Forum: Pictures of Preps II

Continued from here

Malachi – at 11:30

iwoi….Just mash up your canned foods for baby….they usually start with pears I think..Then when you see they are okay with one type of food for a few days you can add another.

new name – at 15:16 I’m Workin’On It, No wonder you are ahead of me in prepping; you’ve had years in back of you. We have had ice storms that took out our electric and just never learned to do anything about future events like that till I started reading this forum. So,now even if the BF doesn’t strike I’ll still keep a store of stuff and water. You made the comment that you learned how to bake without power. How do you do that??? I have a solar cooker (Cookit) and it is o.k. during sunny days but on cloudy days,you’re out of luck. So, please share your no power secret. Thanks

I have 3 levels of emergency supplies:

I have general camping supply type things for when the power goes out for extended periods of time,

I have BOB’s (bug-out-bags) for quick getaways in case of fire or tornado, etc.,

and I have extra duffles to go with the BOB’s in case we have to evacuate the house that has some duplicate camping supplies, MRE’s, fuel, etc.

For Y2k, I bought an ‘oven’ from Fox Hill http://www.foxhill.net that you set on the grate of your camp grill & use either propane or charcoal or something similar, even plain ole fire! :-) It’s a nice lightweight box ‘hood’ that fits over an inside liner that has a rack that you can position up or down and a thermometer on the outside. You can bake breads, pizzas, casseroles, etc, just like with a regular oven. I keep that one in our ‘power outage’ supplies.

Earlier this year, I bought a folding model made by Coleman that I put in our BOBs. It folds to about 2″ thick and has a rack and thermometer just like the other one. Both will get the job done nicely one meal at a time.

WalMart carries a Coleman now I believe, check their shelves.

Malachi, that’s what I figured we’d do — mash up the adult food if we had the baby to consider…..all things are possible to him/her with food — and a can opener!!

I’m working on it-----Loved seeing your pictures ----the pantry that you have in the attic? Does it get hot or is it air-conditioned?

Love Texas, when you come through our front door you’re in a hallway/foyer with the kitchen on the other side of the wall on one side & a guest room on the other. We had an area of the attic, above the kitchen where there were no trusses, so we blocked it off, insulated the heck out of it, added a door, and we had a room. Inside it was the HVAC duct that goes from the guest room over the top of the ceiling to that hallway in between the guest room & the kitchen and then it drops down into the kitchen from that new ‘room’ upstairs, so we just cut an extra vent into the duct so that room is both insulated with thick batting and it has HVAC ventilation as well. The glass gallon jugs with spigots are stacked one on top of the other right next to that vent duct. The most that it has varied is 8 degrees hotter than it is downstairs, or about the same colder. I’m not so worried about the cold as I am the hot — don’t want my chocolate to melt!!

I’m workin on it—nice oven! I might have to invest in that next! Right now we might possibly be moving in the next few months, so trying to prep without adding the bulk/weight of food. Using the time to work on a menu plan to get somewhat of an idea of how much food we need. I probably already have 4–6 weeks worth, but want at least 3 months—with 6 being the ultimate goal! But I can’t buy more food until we move! Frustrating the heck out of me!

http://tinyurl.com/eeeyg for pics I’d posted last month………

I’ve printed out my pics now & put them in a reference notebook — and it’s already come in handy. We keep a tin of oats in the kitchen & we ate all of it so needed to refill it. I flipped open the book to the under stairs storage, pointed at the exact bucket I wanted so husband would know which one to get, and he crawled under there and got it, filled up the tin and put the bucket back under the stairs where it’ll stay for another 3 months or so until I need it again! Visual aids are a wonderful thing! :-)

OK, someone else needs to post some pics somewhere so we can view them……..there are all kinds of supplies that I don’t have yet and I need some ‘a-ha I need that’ moments to spur me to action.

Wow, color me envious…I think I need to go shopping today.

