Week 5 - 72 Hour Kit

Week 5 – December 30

Something to open cans of food, eating utensils, and at least 3 bottles of water.

Add more water, juice, and/or milk as desired.  Cans can be opened with a can opener, small knife blade, Military P-38 or P-51 can opener.

Week 4 - 72 hour kit

Week 4 – December 23

Dinner items for three days.  Plan for something that doesn’t require cooking.

Optional- Record your food items and their expiration date on a paper in your 72 hour kit.

72 Hour Kit Food Suggestions:

Granola bars                         Protein bars           Baggie of cold cereal             Ready to eat soup

Baggie of crackers                Canned meat          Canned Vegetables               Canned fish

Dried Meat (Jerky)                 Nuts                      Hard Candy                          Boxed Juice

Boxed milk                           Canned Chili          Canned fruit (save juice for drinking throughout the day)

Instant oatmeal (needs water and there may be no way to heat)

Week 3 - 72 Hour Kit

Week 3 – December 16

Lunch items for three days.  Plan for something that doesn’t require cooking.

Optional- Record your food items and their expiration date on a paper in your 72 hour kit.

72 Hour Kit Food Suggestions:

Granola bars                         Protein bars           Baggie of cold cereal             Ready to eat soup

Baggie of crackers                Canned meat          Canned Vegetables               Canned fish

Dried Meat (Jerky)                 Nuts                      Hard Candy                          Boxed Juice

Boxed milk                           Canned Chili          Canned fruit (save juice for drinking throughout the day)

Instant oatmeal (needs water and there may be no way to heat)

Getting Prepared for Emergencies One Week at a Time

We are two weeks into the 57 week plan for getting prepared for emergencies.
December is a minimal 72 hour kit.
January will be a minimal first aid kit, starting food storage, and possibly making our 72 hour kit have more luxuries.

Plans for the 2013 year are:
Cooking in cans; car/tent heaters; solar cooking; enhancing our 72 hour kit and first aid kit; and growing sprouts.

Other possibilities if there is enough interest are:
Cooking substitutions; substituting dehydrated ingredients for fresh ingredients; making various bread products; and herbal remedies

I would love to hear about what you are interested in and what you know, so we can all learn together. Your knowledge can save me from having to research things.

If you want to get a head-start on supplies here are some things to start looking for and saving:
A tall tin with a lid (a handle would be nice and it needs to hold a full roll of toilet paper); candles for your 72 hour kit; unscented candles to melt for making heat sources; tuna sized cans, corrugated cardboard;  a reflective car window shade (two would be best); toilet paper rolls; dryer lint; and cardboard egg cartons, and empty mayonnaise jars for sprouting.

Watch the after Christmas sales for tall tins with lids and candles.  Hopefully there will be unscented candles somewhere.

Building a Food and Nonfood Supply and Planning a Dinner Menu

The best way to begin adding to your food storage is to buy one or two extra cans, bags, or bottles of something that you are getting at the store when you go shopping.  When you feel that your cupboards are getting full take time to inventory what you have.  Focus on food first, then get paper goods, personal products, and cleaning supplies.
In no time you will have a good stock of supplies.  Work your way up to a years supply if possible or at least to a level that will make you feel secure.
To figure out how much laundry soap I needed for a year, I took a maker and wrote the date I opened the package on it and when I finished it I wrote the date again.  When I had some free time I transferred those dates to a notebook.  I did this type of thing with everything you use.

Here are two ways to begin planning a menu:
This is what I did:
I wrote down everything that I could think of that I liked to eat for dinner.  Next I asked my family members to tell me their favorite dinners.  I used that list of favorites to make my menu calendar.
Here is Linda's suggestion:
Write on your calendar each night what you fix for dinner and at the end of the month you will have a month worth of menus.

I started my menu list about 20 years ago.  I keep it next to my cookbooks with my old and new menu calendars.  I add to this list when I find really good new recipes.  A couple of years ago I rewrote my list, because the old one was looking worn out.  I save my menus for several years.  Some months I copy the previous year's same month almost exactly.  Sometimes they are just fun to look at and see how our food likes have changed.

About the third week of each month I plan the next months menu.  I only go grocery shopping every other week at the most.  Some months I don't go at all.
I plan my menu to use the things that will perish quickly first.  It took me a while to figure this out.  I found in the beginning I was switching menus to different days often, because something was not going to last until the day I had planned to use it.
I don't plan breakfast and lunch.  We have a small list of things we eat.  Those items are almost always on hand.

Week 2 - 72 Hour Kit

Week 2 – December 9

Breakfast items for three days.  Plan for something that doesn’t require cooking.

Optional- Record your food items and their expiration date on a paper in your 72 hour kit.

72 Hour Kit Food Suggestions:

Granola bars                         Protein bars           Baggie of cold cereal             Ready to eat soup

Baggie of crackers                Canned meat          Canned Vegetables               Canned fish

Dried Meat (Jerky)                  Nuts                      Hard Candy                          Boxed Juice

Boxed milk                           Canned Chili          Canned fruit (save juice for drinking throughout the day)

Instant oatmeal (needs water and there may be no way to heat)

Week 1 - 72 Hour Kit

Do you have your 72 hour Kit?

Let’s get prepared during the month of December with one project each week, so by January 1, 2013 we will each have a minimal needs 72 hour kit.

Week 1 – December 2

Container to hold 72 hour kit items, outer clothes, under clothes, and 3 days of necessary medications. One set of outer and under clothes only.  No extra shoes.
Container suggestions: box with lid, backpack, pillowcase, pair of jeans with the bottom of the legs sewn closed, sweatshirt with the waist sewn closed, or sweatpants with elastic in the ankles.

Starting 2013 with personal and family preparedness and blog changes

2012 was a very difficult year and not much blogging was done.  Lots of new plans for 2013.

All of the food in my cupboards has been inventoried.  January and February menus have been created.
Still need to inventory the freezer. I know what is in there, I just don't know the exact quantities.

I have goals for physical and spiritual improvement and got started on those today also.

Hubby and I made a list of major purchases we need this year.  We are also committed to focusing on needs rather than wants.

We do not have cable TV.  We utilize the public library for books, music, and movies.  We started a puzzle yesterday and plan to get the board games out more often this year.

This is the year to finish those unfinished projects.  I did that about 4 years ago and it was wonderful to have almost everything completed by the end of the year.