Don’t buy MRE’s - very expensive for one meal. Buy mylar bags and food storage buckets with O2 absorbers and load up on staples such as beans, rice, sugar, flour, wheat, and salt. Buy canned foods such as tuna, chicken, and fruits. Load up on honey (last a long time) and ramen (sp?) noodles and spam if u want to do it on the cheap. Get a good water filter and store some water along with a small rocket stove and you will make you money go much much further than MRE’s.
I agree with you. I never got the obsession with MREs. Stock up on the basics instead, like you said, and then you can do a thousand things with them. Every one of the things you mentioned can be combined and prepared into a thousand different things—so you won’t get tired of them.
I’m not a self-appointed “survivalist expert” so what do I know, but my parents lived through WWII in Italy as the Allies were fighting their way up the peninsula. They always told me that their neighbors who did the best during the war were the farmers—they had everything they needed right there.
Nobody got through 10 years of the Depression depending on K-rations. They gardened and stored food.
Don't stock up on brown rice, it may be more nutricious, but white rice has a much longer shelf-life.
Thanks for the advice!