Guest post by Liz Long.

image by JD Hancock

Prep & Pantry is an iPhone app that lets you keep track of all your preps and everything in your pantry. It really is a great little app, and worth the money, but there is a free “lite” version if you want to try before you buy.

This app has a lot of good features.  It scans barcodes if your iPhone is new enough (mine isn’t) and downloads the information. However, because it automatically searches for information when you scan an item, if you are somewhere with no cell coverage, such as a basement, it doesn’t help.

When you start up the app, you get a Prep & Pantry title screen and it automatically continues to a prompt to enter a barcode. If you don’t want to enter a new item, such as a can of food, you can select a magnifying glass in the upper right corner to go to “Find Inventory Item” which has a search bar. If you select “List” from the bottom of the screen, you can list items alphabetically, by expiration, or by location. “List” will also warn you if you have expired items. While you are on the “Scan” page, you can swipe your finger to the left and the background will change from green (add item) to red (remove items) and you can remove items; there are also buttons to change between the two screens.

image by Tony Buser

If you go to “Find Inventory Item” from the remove items screen, it will remove items instead of adding them.  For example, if I go to the item Mandarin Oranges from “Remove items”, I can remove items by clicking a button but if I go there from add items, I can only add items. Every time you add to the quantity you have of an item, you need to enter the location, quantity, and expiration date. It took me a few minutes because the app allows you to put things in more than one place.

The barcode is the entire code, including the smaller numbers on either side, just outside the actual bars. If you have cell coverage, it then scans for the information and downloads whatever it finds – IF you have that feature enabled. I disabled it while I was working with it in the basement to save on battery life, and then was annoyed when my Dole Mandarin Oranges wouldn’t come up when I entered them in an area with cell coverage. Oopsie! My bad. It worked just fine once I enabled it again by going into “Settings” with the button at the bottom of the screen. The only information it pulled in was the name, Mandarin Oranges, but it was still a help. If you don’t have coverage or it can’t find the item, it then prompts you to enter information, starting with the name.

Qm is essentially the quantity you want to have, your goal amount. There is also a grocery shopping list option. You can note items you have coupons for, email the shopping list to yourself, and even add a thumbnail. If you go into settings, there are even more choices, including a database backup.

Prep & Pantry sells for $4.99 and can be downloaded from your phone, of course, as well as the website, Prep & Pantry.

© 2012, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

image by sindesign

When someone asks me where to start when it comes to preparedness, I almost always say, “Start de-cluttering!”  I know they were expecting advice for buying buckets of wheat and bags of beans.  Neither of those are bad moves, but start by eliminating what you don’t need.  Here’s why.

1. Clearing out unused, unwanted, and even broken junk is a great way to lift your spirits.  Seeing those cleaned out drawers, cupboards, and closets is a boost to your morale.  You almost feel thinner!
2. As you set aside everything you don’t want, you’ll almost certainly begin finding things you do want!  Things that would be on your survival check-list anyway.  These discoveries will save you from buying duplicates, and then someday discovering that you own eleven pocket knives and five hammers!
3. Your stack of unwanted stuff will eventually be large enough for a garage sale.  This might bring in a few hundred dollars, depending on what you have to sell, which, in turn, can be used to purchase what you really need to be better prepared.
4. Once your storage areas are cleared out, you now have extra space for storing extra food, water, supplies, necessary tools, etc.  If you live in a small space, de-cluttering is a prepper’s life-saver!

DO set a deadline for yourself.  De-cluttering isn’t much fun, and it’s easy to get side-tracked.  I know!  Schedule a date to be finished with a particular room or even the whole house, and if a garage sale is more effort than you care to make, call Goodwill or another charity and bless them with your unwanted goods.

De-cluttering should be one of your first goals as a prepper.

© 2011, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

It was my lucky day when I discovered the free buckets available just for the asking at my grocery store’s bakery.  “How many do you want?” were the words that nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes!  The buckets washed up nicely, along with the lids, but then I was in a quandary.  My wheat, rice, and oats had already been stored in other buckets and 2-liter bottles.  What was I going to do with twelve empty buckets?

Fortunately, a long-dormant organizing gene activated, and I realized those buckets aren’t just for wheat.  I started thinking outside the box bucket.  They are the perfect storage containers for so many purposes, whether they’re brand spanking new or gently used.  They’re great for organizing smaller items that you have in storage.  For example, a bucket is a great place to stash bars of soap, dental supplies, bottles of hand sanitizer, and boxes of Rice-a-Roni.  Anytime you have a collection of small, similar items, toss them in a bucket, pop on the lid, and mark the outside with a label.

