Posted on 09/16/2014 3:55:50 PM PDT by Kartographer
This morning as I was trying to catch up on my email (I get a massive amount of email each month, last month over 3,000), I opened a great one from John W. In a nutshell John, is new to prepping and hasn’t really done anything prep-wise yet, but he has been thinking and making plans.
John said that he has his home on two acres paid-off, and that he has a job and works to support his wife and two children (one 6 and the other 9 years old). He said that he knows from all of the news and the tell-tell signs that something big is coming, and that his main fear is a total economic collapse.
He said that he has $10,000 to spend on preps and that he wanted to be ready as quickly as possible, without all of the buying a can of food here and another can another day or a few extra cans each time he goes to the grocery store. He also insists on long-term storage foods, with a shelf-life of 25 years or more, because he doesn’t want to be bothered with all of the rotating and other stuff involved when stockpiling perishable foods.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesurvivalistblog.net ...
Preppers’ PING!!!
Hat tip to LadyBuck for the heads up!
bump
it takes so much less room to stock up on food stamps though.
BS. Two liter soda bottles last just about forever.
It does not go bad even when stored for a long time. I just found a jar I bought and opened over ten years ago. It got lost in one of the moves. Still good. And works for more things then cooking.
I think he means refrigerated drink jugs. On the other hand those plastic juice from the shelf jugs? They last forever.
If you are starting from scratch, remember that you are essentially pushing out the day you die. I know that is harsh but the further out you push that date, the better prepared you will be.
Without air, you die in minutes
Without first aid, you die in an hour
Without shelter, you can die overnight
Without water, you die in 3 to 7 days
Without food, you die in a couple of weeks
Without sanitation, you die in a month or two
Extras include electrical production and fuel production along with other trade items and skills (soap making, candle making, woodworking, etc)
So, I would advise a first few simple purchases:
Masks - start with basic flu cover masks, later upgrade to actual gas masks (about $250 to $300 per) with extra filters.
First aid kit and know how to use it and a supply of gloves and masks, bandages, tampons (the kind you can shove into bullet holes), medications, and a good first aid book. Hydrogen peroxide tends to go bad over time so I like iodine and bleach for sterilization.
A supply of water that can be obtained without power. This will likely mean you will need to filter and purify on your own. A small personal hand water pump filter types might be enough if you have one per person plus some extra filters but I prefer to also have larger, higher volume gravity fed filters. Large clear glass gallon jugs can be used to take the filtered water into the sun for 8 hrs to kill of most of the critters in the water.
Guns and ammo and the skill and will to use them to defend yourself. At a minimum, a handgun, a shotgun and a rifle. Preferably one of each per adult. Reloading supplies with the correct dies and bullet casting extends this even further. Minimum 100 rounds each weapon that is your stock (different from training ammo) but 500 per is better.
Shelter that is able to sustain you against first the cold, then the elements, then the sun, and finally, the externals that WILL attack. Remember that stick built homes offer ZERO bullet protection. Concrete, brick, sandbags, etc are needed to provide a barrier.
A transit food supply (prepped food) and a long term food production (garden, greenhouse, etc)
After that, you can start to work on the extras:
Power production (off grid solutions)
Fuel production (ethanol or bio-diesel)
Supplies for trading items (soap, lanterns, ammunition, gold and sliver, lighters, propane, etc)
Supplies for trading skills (first aid items, wood working, welding, etc - what ever skills you have)
Coconut oil is the absolute best. I pop my popcorn in it....the BEST popcorn, ever. I also keep a jar on my bathroom vanity. Great face moisturizer, skin softener, etc.
Time to stock up on some more. Costco had huge jars, last time I was there.
If the oil is not rancid, use it! Various oils I think have different shelf lives. The temperature of the storage area can also be a factor for shelf life.
HOWEVER:
Don’t ever throw away spent or rancid cooking oil of any kind! It can be converted to fuel for small lamps.
http://www.geekprepper.org/make-oil-lamp-used-cooking-oil/
Pfl
So I want 500 rounds per weapon/caliber? What do you expect me to do the all the extra?
Thank you for this post and others you have done over time. Great information on suppliers, resources, methods and new considerations from every one of them.
Different tastes. I normally use light olive oil to pop mine. Used coconut one night, hated it. I like coconut oil, but NOT for popcorn.
Extra is good! :-)
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