At Daves Homestead (also on Facebook and Twitter) you will find articles on how do do things. That means I have a lot of prepper projects that readers can DIY.  However, this site is much more than just DIY survival gear for SHTF prepping.

I work hard to be a source of great DIY prepper projects.   Besides being a source of DIY survival ideas, It is important to me that I help the individual with the uncommon desire to be prepared for disaster do so in an effective, intelligent, and budget friendly manner.

That is because, like you, I am a regular guy with a regular 40+ hour a week job.  I dont have the money to build a million dollar bunker stocked with pallets of food and the most modern survival gear.  With my budget, if I want survival gear, I have to lean how to make survival gear.

On this website you will find all manner of DIY survival kit lists, homestead projects, recipes and techniques for stocking food.

I also have a lot of information on shooting and self defense.  The website started when I was only a firearm instructor, which is why the domain name is TNGun.com.

I got into disaster preparedness because of my experience teaching self-defense.  Over the years I realized bad guys are only a part of the threat to my family.  Tornados, economic collapse, and other disasters also need to be prepared for.

Not having unlimited funds should not prevent you from preparing for disaster.  It just means you have to be smarter, more efficient, and work harder.  The more than 2000 posts and hundreds of DIY homestead projects, and doomsday prepper ideas, and posts on how to make survival gear attest to that.

I use my experiences as an emergency manager, graduate student,  firearm instructor, criminal justice adjunct instructor, correction officer, and correction academy instructor; as well as a lifetime of personal preparedness advocacy to create the prepper projects shown here.  I have thousands of hours of training in subjects related to prepper stuff, and my goal is to use that knowledge to help you better protect your family and yourself.

If you have an interest in learning more about me, you can do that in my About section above.  I have a short biography page with a very incomplete listing of my certifications.    My goal on that page was not to wow you with a bunch of certificates, but rather to let you know that I am not some kid on the internet typing things I think MAY work.  I have both practical experience and academic training in this arena.  I have worked disaster response and seen first hand what happens to unprepared families stuck in a government shelter.

People that do things tend to make mistakes.  I learn from my mistakes and willingly wade through internet trolls and haters to save you from making those same mistakes.

Most, but not all of the content is written by me.  When someone else wants to share an idea I generally let them.  Otherwise the information comes from my own first hand experience.

If I wrote it, I did it.  I did not read about it once and regurgitate it as fact.  If it is on this site I spent some time and energy trying it.

I videotape almost everything I do that is related in some manner to DIY survival.  If it works I show it, if it doesnt I show it.  I would rather show you a failed project than let you waste your time trying something that doesnt work.

I dont have a team of production assistants, most times my wife is mad at me and wont even hold my camera.  That means that sometimes have an out of focus video, or my thumb is over the phone camera.  I ask you to look past the occasional blurry video and judge this site on the usefulness of the content, and not flash and style.

You wont find pretty techniques here.  In a lot of cases experts cringe at my duct taped solutions.  What I look for are things that work with a moderate level of skill and resource input.  In other words the things here are for DIY preppers.  As such the prepper projects shown on this site need to work, to work now, and to work without fancy equipment.

I want things that real people can do without spending years gaining special skills.  For that I am willing to give up a degree of reliability, longevity, and ease of use.  There is no such thing as a free lunch.  You can have things that are cheap, that work, or are easy and you can pick any two.

I want to hear from you because my goal is to help you get better prepared.  It is my hope that my work documenting making DIY prepper projects and information is helpful to you.