Prepping on a budget, part 3 – food storage and security

Now that you have decided to start putting aside some food, you might be thinking “Where am I going to keep all of this food and other stuff?” Hopefully you have lots of extra space, an extra bedroom, or a big kitchen with a pantry and lots of cabinets…  or if you are like many of us, space is at a premium and you will have to be creative about how and where you store your preps.

Clearly the ideal situation is being able to store your preps inside your home, in a climate controlled space that doesn’t interfere with your everyday living AND is secure from prying eyes and insects/rodents or anything else that might try to spoil your goodies. Honestly heat is probably your worst enemy, so it is not recommended to store foods or anything that is perishable in an attic space, save that space for things that can’t spoil or go bad. A basement is a great place, assuming it’s dry, and if not, you can store your goodies in waterproof containers, such as plastic totes, 5 gallon buckets with secure lids and such, even a plastic garbage can with a secure lid would work.

Before storing your foods, especially things that are prone to weevils, I would suggest freezing foods for a period of a few days to a week to kill out any eggs, yes weevil eggs come in prepackaged foods, like flour, cornmeal, rice, anything with pasta… freezing the food will help ensure you are not storing bug contaminated foods, you don’t want to find out your foods are full of bugs when you need them most. Once you have frozen the foods, then seal them to prevent anything from getting into it.You can sprinkle food grade diatomaceous earth around your food preps to kill any insects that may get past your measures. You can even put it in your flour, corn meal and such, it will not hurt you, just don’t go overboard and use too much, and be careful not to breath it, it will irritate your lungs and eyes. http://cleancoops.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=14

Now as to where to stash your food (and water, don’t forget you need water too). Even in the smallest efficiency apartment there are extra spaces that are wasted space and can be used to stash your food. Under the bed comes to mind first, there are even specially designed totes that fit under beds and can store a lot of food. You can also use plastic totes to make furniture, place 2 totes a few feet apart and put a board on top for a table, place a pretty cloth on top that drapes down and no one need know that you are storing food and/or water in it. There are decorative boxes that can be used as coffee tables and end tables, fill them with your stash. Buy an extra chest of drawers and fill the drawers with food.

Closets, again you can use totes to put in your closet, what about that space up top that you can’t reach anyhow, you can fill that space with extra food and water. On top of your fridge, behind your microwave,  behind the linens in the bathroom, behind your couch, utility spaces such as the space where your water heater lives (be careful not to put things too close to the heat), the space where your air conditioner lives and such… 

Store dry goods (beans, rice and such) in clean, dry soda and water bottles.

I wouldn’t recommend relying on frozen foods to get you though hard times, if the power goes out, then you will be stuck with a lot of food that will go bad before you can consume it.

Food hidden inside the wall between studs

Food hidden inside the wall covered with sheet rock

Stash goodies in a false or drop ceiling

If you own your space (not an apartment or rented space), then you can get even more creative, how about stashing some food in the wall space between studs? Make a drop ceiling and stash some goodies in that space. How about the crawl space under the house? If you do that, it will need to be protected from moisture, insects, rodents and such. If you are handy, you can create all sorts of false walls behind cabinets, shelves and such. This goes a long way toward security:

Security
This is simple, the fewer people who know what you have, the safer you will be. Don’t store your stuff where it is visible. Don’t brag to your neighbors, friends, co-workers and such about what you have. Right now they might just roll their eyes and make fun of you, but if times get bad, these same people might show up at your home and want what you worked so hard to store. Do you have enough to share? Probably not, you are going to be doing good to feed yourself and your family in a SHTF situation. At best, would you want to have to say no to these people? At worst, are you willing to defend what you have worked so hard to store? So the easiest way to prevent that scenario from happening in the first place is to keep your mouth shut. When everyone is standing around the water cooler at work (does anyone actually do that anymore??? LOL) and is making fun of these prepper shows, you just make fun of them too, smile with the knowledge that you are creating a secure situation for you and your family. Don’t give it away that you might just be one of “those” preppers too.

You should also instruct your family members about this too, it’s fun for kids to brag about what their parents have at home, I’ve even heard of public schools querying students if their parents have firearms and such at home, your children should be taught at a young age that it is no body’s business what is stored at home, from food, water and firearms. Hopefully your spouse is on board for all of this and is also willing to keep quiet about what goes on at home. I also don’t recommend taking pictures of your preps and posting them on the internet. It’s fun to compare what you have with other people, but things like that just make you a target for those who haven’t prepared.

Another reason it’s a good idea to keep quiet about things like food storage, I have read about laws on the books (in the USA) about the government being able to come in to your home and take extra food storage in the event of an emergency situation. Don’t think they would do that? Just ask the folks who went through Katrina, the government agencies came through and confiscated people’s guns, of course it was all done for the “good, safety and security” of the whole, it left a lot of people unarmed and unprepared for the looters who showed up later. Am I being alarmist? Perhaps. Do I believe the government will take care of us in a major catastrophe? No. In the event of a major emergency, you will most likely be on your own for a while and you will need to be able to feed and protect yourself and your family. Hopefully this situation will never happen, but it’s better to be prepared for something that never happens than to be unprepared during an emergency and wish you had done something before.

This isn’t just  being prepared for major emergencies, this could be something as simple as losing your job, having your hours cut, an unexpected bill, an injury that keeps you from working… if you have some extra food put aside, then you have more options, then you might not have to decide if you want to buy food or pay your rent or mortgage.

