How To Build A Stockpile For Only $2.75 A Day

As the global economy continues to tumble, many people across this great country are just now seeing the light and beginning to prepare. For many of these newcomers the question of where to begin is ever present, as well as how to afford all these new expenses. The very reason most newcomers want to prepare (economical troubles) make it difficult to buy the equipment necessary to be prepared, a catch 22. The solution is to start small, as small as $2.75 a day.

$2.75 can’t do much…in fact it’s hard to even buy a cup of coffee for $2.75 now! So how can you buy expensive gear and equipment for so little? Save it! You would be suprised how fast it adds up, and before you know it you can have a nice wad of cash to spend on your preps…with only $2.75 a day.

Let’s assume you save just $2.75 a day, or less than $20 a week. In a year you will have over $1,000 to put into your preps! $1,003.75 to be exact. So what can you do with your newly saved $1,000?

Here are my recommendations

Water ($50)– Minimum 1 gallon per-day

• Store it in bulk – gallons of spring/drinking water are easy to buy, but at $1.00 per gallon they can be expensive.
• Buy several 55 gallon plastic drums off craigslist (about $15 each) and fill them up. Don’t forget a hand pump too ($10)!
• Save soft drink containers, rinse them out and fill with tap water (less than $.05 a gallon), add 3-4 drops of unscented bleach  and mark them with the date.

Food ($350)– 1,500 calories per day

• Purchase in quantity what you normally eat. A good idea would be to sit down with a notepad and pen and meal plan for two weeks.
• Remember that there may be no electricity so all food items in the meal plan have to come from the pantry, don’t forget a manual can opener too.
• Next – take that 2 week meal plan and make a list of all items and use that as your shopping list. If you are able to buy 2 of everything listed – that would be a one month supply.
• Do not forget cooking oil (essential fats) that you may need to complete your meal. Don’t forget about spices and other condiments.
• Ramen soup, rice, lintils, and beans are cheap and easy bulk foods.
• Powered milk, honey, and salt should also be on the list.
• Wheat is great, but is harder to find and requires a mill.
• Consider shelf life (aim for at least 1 year out).
•  Buy store brands and buy on sale to maximize your available funds.

 Light ($30) – Your light in shining darkness

• Pick up a few quality hand crank LED flashlights. [LED will give you long bulb life & super long batttery life]
• Buy a bunch of candles at the dollar store or local discount store, as well as some matches and lighters
• Pick up a hand crank LED lantern, oil lamp, or propane lantern. Your choice. Make sure your propane lantern can be supported without a 1lb bottle (you will be using an adapter hose instead). A simple metal hook, special stand or propane “tree” works well.
• Get extra alkaline batteries for your old flashlights if needed.

 Medical/First Aid ($20)– Don’t forget the band-aids

• Make sure you are up to date on all prescriptions.
• Get a decent first aid kit – usually around $5.00 to $10.00 .
• Pick up extra supplies like band-aids, burn ointment, diarrhea medicine, pain killers, triple antibiotic, cold medicine, etc.

Household Supplies ($60)- For cleaning and sanitation

• Basic’s here. Dish soap, toilet paper, a few basic cleaning supplies, bleach.
• Get toiltries such as deodorant, shampoo, soap, hand sanitizer, shaving creme, and razors.

Self-Defense ($250)– Just as important as your supplies

• Think self defence and hunting when it comes to guns. 12 gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle.
• Check out the used gun selection at your local pawn and gun shops. Gun shows are a great place to shop too.
• You should be able to pick up used 12 gauged shotgun as well as some shells for around $150.
• Try to find a decent rimfire like the Ruger 10/22 along with a brick of ammunition for the other $100.
• Alternativly you can also spend your extra $100 on 12 gauge ammo and accessories.

Fuel ($90)– Extra gas & propane

• 10 gallons of gas + sta-bil treatment  is running around $35.00 at the moment.
• Getting a 20-lb propane tank filled costs around $15.00.
• Buy an extra 20lb propane tank if you can.
• Buy a 20lb to 1lb adapter hose. They can be had for $15.

Heating & Cooking ($150) -  Indoor & outdoor flame

• Buy an indoor-safe propane heater for warmth.
• Get a propane stove burner for cooking.
• Buy a camp grill if you have access to small twigs and leaves to help save your precious fuel.
• Blankets, blankets…….and more blankets. Emergency space blankets too!
• Stock up on gloves and thermal underwear.
• Already have a propane heater? Get more fuel.

Well – that’s our $1,000.00 dollars. Start saving your $2.75 a day and soon you’ll have your very own stockpile to fall back on during tough times.