A bucket is also useful for storing one or two days worth of food.  If you’re ever in an evacuation scenario, you can just grab these Evacuation Buckets and be gone.  With a supply of toilet paper, heavy duty trash bags, a bit of kitty litter, and a snap-on toilet seat, one of those buckets will double as an emergency toilet.  We’ve all heard about backpacks and duffel bags being used as Bug Out Bags or 72 Hour Kits, but if just one member of the family uses a bucket instead of a bag made of cloth, you’ll have something to carry water, firewood, and, again, have a toilet, if necessary.  Heck, you can flip the bucket upside down and use it as a semi-comfortable chair!

Why not use a bucket as a charitable gift for a needy person or family?  An inexpensive blanket, a few survival items, some water and food rations will go a long way toward helping out those who were unprepared for a crisis.  If you’ve been making your own dehydrated meals, they’re an excellent addition to a Gift Bucket.  Just be sure to include instructions for preparation.  For more ideas of what to include in a Gift Bucket, read this.

Finally, and I don’t really recommend this, I’ve used an empty bucket as a step-stool to reach the higher shelves in my pantry.  It gets pretty embarrassing to have to borrow brown sugar from the neighbor because you’re not tall enough to see all the sugar that’s stored on that top shelf!  (Especially when your neighbor knows you’re TheSurvivalMom!  True story.)

The nice part about these buckets is that once you have them, they’re good for many years.  They can be cleaned out and used over and over again.  Ask around at restaurants and bakeries because food supplies like cake icing and fillings come in these buckets and then have to be recycled or thrown out.  Even if you can’t get them for free, you can use buckets from home improvement centers for your non-food storage and save a bit of money that way.  The key, really, is to get your stuff organized, and these buckets are a great tool for making that happen.

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

I’ve spent hours and hours online researching everything from how to make homemade laundry soap to making a homemade food dehydrator.  I even researched how to make homemade fire starters using dryer lint.  All these pages, and more, have been bookmarked so I’ll have them for future reference.  Bookmarking is a great plan, except we could lose our electricity and/or our internet connection for a lengthy period of time, and then what?  My solution: The Survival Mom Binder!

My printer has been smokin’ over the past several weeks as I’ve been printing out information I want to keep .  Electronic storage is great, but sometimes a hard copy is the only way to go.

Think about the topics you’ve researched related to preparedness.   Maybe you’ve checked into alternate routes from your house to another location.  Have you researched making your own First Aid Kit or how to use a fire striker?  Maybe you’ve looked into which types of vegetables and herbs grow best in your region.  Marking an internet page as a “Favorite”, may not be enough.  Create your own Survival Mom Binder, a personalized reference book.

Begin by printing out information you want to have on hand, “just in case.”  Soon, this information will fall into logical categories, unique to you and your family.  Here are a few general categories just to get you started and notes of a few things I’ve printed out for my own binder.

Water:  purification methods, sources of water containers

Food:  food storage temperature chart, records of my long-term storage foods, recipes, edible wild plants

Medical: age/weight chart for medications, medicinal herbs and plants, first aid instructions, natural remedies

Gardening:  what to plant in my zone, directions for sprouting

Preserving Foods:  canning instructions, food dehydration directions

Alternative Energy Sources: directions for making a solar still and a solar phone charger

Evacuation: maps showing various routes out of our metropolitan area, a copy of our Family Evacuation Plan, a checklist of my Vehicle 72 Hour Kit

Communication: directions for using our shortwave radio,  When Communication=Survival

To Do List:  books to buy, things to research

Miscellaneous: dosage chart for potassium iodide tablets!

A well-organized Survival Mom Binder is a must-have reference book tailored to your family.  Whether you grab it as you evacuate your home or just read it late at night in the comfort of your bed, it’s all yours with all the answers you were looking for!

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

“All for one and one for all!” makes a great family motto when it comes to an emergency evacuation.  When everyone has designated jobs and knows exactly what to do, your family can be packed and out of town before most other families grab their toothbrushes.  To make this happen and avoid hysteria, chaos, and needless tears, your family needs an evacuation plan.  Bugging out can be better organized and less traumatic than you might think.

When I first began thinking about the possibility of evacuating from our home, I visualized sheer panic.  Immediately, I realized the need for a written list of procedures posted in two or three locations and a family meeting or two to insure that everyone was informed and on board.  As I put our evacuation plan together, five basic steps became apparent.

