Discussions
Reply to: (Official discussion) Rainy day funds and cash on hand Posted November 8, 2024

1.  Cash is flexible.  Most people have limited space and/or limited financial resources, so it’s more practical to keep some cash that could be used where it’s needed most, rather than try to store every conceivable item one might need.  For example, I keep some lumber and roofing supplies for repairing storm damage (cheap, store well, a matter of when not if) but I do not keep spares for every window in my home.  Windows are expensive, prone to accidents in storage, and most will probably never need to be replaced for the lifetime of the house.  So instead, I keep plastic sheeting as a temporary measure, and money in the bank that could be spent on a new window if that’s where it’s most needed.  This is only an example – if you do store spare windows, kudos on that, but what about a spare windshield for your car? All other car parts? All major household appliances?  And are all these things stored in a secure location off site, in case your home is destroyed?  The point is that however far you take it, there’s always going to be some item you don’t have on hand, and could conceivably end up needing in order to get back on track with your normal life following a minor setback. 2. Cash covers services, not just supplies.  Someone might use their emergency fund to take their child to the doctor, pay for car repairs they’re unable to perform on their own, pay their rent/mortgage or other bills on time, or any number of other expenses of eveyday life that are not physical items we can store.   3. For very new preppers, they may only have a few weeks worth of vital supplies.  Someone with only two weeks worth of food at home doesn’t want to use that up just because they’re briefly out of work, or had to spend their grocery budget for the week on a car repair.  If they use their modest survival pantry to get through a financial tight spot, they could be caught without any supplies when a hurricane or other major event closes down stores.

Reply to: Plants with Saponins Posted April 8, 2024

I remember playing with soapwort as a child, using it to make “bubble bath.” I can’t speak to it’s cleaning ability (I wasn’t concerned about that part) but it made lots of suds, which was fun.   I’ve tried English ivy as soap because it’s an introduced invasive here, and I was looking for a use for some of the ivy I pull out of nature preserves.  For laundry it was basically a failure.  Things came out looking clean, but it didn’t remove odors as well as real soap.  A handful of crushed up ivy leaves does work great for spot cleaning things, like I’ve used it to get dried blood (deer, not human) off a tarp, scrubbing the spots with ivy before rinsing with a hose, or for a quick cleaning of tools or boots.  I wouldn’t use it as every day hand soap, because repeated exposure can cause skin irritation, even in people who weren’t previously allergic.  It may work well for washing windows, cars, floors, but I’m not a picky cleaner so honestly I just use plain water for cleaning those things. I grow yucca but haven’t used it as soap.  I like it too much, and it’s very slow growing.  One warning about yucca – it is poisonous to fish, so don’t use large amounts of it in natural waterways thinking that because it’s natural it’s safe.  Some of the other saponin plants might have the same effect to varying degrees. Slightly off topic because it isn’t a plant, but a natural option I do like for laundry is a weak homemade lye water.  Fill a bucket 1/3 with hardwood ashes, then stir in enough water to fill it the rest of the way.  Stir well.  Let settle for a few days, until the water clears – it will be tinted brown or grey, but no longer cloudy – pour into a jug through a funnel, or just dip a cup full off the top as needed.  The ashes, afterward, can still be added to the garden as usual. It works “okay” alone, but better with a small amount of soap added too.  I usually use a cup or two of homemade lye water plus a few drops of Dawn (or similar) dish soap per load of laundry, for a combination that cleans as well as commercial laundry detergent, without creating nearly the plastic waste. Good luck with your soap garden – it sounds like an interesting experiment!  

Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 26, 2024
Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 25, 2024

That seems like a good approach as long as the family/group is either physically together, or able to reach each other by phone when making the decision.  I’m curious whether you have specific criteria for deciding which location to use.  I can picture (for example) someone waiting in a parking lot while the rest of the family is at a hotel, because they thought “fire = meet at the parking lot” while everyone else thought the parking lot was only for if the fire was about to overtake you.  To avoid any such confusion, we used to use my roommate’s brother’s farm 60 miles away as an all-purpose bugout location. I felt fairly good about that distance.  Sadly he gave up farming in Michigan, sold the place, and moved south. Now we, too, have multiple bugout locations, but it makes me a little uneasy.  Perhaps more so because we are five unrelated adults sharing a homestead, and if someone isn’t home when an evacuation occurs, they need to know where to collect their pets or children.  But with our top two locations now being 12 miles and 600 miles, it seemed unreasonable to commit to either of them for all evacuations.  The 12 mile one is almost like a reverse bugout – leaving a 120 acre rustic homestead in the woods for an upscale lakeside neighborhood near town – but it means much better fire protection.  Obviously, if the whole town/region ever needed to evacuate for any reason, we would head to the 600 mile one.  I just worry about grey areas between the two, where members of the group might make different calls.

Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 21, 2024

The string quote made me smile because it’s something my grandpa used to say (I asked a lot of unanswerable questions as a child, too!) But from a “sane prepping” or 80/20 rule perspective, I do think it should be possible to come up with a practical range that works for most situations. Many other questions – such as how much food to store – are equally “unanswerable” and yet there are established guidelines on this, with two weeks being considered bare minimum, and “as much as you can rotate out before it spoils” being considered ideal.  Even if one has the abilty to spend their life’s savings filling a giant warehouse with centuries worth of survival food for all their descendants, doing so is not considered a reasonable use of resources.  Not because it couldn’t come in useful, but because it would violate the 80/20 principle in a major way. So along similar lines, I respectfully disagree that it depends on one’s abilities.  I think there’s a certain distance that becomes too far even if you expect to have the “ability” to reach it.  Too far in the sense that in the vast majority of scenarios, the extra time/effort/expense/danger spent reaching it would far outweigh any benefit of the extra distance.   Since The Prepared advocates only bugging out to a planned location where you have shelter and other resources waiting, I’m surprised there doesn’t seem to be any guidance on preferred distance to this bugout location.  I feel it’s something that’s missing.  Yes it’s complicated and yes individuals would have to tweak any “standard” to fit their needs, but that’s true in all aspects of prepping.

Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 18, 2024
Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.)
13
2
Posted March 17, 2024
Reply to: Looking for Long Term Food Storage Ideas Posted February 19, 2024

I wouldn’t want to eat can lining on a regular basis either.  Ick.  For some reason we don’t seem to have that problem storing canned tomatoes 2 years past their “best by” date, but the fear of finding a whole case of something ruined by corroding lining is why we don’t try to push it much beyond that. I have no experience storing dried tomato powder, but I think if you buy it from a survival food company that sells things vaccuum packed in #10 cans, it will last basically forever.  Being dry, it shouldn’t eat away at the can. I tried some once that a friend had (they opened one can right away to try it) and maybe I’m just a tomato snob, but I found the flavor a bit “meh.” It was okay, but sort of tasted like a less tangy version of tomato paste.  It would still be better than nothing in a survival situation, though.

Reply to: Altoids First Aid Kit Posted February 19, 2024
Reply to: Looking for Long Term Food Storage Ideas Posted February 14, 2024

A few thoughts: 1.  In case you aren’t aware, the “best by” dates on canned goods are not experation dates and have nothing to do with spoilage.  Carefully stored canned goods remain safe and healthy long past their bb date.  It basically just means the “quality” in other ways, like color and texture, are not guaranteed to be up to the company’s usual standards past that date.  We routinely, in order to keep enough in rotation, use canned goods that are two years past their “best by” and the only thing that shows any noticeable decline at that age is canned peas, which turn a slightly duller shade of green.  All this to say that, if you’re currently only storing as much pasta sauce or canned veggies as you can use before their “best by” dates, you could add more to the rotation since they keep much longer.  2. From a nutritional standpoint pulses like beans and lentils pair best with rice, and of them, I find dry lentils store better for longer than dry beans, though unfortunately neither has the encredible shelf life of white rice. I actually find that canned beans outlast dry beans from a quality perspective – though the latter have advantages when it comes to pantry space and cost, so we store some of both.   3. Depending on where you live and your skillset, there may be opportunities to grow, forage, or barter toppings for your stored rice or pasta. Wild mushrooms and rice is one of my favorite meals, and the rice can stretch even a small find into a filling meal for several people.  Venison in gravy over rice, preferably with a side of carrots or greens, is another favorite.  Sauteed dandelion or mustard greens over rice, while not amazing, is certainly more satisfying than eating either alone.  If you garden, or could barter with a neighbor who does, chopped raw tomatoes and fresh basil are absolutely delicious with pasta in the summer.  

