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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.

Understanding the relationship between politics and the economy will give you the opportunity to prepare for rising costs. As President Trump moves forward with building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, rising produce costs are becoming a reality. Make sure your food storage and budget doesn't take a hit with these strategies for prepping against the rising cost of your favorite fruits and vegetables.

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.

 

Understanding the relationship between politics and the economy will give you the opportunity to prepare for rising costs. As President Trump moves forward with building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, rising produce costs are becoming a reality. Make sure your food storage and budget doesn't take a hit with these strategies for prepping against the rising cost of your favorite fruits and vegetables. 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.
*this post contains affiliate links

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!

Understanding the relationship between politics and the economy will give you the opportunity to prepare for rising costs. As President Trump moves forward with building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, rising produce costs are becoming a reality. Make sure your food storage and budget doesn't take a hit with these strategies for prepping against the rising cost of your favorite fruits and vegetables.

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.

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

Make Perfect Stove Popped Popcorn

January 23, 2017 By ParkerMama 3 Comments

We are big stove popped popcorn eaters around here.  I pretty much pop a pan a day.  My kids grew up on it.  Cheap and whole grain healthy, with a long term storage life and the added bonus of being quick and easy to make, popcorn is a food storage mainstay.

Making stove popped popcorn in oil is easy. It's a favorite snack for movie nights. It's a perfect long term storage item for your food storage too!

Which Pot Should You Choose?

Your choice of pot to pop popcorn in is very important.  It needs to have a heavy bottom so the corn doesn’t stick and burn easily.  It’s got to have a lid for…..well, you can figure that one out for yourself.

*this post contains Amazon Affiliate Links

I really *this post contains affiliate links: love this little beauty from Cooks Standard.  All the required elements listed above, and a price tag that is very affordable. Bonus! You can watch your corn pop through the glass lid!

PRO TIP:   In case you find yourself with a burnt batch of stove popped popcorn, or any other brunt on blech, grab some Barkeeper’s friend and you’ll have your pot shining again in NO time.  Grab some NOW!
You can come back and thank me for this life changing wonderment later.

Ingredients for Stove Popped Pop Corn

My family prefers a light olive oil.  Or if I’m feeling rich, I use macadamia nut oil.  Grape seed oil works well.  I’ve also used avocado oil and love it.  Since I always have olive oil on hand, it’s usually what gets used.  Some people like to use coconut oil for their stove popped popcorn, but the taste wasn’t a hit at our house.

4 Tablespoons of oil.
1 Cup Popcorn
Sea Salt

Making stove popped popcorn in oil is easy. It's a favorite snack for movie nights. It's a perfect long term storage item for your food storage too!

How To Make Stove Popped Popcorn

Pour 4 Tablespoons of oil into a cold pan.

Next pour in 1 cup of popcorn.

Make sure each kernel is covered in oil. Shake the pan a bit to get so the corn and oil is evenly distributed over the bottom of your pan. Remember, you don’t want your popcorn to be drowning in oil. The oil line shouldn’t be above your popcorn.

I then put the top on my pan, turn up the heat to about a 7, or medium high, and let ‘er rip!

Making stove popped popcorn in oil is easy. It's a favorite snack for movie nights. It's a perfect long term storage item for your food storage too!

To Shake or Not to Shake (The pan that is……)

I use to shake my pan back and forth. But if your heat is high enough and your oil is hot enough all those little pieces of popcorn will pop up without any extra help.

However, if shaking helps you from burning your popcorn, by all means SHAKE! Just keep sliding the pot back and forth over the heat until all of those kernels have turned themselves inside out!

When the popping slows down to just a few pops at a time, it’s done!  Remove it from the burner.

Making stove popped popcorn in oil is easy. It's a favorite snack for movie nights. It's a perfect long term storage item for your food storage too!

 

Salt

Add salt while the popcorn is still very warm. It sticks to the popcorn much better this way.  I use sea salt. Unless I’m out. Then I’m stuck with table salt. That always make me a little bit sad.

Here’s the secret to adding salt to your popcorn. STIR/TOSS IT UP. More stirring/tossing than salt. Add a few shakes, stir the bejeebers out of it, taste it to see if you need more salt and repeat IF necessary. There is nothing worse than too much salt on the top of the popcorn and not enough on the bottom.

Viola. That’s it! That’s right, I don’t even add butter. Seriously. It’s divine just the way it is. Food of the gods. I always have people tell me how good it is.  As a matter of fact, people often leave my home with a big plastic cup of the stuff to take on the road with them.

It’s really that good.

Making stove popped popcorn in oil is easy. It's a favorite snack for movie nights. It's a perfect long term storage item for your food storage too!

Toppings for Stove Popped Popcorn

Every Sunday night is popcorn night at our house. It’s been a tradition since my kids were little. As a matter of fact, my married kids keep the tradition alive in their own homes now.