Remember you can adjust this list to fit your situation. If you already has a gun, then spend that money somewhere else. If you live in the desert, buy more water and less heaters. You get the picture, the same goes for every other category.

So how would YOU spend $1000 in preps? Any thoughts? Comment below and help others.

How To Disappear And Live Under The Radar

Police State got you down? Does the thought of Martial Law keep you up at night?  Well, it should! We live in a world where we are being constantly watched and monitored. Ever wondered what would it take to wipe the slate clean and live a life free of big brother? Security expert Aton Edwards answered just that as he goes on an amazing journey off the grid and under the radar in his show ”Track Me If You Can’. The show focused on ways to avoid being tracked by “big brother” or anyone else who may be looking for you.

Please Note: The video below goes down often. If it’s not working CLICK HERE to automatically search for it on YouTube (opens new window).

Track Me If You Can

 

Track Me If You Can is a must-watch for anyone interested in protecting their privacy. He covers some of excellent tips and gives alot of necessary information. Here’s a run down:

• There are 30 million plus surveillance cameras on the US, one camera for every ten americans.
• The average American is in 200 databases.
• Putting a plan in motion to keep you from being tracked is a good idea if you want to devise a new life for yourself
• Plan 3 months ahead of time
• Right before you leave, change your appearance significantly (if you have hair, shave your head, if you have blond hair, change it to black, get glasses, etc.).
• Before you leave, terminate all of your accounts (email, bank accounts, credit cards, etc).
• Don’t terminate your social network sites as you can use these sites to provide disinformation.
• Before you leave, delete all of your computer files and get rid of your computer’s hard drive (first boil the hard drive then smash it with a hammer and finally run a Degausser/electromagnetic wand over the drive to obliterate all information it may contain).
• Get rid of all of your personal items like photos, trophies, mementos, etc. that could tie you to your old life.
• Shred all of your personal info and credit cards/bank statements/etc., next take the shredded material and spread it around in a bunch of trash bags and leave the bags at various dumpsters around the city, or burn it.
• Get rid of your cell phone as these can be easily used to track your location either through a computer software program or through triangulation.
• Wipe all of your info from your cell phone then leave it at a train or bus station so that someone else will pick it up and start using it, thus providing a source of disinformation for those searching for you.
• Break your normal patterns (what you eat, where you frequent, how you shop, the kind of work you do, etc).
• Ditch your car and find a substitute that is not your personality.
• Completely change your lifestyle (ie: if you are currently a corporate lawyer, become a night janitor then dress and behave appropriately).
• If you do take your car get rid of the toll pass which can track your movements through the RFID chip in the pass.
• Stay away from interstate highways.
• Get rid of the GPS device which came with your car. Ditto for the OnStar system which can be activated remotely and allow others to listen in on your conversations.
• Make sure your tires don’t have RFID chips in them. Some tires have these chips and they can link to your VIN number and the purchase location of the tires.
• Go to non-chain restaurants.
• Pay for everything with cash.
• When you are out in public disguise yourself (at least wear a hat and sunglasses).
• Avoid frequenting your usual places (for example, if you are a vegetarian your meal preference can be found through your prior airline meal request and then you may be easier to locate if you frequent vegetarian restaurants).
• Get your food to go from restaurants so you don’t leave DNA on the plates/utensils/glasses which can be read with an easily purchased BPac machine which analyzes your biometrics.
• Stay in small motels and pay with cash.
• Use alcohol wipes to remove fingerprints.
• Use a Multi Sweep Hidden Camera & Bug Detector to check for hidden bugs/cameras/etc.
• Cover the peephole so people can’t see into your room.
• Sleep in your sleeping bag so you won’t leave DNA behind on the hotel bedding.
• Buy a pre-paid cell phone which you only use for outgoing calls (be sure to turn off the caller ID). Replace the pre-paid phone frequently, about every 2 weeks.
• When you are not using the cell phone, remove the battery so it can’t be turned on remotely or used to track you.
• Be careful when speaking in cars or near windows. The NSA has a bounce laser monitoring system which can pick up sound waves on glass and record what you are saying.
• At night you can avoid being seen on cameras that use infrared light by fashioning a cap with LED lights on the front of it which makes a “halo” and shields your face from the cameras.
• To determine the best place to resettle, choose a mid-sized city in a not overly cold place. Big cities and small towns are not good places for anonymity.
• To change your identity don’t just assume the identity of someone else (this is way more difficult–and illegal–than it used to be), instead petition the court to change your name legally to a new–and common–name.
• Apply for a driver’s license under your new name.
• Most driver’s licenses and passports have RFID chips in them. Block people from reading these RFID chips by carrying them in a wallet lined with aluminum foil.
• To get back online, use a new laptop.
• Always use a hard wire to your laptop and turn off the wi-fi which is easily hacked.
• Put a cover over your web cam such as a band-aid or electrical tape as these can be turned on remotely like your cell phone.
• Install anti-key logger software on your computer.
• Also, install software that will reroute your ip address so your location can’t be determined via your computer.
• Be aware of the ECHELON program in the US which monitors phone and computer transmissions for keywords and messages.
• At the grocery store, change your shopping habits and never use store club cards.
• Be aware that nearly all food packaging now contain RFID tags. To be sure these aren’t used for tracking (unlikely now but possibly more likely in the future) repackage food once you purchase it and get rid of the store packaging.
• To find work, get a night job that is different that your previous job, such as a janitor. This will limit your contact with people.
• Change jobs often.
• Create a “back story” for your new identity and practice it. If you base your lies on the truth but change the details a bit, your story will be easier to remember and more believable.
• Open a bank account, preferably at a small, local bank.
• Be aware of video surveillance cameras which are everywhere.
• Never contact people from your past.
• The narrator noted that every year, changing your identity gets harder.
• The police now consider common activities suspicious such as bird watching, sketching or painting, or taking photographs in public.
• There are 70 FUSION centers in the US which coordinate surveillance and other information.
• Airlines sometimes use locator chips on your bags so be aware of this. You can also use these tagged bags for disinformation purposes (ie: leaving them in places to throw people off your trail).
• Technology is now available to identify you by the way you walk (change the way you walk), your facial measurements and biometrics (use a disguise, and especially sunglasses), and even your response to images.
• It will be 7 to 10 years before your old identity drops off of old databases.
• Guard against complacency.
• The less you interface with technology, the better off you will be.

