Any preppers out there?

[TepeyacTraveler]

Good Morning All,

I was just wondering if any of you were preppers? From mini preppers to fill on bomb shelters lol…

I have some rice and beans tucked away as a good food source. We had some other canned food as well. We also have some candles. I just kind of getting into it. I used to think it was a little weird, but now that I have a family I feel it is a responsibility of mine. I’m not saying I can live off grid for a year or anything, but I think it’s a smart thing to be prepared…

 

[tuscany]

Hi there Tepeyac Traveler. I 've never thought of myself as a “prepper”, but I guess I am. I don’t like to shop, and I like to save money, so I will buy things when they are on sale.

In the summer, I find cleaning supplies and paper products on sale. So I will buy a year’s supply so I don’t have to be lugging that kind of stuff around in the winter. Because of that, when Covid-19 hit, I had plenty of disinfectant for the laundry, disinfectant wipes for the counters, hand sanitizers, toilet paper, Kleenex, paper towels, soap, bleach, etc. I had enough that I was able to share with two other families who had elderly living with them.

I also buy meats for my freezer in the fall. Ranchers may not want to have to buy feed for their animals over the winter, so they thin their herds and send some to processing. I fill my freezer with beef, pork/chicken/fish that I find on sale. In summer, one can usually find canned beans/veggies/fruit on sale to make room for the new veggies coming in to be processed. In the fall, one can usually find good sales on canned soups. I buy some to put away in case I need some during the cold months.

I have almost half a years worth of cat food on hand. I had my propane tank filled in July when it was on sale for $1.49 a gallon and my tank was then ready for this coming winter. I have enough firewood cut to get me through this coming winter. My propane is for heating my water, and for a back-up for heating my home if needed. If the electricity goes out ( I do live in progressive Cali ), I can cook on my wood stove, and I have oil lamps filled and ready, along with battery lamps, of which I buy a year’s supply of batteries when they are on sale.

I have a pantry that I keep rotating, using the oldest things first. “If I am going to buy a product and use it anyway, why not pay less for it if I can” is my motto. People laugh, but my husband and I even got our cemetery plots on sale! Father wanted to sell off the plots in the just opened St. Mary’s part of our church’s cemetery, so he had them on sale… Well, we figured we’d need them anyway one day, so we bought ours at 25% off.
( And the Catholic mortuary prices were going to be going up, so bought my casket and made all the arrangements before the price increase! ).
cont…

 

[tuscany]

cont…

I am retired and not at all rich, so I have to be smart with my money. I try to buy off season, sales, and try to look ahead at what I will need. My husband was a flight engineer (the guy that sits sideways behind the co-pilot), so I would be alone for weeks while he flew, and responsible for our kids during all kinds of weather. We are in a small, old gold mining town in the boonies, so I always had to look ahead. Once when my husband was gone, during a heavy wet snow, an oak branch fell onto part of our propane tank. Propane was leaking, so I had to call the Fire Dept. to turn the tank off. The electricity had already gone off all over, so the Fireman asked who would be in the house with no electricity and no propane for heat. I said me and my 2 year old and my three year old. He said well, we can’t leave you here. I said that we would be fine, that I had a ton of dry firewood, plenty of food, and that I would cook on the woodstove. I still laugh at what he said…“What are you, some kind of pioneer woman ?”

To me, keeping things going and taking care of myself/family is my responsibility. One never knows when one will get sick, lose a job, or have a virus hit and be quarantined. When Covid-19 hit, I was able to stay home and avoid the panic buying, high prices, long lines, fighting the crowds, and possibly getting exposed. The only time I had to go out was to a nice quiet Farmer’s Stand to get fresh fruit and veggies. And I had enough supplies to share with others.

I set money aside every month, so that I can buy things this way. But it won’t work if one just buys things because they are on sale, you should ONLY buy things you know you will use. Living this way has worked great for our family since 1975, and it makes life easier and more relaxed.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

I’m not saying I can live off grid for a year or anything, but I think it’s a smart thing to be prepared…

It’s definitely smart to be prepared, as long as prudence doesn’t turn to paranoia. Having emergency supplies in case of a disaster makes sense. Building a bunker to survive the zombie apocalypse, not so much.

 

[Beryllos]

The best prep is a righteous life.

 

[umamibella]

Ah the Covid toilet paper and mince meat scramble has just recently ended, until the 3rd wave. Many people started home vegie gardens and had online competitions for ‘see my dog’s creative use of toilet paper rolls’ Others thought these competitions were highly insensitive, especially when they could not buy a toilet roll for love or money and had to beat each other up in the shopping aisles for the last 20 pack dunny roll left on the shelf. ( I suspect their dogs were just not that into toilet paper, and thats ok) My dog can now sniff out a toilet roll buried 100km deep in masked failed chinese shipping tanker loot. She has a future in drug detection.
Covid brought out the best and the worst in people and hoarding here.
We were already out of masks because of the summer bushfires.
The Chinese free trades consortium was buying up big on medical , baby formula and hygiene supplies and sending them back to China by the shipping tanker load. I kid you not.
The Government put a stop to this. Then put us all in lockdown with the rule only one person from each family could go to the supermarket once a day , and that supermarket had to be within 5km of your house. Then of course supermarkets ran out of everything and we learnt to ration and be frugal and eat whatever was available at the time.

The government did release its prepper supply of masks though , given it made it law to wear a mask , so we had to be able to buy them or make them. But then the mask makers found a huge shortage of elastic, so it was back to square one. There is a big argument here for stockpiling balaclavas and sunglasses.

In all seriousness, i stockpiled bottled water and will continue to do so through the summer, it will come in handy to donate when we have our next bad bushfire, the season is almost upon us. I am thinking of buying a freezer and filling it full of meat, they were all sold out during the Covid stockpile antics of the nation. So maybe when we get some more freezers on our shores, I will buy one. It cannot come from China though as I refuse to buy anything from China. Thats a problem because everything comes from China. The other problem with a freezer is that power goes out here and then all the meat is ruined. The ancients had it right with dried meat I think.

A bunker here would be useful for bushfire survival.

 

[Beryllos]

I wouldn’t bother with the freezer full of meat. Even if your electricity stays on, it’s a significant waste of electric power and the carbon dioxide emissions that come with the generation of electric power.

If you want a stock of meat, consider canned meat or fish.

Did you say stockpiling baklava? I fully support that!

 

[umamibella]

yum to baklava. There is a deli here that sells the best baklava.