Search Results for: 3 month food storage

7 Dec | 2012

Family Food Storage Plan For 3 Months

December 7, 2012 By ParkerMama 5 Comments

Making a family food storage plan for 3 months can feel daunting. Overwhelming. Something you’d rather not even think about.

How much do I need?

Where do I start?

How am I going to pay for it?

I suggest working on a 3 Month Family Food Storage Plan. 3-Months of foods you KNOW your family will eat. Nothing funky. Nothing you hope they will eat. Don’t buy into the theory that when people get hungry enough, they’ll eat whatever you put in front of them. It simply ain’t true!

I suggest you begin by creating 7 breakfast menus, 7 lunch menus, and 7 dinner menus that your family is familiar with and enjoys.

Then break each menu down to each ingredient. Don’t just assume you have enough tomato sauce, go and check. Add up how many teaspoons of salt you will need and make sure you have it on hand. How sad will you be when your Italian pasta bake has no oregano because you thought you had enough? If you like mayo with your tuna salad, you’d better list mayo on your ingredient list. The same with pickles. How’s your supply of celery salt looking? Go ahead and look, I’ll wait…

Now you should have the ingredients listed for 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, and 7 dinners.

Since you are working towards a THREE MONTHS family food storage plan, you’ll want to take those ingredients and multiply it by 12. 12 weeks = 3 months.

If you are planning on serving oatmeal for breakfast once a week for 3 months, and your family uses a pound of dry oats per breakfast, then you are going to need 12 pounds of dried oats.

If you need 1 cup of raisins for each breakfast, they you will need 12 cups of raisins total. How much brown sugar does your crew plow through each time they eat oatmeal? You are going to need that much, times 12.

Oh, and if your family likes milk on their oatmeal, you’re gonna want to make sure you have either powdered or canned milk in your stash.

What I like the most about this plan of starting your food storage is that you wind up with exactly what you need in order to make a variety of complete meals.

(And because you have three months of meals your family can’t wait to eat, you can easily rotate the ingredients for each meal. Yes, you must rotate your food storage. Don’t give me the stink eye over this. Storing only cans of stuff that lasts for 20 years, is expensive and full of sodium. In times of crisis your family is going to want foods that are familiar. )

Imagine 3 months of nothing but taco shells, green beans and pudding cups.

Yeah.

This plan is sounding better already, huh?

Food Storage Plan

PS: Wondering how to make meals that call for meat if the power has gone out? Yoders makes canned meat that actually tastes good. With an (approx) 8 year shelf life, you may want to invest in a few cans. I keep a couple of cases of the canned hamburger on hand.

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Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Surviving In Style Tagged With: beginning preppers, family emergency plan, food storage

7 Nov | 2016

Thrive Monthly Q Program for Preppers!

November 7, 2016 By ParkerMama 1 Comment

Thrive Monthly Q Program reflects the understanding that often people hesitate in getting their food storage because they simply don’t know where to start, how to use it, and how to budget for it. To remedy this, Thrive Life has created the Monthly Q Program which offers a variety of ways to incorporate their products into your food storage AND you every day cooking, as well as a way to get the lowest prices at the same time.

WHAT IS THE THRIVE LIFE MONTHLY Q PROGRAM?

You decide the budget. You choose what you want delivered. It’s that easy.
With the Q, the groceries come to you each month! Trade in those last-minute grocery store trips and spendy fast food runs for the unbeatable convenience of THRIVE foods. Discover a better way to shop with the Q.

HOW DOES THE Q WORK?

1. Select the foods you like by adding your favorite Thrive foods to your Q (what I do) OR by selecting the recipes you use the most. The Q will organize your foods into customizable monthly shipments.

2. Set a monthly budget. Choose the amount you want to spend each month to build your Home Store. No need to spend more money: simply reallocate part of your monthly food budget to your Q.

3. Get monthly shipments at low prices. THRIVE foods are shipped to your doorstep on the date you choose. Save time and money by avoiding unnecessary trips to the grocery store. Because I’m local, I just pick my orders up myself, saving me the shipping. If you are local, you can to do the same! While you’re there be sure to try out a few of their products from their sample bar. Yum!

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE Q CLUB TO RECEIVE EVEN MORE GREAT DEALS!

