about or something like that to know what's going on, a little bit of intel like you said. But how about outbound communications? I find that this is one area that's being very much overlooked.

No, well, I just was in one meeting about it yesterday with high frequency ham, you know, having a high frequency rig which costs you a good one's going to cost you about $1,000 being able to run it off of 12 volts at least, you know, 100 watt unit. But you can with a certain antenna, Nevis antenna, you're going to be able to get 300 miles from your location easily. And so long range communication is great. And having a network where you can relay to other folks without having to hit a repeater we think is very important because the power at the repeater will be down within a week or two. And then local communication. Being able to use MERs, we like the multi use radio service as a system for local communication within the neighborhood, within a 10 mile, pretty much a 10 mile radius. We're pretty good.

So tell us more about MERS.

MERS is M U R S multi use radio system. There's five channels, five watts, which is twice what a CB radio is. And you can get those in handheld units that are programmable. We like a programmable radio where I can have MERs and FRMs, GRMs, all these marine radio bands and be able to use it as a scanner too to check in with the police department, fire department, ems, and it's also weather radio, but it also is a 2 meter ham too. So I can hit the repeater for those first, maybe that first week where the power is still at that ham at the repeater tower. You can also get out with that smaller unit that's only 5 watts.

And do you recommend that people go and get their ham radio license or that they just have the actual device and, you know, have some knowledge as to how to use it so that they can use it in emergencies? And I should say that it is, from what I understand, legal to use a radio that requires a license in an emergency situation without a license.

That is correct. I recommend everybody get their tech level license. It's so much easier than it used to be. 300 questions. I mean, there's people that just memorize it, that take the test, get their tech license and then you can get on there. You can always get on. And you can buy your rig now and then you can be listening all the time. But a tech license isn't a big investment in terms of time to figure out what you need to know. Of course, a lot of preppers buy things and they don't know how to use them. So we always practice your preps, learn how to use the radio. But if you don't have a radio, you're done. So obviously the first thing I would tell somebody is get a radio. Get a decent Yaesu 857D radio if you can afford it. If you can't, you know, what's the.

Price of that one?

It's close to $1,000. But that is a highly, you know, it's a very high quality unit and, you know, can run off a 12 volt battery and it has enough power for you to really reach out there and, you know, go across states.

I assume that's not handheld.

No, but it is a portable. It is not a handheld. It is a portable though. It's not a huge, you know, you can definitely take it with you in a vehicle.

And what about insulating all this stuff from EMP threats?

It's a great question. People that prepare for an EMP are the most prepared people though it's the hardest thing to prep for. Most people are familiar if they know EMP as you do, that you need some sort of protection from that, whether it's nuclear coronal mass ejection, EMP weapon. And the Faraday cage is the most useful building or equipment or a cage around your equipment to protect it. I take a plug and play approach. If you know what is going to fail or what could fail, then buy extra. Those components, put them away. Maybe it's an extra radio, an extra cell phone, whatever. Put them away in your cage. I tell people to nest their Faraday cages, put one inside another and Your protection can go up exponentially. There's a lot of arguments about grounding. You can actually bring the trouble to you if you ground your Faraday cage incorrectly. So I'm a big fan of nesting. Putting something within another Faraday cage inside a Faraday cage and your level goes up tremendously.

Yeah, okay, great, great idea. And what are the costs of the Faraday cages?

You recommend $25 for a garbage can? A trash can. It's galvanized where the lid fits really tight. You can pick up the whole can with the handle and then line it with cardboard. And you can get one of those at Lowe's or a hardware store. And it works pretty good. Again, nobody knows for sure. It depends on how close you are. If it's a direct hit, the intensity of it, from nuclear down to solar, it's a guessing game on. Will your Faraday cage handle the emp? It's a question of distance and line of sight.

So that's just one of those garbage cans, huh? One of those metal garbage cans. Those old fashioned.

One of those metal garbage cans. Old fashioned galvanized garbage can is probably the cheapest Faraday case. And then there's people that are buying copper, Copper mesh. You don't have to be solid. You know, it can be a mesh wire screening. And it's just that people spend a lot of money on that. But it can be a soft metal, galvanized aluminum. Copper makes a very nice Faraday cage.

You know, I bought some of these, these EMP covers, these bags on Amazon. And you know, I'm just suspicious whether these will actually work. You know, you can't test this stuff until the disaster occurs. That's the problem. But these are like these $20 bags. And I just put some. Yes, we have them.

Yeah, they're tech protect bags. And I put, I have chainsaw modules I put inside them, but they're going in that inside my Faraday cage. So it's another layer of protection. They're built to a mil spec. The military puts some of their critical electronic devices and you know, the military has to be able to perform in a nuclear war. And so that's their standard practices to protect like their night vision in these type of bags. They're, you know, electrostatic electromagnetic pulse protection bags. Now I'm skeptical too. I mean, they are layered mylar metal bags and they do provide some protection. If you put your cell phone in it and call it, it will not ever recognize that it got a call. I know that's a simple test.

Well, that Is a good test. Good test. Let's talk about the highest level up, the ultimate prepper.

