Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!!!

A new year has arrived. With the new year comes a new opportunity to get yourself organized for food storage, frugal living and prepping.
Make some resolutions...not big ones, just baby steps.
Here are a few suggestions to add to your resolution list:

Commit $5.00 a week to your food preps. Five bucks is not a lot. You can get a few extra cans of tuna, some boxes of macaroni and cheese...look and find inexpensive items to add to your pantry.

Go to the range one more time a month. Getting competent with your firearms is a GOOD thing!

Walk more. Park further away from the grocery store or on the other side of the mall or at the far end of the parking lot at work. A few extra steps has health benefits!

Learn one new skill every 3 months. It may be sewing or baking bread or canning or starting a campfire without matches. Doesn't matter. Just one new skill every three months. Practice at it until you feel confident in your abilities.

Read more. Read history, particularly American history and the history of revolution all over the world and throughout history. Read up on farming, read up on livestock management, read up on alternative/primitive building techniques. Read up on anything that will help you in your endeavors.

Cook at least one meal every two weeks using your food storage! I cook one meal a week, but you might want to start slow. I will be posting some of my favorite food storage recipes in the next couple of weeks to give you some ideas!

Once every three months, buy a "tool for living". A grain mill, a dehydrator, a sewing machine...whatever tool you do not have but feel it is necessary or prudent for you to have. If you have all the tools you need (like anyone ever will?)--but on the off chance you do, go beyond competent and get to be an expert on on one every 3 months.

So, Happy New Year, Happy Prepping and may the best of the past year be the worst of this new year for you all!

2 comments:

  1. I have started cooking a lot more from food storage, but then again, my food storage is the farm type - home-canned green beans, tomato juice and fruits, etc. Still - I buy my grains in bulk too, and mill them for our breadstuffs.

    Right now there are a ton of 'eat from your pantry' challenges out there, because it's January. I'm doing it, but I can't say that out loud on my own blog or my hubby will immediately crave anything he can think of that we don't have on hand. (fresh persimmons, maybe?)

    I'll still pick up some fresh produce here and there, but I'm making sure I incorporate the fresh stuff we have on hand from the garden too - carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions, pumpkins, butternut squash, etc.

    I do a lot of couponing, and get a lot of stuff free. I think it goes hand in hand with building food storage, because if I can get the day-to-day stuff free, then I can spend the grocery money on #10 cans of milk powder. Also, last month I was able to get lots of those boxed dehydrated potatoes free with coupons and sales. They aren't packaged for long term storage, but that's certainly fixable! ;)

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  2. I love the dehydrated potatoes!I am saving for a Food Saver. I have this crazy idea of canning or putting in mylar bags the following:
    Dehydrated potatoes
    Dehydrated celery
    Dehydrated onions
    Dehydrated peas
    Freeze-dried corn
    Some of those freeze dried beef I saw at an internet prep store
    Beef bouillon powder
    Tomato powder
    Spices
    A little corn starch for thickener

    Add water and simmer for appropriate amount of time:
    Beef stew!

    I figure I could make this in meal sized packs or individual ones.
    I am SO itchin' to get my hands on a Food Saver and start experimenting!!!
    I also can't wait to start my *plant babies*. I have seeds I saved from last year and am going to start them in peat pots so they will be ready to put in the ground in March. It is warm enough by then here to get the less than tender plants in the ground. I hope to can more this year. I have a big enough yard here to have a *respectable* garden, thank goodness!

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