IWOI

May I just come and stay with you…good work!!!

no name – at 10:33 if you don’t mind a bullet in the chest! :-) Seriously, both of you, thanks. I have stuff in other places I didn’t photo, like batteries in drawers etc. but I still need to fill in holes and sometimes I don’t think of what kind of things till one of you mentions something or I see it in a picture! I figure I’m not the only one like that!

Ouch!!! Just askin’…real nice like. LOL!!!

Ok, I give in, come on in….I’m a sucker for politeness!! :-)

Dang - I ate all my chocolate already. I can’t get any more unless I know I’m gonna SIP. You sure have alot of will power, Iwoi.

I owe all my ‘willpower’ to Fitday.com where I’ve been tracking my food intake while trying to lose some weight — I love that site since it tracks not only calories & fats & carbs, but nutrients of all kinds. Adding chocolate makes all the bad stuff shoot UP, UP, UP. Plus it’s in the upstairs pantry so it’s not under my nose all the time.

Geez, Iwoi, Now I gotta get serious about burning up those 10 pounds of chocolate cells. Fitday seems ok…maybe it will help me. I input all the junk input today. Thanks for all of your generous help.

OK….where are the dang pics…..LOL

http://tinyurl.com/eeeyg for pics I’d posted last month……… and if you look at the top of this thread, you’ll see the word ‘here’ underlined (before the blue words) & if you click on that it’ll take you to the old thread where there are some other links that people have put up.

IWOI- I noticed a lot of Mayo in your pantry—there are just 2 of us and I find that the Mayo has a real short shelf life. Can you use that up before it expires?

Love Texas – at 19:30 actually it lasts longer than the conservative lists tell you it will, but I do keep more than normal, just because it’s such a basic item — for sandwich spread, dip, base for giving pets doses of some medicines, casseroles, as a very effective treatment for headlice etc. Since I never buy it unless it’s a BOGO-F (buy one get one free), I don’t feel so bad if I have to discard it. Same with the peanut butter….both are things that would be helpful to share with neighbors if there’s a need. I will use either after an expiration date, so long as it hasn’t ‘separated’ in any way.

Just for fun, if anyone is interested, here’s a good shelf-life chart:

http://www.a1usa.net/gary/expire.html

This is another one that has several categories so read the heading of each section:

http://tinyurl.com/bszbv

Hey Iwoi! The Fitday.com site is/has been very helpful. By logging in every KCal and tracking my exercise activity, I have already lost a few pounds. I have cut way back on my daily caloric intake - no more eating preps out of boredom or stress. Thanks for your recommendation. Maybe in a few weeks I will be able to buy some chocolate to ration later.

stilearning – at 20:17 That is totally awesome news! I’m soooo glad that you found it helpful! Use the setup goals for best tracking of your progress — there’s oen report that shows a graph with a slanted line downward from where you are to where you want to be with your weight, then it shows each day’s entry by weight as little grey dots that are connected so that line bounces around and should follow the red line. I’d started out below the red slanted line, but right now I’m above it. So I went ‘off’ my caloric count for awhile to let my body rest, and first of next week I’ll be back ‘on’ again, trying to get below the red line!

I have to tell you that it’s interesting to track the preps we eat on fitday — it helps me to see if we’re getting balanced meals or if I’m heavy on the carbs (almost always am), etc.

The BEST help that fitday has been with prepping is that I can take Kathy’s (and other posters) recipes over in the food threads, and enter them under “new foods” to check to see what the ratios of fat to carbs to proteins are and write that down under the recipes — just like they do in recipe books — for future use. You don’t have to leave the foods saved in fitday, you can delete them when you get through with copying the information over so it doesn’t clutter up your fitday food files.

Wow, Thanks again, Iwoi, I did not know about entering new recipes under the “new foods” - and I thought I studied this site up and over and out! You are a jewel.