Reply to: Storing preps Posted January 21, 2024
Reply to: Check your spare tire! Posted January 7, 2024

 I would like to add:  Find your jack, practice getting it out, and learn where to place it on your vehicle.  On my previous car this was straight forward, but on my current car, not so much.  I found out last summer (after owning it almost a year) that the jack I found in with the spare tire when I first got the car was the wrong one, and not safe/compatible to use (it had a flat surface, and I needed one with a slot in it) I presume the previous owner put it in there because they couldn’t find the real one.  I located the proper jack wedged into a secret compartment in the side, but couldn’t get it out. After consulting the owners manual, found out I had to turn it – basically “jack it down” to get it out of it’s special compartment, which is what the short little screwdriver in with the lug wrench is for.   And my realization that I had the wrong jack in the first place only came up because where to place it was also very different than what I’m used to. I was confused by the prospect of placing a jack on such a narrow edge (it made much more sense once I found the one with a slot in the top) and very confused by the fact that it looked plastic (turned out there was steel behind the plastic, so the jack fits over both.)  I was glad to be figuring all this out in my driveway in broad daylight, instead of by the side of the highway on some rainy night.  The only other car I’ve owned in my adult life had the same type of jack and same exposed frame to place it on as every car my parents drove while I was growing up did, so I had no idea how different “changing a tire” could be.

Reply to: Grid down – How to recognize it early? Posted January 17, 2023

Running around for more supplies after an emergency (of any type) has begun is not in my plans, but to answer the general question anyway: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that localized power outages will be temporary, and the larger the area effected, the longer (up to “forever”) it’s likely to last. If you (or any neighbor) can still get a cellphone signal, the internet is working, or NOAA weather channels are still transmitting, those are signs that TEOTWAWKI has not come.  When there’s a total communications outage on top of a power outage, it’s harder to tell. I don’t think there’s any single “key” to look for that would confirm that yes, this is “it” beyond a doubt.  Mostly it would be a matter of remaining calm, and waiting to see how things unfold over the coming weeks/months.

Reply to: Anyone else wondering if recent substation attacks are “white hat” efforts to accelerate/prioritize grid hardening? Posted January 4, 2023
Reply to: News for week of 2023-01-02 (all current event convos go here) Posted January 3, 2023

I saw on the news this morning that someone was killed when a falling tree knocked them off a ski lift – talk about a freak accident! 🙁 Trees are a constant danger to my house and driveway.  There’s not even any guessing about direction of fall, because most of them are perfectly straight, it all depends on wind direction.  By some miracle only two have hit the house in all the years I’ve lived here (and they were small ones that did only minor damage) but finding the driveway blocked or a fence down are such regular occurrences that we heat almost exclusively with wood cleared from the driveway and fences. But it’s worth it to live in the woods in my opinion – quality of life matters as much as safety. If I were lucky enough to own a coast redwood, I wouldn’t cut it (assuming it was still healthy) even if an arborist did determine it leaned toward the house.  It could probably stand there another thousand years, not falling until long after you and your house are gone.

Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Invincibility points Posted December 16, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 10, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 7, 2022

Another great answer – thanks! I should make a rule for myself that when I learn about an exciting new (to me) product, I wait at least a certain amount of time – say six months – before potentially purchasing it.  Funny story: I like gear so much that sometimes I’m tempted by “backups” for things I don’t have in the first place.  One time someone was talking about a battery operated hot shower for camping or power outages, and my first thought was, “That’s so cool!  I wonder how much something like that costs?” but then my second thought was, “Wait. . .  I don’t have hot running water at home under normal circumstances, so why on earth would I need it on a camping trip or during a power outage?”  On something that obvious I catch myself right away, but there are other things where I start to talk myself into ways an item could be useful under certain circumstances. . .  For example fuel efficient cooking methods are something that I’m always really drawn to (I want them all!) even though firewood is so abundant here that it’s not like we need to worry about running out of dead sticks to build ordinary campfires out of.  Plus my regular kitchen stove is propane.  Plus we have two wood stoves (one in my house and one in a guest house friends are living in) which much of the year have to be going anyway for heat. . .  Still I find myself thinking, “But if TEOTWAWKI comes, the propane tank will run out in two or three years, then in the summer when the wood stove isn’t going, I’ll be cooking outdoors.  I should really get X, Y, and Z to make that easier!”  😀

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Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.)
13
2
Posted March 17, 2024
How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system?
29
7
Posted December 3, 2022
Seeking ideas for prepper related challenges/experiments
38
21
Posted January 1, 2022
Reply to: (Official discussion) Rainy day funds and cash on hand Posted November 8, 2024

