goals

While I'm not really big on the whole resolution thing, I do think that the change of the secular calendar year is a good time to reevaluate where our lives are going and what we'd like to change. For me, i have a few goals this coming year--principally to pay off my personal consumer debt and increase my savings. I also have a goal of acquiring some new skill sets this coming year such as light carpentry. What are your goals for the coming year?

prepping on a budget vol I iss IV--stay true to you

Sorry for the protracted absence, and it probably won't get better this week. While most of you still have two weeks to go before you get locked down in full holiday craziness, as a Jew--mine is this week. And I am up to my eyeballs in chanukah parties, making special foods, etc. So no blogging time. :(

However, I thought I would take just a few minutes to share some thoughts that have occurred to me. This is not so much about how to save money while prepping, as it is about avoiding a big expense right at the outset. In short, stay true to you and all that entails. Stay true to your cultural expressions, your faith, etc. While there are several of us constantly harping on food storage--you don't and won't see me buying a case of spam. Nor do you see me buying anything that is not certified kosher (except those foods that do not require a kosher certification like fresh produce). Nor do you see me buying those foods that I wouldn't eat if my life depended on it (even though it is in fact kosher)--a prime example being canned gefilte fish. What you will see me stocking up on (since my grossly overestimated storage is barely going to make it through chanukah) is extra olive oil. In my BOB is an Orthodox prayerbook and a Chumash (the Torah, or first five books of the "old testament", in book form).

By staying true to you, you will avoid the enormous expense of stocking up on that "great deal" of stuff you are just going to throw away, or in a best case scenario donate.

thoughts, questions, gripes or complaints? Please let me know in the comments section.

Prepping on a Budget vol I iss III--food storage part 3

the biggest enemy of any prepper/self-reliance guru/general sustainable living individual, is waste. Americans collectively waste 40% of the food that is grown in this country (this is the officially reported figures, so I would guess the actual percentage is much higher). While most of this waste occurs at the farm and processing level, a good deal actually happens in the home. While we can't do much about waste at the inputs to the supply stream, we can do quite a bit about the levels at the output (our own kitchen).

There are several factors that lead to waste in the home kitchen, all of which are a potential boon to building food storage. First of all, there is the issue of our actual storage. Improperly stored items are a recipe for waste. Failing to rotate is a disaster waiting to happen. Always organize your storage by the most important rule in any grocery store--FIFO. That is to say, first in first out. When buying new boxes of cereal put them behind the old boxes of cereal and eat the old boxes first. While we are on the subject, the key word there was organize. Don't just throw things on the shelves. Put all your vegetables together by variety, all your grains, etc. This way when you go to the food storage area, you can just grab what you need without having to hunt for it. The second potential area of waste with food storage is improper storage. Canned goods need to be stored in a cool dark place. Anything in glass or clear plastic you want to especially store away from light so as to avoid deterioration of the food. Basically the two things that promote the deterioration of food and the growth of harmful bacteria is light and air. The air has been removed from that jar of peaches, but if the light still shines through it you can potentially be entering dangerous territory. Invest in some airtight plastic bins (I personally like the boxy kind with snap on lids as they stack easily). Grains, flours, pasta, cereal, etc. should be stored in these to prevent the access of pests. You are storing this food to feed yourself and your loved ones, not your neighborhood mouse population.

the second principle area of waste is what I collectively call "too much." Cooking too much, and eating too much. People routinely cook too much food, especially for holiday and family celebrations, but also on an everyday basis. It is something that is culturally hardwired into us. A visual representation of abundance makes us feel secure. Unfortunately, this tendency to over prepare comes with an attendant tendency to over eat. The same events (periods of scarcity) that cause our food cultures to over prepare cause us to not want to "waste" food. We all remember our mothers telling us the ludicrous story that we needed to clean our plates because there were starving children in Africa/Russia/wherever the crisis was at that moment in time. But ultimately waist=waste. its fairly easy to calculate the calories you need for every member of your family depending on activity level and stage of growth (it is actually a scientific fact that teenagers do need more calories due to rapid growth as do infants). Prepare meals accordingly.

