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The Common Sense Practical Prepper
Welcome to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, where I, a novice prepper, share my successes, stumbles, and lessons to make prepping approachable for all. Discover how to build long-term food storage with budget-friendly options like freeze-dried meals and bulk grains, while keeping your supplies fresh and ready.
I’ll also dive into situational awareness to stay sharp in any crisis, personal safety tips to protect yourself and loved ones, and bartering strategies for when cash isn’t king. Each episode ties real-world examples to current events, like recent storms or supply shortages, to keep you prepared. Have feedback or ideas? Email practicalpreppodcast@gmail.com.
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The Common Sense Practical Prepper
Battling Stigma: The Global Rise of Practical Prepping
Fear of being labeled an extremist shouldn't stop you from being prepared. In this eye-opening exploration, we dive into how different cultures worldwide view emergency preparedness—with some fascinating surprises.
Starting with a practical breakdown of "junk silver" as a bartering option, we analyze whether those pre-1964 dimes and quarters (with their 3.75 troy ounces of silver per $5 face value) are worth the premium price when compared to straightforward silver rounds. The math gets complicated quickly, revealing why simplicity might trump historical currency during crisis situations.
The global perspective on prepping reveals striking contrasts. While Americans often battle stereotypes from sensationalized TV shows like "Doomsday Preppers," countries like Sweden have explicitly endorsed preparedness by mailing 5 million households a guide called "If a Crisis or War Came." Japan's approach proves even more compelling—preparedness isn't labeled as "prepping" but exists as an unquestioned cultural norm due to frequent earthquakes and tsunamis.
Perhaps most surprising is how preparedness transcends political boundaries. From conservatives to liberals to libertarians, the estimated 23.5 million American preppers ($11 billion industry) share the common goal of self-reliance during emergencies. By focusing on practical skills like "Stop the Bleed" training and maintaining basic supplies, prepared individuals actually reduce strain on emergency services during disasters—allowing resources to reach the truly vulnerable.
The stigma makes little sense when you realize preparation simply means taking responsibility for yourself and your family. Whether it's climate threats, supply chain disruptions, or unforeseen emergencies, having food, water, shelter, and basic medical knowledge represents common sense, not extremism.
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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning. Welcome to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast, where prepping doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Coming to you from a well-defended, off-grid compound high in the mountains, coming to you from his Florida room in Richmond Virginia Neither off-grid nor well-defended, unless you count as chickens and cats, here is your host, keith.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, professional voiceover guy. Hey y'all, it's Keith and welcome back to the Common Sense Sense Practical Pepper podcast, august the 4th 2025. I want to start out by answering an email. This is in reference to a couple podcasts ago when I talked about bartering with silver, asking what I thought about what they call junk silver old dimes, nickels and quarters way back in the day that had a higher silver content. So I don't know a whole lot about it. So I went ahead and went on the SD Bullion website and they are selling junk silver at spot.
Speaker 2:Now, if you remember, spot is at any given time, the current price of silver per troy ounce. In looking at their website, they are selling $5 of US silver Roosevelt dimes. Check me on my math. I believe that would be 50 dimes. Get you $5. That's face value. You hold out 50 dimes and that's $5. But the amount of silver in those dimes comes out to in that whole, 50 dimes is 3.75 troy ounces for all of that and they're selling it at spot. So if that 50 dimes is 3.75, you multiply it by the spot price and you pretty much come out to about $135, like right now if you were to purchase that. So it sounds kind of crazy. You're like, wait a minute, I'm paying $135 for $5 in dimes. I'm not sure if that's such a good deal, keith, but remember you're purchasing it for the silver content and then I guess, for the the melt content, and I don't have like a crucible. I'm not going to be going through all of my change and looking for dimes and and melting dimes and trying to remove the silver from the other stuff. That's not what I'm going to do. But I guess when it comes to bartering, those dimes might come in handy.
Speaker 2:Silver has an intrinsic value. Unlike paper currency, silver as a currency tends to be more stable. So that's basically what junk silver is. If you go to sdbullioncom or any of the other precious metal sites, they'll sell just like a big canvas bag of like $1,000 coins face value, but then you had spot the premium and that sort of thing. So it's something you can look at, but I'm not really so sure.