By starting your Q shipments with an order of $100.00 or more in product OR signing up as a consultant—you will get a FREE membership in the the Q Club.

WAIT! THERE‘S MORE…….LOTS MORE!

I AM BUILDING MY FOOD STORAGE PANTRY USING THE THRIVE MONTHLY Q-PONS, SPECIALS AND Q CLUB REWARD POINTS TOWARD FREE PRODUCT

As a Q Club member, each month you will have access to Thrive’s Q-pon of the month. This Q-pon will reflect a SIGNIFICANT savings on that month’s product. You can bet that my Q takes advantage of each monthly Q-pon…..I really stock up!

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR THRIVE LIFE MONTHLY Q PROGRAM

Click the image above to be taken directly to the page where you can sign up for the Thrive Monthly Q Program

Look for the My Q link. Click on it. You will taken to a page that looks like this:|

Click on the red box with the words ‘Get Started’

This will lead you to a page with a header like the one below. It will walk you through, step by step, how to set up your first Q. Remember that if you want a FREE MEMBERSHIP into the Q Club, your first shipment will need to be $100.00 or more! OR you can sign up to be a consultant and earn free product! The choice is yours!

You will also have the opportunity to choose your own items to add to your Q, or allow Thrive to add a well rounded mix to your Q that also stays within your budget.

There will be the option choose The Smart Start for your first 3 months on The Thrive Monthly Q Program. In a QUICK THREE MONTHS you’ll have your home store up and running with everything from food to recipes!

The Chef’s Selections 200

The Smart Start: Chef’s Selections 200 is packed with high quality THRIVE products like meats, THRIVE Express, and Sauces and Seasonings, and you’ll get an even better price on the included THRIVE foods than you would buying them separately! Includes 65 THRIVE products, a booklet of 38 recipes, and meal planners and shopping lists for easy meal prep.

Month 1 includes 18 Pantry Cans, 4 Spice Cans, and 2 Express Pouches

Month 2 includes 18 pantry cans and 4 Express Pouches

Month 3 includes 18 pantry cans and 1 Express Pouch

Your very last step is to click on that ACTIVATE Q button. Or else you’ll be waiting for that first shipment of your Thrive Monthly Q Program to arrive and wondering why it hasn’t yet. Ask me how I know. (ahem)

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Filed Under: Food Storage, Freeze Dried Food, Uncategorized Tagged With: emergency preparedness, food storage, Thrive Freeze Dried Food, Thrive Monthly Q

6 Sep | 2016

5-Gallon Food Grade Buckets

September 6, 2016 By ParkerMama 3 Comments

I received a bit of a jolt when entering a local food storage store in search of 5-gallon food grade buckets for several bags of rice and beans I recently purchased for emergency prepardedness. Over SEVEN dollars for a bucket and lid. And we aren’t talking gamma lids, here. Nope. We are talking just the plain old hammer it down with a rubber mallet type of lid.

As I stood there doing the math for the 10 buckets, mylar bags and oxygen absorbers I would need for the long term storage of my vittles, I also thought of how many more bags of beans and rice I could purchase for that $70.00 I would paying for buckets.

You can’t eat the buckets, boys and girls. And then, as if to add insult to injury, I turned the buckets around only to find the store’s logo covering the bucket from top to bottom. It has always been a pet peeve of mine to have to pay for stuff that serves as advertising for a company. Think about it. If I’m going to be advertising for them, shouldn’t they be paying me?

But I digress.

I’ll admit. I did purchase 4 of the overpriced, logo blasted, desperately needed buckets. With my medically fragile son, I’m not able to get out as often, and I really needed those buckets. I justified my purchase by telling myself I only purchased four instead of the ten I truly needed.

And, as I walked out of that store, I proclaimed to all who could hear, that I would never, ever pay through the nose for a plastic bucket again. While I consider myself pretty lucky that my Mom was the only person close enough to hear my proclamation, once uttered, it still needed to be fulfilled.

My 5 Gallon Bucket Research

Bakeries will usually give out empty frosting buckets. Yay! for free buckets, but yikes! for cleaning out the greasy frosting residue. I’ve found that by making a solution of Dawn dish soap and vinegar then spraying it inside the bucket helps clean the frosting out.

