Prepping On A Budget - Easy Cooking Off Grid

Okay so the last two posts in this series have talk about storing water for three days and enough food for an extra seven days. Now I want to talk about what you'd do to cook that food if your normal means weren't working.


Having a secondary cooking source is a really important area of preparedness. Being able to boil a kettle gives you a great way to make water safe to drink and also being able to heat food is great for making us feel better and making it good to consume.

Bringing firewood for next winter - for cooking and heating

I talked to a few friends after the winter storms we had this year. I was surprised how few had a secondary way of cooking, let alone heating themselves had the power gone out. Many are on gas but lots of modern gas cookers have an electric ignition/fan, etc so won't work without the power (worth testing if in doubt).

Prepping On A Budget - 7 Days Of Food

This is the second part of my Prepping On A Budget series. After last weeks post on showing how easy it is to store three days worth of drinking water, this post should show how easy it is to store an extra seven days worth of food.

Food should be another big consideration when you think about preparedness.

Now for the purpose of this post I'm not talking about going out and spending thousands on freeze dried food or hundreds on MRE's that you can put in your bunker for 20 years. More about how small changes in shopping and storage habits can make a big difference to the amount of food you have in case of an emergency.

Prepping On A Budget - Water

It's okay, you can put your tin foil hats away, I'm not digging a bunker, well not yet anyway... This is a post about keeping three days supply of water ready at hand.

I worry about how unprepared people in general seem to be. And I'm not talking about for a coming war or zombie apocalypse, I'm talking just for the bumps in the road of everyday living.

Dehydrated Baked Beans

This is a bit of random one, but there is logic in my madness I promise!

So I dehydrated a tin of baked beans the other day. I know this isn't 100 percent normal behaviour but I'm on a bit of dehydrating marathon at the moment.

A friend and I were going wild camping a few weeks ago, the idea being that we could only take what we could carry. A simulated "bug out" where you have to just grab a bag of stuff and get out the house. In something like this weight becomes very important as soon as you have to walk any kind of distance.

What Does One Years Food Supply Cost?

Well if you ever wondered what a years worth of food accually looked like then here's the picture for you:

Imagine from Costo 

Costo Wholesale in the USA are selling a years worth of food for $5,999 (about £4,300) containing 600 cans of food.
It looks like it has a great selection and budgets on 36,000 servings with 2,000 calories on average per day. Click on the link above and you can see what it contains, but everything from grains, freeze dried fruits and vegetables, dairy and more.

What do you think to kits like this?

I'm afraid it's out of my budget for now though and I think the shipping would kill it for me!

How To Make Dehydrated Soup Mix

My wife and I both love eating soup, it makes for a great lunch with a fresh roll or for a warming tea. 

 The other night I made a huge batch of squash soup for tea. Some of my squash have just started to go bad so it was time to use them up. In the end I made about 6 litres of soup and it was really tasty!

I have no real set recipe for soup, I tend to just make it up as I go alone with what I have to hand. This one contained half a Oregon Homestead Squash (about 4kg I'd guess), three large onions, 6 cloves of garlic, a couple of white beetroots (so as to not colour the soup), one massive carrot and enough water to cover the lot. I then left it cooking until everything was soft and tender.

Get Home Car Kit For My Wife

The wife makes a fuss about carrying extra stuff in the car because I'm paranoid. But if she's gotta go to work she's going to be prepared!

Not sure what else I should pack for her, but in there she's got 
Good sleeping bag, 
Folding shovel, 
Snow chains, 
24 hour ration pack, 
Water, 
Flashing beacon, 
First aid kit, 
Head torch and normal torch, 
Boots, 
Extra socks
Good coat and bag. 

After posting this on Facebook, I'm going to add a phone charger and maybe some jump leads, extra chocolate, a small knife, matches and a few candles. A battery pack for her phone would be a good idea as well. 

I also need to check there's a hooking eye for towing and buy a tow rope for my truck (ratchet straps would do at a push but not ideal)

What else would you add to this car kit?

What Would You Do For Water?

