The Modern Prepper’s Resolution List: Skills to Master in 2025

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As the clock resets for another year, it’s the perfect time to reflect, plan, and refine your preparedness strategy. Modern preppers understand that true readiness isn’t just about stockpiling supplies—it’s about mastering the skills that ensure resilience in any situation. Whether you’re a seasoned prepper or just starting your journey, here’s a resolution list of essential skills to master in 2025.

1. Bushcraft: Rediscovering the Basics of Survival

Bushcraft is more than a trendy buzzword—it’s a cornerstone of self-reliance. Mastering this skill means being able to thrive in nature with minimal resources. Focus on:

Shelter Building:

Emergency-Mylar-Thermal-Blankets

Emergency Mylar Thermal Blankets

Lightweight and weatherproof, perfect for making quick shelters.

Tarp-Shelter-Kit

Tarp Shelter Kit

Includes a heavy-duty tarp, stakes, and ropes, ideal for building a lean-to shelter.

A durable tent designed for the elements and quick setup in nature.

Firecraft:

A reliable fire-starting tool, even in wet conditions.

A traditional way to spark a fire without matches.

Everything you need to master the bow drill technique for fire starting.

Wild Foraging:

A comprehensive guide to identifying safe and edible plants in the wild.

Includes a guide and tools to help you find and identify wild mushrooms.

Handy cards to take along when foraging in the wild.

Navigation:

Find a reliable map of your local terrain to practice navigating.

A high-quality compass designed for accurate navigation.

For those times when you need extra assurance (though challenging to use without it for the ultimate test of navigation skills).

2. First Aid: Life-Saving Knowledge

In emergencies, medical skills can be the difference between life and death. Basic first aid is crucial, but 2025 is the year to take it up a notch:

Advanced First Aid: Enroll in a certified course that includes CPR, wound care, and treating fractures.

Compact and essential for performing CPR in a safe and hygienic manner.

A comprehensive kit with all the necessary tools for wound care, bandages, and emergency treatments.

A detailed guide to treating injuries in remote settings, including fractures, burns, and other critical wounds.

Trauma Care: Learn how to handle severe injuries, such as controlling arterial bleeding with a tourniquet.

A high-quality tourniquet to control severe bleeding, essential in trauma situations.

Heavy-duty, multipurpose scissors to cut through clothing and bandages during a medical emergency.

Specialized gauze that helps to control heavy bleeding, a must-have for trauma care.

Emergency Child and Pet Care: Extend your knowledge to include the specific needs of children and animals in a crisis.

A kit with pediatric-specific items for handling common injuries in children.

A complete kit with essential supplies to care for pets in emergency situations.

Access to online courses focusing on child and infant emergency care, including CPR techniques.

Everyday Application: Practice using your first aid kit and familiarize yourself with all its components.

A life-like mannequin to practice CPR, wound care, and other first aid techniques.

A compact, everyday carry kit with the essentials to address minor injuries at home or on the go.

Access to an app that teaches and tests first aid knowledge, helping you familiarize yourself with all the components of your kit.

3. Sustainable Living: Thriving, Not Just Surviving

Sustainability is at the heart of modern prepping. Developing these skills will not only help in emergencies but also reduce your dependence on external systems:

Gardening: Start or expand a survival garden with nutrient-dense, easy-to-grow crops like kale, sweet potatoes, and beans.

A comprehensive kit with a variety of nutrient-dense, easy-to-grow crops like kale, sweet potatoes, and beans, designed for survival gardens.

Perfect for starting or expanding a survival garden with easy assembly and excellent drainage.

A durable and efficient compost bin for enriching your garden soil naturally.

Includes essential tools like a hand trowel, weeder, and pruners, perfect for growing and maintaining your garden.

Preservation Techniques: Master food storage methods like canning, fermenting, and dehydrating to build a long-lasting pantry.

A complete kit with jars, lids, tongs, and a canning funnel to help you preserve your harvest.

A high-quality food dehydrator for preserving fruits, vegetables, meats, and herbs for long-term storage.

A beginner-friendly kit that includes all the tools needed to ferment foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, or pickles.

