Erin Foster

Erin Foster is mom to 5 kids. West Georgia is home where you can find her reading, camping, enjoying a play and on any adventure she can do with her family. Along with a B.A. degree in Emergency and Disaster Management, she has an EKG technician and nursing assistant certificate.

Survival Wisdom from Old-Timers: 16 Life Lessons for Tough Times

It has been said that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it. Many of these lessons we think are part of the modern era are new packaging on old problems. We see them as survival lessons from old timers, but it was just how they lived. We can learn a lot by seeing how a generation born and raised post-prohibition, post-stock market collapse, and post-settling the West learned to overcome the pitfalls of short-sighted decision-making.

Woman writing in planner conducting prepper evaluation

End-of-Year Prepper Evaluation

One of the best ways to ensure you’re on track to meeting goals is to occasionally measure and review your progress. Conducting a prepper evaluation helps you see whether you’re on track to reaching your preparedness goals. Why should I perform a prepper evaluation? Good question. The purpose of conducting a prepper evaluation is to assess your overall level of readiness in the past twelve months. When you know where you stood strong when a crisis hit and also know …

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image: crockpot, slow cooker, meatballs in tomato sauce

Handy CrockPot Tips for Winter (Or Any Season!)

In our home, we adore our crockpots. We’ve got four. Yes, four! There’s always one on the countertop ready to go. The soups and stews are always a big hit, and a really good crockpot recipe book is worth its weight in gold. There’s nothing better than ending a cool winter day with a bowl of something cooked in a crockpot, or coming home from a long day to the amazing, comforting scents of a home-cooked meal. Lately, we’ve branched …

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What can a Billy Joel concert teach us about situational awareness?

My husband (Jim) surprised me with tickets to the Billy Joel concert in North Carolina last fall. Not only was I looking forward to the concert, but this also allowed me the perfect opportunity to put my situational awareness skills to the test. Situational awareness for women is both a science and an art, and over the years I’ve had plenty of time to put it to use. We often think of situational awareness and connect it to a James …

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image: storage closet, kitchen pantry

How to Get the Most Out of the LDS Preparedness Manual

Thinking about my childhood brings back memories of homemade bread and bottled fruit, lined up neatly on the countertop. My mom would go into the backyard to collect eggs and check on our chickens, named Donny, Marie, Laverne, and Shirley. My mom made sure we were ready for disasters. We had first aid kits, water and flashlights stashed everywhere. Being raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) does give you the chance to be raised to think of preparedness — it’s …

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bug bite remedies

Survive Summer With These Clever Bug Bite Remedies

When friends warned me about the South and bugs, I really thought they were exaggerating. Unfortunately, they weren’t. Once summer began, there were bugs everywhere. I mean everywhere! And these were not just normal California bugs like I was familiar with. Bugs of every shape, color, and size decided to make their appearance, and it wasn’t long before I was scrambling to learn the best bug bite remedies that wouldn’t have harsh side effects. At first, it was fun to …

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Smart Advice to Help You Survive the Government Shutdown — or any other surprise financial setback

As of today, the current federal government “shutdown” is the longest in history. Digging into news stories that are making headlines, ones claiming “chaos” and near-apocalyptic consequences, most Americans, by far, are managing to get through their daily routines without any issues at all. However, there are households that are affected, and should the shutdown continue, more paychecks may be missed. If you are one of those who isn’t getting a paycheck, hang in there! We have some ideas to help …

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How to Choose the Best Straw Water Filter For You

We so casually turn on our faucet and expect clean water to come out. We flush our toilets, wash our hands, use water for cooking and for watering the lawn without a thought. But if there’s anything we have learned from all the disasters that have happened in our country last year, it’s that we should not take clean water for granted. It doesn’t take a big disaster to dirty our water. A few days ago, in Atlanta, they had …

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mini emergency kit, small medical kit

4 Must-Have Mini Emergency Kits For Your Purse

Life is full of emergencies. Some are big, like earthquakes and hurricanes. Some are smaller and occur in our everyday lives.  Here are a few mini-kit ideas you can fit in a Ziploc bag! If your mini kit is really mini, you can use a metal Altoids tin or a metal eyeglass case like this one: Where can you get mini versions of these products? Some are on Amazon, and I’ve included those links, and many are available on a …

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