Speaker 2:Like I talked a few podcasts ago, is someone you know for those three dozen eggs? Is somebody saying okay, well, keith, I'll give you these 50 dimes which cost them $135. I'll give you these 50 dimes, but remember, in this whole handful of 50 dimes there's 3.75 ounces of silver. To me that just gets a little complicated trying to do the math. But again it goes back to what somebody is willing to pay for any particular item. So it may sound crazy, but $5 worth of Roosevelt dimes, that is worth $135 silver wise might be worth that. But then again, if you take that into a coin shop, you paid $135, you take it into a coin shop you're going to lose money today because you pay $135, you go in tomorrow the gentleman at the coin shop might give you $127. It's certainly not going to get $135, but the price of silver goes up like anything else. You paid $135. If silver goes up $5, $6, $7, $8 a troy, then then I guess when you take them to the coin shop you're going to be looking at a little, a little bit more of a profit once the coin shop owner tax on you know, tax on their costs. So it's, it's weird, it's not, as to me it's much cleaner to have, you know, a silver Eagle or a Morgan dollar or a one ounce generic silver round, because you don't have to worry about about so that the silver round is 0.999% silver as opposed to 50 dimes is 3.75 ounces. To me, the math is a whole lot easier with just a one ounce silver round or silver Eagle Morgan dollar, whatever it happens to be All right. So that's my little spiel on junk silver, and I probably confused you as much as I confused myself.
Speaker 2:Okay, what I want to talk about is I was thinking the other day, how do other countries view preppers and prepping? So here in the United States the first thing you think of, if you're a non prepper, the first thing you think of is you probably go to that doomsday prepper show they had on discovery channel. I'm not even probably in reruns right now. I watched a few of those years ago and I'm. I thought to myself those people are nuts, they don't. I mean, they were so over the top. So I kind of get the stigma or the stereotype that preppers are a bunch of right wing lunatics that have totally lost their minds and they're waiting for the zombie apocalypse or you know somebody to drop a nuke on the East coast. They just it just seemed over the top and I get it, it's all scripted. So I'm not really sure that the Doomsday Prepper show or the series did justice to those of us who take it very seriously, who aren't walking around in hazmat suits, you know 24-7 waiting for, you know waiting for the zombie apocalypse.
Speaker 2:So I did some digging and I went to my favorite AI program and I backed it up with other sources of information. I've said it a million times just don't take the word of one AI program Shoot two years ago or even six months ago. I'd say, don't take the word of just one website, because what AI does? It scrubs the internet or it scrapes the internet. So when you ask Grok or another AI program, copilot or whatever all these AI programs are called, don't think that you're talking to like this little robot mind out in the ether coming up with its own ideas. Ai is programmed and it's going to scrape the internet, given some guardrails that the programmers assign ahead of time, if that makes any sense. So you're not getting any new information To you. It might be new, but the AI program is not like groundbreaking, some trailblazer giving you information that no one has ever thought of or no one has ever read or created.
Speaker 2:Okay, we'll start with the United States. This is going to be an easy one. So prepping is mainstream and it continues to grow. Here in the U? S, it's estimated 23 and a half million preppers $11 billion annually that are spent on prepping and prepping supplies. Once and maybe some to some extent was associated with far right groups or conspiracy theorists. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of those out there. But now prepping is seen as more pragmatic response to diverse risks like natural disasters, political polarization and economic instability. All right, that makes perfect sense. Hedge on inflation, supply chain disruption and things along that lines.
Speaker 2:Frequent natural disasters, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, political unrest— All of these things kind of go into why certain people prep the way they do. If you're located in Florida, you're probably looking at hurricanes. You're out in California, out West, you're probably looking at wildfires, not really hurricanes. Earthquakes it's pretty much going to get you wherever and tornadoes and severe storms in the Midwest for the most part. But it's becoming more and more mainstream maybe. But as you know the government and FEMA, they promote 72-hour kits. You can go to FEMAgov and it gives a lot of details on what you need to build out for your 72-hour kit, where you can take CPR classes, stop the bleed classes. So there's a little bit of crossover. So it's not necessarily some underground movement. Prepping here in the United States it's becoming much more mainstream. I know folks on both sides of the aisle that prep. I know some folks that are liberals that prep. I know folks that are conservative Republicans that prep, and I know people in the middle I guess that'd be libertarians they also prep.