The third area where waste reigns supreme is what many mistakenly consider trash. Be honest. How many of you bought a box or bag of dressing mix for thanksgiving? How many of you have bought croutons or bread crumbs in the last year? how about apple butter? All of the above have one thing in common, they are made from straight up waste. Seriously. That box of top of the range stuffing mix is nothing more than cubed up dried stale bread and some herbs. Croutons, french toast, bread pudding, and bread crumbs all specifically call for stale bread. apple butter? that is actually made from the peels and cores of apples--and the same holds true for a wide variety of jams and jellies. Apple cider is made from windfall apples that are overripe and bruised (and thus not good for fresh eating or canning. Honestly, the list is endless. Since time immemorial frugal cooks the world over have looked for ways to creatively reuse scraps, and those recipes have become firmly rooted in our food culture.

So mind your waste. With waste you are throwing your prepping money down the drain. How do you avoid food waste? Do you have any other tips for building food storage without blowing the bank? please let me know in the comments section below.

Prepping on a budget vol I iss II--foodstorage part 2

this segment is about creating an action plan. Setting up your food storage can seem like an incredibly daunting task. Just buying groceries for the week can take hours depending on how busy the store is and how extensive your list is. Can you imagine buying enough shelf stable foods to last a year?

Well actually its not as bad as it seems. Since you really should only store the foods that you eat, its just like your normal grocery shopping. But you say you can't afford to buy a years worth at once. trust me I understand, and I am not suggesting you do so.

your first step is to establish a game plan. Go to the food storage calculator (this tool is put out by the LDS. While I am not Mormon, I do feel that it is a good tool.) There are also a number of other calculators out there. So, use the calculator to determine what you need. I like this one best because it gives a summary of good basic foods.

Now that you know what your goal amounts are, start small. I actually suggest a two pronged approach. First start with your most important categories which are (in order)fats, proteins, and bulk. In a survival scenario, if you are not consuming fat and protein your body will cannibalize itself to fill in the gaps. Your brain is pure fat and your muscles are well protein. While you may think you can afford to loose some muscle mass, keep in mind--your heart is a muscle. I would build up with these three categories first to a three month threshold, than build up the other areas to that threshold. I would then build up to a 6 month threshold etc.

Don't get freaked out and don't despair. Next time you are at the store, simply pick up an extra bottle of oil and some bags of beans.

What are your strategies for building your food storage? please let me know in the comments section below

Prepping on a budget vol I iss I--food storage part 1

this is the start of a new series I'm doing about prepping on a budget from my perspective.

So, I'm on a budget. I'm on a strict budget because I'm trying to eliminate all my consumer debt while prepping. I'm sure most of you don't have ten grand to plunk down on an extra years worth of shelf stable foods either. So how does one build their food storage while spending (almost) no money? I have several tips for this, but will focus on only one for this part.

If you do not know what the following items are, own the following items, and know in detail how to use the following items, you need to remedy that right now. Seriously right now. It’s the end of the season so many retailers are clearancing them out. a food dehydrator, pressure canner (for low acid foods such as most vegetables), and a water bath canner (for high acid foods such as fruits). While you are at it, pick up as many cases of canning jars (all sizes) that you can afford. Other than a little sugar, salt, spices, and vinegar that is all the money you will need to spend to utilize this tip. While it is a serious investment up front (depending on models, this can run up to several hundred dollars) it will save you immense amounts on both your everyday grocery budget and your preps.

so right now you're probably thinking I'm crazy and suggesting you can air or something. I'm not--please keep reading.

I'm sure all of you have seen the innumerable for sale signs in your local community (just one more example of a very sick economy). Most of these houses are sitting empty--and a great many of them have fruit trees and berry patches in the yard. Did you know that realtors most often consider the fruit from these trees and berry plants as a liability because un-gathered fruits will attract flies and other pests? many will be more than happy to let you pick the fruit. Lets think about this with the concrete example of an apple tree. Use the windfall apples to make sauce, the apples picked directly from the tree to make apple pie filling (yes you can can it, google for a recipe), dry apple slices, make jam and jelly, make wine. Literally the possibilities are endless, and this is free food storage. yes it takes work, but it is free (At least monetarily). now that you've found your apple bounty, and you've peeled and canned and dried until you've almost dropped--don't throw out the peels and cores. Stick them in your crock pot with some water, sugar, and spices and voila--apple butter. But you say, this is an awful lot of fruits (the possibilities are literally endless) but a little lite on the proteins and fats category. You are absolutely correct, but you are forgetting about the black walnut and pecan trees in those same backyards. gather them, shell them, and follow a conventional dry canning recipe (readily found through a google search).