Another reason besides weight loss or gain, or tracking exercise habits, or tracking actual nutritional needs/daily requirements met or not is………

This site has really helped me to understand that I can function very well on a very reduced daily caloric intake. It really is mind over matter. A very reduced Caloric intake may be required during a SIP. I will not think I just need another bite.

You’re soooo right! It’s so hard for us to stay under a certain number of calories & as we go along, it nearly always seems that we have to ‘guess’ at the weight of something — a 4 oz chicken breast — is it really 4 or 6 oz or even less?? Was what we ate a medium slice of sourdough bread or a thin slice? Oh, and by the way, you might have to try different ways of searching for a food — for instance ‘sourdough’ is actually ‘sour dough’ in the fitday food list I think.

My husband uses the online format & I downloaded the latest version so I don’t have to be online to use it, which means that if the power goes out, I should be able to still run fitday from the generator, just to doublecheck what I’m doing with my preps. You might want to consider that if you decide that fitday remains helpful to you.

One other thing for anyone else reading this, I’m NOT an exerciser type person and I LOVED that fitday.com had, in their list of activites, things that I actually do that burn calories — like bathe and dress, push a grocery cart, unload groceries, stand and cook, set the table, etc. — actual real daily activities that keep me moving, even though I’m not running on a treadmill or whatever. That means it’s useful for older people who might get discouraged if they only saw running and swimming and walking type exercises. There’s not a person anywhere who can’t find SOMEthing that fitday counts as ‘exercise’ that burns calories, including sitting and studying, reading a book, watching tv, etc.

That was always the thing that discouraged me the most in other methods of weight tracking, they wanted you to be a healthy person to begin with — fitday is for us average to below average people who just get through life on a day to day basis, not being obsessed with our body mass index and such! :-)

Glad you love it!

Fitday is also for us “fitfanatics”. I was on the lowest end of my normal weight range for my height. However, when I started prepping, the stress of the whole BF paradigm shift reduced me to shopping frantically and picking up many “comfort” foods - and EATING them (crackers, chocolate, dried fruit - high calorie to fill up the stress). I gained 10–12 pounds which is not so good for a middle age gal who likes to dance like air.

This fitday.com site is really good for a whole lot of reasons - like feeling better and better.

There are some awesome pics of some folks stockpiles on another forum that I’m on. Its the coupon forum, and the members are doing a little ‘bragging’ about how much they’ve bought or gotten for free with their coupons and shopping savvy. Some of their stockpiles look like a small store.

Is it okay to post a link to it?

Sure! I for one could use the inspiration! If the URL is fairly long (like longer than the address to THIS page, then use the link in the little blue box at the bottom of this page — the one with the ii beside it — just click on that link, copy and paste the address to the page you want to show us into the box, and click the ‘make tiny’ button, and then copy and paste the new shortened URL it will give you into the comments section here so we can see!

IWOI—By the way years ago I took a baking class and they told us to make a box cake taste home made:

• Add to cake mix
• 1 or 2 TLBS of Mayo
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon of flavoring

There you have it — yet another use for mayo!! It’s such a cheap prep & so often is included in the loss leaders of the grocery stores that it just pays to have extra on hand, the way I see it.

Hey everybody! On the subject of mayo, sorta, I received a new cooking magazine from Kraft Foods and found a very interesting tip: When making grilled sandwiches, spread Miracle Whip dressing on the outer sides of the sandwiches and then grill. Kraft promises golden, flavorful sandwiches every time!

Yes, I do that — some people will butter the bread lightly to give the sandwich a golden look, but mayo works better because it can take a higher heat than butter or margarine without burning. If you use butter, you run the risk of the center of the bread getting an unflattering brown, with mayo, unless you don’t monitor it, you’ll always get a lovely golden brown color & just the right crispness!

Post deleted at poster’s request - pogge

Sounds like TheGroceryGame.com ladies also! Can’t wait to see!!!

Oh rats, can a mod please delete that, its got personal info on it…..HELP….I didn’t realize it would do that.

