What things should people be thinking about but often overlooked?
Step 1: Move as far away from urban areas as you can.
If you don’t get that correct first you might as well save your money.
Twinkies are supposed to last forever- although i had a box i had forgotten about that was 3 years old, and they had turned to dust/crumbs somehow- but yeah, they shoudl be good for a few years-
Barrel of rainwater and a case of canned ravioli. And the slingshot purchased at a yard sale.
Download a crapton of mp3 and mp4. Life’s gonna be full of boredom and terror if you survive. Kind of like an antelope, only with a better brain and a longer lifespan.
Ping, Diana! I figure you can ping others to this thread. You might know who they are better than I do.
Connection is protection
Would be a bummer to one day need the food only to open the cans and discover the contents had been destroyed by insects that were within the grain/legumes at the time the buckets were factory sealed.
Get a ukulele. Learn to play it. Hours of enjoyment lay ahead for you!
The last two disasters certainly didn’t work for preppers...whether all your “preparedness” gets washed down a river or burned to a crisp.
See my profile page. I have links to my personal cloud with a ton of prepper info and links to prior prepping threads here on FR. — https://freerepublic.com/~pollard/
We did the whole enchilada back in 2012 or so. 500 lbs of hard red winter wheat which we put in Mylar bags with oxygenizers and then sealed in 5 gallon buckets. We had flour, corn meal, rice sugar and 250 lbs of beans in buckets also. Mice and rats got into most of it. New Years Eve we sat in our RV on our rural property and watched our little herd of deer finish off the last of the wheat. 😆
Now all we keep are the #10 cans of freeze dried stuff. Do yourself a favor and just stock up on some freeze dried stuff in #10 cans.
Have books on medicine and wild edibles and a musical instrument like a guitar or harmonica.
Bulk dried fruit is at Winco.
The prepackage freeze dried kits are expensive. To save a lot of food cheaply, I chose to fill 5 gallon buckets, with mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. I have twenty buckets: flour, rice, dry whole milk, beans, peas, eggs and other stuff. (now I’m going to have to do an inventory). In this configuration the food will store for 20 years. Downside is the buckets take up a lot of room. I bought most of my stuff at Walmart. There are many sites to buy bulk online. Amazon being one.
Note: Bread flour is different than all purpose flour. I made a mistake on this one. I also got a cheap Amazon bread maker. Works pretty good.
I have can goods but the shelf life is two years and the stock has to be rotated. Key items are oils, sauces and spices to add taste. A diet of rice and beans can get boring fast. Don’t forget booze if you are so inclined.
I have a freezer full of cheap meat: hamburger, bacon, chicken and fish. When that runs out, I plan to restock it with hunting and fishing.
Since water is essential, lucky for us we back up to a catch basin. We (neighbor and I) bought a fairly expensive ($600) water filtering system. I had the filtered water tested and it came back pure. Just today we talked about getting a water pump.
My neighbor and I went half on a substantial generator and had it converted to run on propane. This solves the fuel storage problem.
My neighbor and I have substantial inventories rifles, shotguns and pistols. We have about 50k rounds.
I have a big first aid kit and save medications in a metal ammo can with silicone thingies.
If you are starting from scratch, it could seem like a daunting project. But if you treat it as a hobby, you can quickly build a substantial inventory in a year.
Do you always live in a house or apartments/condos?
I think the basics of prepping is learning about food date labels so that you can buy and store more of your canned foods and foods like rice, beans, and dry pasta and bottled water, stuff you already buy and use, and also to learn about basic camping, because campers and backpackers are way ahead of the game.
The basics above are about adopting prepping as part of your family’s normal everyday life and then adding onto that foundation with water filtration and #10 cans of food, how to survive winter in an unheated home, surviving desert heat at home, long term lighting ideas, toilet and sanitation and so on.
1. Have several means to purify water. And have sufficient water for at least 30 days for every person and pet in your house. Example: I have a Pro One, Sawyer, and a Red Cross water filter bottle plus stored non-potable water for cleaning.
