How to start your own home storage program

[patricimo54]

On this new board on survival and emergency preparedness we have talked about ammo, fuel, and food storage. I think we need to talk a bit about basic necessities. These are the type of things that we use daily and normally have an unending shelf life. Toilet paper, bar soap, toothbrushes, dish and laundry soap,paper towels, Kleenex, tooth paste storage bags of all sizes, female products if still in the reproductive years, shampoo, razors and shaving cream or soap,deodorants, bleach, scouring powder, cleansers of all types, and on and on it goes. What Beautiful Bride and I did was starting with a single item like shampoo, for an example, determined how long the best value sized container would last then determined how many it would take to supply a years worth and focused on that target until it was realized and shelfed in our newly constructed storage porch. After completing that we moved to bar soap, then toilet paper, and on it goes. If you look at everything at once it may be a bit over whelming, but if you'll stay focused on one item at a time you'll reach your goal before you know it. If you can budget as small as $5.00 a week/ pay period and be diligent you will realize your goals much sooner than you think. There was a stupid poster around when I was a kid that stated 'Dope will get you thru times money won't" I 'd like to reword that " Storage will get you thru times when all else fails!" Every good financial planner will tell you should have at least a 3 month emergency fund, preferable a 1 year fund. After checking the ammo situation this weekend I realized it didn't matter how much money I had in my pocket if the product isn't there my money is worthless.

[Admin]

I always thought that I was pretty well prepared but realized I wasn't very prepared at all. Sure, I had a generator to keep my freezer running but it wouldn't have done me any good with the carb all gummed up with 2 year old gas plus I didn't have any gas on hand anyway . That has been taken care of ;D

Remember the ice storm of 98? You couldn't buy a generator anywhere. The stores were sold out of the lantern size propane bottles and never mind trying to find a gas can. Ice storms and long power outages are a threat to most of us, and terrorist attacks are a threat to all of us. We all want the best for our families but very few of us prepare for catastrophes. I don't know about you folks but if s**t hits the fan I don't want to have to retreat to a shelter and share my ramen under a blankey with a stranger. Being prepared can be the best thing you can do for your family.

We have been on a big stock up kick lately and seeing my food cache bursting at the seams is as comforting to me as my heavily stocked wood shed ;D

Keep the topics coming Patricimo, Love your post man ;D

[acewoodsman]

we just went through 12 days without power an many neighbors are still without an ur right jc generators were going faster than they could bring them in i know of one guy that stood in line at home depot for 10 hrs to get one we had a small one that would run all my 110 stuff but we went out an got a bigger one that we could run 220 with ;D an like u said u couldn't find a pack of batteries or small propane or large propane tanks no where good thing we kept all that stuff on hand plus alot of firewood i think the biggest problem is water we keep 7verl gal on hand but found out real quick thats not quite enough changes need to be made there we have a well on the farm but it needs to be powered by a gen to pump that needs to be changed also now i never did stock pile gas before but i may have to change that also as i found out that we go through about 3-5 gal a day on gen but we did a good job on rationing we put our selves on a time basis for use of the gen an cut that way down i think we did a good job on enduring this power outage but can still see things we need to improve on and will

[penokeemtn5]

Great thread ;D With all the stuff we have stocked up on like food and ammo,the basic stuff slipped through the cracks.Never even thought about stocking shampoo and the like.Have a karma patricimo

[Admin]

I love these kind of threads. Karma for the house .

Quite a while back someone on here posted a link to a device that you mounted to the cap of your drilled well. It was much like one of those frost free hydrants you see at expensive horse farms. Anyway, this device allows you to pull water from your drilled well when the power is down. I'll have to find that info and repost it.

A couple weeks back we were attempting to go grocery shopping at the super walmart and the store was closed due to a power outage. It was out for about 6 hours and the surrounding area was in chaos. There was firemen directing traffic cause the traffic lights were out as well. People were all pissed off and speeding out of the parking lot all in a frenzy. We went and did our shopping at another store and it was maddening. Everybody being cutthroats. Now keep in mind that this was ONLY ONE store that was out of power (AND FOR ABOUT 6 HOURS) and people were ready to riot. I don't want to be trying to get supplies if the grid got knocked out for a month. I want to be home defending my home and food & fuel cache.

Being prepared and having an alternate cooking source is the best thing you can do for yourself and your family.

