Overprepping: When Enough Feels Like Not Enough

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This article—and the podcast that goes with it—was sparked by a listener in the Mind4Survival Facebook group. Audra McKinney asked: “What do you do when your gut tells you to prep more, even though you’re already stocked?”

If you’ve been at this a while, you’ve probably asked yourself the same thing.

You’ve got food. Water. Backups. A solid plan. Maybe even a second location nobody knows about but you. You’re not new to prepping.

So why do you still feel like something’s missing?

That quiet gnawing in the back of your mind—the one that says, “Stock more,” “Buy extra,” “You don’t have enough,” “You need more.”—has a way of showing up when things are calm, peaceful, and definitely not crazy. It happens when you’re not being revved up by the latest headlines or dealing with real-life disasters. When everything should feel okay.

And yet, there it is. Again. A worry that tells you you need more.

I’ve Had It Too

I’ll be sitting there, staring at shelves in the grocery store, and suddenly feel the urge to buy more Spam (I love Spam). Or, in spite of a cabinet full of OTC medications, I’ll wonder if I have enough. Likewise, it could be something else I already have more than enough of. My friend Ed can’t buy enough trauma supplies for himself—even though he could outfit an entire Ranger platoon.

This isn’t about ignoring your preparedness instincts. It’s about recognizing when they’re speaking to a real need—and when they’re just echoing anxiety and trying to use fear to push you into action. It’s about learning to read your own signals so you can act effectively, not on a wasteful impulse.

TL;DR: Overprepping happens when preppers act on emotional impulses rather than clear needs. Pausing to assess instinct-driven urges can prevent wasted time, money, and supplies.

That Nudge You Can’t Ignore

Audra McKinney, a long-time and awesomely active member of the Mind4Survival Facebook community, posted a question that sparked this article:

“I have a gut feeling to have WAY more food than I’m comfortable with. I already have a year of supplies. No specific signs. Just a feeling. Do you act on it?”

That’s a great question. Because if you’ve been prepping long enough, you’ve likely felt it too.

Stuart Keith put it well:

“All my prepping is about comfort. Being hungry or thirsty ain’t comfortable. Bumping into stuff in the dark ain’t comfortable. Swamp-butt ain’t comfortable.”

Behind the skills, gear, and plans is a simple truth: we’re trying to maintain as normal a life as possible, and reduce the potential for future suffering. And the longer you prep, the more you realize how easy it is to cross the line from realistic prepping to overdoing it. We do that by responding to a sense of worry that only seems solvable by acquiring more stuff—rather than addressing our needs in a manner that doesn’t overdo it.

Why Your Nervous System Wants to Prep

That gut feeling? It’s not always just a hunch that is based on the reality of the situation. It’s often a quiet and forceful response from your nervous system that doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation.

The sympathetic nervous system—your fight, flight, or freeze mode—doesn’t just kick in during visible emergencies. It can activate from internal unease. From uncertainty. From being activated by the non-stop bombardment of emotionally activating social and mainstream media. We see some stories that activate our subconscious, and the next thing we know, we gather more stuff to make ourselves feel better.

And your subconscious, through the uncomfortable sensations it causes you to feel, is working to control you by overriding your rational mind. That’s where the sudden urge to stockpile more, or prep in a way that we may later question, comes from. It’s the emotional brain trying to do something (anything) to save us, because it thinks we’re in danger—right then. Unfortunately, “anything” can often take the form of increasing our preparedness supply stockpiles.

Is the Threat Real

But just because the signal—the worry, the feeling of “I need to get this now”— is real doesn’t mean the threat is. Often it is not. But it seems so real to our emotional brain that people can easily blow their entire budget and put themselves into debt, buying beans, bullets, and bandages. Literally, we can make our situation worse, because our emotional mind can have such a powerful influence on us.

Think about. One of the most often debated issues in the prepping community is expiration dates. Sure, some people talk about it in terms of supplies that go bad during a multi-year, long-term disaster—something that hasn’t happened yet. However, what often happens is that people talk about it because the supplies we have go to waste when they expire unused.

Why, maybe because we’ve stockpiled so much that we don’t use it all, and it expires. I’m willing to bet we’ve all had food and medications that have expired, or have gone past their “best by” date. Is that effective prepping? It’s probably not so great unless we’re okay with wasting the money and resources. I’m not judging because I’m guilty of it too.

The 7 Steps I Use to Deal With My Prepper Crazy

Let me preface this by saying that I am not always successful and stopping myself before I add to my ever-growing mountain of prepper stuff. And when it hits, I take some steps to try to keep myself from being ineffective with my prepping—aka from accumulating stuff I don’t need as much as the stuff I do. What I’m talking about here is situational awareness of myself and turning my focus inward.

Step 1

So, the first step is recognizing that I’m looking to buy something that isn’t a top priority for my preparedness. That’s not to say that whatever I want to buy is not on my list. What this is saying is that there may be things that will do a lot more for my preparedness than whatever I’m salivating over now in the moment. As I state in my situational awareness lecture, if we’re not aware of something happening, then we can’t address it. In this case, if I don’t pull up on the throttle, I’ll be adding more of something I could do without to my stash. That’s not the most effective decision, and definitely not the most effective prepping.

Step 2

So, now that, in Step 1, our rational brain has registered that we may be doing something unnecessary, it’s time to check ourselves. I do that by asking myself a few questions. I ask:

1. Do I absolutely need this—will it solve an immediately serious problem? If not…
2. Do I need this right now? If not…
3. Is this thing the best use of my resources (time, money, and effort)? If not…

Step 3

If the answer is “no” to those questions, then I try to remind myself that whatever it is that I’m trying to do or accumulate isn’t necessary at the moment. Sometimes this takes very intentional internal and external dialogue with yourself (if you’re a talking-to-yourself kind of person). Tell yourself out loud that whatever it is, isn’t needed and can wait.