 

Pasture Raised Chickens Isn’t For The Birds

Feeding chickens solely on pasture can be tricky, but isn’t impossible. Chickens can find their own feed, but each chicken needs a considerable amount of room.  Chickens can’t eat what isn’t there, and the more chickens you have the less food there is for each chicken. You have to match the number chickens to your pasture size or they will die from poor health and starvation.

How It Was Done In The Old Days

In the old days people didn’t feed their hens at all. Much of the hen’s diet was provided by poor sanitation. People would throw their garbage out on the streets or around the outside of the house. The cows would spill grain. Manure was all over the place and was full of free lunch - maggots. Even with all this extra food the number of hens that could be kept healthy without supplemental feeding of grains was limited.

A farmer of the 1800′s might have kept a dozen hens and a rooster through the winter. The following spring the hens would hatch a brood of chicks, giving the farmer about 72 chicks plus the original hens and rooster made for 85 birds total. After the chicks had hatched the old rooster would be sold or eaten. Most of the young chickens and their mothers would be harvested in the fall. One new rooster and twelve young hens would be kept through the following winter, completing the cycle. By having 85 chickens during the summer and only 13 during the lean months of winter, the amount of grain needed for the chickens would be minimal.

This Always Meant Manlnutrition

A flock of 13 chickens could survive the winter on a small handful of grain, usually spilled by the farmer when feeding the cows. Add to that a bit of hay and whatever else they could find and they could get by. They would not be healthy, but they would live to see another summer. This winter diet would be nutritionally poor in vitamins and proteins. Because of this lean diet the hens would lay no eggs during the winter, but they would recover once spring started and the grass turned green again, and the cycle could repeat.

The More Chickens, The More Malnutrition

 I’ve heard people say that you can only support 1-2 free range hens per acre, and others say they keep a dozen in a 10×10 coop. I think it depends on how much time you are willing to put into your chickens. If you’re willing to move them daily in a chicken tractor and buy (or grow) them a supplimental feed, then there’s no reason you can’t have a decent size flock.

Chickens are picky eaters as well. As your chickens begin to overpopulate your farm they first eat up the supply of high-calorie feeds such as seeds, then they move on to the supply of high-protein feeds such as bugs and clover. Finally, they exaust all the high-vitamin feeds such as green grass.  It’s nearly impossible to tell what stage your forage is in, except for the last stages, when all the green plants disappear.

It Always Pays Off To Provide a Supplemental Diet

The increased production of eggs and larger hens always pays for the increased feed. The feed diet should be adjusted to reflect what the chickens can find as they forage. You can usually leave out vitamins (if they have greens) and proteins (if they have plenty of bugs or clover). In general, for the sustainable homesteader, grain may be all they need supplemented for the summer.

