Every survivalist makes mistakes or does not anticipate something accurately.

Some mistakes just about every survivalist makes; that is what these are.

Not having enough water preps. There are many survivalists who have six months of food and only two weeks of water on hand. Considering that you can survive without food about ten times as long as you can survive without water, you’d be better off with two weeks of food and six months of water.

Not having enough variety in food supplies. Too many new preppers buy nothing but rice, beans, flour, salt and sugar. If that’s all you have to eat after a disaster, you’re going to be miserable. Your body will have trouble adjusting to the new bare-bones diet and you’ll suffer from food fatigue.

Not having enough vitamins. Personally, I think everyone should be taking multivitamins since most modern diets don’t provide the nutrition we need, but this will be even more important in a survival situation. The stress of having your life turned upside down, constant threats to you and your family, and manual labor will take a lot of energy and tax your immune system. Vitamins will help keep you strong and healthy, especially Vitamin C.

Relying only on food storage. While the last few points have been about food, don’t forget all your other survival needs. When a lot of people think of prepping, the first things they think about are food and water and they proceed to stock up on them while neglecting health and beauty supplies, first aid kits, bug out bags, cooking implements, clothes, weapons and other important items.

Relying only on an arsenal. At the other end the spectrum, there are some preppers who focus all their attention on guns and ammo. The reasoning is that not only will they be able to protect themselves, they’ll be able to hunt their food and trade ammo for other supplies. This is unrealistic, especially if you’re in or near a city.

Planning on bugging out. Although having a bug out bag and a vehicle survival kit is important, unless you have advance warning of a disaster it will be very difficult to get from your home to your bug out location. The streets will be congested, roads and entire areas could be inaccessible, and gas could become unavailable. That’s why I think it’s so important to be ready to shelter in place.

Making it through a survival crisis is almost as much about not making fatal mistakes as it is being prepared to deal with whatever comes your way.

These common mistakes that almost everyone makes in some form or another must be avoided if at all possible.

To learn about other common mistakes most survivalists make, especially when they are just starting out, please visit the Urban Survival Site.