Speaker 2:It really has nothing to do with your political affiliation per se. It's just how you view the world and what may or may not happen. It's about self-reliance. Let's put it that way Just take politics out of it and you just call it self-reliance. I'm going to take responsibility for my actions. My actions have consequences. I'm going to do what is necessary to protect myself and protect my family, regardless of my politics, regardless of what happens outside. I'm going to do what I need to do to protect myself and protect my family. Political agendas just remove it. It's easy to throw it in, it's easy to point fingers, but just take the politics out of it. And if you do anything, the smallest thing, you go to Costco, you go to Kroger and you get two extra flats or two extra containers of bottled water, 36 bottles, 48 bottles.
Speaker 2:You're a prepper. I'm sure people are like wait a minute, don't you call me a prepper for just getting a couple extra things of water at Costco. But you are. You're being prepared. What are you being prepared for? Well, I'm being prepared for the really hot weather that's coming up, okay, well, why do you have a flashlight and a bunch of lanterns and a bunch of emergency candles? Well, I'm kind of being prepared for in case the power goes out. If you don't want to be called a prepper, you think it's a negative stereotype. There's some stigma attached. Call yourself whatever you want. Call yourself just preparing for something. If you don't like the word prepper, you do. You Talk about the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2:Prepping is much less widespread than in the US, is also viewed with skepticism or amusement and associated with eccentric survivalists, which is really kind of odd. And with Brexit and some of the instability in the EU, it's led to some shortages in food, or perceived food shortages. When they have bad weather over there, they have bad weather, flooding, flash flooding. So it's a little more mainstream, but certainly not to the extent that it is here in the United States. Talk about Sweden. Now, this is interesting.
Speaker 2:Prepping is increasingly mainstream and government endorsed, spurred by geographical tensions with Russia. Well, that makes sense. I mean, it's their neighbor. Once considered a fringe movement, preppers are now seen as practical, with the government mailing 5 million households a booklet in 2018, if a Crisis or War Came. That's the title of it, urging folks to have a 72-hour kit and self-sufficiency. See, that's not so bad. I guess if it comes from the government, more people would be likely to accept it, I guess. So if they're saying, well, the government is saying I should do this, then the folks in Sweden are maybe a little more accepting. Well, our government says the same thing. Go back to FEMA and all the other websites at Red Cross. You can find a million different websites and all sorts of information to cover that. Finland, kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2:They're right next to Sweden, germany, so prepping is growing, but it remains kind of a niche, a niche hobby, often associated with bushcraft or urban prepping, aka stocking up at Aldi. If you've never been to an Aldi, well, if you've been to an Aldi here in the United States, very similar to the ones in Germany, aldi is the bomb. I love going to Aldi here and I love going to Aldi in Germany. It's becoming more and more accepted over there. Now. There are very strict weapon laws in Germany, so you know you're not going to have an arsenal like some folks might have here in the United States Stockpiling, hoarding a lot of people those are negative terms.
Speaker 2:When you hear hoarding or stockpiling, it's kind of a negative term, but it's becoming more and more accepted. But it's becoming more and more accepted. The government encourages basic preparedness and what they use as their barometer is a 10-day food supply. So the government in Germany says this is what you should have. They're going well beyond a 72-hour kit. They're going to 240-hour kit. In Germany, urban preppers are more visible. They have gardens, small gardens, grow their own tomatoes, peppers, that sort of thing. So they're a little more self-sufficient.
Speaker 2:I guess you could say Talk about Japan. So prepping is not explicitly labeled as such, but is deeply ingrained due to the frequent earthquakes. That was in 2011 was a really bad one. So we get earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons. It's seen as practical, non-controversial part of life. So government kind of stays out of it. In a sense, there's no friction. The government mandates preparedness, go bags, seismic building codes, a lot of earthquakes over there and the building codes over there are very, very strict and society kind of views this as the norm and not really a subculture. Preppers are rarely stigmatized as preparedness is recognized universally among all the people in Japan. All right, talk about a couple more.
Speaker 2:Australia. So prepping is growing in Australia, especially in rural areas. Now what's the old adage? Everything in Australia wants to kill you. The spiders are about the size of small dogs and that that so prepping is is more mainstream. Floods, wildfires and folks you know out there in the, the, the bush, the bush country, the Australian bush those folks are in the middle of nowhere. It's almost a part of life to be self-reliant, self-sufficient when help is hours away, hours away when the grocery store, the market, is hours away. It's pretty much just a way of life. The government supports disaster preparedness and society increasingly respects preppers, especially after recent climate change events.