Over the years, we’ve come up with a few ideas to make our humble pots of stove popped popcorn a little more festive. Heck, we’ve been known to jazz up a pot of corn, serve it with a side of carrot sticks and fruit and call it dinner. (ahem)

Here are some of our favorites:

Lightly buttered with freshly grated Asiago cheese.

Lightly drizzled with white truffle oil and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Tossed with salt and dry Ranch seasoning.

Lightly buttered with both sea salt and black pepper.

Sprinkled with Thrive’s Dry Cheese Blend.  (Item #22445)

What is your favorite popcorn topping?

I’m secretly hoping that once you’ve tried making your own stove popped popcorn,  you’ll never go back to the microwaved stuff again.  Try it out for yourself, then come back and tell me what you think!

Filed Under: cooking tutorial, Food Storage, Uncategorized Tagged With: food storage, frugal living, healthy eating, stove popped popcorn

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.

Why A Financial Survival Plan?

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.

Create a Financial Survival Plan Before The Next Crisis

 

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

Begin 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.

*this post contains affiliate links

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,*this post contains affiliate links 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 create your unique blueprint for financial survival.

 

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, it’s the same as money in the bank.   How nice to have the knowledge that in an emergency you won’t need to worry about going to the store for at least 3 months?

 

Sell It!

Look around your home.  What do you have that you don’t use?

Sell it!

Have a garage sale.  List 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 pages 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.

What 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.

Thrive Freeze Dried Foods

Food storage is a big part of being prepared for an emergency.   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, I do everything online.    It’s a win-win for me, and might be just what you’ve been looking for.

 

A Financial Survival Plan To Become Debt Free

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 the bakery.

Are you a gardener?  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 idea that more is always better.  Assigning meaning to stuff, at the cost of our self worth, or our health, vastly limits our ability to prepare for an uncertain future.  It’s time to change our perspective.

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

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

Mason Jar Match Holders: DIY Gifts

November 20, 2016 By ParkerMama 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about what I could give for neighbor gifts this holiday season that would be something people would actually have a use for.  Mason Jar Match Holders are inexpensive and useful.  Perfect!

A quick and easy hack for your matches!

These match holders provide a sturdier way to store matches, protecting them from the humidity that can make lighting a match harder.   Bonus, no more having a box of matches spilling out all over the place when you take them camping!

*this post contains affiliate links

 

 

Mason Jar Match Holders are so easy to make!

Materials For Making Mason Jar Match Holders


 

*this post contains affiliate links

Half Pint Mason Jars

Strike On The Box Matches

Hole Punch

Glue Gun

Pencil

Small Piece of Cardboard

What you need to make a mason jar match holder

How To Make Mason Jar Match Holders

Fill a mason jar with matches.   One box of 300 hundred matches will easily give you enough matches to fill two jars.

Lay the top of the match box out flat, with the striker area facing up, then place a jar ring over the flattened box top and use a pencil to draw a circle to fit under the jar lid.  Cut that out.

You’ll take your cut out circle from the match box and use that as a template for your cardboard cutout.  The piece of cardboard adds stability to the strike zone for when you go to light the match.

Making Mason Jar Match Holders
Use the hole punch to cut holes through both the match box layer and the cardboard layer.  A few dabs of hot glue will help keep it all in place.

Pour your matches into the jar, screw on the lid, and viola’!   Your Mason Jar Match Holder is ready to give in all of it’s warmth and light.  See what I did there?  Warmth?  Light?    Fear not!  I’ll be here all week folks!

But maybe you might like to add a little somethin’ – somethin’ to your handmade goodness. ……..

 

A super easy way to store matches!

Looking To Give The Perfect Gift For A Friend NEW To Prepping?

Perhaps you’d like to pair your mason jar match holder with the perfect gift for someone newly into preparedness.

We’ve got you covered!

This UCO Collapsible Lantern offers warm, natural light.  It’s Easy-slide glass chimney creates a windproof environment for the candle; includes 9 hour candle .

This lantern is perfect for camping, emergencies or simply for a sweet Hygee effect.

Lookee there!  The perfect gift for everyone on your list! 

Save

Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Simple & Inexpensive Prepper Projects, Uncategorized Tagged With: candle lanterns, emergency preparedness, how to light a match, match holder, matches, prepper gifts

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Why Worry About Preparing?

Preparedness for a disaster makes a lot of sense. With recent and predicted events like Hurricane Sandy, The Colorado Wildfires, Fiscal Cliffs, and rising food and gas costs just in 2012 there is no denying that things are changing in our world. Whether or not you believe "The End of the World As We Know It" is near there are plenty of everyday things to worry about: loss of a job, health emergency, local weather events to name a few.

I find that I worry less about the big "what if's" out there the more emergency planning my family does to deal with the unexpected. I will share the survival tips and tricks I have learned while on this preparedness journey and hope that you join in with lots of comments. We all have a lot to learn from one another.

Now, lets get started prepping! Pick a post and start reading. At the end of every post the blog randomly selects three more survival posts for you to check out. Set aside 10 minutes a day to build your preppers knowledge base. We can never be done learning or prepping, right?

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