But enough dry summer days in a row browns the grass and makes it useless to the chickens, so this method has its risks. Also in the winter there will be no greens and very little bugs for them so they will need more suplemental grain. A store bought grain really works best here, but during a SHTF situation you may not have that luxery, so do what you can get to get them more grain. This is not ideal, and you may have to harvest a few cickens to make it work, but the bottom line is the flock will make it to the next spring.

If we can’t see what our chickens are eating it’s hard to determin what nutrients they are getting. Many of the things hens eat are so tiny that we can’t see them – tiny seeds, bugs, and worms. Fortunately for the homesteader, hens prefer fresh, natural feeds to processed chicken feed. They will eat their fill on natural foods before going to the store-bought feed whenever they have the chance. This makes it pretty easy to feed your chickens correctly, just follow the golden rule….

Offer your chickens as much chicken feed or homegrown grain as they want, and then let them eat however much pasture they want.

This will help to maximize production and save as much grain for the cows as possible. During hard times you can still get some eggs out of your flock without hurting your hens but you won’t get very many. Don’t plan your meals around fat chickens, plan them for the lean days and be happy with the excess during the summer.

Things You Can Do To Be More Self-Sufficient

We are now three to five generations removed from the rural life that helped make America great. We have migrated to big cities and left our self-sustained lives behind. These mega-cities have caused our general well-being to decline, with suicide rates increasing across the world. Crowded conditions and economic problems have led to rampant crime, pollution, and a dog-eat-dog mentality.

You will find that most of these tips will save you money and some will even save you time.  The closer you get to true self-sufficiency you will save more and more money. Many find that the money saved alows them to cut down on overtime or even quit work altogether, allowing them to truely be free from the system and to become a homesteader. Saving money comes hand in hand with self-sufficiency and homesteading. Your labor is much cheaper than someone else’s and the money you save from gas and utility bills will go a long way towards paying down debts or buying more equipment for your homestead.

Here’s a list of 52 things you can do to become more self-sufficient. You would be one busy beaver, but you could even try doing one a week and in a year you will be closer to self-sufficiency than you ever thought possible. I recommend you learn the basics of your current project before moving on to the next.

1. Plant your own vegetable garden.
2. Change your own oil on your car or truck.
3. Cut your own firewood.
4. Collect and use rain water instead of municiple or well water.
5. Supplement your house’s heating system with solar heating panels.
6. Supplement your hot water needs with a solar water heater.
7. Mulch your garden with local organic mulch instead of store bought products.
8. Raise your own rabbits with worm beds underneath.
9. Use home-made compost and free manure to enrich your garden’s soil.
10. Grow non-hybrid vegetables and save the seeds for next year’s planting.
11. Grow potatoes and save the fingerlings for next years planting.
12. Use biointensive gardening techniques to grow lots of vegetables in small places.
13. Build a greenhouse to extend your growing season.
14. Build a root cellar (above or below ground) to store your harvest.
15. Start a small orchard for a variety of fruits.
16. Learn how to preserve food by canning.
17. Raise bees to help pollination and for honey.
18. Raise chickens for meat and eggs.
19. Raise sheep for wool and meat.
20. Raise goats or a dairy cow for dairy products.
21. Preserve vegetables by sun drying them.
22. Spin wool into yarn for making clothes.
23. Make your own furniture out of tree branches.
24. Preserve vegetables by freezing them.
25. Grow herbs for cooking and medicinal purposes.
26. Use edible wild plants to supplement one’s diet (Find a guide for your area first!).
27. Use containers to grow vegetables in small places.
28. Use chicken manure (composted) to help fertilize your garden.
29. Use, use and reuse as much as possible before throwing away.
30. Conserve electricity whenever possible.
31. Tune-up your own car or truck.
32. Sharpen your own tools.
33. Build your own home or shed.
34. Grow grapes for preserves or raisins or make your own wine.
35. Build a pond and raise fish for food.
36. Use solar and wind power to supplement your energy needs.
37. Learn how to use a welder.
38. Use clothes lines to dry clothes instead of a mechanical dryer.
39. Grow grains to feed your own livestock.
40. Grow alfalfa to return nitrogen to the soil.
41. Use a generator for emergency and supplemental power.
42. Dig or drive your own well.
43. Bake your own bread.
44. Do your own plumbing.
45. Do your own electrical work.
46. Run a small business from your home.
47. Barter goods and services with your neighbors.
48. Use a push mower instead of a gas or electric mower, or let the goats handle it.
49. Use a bicycle (whenever possible) instead of a motorized vehicle.
50. Make vegetables a large part of your diet.
51. Make your own syrup from Maple trees as a sugar substitute.
52. Supplement your diet by hunting game.