Tewesbury, a town not too far away had a main water pipe burst yesterday. 

This has left 10,000 homes and businesses without water and thirteen school.

Picture from Severn Trent Water

Severn Trent have set up three distribution points hand have handed out tens of thousand of bottles of water.
Supermarkets have also been stripped clear of any bottled water as people start to panic buy.

This also happened a few months ago in Chelthenham where 7,000 were left without water.

In both cases the water board reacted quickly and sets up points for people to collect water. But it does make me wonder how much they have stored up for this sort of emergency and how long it would last for.

Water storage is certainly an area I need to work on.

Do you have emergency water stored?

Or your own supply?

What would you do if the distribution points ran dry in an emergency?

What Equipment Do You Duplicate?

I'm building some doors for the extension this week. 

It's a fairly enjoyable job and good to make something nice for us for a change, I'll do a post on the doors once they're all made and hung. I'm just making a batch of six 4 panel 1950's style doors at the moment and maybe some more when I start work on the downstairs. 

Routers and Squares

But one of the reasons it enjoyable is that I have the right kit for the job, I've been doing this sort of thing for 15 years now and have a fair selection of tools. 

I also have some duplicates of some important things as well and this can come in real handy. 

Like in the picture above, two big routers set up with the bits I need to make a door. Otherwise I'd have to change bits and reset each one for each door! This way is much quicker and not so frustrating! 

This got me thinking. Now I know the rule of prepping "three is two, two is one, one is none". 

What do you have multiples of that make your life easier? for example I have three wheelbarrows here, one is never enough!

What do you have to keep a spare just so you could carry on with your day to day life with? 

What do you keep a spare of for emergencies?

Don't Be That Idiot

Once I saw the amount of snow yesterday I went and did my morning chores then had a quick walk around my neighbours to make sure everyone was okay. 

My one set of neighbours, Ken and Liz, were properly sorted. Ken is in his 70's and there's certainly no flies on him, when the weather was good on the Saturday he'd moved all the firewood he'd need up to the house and garage, ready for the snow. I also know they'd have enough food in stock to last them any length of time needed. 

On the other end of the scale I read on someones Facebook yesterday that they'd been in a shop and heard a woman complaining that the store had run out of bread, apparently she'd said to the cashier (not the other way round!) "You knew there was a storm coming, so why didn't you stock up?"

Picture from google somewhere...

Now I know I'm preaching to the choir a little bit here, but please lets not be idiots. It costs very little to keep a bit of food in the house. And I'm not talking enough to see out a nuclear winter, just enough to see you through a snowy week if you can't get to the shops.

It doesn't cost much and I'd say you could probably kit yourself out with some emergency rations for a few days for about £20.

I keep long life bread here, it's called flour. 

We keep emergency cake, it's called flour, eggs and sugar.

A months worth of breakfast comes in the form a of big bag of oats.

None of this costs very much! Nor does it take up much storage space. A little camping stove would give you the ability to cook off grid....

I think you can see where I'm going with this! 

People are too quick to play the victim. People need to take control and do something for themselves. 

What I'll be doing after this snow storm is evaluating what we could have done with and making sure we have it for next time. 

Then I'll be thinking how would we have done without power and trying to make things more comfortable if that was the case as well. We can heat the house without power (or most of the house) and cook on top of the stove, but what else would have helped?

Are you stocked up for a snow storm?

Who do you know who plays the idiot but won't take any notice when you try to warn them?

Another Preppers Paradise - Farm To Sit Out The End Of The World?

I've no intentions of ever moving from this place but sometimes I stumble on an interesting property and just have to share it with you guys.

What about this for another Preppers Paradise? 

I say it's a little harder to get to than the last one, as this one has a causeway you can cross at low tide. but from the Orkney Islands! 

It also comes with 40 acres of land and although not in what I'd call "prime" growing area, I'm sure you could support your own family on an area like this, with sheep or goats as a main meat source as well.

It has a range of out buildings and some breath taking views as well as a seal colony!