In addition to the yards of houses up for sale, get to know your local parks. This is public land, and so it is perfectly legal in most locations, but not all so check it out, to gather the food growing there. You would be surprised by the amount of edible food stuffs (principally nut trees at least locally, although some fruit trees as well) planted on public lands. Don't let that food go to waste.

So far you may have noticed we haven't got into vegetables. Lets say you are an absolute beginner and don not know how to garden, you have none of the tools, and you do not have the financial means of putting in a garden. Now lets also say that you have a strong back, and a friend with a large vegetable garden. Offer to trade some sweat equity for a share of the produce. Then take that produce home, preserve it (Save the scraps for making stock) and put it in your food storage. Do you know an outright vegetable farmer or truck gardeners? Offer to help out in exchange for the misshapen produce. This stuff is perfectly edible, but grocers are only willing to buy perfect produce that is more likely to sell. Most of this excess produce is dumped for lack of a buyer.

now lets look a little closer to home--like your own front lawn (which you should look into digging out and replacing with raised garden beds--just sayin.). Unless you have a lawn made of astroturf and spend hours a day pulling weeds, you are literally looking at a huge salad bowl. Those pesky dandelions are edible right down to the root. The leaves for salad, the flowers for wine and jelly, and the roots can be dried, roasted, boiled, or any number of other combinations. Those clumps of wild onions? you should dig these all up now! wash them, trim them, slice them and put them in your handy dandy dehydrator. Voila, dried onions for adding to soups, stews, casseroles, etc. While those are drying go out and dig up some more wild onions (really, can you ever get them all?!) and make a huge pot of french onion soup. Dig out your pressure canner, your handy case of pint jars, and suddenly you have a ready made meal perfectly portioned sitting on your pantry shelf. A word to the wise, be very careful when it comes to mushrooms and other wildcrafted foods. Do your research and find out what is and is not edible. Speaking of those mushrooms, you already have the dehydrator and the pressure canner. Hmm, a match made in heaven?

As with all things, home food preservation is nothing to be scared of, but do know what you are doing. Pick up a book from your local library, hit up google, and under no circumstances can something without reading the manual included with every canner first. You want safe foods sitting on those shelves.

do you have any further suggestions? how do you fill out your food storage while on a budget? Have you done any home food preservation? Please let me know about it in the comments section below.

coming out....

So its been two days since I wrote the post about being a prepper, and I've had some strange (to my mind at least) reactions.  To give a bit of back story, I've actually been a closet/armchair prepper for some time.  To me it just makes common sense. History shows that when times get rough for society in general, times get really rough for minorities.  Being as I'm a double minority, I figure I'm pretty high up on the scapegoat list.  Also, history shows that natural disasters can and do happen.  History also shows that if you are relying on FEMA and insurance do not have the capabilities of helping you rebuild your life after a natural disaster.  ironically FEMA recognizes this and even suggests limited prepping.  Don't believe me?  check out www.fema.gov and see for yourself.  Given my strong libertarian leanings, I don't want to rely upon FEMA or any other government safety net if I can at all avoid it.  Only you can decide if prepping is right for you, so do the research and think about it.  only you can empower you. 

so on to a breakdown of the reactions, and my reactions to them.  I've actually gotten several supportive comments and constructive criticism.  Its been a real joy learning from other preppers out there, and finally discovering that I am in fact not the only Jewish prepper. 

I've also received some negative comments, and I'd like to respond to them.  Actually they all revolve around one issue--and I'd like to make a clarification.  Prepping is not about living in fear of the future.  Prepping is about being ready, resilient, and willing to take hold of your own destiny.  prepping is about relying upon yourself, knowing you have the skills you need, the resources you need, and mindset you need to survive just about anything.  prepping is not, for most of us, about some primitive tribalism--but about maintaining our current living standard for as long as possible irregardless of the circumstances. 