Here’s a tip that I recently shared with some friends and relatives who are just starting to stock up, but are short on cash: for any given item you purchase, calculate the cost to feed it to your family for one full day. I did this with every one of my food items and it was a real eye opener. For example, bulk popcorn from Sams Club will supply 8,000 calories (my family of four for one day) for less than $2, but 8,000 calories of canned green beans would cost over $50. Of course, nobody wants to live exclusively on popcorn or green beans, even for one day, but this exercise helped us focus on acquiring foods that provide the most calories for the lowest cost.

WoW AlabamaPrepper! Isn’t that awesome! I’m not sure what personal info you’re talking about but let me change my name on this & see if we can get someone to take a look!

AlabamaPrepper:

I wasn’t sure what you were referring to so I deleted the whole post.

Thanks! I’m not thinking yet this morning…not awake good yet.

Ok, I’ll do this—y’all go to hotcouponworld.com. Click on the forum called “couponing 101″ then scroll down to the thread listed as “inspiration stockpile pictures”.

I inadvertantly gave the whole wide world the page under my user name with access to all my emails. Yech, how stoooopid….

OH! I wondered what you were referring to - I got a peek before pogge deleted — thanks pogge— isn’t that impressive! My family thinks I’m crazy, but I don’t see it that way, of course. It’s nice to see that others prepare for their families, for whatever reason, and find joy in the process!

Very immpressive!!!! I have been prepping and canning but debated on how to store my stuff. We live in a neighborhood in a fairly metro area. I have scattered my supplies thru-out the house in various closets, under beds, drawers etc. I am concerned of theft. Not that I wouldnt share what I could without putting kids at risk…but I also dont want risk from desperate people. You have some really good supply ideas. Thanks for sharing.

Another thing these stockpilers do is contribute a part of their supply to local shelters and food banks.

They have a lot of fun getting all these bargains, and swapping coupons with each other.

I’ve used coupons for years, but can’t begin to match what some of them can do.

I recently joined thegrocerygame.com but haven’t used the website much due to distractions with my Fall projects!

I did learn though that if you have expired coupons or coupons you’re not going to use, then you can mail all of them off to military bases & they will be distributed & allowed to be used up to 6 months after their expiration!!!

I have a huge envelope ready to do, just have to locate my list of addresses that accept them!

Dr. Dave, I like your concept of suppling the most calories for the cheapest dollar —you’re right though, even popcorn could get old (did *I* say that??) and a balance is needed.

As I said above, I track what I eat on www.fitday.com and one of the things I like about it is that I can browse all sorts of foods and pick the highest content or lowest content of nutrients that I want to have on hand so I have a ‘bat’s chance’ of having balanced meals!

You’ve reminded me that I need to go to Costco & that I had a free pass to a Sam’s but I’ve forgotten when it expires — need to check!

IWOI—There is a forum on Hot Coupon World for expireds. Also, I think there may be info on how to get them to the overseas military PXs. I have a contact from yet another board that I mail my expireds to. She and her husband and kids are in Germany.

Balanced meals—to me that’s poptarts and buttermilk for breakfast. >insert laughter here< 8^}

hehehehehe…..wish I liked buttermilk!

Love Texas at 19:30 -

A food expiration list at RealSimple.com says that unopened mayonnaise will keep indefinitely. Who knew? I’m keeping more on hand, based on that info.

OKbirdwatcher, I’ve seen that too in some places, and that’s why I don’t worry tooooooo much about an expired date on them, but most lists do say only 3–4 months so that’s what I generally tell people. I mentioned the effectiveness it has on head lice (we don’t have kids so I don’t have to worry about this much) and certainly being “expired” wouldn’t matter for that kind of use.

I’m - you should change your name to “I’ve-WORKED-On-It” Wow. Your preps are truly amazing. While I have built up a decent supply, they are whly unorganized and all over my house. After I take care of a few other pressing matters I will attack my organization/storage problem. You’ve inspired me and hopefully others!