Speaker 2:India here's an interesting one. Prepping is emerging in India, particularly in urban areas, and is viewed as a practical but niche trend. Influencers like Little Urban Prepper whoever that is promote urban survival, but it's not really widespread and it's often seen as an import from the West. Over there, climate risk, floods, heat waves, earthquakes, economic instability and urban density tend to drive the interest or drive prepping. So many people jam-packed in a little area. I said it before. Take New York City the power goes out for an extended period of time. There's some sort of supply chain issue. You have a lot of people in a very small area. The little markets are going to run out of food super quick. You don't have the large grocery stores like you have in other parts of the country. So the little markets, the little corner markets, the bodegas, are going to be overrun and emptied very, very quickly.
Speaker 2:So globally, so globally prepping is increasingly being accepted. It's on the rise globally, driven by climate change, geopolitical tensions and pandemics. Once mocked, preppers are increasingly seen as practical, with governments Sweden, finland and Japan that normalize preparedness. Now here in the US it's not really normalized. It just depends on where you look. So if you look towards FEMA and the Red Cross, then there's a lot of information out there. So in the information's out there, it's not like it's being hidden.
Speaker 2:But I really don't understand the, the negative stereotypes and the negative stigma that is, is there such thing as a positive stigma and the stigma that is associated with prepping and preppers, some preppers and some types of prepping? You know, here in the United States, as anything else, folks, there's always bad apples, there's bad cops, there's bad doctors, there's bad lawyers, the people that bag your groceries at Kroger, and it's always the bad person or the negative aspect that's focused upon. That kind of gives everybody else kind of a bad name. One bad apple spoils the whole bushel or spoils the whole bunch. So that's what at times the media will tend to gravitate to, kind of like the Doomsday Prepper series. Those people were just way over the top. So I can see people not familiar with prepping watching one of those shows and going, oh my gosh, I don't want to do anything like that. Those people are nuts. Maybe it was done for effect, maybe it was done for ratings, I don't know. But I don't quite understand the negativity that's associated with it.
Speaker 2:You're doing what you need to do, you would hope. Your friends, your neighbors, your government, local government, federal government what have you be encouraged by the fact that you are being prepared. You are self-reliant. So when the power goes out, when there's some sort of supply chain issue, they don't have to worry about a certain percentage of the population as much as they do the others that are not prepared. So the emergency services, food banks, the Red Cross, fema, there's going to be folks out there that are prepared and there's different levels of preparedness, don't get me wrong. But you're going to have manpower and material and assistance that's going to those folks that have not prepared correctly the elderly, whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 2:You are not going to have to find a first aid station, an emergency food relief cache or whatever they call them food relief cache or whatever they call them. You're not going to have to try to find out how many miles do I have to walk or how many miles do I have to drive to get to a food depot to pick up my beans and my rice and my water and my powdered milk. You're already there. You have it in your home. You're already prepared for that sort of thing. So you don't have to risk traveling to these locations, and that would be definitely risky. So you don't have to risk traveling to these locations, and that would be definitely risky, because you know there's people that do not want to go to these food depots, these food banks. They're going to wait for someone else driving down the road or walking down the road and they're going to basically steal their supplies. They'll use the supplies, sell them on the black market, a million different things. You don't have to venture out necessarily, maybe for something, but if you're properly prepared, you're not going to have to venture out to the food banks, to the checkpoints, to pick up whatever services are being provided.
Speaker 2:Talk about first aid, basic first aid and maybe some advanced first aid. Stop the bleed Everybody should know CPR. Everybody should know the basic stop the bleed. You can go on YouTube. You can probably go to your local Red Cross. You can find all sorts of information out there. It's called stop the bleed. That's probably the trademark name of the program. There's IFACs, individual first aid kits, tourniquets, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:So, if you're prepared, you have food, water, shelter and you have the basic first aid skills, you're set. Again, given the circumstances and the length of the supply chain, disruption or the length of the powers that is out you are prepared. You won't have to venture out. You won't have to worry about what's going on in the outside world and you won't have to venture out. You won't have to worry about what's going on in the outside world and you won't have to put yourself at any more risk than you already are. All right, folks, thank you so much for listening and always take care of one another. Be safe out there and until next time. Okay, voiceover guy, it's all yours.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode While you're at it. Help spread the word by leaving a rating and review.