Yeah. And I would, I probably should have broke it down into five because my intermediate prepper would probably be up to six months. But the highest level prepper person that has enough supplies for him and his family and their community or their group to make it for about a year. But in the meantime they have also put into place many resupply plans for their water for food that what they're going to do is live off of the resupply or augment or supplement what they stored so that they can make it long term. A lot of people try to get to the point where they are sustainable at their location. And so that's a year plus.

Okay, so tell us more about what that person needs.

Well, that person needs a wide variety of food stores from short term dehydrated MREs up to the long term, the freeze dry, the 25 year type food and a good variety of that. And supplements, the oils, the vitamins and minerals and things. So they have a balanced diet for a year. And water supplies, having water stored. Everybody has to have water stored. But also maybe they put in a well where they didn't have one before so they have their own water there. They put in rain catchment, they buy a piece of property that is conducive to this, they might have a bug out location and that's where everybody's going to meet. That makes more sense in terms of their water supply or growing their own food and putting in things that are kind of fun. Aquaponics and all sorts of gardens. Rabbits, chickens, goats and being able to resupply and then learning how to preserve the foods whether it's canning, smoking, dehydration, vacuum sealing. Just learning how to preserve and store these foods as people used to do not too long ago. And with water, how to filter their water, security, getting trained on their weapons systems, standardizing their weapon systems, beginning tactical training so they don't shoot each other, that they know how to work together as a team. They practice, they meet regularly, they inform the neighborhood. They're, you know, they want to help other people. They're not that survivalists. They're, you know, they're people that want everybody to do well when the, you know, if the crap hits the fan. So excuse my language. So, and you know that. So long term preppers can. I've had people put a quarter of a million dollars into it that I've worked with. You know, some people spend a lot of money to, you know, because there's. There's property, there's infrastructure, there's solar, there's batter backups, there's backups to the backups, generators, fuels, propane, diesel. So there's a lot that. It's never ending with that kind of person because they're always thinking about and tweaking and trying to balance out their system.

Yeah, good points, good points. Talk to us a little bit more about the community angle of prepping, if you would. You mentioned an interesting thing before we started today, and we were talking about my background in real estate on the real estate investing side. And you were saying that you are approached by people who are looking to build survivalist communities, prepper communities. Just give us your thoughts on that. And just the community component of prepping as well.

Yeah, I believe in networking. We've done that in our area, that people shouldn't network even if they don't move or join a community, that they're in the community already and they're preparing. And it's nice to have a group of people working together, at least to share information. If you're in trouble, we can come help, that kind of thing. But there are people that, you know, there's developers and people that, you know, they're not selling real estate at least. Well, they're not being, you know, they're not investing in the golf courses anymore. And so they've approached me. It's like, what can we do? I'm like, and I keep telling them, why don't you turn that golf course into a sustainable village or community? People would love to have their own food and their own water and not be so dependent upon the grid or even a municipal water system from Texas to Virginia. I've gone to these sites and talked to them. It's hard to get a bunch of people to go in on a project like that. But I think it's a neat concept of developing a land, a piece of property or community that would be sustainable for a large group of people.

Yeah. Fantastic. Tell us a little bit about your involvement with the show and some of the kind of the consulting you've done for them. I mean, what do they ask you and what kind of advice do you give on how to make the show more successful?

Yeah, well, I was on the pilot and that was pitched to National Geographic, which picked it up. And we were assessed by the production company out of Manhattan, and we kind of laughed and joked and like, these people don't know anything about prepping. So when they came back to us and asked us if we wanted to be on season one, we said no, but we would be glad to participate in the assessing of the preppers, talking to them, giving you ideas on what you could do when you're on site filming. So we've been doing that for three seasons and helping them, giving them ideas on what they could build this season, which second episode's tomorrow night at 9 Eastern Standard Time is this whole season is about the build. They're building things for the scenario that they've picked to prep for. And so I just consult and help talk to them and like hey, did you consider do this to this vehicle? Don't use that, you know that's not going to help. Did you consider run flat tire? Some run flat technology on a vehicle. That was the guy last week. So it's been a lot fun this season actually. Talk to the prepper, work with them. And then I go through all their preps and I give them a score.

And then how do they react to it? Do they always take your advice?

Some of them, if I get to talk to them and I actually spend the time they do when I am third party and I get third hand information, then it doesn't go well. And so then you know, then you know, I'm getting third hand information and I can't do it because evaluation of somebody's preparations third hand. So this season's much better.

I just wonder, Scott, is there much conflict between the show biz, the Hollywood side of it and real prepping or is it pretty legit?

I mean there, you know, it's TV and their ratings and there's a little bit of sensationalization. There's people that want to be on TV of course, and so some of them don't have their preps together. And it's a lot of pressure if you're building something like this season. So and I have to give them credit because they're starting like a concept from scratch, being filmed and making sure that it works within a two to three day time frame. So they do very well for starting something they've never done before and build it on film and then it shows, you know, to the world. So I mean a lot of people don't understand that, you know, they're, they're doing this for the first time and some of their things and so that they might look goofy or it looks like I would never do that. And then they get an update and they get to improve it. And so the gentleman in Alaska storing things in the ocean, you know, that's the first Time he ever attempted to do it. He did a great job on film, but he's improved it since they filmed. So there's that. There's a lot of pressure for people that aren't used to being on camera doing things which, you know, seeing people shoot their thumbs off, just, you know, you just. When you're on film, on camera, you do things that you wouldn't normally do.

