Advertise on podcast: The Common Sense Practical Prepper

Send us Fan Mail A podcast side project just turned into something you can actually put on your shelf. Keith from the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast shares the news that Lone Man On The Ridge is becoming a real paperback, and he’s genuinely fired up about it because it only happened for one reason: listeners kept showing up, sending messages, and demanding to know what happens to Jack next. We talk through how the story started as a between-episodes experiment, even though Keith had never written fiction before and already had a full plate after 26 years in law enforcement. That experience becomes the backbone of the book’s tone: a collapse narrative rooted in realistic human behavior, not fantasy prepper gear lists. The collapse is there, but it’s not the point. The point is what it does to people, the panic, the decency, the ugliness, and the quiet courage you can’t predict until everything goes sideways. Keith also reveals the new book cover and describes it clearly: Jack standing on the ridge at sunset with Mr. Rogers by his side. He invites honest feedback on the design over on X at prep_underscore_podcast. We also dig into fun “Easter eggs” for preparedness-minded readers, including a real amateur radio call sign and other hidden details like silver rounds that connect the fiction to real-world prepping. If you like prepper fiction, realistic survival stories, ham radio details, and character-driven post-collapse novels, hit subscribe, share this update with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What do you most want to see in the book: more realism, more mystery, or more hard-earned hope? Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail I went to Chicago for a work trip, had a great meeting, caught a Cubs game, and nothing bad happened. But being 12 hours from home by car meant something I did not expect to feel so sharply: I was 12 hours from my preps. No pantry. No familiar systems. No neatly organized gear. Just what I had in my head and what fit in a suitcase. That low-level hum of awareness kicked off a bigger conversation about something many of us in the prepping community rarely name out loud: the prepper bubble. We unpack what that bubble looks like, how podcasts and YouTube and social feeds can normalize disaster thinking, and why it is easy to mistake consuming preparedness content for doing preparedness. Watching a water storage video is not storing water. Scrolling grid-down scenarios is not the same as building skills, supplies, and routines that hold up under stress. We also get into the escalation problem, the endless “what if” treadmill that can make even well-stocked people feel like they are never ready, plus the identity trap that makes it hard to update beliefs once “prepper” becomes part of who you are. Then we bring it back to the most practical takeaway: sometimes the most prepared thing you can do is put the phone down, go outside, and reset your mind. Situational awareness is not just what is happening around you, it is what is happening inside your head, and an overwhelmed brain makes bad decisions. If you want preparedness that travels, focus on judgment, adaptability, and calm. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail Night driving used to be a nuisance. Now it’s a threat. We follow Jack as he pushes down I-66 with Rachel and Lily in the truck, watching every overpass and every dead car, knowing that one bad stop can end everything. The only thread he trusts is a strict 0900 ham radio schedule with Stephen, because routine and radio discipline are the closest thing left to security on an open HF frequency. If you’re into post-apocalyptic audio drama, survival travel tactics, and the quiet terror of saying the wrong thing on the radio, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. What would you do to protect your route from strangers listening? Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail Most “prepper” shows don’t teach preparedness, they sell adrenaline. I’m not interested in the ominous narrator voice, the bunkers-for-everyone fantasy, or the fear-first storytelling that makes normal people roll their eyes and do nothing. I want grounded, useful, real-world preparedness that feels like common sense, because that’s what actually helps you handle disruptions in water, power, food, and everyday life. After getting back from a work trip to Chicago (and spending my days thinking about global logistics and supply chain realities), I stumbled onto a documentary that deserves attention: Living Off The Grid on Amazon Prime. It follows real people out west who’ve chosen to step away from modern utilities and build a more self-reliant lifestyle. No doomsday clock. No stereotypes. Just honest tradeoffs, daily maintenance, and the constant problem solving that comes with being your own utility company. We talk through what the film shows about water collection and water purification, off-grid solar power systems (panels, batteries, charge controllers), and the way food preparation and food preservation skills like canning fit into a bigger plan. The goal isn’t to copy someone else’s setup, it’s to watch actively and ask better questions: Where are the vulnerabilities? What fails first? What would I change for my situation? If we support more content like this, maybe the algorithm starts serving less sensational junk and more practical readiness. If you listen for realistic prepping, subscribe so you don’t miss what I’m watching next, share this with a friend who’s curious but skeptical, and leave a review so more people find the common-sense side of preparedness. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail Gear reviews are everywhere, and I get why people love them. But after years of doing the Common Sense Practical Prepper, I’m more interested in the part nobody can buy: how you think when things go sideways. Before I head out on a business trip to Chicago (and sneak in a Cubs game at Wrigley), I wanted to answer a question I keep getting in my inbox: why don’t I do more gear reviews? Here’s the honest take. We’re drowning in information: videos, lists, “must-have” products, and loud predictions. That’s not the same thing as intelligence. Intelligence is knowing what’s relevant to your life, your location, your family, and your realistic risk profile. I walk through how I try to turn preparedness from shopping into problem-solving, using water preparedness as a concrete example. Instead of starting with “Which filter is best?” we start with “Where does my water come from, how long can I go without it, and what happens when the power goes out and the backup fails?” We also dig into the common trap of universal advice. Your preparedness plan should not be a copied checklist, because your circumstances are not the same as mine or your neighbor’s. Sometimes the answer is gear, sometimes it’s a new skill, sometimes it’s a better routine, and sometimes it’s simply understanding the problem well enough to make a calm decision under stress. The most important piece of preparedness equipment you own isn’t on a shelf. It’s you. If this mindset helps, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find it. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail The fuel gauge is hovering over empty, the interstate is littered with wrecks, and every overpass feels like a question you might not like the answer to. Jack keeps the truck crawling north out of Roanoke with Rachel, Lily, and Mr. Rogers, doing the kind of brutal gas math that decides whether you sleep in a seat or walk into the dark. When the numbers refuse to add up, one oversized landmark appears on the horizon: Buc-ees, the biggest gas station on the highway, and maybe the biggest risk they have taken in days.  Subscribe, share this chapter with a friend, and leave a review with your answer: what would you trade for ten gallons of gas? Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail “Off-grid” sounds like a finish line, but it’s usually a moving target and sometimes a misleading one. I’ve been fascinated by off-grid living for years, yet the deeper I look, the clearer it gets: nobody is truly independent. Even with solar panels, a well, septic, chickens, and a garden, you still rely on fuel, replacement parts, medical care, tools, and the outside world showing up sooner or later. So I’m reframing the goal into something more useful for real-world preparedness and emergency planning: self-reliance as resilience through reduced dependency. We dig into the hidden web of modern infrastructure most of us lean on every day, then zoom in on why “systems thinking” matters. A solar setup is not just electricity, it can be the backbone for water pumping, refrigeration, communication, and basic sanitation. I share a story about a couple living off-grid in northern New Mexico whose panels got buried in snow, knocking out power, which knocked out their well pump, which forced them to melt snow just to flush the toilet. That’s not a gotcha, it’s a lesson: failures cascade, and your plan has to include what happens when the plan breaks. From there, we get practical about hybrid off-grid living, backup power, generators, batteries, critical loads, water storage, food pantries, and the unglamorous side of self-reliance: maintenance, testing, troubleshooting, and keeping spare parts on hand. We end with a simple challenge you can do today: list your biggest dependencies, pick one, and reduce it step by step. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can build calmer, smarter preparedness. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail A single interrupted song on the radio can become a timestamp for your whole life. We start with that kind of memory, then widen out to what September 11th looked like in real time: confusion, fast-changing reports, and the heavy realization that the ordinary was gone. Twenty-five years later, the dates and numbers are still important, but we keep coming back to the truth underneath them, nearly 3,000 individual lives and the people who spent years carrying the aftermath.  