Fast Food Joints will often give out empty pickle buckets. However, the smell of pickles will pretty much forever be in these buckets. A friend even power washed his buckets out to no avail. If you are using mylar liners in your buckets though, the smell of pickle shouldn’t be an issue.

Lowe’s carries 5-Gallon Commercial food grade buckets for $4.50 each.

My local Walmart carries food grade buckets and lids for $2.97 and lids for under $2.00. I found them in the paint section, but I looked and they had food grade written right on them.

Look on your Local Classified Ads. Often people sell 5-gallon food grade buckets and lids they are no longer using.

5 Gallon Buckets Too Much Work?

What? You don’t want to wash out your own buckets, and the smell of pickles makes you shudder? Nearest WalMart too far away? Amazon will deliver your 5-Gallon Food Grade Storage Buckets right to your door step!

Some of you may not need to store food in the type of bulk that would require purchasing 5-Gallon Food Grade Buckets. I get that. For you prepackaged freeze dried food would be the perfect option. Light weight and good for up to 25 years, Thrive Life offers the best quality in Freeze Dried foods that I’ve found. Through Thrive Life you can create your own food storage pantry, saving both time AND money.

How do you store your long term emergency food?

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Filed Under: Food Storage, Uncategorized Tagged With: 5-Gallon Food Grade Storage Buckets, emergency food, food grade storage buckets, long term food storage, prepper

19 Jan | 2016

Water Storage and Flint, Michigan.

January 19, 2016 By ParkerMama 1 Comment

Water storage has been on my mind since the state of Michigan’s crisis with safe drinking water that began several months ago. Flint’s tap water became contaminated with too much lead after the city switched it’s water supply in 2014 to save money while under state financial management.

Ensuring residents have safe water to drink has been a struggle. You can’t boil lead out of water. People have been told to not drink the water until it has been determined to be safe. Guard members have finally been called in to assist the police and volunteers to hand out bottled water, filters and water testing kits.

Then to really add insult to injury, the residents of Flint are still being required to pay their water bills. You know, for water that is too dangerous to drink. Think toxic waste dangerous. Swell. All I can say is thank goodness for celebrities.

I keep thinking of how much less stressful things might have been if residents would have had a supply of water storage instead of having to scramble and depend on the government. As a matter of fact, it’s being reported that Michigan officials knew last year that Flint’s water might be poisoned, but chose to keep that possibility to themselves. Sweet, eh? The FDA is conduction a full review of the situation.

I’ve written about emergency water storage on the blog and Barb created this information filled post to help you calculate your family’s water storage needs. It’s a good time to review both posts.

Here are a few more things to consider when storing water.

*Don’t use empty milk jugs for water storage. The plastic is too thin and will break down within a few months. Bacteria from the milk can become lodged in the plastic of the jug and then transferred to your water.

*Do not store your water near gasoline, kerosene, pesticides or similar substances.

*If you have a pool, you have water you have water for cleaning and bathing, but NOT for drinking. While pool water has been chlorinated, it most likely has other chemical in it that are not safe for drinking.

*Properly stored water does NOT go bad. However, it may taste funky. To solve this issue, just pour the water from one container to another several times, back and forth. Or store things such as Kool-Aide, lemon or lime juice, to help with the taste of your water.
The time to prepare for an emergency is now. Not after things fall apart. Do your research. Make your plan. When you are prepared you don’t have to worry about any crisis down the road.

How is your water storage coming along? What techniques work best for you when storing water?

Photo credit: rakerman via VisualHunt / CC BY

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Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Politics Tagged With: flint michigan, preppers, prepping, water storage

8 Jan | 2013

Emergency Drinking Water Storage

January 8, 2013 By ParkerMama Leave a Comment

Emergency drinking water storage. It’s one of the most important first steps to take in being prepared. If there is a topic I get the most questions about, water storage would rank in the top 10. Let me see if I can answer some of the frequently asked questions about about emergency drinking water storage.

What is the best type of container to store water in?

When prepping on a budget, using the humble 2 liter soda bottle or juice bottle is a good option. Easy to store, basically free, and good for 72 hour bug out bags. The flip side includes the necessity of rotating your 2 liter bottles every 6 months to a year and concerns of residual bacteria if you don’t clean out your bottles well enough. I have stored water this way with absolutely no issues before, but I do rotate them frequently, and give them a very weak bleach wash before using.

