Get Organized

Let’s face it – some people are super organized and some are not! That’s ok – it’s great to be different, celebrate it!

One thing that you should be organized in though, regardless of your level of proficiency, is your food storage and preparedness. How on earth do you expect to remember how many of each can of vegetable you have. How do you think you could possibly remember how much flour or rice or anything else you have stocked away. Lovingly smushed under beds, in closets or any other random place you may have utilized to keep your stock. I have these awesome little cubbies at the ceiling in four rooms of my house! Such a waste of space until I realized what a treasure trove it was!

There is no right or wrong way to organize and keep track of what you have. The only wrong thing to do is to NOT keep track of it all. Make a plan! Without a plan you are as ship adrift in stormy seas.

Some quick tips:

First, keep all like items together (as much as possible). This will ensure that you can take a quick glance and get a good idea of what you have.

Second, keep a record of what you have. It can be as detailed as you would like and you don’t even have to create them yourself. There are people who have all ready done the hard work for you, you just have to fill it in. A great example is Are We Crazy Or What, another blogger that offers her food storage binder for FREE when you sign up for her emails. (I’ve got it and it’s pretty extensive and worth it in my opinion)

Lastly, have an idea of how you will rotate through your storage. Let’s face it. Food doesn’t last forever and the best buy dates come quickly. Don’t waste good money by having to throw out food you didn’t rotate through. Get organized with these awesome rotation shelves or ones like them. I use these and LOVE them.

You don’t have to be perfect at food storage to start. You don’t have to have the perfect home either. You can have a storage in small places you just have to be creative and think outside the box! This month I’ve focused on food and quite frankly it’s the easiest place and arguably the most important place to start.

Hard times come to us all. We can either let them drag us through the mud leaving us fighting for air or we can have a life raft. I prefer the life raft. You can do food storage. It’s easy – you just have to start!

Get Started–5 Easy Steps

The human body won’t last long without food – a few weeks without any nutritional supplements. Today I’d like to help you get started with your food supply. If you saw my last POST, you recognized that in an emergency, such as severe weather, the stores won’t have a whole lot of food left on the shelves and certainly not enough to support all of the people in your area, especially if you live in a highly populated area like I do! So what’s the answer?

FOOD STORAGE!!!

Beginning to store food can be absolutely daunting. I know, I too thought “Where do I even start?” This was once the biggest thing keeping me from having food storage. I didn’t realize that sometimes you just have to learn as you go!

Here’s my list of 5 things to consider when starting out. These seemed adequate and encompasses a lot of information for beginners. Besides, too much too soon is overwhelming and makes people not start, and that is not what we want!

1 - DO NOT GO INTO DEBT. There are a lot of companies out there that sell products for storage. They aren’t bad, and you SHOULD invest in some of their products. You don’t need to jump feet first and buy a whole year’s supply at once. It’s not logical or financially responsible! Unless you’re rich, but most of us aren’t! Simply start by grabbing an extra can or two of veggies, package of pasta, or extra condiment for storage the next time you’re at the store. It’s that simple to get started.

2 - MAKE IT A PRIORITY BY SETTING A BUDGET. My husband and I allocate a specific set of funds each month to stock our food supply. It can be as much or as little as you can afford. Stock up on the things that we LIKE to eat. No one ever said that you have to eat boring food! In a time of crisis, you’ll be happy that you have your normal foods to eat! All hail comfort food!!! TRUST ME!!!

3 - DECIDE HOW MUCH IS APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR FAMILY. This is something I can’t tell you, you must figure it out. Just know that you should have enough for each member of your family to eat at least two (hopefully three) meals per day. That amount can vary from family to family!

4 - HAVE A PLAN. Build your short term food storage first. These are the items that you eat on a regular basis. THEN work on your long term storage or items that can be stored for longer periods of time. This is what the “experts” say. There is wisdom in this, and most people have success with this method! You’ll most likely need your short term items long before those long term ones!

I, on the other hand, like to have a balanced approach. I like to store my favorite items for short term and mix in a few long term items. When I order my shipments through Thrive, I try to double order items. For example, this month I got 2 cans of green beans; one of which I will place with my short term items and the other is my long term. Since most Thrive products have a 25 year shelf life due to being freeze dried, I’m confident that if I need them in a few years - they’ll be fine! This works for me – but if following the above counsel works for you – do it!!!