I've also received some shocked reactions.  These tend to principally rely upon the premise that by being a prepper I have somehow left the sustainable lifestyle.  So lets spend a bit of time briefly going over that ( I will do a fuller post later on the subject of compatibility between the prepper and sustainable lifestyles).  One of the most common preps made is to lay in a store of heirloom non-gmo seeds, and organic gardening.  Creative reuse of discarded materials is a part of almost any preppers practice and is considered a valuable skill set in the community.  home food preservation, another mainstay of the sustainable living community, is another prepper must in terms of skill sets.  Would it surprise you to know that the Dervais family of urban homestead fame are actually preppers?  would it surprise you to know that most of the modern homestead movement is made up of--you guessed it, preppers?  so no, I have not foresworn all things green simply because I am a prepper.  hell, camo is green! ;)


Finally, I've also received a number of questions, all asking the same thing. What is it I'm preparing for. To that, I have a short answer. Unlike the show Doomsday Preppers, I'm not really prepping for one incident. I'm prepping for everything. But, this is the situation that I find most likely. I personally think we are seeing a gradual (as evidenced by higher gas prices) decrease in the purchasing power of the US dollar in regards to crude oil. I don't think any oil producing country (including the US) is going to cut off oil supplies, but they will do what any business person with a product to sell does--sell to the highest bidder. India and China have been seeing dramatic increases in their collective purchasing power, but that purchasing power has significantly lagged behind actual purchases. With rapidly increasing demand, I think it is likely that we will see China start to seriously outbid the US when it comes to crude. Most chinese citizens to don own automobiles. However, the average chinese citizen is trying to increase their standard of living (as is just about everyone else on the globe) to match the American middle class--and that includes vehicles. If china does start outbidding the US on crude supplies, we are going to see massive changes in our society. Few realize how essential petroleum is to keep our society running. As just one example, did you know that any city only contains 3 days worth of food in terms of what's on the supermarket shelves? Did you know that many of the powerplants in this country actually run on petroleum byproducts? did you know that our entire agricultural system is completely dependent on oil? So, with this oil crisis--you see our cities run out of food, the grid go down (as remaining plants will then be overtaxed), our transportation industry stalled (and lets face it--how many americans live within walkable distance to essential life resources? seriously, engineering and development plans in this country have never taken into account a lack of automobiles), and the complete shutdown of our resupply plan in terms of food. something to think about. so what are your thoughts? please feel free to let me know in the comments section below. Seriously, I really welcome all feedback.

GULP......

So a few weeks ago, I created an action plan going through January of 2014.  Sometimes, being simple is really hard work lol.  This action plan will have me out of debt and moving to a locale that I would much prefer to live in.  I have been working towards that goal, but its time to rededicate myself to actually accomplishing it.  This action plan also includes something that may or may not surprise you.  It includes working towards the goal of becoming more thoroughly prepared.  You may remember my last post about being prepared for the storms (metaphorical and literal) of life.  I have made a personal decision to prepare for more long range disasters (such as protracted drought leading to higher food cost, economic collapse, etc.).  Although these events are not likely, I feel that being prepared for them is important.  Even if nothing comes of it, I will be (hopefully) fully prepared to maintain my current living standard irregardless of what actually happens.  So to that end, I decided it was time for a complete inventory of my stockpile of shelf stable foods.  And that's where the gulp comes in.  I thought I was doing awesome, but after spending the morning on the inventory I discovered that I have on hand only aproximately 213 meals.  That is only a 71 day supply at three full meals per day (a grand total of 852 servings of different foods).  I've always said three months was the minimum one should have on hand, and even I don't live up to it.  This is especially frightening to me considering that we have reached the very end of canning season (at least locally).  Now this can be stretched a bit (i deliberately underestimated on the servings just to be on the conservative side).  This means that, with stretching and leaning down, I can get myself through 3 months--barely.  But this also means that, should something happen, I would lack the resources to help my friends and family also whether the storm--and frankly that's the point of prepping. 

Here is how the inventory broke down:
fruit--106 servings
Jams&jellies--356 servings (this is the one area that I actually have too much of lol)
Pasta--42 servings
whole grains (rice, quinoa etc)--92 servings
flours/baking mixes--25 servings
Vegetables--31 servings
beans (my primary protein source)--42 servings
Syrups (principally the blueberry syrup i made when blueberries were on sale .99 a pint)--27 servings
Tomato products (principally pasta sauces)--32 servings
pickles and relishes--70 servings
soup mixes and assorted other prepared main dishes--19 servings
sidedishes--10 servings

surprisingly considering I'm vegetarian, the principle shortcoming in my supply is vegetables. 

good thing there is lots of sales going on the next two months. 

Have you inventoried your pantry lately?  How long can you go without grocery shopping?  What is your food storage strategy?  Please let me know in the comments section.