Another option is buying bottles of water from the grocery store. Great tasting, easy to rotate (still need to be rotating every 6 to 12 months) and easy to store. You need to be careful about where you store them as they can freeze and leach chemicals from the plastic into the water in hot weather. We did the math for you a while back to help you figure out how much emergency water your family needs if you are just getting started.

Emergency Drinking Water Storage Options

Emergency drinking water storage options with a 5-10 year storage life include purchasing water in pouches, boxes and cans. You usually don’t have the issue of water freezing in these containers. The down side is the price. I purchased a few cases of canned water to have on hand for my medically fragile child with special needs in case of an emergency and I needed a sure source of water for him.

A cheaper alternative is to purchase the 5 gallon water jugs that are available in camping sections, and in my area, grocery stores. We’ve boiled our water, added it to the jugs and stored them in our basement. If you purchase a decent quality of jug, cracking shouldn’t be an issue. Once filled these jugs are HEAVY and aren’t something you can stack or move around easily. There are siphons you can purchase to make getting your water out easier. You can find 5 gallon water jugs in stackable versions too. (waterbricks)

There are larger versions of plastic water jugs for your emergency drinking water storage…….all the way up to several hundred gallons of water per container. I have found the best place to find these are on Craigslist. You’ll need to use water additives to keep water in these jugs fresh. You don’t need to worry about your water freezing in these containers, and many often store these containers in shed and garages.

Another preference for clean water is to purchase a second hot water heater and have it side by side with your first hot water heater, with water going from one heater to the other and then to your faucet. Depending on the size of your hot water heater, you’ll be assured of a fresh source of H2O in an emergency. Just remember to strap those babies down if you live in earthquake land and know how to drain your water heaters!

Emergency Essentials sells water kits where you fill a mylar bag with water, place that into a cardboard box, and then stack the boxes. I’ve tried these. A 25 gallon kit costs the better part of $40.00 and for me simply wasn’t secure enough to trust such an incredibly valuable resource such as my stored water. I would rather put my money towards a good quality, food safe, plastic container. However, if you are concerned about plastic leaching into you water supply, this may be a good choice.

I’m sure there are other water storage options I have covered. I’d love it if you would share how YOU store your water for your family in an emergency.

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Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Simple & Inexpensive Prepper Projects Tagged With: emergency drinking water, how to store water

13 Feb | 2017

Dehydrating Frozen Vegetables

February 13, 2017 By ParkerMama 2 Comments

March is Frozen Food Month and frozen vegetables will be on sale at stock up prices. Now is the time to learn how easy dehydrating frozen vegetables is!

Why You Should Be Dehydrating Frozen Vegetables

Unless you have a really big garden, dehydrating frozen vegetables is much cheaper than buying fresh, and you can dehydrate frozen vegetables year round.
Dehydrating frozen vegetables requires no washing, peeling, slicing, chopping, or blanching, saving you a lot of time.
Needs less room (much less!) for storage!

Dehydrators

I use an Excalibur Dehydrator, and love it. I also own a Nesco dehydrator, which is much cheaper and works really well for dehydrating frozen vegetables. You can quickly and easily recoup the cost of both of these dehydrators in just a few months of dehydrating your own fruits and veggies.

Dehydrators can often be found at yard sales, but so far the ones I have come across are usually missing most of the trays, or the trays and sometimes the motors are so covered in hardened gunk, that I pass them up. But keep your eyes open for dehydrators at yard sales and thrift shops, as your luck may be better than mine!

How To Dehydrate Frozen Vegetables

Simply spread out the mixed veggies on the dehydrator trays. I didn’t worry that the pieces were touching, I knew they would shrink as they dried and it wouldn’t be an issue. As a matter of fact, my one POUND bag of veggies shrunk down to 3/4 of a cup!

I dehydrated these @125 degrees and they took about 10 hours. Please look at your dehydrator model to see what temperature is correct for your machine. The time to dehydrate will always depend on the humidity in the room where you are dehydrating.

