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).

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?

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?