10 Reasons to Become More Self-Sufficient

Becoming more self sufficient isn’t all about raising chickens, or getting up at 4:00AM. It’s about consuming smarter and producing for your own daily needs. And that might mean you choose to raise chickens and get up at 4:00AM, but it doesn’t mean you have to. If you need any convincing simply read below.

10 Reasons to Become Self-Sufficient

1. Increasing health and wellness – Alot of the “organic” items you see in the grocery store have been falsely labeled. Add to that a large precentage of  brands that claim to be “GMO-free” are NOT and you really don’t know what you’re eating anymore. GMO food lacks the nutritional value of what can grow yourself. GMO mega-corporation, Monsanto, has a sordid history of lies, corruption, and has downright been plain evil in every sense of the word. They continuously trampled on our trust, showing through their actions that they would rather make a few more dollars than help save millions (billions?) of starving people on this planet (some right here in the United States). Growing food for yourself makes you healthier and takes companies like Monsanto out of your loop.
2. Working for yourself – Lets face it, being someone elses paid slave sucks. Working hours are increasing, pay is decreasing (thank you inflation), and corporate executives are taking bigger bonuses than ever. The middle class is turning into the poor class as the executives in charge are the only ones that can afford to retire. This is leading to a prevailing disgust, as people are being forced to admit that they are living lives of near slaves to their next paycheck, their boss, and their debt. Even for those not working in corporations, working for someone else is (VERY) rarely as satisfying as creating and working for something where every minute you spend is yours alone.
3. Having more free time – Life on a farm has been portrayed arduous sun up sun down drudgery where you collapse at the end of the day. This picture mostly comes from the 50′s, the 1850′s! This is not the case anymore. As technology has changed everything else, so as it changed farming and homesteading. Sure, the setup of any farm or homestead is often time-consuming and laborious, but new technologies and new skills of manufacturing food via permaculture and aquaponics are offering low-cost start up and minimal maintenance. You can easily live on 15 acres of land nearly 100% self sustained, with only 1 of those acres actually needing what most consider “farm work”. Some people even do it on 1/4 of an acre, total! 
4. Generating food and energy - Our coal and oil-soaked way of life could run out rather soon. While the time we have left varies from study to study from 30 years to 100, nearly every scientists in the world agrees that the next generation or two will see the end of oil and a return to life as it was post-oil (and gas, and fertilizer, and plastic, and everything else petroleum based). By using solar and wind power you can wean yourself from the energy grid.
5. Hedging against inflation – Have you noticed the price of gold lately? What about groceries? Even Wal-Mart and Costco are raising their prices. The current increases are sign of hyperinflation and there is no signs of change in the foreseeable future. People might have a choice whether or not to buy stocks or gold, but we must eat. Coming corn and grain shortages could make the problem much worse.
6. Freedom from market manipulation - Capatilism is a great economical system, and it’s what makes America great. The problem arises when traders and banking institutions begin controlling the vast majority of the system as they do now. The debacle of the private Federal Reserve Bank is just the icing on the cake to a previous decade full of Ponzi-type schemes. Now, the institutionalized looting of retirement money is being planned.
7. Building family strength –  In these trying times, it is your family that can offer the best support. 60-hour work weeks and grabbing fast food meals on the go take us away from our loves ones, mentally and physically. With no time to interact with our immediate family, it is no wonder why many people report feeling disconnected and unloved.
8. Becoming a producer, not a consumer – This is the best way to reduce your cost of living and increase your self-sufficiency. In the past 30 years we have seen corporations race to find the lowest cost production overseas  despite desperate people here in America desperate for jobs. Every single one of us has exploited the Third World to clothe, feed, and entertain us and at the same time we are supporting middle-class job being taken from Americans (ever shop at wal-mart? buy a pair of tennis shoes? buy ANYTHING made in china?). The further we walk away from this lifestyle the more we will be rewarded, that is a truth you can hang your hat on.
9. Restoring balance – It seems like everything in our socity is on the edge about to tip over. The systems we have in place to check these balanaces has long fell into corruption and dissarray. We have to take it upon ourselves to restore these balances. We may not be able to keep everyone from falling over the edge, but we can protect ourselves by stepping away from the “cliff” and taking on a more self-sustained lifestyle.
10. Acquiring an appreciation for life - Creating a garden, working hard to select the best for harvest, and prepared food for your family that you have grown yourself is one of the great joys in life. While a window garden can give you a tiny piece of this world, you can not truely appreicate it until you step outside and transform a small part of your backyard into a beautiful garden.