Storing Dehydrated Frozen Vegetables

Now that you have a batch of inexpensive dehydrated frozen vegetables, you’ll need to store them properly. Here’s where a Food Saver comes in so handy!

My favorite way to store my dehydrated vegetables is to pour them into a wide mouth canning jar, and using the mason jar sealer accessory, vacuum seal the jar. You won’t need a ring for this, the vacuum sealing will securely keep the lid on.

Vacuum Sealing Mason Jars

This method will keep your dehydrated goodness fresh for at least a year. It’s always a good idea to check your lid seals every six months or so, to make sure it’s still up to snuff. Simply press on the middle of the lid, if the lid gives and makes a popping sound, you seal is no longer good.

If you would like to add a little more ‘insurance’ this storage method, you can add an oxygen absorber to your jar before you vacuum seal it. I do this quite often.

Tip: If you would like a bit more in depth description of how to use a Food Saver to vacuum seal canning jars, take a look at this video.

What To Do With Dehydrated Frozen Vegetables

Add a handful or two to soups or stews. Perfect for crockpot cooks!
Add some to a blender and turn them into a veggie powder. This powder can then be added to all sorts of things you’d like to up the nutritional value of.
Smoothies!
Use for camping and hiking trips.

LOVE the idea of having veggies and fruits in your long term food storage as a hedge against inflation and emergencies? We’ve got you covered! Thrive carries a wide variety of freeze dried foods for this very reason!

So, which frozen vegetable will you be dehydrating first?

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Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Dehydrated Food, Food Storage, Uncategorized Tagged With: dehdrated food, dehydrating vegetables, food storage, prepper

6 Feb | 2017

Politics and Prepping: The Rising Cost of Produce

February 6, 2017 By ParkerMama Leave a Comment

Understanding the relationship between politics and the economy is an important Prepper skill to develop. It allows you to prepare in advance for the rising cost of produce items we rely on daily.

Paying For A Wall Between The U.S. and Mexico

Let’s take President Trump’s proposed wall between the U.S. and Mexico. You know, the one Mexico is supposedly paying for? The one that for all intents and purposes might really be paid for by a 20% tax on what American’s import from Mexico?

Now whether you are in favor of a wall or hate the idea, isn’t the issue.

The issue is a potential 20% increase of everything you purchase that crosses that boarder.

What Does The U.S. Import From Mexico?

In 2015 alone, the U.S. imported over $295 BILLION dollars worth of products from Mexico, according to government trade data. From cars to car parts, to electrical machinery and oil. $2.4 billion worth of apparel. $1.9 Billion in beer and tequila.

What really has my attention is the amount of of vegetables, fruit and nuts we import from Mexico. $5.5 billion of vegetables and $3.9 billion of fruit and nuts. All to potentially be subjected to a %20 price increase.

Bananas and Mangoes

Consider the products we simply can’t grow here such as bananas and mangoes. And then consider what other countries might do to block U.S. exports in retaliation.

And what about the fresh fruits and vegetables we depend on during the winter months? Where do we get a great deal of those? Yup. Mexico.

Can Your Grocery Budget Handle The Increase?

Did I mention the amount of tomatoes and avocados we import from Mexico? 78% of our avocados and 71% of our tomatoes according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. And it not just avocados and tomatoes either. Herbs, spinach and lettuce make their way across the border to our tables every day.

Finally, according to Forbes, the restaurant industry is already seeing their stocks fall on the fears of increased food costs.

How To Prepare For The Rising Cost Of Produce

Learn to grow your own. Now is the perfect time to learn what grows in your area and how to start your own seeds indoors. Growing your own food helps to tremendously off set the rising cost of produce.

As the season progresses we at Simply Preparing will help walk you through the basics of getting your first garden up and growing!

Learn how to preserve your own food. It’s easier than you think. I promise.

Dehydrating. With just a few simple pieces of equipment you can dehydrate and store fruit and vegetables long term. One of my favorite resources for dehydrating is the book, Dehydrate2Store by Tammy Gangloff.

Another excellent storage option is to freeze your bounty. Did you know you can freeze avocados? Yup! I have a freezer full of frozen avocados for my son’s blenderized diet and my guacamole addiction!

