00:00Unrest in the U.S. has motivated me to be a doomsday prepper.
00:04We have a year and a half worth of food for our family of five.
00:08Come with me, spend $1,000 prepping.
00:11In the last 10 years, I've probably spent $20,000 prepping.
00:15I thought you were bats**t crazy.
00:18In here is where we keep our guns.
00:21Do you think the prospect of having to prep could be scary for your children?
00:25All the yellows are ready. Those are the yellow sunbursts.
00:29My name is Crystal, and I'm a doomsday prepper.
00:32My husband's name is Derek, and we've been together for 15 years.
00:37We have a 12-year-old daughter, Lila, an 11-year-old daughter, Kaylee, and a 7-year-old son, Colton.
00:43And drop them in that hole and that one.
00:47When I first started learning how to grow food, it was with my grandpa.
00:51It is a way of feeling self-reliant to be able to grow what you want to eat.
00:57Prepping has been something that's been part of my life since I was a really small child.
01:02My grandma taught me how to can when I was 3 years old, and I've continued doing it for the last 33 years.
01:09All right, let me take you to my prepping room.
01:11Over here is long-term food storage.
01:14Over here is long-term food storage.
01:16Long-term food storage is food supply that actually has a 25-year shelf life.
01:23I'm a doomsday prepper, and I prep for everything, whether the grid was to collapse and the power turns off,
01:29if there's another pandemic, civil war, civil unrest, or World War III.
01:34We always prepare for the worst-case scenario, and we always hope for the best case.
01:38This is our first aid bin. We have antibiotics, inhalers, water filtration.
01:44We store most of our electronics in EMP bags or Faraday cages.
01:48They are just to protect if there was ever an EMP, which is an electromagnetic pulse, that could affect or scramble stuff.
01:54So right here is one of our newest preps that we've added into prepping is learning how to freeze dry.
02:00So we're able to now create and make our own MREs, which are meals ready to eat.
02:05Right now, my new food goal is three-year food supply, and then our next goal is to go completely off the grid.
02:11We have anything from top ramen, seasonings, coffee, pasta, oatmeal, to all the food that I preserve myself.
02:19We have roughly about a year to a year-and-a-half worth of food for our family of five.
02:24We have carrots and pickles from our own garden, corn that I canned in 2021.
02:30So I've spent about $20,000 on prepping over the last 10 years.
02:35However, I have saved thousands of dollars growing and preserving my own food.
02:39Everything on here is always in rotation.
02:42So when we run out of something upstairs out of our regular pantry, we actually pull from this pantry.
02:50In here is where we keep our guns and our ammunition, and we have children in our home,
02:57so we keep everything locked up so that they do not have access to it.
03:01Civil unrest is one of the many reasons we prep.
03:03Here in the USA, we've seen riots and protests increase over time,
03:08and it's just not something we want to put our family in or around and keep them protected.
03:13Our bug-out bags, in case of an emergency where we have to actually leave the house in a hurry,
03:19we just grab a bag and go.
03:21We also store up on plate carriers and body armor.
03:26I need to be prepared to make sure that my kids are taken care of at all costs.
03:33Push it open, just like that.
03:35Colton, you can hold the funnel.
03:38Can you tell me what you guys are doing?
03:40We are putting rice in a, what's it called again?
03:45A Mylar bag.
03:46A Mylar bag, which makes it, instead of just a one-year-kid treat thing, to 20 to 25 years.
03:58What does prepping mean to you?
04:00I don't know.
04:01Well, my mom just started doing it, and I wasn't really a part of it until lately.
04:07I think the Star Springs was born because we thought it felt good with the rice.
04:10Now you have no access to the zipper, so no oxygen can get inside this bag.
04:16Do you think the prospect of having to prep could be scary for your children?
04:20Absolutely not.
04:21Our schools run active shooter drills for emergency situations,
04:25so why not bring that to your home life?
04:27It doesn't need to be an active shooter.
04:29It can be a natural disaster, an earthquake.
04:32Our kids love and thrive on knowing what to do in an emergency,
04:36and it brings them a sense of calm versus a sense of panic.
04:39What was Derek's view of your prepping a few years ago?
04:43My husband always thought it was a little extreme.
04:47What did you know about prepping before you met Kristen?
04:50So what I knew about prepping prior to meeting my wife was a whole lot of nothing.
04:55I can't take him anywhere with me.
04:57My opinion changed towards prepping and being prepared.
05:01It was right around the pandemic.
05:03Seeing the chaos, we had enough, you know, supplies to last us a long time,
05:09and it was a really good thing to see as our generations changed
05:13that this is a skill that we need to pass down to our kids,
05:16to our communities, and, you know, our friends and colleagues and et cetera.
05:22Hey!
05:23What are you doing?
05:24Hey.
05:25My friends and family always used to tease me about being a prepper.
05:28Remember when we were at comp two years ago,
05:31and you were like, do you have all your s*** together?
05:33And I was like, nope, not even close.
05:36I thought you were bat s*** crazy.
05:40So what made you want to come to me for prepping if you thought I was bat s*** crazy at first?
05:44The pandemic, right?
05:45We all, like, went and, like, stocked our freezers so they couldn't—
05:49I didn't.
05:50You couldn't even see straight.
05:51I know you didn't.
05:52After, you know, this whole—
05:54And we're in an election season right now.
05:56Election s*** that's going on, like, it scares me.
05:58We're talking about civil war and civil unrest, and—
06:01Yep.
06:02Whether you see it now or you see it later, you need to start preparing now.
06:06The trolls you get, how do you handle that?
06:08Like, how do you—
06:09I don't read the comment section.
06:10I don't.
06:11Like, I just, I try not to engage, and I have to remind myself that everybody has an opinion on everything.
06:20This worked for eight hours!
06:22A lot of judgment I get on prepping is the financial aspect of it.
06:25However, we preserve food, and we buy it in bulk, and we make it last a long time.
06:30And we're able to actually cut down most of our grocery bill by buying one for now, two for later, and building up a stockpile.
06:37That one's mean.
06:38Some of the other negative feedback I've gotten is threats towards my family,
06:42people saying that I live in fear or that my family constantly lives in fear.
06:47We actually don't fear a lot of things.
06:50We just prep for everything.
06:52I'll take the hate, and I'll take the negativity,
06:55if that means that somewhere out there that there's a person who, in a natural disaster, knows what to do.
07:02I'm not expecting the worst thing to happen.
07:05You don't go buy car insurance and life insurance expecting to die tomorrow or to get into a car crash.
07:12Prepping is a self-insurance plan.
07:15I prepare for the worst thing to happen, but I'm always hoping for the best.
07:20What I would like people to understand about doomsday prepping is that it is not all doom and gloom.
07:26Being a doomsday prepper doesn't mean I think that the world is ending imminently.
07:30I like to be prepared for whatever may come.
07:32What I hope for the future for my family is to live very peacefully and happily no matter what,
07:37and that they always feel that they're in a safe environment.
07:44Thanks for calling me batshit crazy on the show.
07:47I love you.
07:50I love you.
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