How to talk to friends and family about preparing for a SHTF scenario?

keep it simple and talk about every-day-possible scenarios, depending on where you live.
you won´t get them to stock up much this way, but they´ll be better prepared than 90% of all others, that helps alot.
don´t scare them with shtf-scenarios out of the blue, it´s unreal for them, and they won´t talk about those things or listen because they don´t want to think about such bad things! again: keep it simple.

I give you some examples which worked for me by telling them things like:

- what if huge snow fall destructs our power lines as happenend some years ago in another part of germany, and people were 1 week without power? they would have done better if they had a camping stove, some blankets and enough food stored to share with their neighbours.

- what if one of the elderly persons in our house forget to turn off the stove and a fire occurs? wouldn´t you be glad to have a "bug out back" with all your most important documents and some clothes to change you just have to grab and can run out?

- what if you are single and get ill, your back broken or sth like that, wouldn´t it be convenient to have enough food for 1-2 weeks at home ?

- meeting point: just watch a doomsday-scenario-movie with them and when you talk about the film, ask them where you would meet together in such a scenario?


- and for some, with rising food prices, you can simply get them by: hey, you always cook pasta, why not stock up now, as it will be much more expensive in future and "is best before nearly forever"? or what about pre-fukushima-fish-cans?



think for yourself... and good luck :)

Thanks for the reply phoenixe, those are good ideas. We had a severe snowstorm here in 2003 - the lines were only down for about 4 days and luckily we had enough money to stay in a hotel a few towns over. This is the only real weather threat we have besides tornadoes during spring.
I'm sure the rising food prices would get their attention. I didn't think about that!

you´re welcome!
what comes to my mind, 4 days can be long for those who can not just move to a hotel a few towns over, for those who have pets/animals which they can´t bring with them, for those who can´t move because they are old/ill .. and what if power outage is more than "a few towns" large?
don´t know what a threat tornadoes can be, as we don´t have them here, but when you´ll have to bug out due to a really big one, a bug-out-bag would be nice to have, I suppose?

just talk about those things when there´s something like bad weather in the news (in another region of the US)..
You know your people best - you just have to collect them where they are, some like to be hooked up by rising food prices (and how much better self-grown tomatoes taste!), some are concerned about the weather..
just mention it, don´t push it on them :)
and another hint.. no one wants to be around negative people talking about bad things all the time - so be happy, confident, helpful - and people will come to you and ask you what they can do to be better prepared