How do you prep on a budget? Do you have any questions about this subject? Please ask in the comments, and if there is anything else you would like to see here, please tell me your suggestions.
Here are the links to the entire Prepping on a budget series
Prepping on a budget – part 1 – food
Prepping on a budget – part 2 – book review
Prepping on a budget – part 3 – food storage & security
Prepping on a budget – part 4 – water
Prepping on a budget – part 5 – first aid kit

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Yet Another Visit,.,

OK, am I being paranoid now? I received a visit (on my other off grid blog) from none other than the Department of Homeland Security, or it was US Customs and Border Protection, when I looked up the "visitor", it gave me both. Go here to see a laundry list of the other nameservers being hosted under this same domain, it's some scary stuff.
http://www.robtex.com/dns/cbp.dhs.gov.html



















I am completely at a loss about this visit, I am giving this visitor the benefit of the doubt that they are visiting for purely personal reasons (having nothing to do with their job) and I obscured the IP address, I still have a copy of the original image though containing the IP address.

I shouldn't feel strange about this, I'm doing nothing wrong or illegal, in fact, I'm doing what most people SHOULD be aiming toward, I'm shrinking my "carbon footprint", I'm using less of everything, I'm at virtually zero pollution... I stay close to home, I haven't purchased anything that would raise a red flag with any government agencies, I am trying to teach other people (if they are interested) how to live like we do, closer to the Earth... heck, I even filed my taxes even though I didn't have enough "income" to have to pay in, and what I did claim, was barter and I could have skipped putting that down as they would have had no way of knowing about it, but I went ahead and claimed it. Our current POTUS should be happy with what I am doing, I did some research on our current POTUS, and found this speech, Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention | July 27, 2004, this is an interesting excerpt from that speech:

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will he counted - or at least, most of the time

Let's hope he holds these same beliefs now that he holds the highest office.


I don't like feeling like I'm a criminal, or worse, when I have done nothing wrong, everything I do is 100% legal. Being a Conservative does not make me a criminal or threat to this nation.

I have more I'd like to say, but now I'm concerned about opening a can of worms and making myself an even bigger (potential) target.

So I don't know what to think about all of this, am I being paranoid?

<<<>>>

I think I didn't make myself clear in my message, I don't think the government is "spying" on me, they have come to my site in the open, they haven't tried to disguise their visits. I fully realize that if they wanted to spy on me without my knowledge, they are fully capable of doing so, whether or not they are "spying" on me, this isn't what I'm concerned about.

Think about this, what if a car from the homeland security was parked outside your house and were openly looking at your house, I feel like most people would be disturbed by that, even though they have done nothing wrong, it would still make you wonder why they were there.

In the current political situation, with people being classified as potential domestic terrorists, their only crime is being a Conservative, Christian who listens to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk shows, yeah I am a bit concerned when the Department of Homeland Security visits my site, am I on this list of potential domestic terrorists now?

Wretha

Thanks for visiting!
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Looking For Inexpensive Security Electronics?

Hey everyone, I'm not ashamed to admit that I have been checking out different ways to earn a few dollars with this blog without it becoming obnoxious for you, I found this wholesale company several years ago (they aren't newbies, they have been around for a while, at least 5 years on line), this company sells mainly electronics stuff.

Right now one of my favorite gadgets that they carry is an IR (Night Vision) high definition mobile video/audio recorder, full color, it can record down to 0 lux, it uses a SD memory card, up to 2GB, it has no internal memory so you will need to get a SD memory card but those are cheap enough to get, or maybe you have some laying around now. You can record your local wildlife, see what animal is getting into your trash or garden, you can catch who has been raiding your fridge in the middle of the night... :) You can spy on your neighbors (just don't do anything illegal!), use your imagination, there are hundreds of things you can record, day or night.

This company also carries many other security related items, all types of cameras, IR night vision, motion detection, button hole sized (tiny), corded and cordless... and they have many more electronics at super great prices.

I know that some of you will groan because this company is in China, but in all honesty most electronics ARE made in China, like it or not, even the gadgets that say they are made in the USA, where do you think they get the components? Yes, in China, so let's take advantage of the low prices and get these electronics while the gettin' is good! Who knows when things might get sticky between our 2 countries and bargains like these will vanish...

Another of my favorites is an all in one, touchscreen MP4 player with camera (stills and video), it has 8 GB of memory so you'll be able to take lots of pix and videos. You can watch movies & videos and listen to your favorite MP3s and more. Right now this is less than $60.00 (+ shipping). Get one for yourself, get one for your teenager who is going off to college, why spend hundreds of dollars on something that might get lost or stolen while they are at school? Get one for your sweetie without breaking the bank. This is highly rated on the site.

You will save hundreds of dollars buying from this company, check them out, order a few items, save yourself some $$$s and help support this site at the same time. They have an affiliate program so you can earn some money too (it's free to join), that is what I am doing here, this way you can get the same great deals that I get. They also have a drop shipping program (I believe that's free to join as well), so you can create your own store, sell on eBay or Amazon, you set your own prices and make even more money. I'm not ready to do the dropshipping thing yet, I used to do that, so for now, take advantage of the super low prices available directly from the company. You can also buy in quantity (you save more money that way), and you can resell the electronics to your friends, family, at flea markets and such, the prices are low enough to be able to make a nice profit.

They don't rape you on shipping either, the MP4 player above costs about $11.00 to ship to my location in west Texas, they ship airmail, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, with tracking, you choose which carrier you want to use!

Thanks for looking. Check out the "store" on the right side of the blog, I put up a few items that I thought might be of interest to you survival minded folks. :)

Already have one of these gadgets? Let me know what you think.




To read all of my messages on Off-Grid.net, click here:
http://www.off-grid.net/section/wretha/

To read all of my messages on Earth Power News, click here:
http://www.earthpowernews.com/

Wretha

Thanks for visiting!
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