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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 our food storage while our grocery money went to paying for Parker’s necessities.
The secret is to prepping on a budget is to build your food storage around what is on sale each month and use coupons if possible.
If I can save even $5.00 a week, that’s $5.00 more that can go toward preps.
I’m going to start listing my frugal endeavors here each week. I’d love it if you would join in with me by sharing your frugal endeavors for the week. Hopefully we can inspire each other to save more to go towards our prepping goals.
Use Reward Cards To Pay For Prepping Supplies
- My Mom loves to shop at a home decor store that offers a reward card each time she shops. For every $10.00 she spends, the store stamps her card. Once she has spent $200.00 she can then turn that card in for $15.00 off her next purchase. Instead of using her card, she gives it to me. By combining her rewards card with the 25% off coupon I found, I was able to score a sweet Christmas gift for my married daughter for less than $2.00.
- I turned my swagbucks in for an Amazon gift card to be used on another Christmas gift.
Homestead Living & Sale Stocking
- I used left over frozen turkey in Parker’s blenderized diet this week.
- Surprisingly enough, the rosemary in my garden is still alive and going strong. I harvested it by freezing it in olive oil in baby food trays.
- Instead of giving in to the temptation of ordering pizza, I made it from scratch.
- My son is a wrestler. He was in a tournament on Saturday. They sell food during these tournaments, but boy is it expensive. Instead I packed him a small cooler of fresh fruit, Gatorade I scored for .40 a bottle this summer, and other nutritious food.
- Instead of purchasing expensive home school curriculum, I searched the internet for free downloads.
- Began using cloth trainers instead of Pull-Ups.
- I rescued the pumpkins that my parents were using on their front porch for decoration. I baked them, pureed them, and then froze the puree. I’ll use it in holiday baking and Parker’s blenderized diet.
- I made homemade hamburger rolls to go with our homemade sloppy joes.
What about you? What are you doing to help save money to use towards emergency planning?
I froze all the thanksgiving leftovers into both a family meal and individual ‘t.v. dinners’. We also started using cloth trainers instead of pul-ups for one of the kids. (we have 4). Like always I breastffed the youngest so thats money saved because we don’t buy formula. I too looked up free homeschooling stuff instead of buying it. I ‘home-school’ the younger ones to prepare them and hep them to be ahead of the game when they are old enough for school. I’m sure there are more things but they are such a part of everyday life I don’t thinkof them anymore.
Holly,
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your frugal doings! You are a girl after my own heart! I LOVE the ‘t.v.’ dinner idea.
We grew pumpkins this year and it must have been the year for them. We have been putting up pumpkins for several weeks. I am in the process of gathering some pumpkin recipes (other than pumpkin pie) to use them in. If we hit really hard times, I could sweeten it and we could eat it like sweet potatoes. Ours are pie pumpkins – not the jack-o-lantern kind.
CJ, you are a girl after my own heart! I have a freezer full of the little orange pie pumpkins that I have baked and frozen. I’ve even dehydrated them! Pumpkins are a staple for Parker’s blenderized diet too!
Have you ever tried making pumpkin soup…….?
Great post. My wife and I are looking into stocking up on emergency foods and supplies, but we don’t want to spend ridiculous amounts of money to do so. Thanks for sharing.
You are so welcome! They way I look at it is that if I can save money in one area, then I’ll be able to save for other areas that are more expensive…..like the pressure cooker I have my eye on! 😀