Prepping hacks?

[Hueco]

I'm not so sure its a hack, but learn how to cook. Know how to turn cornmeal into waffles, flour into pie crust (use lard for quiche crust), how to make tortillas, bread, and pasta. You can get a lot of delicious and cheap calories from these things.

Don't throw away food scraps, ever. Freeze veggie scraps until you have enough to make broth, then toss them into the compost.

I'm a big fan of smoked pork butt. Toss the smoked fat cap, bone and veggies into the pot and make some broth. Put in fridge. Scoop off the now rendered fat and store separately; makes a great replacement for butter/shortening in crusts or to fry up some food.

A lot of prepping is about hoarding a lot of stuff. I've never had the space so my take has been on how to get the absolute most out of what you have.

 

[shibbershabber]

Prepping is about hording, but also about skills.

Skills to survive situations when the basic comforts and conveniences are unavailable.
Learning alternative heating/cooking methods, learning to use hand tools over power tools, etc.
Learning basic, 'old school' cooking techniques using minimum ingredients
Get back to your great grandmother's way of living and you will survive jsut fine.

Just spending $20-$30 extra once or twice a month stockpiling the foods you normally eat can get you a solid months supply in very short time, plus there is the added benefit of being able pull from the supply to make dinner in a pinch, etc... plus its food the family is already used to eating. Going from real food to a solid diet of freeze dried 'survival food' can be a shock to the system, and you really will need all that toilet paper

Also, if you have a house, storing water in 30 or 55 gallon barrels is great. Simple treatment with chlorine will keep it clean.
Even if you just use it for cooking or hygiene, it will be invaluable as not to cut into drinking water supplies.


The most important factor, keeping it quiet. Last thing you want is your friends and neighbors coming to you for stuff when things get rough

 

[GWS]

When I finish a 2 liter jug of diet soda, I rinse it out and fill it with tap water and stash it in the garage
I have Berkey to filter it if I ever need to use it.
Everyone should have a reliable water filtration system. Because you cannot hoard enough pure water, At some point, you will need to find more and that filter/purifier is your only shield to protect you from dysentery, giardia ,cholera and a host of other water-borne pathogens and/or toxins.

 

[Fieryotaku]

best advice right here lol.

 

[American123]

Best prepper hack is to not buy things when everyone else is panicking, buy things years before then, also - don't follow what the sheep are doing, they don't even know why they are doing it and are just following eachother.

 

[JohnnyMac]

Right now there is ZERO reason for there to be any kind of shortages. Without the idiots hoarding various items and the scalpers trying to make a fast buck buying up everything you wouldn't notice much difference. There are a few legitimate shortages, like masks and gloves, but in my situation I don't need those to survive. I'm already bugged in. My closest neighbor is 150 yards, and the nearest pavement is 1/4 mile. My biggest worry would be the roving bands of starving soccer moms and their hollow eyed children foraging for food if this keeps up long enough.

On a bright note, I've heard those hollow eyed children are fairly tender when slow roasted....just sayin.

 

[arakboss]

Drinking water out of an empty cat liter jug? Why not just drink your bath water?

Forgive me, I couldn't help myself...carry on.

I don't drink water out of cat litter jugs but I have been using the same cat litter jugs at my cabin since 2008. They are the green jugs with wide mouth blue caps. I mostly use them to store water for the toilet duties (no running water at cabin). I have to fetch water from community well and these jugs have been filled hundreds of times and are still holding up great. I use the 5gal Coleman and the 7ish gallon Aquatainers for my drinking, washing and bathing water.

 

[Member 52301]

I lived with a GOOD well for over half of my life in the boonies. Farm/lake country. My late husband's home state in the Great Lakes region. I was born and raised on the East Coast. (I did replace a heavy duty well pump after my late husband died and before I moved out west.)

We had very bad storms year round but mainly in the winter. Blizzard and ice storm country. Our power went off often.

We always had extra water on hand even though we had a generator and gasoline on hand. We had fuel for snow blowers, tractors, lawn mowers, etc.

We had water buckets for the toilets, sealed containers like Coleman set ups for drinking water, water filtration systems, etc.

(Re: your cat buckets. I don't know anything about cat stuff but I do know about dog stuff. LOL)

City and county WATER supplies can go off with a water main break. That happens out here and is not new news across this state. It happens in other states too. SEWER main pipe breaks happen too.

It cracks me up when people think that if they turn on a faucet that they will always have clean water with NOTHING ever happening to their supply of potable water too. Do you ever hear of breaks in a line in COLD CLIMATES or where some construction idiot digs and breaks a water or sewer line? What about BOIL WATER warnings? People go cra cra when their internet cable goes OFF or has been CUT in error or in a deliberate attack! THINK about water now.

I am not talking about the END OF THE WORLD - I am talking about common sense and having something on hand.

Been there - done that when it came to vicious storms AWAY from home, working late, and at home.

Well water or city/county water... have a plan.

Take care and congrats on your baby.

Cate

 

[jayR]

Longer term perspective - Best book for the PacNW - Gardening When it Counts

 

[MediocrePrep]

When folks went crazy with toilet paper, we had some already. I didn't want to store more of it (it takes up a lot of room), so we bought a few hundred Wysi wipes. With just a few teaspoons of water, these turn into a great alternative, and they're easy to store in your preps (our extras live inside the Lugable Loo bucket).

 

[bolus]

One of my water sources is a large plastic garbage can. Installed a spigot on the lower side sealed with silicone. Lid is zip tied in place after drilling holes every 2-3 inches. Lots are needed since the water makes it bulge significantly. I got some stainless steel window screen mesh and cut a section out of the lid and then put the screen over this opening. Then the downspout from the roof drains water into this.

This is 3rd back up for water so this will be for the dogs or washing or drinking with a Sawyer filter. If the power goes out in our area the water goes out as well since the county water pumps dont have generators.