5 – GET YOUR BASICS (flour, sugar, rice etc.) and KNOW HOW TO COOK WITH THEM!!! Flour is no good to you if you can’t make it into bread, or anything else you need flour for!!! Don’t let the basics give you a false sense of security. So you have 100 pounds of hard wheat, do you know how to make it into something that you can eat? All the preps in the world don’t matter if you don’t know what you’re doing! So get into the kitchen and start cooking with basics!!!

It’s as simple as that - 5 easy steps to get you started!!! If you are a list person and need someone to tell you exactly what to get (no problem with that at all) check out this on PINTEREST. I have NOT followed this list, but it looks to be thorough, and will help you get started. I suggest doing MORE than this, if able, BUT this is a good start! So don’t be afraid - just get started! I challenge you to purchase $10 worth of food this week for your home storage and get started!!! Don’t let a crisis be your motivation like I did!!!

 

Ripped From the Headlines

There are many reasons to prepare and have a stock of (at least) food and water. Many people find out the hard way and too little, too late! This week the Midwest is being hit hard with severe weather; storm after storm bring cold winds, snow and misery!

A friend of mine shared this LINK depicting grocery store shelves – emptied or on the verge of!

I have always known that, in reality, stores don’t stock much food. They must constantly be rotating through their stocks and replacing anything that goes bad before it sells – so it only makes sense that they have a limited supply. I recently read THIS blog posting about the supply of food within a city. While I agree with his opinion that food storage is much more affective at the family level – inside our homes, rather than stores – I find myself in conflict with some of his reasoning.

This one in particular “If we draw a boundary at, say, the city limits of Chicago and measure how much food is available within it, we can get frightened at how little there is: a few days supply. But that’s not really Chicago’s whole food supply, is it? If we enlarge the boundary to, say, what can be delivered to the city within an hour’s drive, suddenly that food supply contains all the farms and gardens, warehouses, cold-storage units, processing plants, feedlots, ships anchored in Lake Michigan full of grain, distribution centers, rail depots, and other sources of food within a 50-mile radius. That’s a lot more than a four-day supply. Then, enlarge the box to a day’s drive and the food supply will last for weeks. And if we increase the box to include the entire nation or continent—which is still only a part of our food system—we now have an essentially infinite supply of food…”

My problem is that this model assumes that all food within that “box” is ONLY going to Chicago – it’s NOT!!! How many other cities, and towns are also counting that as “their” food? Well according to THIS map – over 20! Now expand it as he suggests and that number grows exponentially. My point is that not all that food is going to one place, it must go to several locations in order to provide food to all the nation. Thinking that all of the food within a certain radius  is allocated strictly to that city is absurd. Perhaps this isn’t want he meant – and I misinterpreted his writings – that’s fine, but let it be known that the US does not produce enough food to feed all off the PEOPLE in the entire nation. Hence why we still have starving people in this country (well one reason anyways).

Yes, the food will regenerate as he states, but that takes time. There’s no magical formula to make food simply appear because we want it. There’s a process for growing. Granted scientists have engineered food to grow bigger and ripen slightly faster through chemicals – but do we really want to eat that? I guess in a survival scenario it’s better than nothing!

Like the author, I would much rather have a supply of my own at home. It’s simply easier, and frankly more comforting knowing that I don’t have to rush to the store to ensure I’ll make it through the next few days. That’s what preparedness is about – surviving when nature doesn’t want you to! Think back to disasters in recent years and you can see how preparedness could have helped most of those people. The firestorms of 2007 in Southern California – many were evacuated from their homes and left with no provisions. Hurricane Sandy left the Eastern seaboard devastated and without power for weeks, not days. How did they prepare meals or stay warm?

My point is, don’t rely on the Government for aid when the time comes. They won’t be able to help everyone. It’s better to have a plan and be prepared. Today, on Twitter, I saw a tweet from FEMA (I know, I know) that made think. They said “Winging it is not an emergency plan!” I actually really liked that! You don’t have to have it all figured out before you start. You’ll never start if that’s the case. Simply start stocking a little bit of food until you have, what you feel, is enough for your family's needs. Every family is different and requires a different plan. Just plan!