1.     Make provisions for animals.

2.     Pack personal necessities, food, and water.

3.     Prepare the house.

4.     Pack important documents and a computer.

5.     Insure the vehicle is ready to go.

Follow these five simple steps to create your own evacuation plan.

1.  Make provisions for animals

I put this at the top of my list because of the words in Proverbs 12:10a, “The godly care for their animals,” and because I’m crazy about our four dogs and our lone cat, Daisy.  There were so many unnecessary tragedies that involved beloved pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and after watching that unfold, I determined that I would never leave ours behind.

Bugging out is difficult enough for the human members of the family, but the excitement, fear, and flurry of activity will be highly stressful for your animals.

Once you’ve made the decision to evacuate, one of the first steps should be to determine how best to care for each animal.  Certainly, most cats and dogs will need to be either evacuated with you or transferred to a safer location.  Either way, you don’t need them underfoot as you rush around, so a first step will be to put them in crates or carriers.  Delegate this task to one or two family members.

Depending on the size of your dogs and cats, you may want to first load their crate in your vehicle and then the animal(s).  So, first on my list is to load the dog crate in the Tahoe, and put each dog inside.  We have four small dogs so they all fit, in a cozy sort of way!

Pre-position collars, leashes, and water and food bowls in the crate, along with some dog food, double-bagged in two large Zip-Locs.  (Ants love dog food!)  Add the dog, and you’re good to go!

If your cat isn’t used to being in a carrier, now is the time for Crate-the-Cat practice!  Along with her crate, pack a small package of kitty litter and her food.

If you’re the proud owner of fish, reptiles, rodents and/or farm animals, consider whether or not you’ll take them along, leave them on their own with a plentiful supply of food and water, or transport them to another location.  Have a Plan B for their care in case circumstances suddenly change.  For more tips, read this.

2.  Personal necessities, food and water

While the designated family member is rounding up the animals, delegate who will be responsible for the following.

• Load 72 Hour Kits, if you have them.  Take some time now to put these kits together while you have time and are not under any duress.  I carry a Vehicle 72 Hour Kit in my Tahoe at all times in case of emergencies while we’re on the road.  If we only had time to grab our Kits, at least we’d have the most necessary items for survival to get us through the first three or four days.
• Load firearms and ammunition.  Guns are one of the first things vandals look for, and I don’t want ours getting into the wrong hands.  In a worst case scenario, we may need them for defense.  If our family is bugging out, hundreds or even thousands of people will be doing the same thing, and they may not all be law-abiding citizens.
• Cash.  I usually keep this in twenty dollar bills or smaller. In case of a widespread electrical outage, ATMs and credit/debit card machines may not be working.  I want to be sure we can pay for hotels, gas and food.  A roll of quarters is a good idea if you may be washing clothes at a laundromat or using pay phones, which, by the way, are often up and running before land lines and cell phone towers are operational.
• An emergency toilet: a handy-dandy five-gallon bucket with plastic liners.  This bucket can also hold a couple of small blankets, toilet paper and a bottle of bleach/water mixture.  You can even buy a toilet seat designed to fit one of these buckets.  I’ve read accounts of the Hurricane Ike evacuation in 2008, and I don’t want my family using the side of the road as a toilet.  Enough said.
• Load additional food and water, as much as there is room for.  Your 72 Hour Kits will contain emergency provisions, but extra food will always come in handy.  Collapsible water containers are a good option since they gradually take up less space as they’re emptied.
• Bedding items, such as sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows will add comfort and reassurance.  How much you can take with you will depend on how much room you have left in your vehicle.  I always keep a couple of lightweight blankets rolled up under the back seat, just in case.
• Pack tools we might need.  A claw hammer or a Phillips screw driver might make all the difference in the world in a survival scenario.
• Family heirlooms and valuables, including photos.  Now, before a crisis hits, would be a good time to transfer irreplaceable photos to CDs.  It’s much easier to grab a few CDs than armfuls of photo albums, or, if you’re like me, boxes of loose photos.

3.  Prepare the House

As you drive away from your home, no doubt you’ll have feelings of sadness and, perhaps, loss.  A written plan to protect your home will increase the chances of having a home to come home to.  Here is a checklist I’ve used.