Well, I just shared pics of the things that I DO have somewhat organized….you didn’t see the 3 drawers full of batteries that don’t stay stacked up right (so I have a new set of mini bins for them) or the medical stuff for sick room that’s falling out from behind the guestroom TV armoire! Or a dozen other places from kitchen counters to the floor in the hallway that still have no homes! We just ALL have to keep workin’!!

I just wanted you to know that I opened my oldest jar of mayo — one that came from a much earlier purchase date & it was as of now exactly one year old — I’d held it to use for hair if it was ever needed. I decided to open it and it was perfect. Smelled good, hadn’t separated, etc. I’m going to use it for sandwiches & unless we die, then perhaps in good storage conditions you could get the Use By time extended a few more months. I know that some sites say it will store indefinitely, but some say a fairly short timeframe so use at your own risk — mine just happened to last at least a year!

IWOI at 14:20 We used to live overseas, and routinely purhased food before we left the states to use duing our tour. We bought in June, it was shipped in July/August and arrived sometime later (with luck by Christmas). Then we used it till we left and sometimes packed up some of it for the next stop. The only thing we ever had trouble with was pumpkin - had some cans bulge, pitched them. Everything else was “good” for the two year tour, Mayo included (Hellman’s). We regularly bought canned fruits and veggies, condiments, etc. Got all the things we get now for prepping.

WOW!!! That’s GREAT to know—does anyone know just how mayo goes bad? Separation first then smell or some other way??

Mayo—My experience with it has been that the oil in it will go rancid first and you will smell it. I’ve always kept my mayo, new jars and all, in the fridge, just to be sure it doesn’t go bad before I open it.

In the days of yore, before we all lived in air conditioned houses, groceries lived through the heat of summer. Only now, I know a lot more about food poisoning (from personal experience 8^* yech) and am a lot more careful with things.

You’re not going to believe this.

While hunting ebay for a manual coffee grinder, I found this “prepped” person — they have LOTS of space for supplies and lots of sun if they chose to go solar, an easy floor to clean up if someone with the flu got sick on it, an absolutely GREAT bug out vehicle complete with generator to run a laptop, or two and a convenience store nearby for those last minute essentials.

http://tinyurl.com/y2zvdv

Oh and I meant to add that the seating and sleeping arrangements looks rather uncomfortable, so you wouldn’t have to worry long about people wanting to come SIP with you ‘course there’s plenty of space to change that…..

Just goes to show that money can’t buy you taste or class. Scary.

mods please fix! I’m so sorry

Fixed, i think. You didn’t specify, so i guessed.

LOL, I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t the tinyurl I was expecting. The boy did it for me and was in a hurry, so I was grateful for whatever help I could get.

Anyway, this is what we worked on at my house this weekend. Still have dehydrated items and wheat to fit in somewhere. Also still have a closet full of canned items to add. I’m just sitting here with a big grin on my face.

WOW!!! Looks absolutely GREAT!!!!!

That’s a lot of hard work to set up the shelving & all the lifting and arranging. Aren’t you pleased?

Thanks so much for posting so others can see they’re not alone in thinking they need a *lot* of stuff!

lohrewok – at 17:02

How many are you prepping for and for how long?

HI! :>} Great Pics! And I love how organized you all are! Very impressive and motivating.

I’m-workin’-on it, (great handle BTW, LOL) I was just wondering where you got the wheely bases that hold your 5 or 6 gallon buckets? I’ve never seen those before and would love to get some. I would really appreciate any info you could give me. TIA, naomi :>}

I am inspired!! Daughter kept saying “holy cow!” Thank you so much for sharing your pictures. It was just what daughter and I needed.

naomi – at 19:12 I got mine at WalMart in the garden center for $3.99 with swivel wheels that have locks on them — I don’t lock them I leave them ‘loose’. If you’re planning on pulling on these or moving them a lot, the WalMart one might not be sturdy enough to hold up for the long ‘haul’, pun intended.