Carolyn Humphries book, How To Freeze Fresh Food At Home is a great book for beginners wanting to learn how to freeze foods.

Prepping With Freeze Dried Food.

Let’s face it. With or without a wall between us and Mexico, food prices are only going higher and higher. This is where the real value of freeze dried foods come in. With up to a 25 year shelf life. Non-GMO offerings. Locally sourced whenever possible.

Each can of freeze dried food I purchase today has it’s price frozen as well. Up to 25 years from now I can open a can of food that I paid 2017 prices for, and allows me to combat the rising cost of produce. It’s like having money in the bank, but with a much higher interest rate.

It’s also pretty amazing how versatile freeze dried food is. Take a look at all the produce used in one of my favorite soup recipes, Sausage Potato Soup! Yum!

Not sure how to use freeze dried foods? No problem! You can take a look at the recipes found on my Thrive Website to get some great ideas.

Taking the time to understand what is happening within the White House will insure that your house is prepared to better weather the growing world wide unrest, the consequences of repealing the Dodd-Frank Act and the returning concerns with China’s economy.

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Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Food Storage, Uncategorized Tagged With: dehydrating foods, freeze dried foods, freezeing foods, prepping, Trumps Border Wall

4 Jan | 2017

How To Make A SHTF Financial Survival Plan

January 4, 2017 By ParkerMama 1 Comment

Are you concerned about your personal economic situation? Worried about how you’ll survive if things continue to go downhill? Do you work in an industry that is shutting doors at an alarming rate? Inching closer to retirement? You need a financial survival plan.

Financial Survival Plan for 2017

There are huge issues brewing for those looking to retire on pensions. This is where my husband and I find ourselves. A projected FY17 $1.8 trillion dollar deficit is nervous making for Baby Boomers wanting to retire. Take, for example, the Dallas cops who chose to take their pensions in one lump sum, fearing the money will soon be gone.

You may be facing a job loss, or another situation where your monthly income will be drastically cut. Regardless of the reason, now is the time to prepare for your family’s financial survival, before things head south.

Know What You Have Coming In. Know What Is Going Out.

Begin 2017 with a resolution to cut your expenses to an all time low. This not only saves money, but insures that when there is less coming in, you’ll still meet your needs.

Your first step will be to write down how much money you have coming in each month. Next write down how much money is going out each month. This gives you not only something concrete to refer to, but also a way to track your progress. On her website, and in her book, Survival Mom, Lisa Bedford offers an excellent and non-intimidating worksheet to help you create a financial survival plan.

Once you understand where your money is going you can begin to plug the leaks and be proactive in your quest to create your unique blueprint to financial survival.

Set Goals

How much would you need to have saved to cover one month of your living expenses? What about six months of your living expenses?

Do you have any big expenses coming up? My husband and I need a new roof for our home. We had hoped that this roof would have lasted us another couple of years when we might have most of the costed saved up. Nope. Now we are looking at adding another $10,000 to the debt load we’ve been working so hard to pay off.

sigh.

You can bet we’ve set a goal to create a more aggressive savings fund for future home repairs.

Cut Expenses

Do you still need that premium cable package? Downgrade your cable plan. (Hello Netflix!) Don’t use all your phone minutes? Go with a less expensive plan. Life was good even before smart phones.

What are you paying for that you no longer use? The gym membership? An online service that you could easily go without?

Change out those light bulbs to energy efficient bulbs.

Trade in your gas guzzling SUV for something that costs much less to get you where you’re going. And remember to batch your errands!

One of the best resources I’ve ever found on cutting expenses and preparing for a strong financial future costs less than a fast food dinner out. Take a look.

Create a Stock Pile

I’m a firm believer that having at least a 3 month supply of what you use on a daily basis, purchased in bulk, on sale and with coupons, is the same as money in the bank. How nice to have the knowledge that in an emergency you wouldn’t need to worry about going to the store for at least 3 months?

By writing down what you family eats for seven breakfasts, lunches and dinners, you will be on your way to knowing what to stock up on for a three month supply of food.

Next write down how many rolls of toilet paper, boxes of tissues, tube of tooth paste, etc. that you go through a week or a month. What else does your family use on a daily basis?

And don’t forget to add in your drinking water as part of your three month supply!

Sell It!