• Turn off gas and water.
• Go out to your electrical panel and switch off everything except for the breakers marked for the kitchen.
• Unplug everything in the house except the refrigerator, freezer and a kitchen lamp.  Even if our entire neighborhood is evacuated, I would just rather my home look occupied.
• Shut down and unplug the computers.
• Close and lock all windows.  Close blinds and curtains.
• If your emergency requires it, board up the windows or put up your storm shutters.
• Depending on the current weather, turn off air conditioner and/or heat or set them at minimal levels.  (Make sure to leave those breakers in the ‘on’ position on your electrical panel.)

4.  Pack important documents and a computer

• Load our strong box.  (This contains originals of things like Social Security cards and birth certificates.)
• Pack my Grab-and-Go Binder containing copies of vital financial and family documents and my Survival Mom Binder with printed information helpful in emergencies, such as maps and water purification instructions.
• Use a flash drive to save important business and financial information from our desktop computer.  Pack flash drive with laptop.
• Pack our laptop computer.  Be sure to include the charger!

Bugging out

5.  Insure the vehicle is ready to go

Hopefully, you’ve been keeping an eye on weather and news reports and have made sure your vehicle’s gas tank is full.  In addition to that simple, obvious step, here are a few more.

• Load extra filled gas cans, if you have them.
• Check air pressure of tires.
• Be sure you have everything necessary for dealing with a flat tire, including a spare.
• If your vehicle is likely to need it, pack extra engine oil and other fluids.

Delegate, Post, and Rehearse

Now that your plan is finished, discuss each step with your family and delegate each task to family members.  Even the youngest will want to be useful, and in a crisis situation, assigned tasks will help defuse feelings of panic and confusion.  It’s more difficult to become hysterical when you have something to focus on.  Not impossible, just more difficult!

There’s one final step.  Will this really work?  How much time will it take, and will there be any room for passengers in your vehicle once it’s loaded?  It’s now time for an evacuation drill.  This will help refine your plan and give everyone a real-life rehearsal.  Post your final plan around the house, and then, when they least expect it, start the drill.

“Hey kids!  There’s a mountain of red hot lava rushing toward us, and we have to be out of the house in thirty minutes.  Everybody know their jobs?  Okay!  Ready…..GO!!!”

Start the timer, and let the fun begin!  Be sure to follow up with a family meeting to discuss what went well and what needs to be improved upon.  When your plan is in place, a potential evacuation will be one crisis you won’t have to worry about.

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

image by koalazymonkey

Every family I know is cutting back on extra spending.  When your goal is preparedness, though, the fact of the matter is that money is required if you’re working on food storage, making trips to the shooting range, or buying a generator.  What might help, when times are tight, is to have two prepping lists.

To Buy 

On this first list, keep track of what you want to purchase.  Create sub-categories for food, camping supplies, tools, communication, fuel, and the like.  To make the lists even more useful, prioritize what you want to purchase first.  Then, keep the list with you always.  You never know when you might drive by a garage sale and see a perfectly fine generator sitting there with a price tag of fifty bucks or a case of Y2K era MREs for ten.  Your lists will keep you from making spontaneous purchases for things that, you discover later, you already own, and will help you stay on track. 

To Do

This second list will likely be longer but will keep you from getting discouraged when a tight budget puts that To Buy list on standby.  On your To Do list, list the books you want to read or download.  List all the things you want to learn.  List the names of people who can teach you survival skills or just how to install a ceiling fan.  If you haven’t compiled everything you need for a Bug Out Bag or 72 Hour Kit, add that to your list.  You probably have nearly everything you need for those bags right now.  Add “decluttering” to your list!  That’s one of the most important things you can do, it won’t cost a dime, and if you put all your unwanted stuff out in a garage sale, it just might give you some cash for your To Buy list!  Have you made an evacuation plan?  Have you gathered together all your important documents for a Grab-n-Go Binder?  Have you printed out important survival information for your Survival Mom binder, just in case your computer crashes or you lose power? 

I think we all get caught up with the idea that to prepare, we have to spend.  When the money just isn’t there to spend, then we feel doomed!  As you can see, though, your To Do list is actually the more important list.  Knowledge, skills, and experience are priceless.  It’s every bit as important to stock up on those as it is buckets of wheat.

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

image by t0omuchfun

If you’re like me, much of the information you count on is stored on your computer.  However, there are times when a computer isn’t the most reliable way to keep stored information.

Households can lose electricity due to any number of reasons, at any time of the year.  Computer hard drives can be ruined, losing all stored data, preparedness tips, and survival plans.

Earlier this year I recommended starting your own SurvivalMom binderjust to have hard copies of the most essential information you find online.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love having mountains of information at my fingertips via my computer and internet connection, but neither one is as reliable as an old-fashioned three-ring binder sitting on my bookshelf!

