You don’t need to be wealthy to prepare for an emergency
Since you’re reading this blog, you probably believe in preparing for an uncertain future. I sure don’t need to talk you into the idea that prepping for a worst-case scenario is a smart idea. You’ve already got that down.
Now, I don’t know if you are just getting started in this preparation business and need lots of tips and tricks, or if you’ve been at it for a long time and already have plenty of food, water and essential non-food items stockpiled in various locations.
So, what I’m going to tell you today will apply to the novice, the experienced and everybody in between.
The subject is, how to prepare on a tight budget. This will help those just starting out, as well as more experienced preppers who have to replenish their stockpiles now and then due to expiration dates. And even if you’re fortunate enough to have plenty of money stashed away, do you really want to pay more than you have to in order to be properly prepared? I don’t think so.
The main point I want to get across here is this. Don’t let a lack of funds keep you from doing the most important thing you can do, which is to make sure that you and your family can survive an emergency without heading off to a FEMA center. Once you’ve figured out what the most likely threats are in your area, prepare specifically for them. Start this way:
• Determine by yourself, or discuss with your spouse, how much money you can designate each month to acquire the necessities for your stockpile. Don’t be discouraged if it’s only a small amount of cash. It’ll add up over time.
• Make a priority list of what you should stockpile. At the top of your list should be drinking water, nutritious food with a long shelf life and crucial non-food items such as flashlights, batteries, crank-operated radio, etc. Proper storage is also essential.
• Spend time trying to get the highest value for your dollar. Shop around, but don’t sacrifice quality. I’d rather have one pouch of good-tasting, nutritious, long-lasting food than three pouches of garbage.
• Start small and build. You might be able to start filling your emergency storage bins with items you already have in your food pantry. Start with that can of pinto beans that doesn’t expire for several years. You might not have an appetite for it now, but you’ll be amazed at how good they taste when you’re hungry. Before long, you’ll have a nice, three-day supply of necessities gathered.
• Include barter items in your supply. Once you have the most important items stockpiled (food, water, non-food items), consider adding a few items that you might not necessarily use, but would be able to trade in a post-collapse society, such as coffee, diapers, alcohol, cigarettes, etc.
Do you have any strategies for prepping on a budget that you’d like to share? I’m sure readers would love to hear about them.
Something almost never found on published lists is feminine hygiene products. A few things to note beyond the obvious here. Make sure to have more than ample supplies to cover needs of all females that may be sheltering with you.
Beyond the marketed use, the heavy thick pads are perfect bandages for large wounds, and tampons, likewise are excellent for nose bleeds, or can be loosened and used as packing for wounds.
Another FABULOUS use for tampons is as tinder for starting fire. Again, take the tampon and loosen the cotton batting. Then remove a small bit of the cooton. If you are fortunate enough to have some oil or grease (Vaseline works great) puts a little bit of that on the batting and rub it in. You will find that the loosened batting (esp. with the oil) will take a spark very, very quickly, making this an extremely good fire starter. One tampon if judiciously used could start several fires.
After all the food prep,I worked on getting various survival tools.I am old and cannot work much physically.But a few items I picked up could help.When it rains,there are culverts and low lying areas around,so I got some large aquarium fish nets to catch tadpoles and sometimes there are even smallfish in them.Also got small animal traps I can set.There is a small lake by me,so I got a radio controlled boat that has fishing line.I can send that out on the lake and maybe catch a fish and look for other things while that is doing the work.Just be inventive,you’re probably smarter than you think!.If you have no culverts dig a hole in your backyard.When it rains you can do the above,when it doesn’t it can be used as a fire pit for cooking(grates for grills are cheap)Also I am planting more fruit trees.Great if you don’t have room for a full size garden
Should supplies be in more than one location? Any ideas if one doesn’t have another property?
The crazy weather dropped another 6 inches of snow on the ground so late in the year, the car or truck, along with the house are floating down the river while your boat is under water; a tornado just made a surprise visit to your town destroying everything insight; you and your family are huddled together with them looking to you for their survival and safety. The question now becomes, “do you have a list of items needed to meet the pending emergency.” A better question should be, do you already have a list prepared with your survival items gathered together.
The first thing you should look at, is your list(s) and emergency supplies adequate for the emergency at hand. You are probably looking to see what kind of emergency you may be facing and do you have the items needed for that type of emergency.
For every emergency you may face there may be special items called for and are needed. So here is what you should first do before making any lists. Look around you as to the type of emergencies or disasters you may be facing and for how long will your situation last. If the power goes out will it be for a day, three days, a week, two weeks, a month, three months, six months, a year, or longer. You read this and say that is impossible. Power outage for three months or longer? If your town is destroyed by a tornado, earthquake, flood, blizzard or fire; you can be without power for a long time. Will you have food that will last that long? How about a roof over your head and your family? How about an alternate place to go to. How about your pets. Do you have supplies for them too?
The first thing you need to do is to look at you and your family immediate survival needs. That is, what will it take to make it another day. You can start your list from there. They will need food, water, clothing, roof over their heads. You can look at various disasters that may be common in your area and determine what you and your family will need.
It is a daunting task to make a list from scratch and you may need help. I will provide several sources when you can get this help, for free. You see, there are people out there willing to sell you a so call list of supplies that you, “Need and should have” but I will make sure you get it for free. The bottom line is this for every disaster or emergency there are common things and items needed. Then for each disaster and emergency there are specialized items that are needed. There are some items that are nice to have, there will be items you wish you had and there are items that you will need to have in order to survive. The nice thing is that you probably have the beginnings of your supplies already in your home.