Step 4

Once I’ve told myself that whatever prepping itch I’m trying to scratch isn’t necessary, then I need to check in and see if I’m still determined to move forward with it. If so, because I’ve admitted to myself that it’s not necessary, I then know my rational brain is not in charge. Because if it were, I wouldn’t be wasting my resources (time, money, and effort) on something that wasn’t necessary.

Therefore, because I know my rational brain isn’t in charge, the only option possible is that my emotional brain is running the show. And what does that mean? That means my emotional brain is taking charge, which suggests I have some degree of a central nervous system fight-or-flight or freeze response. My subconscious is goosing me with some form of uncomfortable emotional feeling, so it feels like the only solution is to do something I know is unnecessary right then.

Step 5

At that point, if I still want it—just to scratch my prepper itch—I try one last tactic. If it’s something I want to buy, I either go to the store to look at it. Once I’ve looked at it and my brain makes the connection that I’m there, scratching the itch, I leave it and walk around the store for a while, looking at other things. Oftentimes, I acknowledged it and actually went to the store as if to buy it, but after looking at it, I forced myself to walk around the store without it. Just going through the motions often satisfies the urge enough that I can walk away.

If I’m shopping online, I’ll put it in my shopping cart and then walk away from the computer or go to another site. That act of putting it in the cart often satisfies my need to get something unnecessary. In that case, when I come back to my cart later, I just delete or close the site window altogether.

When it wants me to do something that doesn’t involve buying, but some other action, I try to focus on the planning. I do research on the topic I want to dive into, and then, if need be, lay out a plan to accomplish whatever my wild scheme might be. That can also help chill out any unnecessary actions that I feel the need to take.

Step 6

If the feeling persists for a few days or weeks, I revisit it. I go through these steps again. If it makes sense, then maybe I can act. If not, I work through the steps and do my best not to make a decision I know isn’t the best possible.

Step 7

The final step in all of this is understanding that we’re going to screw it up from time to time. When we do, it’s a good idea to recognize how it got past us and remind ourselves to do better next time. Learning to pause and question is a preparedness skill in its own right. While these steps won’t always avoid the less effective route, they will, over time, help us minimize those instances. And in the long run, we’ll be better off by being more in tune with ourselves and better able to manage our fight, flight, or freeze response. In the end, that’s called preparedness—taking action today to make your tomorrow better.

When the Gut Is Right

But what about when the feeling doesn’t fade—when it keeps poking at and prompting you, day after day. We’ve talked about when your gut might steer you wrong. But what if it’s correctly pointing to something real?

Rebecca Vidales shared this:

“I had 10 cords of firewood already in. But I couldn’t shake the urge. I’m out daily now collecting more. Same with hay and grain for my animals. I just know something’s up.”

This is the other side of the coin. Sometimes your instincts are a signal before the data backs it up. Call it pattern recognition. Call it intuition. Either way, it can be valid—especially when it sticks around after the initial wave of anxiety has passed. Rebecca lives in the mountains out west, and she gets snow, a good amount of it. And with predictions of a higher-than-average winter snowfall, perhaps the urge she couldn’t shake makes sense.

Suzanne Faulstich added:

“Always follow your gut. If it doesn’t happen, you’ll still have more for later. Fall usually gets me going.”

Seasonal rhythms. Subconscious triggers. There’s something primal about all of it. The key is learning when you’re concern is valid—and when it’s your nervous system trying to self-soothe. That’s the beneficial byproduct of all this. And while I agree that when we give in to the urge, we can have more for later, I’d caution you to make sure it doesn’t come at the expense of other preps that would be more beneficial.

Awareness Is Its Own Prep

You can have the most organized shelves in the prepper-sphere. But if you’re letting emotion drive your decisions unchecked, you’re burning resources. Time. Money. Energy.

That doesn’t make you a failure or a screwup. What it does is make you is human. We all struggle with the human condition. And awareness of your own internal reaction is a powerful form of situational awareness most of us humans never consider.

Anne Cathey Murray said it straight:

“I usually follow those feelings as far as my budget allows.”

That’s the balance. Respect the feeling. Then test it. Give it room. And only act on it when you’re sure it’s coming from the part of you that’s calm, clear, capable, and under control—and as Anne mentioned, within budget.

Because that version of the one who is working to better your understanding of yourself is the one who gets results.

And if you’re the type who believes hesitation equals weakness, this probably isn’t for you. But if you’re serious about sharpening your situational awareness and decision-making—especially when the stakes are high—this mindset is part of the way to get there. Again, that’s the preparedness—and possibly a time- and money-saver, too.

There’s a time to move fast—but most mistakes don’t come from moving too slow. They come from moving without thinking.

The Bottom Line

Prepping is never really “done.” But that doesn’t mean we should prep on impulse or chase that ever-moving finish line out of worry and anxiety. When your gut speaks up, listen—but then run it through the filter.

Ask yourself: Am I thinking rationally, or emotionally? Acting from that emotional place is how you end up burned out, broke, and surrounded by stuff that doesn’t make the most sense for you and your family’s preparedness.

You’ve already done the hard work and have things on the right path. Now bring that same level of clarity to your instincts (aka emotional prompts). Make your gut part of the plan, but don’t be a slave to it.

Audra’s original question wasn’t just smart—it was familiar. Because most committed preppers feel that pull at some point. The difference is in how we handle it.

There’s a time to move fast—but most mistakes don’t come from moving too slow. They come from moving without thinking.

So next time that urge hits, give it a second look. Test it. Sharpen it. Then act from the part of you that’s calm, not cornered.

And hey—if it turns out you really do need more blankets? At least you’ll be warm and wise.

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