My preps cost me five dollars.......

[mldollins]

There has been much talk regarding those prepping whether for short term disruption to zombie scenario. It seemed the last thread began getting .....errr..heated. I really do not want it to go back to the top.

So, here is what I am doing and why. First off, we had a short term disruption less than a year ago because of a storm. The stores were not selling because of lost power. Eventually a walmart opened and limited people to 50 dollars. Everyone in southern Illinois descended on the community that had power and it was a zoo. The radio and television people were attempting to divert people to the south. Therefore it is a good reason to prep to some extent.

What we have done is put back food that we would normally eat. No MRE's or dried food. When my wife pulls a couple of cans off the shelf, she replaces them with three if we are building. We use the oldest first. We thought about large portions of beans, rice, etc.... But, some of those would require alot of heat. Some of our cooking will be over propane. I would rather not waste that. You could cook over an open fire. Again, I would rather not waste that either. My wife always uses instant rice. Therefore, she bought gobs of that.

Water is also stored and I have 55 gallon rain barrels to collect water from gutters for cleaning and hygiene. Flushing of toilets is a necessity with my kids. We have had the city to shut off water for a day without warning. Guess what, I had the flu that day and there was no running water. I will leave out the details. Wouldn't it had been nice to have water from anywhere to flush.

I am storing larger amounts of wood than normal. I will eventually use it all.

I have a generator with gasoline stored. I rotate my gas and refill my tanks every three months. Nothing lost there.


SO, where does the five dollars come in? We thought it might be prudent to buy powdered milk. We will never use it unless there is some type of major emergency. Other than that, come a month or two I will be well stocked with no money thrown out the window of just in case scenarios.

I would like to be able to have a years supply of food, but that will take me some time and eventually I will have it.

So, am I crazy? Perhaps. But, I believe I have balanced my preparation with some level headed choices. If it doesn't happen, nothing lost. If it does, I will be prepared.

[RuralSerenity]

So, am I crazy?

If you are, so am I because your preps sound exactly like mine - right down to the powdered milk (that I usually don't use). But thanks to a thread that listed how to make a cream of whatever soup, I have a use for that too.

[o&itw]

We have always bought some of our generic vegetables at a box store. I can gro greenbeans in my garden, but I can't grow them and can them as inexpensively as I can by them in the store.....aside from them possiby being not as healthy....a canned green bean tastes canned no matter who is doing the canning. So we buy lots of stuff in a 12 can flat or 24 can case, and simply rotate through it. May be a little bit extra effort, but we have plenty of room in the basement. We buy pasta by the case....and can get a beter product by doing so. We buy beans and rice in 25 or 50 lb sacks...same thing, we will use it though the year and it keeps just fine. We also buy carrots, peas and ptoatoes in flats, and use them in stews or meat pies...they are less expensive than fresh, and in something like a stew one can't tell the difference. We still buy fresh, and raise a garden, but why pay extra for carrots in a beef stew (that also takes longer to make).We buy beans and rice in 25 or 50 lb sacks...same thing, we will use it though the year and it keeps just fine.

The only thing we intentionaly "store" is we have a couple of those large popcorn cans, with sugar and salt in them.

So, in essence, we simply have a well stocked pantry...very little of it is actually kept for emergecies......but as it is it is there anyway.

[Ohio dreamer]

DON'T USE DRIED MILK!! I can't run my house without it. OK, we don't drink it, unless we have to...water is usually chosen instead.... but I use it in all my cooking that calls for milk...leaving the fresh milk for drinking. In cooking, you can't tell the difference.

[mldollins]

Hi Rose,

First off, I have always enjoyed your posts. I have never seen anything you have written that showed ill will or condescension. I wish I could say that about myself.

That aside, I need to clarify that bit about the five dollars. My point is that if absolutely nothing happens, and we live in a world of bliss, I will still be okay and nothing lost. If people like dried food, that is fine.

But my point was that the only money I have lost if everything is peachy is the five bucks on powdered milk because that is something I would not use otherwise. All the other stuff that I have stockpiled will be used. Even the water in the 55 gallon drums collected by the gutters will be used in the garden.

To Rose, rural serenty, et al.........we are on the same page. Still as one person put it, the most important commodity is our mind and how we use it and how resourceful we can be.

Again, I hope this clarifies.....

[Wayne02]

Sounds like a good sensible approach to me. We do the rotation thing as well but we were off a bit on some canned tomato's which have expire dates of 12/30. I doubt we will use all 8 cans by then, but I'm not too concerned about going a month past the date.

[texican]

So what kind of dried milk did you get??? The nasty fat free 'flavored milk' kind or the whole fat real milk?

My feelings are if you really need to use the dried milk, you'll need all of the calories you can possibly get. When I was in AK, they had a beautiful whole dried milk, in pouches. Locally, Nido is the only whole dried milk I've been able to find.

Of course, milk goats solve the problem of storing dried milk.