A vacuum sealer for storing food and protecting it from air and moisture, extending shelf life for months or years.

Water Management: Learn to harvest, filter, and store rainwater. Familiarize yourself with portable filtration systems for emergencies.

A setup that includes barrels and accessories for collecting and storing rainwater for later use.

A compact, high-performance filtration system like a LifeStraw for emergency water purification.

BPA-free, stackable containers that safely store clean water for long periods.

A handy kit for testing the quality of your water, ensuring it’s safe for drinking.

Energy Independence: Explore off-grid energy solutions like solar panels, wind turbines, or small-scale hydropower.

A lightweight and efficient solar panel kit that provides off-grid power for small devices or camping trips.

A small-scale wind turbine designed to generate renewable energy for homes or outdoor use.

A solar-powered battery charger that allows you to store energy for later use, perfect for off-grid living.

A solar-powered battery charger that allows you to store energy for later use, perfect for off-grid living.

4. Adaptability: The Preppers’ Mindset

Skills are important, but mindset matters just as much. Develop the mental resilience to adapt to unexpected challenges

Critical Thinking: Practice solving problems under pressure by simulating real-life scenarios.

A strategic game designed to simulate real-life problem-solving situations, encouraging critical thinking and decision-making under pressure.

A kit that challenges you to think critically and solve puzzles to “escape” from various scenarios, enhancing problem-solving skills in stressful situations.

A guide with exercises and real-life scenarios that promote critical thinking, including problem-solving and strategy planning for emergencies.

Bartering Skills: Learn to trade effectively in a resource-scarce economy.

A comprehensive book that explains the basics of bartering, offering strategies for trading goods and services in a resource-scarce economy.

A versatile kit containing items that could be valuable for bartering, such as tools, food rations, and seeds, to learn about tradeable resources.

A collection of common barterable goods, like dried foods, water filtration systems, and emergency supplies, to help you practice real-life bartering.

Community Building: Connect with local prepper groups or start your own to share knowledge and resources.

A guide on how to connect with local prepper groups, build communities, and share resources in times of need.

A set of walkie-talkies or a portable ham radio to help establish communication with local prepper groups or neighbors in an emergency.

Tools and resources for organizing and hosting community-building prepper meetings, including printed materials, discussion guides, and preparedness checklists.

In times of emergency, staying connected can save lives. Develop these communication skills to ensure you can share information and coordinate effectively:

HAM Radio Operation: Learn to use amateur radios to communicate over long distances when other systems fail.

A beginner-friendly radio kit that includes everything you need to start learning HAM radio communication, such as a transceiver, antenna, and manuals.

A comprehensive guide for passing your HAM radio licensing exam, covering all the necessary technical and operational information.

A compact, portable setup perfect for field use, ensuring reliable communication over long distances during emergencies.

Emergency Signaling: Understand how to use signal mirrors, flares, and other tools to get noticed.

A high-quality mirror designed for signaling over long distances, especially in wilderness or survival situations.

A set of bright, long-lasting flares for signaling distress in emergencies, visible from miles away.

A loud, durable whistle for emergency signaling when you need to attract attention without a flare or mirror.

A rechargeable flashing light designed for visibility in low-light conditions, helping you signal for help.

Non-Verbal Communication: Practice using hand signals and other non-verbal methods for situations where silence is crucial.

A set of flashcards that teach various hand signals and non-verbal communication techniques for emergencies, especially in silent or stealthy situations.

A training kit that includes a guide on hand signals and non-verbal communication strategies for tactical and emergency situations.

Useful for marking areas or communicating silently at night using visual signals, especially when visibility is low.

Team Coordination: Train with your family or group on clear communication strategies and protocols.

A kit that helps families create and practice an emergency communication strategy, including checklists and protocols.

A set of walkie-talkies equipped with multiple channels and privacy codes to ensure clear and private communication during emergency drills.

Cards with instructions for handling various emergency scenarios, helping teams stay organized and communicate clearly in stressful situations.

Financial security is a vital aspect of modern prepping. These skills can help you weather economic challenges:

Budgeting and Saving: Develop a realistic budget that includes prepping expenses and emergency savings.