Here’s a link to sturdier ones as well as a bucket opener & a few other things:

http://tinyurl.com/yh3qxy

Also here’s a good bucket link at the same site: http://tinyurl.com/accwv

Great job! Inspires me to get going on reorganizing mine!

Thanks guys! We have 4 in the family, I also told my brother he could SIP here if he needed too. As for how long, well honestly I don’t know. I think we have 3 months now. I would like to go for 6 though. After we got everything away, I realized my buying patterns were based on what I like, :), lots of peaches and 2 cans of peas. But I did break down and got lots of ramen for the kids.

I’m-workin’-on-it-

I just viewed you prep pictures. Did you build another room? ;-) I’m sure you have been asked this question, but how long have you been prepping? I had to laugh when I saw under you bed. It looks like mine! I think I even have paper towels under our pillows. (seriously. either that or we need new pillows!) Great storage ideas. Thanks for sharing. I feel energized. Daughter seeing lohrewok’s pictures really got her going. She said “Mom, we have a lot of work to do to catch up to these people.” She does understand the urgency just to get us prepped for 3 months at least.

cottontop – at 22:19 Thanks for the kind words — I started a pantry back in 1999 before Y2k. After nothing went wrong, in order to justify what I’d done to prepare us, I tried to keep it going to prove I could and I did. Although I let some things slack off — well a LOT of things actually and I didn’t rotate properly all the time so I had some losses.

I’ve worked hard though to get things better organized than I had them originally, to make better use of the pantry upstairs, and to add the underneath the stairs area as working storage space. The open floor you see in the pics under the stairs is now full with a furniture dolley that I have a piece of wood screwed to as a platform, with canning jars on it and our 400 watt power pack, and then under the very bottom of the stairs (on either side of the center support) are 2 15,000,000 candle spotlights! I also have some Christmas presents tucked in there!

The shower area also, is fuller now than when I took the pics & I have food I’ve canned that will be stacked next to the freezer in the guestroom that I also got since I took those pics. I operate on the “there’s always room for more” theory every chance I get! :-)

We’re never, any of us, through with our prepping — there’s always something that can be tweeked!

I’m-workin’-on-it- thank you sooo much for all the great info!! The ones at Walmart are soooo much less expensive than the ones on the website(great website BTW) that even if they don’t last long they’re still a great deal. I’ll just have to go get a few and see how well they work for me. Thanks again for getting back to me so quickly. take care, naomi:>}

I’m-workin’-on-it

Unless you use those cat carriers regularly, you can fill them with preps.

Oremus, I’m always tempted to do that, or stack things on top, but honestly, I stack ‘em up with the doors open & an N95 mask just inside the top one, then close the shower curtain. The reason I dont’ use that “space” is just because we have no firewalls between our condos — they were built before Shelby County had building codes — we have fire retardant material, but not a solid wall between units.

Although our condos all have a ground level entrance out our front door (built like a townhome), if we had a fire and I had to grab 4 cats from all over the house, cram one of them into a carrier, get the carrier outside the door and go back for another cat, and then repeat 2 more times to get all 4, THEN go back in to get our GO bags….well, we might not all make it, much less get all the GO-bags, if I had to unload stuff out of the carriers first, take stuff off the top before moving them, etc.

I even have carriers big enough that if I HAD to, I could put 2 cats into one carrier. Hopefully I’ll never have to go through that drill at all! Better to stash preps in other places rather than in an essential “space” that might have to hold such precious cargo.

I just started preps yesterday..bought a ton of face masks, surgical gloves etc, and have started buying canned food. I have 3 children in their teens. Every time I mention how serious BF is , they laugh at me. They have no idea how serious this is. I need someone to reply about what amount bleach you use per gallon of water. I would greatly appreciate it,,, thankyou all.

For Canadian

Emergency Disinfection of Drinking Water

This is the information you need.

http://tinyurl.com/pf6re