How to get the stuff you need to survive.

The next section in our Family Survival Series
HOW TO GET STUFF
This is really the question most people ask. I can just barely balance my budget now. How can I afford to store food? Can you afford to not store food? The real question is do you really have a realistic budget. Enough said about that. You can access help with your budget in the appendix. If you put your mind to it you can find the things that you need to store. If you start then the opportunities to get what you need will come.
How do I get food to store?
Whenever you buy groceries buy an extra can. For example say that you buy 6 can of soup. Buy 7 everybody can afford that. If you do that every time you buy soup you soon will have a few cans in storage. Just add soup to your grocery list when your inventory gets down to you stored size. This is a simple concept but over time it will build food storage.
Grow a garden and can or freeze what you don’t eat. Our goal this year is to produce more than 50 percent of our own food. Most of this will come from our garden.
Contact organizations that promote food storage such as the LDS Church.
Shop the internet for dried or canned food items sometime things show up on eBay and Craig’s list.
Ask your family to give you food storage items for gifts.
Check out any neighbors that are moving. Many times they can’t move their food or they don’t want to.
If you have a place to do it raise your own live stock. Chickens and rabbits can be raised most any place.
Follow the local produce markets as sometime you can get great value here.
What can I store for fuel and light? This is a difficult question and is dependent upon where you live. If you live in the woods or heat your home with a wood stove this becomes easier. Just keep a year’s supply of dry wood ahead and you have the fuel to heat your home. If you are lucky enough to have a wood cook stove then you fuel problem is solved.
If you don’t have a source of heat such as wood then there are other alternatives. A pel-let stove is a pretty good way to store heat for you house. It will require a battery backup with an inverter for power. Pellets can be easily and safely stored in a shed or garage. If you can afford it a solar powered charger can be use to charge the battery to run the pellet stove. Cooking fuel is another matter. Here are a few solutions for cooking: In the summer in most areas you can use solar reflectors as a solar oven to cook your food. You will have to do your own research in this area as I don’t have a proven method. I do know several people that have used this method successfully.
Propane with a good camp stove can be a solution to cooking your food. WARNING: Pro-pane is an explosive gas. Propane should not be stored in any living area or even in your garage if it is attached to your house. Three or four 8 gallon propane tanks will provide a couple of months of cooking fuel if use sparingly. Use your own judgment on how much you want to store. These are about the only alternatives for cooking other than cooking over an open fire. This works but is not the best solution in most areas.
For light I recommend camping lanterns and solar powered LED lights. The camping lan-terns can be fueled either with portable propane cylinders or be gasoline/lantern fuel burn-ing lanterns. Please remember that storage of lantern fuel should meet the same require-ments as storage of gasoline.
A backup generator is as almost always a must for rural settings and sometimes for other home sites. How can I afford a backup generator? Check Craig’s list and eBay or Amazon for bargains. The first thing to decide is how large a generator you need. Figure out your critical uses for electricity. Some things to look at are:
• Well pump
• Pellet stove
• Recharging batteries
• Freezers and refrigerators
Find out what the power requirements for each of the units are. Remember that motors such as pumps require a lot more amperage for starting than for running. You must have a large enough generator to start the largest electric motor that an emergency might require. Generally you can alternate running different machines at different times to compensate for lack of gross power.
In summary you can obtain the items you need to store by being watchful for sales, peo-ple moving and yard sales. Be frugal with your emergency preparedness and storage money.
What clothes should I store and where can I get them. Many times you can obtain clothes at the thrift shop for storage. I believe that all families ought to be shopping the thrift shops for children’s clothes anyway. If the thrift shop has clothes that fit you and they are something that you will wear then this is a good place to get adult clothes also. Remem-ber that children clothes size change a lot in a year. Try to be proactive and buy good quality but inexpensive clothes for your children while estimating how much they will grow in a year. Hand me down are a great way to meet your children’s clothing needs. These can be your own family or even friends and neighbors. Start a neighborhood clothes sharing group. Don’t forget Craig’s List and eBay
.