A comprehensive budgeting and expense tracker to help you plan for prepping expenses and emergency savings.

A cash envelope system to help you stick to your budget, allocate funds for prepping, and build your emergency savings.

A physical jar with labeled sections to help you visually track and save for different prepping goals.

A specialized guide for creating a financial plan that includes prepping priorities, food storage, and emergency savings.

Bartering Economy: Familiarize yourself with barter systems and alternative currencies.

A comprehensive manual to teach you how to navigate barter systems and trade goods or services in a resource-scarce economy.

A set of common barter items like seeds, tools, dried foods, and other goods to use as practice or to start a bartering system.

Small denomination gold or silver coins that serve as valuable barter currency in a post-collapse economy.

A game that simulates trading and bartering in a fictional world, providing a fun and educational way to learn these skills.

Investing in Tangibles: Consider allocating resources to valuable, non-perishable items like precious metals or tools.

A starter kit of small gold or silver coins, perfect for beginners looking to invest in tangible, non-perishable assets.

A high-quality set of survival tools, including multi-tools, knives, and fire starters, that can be valuable for trade or personal use during emergencies.

Durable and airtight containers for storing bulk food supplies that have a long shelf life, making them valuable in emergencies.

A comprehensive collection of high-quality, essential tools for building shelters, gardening, and bartering in a survival scenario.

Digital Security: Learn to protect your financial data and transactions against cyber threats.

A secure, encrypted password manager that helps you store and manage passwords for online financial transactions safely.

A subscription to a reputable VPN service that provides anonymous internet browsing and protects your financial data from hackers.

A secure USB drive with encryption features, perfect for storing sensitive financial documents and transactions.

An online course that teaches you how to protect your financial data and digital assets against cyber threats and hackers.

Setting these goals is only the beginning. Here’s how to ensure you make steady progress:

Create a Skills Calendar: Dedicate each month to focusing on a specific skill. For example, January for firecraft, February for CPR, and so on.

A specialized yearly planner that allows you to dedicate each month to focusing on a specific skill, like firecraft or CPR. It includes goal-setting pages and skill-tracking sheets.

A journal that helps you track your progress with monthly or weekly check-ins, making it easy to set goals and evaluate your learning.

A reusable dry-erase calendar to hang on your wall, so you can visually track the skills you’re focusing on each month.

A guidebook with a variety of practical skills to focus on each month, from firecraft to first aid and beyond, with step-by-step instructions for each skill.

Find a Mentor or Group: Learning alongside others can accelerate your progress and make training more enjoyable.

A book or guide that explains how to organize or join prepper groups and meetups, providing tips on group dynamics, skill-sharing, and networking.

A set of online courses covering different prepping topics, such as firecraft, CPR, and navigation. These courses often include community discussion boards to interact with instructors and fellow learners.

Access to online forums or community groups where you can connect with mentors, experienced preppers, and others who are on the same journey.

A set of resources that helps you reach out to local prepping communities and find mentors to guide your survival training.

Document Your Journey: Keep a prepper journal to track what you learn, challenges faced, and improvements made.

A dedicated journal designed for preppers, with sections to track your skills, note challenges, and reflect on your progress.

A field notebook specifically for prepping activities and skills. It includes pages for documenting techniques, resources, and lessons learned during each training session.

A small portable camera or smartphone lens kit to capture your journey and document your experiences, whether you’re learning firecraft, navigation, or building shelter.

A digital app that allows you to track your prepping journey, record notes, and even upload photos or videos to document progress and challenges along the way.

The skills you invest in today will pay dividends for years to come. By mastering bushcraft, advanced first aid, sustainable living, adaptability, communication, and financial preparedness, you’ll be ready to face whatever 2025 throws your way with confidence and resilience.
Are you ready to take your prepping to the next level? Start checking off this resolution list and step boldly into a more prepared future.

About Us

Gentleman Pirate Club aims to share valuable knowledge and tips on how you can prepare and survive emergencies and other dire situations. We think of different scenarios and show you the many ways you can survive them. We also believe in self-sufficiency as a way to prepare for whatever lies ahead. As our ship sails in these waters, we look for valuable treasures. When we spot one, we tell you where it is.

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