I'd imagine to make it work you'd need to make the farm earn it's keep but also have something you could do from home (writting, workshop work, etc) that would pay in the quiet times, I'd imagine (although I might be wrong) that jobs might be hard to come by out there.

Certainly an interesting property and not badly priced with offers over £300K, maybe someones dream property, I know my wife would hate it! 

Check out the details here (and lots more pictures, all these pictures were taken from Savills Website)

What do you think? 

Your type of property? 

Too remote?

Somewhere to watch out the end of the world?

Rehydrations salts

It's not been the start to the new year we wanted. 

My wife has caught a bug or something that has caused her to have a constant headache and sickness since the 29th of December. For three days she couldn't even keep a glass of water down, making it very difficult to keep her hydrated. 

In the end, on New Years day, we went to see the out of hours GP at the hospital while a friend looked after the children. He gave her an anti sickness injection so she could at least get hydrated. Since then she has improved a little, drank water but still not eaten anything. She's had to miss the first couple of days at her new job  and she's really gutted about this - not the first impression you want to make.

It does make you grateful about certain things though, the fact that we know how to treat something that we see as simple like hydration when your ill. Just the knowledge that keeping hydrated is important is enough to prevent sickness becoming more serious (kidney damage, death, etc) and the knowledge that we now know to give salts at the same time has save millions around the world. 

Taking a solution with the right levels of salt and sugar can increase water absorption into the body by 2 - 3 times, but if the level is wrong then if can exacerbate dehydration. 

We buy ours in ready made packs that we mix with water (and normally a little squash to make it taste better), it's worth having a good stock of these as they don't go off very fast, but it's simple to make your own in an emergency.

1 Litre of Fresh water 

4 tablespoons of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

The official stuff has more in it, UNICEF's ingredients list reads like this 

2.6 grams of salt

2.9 grams of trisodium citrate dihydrate

1.5 grams potassium chloride

13.5 grams anhydrous glucose (a sugar)

1 liter of clean water

 When I was looking for information on this I came across Tokyo's Disaster Preparedness Website where they have a free PDF download on how to deal with a disaster and respond to an emergency. Really worth a read, click the link here.

Have you ever had to make your own rehydration salts? 

Survival Growing (if SHTF)

Okay, so most folks reading this blog keep a selection of seeds to grow each year, or if not then keep some in case of an emergency that might result in having to grow some of your own food (financial collapse, zombies, etc).

But I was reading something the other day and it made me think about what if I didn't have my collection of seeds to grow from? What then? What if something happened to your supply or you had to leave them behind and at your new location you had to grow food to feed your family?

It's amazing when you start looking though there is plenty of things you could grab to grow in the right (or wrong) situation. 

I started looking in the kitchen and within a couple of minutes found these.

Tomatoes, popcorn, fennel seeds, onion, garlic, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, mustard seeds

Now the seeds are fairly self explanatory, the tomatoes (it could be peppers, or any fruit with a seed in) could be taken and the seeds extracted to be planted. 

The onion could be planted in the ground and the green leaves harvested, or with the hope that it might go to seed and provide you with the material to grow the year afters crop. The same would be true of any root crop you found, if you got them in the ground then by the end of the next year you'd have more than enough seed to grow all the carrots you could possibly want. 

The popcorn could be grown and used just as a normal grain then used for flour.

But it doesn't have to stop there. Out in the shed I've got wheat for my chickens, oats for the sheep and sunflowers for the birds. These could all be grown easily. The wheat could even be eaten as wheat grass or ground to make flour and the rest grown for another crop.  

The other thing would be to look in peoples gardens and see what gone to seed, or what young plants are growing (depending on what time of year it is) but you need to have a good gardening knowledge to be able to do this well. 

Where else do you think you could look for good sources of growing material? 

What would we find around your kitchen and garden?

What Some "Preppers" Do Wrong - Seed Vaults

My wife and I were looking on her Instagram, a page she follows keeps advertising "Seed Vaults".

I'm sure we've all seen these floating around the internet. "30,000 seeds to plant your own survival garden when the SHTF". Some have more than that, boasting over 300,000 seeds at some staggering prices (nearly $1,000 but it does come in a nice ammo tin!). 