There is not single right way to prepare – and the only wrong way is to not prepare at all! If you need help making a plan – ask me, I’d be happy to help you get started!

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What Does It All Mean

Life has a funny way of putting us in our place. One day you are on top of the world and in the blink of an eye, you’re rolling in the muck. Most people don’t realize just how close they are to devastation and having it all slip through their fingers. Those with more to lose are more at risk – they have further to fall to hit rock bottom. No matter, the point is that life happens to us all and we can either suffer through it – or survive it!

So what do I mean by survive any life?

Early on in 2013 I realized that it was NOT going to be a good year for my family. I am a woman of faith and it seemed that the hosts of hell had conspired against my family. Now whether or not you believe as I do is besides the point. My point is that our lives were amazing, no real issues, then it all changed. Over the course of 2013  my husband would contract Meningitis, endure significant pay losses, have a company partnership fail and suffer the loss of the employment after the partnership failing. All within an 8 month time frame, it was not a good year. Needless to say my faith was certainly being tested, as was the strength of my marriage.

Most of my adult life I have known about preparedness. I have heard to have at least a three month supply of food and water, money in reserve and to live a self-reliant life style. I failed to heed these loving suggestions from church leaders, despite the testimonies that raged against my refusal to start. It was always “Oh I’ll do that later” or “I don’t have the money for that” or even “I REALLY need to get started” and then failing to do so.

Late 2012 my husband and I had a “Come to Jesus” discussion about our view of the events happening in the world and our preparedness level. It was a moment of awakening so we finally decided it was time to start. No more excuses! We NEEDED to have a supply of food and water (we live in the desert after all) and needed to be more self-reliant. I did the only thing I knew – I shopped the local stores for deals and sales. The Smith’s Case Lot Sale was my best friend! In a few short months I had amassed about a 3-4 week supply of food for my family! Not to shabby, but it wasn’t enough! When the time came for us to put that food to use, I quickly realized how little I had done. Meats, milks, seasonings and staple items ran out. We were reduced to ramen noodles and chicken with rice. Needless to say it was a while before I wanted either of those items again! It was a real eye opener.

I quickly realized that being prepared was not about doomsday or Armageddon or even a hostile government takeover (like certain shows would have you believe), it’s about REAL, everyday events that can (and most likely will) affect your family. The fact of the matter is that you’re more likely to be stranded on the side of the road in an accident or broke down than some giant meteor hitting the planet! We see these events just about everyday and yet we ignore them because they are happening to someone else. I know this is true, because I did it too! We go through life believing that nothing bad will happen to us and we are safe from the turmoil that others experience. We LIE to ourselves ever… single… day!

As I was going through my personal struggles last year, I realized that a self-reliant and prepared lifestyle wasn’t for the end of the world. It only makes sense that if the world is ending, it doesn’t matter how much food or ammo you have stocked up. It means being able to survive ANYTHING that life throws at you. We all have those moments in life where Murphy’s proverbial laws take us by surprise, or we are made to make lemonade out of the lemons (or whole lemon tree it seems) that are thrown at us. We all experience illness, economic downfalls or just plain bad luck!

So, survive any life was born. It’s my mantra now! By simply applying some common sense to my life I can better prepare myself for those events that I can’t see coming – and so can you. In 2012 when I started stocking up on food, I had not clue my husband would become so ill that he would be hospitalized and out of work for nearly a month. I didn’t have my crystal ball to show me that the partnership we were in, would fail or that the subsequent job we obtained would be terminated. We don’t see these things coming, but we can be prepared for their probability. I say probability because it’s definitely more than possible that some sort of event will affect your life – it’s almost certain! With some preparations you can survive anything that life throws at you. You can survive any life!

Prepping does not consume my life and it shouldn’t. Many people believe that to prepare you must think, live, eat, sleep and breathe preparedness. Completely untrue! My family still enjoys many activities that don’t involve preparedness. We attend church, go camping and hiking, go to movies and much more! You can live a “normal” life. Stephen King said it best, “There's no harm in hoping for the best as long as you're prepared for the worst.” So live your life, have fun, travel and do what makes you happy. Enjoy the good time, but prepare for those hard times too!!!

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