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When you think of prepping are you thinking of building a nuclear fall-out shelter in your backyard? I was totally the same way blame it on an old episode of Doomsday Preppers… That’s not what prepping is! Maybe an extreme version but we’re not going extreme today. Today we’re talking about SMART prepping – what it is, is it too late, how do you start without getting overwhelmed, benefits, and more!
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Resources:
Money Masters Inner Circle Academy – https://aimeecerka.com/academy
Podcast Keypoints
0:00 – Episode Overview
1:57 – Episode Sponsorship – Money Masters Inner Circle Academy
4:09 – What Is Smart Prepping?
5:16 – Is It Too Late?
6:01 – Smart Prepping At A Minimum
7:16 – Start Simple Without Overwhelm
8:21 – Why Should You Be Smart Prepping?
12:43 – Challenge – How Are You Feeling?
Frustrated that you aren’t making the progress that you should within your finances? Create an unshakable money mindset with the Money Mindset Mastery Checklist
Read It! Should You Be Smart Prepping?
When you think of prepping, are you thinking of building like a nuclear fallout shelter in your backyard?
I was totally the same way and I blame in our old episode of doomsday preppers. That’s not what prepping is. Maybe an extreme version, but we’re not going extreme today.
Today we’re talking about Smart Prepping. What it is, is it too late, how do you start without getting overwhelmed, the benefits and more. Because this is the Your Money Your Life podcast, where ambitious women come together to have clarity, prosperity and confidence with their money without sacrificing precious time and well-deserved fun. So, let’s do this!
Welcome to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka.
After my husband and I faced three major financial roadblocks in the last six years, I felt like I wasn’t doing all that I could and I had let my family down. It always felt like life was a struggle like I had to work harder than everyone else. It just came easy to them, and I didn’t feel worthy of success.
Until, a coach helped me see the successes in our experiences instead of our failures. This allowed me to create and implement systems to grow our network by 200,000+ while spending time with my loved ones and on my priorities. Now I help motivated women create the happiness, family life, financial security, and long-term wealth they deserve.
If you’re ready to eliminate stress, struggle, frustration and guilt within your finances, you’re in the right place. Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!
Money Masters Inner Circle Academy
This episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast is brought to you by Money Masters Inner Circle Academy. I’m so freakin excited to be bringing the academy to you.
So, do you struggle with overwhelm, judgment, frustration or fear when it comes to your finances? Or do you just never have time to do the things that you know you need to? Or even know where to begin and end up in like this vicious cycle? How about when you finally get ahead, and then the refrigerator breaks, or a kid gets sick or the car needs to go to the shop and you lose all your hard work?
You’re not alone. Actually, you’re in the right place. Inside the brand-new academy, we’re going to start with the basics, creating a solid financial foundation for you that allows your budget to meet the three critical rules for growth. Then we’re going to add in power ups to make sure your hard-earned money goes farther and of course systematize the process that you have more time to do what you love with whom you love, all stress free.
When you have those tough moments where you just don’t know if you’re doing enough or even the right thing, you’ll have weekly group coaching calls so that you can get back into momentum, fast. As well as up to date relevant training for what’s going on now in the world and what’s coming. And of course, we’re going to do it all with simple practical strategies that actually work, in a fun manner!
That’s part of why we’re adding in the Execution Lab, a monthly meeting where we sit down, listen to some fun music and work on our finances. The stuff that we need to make time for, we’ll do it together! And of course, I’ll be there live with you if questions come up along the way.
The Academy officially opens in June. So, all you need to do right now to stay in the know and to be eligible for some pretty sweet bonuses, is go to aimeecerka.com/academy and join the waitlist. Of course, if you miss that link, it’s going to be hanging out in the show notes for you.
Welcome back to another episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host Aimee Cerka.
What is Smart Prepping?
We are talking today about Smart Prepping. Not extreme, Smart Prepping.
Let’s start with like the definition of prepping, okay? So, definition is the act or process of preparing something or preparing for something. For example, after hours of prepping and cooking and stressing and a few near breakdowns, Thanksgiving was wonderful. There are ways that we are prepping without like the doomsday extreme version that I’m thinking a lot of us think of, okay?
I want to like kind of start with that clarity because that extreme level of prepping can have like a negative connotation to it. And you know, we’re not doing that. Okay. We don’t have to do that. I mean, I don’t know, they don’t seem as crazy as they used to. But regardless, that’s not what we’re talking about. Okay.
Is it Too Late to Start Smart Prepping?
So, the first question that I hear pretty frequently, even when we did the Combating Inflation Training was, “Is it too late?”
Is it too late to do this now? Is it too late to be prepping? Is it too late to be prepared? No, it’s not too late. There will probably hit a point where it is too late, but it’s not too late yet. Okay. So if you’re hearing this, like you, there’s still hope let’s take action now. Let’s not delay because you know, the best time to plant a tree is now and… or 20 years ago when like the second-best time is now so let’s do it now, okay?
The Basics: 30 Days of Food
So, we’re talking about Smart Prepping. What smart prepping is at a minimum? Let’s keep 30 days of food on hand. Okay, so if something happened, and you couldn’t get to the store for 30 days, having enough supplies on hand, — this is food, this is household necessities, etc. — to be able to provide for yourself and your family for 30 days.
Now, with water, it’s a little bit different. Water we typically say three days’ supply of water. The next pro step would be like long term, like how could you take care of your water if something happened to the water supply. But three days is typically water.
Getting Started: Creating a Simple List
But let’s focus on food. Okay? Make a list. This can feel very overwhelming. And again, we’ve got a whole training inside the Academy on How to Successfully and Smartly Smart Prep.