Surviving A Super Solar Storm. Prepare Now.

Nasa is warning that the world could face massive widespread blackouts, travel problems and damage to our power grids beginning in 2012-2013. Coming solar storms could cause a devastating blow to our power grid, causing trillions of dollars in damage that could take up to a decade to repair.

Three years ago The National Academy of Sciences warned that a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina”. They went on to say that the solar activity could completely knock out power grids, GPS navigation, banking and financial systems, air travel, & radio communications.  Everyday items such as cell phones, computers and other personal electronic devices will also be damaged.

How can you prepare for such a worldwide catastrophy? There’s not much you can do about the electrical companies power grid (although they are preparing the best they can), but you can prepare your home and family for a super solar storm.

Power
Right now, think of everything in your home that requires electricity. Like our use of water (your well pump, or if you are on city water your water company uses electricty to run their pumps and operate their valves), our dependency upon electricity is staggering. If possible every home emergency plan should include a properly protected solar power system. Even then as a backup (or as a second option) consider stockpiling propane to heat, cook, and cool with. Propane will be the new electricity after a solar storm, but without the infrastructer to keep it flowing your supplies will be limited to what you can store. Having sustainable hardwoods on your property is the only guaranteed source of power you can depend on long term.  

Water Storage
Water is an extremely important commodity, as you use it every day for everything from cooking, drinking, bathing and sanitation. You may be surprised by the amount of water required to perform everyday tasks. Take a look at the average daily water usage for some common activities:

• Brushing teeth = 1 gallon
• Washing hands = 1 quart
• Taking a bath = 35-40 gallons
• Taking a shower = 5 gallons per minute
• Laundry = 19-45 gallons
• Washing dishes = 10-15 gallons

Amazing, isn’t it? Post-electricity such wasteful use of water can not exist unless you have an endless supply (lake, river, etc) on hand. If you have no sustainable source of water avaliable, do you have enough clean water stored for your entire family? I recommend you invest in a heavy-duty water barrel made of polyethylene. You can purchase barrels that store 15-55 gallons of water. Store these containers in a dark and cool area, add some bleach (1 teaspoon per 5 gallons), and rotate your water storage every few months for freshness.

Food Storage
Food equals life so it makes sense to store food. Every family has different nutrition and dietary needs, so you may be struggling with finding the right food for your family. Only you know what your family needs, and you are responsible for meeting those needs, especially when a disaster, financial crisis or family emergency occurs. Collect items for your food storage supply now! You could purchase an entire year supply at once, or you could begin gradually to build your emergency preparedness supply by purchasing a few number 10 cans of freeze-dried or dehydrated food a week or month and picking up a few extra cans of food each time you visit the grocery store. I prefer the later option. You can buy an entire years worth of food for $5/week over 52 weeks for one person.

Choose foods your family will eat, and prepare meals from that food storage. Not only will you know what items to buy more of, you will also know how to cook with freeze-dried foods and dehydrated foods.

Communication
Communication is crucial during a time of disaster, but since phones and radios primarily rely on electricity, this first link to help and information is often unavailable. In your emergency preparedness supply, you should have a Crank Or Solar Powered Radio/Flashlight on hand, or extra batteries for the one you currently have. You may even consider purchasing several Quality, Long-Range Walkie-Talkies and giving one to each family member. An off grid CB Radio Base Station is also a great way to communicate to others.

Taking survival and emergency preparedness classes is also an excellent idea, and it would be a great family activity. We recommend you and your family participate in a ham radio certification course. Ham radio, or amateur radio, may take a while to learn how to operate, and you must have a license, but during an emergency, this can be one of the only ways to get help.

Build a Faraday Cage
All these neat gadgets won’t do you any good if they get fried too. A Faraday cage is an enclosure of conducting material that blocks out external static electric fields. If the conductor is thick enough, and the holes are smaller than the incoming electromagnetic radiation’s wavelength, then that radiation won’t be able to pass through. This is the reason why phones don’t work in some buildings and lifts, why microwaves don’t cook you when you stand in front of them.

You can make yourself a Faraday cage fairly easy. I’ve included a video below  that explains the process. Make sure you ground it properly and store all your precious electronic equipment inside it.

 

Money And Currency
Almost all modern banking is conducted electronically. While banks have vaults full of ingots and other valuables, your cash actually exists in a database, albeit one that’s backed up in multiple locations across the world, so that a disaster that’s confined to a local area can’t cause too many problems that won’t be resolved by a swift restoration of a backup.