1.  Cash is flexible.  Most people have limited space and/or limited financial resources, so it’s more practical to keep some cash that could be used where it’s needed most, rather than try to store every conceivable item one might need.  For example, I keep some lumber and roofing supplies for repairing storm damage (cheap, store well, a matter of when not if) but I do not keep spares for every window in my home.  Windows are expensive, prone to accidents in storage, and most will probably never need to be replaced for the lifetime of the house.  So instead, I keep plastic sheeting as a temporary measure, and money in the bank that could be spent on a new window if that’s where it’s most needed.  This is only an example – if you do store spare windows, kudos on that, but what about a spare windshield for your car? All other car parts? All major household appliances?  And are all these things stored in a secure location off site, in case your home is destroyed?  The point is that however far you take it, there’s always going to be some item you don’t have on hand, and could conceivably end up needing in order to get back on track with your normal life following a minor setback. 2. Cash covers services, not just supplies.  Someone might use their emergency fund to take their child to the doctor, pay for car repairs they’re unable to perform on their own, pay their rent/mortgage or other bills on time, or any number of other expenses of eveyday life that are not physical items we can store.   3. For very new preppers, they may only have a few weeks worth of vital supplies.  Someone with only two weeks worth of food at home doesn’t want to use that up just because they’re briefly out of work, or had to spend their grocery budget for the week on a car repair.  If they use their modest survival pantry to get through a financial tight spot, they could be caught without any supplies when a hurricane or other major event closes down stores.

Reply to: Plants with Saponins Posted April 8, 2024

I remember playing with soapwort as a child, using it to make “bubble bath.” I can’t speak to it’s cleaning ability (I wasn’t concerned about that part) but it made lots of suds, which was fun.   I’ve tried English ivy as soap because it’s an introduced invasive here, and I was looking for a use for some of the ivy I pull out of nature preserves.  For laundry it was basically a failure.  Things came out looking clean, but it didn’t remove odors as well as real soap.  A handful of crushed up ivy leaves does work great for spot cleaning things, like I’ve used it to get dried blood (deer, not human) off a tarp, scrubbing the spots with ivy before rinsing with a hose, or for a quick cleaning of tools or boots.  I wouldn’t use it as every day hand soap, because repeated exposure can cause skin irritation, even in people who weren’t previously allergic.  It may work well for washing windows, cars, floors, but I’m not a picky cleaner so honestly I just use plain water for cleaning those things. I grow yucca but haven’t used it as soap.  I like it too much, and it’s very slow growing.  One warning about yucca – it is poisonous to fish, so don’t use large amounts of it in natural waterways thinking that because it’s natural it’s safe.  Some of the other saponin plants might have the same effect to varying degrees. Slightly off topic because it isn’t a plant, but a natural option I do like for laundry is a weak homemade lye water.  Fill a bucket 1/3 with hardwood ashes, then stir in enough water to fill it the rest of the way.  Stir well.  Let settle for a few days, until the water clears – it will be tinted brown or grey, but no longer cloudy – pour into a jug through a funnel, or just dip a cup full off the top as needed.  The ashes, afterward, can still be added to the garden as usual. It works “okay” alone, but better with a small amount of soap added too.  I usually use a cup or two of homemade lye water plus a few drops of Dawn (or similar) dish soap per load of laundry, for a combination that cleans as well as commercial laundry detergent, without creating nearly the plastic waste. Good luck with your soap garden – it sounds like an interesting experiment!  

Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 26, 2024
Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 25, 2024

That seems like a good approach as long as the family/group is either physically together, or able to reach each other by phone when making the decision.  I’m curious whether you have specific criteria for deciding which location to use.  I can picture (for example) someone waiting in a parking lot while the rest of the family is at a hotel, because they thought “fire = meet at the parking lot” while everyone else thought the parking lot was only for if the fire was about to overtake you.  To avoid any such confusion, we used to use my roommate’s brother’s farm 60 miles away as an all-purpose bugout location. I felt fairly good about that distance.  Sadly he gave up farming in Michigan, sold the place, and moved south. Now we, too, have multiple bugout locations, but it makes me a little uneasy.  Perhaps more so because we are five unrelated adults sharing a homestead, and if someone isn’t home when an evacuation occurs, they need to know where to collect their pets or children.  But with our top two locations now being 12 miles and 600 miles, it seemed unreasonable to commit to either of them for all evacuations.  The 12 mile one is almost like a reverse bugout – leaving a 120 acre rustic homestead in the woods for an upscale lakeside neighborhood near town – but it means much better fire protection.  Obviously, if the whole town/region ever needed to evacuate for any reason, we would head to the 600 mile one.  I just worry about grey areas between the two, where members of the group might make different calls.

Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 21, 2024

The string quote made me smile because it’s something my grandpa used to say (I asked a lot of unanswerable questions as a child, too!) But from a “sane prepping” or 80/20 rule perspective, I do think it should be possible to come up with a practical range that works for most situations. Many other questions – such as how much food to store – are equally “unanswerable” and yet there are established guidelines on this, with two weeks being considered bare minimum, and “as much as you can rotate out before it spoils” being considered ideal.  Even if one has the abilty to spend their life’s savings filling a giant warehouse with centuries worth of survival food for all their descendants, doing so is not considered a reasonable use of resources.  Not because it couldn’t come in useful, but because it would violate the 80/20 principle in a major way. So along similar lines, I respectfully disagree that it depends on one’s abilities.  I think there’s a certain distance that becomes too far even if you expect to have the “ability” to reach it.  Too far in the sense that in the vast majority of scenarios, the extra time/effort/expense/danger spent reaching it would far outweigh any benefit of the extra distance.   Since The Prepared advocates only bugging out to a planned location where you have shelter and other resources waiting, I’m surprised there doesn’t seem to be any guidance on preferred distance to this bugout location.  I feel it’s something that’s missing.  Yes it’s complicated and yes individuals would have to tweak any “standard” to fit their needs, but that’s true in all aspects of prepping.

Reply to: Ideal distance to bugout location? (For the sake of discussion.) Posted March 18, 2024
Reply to: Looking for Long Term Food Storage Ideas Posted February 19, 2024

I wouldn’t want to eat can lining on a regular basis either.  Ick.  For some reason we don’t seem to have that problem storing canned tomatoes 2 years past their “best by” date, but the fear of finding a whole case of something ruined by corroding lining is why we don’t try to push it much beyond that. I have no experience storing dried tomato powder, but I think if you buy it from a survival food company that sells things vaccuum packed in #10 cans, it will last basically forever.  Being dry, it shouldn’t eat away at the can. I tried some once that a friend had (they opened one can right away to try it) and maybe I’m just a tomato snob, but I found the flavor a bit “meh.” It was okay, but sort of tasted like a less tangy version of tomato paste.  It would still be better than nothing in a survival situation, though.

Reply to: Altoids First Aid Kit Posted February 19, 2024
Reply to: Looking for Long Term Food Storage Ideas Posted February 14, 2024

A few thoughts: 1.  In case you aren’t aware, the “best by” dates on canned goods are not experation dates and have nothing to do with spoilage.  Carefully stored canned goods remain safe and healthy long past their bb date.  It basically just means the “quality” in other ways, like color and texture, are not guaranteed to be up to the company’s usual standards past that date.  We routinely, in order to keep enough in rotation, use canned goods that are two years past their “best by” and the only thing that shows any noticeable decline at that age is canned peas, which turn a slightly duller shade of green.  All this to say that, if you’re currently only storing as much pasta sauce or canned veggies as you can use before their “best by” dates, you could add more to the rotation since they keep much longer.  2. From a nutritional standpoint pulses like beans and lentils pair best with rice, and of them, I find dry lentils store better for longer than dry beans, though unfortunately neither has the encredible shelf life of white rice. I actually find that canned beans outlast dry beans from a quality perspective – though the latter have advantages when it comes to pantry space and cost, so we store some of both.   3. Depending on where you live and your skillset, there may be opportunities to grow, forage, or barter toppings for your stored rice or pasta. Wild mushrooms and rice is one of my favorite meals, and the rice can stretch even a small find into a filling meal for several people.  Venison in gravy over rice, preferably with a side of carrots or greens, is another favorite.  Sauteed dandelion or mustard greens over rice, while not amazing, is certainly more satisfying than eating either alone.  If you garden, or could barter with a neighbor who does, chopped raw tomatoes and fresh basil are absolutely delicious with pasta in the summer.  

Reply to: Storing preps Posted January 21, 2024
Reply to: Check your spare tire! Posted January 7, 2024

 I would like to add:  Find your jack, practice getting it out, and learn where to place it on your vehicle.  On my previous car this was straight forward, but on my current car, not so much.  I found out last summer (after owning it almost a year) that the jack I found in with the spare tire when I first got the car was the wrong one, and not safe/compatible to use (it had a flat surface, and I needed one with a slot in it) I presume the previous owner put it in there because they couldn’t find the real one.  I located the proper jack wedged into a secret compartment in the side, but couldn’t get it out. After consulting the owners manual, found out I had to turn it – basically “jack it down” to get it out of it’s special compartment, which is what the short little screwdriver in with the lug wrench is for.   And my realization that I had the wrong jack in the first place only came up because where to place it was also very different than what I’m used to. I was confused by the prospect of placing a jack on such a narrow edge (it made much more sense once I found the one with a slot in the top) and very confused by the fact that it looked plastic (turned out there was steel behind the plastic, so the jack fits over both.)  I was glad to be figuring all this out in my driveway in broad daylight, instead of by the side of the highway on some rainy night.  The only other car I’ve owned in my adult life had the same type of jack and same exposed frame to place it on as every car my parents drove while I was growing up did, so I had no idea how different “changing a tire” could be.