One of the best decisions I made in 20016 was to go minimalist. A successful Prepper is an organized Prepper. You’ve got to know what you’ve stored and where you’ve stored it to make it through a disaster.

Look around your home. What do you have that you don’t use? Sell it! Have a garage sale. Or sell it on a Facebook yard sale page. Simply type in the name of your city and ‘yard sale’ into the Facebook search bar, and you’ll find several cites to sell on, without having to ship or pay for ads.

Be brutal. If you don’t use it on a regular basis, make some money off of it.

Find A Side Gig

Sometimes, there simply isn’t enough coming in, to meet the bills, much less to create a successful financial survival plan. This is when a totally new stream of revenue needs to be found in order to make your financial security plan complete.

Look towards your skills and passions. I’ve always had a heart for emergency preparedness and self sufficiency. So it’s natural for me to blog about it with a goal to turn my knowledge into a work at home job. This is the perfect way for me to stay at home with a medically fragile child, while adding another stream of income to help us better meet our son’s medical needs and prepare for retirement.

Food Storage has always been a passion of mine as well. While my friends were having lingerie themed bridal showers, mine was……wait for it……FOOD STORAGE themed. Yup. I was a Prepper years before prepping was cool.

Because of my desire to have a deep pantry, I became a consultant for Thrive Life. I’m not a host a party kind of girl, everything I do is online only. I also receive discounts off of what I order. It’s a win-win for me, and might be just what you’ve been looking for.

Maybe you’re a people person and working a part time job in your favorite store might be just the thing to bring in an extra source of income.

Do You Have Skills Others Don’t?

Do you sew? Quilt? (Totally jealous if you do!) How about selling via craft shows and local expos?

A neighbor with mad cake making and decorating skills creates and sells her master pieces from home. Her work beats the socks off anything I’ve seen in bakeries.

Are you a gardener? I’m hoping to sell my excess veggies this year to bring in a little extra money. Are you great at fixing stuff? You could start a new business using those skills.

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without

One of the biggest hurdles in creating a financial survival plan is the mind set that our society embraces that whoever has the most toys wins. Assigning meaning to stuff, at the cost of our self worth, or our health, vastly limits our ability to prepare for an uncertain future.

Without the clutter, you can focus on what’s important: preparing your family to make it through a financial crisis.

What are you doing as part of your financial survival plan?

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Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Freeze Dried Food, SHTF, Uncategorized Tagged With: financial prepping, frugal living, shtf financial plan

30 Aug | 2016

How To Make The Most Of Survival Seeds

August 30, 2016 By ParkerMama 3 Comments

“I bought these survival seeds so that I can grow all my own food when the SHTF”.

I hear this a lot. Often from people who have never planted a seed in their entire lives. Experienced gardeners must be doing a terrific job of making their work look super easy for so many people to figure that if the world were to explode, they could just till up a little bit of dirt, throw out their package of survival seeds, and viola!, dinner is served.

There’s a whole lot of people in denial out there folks. A whole lot.

Many of these people couldn’t even tell you what type of seeds are in that survival seed kit, or if their family even likes those vegetables.

How to make the most of survival seeds.

1. Do your research. How much land you have will determine the type of garden you’ll create.

Suburban homesteader? Check out All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre by Brett L. Markham, and The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan.

Urban homesteader? Grow what you need in pots! The years my family spent living in a major city in Turkey we grew in pots on our balcony. The Vegetable Gardener’s Container Bible will get you started.

Another strategy would be to sprout your seeds for fresh eating. Ann Wigmore leads the way in teaching about sprouts and their health benefits in The Sprouting Book.

Ready for the Big Leagues? You’ve got your land, paid your dues and ready to go off grid? Here’s a few resources to take a look at: The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery, John Seymour’s The Self-Sufficient Life, and Abigail R. Gehring’s classic, Back to Basics would be good places to start.

2. Gain some real life, hands on gardening experience……..NOW.

Gardening has always been a part of my life and my husband grew up tending his grandparents acres and acres of garden. That’s a lot of gardening hours and we still have years that where certain things are total flops. Let’s face it, you learn from your mistakes. Take that time to make those mistakes now, rather than in an emergency situation.