[patricimo54]

I don't know how to do the quote thing, but karma and kudos to you JC "Being prepared and having an alternate cooking source is the best thing you can do for you and your family" Keeping the basics alive is what will keep this nation alive. And might I say "God bless our Canadian and New Zealander Brothers"

[redpig]

Good topic!! I recently bought a portable welder that is also a 10,000 watt generator. We are using more windmills and solar out this way. Storage becomes a problem as it also need to be in a secure area that you can keep the largest of the rodent {man} out of. Alot of old time methods such as baking soda for toothpaste can simplify things. You need to keep some seafoam to keep gas alive. I try to keep the RV ready as we could live for a month with todays supplies.We need to be ready for any type of condition that we could face.

[Admin]

Feb 10, 2009 21:03:36 GMT -5 patricimo54 said:

I don't know how to do the quote thing

If you want to quote the whole message, just click the quote tab at the top right of that persons post. Then type your message beneath it.

If you want to only quote part of it, you can backspace over and erase all the unwanted sections of the post your are quoting.

When you click the quote tab, the message will appear with a code at the beginning and the end of the guys post. It'll look something like this:
{quote - some numbers etc) ----the message--- (quote}
You can erase all the unwanted stuff but YOU MUST LEAVE THE BEGINNING AND ENDING (QUOTE) TABS UNDISTURBED.

If you erase one of the [ the code will not work.


And thanks for the karma

[kylesredapple]

I have felt so alone when talking to other people about basic neccessity storage. I have preached for years about its importance to a deaf crowd and it is great to find a place where like minded people come to give imput. Thanks to all.

On the subject of necessity storage, JC said "6 hours and people were ready to riot" something else to feed the thread. All of the food outlets in any given town only house about three to five days worth of supplies for the people in that area. So if you are not prepared but first in line you will still not be able to get what you need to live on for a sustainable period of time. My wonderful wife and I spent 18 months storing a years supply. Eighteen months and we were focused and dedicated. People think that they are just gonna go down and buy what they need when a disaster arrises (sp?) are sorely dissillusioned.

But for those not prepared there is hope.....today, begin to store extra essentials. An extra bag of rice or some canned veggies. Then do it again and again and again until you are sustained.


Thanks for the thread, made my day.

[badger]

We have been recently stocking up heavy on a little bit of everything. My next trip to the store is for more candles, and two new battery powered lanterns. My old ones are..well they are old, and maybe not reliable. This weekend I plan on draining the gas on my generator, replacing the plug, etc. I have a question, what is a good way of storing gas long term? If I add fuel stabaliser, will this be enough?

A few years ago when gas was about to jump in price, we went and filled seven five gallon cans at just under $2 a gallon. The next day the prices had went through the roof. My neighbor had seen me unloading the gas and mentioned it was a good idea. He said they had filled a few cans themselves. I gave that no thought till about a week later when there's a complete stranger standing at my door with a "I ran out of gas story"
I told him I had some to get him on his way, and asked him why he chose my house as his car was a few houses down the road. He told me he went to my neighbors first and he had told the guy I had plenty of gas stockpiled

My point is I don't mind helping people out, but I try not to let anything be public on what I have stockpiled.

[Admin]

You guys are definately right about keeping some things private cause when s**t hits the fan they'll all come knocking. Just look at how little responce these threads get. It appears that there's pretty much just a handful of survivors on here. Americans just seem to have the (it can't happen to me) attitude and we just can't shake it.

Look at all the warnings we had prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

A whole Jap fleet was missing. Ok nothing fishy going on there .

Radio signals coming in in jumbled secret codes... hmm wonder what's all the noise is about? ,

A Jap sub gets sunk in the Harbor... huh... wonder how that got there ,

Radar picks up a huge cloud of incoming air traffic coming right for us... ahhhh nothing to worry about, it's just a flight of B17's coming in from the main land

....... and we get the s**t kicked out of us .

Same crap with 911. We ignored all the warnings and even taught them how to fly the planes .

The sad thing is we have already put it behind us and don't worry about any more terrorist attacks.

The majority of our society doesn't think anything bad can happen to us so they never take any precautions. They figure they can just head to Badgers house for a free beer and a fill up

I have preached till I'm blue in the face to my friends & family but they take no change in direction and keep shovelling against the tide. Never gaining ground. I give up

At least on here there are people with common sence ;D

[acewoodsman]

patricimo ur right my saying is IF U GIVE A MAN A FISH HE'LL EAT FOR A DAY IF U TEACH A MAN TO FISH HE'LL EAT FOREVER i guess i'm fortunate because i have family on all sides of me actually the entire road from the stop sign to the river is kin folk an everyone has a pretty good stock pile we all farm an can stuff so i can say this road is pretty well ready

[patricimo54]

That is so good to hear Ace. You are step above most of us storage-rs. Not only are you ready, but you live in a mini community (surrounded by kin) that are ready. At least you don't have to worry what your neighbors will do,you already know.

