Survival blog for disaster and emergency preparedness.
The much discussed Mayan end of the world prediction date of 12/21/12 is just a few days. Are you preparing for December 21 any differently than you normally prep? Have you felt an urgency to step up your prepping regime in anticipation for Friday? Or are you just starting to think that perhaps prepper’s aren’t …
Prepping on a budget through frugal living provides an opportunity to share ideas to help save money in order to afford the preps needed to help our families survive an emergency. My frugal accomplishments for this week included: I made homemade soup stock for our freezer. I made homemade bread sticks for …
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? 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 …
Manual kitchen tools are important to have in your home in case of an emergency that includes no electricity. We inherited my childhood home from my Depression-era grandparents and I have been blessed enough to still have many of the high-quality manual kitchen tools that they used. But all is not lost if you weren’t …
One of the biggest excuses I hear as to why people don’t prep for emergencies is ‘I can’t afford it.’ Hogwash. Prepping on a budget isn’t that hard. I’m one of those who believes you can’t afford not to prep. After my medically fragile son with special needs was born, we found ourselves living on …
Today’s Sunday skill is teaching your kids how to open a can with a mechanical can opener. This is another one of those tools where most of us are so used to popping out the electrical can opener that if we have a mechanical one, it is likely buried in the back of your drawer …
I have always loved the story of Stone Soup. A community coming together to chip in and make something out of nothing is how I envision what I hope my community becomes in an emergency scenario. Homemade dry soup mix made from dehydrated vegetables is an excellent part of your emergency food storage plans. Before …
I’ll admit it. I didn’t get the hype on buying special tactical flashlights for emergency use. My house is stocked full of the big plastic ones with the D cell batteries. After reviewing this Nebo 5160 SE Redline, I am a total convert! Everyone needs to have a tactical flashlight in their Bug Out Bag …
I love helping to support small family businesses and I love coffee so when a friend told me about Brown & Jenkins, a small, family owned coffee roaster in Vermont I was more than intrigued. The more I learned about how their process is organic and they have an eye towards sustainability I became a …
Good morning everyone! Today’s Sunday Skill will take you more time to gather the 3 ingredients than it will to make your fire starter. Super simple but a great thing to show the kids now that they know how to light a match and you’ll have some wonderful fire starters for camping or to carry …
Pinterest has been bursting with great ideas for prepping over this holiday weekend. Here are some of my favorite ideas for Thanksgiving weekend prepping projects. Dehydrate Pumpkins We’ve been talking for several weeks now about how this is the time of year to put up pumpkins. Here are some great directions on how to dehydrate …
Dehydrating food is a skill that all preppers should master and dehydrated apples are probably the easiest food to learn with. But I would be seriously remiss in letting anyone think that I store dehydrated apples as long term food storage in this house. Truth is, the second my kids see this bag on the …
Last week I wanted to light a sugar cookie candle in the living room. I reached for the disposable candle lighter and it was out of butane. No biggie, I sent the 16 year old downstairs for one of the many boxes of matches stored and asked him to do it for me while I …
This is part two of a Family Emergency Plan series written by our contributing writer, Prepper Lush. Make sure to read Family Emergency Plan #1: Talking to Your Family. Most women I know are list makers. Maybe not actual lists in your purse or laying around the house, but lists in our head, so, I …
Getting started prepping is overwhelming! Thinking of all the possible that can go wrong in our lives is not a pleasant thing. Beginning prepping can cause real fear and panic and a sense of “why bother?” As a former teacher, I often think of learning things in a style called “chunking”. I approach prepping the …
This is the first of many articles to come from our contributing writer, Prepper Lush. Please connect with her in the comments and let her know what you think of her article! ‘If the electricity went out in your school, then after an hour the school allowed you to go home. What would you do? …
When was the last time you used a printed map? In this day and age of GPS and Smartphones not many of us do anymore. It’s a skill many of our kids only get a glimpse of in 2nd grade Social Studies. But printed maps have an important place in the prepared home. Looking at …
I am a big believer in that the first investment a prepper should make is a survival library. I was lucky enough that one of the first survival books I picked up was Survival Mom by Lisa Bedford. Doomsday Preppers had just started airing and in my panic mode, Lisa seemed like a friendly face …
There are many ways to light your home if the power goes out. Candles, flashlights and kerosene lanterns are the tried and true ways many of us grew up with. But thanks to cheap manufacturing costs, there is now a safer, cheaper way to get emergency lighting-outdoor solar lights. The past few summers, Walmart has …
Rubber trash cans have a number of emergency uses. Today I picked up this 32 gallon one for $12. I can usually find them on sale for under $10 but I needed one quickly today. I make sure to buy the ones that are the thicker rubber, not the cheaper flimsy plastic ones. This one …
This week I tried to build a Faraday Cage. I failed. So instead of this post being about how to build a safe place to keep your electronics, it is now about how I failed at it. For those of you wondering what the heck I am talking about…A Faraday Cage is a shield that …
Self reliance is the ability to provide for you and your families basic needs without outside help. Sadly, most American families rely so heavily on outside factors that they could not be self reliant for more than a few days if need be. The phrase “The First 72 Is Up To You” is a common …
Most homes have a water heater that holds at least 30 gallons of potable water. It’s one of the conveniences we take for granted, until it stops working! But many of us don’t take for granted the fact that we do have a 30 gallons of emergency water from water heater storage device in our …
Without my coffee I will be a zombie pretty quick! Are you used to grabbing your morning cup of Joe? You may want to include a way to have your morning coffee then! The other day I was walking through Target when the lure of Starbucks pulled me closer. After buying my iced coffee I …