Sure, sure. Tell us about the guy storing stuff. I didn't see that episode. What was he doing storing stuff in the ocean? What do you mean?

Yeah, he lives in Ketchikan, Alaska. He's been prepping for a long time and he was on last week and it's probably the highest score I've ever given. And he had built these heavy. Under heavy tubes welded together, tubes that have supplies in them where he could catch them out in the ocean. He also uses the ocean where he lives to pretty much he can go down for about two hours and gather enough food for his family for a whole week out of the ocean. Sea cucumbers and all other things he pulls up on film. But he was actually hiding things because one of the things with a prepper is that you don't put all your stuff in one place. So he was actually caching things in the ocean and then he would go back and retrieve them if he had to. So he built a tankless scuba system that allows him to go down 40 to 50ft. And he's running off a little compressor and a battery. And solar wow.

Yeah, and solar wow. That's cool. That's pretty impressive. Very, very unique. Very original.

It was. It was very original.

What are your thoughts on the state of America and around the world as to how prepared people. People are? Is this just going to be a really rude, ugly awakening or are the preppers overdoing it? Is the threat not that big? I mean, I would assume places like the big cities like la, I mean, Southern California is going to be a disaster in an. In a disaster. New York City, Miami, places like that will just be a mess.

Anything along the coast can be very difficult for a lot of people. People, just the majority of people are not going to prepare. I wish they would, but they're not and they're going to suffer for it. So it's kind of a race to get the word out. Get as many people preparing just for a week. Just do what Fema says, what ready.gov says, what red Cross says. Just prepare to take care of your family, otherwise you're going to have to go out you're going to have to leave your location. You're going to be vulnerable and could potentially be hurt. So it's just common sense.

Scott, you may know as little about this as I do, what I'm about to ask, or you may know something about it because I just don't know. But what's the state of preparedness around the world like in other countries? Do people do this stuff or are they just totally relying on the system?

Well, I have a YouTube channel. I've had one for three years. And people contact me from Malaysia, Norway, Australia. There are people preparing all over the world. They see a global economy that's going to affect them. They don't know how it's going to affect them, but they don't like where it's heading. And so there's people preparing all over the world. To what degree, I don't know. I just do get contacted from people. It's great to be able to help them, and I learned from them as well. And. But people are preparing and a lot of people, People moving out of the country. There'll be a gentleman next couple of weeks. He went from Kansas to Costa Rica and he's setting up his family. His family, they're there. They. That's part of the showing how they left the United States to go to Costa Rica. There's people going to Belize. They just feel safer in a third world country where people aren't as entitled to services as they are here.

Very interesting. You know, I find it funny that people complain so much about the US Government, including myself, and then they go to a place like Belize. And I just had John McAfee on the show. You know, you may know that name, the famous software. Yeah, the antivirus billionaire. And he moved to Belize for a while and. And it's like they get to the cops there. His neighbor was murdered and he wasn't a suspect, but the police there were holding him for questioning. And they get to hold you for 30 days and then renew it for 30, and then renew it for 30, like indefinitely. You know, at least here you get a. You get to go in front of a judge in three days, unless it's under the ndaa. But I gotta tell you, I am not impressed with Belize, man. I've been there twice, and I'm not.

Impressed with going out of country times. I'm staying here and I don't recommend it to anybody. People think the grass is greener and they find out quickly, as you're saying.

Well, I will agree with him in that the grass is getting a lot browner here. I think we'd all agree with that.

But that's everywhere. I think that's worldwide.

And I just think the US Has a long way to fall before it's, before it's time to go. There's just a lot of challenges with expatriation, but it's worth considering. At least we should be thinking about it, have it in the back of our mind just as a plan B. But good stuff. Well, hey, this has been very informative. Scott again, Scott Hunt, practical preppers and consultant for Nat Geo's Doomsday Preppers. Scott, give out your website if you would. Yeah, it's practicalpreppers.com practicalpreppers.com and that's a great website. A lot of good stuff there. So go check out some of Scott's products and be prepared. Scott, thanks for joining us.

Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Have you listened to the Creating wealth series? I mean, from the beginning? If not, you can go ahead and get book one. That's shows one through 20 in digital download. These are advanced strategies for wealth creation. For more information, go to jason hartman.com. Thank you for joining us today for the holistic survival protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Be sure to listen to our Creating wealth show which focuses on exploiting the financial and wealth creation opportunities in today's economy. Learn more at www.jasonhartman.com or search Jason Hartman on itunes. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. On offering very general guidelines and information. Opinions of guests are their own and none of the content should be considered individual advice. If you require personalized advice, please consult an appropriate professional information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.