A reader, Bob Waldrop, passed along two websites with some helpful, practical tips for staying warm in a winter emergency, family food security, and much more.  That site is here.  The second site details actual plans made by Oklahoma City in a series of workshops.  There are some practical ideas here, but what is more interesting, to me, is the process of putting a large scale emergency plan together.  (I have no idea why they assume a household size of twelve and a dozen chickens.  Maybe Bob can enlighten us.)

While you’re browsing these sites, also check out the free survival library at The Survivalist Blog.

© 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

80% of what we own, we never use.   –Blueprint Magazine, 2007

 Every once in a while, I imagine getting news that our family has to suddenly leave our home, for whatever reason.   I picture myself scrambling to grab clothes, photo albums, birth certificates, and all the cash I can find, all while yelling commands at the kids and husband.  What a panicked scene that would be, and I have to admit, it would be made far more difficult by the clutter that has recently infested my home.

I can so relate!

It’s time to declutter, moms!  Not just for evacuation or emergency purposes, but for our own sanity!  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve purchased something like nail glue, only to find two bottles hidden in my medicine cabinet or have scrambled through every pile of papers looking for a sales receipt so I can return something!  When my daughter was born, I started a “Memory Box” that has now morphed into a “Memory Garage!”  If we’re forming a line to declutter our homes, I’ll be at the very front!

Susan Stewart, owner of Perfectly Placed Organization & Design, suggests choosing just one small area at a time to declutter and gave me these five categories for dividing, and conquering, all the clutter in our lives.  Choose your “battlefield”, and begin sorting into these five piles.

1.  Give to someone special. — This pile will contain things that have either a sentimental or practical value to someone you know.  For example, a book you’ve been meaning to give to your best friend.
2. Donate.  Sometimes I’d rather have a receipt from a non-profit organization for my donation than go through the trouble of a yard sale.  Choose your organization(s), set a date for delivering your goods, and you will have made someone, somewhere, a happier person.
3. Trash.  Much of what we hold on to is just trash.  Stained clothing, old receipts, expired coupons, magazines.  Just trash it!  Grab the biggest garbage bag you can find, and get to work!
4. File.  Use this guide to decide what you can toss and what needs to be filed away. If you don’t have file folders or filing boxes, take care of that today.  Otherwise, this pile will just become another unmanaged mass of papers by the weekend.
5. Move to another location.  Those Hotwheel cars do not belong on my kitchen counter!  Enlist your family’s help in putting things where they belong! 

Whew!  If I can do this, you can do it, too!  Our homes, our lives, and our minds will thank us!

© 2009, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.

It’s a good thing that my family has been prepped and informed about such things as evacuations, 72 Hour Kits, and when not to panic.  Yesterday we experienced a rare evacuation from our home, and I have to say, I was pretty darn proud of my kids.

The Paranoid Dad has taken on the massive project of acid staining our concrete floors.  Rather than hire a professional or go for the humdrum look of carpet, wood or tile, we chose the road less traveled, and the fumes nearly killed us!

With watery eyes and a slight stagger, Paranoid Dad emerged from the master bedroom where he had been using a sealant on the floors and choked, “We’ve got to get out of here!”  I swear, in under six minutes, my kids had their overnight bags packed and were standing by the back door.  I think the promise of a hotel swimming pool had a lot to do with it, but regardless, they were ready!

• Each kid has their own packing list.  They do their own packing for every vacation now, and all I do is double check to make sure a dozen stuffed animals aren’t hidden between underwear and pajamas.
• Each of us has our own pre-packed toiletry bag.  We literally grab these, shove them in a suitcase, and we’re ready to go.
• The kids have been trained how to behave in an emergency: obey immediately and no arguing!
• I’ve taught the kids to give extra food and water to our pets before an evacuation, so this was one detail I didn’t have to think about.  If you have pets, you may want to read my article, Evacuation Time? Don’t Forget Your Pets!
• The 72 Hour Kit was in the Tahoe, so no one was running around trying to grab basic supplies.  As it turned out, we didn’t need anything but a change of clothes and a few toiletries, but neither was precious time wasted in locating and packing essentials.

Yes, we had to leave the cat behind.

I wrote about organizing your family for evacuations here, and let me tell you, it’s worth the effort to put a few procedures on paper and teach the process to your family members.

I hope your July 4th was less eventful than mine!  We returned home to some very happy pets and a darn beautiful floor!  I’ll post pics of it when we’re completely finished.

© 2009 – 2010, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.