[Admin]

Unfortunately Ace, the way it works for me is if I give a man a fish I feed him for a day - if I teach a man to fish, he's always parked at my fishing spots

[snydboshawn]

Ok I admit, I WAS one of the guys that did some things to prepare for y2k. Some of those things have carried over. I always have a pile of batteries, canned goods, lighters and soap on hand. Soap will become very valuable if things go sour. I did have water stored up all over the place but I have backed off this and need to start back up. One thing that we did was made certain family members (Extended) responsible for certain supplies. So everyone had a niche to fill for the good of us all. We picked a family HQ and cached most our goods there. If needed be, we would all go to this "Safe House". I did stock pile ammo, mostly 22 and 12 gage rounds.

[chuck]

One thing my wife and I did before we moved to our homestead was to date every thing when we opened it. Whether it was TP or toothpaste - oatmeal to beanseverything. We wrote down how long a single item lasted, how many we went through each month, and how many per year. That way when did make our move we would have a good idea how much we would need until the next trip to Anchorage, which we knew would be several months.

Whether you are moving to the Alaskan bush like we did or just trying to come up with numbers you will need know to stock up on this should help.

[penokeemtn5]

Thats a good way to do it chuck,never thought to date everything .

[snydboshawn]

I agree and karma for that one. This applies to the frugal board as well. Good idea! ;D

[patricimo54]

A sharpie in hand can be a very useful tool. My Bride has just recently changed her breakfast habits. For the first 3.5 years of our marriage she would eat a chicken breast fillet sandwich for her breakfast. She then decided to lighten up a bit with Pbutter and toast and apple slices. This changed our Pbutter consumption. With sharpie in hand we dated the lid of the jar about to be opened. 10 days later it was time to open the next one. This is telling me that I need 36.5 28 oz jars of PB for a years storage.

[chuck]

Do like us we buy peanut butter in five gallon buckets

[badger]

May 4, 2009 23:53:24 GMT -5 chuck said:

Do like us we buy peanut butter in five gallon buckets

You can never have too much peanut butter!

[jacktheknife]

Patricimo54,


"There was a stupid poster around when I was a kid that stated 'Dope will get you thru times money won't"

I remember that, but it was a 'Freak Brothers' comic book.
And the quote was:
"Dope will get you through times of no money
better than money will get you through times of no dope."


Knife

[patricimo54]

So Jack, my guess is you remember Wonder Wart Hog, Oat Wille,and Country Corn Freak?

[yankee]

you guys have my head spinning. I never would have thought about being self sufficient for a years time. I built a small apartment two years ago when I got married with intensions of renting it out in a couple years. We hardly have enough room for a weeks groceries nevermind a year.

Something to think about. You guys are mixing the pot and have my head working overtime.

[patricimo54]

The most important thing that we can focus on as the protectors and providers for our families are the fundamentals to meet our families basic needs. If you are limited on control temperature space focus on items that the temperature will not have an effect on. Get creative, you can store food stuff under your bed, living room furniture, etc. Let me simple say, Storage will get you through when all else fails. Learn the lesson from the ant.

[stickbowhntr]

the one thing we can all be sure --we will never no matter how hard be prepared as we need to be. This is a great thread, thanks

[stickbowhntr]

I have been trying to get a NEW fruit cellar, and shed for storing some misc necessities. I'd love to get a generator for all the excess free gas we dont use each year and cut some electric costs and have power when grid does go dwon...lol.

[edmck4]

It is funny how many of my friends and relatives have started to see the light over the past year or so. Is it the harsh realization the the gov. is not really here to help us, or are they just humoring me so I will quiet down? Funny thing about soap, my wife keeps insisting that I have stockpiled enough lava soap. Not possible I say. Keep an eye on ammo prices again as this U.N. weapons treaty starts creaping closer.

[stickbowhntr]

Aug 23, 2011 22:23:26 GMT -5 edmck4 said:

It is funny how many of my friends and relatives have started to see the light over the past year or so. Is it the harsh realization the the gov. is not really here to help us, or are they just humoring me so I will quiet down? Funny thing about soap, my wife keeps insisting that I have stockpiled enough lava soap. Not possible I say. Keep an eye on ammo prices again as this U.N. weapons treaty starts creaping closer.

I bet this Hurricane making a few wish they were prepared more NOW !

[ceciljr1969]

For the avid readers out there interested in survival, I just finished a good book by James Wesley, Rawles titled "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse". It is a work of fiction but it sure seems like the events in that book could happen for real. It certainly made me think just how bad things could get.