Reply to: Grid down – How to recognize it early? Posted January 17, 2023

Running around for more supplies after an emergency (of any type) has begun is not in my plans, but to answer the general question anyway: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that localized power outages will be temporary, and the larger the area effected, the longer (up to “forever”) it’s likely to last. If you (or any neighbor) can still get a cellphone signal, the internet is working, or NOAA weather channels are still transmitting, those are signs that TEOTWAWKI has not come.  When there’s a total communications outage on top of a power outage, it’s harder to tell. I don’t think there’s any single “key” to look for that would confirm that yes, this is “it” beyond a doubt.  Mostly it would be a matter of remaining calm, and waiting to see how things unfold over the coming weeks/months.

Reply to: Anyone else wondering if recent substation attacks are “white hat” efforts to accelerate/prioritize grid hardening? Posted January 4, 2023
Reply to: News for week of 2023-01-02 (all current event convos go here) Posted January 3, 2023

I saw on the news this morning that someone was killed when a falling tree knocked them off a ski lift – talk about a freak accident! 🙁 Trees are a constant danger to my house and driveway.  There’s not even any guessing about direction of fall, because most of them are perfectly straight, it all depends on wind direction.  By some miracle only two have hit the house in all the years I’ve lived here (and they were small ones that did only minor damage) but finding the driveway blocked or a fence down are such regular occurrences that we heat almost exclusively with wood cleared from the driveway and fences. But it’s worth it to live in the woods in my opinion – quality of life matters as much as safety. If I were lucky enough to own a coast redwood, I wouldn’t cut it (assuming it was still healthy) even if an arborist did determine it leaned toward the house.  It could probably stand there another thousand years, not falling until long after you and your house are gone.

Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Just another reason to be prepared! Posted December 26, 2022
Reply to: Invincibility points Posted December 16, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 10, 2022
Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 7, 2022

Another great answer – thanks! I should make a rule for myself that when I learn about an exciting new (to me) product, I wait at least a certain amount of time – say six months – before potentially purchasing it.  Funny story: I like gear so much that sometimes I’m tempted by “backups” for things I don’t have in the first place.  One time someone was talking about a battery operated hot shower for camping or power outages, and my first thought was, “That’s so cool!  I wonder how much something like that costs?” but then my second thought was, “Wait. . .  I don’t have hot running water at home under normal circumstances, so why on earth would I need it on a camping trip or during a power outage?”  On something that obvious I catch myself right away, but there are other things where I start to talk myself into ways an item could be useful under certain circumstances. . .  For example fuel efficient cooking methods are something that I’m always really drawn to (I want them all!) even though firewood is so abundant here that it’s not like we need to worry about running out of dead sticks to build ordinary campfires out of.  Plus my regular kitchen stove is propane.  Plus we have two wood stoves (one in my house and one in a guest house friends are living in) which much of the year have to be going anyway for heat. . .  Still I find myself thinking, “But if TEOTWAWKI comes, the propane tank will run out in two or three years, then in the summer when the wood stove isn’t going, I’ll be cooking outdoors.  I should really get X, Y, and Z to make that easier!”  😀

Reply to: How do you prioritize gear purchases? Anyone have an organized system? Posted December 6, 2022

Ah, a fellow gear enthusiast! 😀  I think I’ll incorporate your % off idea as part of my system.  Probably not for everything (if an item is cheap enough at full price) but for the more expensive items, I should list the price I found them for in an initial search, then next to it the price I want to find them for, meaning if they drop below that they shoot to the top of the list and I go ahead and buy. This is starting to feel fun now – the list itself will be like a piece of gear 🙂 I’m not sure the coin flip would be right for me – it’s really not in my nature to leave things to chance (mild OCD) but if I can’t decide for myself I could always put it to a vote among the people I share a homestead with.  None of them are really into prepping as a hobby the way I am, but I think if I asked, “Which would you rather we had in an emergency, this or this?” They would be willing to weigh in. Thanks for the great response!

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