2. Medications, look into Jase Medical.
3. Food. Two types of food. One for a 72 hour go bag for each member of the family. This is where the pre-package comes in handy.
4. City Prepper recommends NO MORE than a 90 day supply in a city environment. 2 things will be true in 90 days, things will have gotten so bad...you bug out. Things will have improved enough to stay and acquiring basics will be getting back to regularity.
If homestead (rural) your guideline would be different with up to a years worth of canned food and ways to grow fresh.
5. Heat, heat, heat.
6. It should go without saying, but protection of the lethal kind and systems to warn of impending danger. (Trail cams, driveway alarms, etc.)
7. Best tip I ever received was from Appalachia Homestead, start with buying 5 extra cans of food every week. Buy only what you and your family will eat. Rotate stock on a monthly basis. Store canned goods properly(cool dark). Understand what ‘expired’ and ‘best by’ dates really mean. Acidic foods will go bad even in cans, dispose and replace as needed. Canned food, properly stored will last years past the ‘best by’ date. Canned meat will taste different than fresh/freezer meats it doesn’t mean it is bad.(kids). I like Keystone others like Augeson.
Realize prepping a pantry is a journey, not a destination. For many people today having a pantry is as foreign as speaking Mandarin.
You can order basic bulk items from the LDS. This is what I did to bring up some of my dry goods quickly and reasonably priced. https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/food-storage/home-storage-center-locations-map?lang=eng
To make sure the foods you put up for long term storage are bug free put them through a freezer cycle to kill any critters that may be in them.
Google the subject to learn how long to freeze, etc.
“Reading an article about how prepper packages are a waste of money.”
My Dad was a little NUTTY about prepping but a LOT of that stemmed from being a Depression Baby and knowing what it felt like to be hungry. :(
He had an entire bedroom of his apartment filled from top to bottom with all kinds of pre-packaged prepper meals, grains, dried veggies, etc. I know he spent THOUSANDS on that stuff. And guess who inherited it all? Yep. Little Old Me.
It’s been a good 10 YEARS and we are still sitting on some of it. BUT - no mouse or insect damage, so the stuff was carefully canned/preserved in buckets and cans, sealed packages, etc. I’ve used up all the rice, oatmeal, dried fruit and misc soup mixes, etc. I have a lot of dried veggies, but those go in soups and stews or I can always re-constitute them for feeding the chickens if need be.
I, myself, would never buy all that. But, if that’s your bent, it IS useful. The company he used was: eFoodsdirect
https://buyersguide.org/emergency-food-supply-reviews/t/best
It looks like you can pick and choose from various suppliers at that site. And knowing my Dad, I’m sure it was something that was ‘pimped’ as an advertiser on Rush years ago. He was glued to Rush every day; I hope Dad gets to hang out with Rush through Eternity, now. ;)
Things I have on hand are all of my canned goods from the previous season(s) and shelf-stable milk, canned coffee (Costco - and a stove/camp fire perk!) and lots of canned goods: soups, potted meats, SPAM, etc.
I don’t put as much effort into it (aside from canning what I grow) as I used to. I’ve kind of come to the realization that you can’t plant for EVERY possible scenario. And you must PRAY without ceasing. :)
We also raise a beef steer on an 18-month cycle and buy pork raised by the neighbor. I’ll also side with the FReepers who say to live as far from civilization as you are comfortable with; we are 10 miles from the nearest large population hub of 4K. As we’ve seen, when there’s trouble, it’s usually in the larger cities...first, anyways. ;)
Know your Mormon neighbors lol. They’ve almost always got a years worth of goods.
Rural Area.
Garden.
Own weapons.
Live as local as possible.
Become a part of the local community.
Have backup communication equipment. Ham Radio or at minimum GMRS radios.
(My family came to this county in 1889, from Coryell County, TX, in 3 wagons and teams of mules. People then knew how to can food, kept planting seed, and were hearty. We have owned/operated farms here ever since, and long before that from a couple of places.)