If a disaster hits or if an unexpected rock gets thrown in your blissful pond.... Are You Ready? Can You Survive weeks or months without income or any way to buy the stuff you use everyday?
3 months ago my husband was laid off without warning. For about a year prior to this we had been gathering extra food cans and things for a just in case type of situation because we simply don't put our trust in jobs to provide for us long-term. Why you ask? Because in the last 9 yrs we've both been laid off of several jobs. We struggled and it sucked bad so, we began prepping last year so we would be prepared. Well I'm going to share what we have learned over the last 3 months without any income except our tax refund of just $1500.
Ok first let's go over the kinds of things we had stored. Just an FYI... We live in a 33ft motorhome without slides & our storage space for prepping is quite limited...
We have kids so we have to store enough for 5 people. We try to have at least 1-2 months worth of food but honestly we weren't sure how much we would use each month.
At the time of his lay-off we had::
40 cans of soups and meals the kids like such as spaghetti, mac & cheese and ravioli.
12 of each of these veggies... corn, green beans, carrots, diced tomatoes, okra, beans (pinto, black, chick peas, kidney, refried in 2 flavors)
5 cans of mixed greens.
6 jars of pasta sauce & 8 boxes of pasta
12 pint jars of chicken we canned
12 pint jars of pumpkin we canned
10 lbs of white rice
4 boxes of oatmeal
4 large jars of peanut butter
4 jars of jelly
4 lbs of sugar
vinegar, spices, etc.
2 gallons of water per person. Because we have to use bottled water for drinking/cooking, it's a constant item being used. We did end up getting a 5 gal cooler to use to fill up at my mom's house but it leaked and made the water taste like plastic.
We didn't have any flour, baking soda, yeast, dry milk or canned milk.
We thought we were going to move so we sold all of our laying hens, chicks and bunnies which took away our 7 eggs we were getting each day. We had no garden because the heat killed our plants.
Bread, milk and water were the things we used most that were not able to be stored. We weren't as prepared as we thought. By the 3rd week we had used up over half our stockpile. We found things to sell so we could get the food we hadn't stored. Around week 6-7 we got our tax refund which was a huge blessing because we had gone through all but a few cans of green beans.
We stocked up on the basics we all love but we added variety so it's more enjoyable. We bought what was on sale and what was cheap. If we can find organic on sale then we will get that too. Aldi has great low prices luckily so we were able to restock. We added yellow rice and jasmine rice so we can have a variety.
We had other items we had to buy so we weren't able to use all of the money for food. My husband went to a few job interviews but none hired him. We began to look into other ways to make money. We attempted to even sell our property but that got us nowhere so far.
We started a blog on our website www.thetrippinsaputos.com, we started a YouTube channel about our journey, we joined a social platform called Steemit which pays you for posting, we're on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest too. As of writing this post on July 9th, we are still working on getting monetized through these. We are affiliates through Amazon so all links on our website can earn us a commission when clicked on.
We have figured out that we need to store a lot more food and water. We also figured out that eating beans for every meal gets old fast so we are storing more variety of foods.
We're also working on canning butter, chicken, beef and veggies we get fresh. We discovered how to vacuum seal flour, sugar and other dry goods that we can use to make our own breads and a dessert once in awhile because we're humans and sweet treats improve overall happiness which is actually a whole lot more important than we ever could have known. Without happiness, sadness and despair can creep in and take over. Feeling happy increases overall morale and productivity. We bake banana bread, cookies or other treats and we add in fruit, oats, nuts, seeds etc so that we get nutrients too.
It's important to make every meal as nutrient dense as possible. We don't buy cereals, boxed foods, frozen dinners etc because they are low in nutrients.
We got more chickens too. We only got 10 so we aren't overloaded with feed costs. They won't be laying eggs for a few months so we're on the hunt for free/cheap hens already laying.
Only store things that you already know you like or be willing to try the foods you plan to add to your storage that are pre-made such a freeze-dried meals in packets and foods that are made for preppers. No point to store things you don't want to eat.
We are working towards having at least 3 months worth of food for each person, 6 months would be better though. Remember to rotate your stock. Used the older stuff but add new stuff to replace it.
I'll be adding to this post as we learn more things and think of more things to share.
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