So first 30 days, being able to take care of yourself, keeping a list, — this is where the pro level the kitchen inventory came from, that we talked about last week. So like that, there’s a lot there just telling you having 30 days of food on hand can kind of feel like a little much, a little stressful. Okay, so let’s talk about how to get started making a simple list.
If you already have the list of the meals that you usually make, you’re a step ahead. Like put together a list of the core ingredients that you would need for that, or even start a little bit more simple, just have an extra. Okay, so spaghetti noodles, have an extra box of spaghetti noodles on hand. So, an extra container or spaghetti sauce on hand. If you have to start with a little bit by bit and you do not have to go to the grocery store and buy it all now, I mean, if you’ve got the money in the budget, sure, go for it.
But you can also add to this bit by bit just picking up one or two extra things, each and every time that you go to the store, you’re going to make those progress, okay. And that’s really like, how you get started without feeling overwhelmed. Just start small — start with what you can handle. Start with picking up an extra ketchup bottle or an extra mustard, an extra thing of pasta an extra thing of rice, or we talked about mac and cheese last week and extra thing and mac and cheese. Okay?
Why Smart Prepping Matters
So why is it smart to be Smart Prepping?
And like why would you do this? Is it just because you’re a crazy person? You know? NO.
Inflation is probably the biggest thing. On the Combating Inflation Training, we also talked about food runs as well. There was a couple of times, you know, I’m in Texas, so Snowmageddon. Was it last year, two years ago, now? We’ve had a Snowmageddon.
The Impact of Inflation
With Snowmageddon in the first, like when we really had it in 2021, and it was pretty bad. And like, I think it was talked about at least nationwide and all of those things. We had done some work to prepare and now thankfully, we did not lose electricity and all that, although we had prepared in that regard. And again, we’ll get into that inside the Academy Training.
But there was still like, some stress like okay, can like I take care of my family? And it was something that I’ve worked on having a better understanding of over the course of the year. So, when the prospect of another Snowmageddon came up, this year in 2022, we were already done.
Handling Food Runs and Natural Disasters
So like, I remember getting a text from my husband, he was like, “Hey Babe, you might want to stop at the store because like, I’ve got coworkers that are saying that there’s nothing there”. And I think we’ve all seen that before. You know, like there’s something coming and a natural disaster of some sort or a really bad snowstorm. I think hurricanes have this as well when you’re closer to the coast. We’re what five, six hours away from the coast. So, we don’t really have that.
But when those things happen, there’s kind of run-on food and everybody panics, and they go run and buy things, and then we can’t find stuff or the prices are increased, because they know everybody’s freaking out and going to buy it. When you smart prep for this, you don’t have that problem because you know what I wasn’t worried. Like, we did go to the store, because like, it was our usual day to the store and we kind of like looked at it.
It wasn’t like, we had to get to the store because we didn’t have anything there, like we were fine. We knew we could take care of the house. We knew we had food to eat. We knew we had like ways for heat. We knew we were good.
Peace of Mind and Better Living
So, between inflation, and runs on foods and natural disasters, and being able to take care of your family when something happens, because we’ve seen all the craziness, and we’re going to continue to see the craziness. So if you’re seeing the craziness, then like doing this, is going to give you peace of mind, security and you’re going to save money too, because you’re not going to have to buy when like money, when prices are increased astronomically. And when you’re at peace, you show up better for yourself and your family.
And that’s really like one of the biggest goals of the Academy is not only like to give you all these tools, to handle your finances, to do all this, to get into the tactical. But you being a better version of yourself. That’s the thing that like, I can’t even like tangibly describe to you how good it feels when you reach this place, and this confidence with your money that we talk about all the time, okay?
So, Smart Prepping. Not extreme. We’re being smart and preparing for something, right? It’s not too late yet. But you’re going to take action now so that you don’t wait too long, and then it IS too late. You’re going to start working towards having that 30 days’ worth of food and, you know, toothpaste and toilet paper and all those important things ready.
But at a minimum, you’re going to start with just grabbing one extra thing a week, whether it’s ketchup and mustard and some of the condiments or scrubbing an extra of spaghetti noodles. You’re just going to start with one thing at a time because we’re not going to get an overwhelm, but we’re going to do this because we know that between inflation and natural disasters, food runs that we’re doing what we need to do to protect ourselves and our families so that you can have the peace of mind, security and save money. Because like I said, when you’re at peace, you’re going to show up as a better version of yourself, for yourself and for your family.
Your Challenge for Today
So your challenge for today, I want to know how you’re feeling. I know this can be a harder subject especially with you know, outside influences talking about like extremes and like it’s the end of the world or kind of making people see like they’re extreme if they’re doing these things. I want to know how you’re feeling after this episode.
Give me like a temperature check. Send me a message on Instagram saying this was super helpful, you’re out of your mind, somewhere in between, I don’t know how you do it all Aimee, something like that at @aimeecerka. The links are gonna be below in the show notes of course. We’ll see you next week for another episode of the Your Money, Your Life podcast. Bye for now!
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money Your Life podcast. My favorite place to hang out is on Instagram. You can find me at @aimeecerka. Send me a message or post a screenshot and tag me! I love hearing from podcast listeners.
When you’re ready to master your money, go to https://workwithaimee.com. You and I will work together to ditch financial stress and struggle for good with a customized plan that works for you, your goals, your priorities, your life. I’ll see you next time on the Your Money Your Life podcast.
If you love today’s episode, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. That way you’ll receive new episodes right when they’re released, then leave a rating and review. It helps amazing people just like you find the show faster. We’ll see you next week!
if you love today’s episode, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcast. That way you will receive new episodes right when they are released then leave a rating and review. It helps amazing people just like you find the show faster. We’ll see you next week.