3. Make friends with other gardeners.

Pick their brains for gardening information specific to your location. Trust me, gardeners love a willing audience.

Save your own survival seeds!

Every gardener should learn how to save seeds.

The day might come when ordering your seeds on the internet is no longer a possibility. Suzanne Ashworth and David Cavagnaro’s Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardens., is a must have for any gardener.

Want to know my very best advice in regards to creating a plan for using your survival seeds?

HAVE AT LEAST SIX MONTHS OF FOOD STORAGE ON HAND.
If your personal emergency comes about in the dead of winter, what will you eat? What will you eat while your garden is making it’s way to harvest?

Food security can’t be found in a box of survival seeds. Experienced gardeners would find it challenging to grow everything to keep body and soul together for a year. Factor in the amount of physical work growing all your food would require and, well, you get the idea.

Survival Seeds can be an excellent ‘Plan B’

Keep growing those gardens! Plant those fruit trees and berry bushes! Gardens are a major component of your food storage plan. A wonderful, healthy, financial friendly, much needed component, that helps free up much needed cash you can use to buy your three months supply of what your family normally eats, and then a year’s worth of longer term food storage.

‘Cause thinking when the SHTF you’ll rip up your lawn and grow everything you need with that box of survival seeds, simply ain’t going to keep your family fed.

How do you plan to feed your family in case of an emergency?

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Filed Under: Food Storage, Growing Your Food Tagged With: food storage grow your own food, survival seeds

2 Feb | 2016

Renegade Survivalists

February 2, 2016 By ParkerMama Leave a Comment

It seems as though one’s dedication to prepping is directly proportional to how far out in the boonies one is willing to hide themselves away. You can’t reach the gold star level of prepping until you’ve removed yourself from a city setting and relocated to an area that is a few warm bodies short of being a ghost town. With a medically fragile son, our family will never be able to pack up our wagons and head into the final frontiers of Idaho, Wyoming, or Montana. We’re adapting in place. Suburban homesteaders that, if necessary, could put our son in his adaptive wheelchair and transport him on foot to the nearest medical center. We’re renegade survivalists.

Where I live there a belief in a ‘Call Out.’ A large group of people believe that one morning there will be a knock at their door telling them to load up their go bags, foam clothing, white tents, cook stoves, water storage, medic bags, and years of vittles, into their trailers and follow the buses up the mountains where they will be hidden from the armies invading from the East and West.

Nope. Our family of Renegade Survivalists are working on creating a bug in plan. We’ll continue to pay off our debt while working to prepare for a variety of emergencies. But we won’t do it alone. We’ll do it within a community of like minded neighbors will also be bugging in. Neighbors that will watch each others backs. Friends that believe in prepping for a few extra that might not have had the opportunities to prep for themselves. I’m fortunate to live in a community that has been taught the importance of being ready for the unexpected.

Each Wednesday I meet with a neighbor and sweet friend, to work together to build our food storage and other items of self reliance. We’ve calendared out our year month by month by topic starting with our greatest needs. We work independently during the week, then meet again to compare progress, go on purchasing trips, and encourage each other to keep going. We help each other prepare bulk purchases for long term storage. We run through possible scenarios and bounce ideas off of each other.

My married kids, and parents all live close. We have our plans in place for what to do if the SHTF at a time that everyone is at work. My parents have everything at their home that Parker would need during a long emergency. They are also Renegade Survivalists.

When I read about WWII what stands out to me is that there wasn’t just one way families survived. There were many individuals through their own ingenuity made survived the war. Making use of what they had available and relying, if needed, on trusted family and friends, they were able to hold on and find themselves still alive when the war ended.

Interestingly, as I’ve read stories of survival within concentration camps during World War II, the survivors talk about the importance of community in keeping them alive. Others that had their backs. Networking. Sharing. Yup, even within the hell that was Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Buchenwald, community often meant the difference between life and death.

Not everyone will be able to bug out. Not everyone can simply put together an off grid utopia where no other man dare venture. In the boonies, with no other support systems, means that you must be able to do it all by yourself. This is why being prepared to hunker down in a home is not only an important, but viable option as well.

What are your plans for a SHTF situation?

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Filed Under: SHTF Tagged With: buggin in, bugging out, food storage, home store, SHTF

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