Some of these boxes talk a lot of sense, they come with a growing manual and state that all seeds are open pollinated. 

But if you think for a second that having a big box of seeds is the secret to growing enough food to feed your family then you are very much mistaken! 

Anyone that gardens at all will tell you how hard it is to be a consistent producer, if it came to a time when it really mattered it would be even harder. 

Having the seeds is such a small piece of the jigsaw that is growing your own food. 

• You need to have the space, although I guess you could find somewhere and guerrilla garden them. 
• The right soil to grow in (which can and does take years to build up), 
• The knowledge and skills to be able to nurture these seeds into growth, 
• The knowledge to be able to save the seeds from the plants you're growing. 
• The ability to produce and store you harvest.

But that's almost besides the point I was getting at, when you look at what some of these seed vaults contain they'd never feed you anyway. One I looked at had 3000 celery seeds and only 15-20 bean seeds! I'd want a lot more beans than that in my larder, but I guess I could make celery soup or something! 

You need to look at growing carbs and protein to keep you going and then other veggies to keep you healthy. 

Then there's the viability issue, having a seed vault in storage doesn't mean they're all going to grow. Some seed lasts much longer than others, the only way to really guarantee that you can grow everything is to grow it every year and either buy new seed or save seed. I don't even do this myself, I take the risk and use seed that is a few years old, most of the time it works but then sometimes it doesn't and in a situation where you're relying on your harvest that could have some serious consequences! 

Also you want to grow from seeds that are suitable to your area, like the melon I posted earlier in the week, it would be no good planting crops where the seed has been adapted to grow in a much hotter and drier climate than your own or took too long to mature before frosts set in again. 

My seed bank! 

I for one like to garden every year and improve my skills, who knows one day that set of skills might be very useful! 

What do you think? 

Am I wrong and storing a seed vault is a good idea? 

Germany Stockpilling

Sol sent me a link yesterday about Germany recommendation to stockpile food and to be honest I hadn't been at my computer much so I would have missed it otherwise.

There are some news articles from the BBC here and the Independent here.

In short  the German Government has advised it's citizens to stockpile food and water for the first time since the Cold War.

This has resulted in what the Germans call "Hamsterkaeufe"  or panic buying. Shelves in some supermarkets have been stripped bare in a few hours with Germans trying to get enough food for the recommended 10 days and water for the recommended 5 days in case of terror attacks.

Another wake up call to keep household essentials in stock, if you lived week to week with your food then a simple news item like this could leave you without food for that week without anything even happening.

Do you have what the German Government is recommending in your store?

What would be the thing you'd have to rush out and buy?

Prep Much? Discuss!

I think the word "prepper" has negative connotations if brought up in conversation with "normal" people. Saying you're trying to be self sufficient doesn't raise eyebrows in the same way (people still think you're nuts) but are they so different?

It always make smile, and it's normally taken out of all context. If they think you're a prepper they expect you to wear a tin foil hat and have a lead lined bunker in the garden and if you're trying to be self sufficient many just can't see the point of the effort for what you gain at the end.

But you can prepare for anything really and be more self sufficient/reliant- when do you start being called a prepper?

At its simplest I was talking to someone at a BBQ last week and they were asking how far away our nearest shop was and if we had to stock up as we couldn't just pop to the shops. We do our shopping weekly so we know how much of everything to buy to last us a week or more, we freeze milk and I bake bread most days from a store of flour I keep, fresh produce is growing normally and I keep a good stock of tinned goods as well. 

Going up a stage you have to think about something fairly common but unforeseen in the short term. Here we have to be prepared to survive a few days without power and being cut off by snow in the winter for up to a week. We live in the valley of a big hill and it can get quite cold. So I know we can heat our house through the use of wood (which I have a good supply of stored ready) and we have candles ready to use for light. I also know that this winter my wife is possibly going to have to give birth at home so I'l be preparing for that as well, researching what I'll need to keep close encase we're snowed in when it happens (unlikely but you never know). I've lambed lots of ewes so we should be alright on that one...