From there, we connect 9/11 to modern emergency preparedness in a grounded way. We talk about the information fog that hits at the start of any crisis, why accurate updates can be hard to get even with smartphones and social media, and why “hope is not a plan” when your decisions have to work under uncertainty. We also break down simple, realistic steps like building a family communication plan with redundancy, thinking through how you would actually get home if transportation shuts down, and keeping a practical get home bag for the kinds of disruptions that happen in real life.  We also spend time on the part that gets overlooked when preparedness becomes all gear and no character: people. First responders running toward danger, neighbors helping neighbors, and ordinary strangers making hard choices in real time. The takeaway is not fear. It is capability, awareness, and a commitment to remember accurately while we prepare wisely. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone you care about, and leave a review with the one preparedness step you want to take next. Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail Most of us can explain our food storage plan faster than we can explain our last checkup, and that is a problem. I’m taking a different approach tonight because preparedness is not only about gear and worst-case scenarios. It is also about making sure we are still here and still capable when the moment comes to protect our families and lead through stress. A random Reddit post I stumbled across years ago pushed me to finally ask my doctor about a PSA test. That one step led to repeat blood work, imaging, and ongoing monitoring, plus a deeper understanding of prostate health and prostate cancer screening. I’m clear about what this is and what it is not: an elevated PSA does not automatically mean cancer, and this is not medical advice. PSA stands for prostate specific antigen, and numbers can rise for several reasons, so the right move is not doom-scrolling or self-diagnosing online. The right move is getting the information and talking it through with a clinician who knows your history. We also get honest about why men avoid screening and preventive care in the first place: fear, embarrassment, denial, and the quiet belief that feeling fine means everything is fine. We walk through the idea of screening as a personal decision, including the potential benefits and harms like false alarms and unnecessary anxiety, and why guidelines are meant to start a conversation, not issue a one-size-fits-all command. I also speak directly to the women listening, because a simple question at home can be the nudge that saves someone’s life. If you take one thing from this, make it practical: ask your doctor, “Should I get a PSA test?” If this message hits home, subscribe, share it with someone you care about, and leave a review so more people hear it. Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail The scariest part of the apocalypse isn’t always the monsters or the weather, it’s the people who learn they can take what they want and call it order. Morning comes after Alex’s night visit, and Jack is already doing the math: boots on, weapon ready, dog alert, and a porch guard who never slept. The town looks calm, but the air feels owned.  Listen to Episode 15 of Lone Man on the Ridge for a tense, character-driven turn where survival, justice, and family collide. If the story hits you, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves grounded apocalyptic fiction, and leave a review with the moment that shook you most. Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail We read listener emails that turn everyday prepping into practical decisions, from choosing who to ask for help to building food security that lasts for months. We also dig into farm-direct meat logistics, quiet equipment failures, and why relationships often matter more than perfect gear.  • flipping the gray man concept by judging which home seems safest to approach  • using situational awareness to read signals without over-trusting them  • paying more upfront for farm-direct meat to gain taste, traceability, and supply chain resilience  • understanding custom processing steps like hanging time, cut lists, and vacuum sealing  • doing the math on hanging weight, per-pound processing, and split-animal budgeting  • preventing silent freezer loss with routine checks and a backup power plan  • building long-term trust with farmers to improve access and timing  • addressing the Augason Farms discount code limit and what we’re doing to fix it  Subscribe, like, drop a review  https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail That “simple” gallon of milk in your fridge has a supply chain biography that stretches from fertilizer plants and global natural gas markets all the way to a refrigerated dairy case that cannot blink. We walk through the milk supply chain step by step and call out the exact moments where one mistake, one outage, or one delayed truck can turn thousands of gallons into waste. We start upstream with what most people never connect to milk: fertilizer. Nitrogen, urea, and energy costs ripple into feed prices, herd size decisions, and ultimately the price you