[Ross]

Y'know HT is about homesteading but I really think the survival and prep board here kind of defines the hard edge of it all. To prep and be capable of replacing those preps is what homesteading is to me. If all I could do is buy food and supplies I'd do that. I have more useless hardware saved from jobs, more lumber than I'll need for years, more food on hand than most corner stores. We farm for profit but sustinance is part of that too! Its just how we live, we work for ourselves and if there's a bad month coming we have extra food to cut the food budget, or extra expenses one month the small cash reserve is there........ like this month. My wife's little truck needed an intake gasket. Well its $550 December didn't have spare, and my jobs are locked up waiting on other work to progress so I can finish (and get paid) so the $1000 we keep is mostly gone picking up repairs and replacements while we're down cash. January will pay out better than average and that reserve will go back in hand. I'd really rather it was more than 1k in on hand cash but our budgeting such as it is has built in flex for some things. We have lots of food on hand, mostly meat. Veggies are cheap. We keep cows for meat and milk and sheep for lamb (some people like it anyhow) so we have food and saleable or tradable things in a shtf senerio. People who prep might be a bit old fashioned or out of style but not crazy............ who the heck cares, if you're crazy so are most of us here!

[geo in mi]

Thank you all for your very sensible remarks. I'm a 'modified' steader, too old to wrestle with livestock, but never too old to fend for myself as well as possible. I've noticed many posters with post counts under 1,000(as mine are) that seem to be just starting out in this kind of lifestyle approach. Good, sensible ideas such as you present will probably be of greater help than the bickering that sometimes gets started--I know I appreciate them.

It only takes a couple of power interruptions(if you're on grid) or an ice storm to show you --painfully--what you need the most and what your first priority should be. Problem is, when the power comes back on, it's so easy to forget it and revert back to business as usual. So keep the discussions and ideas coming. I always need the wake up call.

I'm off to look at generators......

And to spend my $15 to get my mountain dulcimer repaired--I hate to sit in the dark with nothing to do....

What we have done is put back food that we would normally eat. No MRE's or dried food. When my wife pulls a couple of cans off the shelf, she replaces them with three if we are building. We use the oldest first. We thought about large portions of beans, rice, etc.... But, some of those would require alot of heat. Some of our cooking will be over propane. I would rather not waste that. You could cook over an open fire. Again, I would rather not waste that either. My wife always uses instant rice. Therefore, she bought gobs of that.

Water is also stored and I have 55 gallon rain barrels to collect water from gutters for cleaning and hygiene. Flushing of toilets is a necessity with my kids. We have had the city to shut off water for a day without warning. Guess what, I had the flu that day and there was no running water. I will leave out the details. Wouldn't it had been nice to have water from anywhere to flush.

I am storing larger amounts of wood than normal. I will eventually use it all.

I have a generator with gasoline stored. I rotate my gas and refill my tanks every three months. Nothing lost there.

SO, where does the five dollars come in? We thought it might be prudent to buy powdered milk. We will never use it unless there is some type of major emergency. Other than that, come a month or two I will be well stocked with no money thrown out the window of just in case scenarios.

I would like to be able to have a years supply of food, but that will take me some time and eventually I will have it.

So, am I crazy? Perhaps. But, I believe I have balanced my preparation with some level headed choices. If it doesn't happen, nothing lost. If it does, I will be prepared.

Well, that is probably the most common method of prepping there is. More folks go about it this way than any other method in my experience.

In my opinion though your one mistake was that five dollar purchase of dry milk. If you're not using it at least semi-regularly in something that is part of your regular diet then don't buy it as a prep.

.....Alan.

[mnn2501]

Originally Posted by mldollins

So, am I crazy? .

No, you are doing exactly right, stock up on stuff you eat, and eat the stuff you stock, increasing the amount onhand as you can.
My only suggestion is that you watch for sales and really stock up on sale items (and maybe you already do)
We also have 1 can (lasts longer than a box) of powdered milk, but usually goes out of date before we use it, but the couple bucks you spend on it a year is good insurance for those recipes that call for milk.

[ronbre]

i have always bought ahead and rotated food, i keep a huge pantry full of canned and boxed foods when they are on sale we buy them in larger amounts..also have a good supply of dried food and nuts and beans etc.

i have 2 freezers besides the side by side on my refrig..all stocked and rotated to keep fresh and we have a propane geneartor with propane for using it..and wood for our wood boiler..we have a flowing well next door we can always get pure water..so no need to store much in the house.

we will be putting in another flowing well soon for our property..but that has had to be put off..

have plenty of candles and oil and oil lamps to last quite a while..as well as coleman camping lanterns and lots of camping stuff if needed (stove, etc)..

always working on being more off the grid independent but aren't there yet

[Bret4207]

Dried milk is one of those things I HATE to drink ( had to overseas, it was awful!), but to use in cooking or to cut whole milk with is another thing. Same for instant potatoes, not much for flavor/texture, but cut with some left overs or used as an emergency staple they aren't so bad. Put enough gravy on them and they are almost okay. Same for "generic" veggies that seem to lack the "right" flavor.

Good ideas, thanks.

[firegirl969]

mldollins,

No, I don't think you are crazy. We began our prepping just like you have. As time goes on, we add to the basics, but we add things that we already like to eat. TSHTF is not the time to find out you hate beans! We have tried some new things, such as barley and found that we do like it, so we have chosen to add it, but it is something we tried before stocking a 50 lb bucket of it. We now have added fruit trees and a variety of berries, and have learned to can them as well as making a variety of jams, jellies, and preserves. Adding a little at the time makes for more self-sufficiency than just prepping for a SHTF situation, IMHO. I just wanted to add that you are on the right track, IMHO. Keep up the good work. Blessings, firegirl