The next stage is preparing for the longer term but this is where you enter tricky territory and people begin to think  you're slowly going mad. 

My plan here is to slowly increase what I grow, store & preserve so that we only have to shop when we really need to or for cleaning and luxury items and things out of season. Not because I think the worlds going to end or the sky is going to fall on my head, but more because I don't want the responsibility of feeding my family to lie with someone else and be part of that system of control. If the media said to stock up for what ever reason, shelves would be empty in days (or hours even) and people are happy to look to the government to feed them but I doubt it would happen very smoothly. You only need to look at Greece at the moment to see how well that works out. 

The other is trust in what I buy, I want to know what we're eating & cook from scratch. It also save money which certainly helps with our finances. That doesn't mean I'm growing all I eat, we're no where near ready for that, but it does mean I can keep a large range of stuff stored so I know we can eat. 

So do you prepare? 

What do you prepare for? 

Where do you draw the line? 

And what do others think of what you do?

Batteries And Torches

It's that time of year again. It's dark when I get up and feed the chickens and it normally getting dark when I go out and close them in for the night. Time to change the batteries in the torches and make sure they're all working again. 

As soon as I got the batteries out Ev brought up her toy little camera for me to put new batteries in. I thought she's forgotten about it - the blinking thing is so loud!
"IT'S PICTURE TIME!" it shouts at me about 75 times a day!

I've been buying mine in "bulk" off eBay 50 at a time. It works out much cheaper, they have a long expiration date (2020) and it's nice to know we've got some spares if the power goes off for any length of time. 

My wife does tease me when parcels turn up at the moment though "What's this now? 50 boxes of matches?" 

As for the torches I've got four reasonably good ones: two head torches, one largish torch and a small one that's easy to slip in your pocket, none are rechargeable as I find when you really need they they are nearly always flat! I had a good gun lamp but that needs a new rechargeable battery before I can use it again and as it's so large it's quite expensive so I haven't got around to it yet.

What does everyone else do when it comes to torches and batteries?

How many do you keep about the house?

MOD 24hr Ration Pack

I've got a friend in the Royal Marines who I met up with the other night for a drink. He gave me a 24hr ration pack to try. 

I was quite surprised how much was in them and what a good selection of stuff there was, although I'm sure you'd soon get bored with it. My friend says as soon as they're dished out everyone starts swapping bits and bobs with people and making a fuss they don't like tuna!

Ration pack

Menu number 19

the list of what's in there

The main meal pouches: Apple and cinnamon muesli, Tuna Pasta beans, Steak and vegetable & Chocolate brownie.

All the snacks: Fruit puree pouch, caramel ceral bar, peanut butter, lemon boiled sweets, tuna light mayonnaise, fruit biscuits, tin of nuts

All the drinks: 2 tea bags, 2 coffees, 4 sugars, 4 creamers, 3 powdered fruit drinks, one hot chocolate & one isotonic orange drink 

Sundry items: Spork, wipes, chewing gum, tissues, matches, water purification tablets & Tabasco sauce bottle.

I was quite impressed with all this but I haven't tried much of it yet - I'll save it for a rainy day! 

So the question I have for you all is what would be in your emergency 24hr ration pack?

Storage Barrels

We went to a car boot sale at the weekend and there was a guy selling these 30 litre barrels in good condition for £3 each or 4 for £10. I brought 8 which was as many as I could fit in the car. I've got his number so I might go and buy some more yet. 

They have the metal band lids that snap shut and are a food grade plastic (they've been used for shipping sweets from Barcelona apparently). They're really clean inside and out and perfect for hundreds of uses. 

I was thinking that this year I could brew my cider in them, make some elder flower wine in them next spring, store bulk quantities of sugar and salt in them, store water in them, corn and other animal feed in them (although they're not that big) - even store rat poison in one to stop the rats and mice getting in my poison bags. You can even make chicken spring feeders with this type of barrel as well, just add some legs and fit a spring feeder to a hole in the bottom. 

What other uses can you think of for them? How many do you think I should get?