pay at the store. Then we move through feed logistics, on-farm milking, rapid chilling in bulk tanks, and the strict testing performed by licensed milk haulers and processing plants. From there, it is all cold chain logistics: pasteurization, packaging, refrigerated warehousing, distribution centers, and the final few feet into the dairy case, often within about 48 hours. We also zoom out and compare resilience models. Much of continental Europe leans on UHT shelf-stable milk that can sit for months without refrigeration, while Australia fights the same refrigerated-milk battle the US does but across extreme distances and heat. The preparedness takeaway is practical: keep a realistic margin for error with options like UHT milk, powdered milk, and evaporated milk, and understand why the US system is efficient but thin on slack. If this breakdown helps you think more clearly about food security and preparedness, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail PBN LINK https://prepper-broadcasting-network.beam.ly/ Meat prices are up, the supply chain feels shaky, and “just buy it at the store” is starting to sound like bad planning. So we sit down and seriously think through a question a lot of people ask but few actually calculate: does buying a quarter cow, half cow, or half hog directly from a farmer save money, and does it make sense for preparedness? We walk through what you really get when you buy a share of an animal (it’s not just steaks) and why farm-direct meat boxes can be the best low-risk trial run. Then we get into the part that confuses almost everyone: the difference between live weight, hanging weight, and the packaged weight that ends up in your freezer. If you’ve ever tried to compare a farm’s “$/lb hanging weight” to a grocery store price tag and felt lost, we lay out the clean way to do it. The only number that matters is your true cost per pound after processing fees, based on how many pounds of wrapped meat you bring home. From a prepper angle, we talk through the real upside: fewer store trips, a shorter supply chain, a relationship with a local producer, and a freezer that’s stocked with food your family already eats. But we also hit the catch: a chest freezer creates a new dependency on electricity, and your plan has to account for outages, not wish them away. If this helps you think clearer about bulk meat buying, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so more people can find the show. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail Week one of a disaster can feel almost surreal, but strangely focused. You check on family, you execute the plan, you help neighbors, and adrenaline does what adrenaline does. Then the days stack up. Sleep gets weird, uncertainty becomes constant, the same small problems keep returning, and somewhere around week two, three, or four a lot of capable people slam into a mental wall they did not see coming. I walk through the psychological patterns researchers see after major disasters, from impact and the heroic push to the honeymoon period, then the hard shift into disillusionment and adaptation. We talk about why this happens without blaming yourself: stress hormones are not meant to run at full power forever, predictability disappears, decision fatigue grows, and grief shows up even when nobody has died because you are grieving normal life. If you are prepping for a long-term grid down event or any sustained SHTF scenario, this is the missing piece that can quietly break families and groups even when the pantry is full. Then we get practical with the five anchors that stabilize morale when help isn’t coming: a simple routine that reduces decisions, a clear purpose and roles that make people feel useful, daily physical movement, real human connection, and stacking small wins that prove progress is still possible. I also cover what prolonged stress looks like in adults and in kids, what not to say, what to say instead, and how to “preload” these habits now so you are not inventing mental resilience while exhausted. If this helps, subscribe, share the episode with someone who preps, and leave a review so more people can find it. https://augasonfarms.com?sca_ref=9315862.VpHzogdDNu Augason FarmsSupport the podcast. Click on my affiliate link and use coupon code PODCASTPREP for 10% discount!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.

Send us Fan Mail Roanoke shows up as a green highway sign, but it hits like a warning label. We’re riding with Jack, Rachel, Lily, and Mr. Rogers in a truck full of tension after the checkpoint, where one sentence keeps echoing in the cab and nobody can take it back. With fuel low and the city ahead carved into territories, we need a plan, and the only person who has one won’t even look our way. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves gritty audio drama, and leave a review so more listeners can find the road with us. What was the moment that changed how you see Jack and Rachel? Support the show Have a question, suggestion or comment? Please email me at [email protected]. I will not sell your email address and I will personally respond to you.