However, that policy doesn’t work for global events. If that database, along with all its backups, gets wiped by a particularly nasty solar flare, then so does your money. Get it out of the bank, and in a safer, more physical place instead. Bury it in the garden, hide it in your roof, or stuff it under the mattress. Just get it out of  the electronic database and into cold hard cash.

EMP-Proof Vehicle

This is a double edged sword. Have a running vehicle can be a real blessing in a major SHTF situation, however having the ONLY running vehicle in town is like pointing a big red target on your back. If you do choose to keep a vehicle running (a great idea to at least have) then you will need an older vehicle, preferably a diesel. Look for a vehicle before electronic ignitions with a point system. Keep a backup starter, alternator, and solenoid in your Faraday cage and know how to put them on.

 

Our Solar System Is Passing Through An Intesteller Energy Cloud

While mostly the talk of 2012 conspiracy theorists and Mayan predictors (mostly due to the timing of the event), the science remains that our solar system is passing through an intersteller energy cloud that could cause the Earth and the Sun to be charged with higher than usual energy particles. These particles could excite our Sun enough to cause extreme X-class solar storms.

 ”A strong, highly-tilted interstellar magnetic field near the Solar System,” published the December 24, 2009 issue of Nature, a highly respected scientific journal, M. Opher et al report on data transmitted from Voyager, the twin spacecraft that have been exploring the outer reaches of the Solar System.

“We have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system. This magnetic field holds the interstellar energy cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all,” says Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from George Mason University. He explains that this energy cloud is at least twice as strong as had previously been predicted and that the Solar System has begun to pass into it, adding that this field “is turbulent or has a distortion in the solar vicinity.”  

Dr. Alexei Dmitriev, an esteemed Russian space physicist concludes, based on his team’s analysis of Voyager data, that the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are inexplicably excited — immense storms, mammoth eruptions, plasma arcs jetting from the planets’ surface to their moons. He reasoned that this turbulence is caused by an external injection of energy into the planets’ atmospheres: to wit, an interstellar energy cloud which the leading edge of the Solar System has now entered.

The Nature article does not examine the earthly ramifications of moving into the energy cloud beyond suggesting that we could face an increase in cosmic rays, which could affect everything from space travel to rainfall. But the prescient Dmitriev, who has been publishing on the subject for the past fifteen years, observes that passage into this interstellar cloud has already begun to perturb the Sun, causing solar outbursts that are leading to hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes of unprecedented ferocity here on Earth. He is on record as predicting that we will face global catastrophe in “not tens but ones of years.” When pressed, Dmitriev guesstimates that the Solar System will remain within this turbulent energy cloud for something on the order of three millennia.

While I cannot vouch for Dr Dmitriev or his predictions of global  catastrophy, NASA is warning the public to prepare for a, “once in a lifetime super solar storm event” between 2011-2013. This event can start at anytime with little to no warning. NASA’s Heliophysics Division said: “We know it’s coming but we don’t know how bad it’s going to be.”  Power companies are preparing for solar storm surges worldwide after the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a 100+ page report detailing the grave vulnerability of the electrical power grid to solar blasts, which, by scientific consensus, are next expected to climax in late 2012 or early 2013.

The NAS concludes that up to 130 million people could find themselves without electricity for months or years due to solar mega-storms shorting out the grid. Without telecommunications, water or gasoline (the pumps are electric), refrigeration, and basic law enforcement or military security, civilization as we know it would be brought to its knees.

Are you ready and know what to expect, let alone how to prepare? Do you know how to make a special safe room to protect you and family from prolong electromagnetic radiation which can be deadly? Do you understand that most anything electronic will no longer work? This effects computers, phones, satellites, hospitals, even the electronic ignition system for cars and trucks.

Do you know what steps to take to protect your car from permanently breaking down from a powerful super solar storm? A super solar storm would knock out most power world wide and take years to repair, costing over $2 trillion in damages world wide.  Are you prepared with at least twelve to twenty four months of previsions for food, water, medicine and heating? 

A killer super solar storm would lock down modern countries like the United States, Europe, Asia, and Canada for months. Are you aware of that countries like the U.S. have an Anti Hoarding Act that effects you during a national crises? Are you ready to fend for yourself as food stores most likely will not be in operation for months because of looters, gangs and no power, and especially a lack of food supplies?

