Prepping on a tight budget

[Vigilant]

Kroger 10 for $10 is always useful! Sure it's not the fancy MRE survival food, but it tastes a ****load better, and is a ****load cheaper! Way easy to prep on a budget when you can buy items for a dollar each! I've also noticed, that Kroger brand veggies and canned goods are even less that 10 for $10.

 

[mastery]

@mastery true on the ramen but with the water iv heard that the plastic can degrade after time? Is this true, and I do have a 2 good water purification water bottles, I'd like to get another and some of those emergency drinking tablets

Yes, some plastics do degrade over time. If you regularly use gallons of milk or 2-liter bottles anyways, they would be easy enough to cycle through over time (first in, first out process just like your canned food supply). The purification drinking tablets do work well but can leave a nasty taste depending on which you get. For emergency drinking water, I'd have to recommend something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FA2RLX2/ For under $20, you can filter 100,000 gallons. I have one of these in each of our BOBs as well as all vehicles. I use them regularly when motorcycle camping all over North America and they work great...and I've put them into some nasty looking water and got perfectly clean water to drink.

 

[mastery]

I've also noticed, that Kroger brand veggies and canned goods are even less that 10 for $10.

Their 5 for $5 or 10 for $10 sales are great. Simply look at the Wed/Thur free ads that come in the mailbox....other places like Meijers and WalMart even have regular specials of things like Jolly Green Giant cans of vegetables for sometimes as low as 39 cents each. WalMart just did one of those types of sales at the end of October and the wife picked up a couple cases each of green beans, peas, corn. Not as good as fresh or even frozen, but they get eaten in our home regularly and at that price, you can't beat 25 for $10. And with these kinds of sales, lots of people are in line with tons of cans of stuff, so nobody thinks to look at you strangely.

 

[pilotof727s]

This is what I did. Mostly because I wasn't really sure what I needed. I keep two totes full of supplies in my safe area of my house in case of tornado or other emergency. I rotate through the food once per year, every March to be exact. That way I can keep track of expiration dates for the food and batteries. I just recently added some Quikclot.

There are some basics that even a small budget can tackle. Start working your way towards several weeks, and then several months, of shelf-stable food and water. You can begin buying a little extra each time, and adding it to the rotation. Same with all the other consumables around the house: toilet paper, deodorant, toothpaste, paper towels, etc... Basically, you can slowly increase your personal inventory, and decrease your reliance on weekly visits to the store. If you find you run out of something, buy TWO, and then make sure you buy TWO MORE when you start on that second one.

Buy in bulk. Buy on sale. Buy at discount stores. Use their discount programs/cards/coupons. Buy store brand, rather then name brand. Buy quality items that will last, rather then cheap that will need replaced.

Acquiring and practicing skills can be pretty cheap, too.

Don't expect, or even try, to get "prepared" overnight. It is a lifestyle, not a destination. Some of the best-prepped people I know are "on a budget". They are "prepping" because they need to.

 

[PistolBob]

Facing beans and rice for more than a day or two would have me eye balling the next fur bearing warm blooded mammal I saw and dreaming of mammal meat in the skillet. Hell with the beans, stock up on mammals.

 

[PistolBob]

Their 5 for $5 or 10 for $10 sales are great. Simply look at the Wed/Thur free ads that come in the mailbox....other places like Meijers and WalMart even have regular specials of things like Jolly Green Giant cans of vegetables for sometimes as low as 39 cents each. WalMart just did one of those types of sales at the end of October and the wife picked up a couple cases each of green beans, peas, corn. Not as good as fresh or even frozen, but they get eaten in our home regularly and at that price, you can't beat 25 for $10. And with these kinds of sales, lots of people are in line with tons of cans of stuff, so nobody thinks to look at you strangely.

If you see me eating a canned pea....that means we're just about all dead.

We load up on cans of green beans, sauerkraut, fruit in water or juice, canned fish, canned chicken, canned taters but only when it is on sale..and we do a lot of shopping for cans at Aldi. We also try to keep 6 months of meds on hand as well...always picking up spare first aid stuff when CVS or Wally World has the stuff on sale.

 

[burt gummer]

Yeah I can't eat rice and beans for a week, need red meat I do have cants of tuna and chicken and the flavored rice that just needs hot water

 

[Sailor]

I have my normal rotatable deep pantry, and the buckets of beans rice pasta soup base spices etc.

If it ever gets to the point I need to crack those buckets, they will taste like the best thing in the world.

 

[WETSU]

Sailor, you will never starve. I'm pretty sure those buckets will be supplemented with subsonic, silently harvested, PVS 14 approved deer, dog, cat and rat meat. Survive and fight another day.

 

[Sailor]

Yep, there is a large colony of cats just West of me.

 

[Brad69]

You guys know that deer were hunted out of Indiana in the early 1900s.
Game would be hard to come by you might get a taste for skunk or opossum.

 

[burt gummer]

Mmmmm opossum pot pie

 

[2in1evtime]

skunk isn't all that bad. Had it once didn't know til after dinner what it was.

 

[2in1evtime]

Always read the nutrition facts on some items, high in sodium, some things aren't good for diabetics. mostly all natural things are best if preserved.

 

[burt gummer]

Yeah I have to watch out for sodium bp a little high but taking care of that, one question I have is what do most people store in their buckets? Iv got about 30 pickle buckets all clean,

 

[mastery]

one question I have is what do most people store in their buckets? Iv got about 30 pickle buckets all clean,

Beans, rice, lentils, grains, pastas, etc. See Sailor's note above.