You will need to change your mind set and think of survival. America has become far to dependent upon electronics and “pie in the sky ideals” of surviving. We have moved away from hard core tactics to the corporate hand-to-mouth supplies. That is to say, we gave up growing our own food for what we can buy in the grocery store. So what happens when a disaster or emergency strikes? Do you think you are the only one going to the local grocery store to get survival items, I don’t think so. Haven’t you seen the news lately where Walmart was over run by customers in a panic and these customers literally destroyed store? You don’t want to be one of those people do you. So prepare now and avoid the rush.
Here is my sources for those FREE lists of items that you will need: 1.) http://www.patriotheadquarters.com/prepping-10/ 2.) http://preparedldsfamily.blogspot.com, 3.) http://www.ldsavow.com, and 4.) http://www.SurvivalLife.com, and finally 5.) YouTube.com.
The first on is Frank Bates blog. I have found his web site to be very beneficial and helpful. He has items for sell to aid in you search, He also hands out advice and allows people like me and others to add our own experiences to help others get up to speed with their preparing. The next two sites are Mormon sites. Now don’t knock them. They have been telling their members to prepare for that rainy day for a long time and they have several books out with the lists you will need to survive. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Lastly, the last is a survivalist blogger my the name of Joe. He is a lot like Frank and there are time when Frank adds him to his blog, after all, “we are all in this together.” Once you realize what you may need you should look to YouTube to fine tune and learn what kind or type of items are available and out there and how to use them. Good Luck.
In any case, it is a daunting task to fill your list and you will need to take baby steps. From there you can build on your supplies and items that you feel that you will need to ride out an emergency or disaster.
Consider your local food bank. During lay-off times, I have continued my regular incremental accumulation of food without costing a dime (which I didn’t have). It provided both food to eat now as well as some storage items for the future. I don’t recommend this to abuse the resource, but poor people need to be prepared too. When I had an abundance of fruit from my trees, I shared boxes of fruit with the food bank. Don’t just be a taker, give back when you are able to
Most importantly, rotate your food stock so nothing gets past usable. First in, first out. If something doesn’t have an expiration or a “best if used by” date, mark the item with month and year when you put into your pantry.
Put aside more than just for yourself as there will be foolish people, loved ones, who did not prepare.
So when you run out – what will you do? start knocking down the doors of the people who live in the country & are & have been selfsuficient for years? Do you know how to plant a garden? Raise animals or hunt? More importantly are you willing to work physically hard to survive? Are you willing to work 16 + hour days just to survive? Maybe those are questions we should be asking ourselves rather than do I have the money to stockpile food for a year? Just a thought
Most large supermarkets have weekly flyers for specials. Ours have lots of Buy One & Get One Free deals. I go out of my way to get those deals that we like, then Eat One & Save One in my
cache. In time it adds up to a lot of free/low cost food.
buy bags of pipe tobacco and rolling papers. A smoker who is out of his favorite brand will trade almost anything for something to puff on.Pipe tobacco is fairly cheap and stores very well.
One, often overlooked item that will be absolutely necessary, is information. “How to” books on all sorts of things. Medicine, slaughtering wild game, planting and harvesting, or whatever applies where you live. Many people have a wealth of knowledge locked away in their brain, but what if something happens to you and you are incapacitated. Make sure your family has access to information. They may not appreciate it now, but when it hits the fan, if you’re the guy that knows how to slaughter and preserve a pig, or similar skills, you’ll have friends.
Buying extra food and water is fine, but having the means to collect and purify groundwater or rainwater, and grow and preserve food should serve you well if the stockpiles start to run low during a prolonged emergency event. I know barter items can be useful, but I personally would not stock up on things that I would never use. You cannot feed your kids cigarettes and alcohol if you can’t find someone willing to trade them for something more practical. Lighters and other fire starters, solar-powered lights, crank radios, batteries, etc. are much more useful.
Also, as we head into winter in the north country, some means of keeping warm is always near the top of my list. That food and water won’t do much good if you and it are frozen solid.
Guns, Ammo, and Survival food are all great but if you do not have the will and survival knowledge to survive you will be one of one of the many that will not survive. I would rather have a Boy Scout than a business type on my side. Get yourself into a Hunter Ed course or some other simple course that teaches simple survival skills like how to start a fire. As a Scout Master I have watched a competition between the boys and their dads where the fathers tried to light a 2 x 4 with a match, the boys won hands down.
Simple barter item that will be extremely valuable after collapse, or during natural disaster that EVERYONE will need: fire. Buy them one at a time, or in bulk from Amazon.com, but get a supply of Bic lighters. They appear more valuable than matches, and non-smokers will likely have NONE!
Buy one of each and sample the types of food that you’re going to be depending on. Then stock up on what you and your family likes. Consider the opposite approach from buying prepackaged to the equipment required for long term storage. If you have an extended family or group, this would be the way to go. Freeze dryer – $4000.00, vacuum chamber sealer – $600.00, mylar material – $1000.00. Step back and make a list of those who will be looking to you for support. It will be much larger than you thought. Not everyone can (bug-out)! Then do the math to see which would be cost effective for you. Consider get-home bags for every vehicle.
when I watched the video prior to buying the 3 month supply , there was a list of items I should have in case of emergency.
Can you direct me there
thanks
http://www.patriotheadquarters.com/prepping-10/