Homemade DIY Vegetable Oil Lamps

If you have an old fashioned oil lamp, the kind that doesn’t use kerosene or petroleum-based lamp oil, then you’re in luck! You can stock up on two preps in one bottle, saving space and money. So what is this miracal prepper item? Vegetable oil! Vegetable oil works great as a fuel, is needed for cooking and frying, and also provides your body with essential fats and oils. Even used frying oil burns without odor and without smudging. Instead of throwing away your used frying oil, save it for your oil lamps!

If you don’t have a true oil lamp you can make one from materials around your house. It only takes about 15 minutes and cost nothing.

For a “lamp” you could use nearly any small glass or metal container, old tuna cans work great for this! Just bend down the lid, lay your wick in, fill ‘er up and you’re done! For a wick you can use a string from an old mop, an shoelace, a tightly rolled up piece of paper, a porous stick,  a strip of cotton underwear, jute string, or even burlap. Just experiment to see what works.

If your container needs a wick-holder (some won’t, like a tuna can with the lid bent down) improvise  a piece of wire wound around a nail. Its job is to hold the wick up out of the oil. You’ll need to find a way to make it easily adjustable — as the wick burns down, you need to keep feeding a little more, and ideally there would be a way to do this without putting out the light. You can hold the coil with a pair of pliers and push the wick up with a toothpick.

The only down side is vegetable oil won’t work in a kerosene or petro-based lantern. In my expierence the oil would burn for a few minutes, but then the wick would burn down and smolder with thick black smoke. What’s going on is the oil is too thick to draw up these wicks fast enough to keep feeding the flame. They are made for  thinner, more fluid oils.

Even a small improvised oil lamp burns at least an hour before the wick needs to be adjusted again. I made mine from unused items sitting around the house, all you have to do is put on your thinking cap and go scavaging. I always threw out my used frying oil but not any more! It’s good to know that we can have some light if we run out of candles and kerosene.

The Cost of Ignoring Disaster Preps

After  Hurricane Irene hit the east coast many people wanted to snicker about what they considered overblown hype in the face of the storm. Past hurricanes such as  Camille, Ivan, Frederick, Rita, and Katrina made Irene pale in comparison.  And as a northern friend of mine said to me today, when the  storm finally reached her, it had downgraded to a tropical storm.

You don’t need life-altering devastation to find yourself totally unprepared and facing hunger, water scarcity, and loss of property. All it takes is a small storm. By mid-week, there were still over 563,000 in New York sitting in the dark, over 400,000 people in Virginia without power, and the slow response to power outages  in New Jersey has left thousands of residents disgruntled and  angry.

Five days after Irene nearly 2,000,000 people were STILL without power. Stop right now and think….can I last 5 days without power? How will I cook? Will my water still work? Probably not if your water company is out of power too! What will I eat? How will I see at night? Will I still have gas for my car? How will I know what’s going on?

It’s the smaller upheavals that seem to catch us unaware and leave us  desperate for some port in the storm. Knowing your absolute essential emergency needs, having a survival plan, and preparing beforehand will help you survive whatever comes your way. Which is the message I hope to impart to my readers. 

Residents living in Maryland, found themselves facing the threat of Irene and the probable outcome of loss of power, flood damage, and dwindling food stores. Those who were prepared with generators were able to avoid the inconveniences of living off the power grid for nearly a week.

 

Power Companies Preparing For Super Solar Storms

(Reuters) – Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days.

 ”The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level,” said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past. In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours. The largest solar storm ever recorded was in 1859 when communications infrastructure was limited to telegraphs. The 1859 solar storm hit telegraph offices around the world and caused a giant aurora visible as far south as the Caribbean Islands.

Some telegraph operators reported electric shocks. Papers caught fire. And many telegraph systems continued to send and receive signals even after operators disconnected batteries, NOAA said on its website. A storm of similar magnitude today could cause up to $2 trillion in damage globally, according to a 2008 report by the National Research Council. “I don’t think this week’s solar storms will be anywhere near that. This will be a two or three out of five on the NOAA Space Weather Scale,” said Kunches.

SOLAR SCALE

The NOAA Space Weather Scale measures the intensity of a solar storm from one being the lowest intensity to five being the highest, similar to scales that measure the severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. The first of the three solar explosions from the sun this week already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact, Kunches said, noting, the second was passing the Earth now and “seems to be stronger.”

And the third, he said, “We’ll have to see what happens over the next few days. It could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all.” Power grid managers receive alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to tell them to prepare for solar events, which peak about every 12 years, Tom Bogdan, director of the center said.

He said the next peak, called a solar maximum, was expected in 2013. “We’re coming up to the next solar maximum, so we expect to see more of these storms coming from the sun over the next three to five years,” Bogdan said.

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