3 Solid reasons that you need to start your food plan.

Pick your reason to get prepared for a food/water crisis.

(CNN) -- Connecticut's largest utility pushed back a self-declared deadline to restore power to 99% of its customers by midnight Sunday, more than a week after a crippling early blizzard.

(CNN) -- Central Oklahoma continued to experience dozens of aftershocks Sunday, nearly 24 hours since the state's strongest earthquake since 1952 was felt throughout the region.

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will step down as his government's leader, the country's president announced Sunday night -- agreeing to do so on the condition that the controversial 130 billion euro bailout deal is approved.

What do these three items have to do with me and my family?  Well, if you live in Connecticut tonight you have been without power for more than a week.  What do you think people are doing for food?  Most of the wealthy and middle class are staying with friends, or family.  They have people to help.  What about the poor, or those people who don't have friends or family living nearby?  A public shelter?  That's where you want to spend the night with your family right?  A converted gymnasium with zero privacy, crowded living quarters, surrounded by people you don't know? 

If you live in Central Oklahoma tonight.  Your house may be damaged to the point that you can't stay there.  Is this the last after shock?  Or is the big one coming?  If the authorities came around and said, evacuate this area, you have 15 minutes.  What would you grab first.

What does Athens Greece have to do with this?  I live in the USA!  If the Greece government fails completely it will drag the Euro down with it.  Should the European nations fail financially, we are so intertwined with them, it will be our financial downfall as well.  If you think 9.1% unemployment is bad, think about 50% or worse when company after company fails.

Let's play a quick game.  Pretend you are given 10 minutes to gather the things you can from your house before you are to be evacuated to a shelter.  What do you grab first?  Make a quick list mentally or even write it down.  Then go back and judge your choices.  Did you include snack foods?  Medicine?  How about your important papers?  What are you going to do with your pets? 

There really isn't a 100% correct answer to this question.  However, with some common sense, and doing your planning now, instead of as the storm is bearing down on you and your family, you have a 80 to 90% chance of having most everything you will need.

My list, if I had to leave quickly with my family would be as follows.

4 survival food buckets.  (Details to come soon on the creation of these).
Most survival food buckets that you would buy pre-prepared can cost quite a bit of money.  You wind up with food your family doesn't like, and doesn't want to eat.  In addition, the hit to your check account in today's turbulent times makes this approach almost impossible without serious sacrifice.  I can show you how to create this item for the cost of carrying your lunch to work for a week instead of eating fast food everyday.  You'll be better prepared, and slightly healthier from not eating fast food for a week! 

I would carry my families survival backpacks that I discussed in a previous blog.  These provide the basic daily necessities that will be in extremely short supply after any type of disaster with injuries.  I also will have all of the basic car emergency items in my vehicle as well. 

Most importantly,  I have a place to go.  I have a couple of different places I can take my family for safety and protection.  Can you name yours?  If you can't  you should add that to your list of priority items to be prepared. 

Hopefully this week I'll have my camera that I need to take pictures and show you what i'm talking about with some of these items.  Please stay tuned and forward my blog to your friends and family wherever they may live.  http://cheapsurvival.blogspot.com/.

Also, if you're reading this and you forgot.  Set your clock back.  =)  Stay safe.

IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!  I FEEL FINE!

     Friends, as I sat at my computer this morning I pulled up the daily news sites and started reading.  Apparently next Tuesday, November the  8th, A comet will come closer to the earth than the distance from the Earth to the moon.

     The 2005 YU55 circular comet is as large as four football fields!  A comet this size if it were to slam into the earth would strike with the force of "A 4,000 megaton blast, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, and if it falls into the ocean - could cause a 70 foot high tsunami within 60 miles of the crash site.", According to an expert at Purdue University.

While the comet is going to be close, astronomically speaking.  It will miss the earth.  However you have to ask yourself.  Why are we just now finding out about such a close call?  If it were about to strike the earth, the chaos this event would cause would be a panic of biblical proportion.   Here in Alabama where I live, if we find out we have a 1 inch dusting of a snow storm coming, you will be extremely lucky to find a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread within 20 miles of your home.  This time is the worst time for shopping!  In the case of a genuine catastrophic event coming, the panic reaches a fever pitch, and people become violent, and even possibly deadly, as they attempt to take by force what they cannot purchase.  Do you really want to be in that situation? 

     Or would you rather be sitting at home.  Boarding up your windows, hunkering down in your shelter, and enjoying your food reserves.  I know I would much rather be at home draining every last drop of water out and into storage containers before the last minute. 

     That's assuming of course that the event would be happening far enough away that I would not be affected directly.  If I knew for a fact that I was in the strike zone.  I would make one text message to my wife and daughter.  A single text message would have them politely drop what they are doing and make their way home by the closest possible route.  If something happened that they had to strike out by foot they would be prepared for that as well. 

In each of our vehicles we keep an emergency bug out bag.  It's the basic items that will make a difference in a time of trouble.  Since I have just started these bags I have all kinds of missing items that I plan on finishing my purchases soon and having the bags 100% for when (not if) the time comes that we need them.

     Once I have a decent enough camera I will take you on a tour of one of our bug out bags so that you might could form an idea of what you might want in yours.  In my truck I have the following items at all times.  A mini air-compressor, tire plug kit, jumper cables, flashlight, zip ties, and basic hand tools.  (wrenches, sockets, screwdrivers, pliers, etc).  I also carry a backpack.  In that backpack are a number of items such as a full first aid kid, a leatherman's tool (a multifunction tool with all kinds of "Swiss army" style attachments), A flash light, dust masks, an emergency heating blanket, hot hands, long term storage food bars, water bottles, duck tape, (yes  duck tape), and a number of other items.  I have a few things I am still missing, that I will go into more detail soon as we start making your bug out bag. 

     Yes I have weathered jokes by my wife and daughters about my doom and gloom planning, then I simply remind them of the devastation we saw in April, with entire towns being taken off the map.  The lucky ones who survived the morning tornado outbreak on that day, lost electricity, and never knew that another tornado was bearing down on them.  A $30.00 weather radio would have saved lives.  If you had one with batteries.  I have one of those as well. 

     I was lucky, as was the rest of my entire extended family.  James Spann, my local weatherman, and in my opinion the greatest weatherman in the history of the breed came on tv and said simply, be somewhere safe all day tomorrow, this is going to be bad.  We left that morning and went to my parents house where we have generators, storm shelters, etc.  When we were on our way to my mom's we started naming items that we forgot at home that we wished we had brought.  In my wife's bug out bag, she knows that she has to grab her daily medicines and place the entire bag into her backpack.  She doesn't have to grab anything else.  Unless there is enough time of course.

     In my kitchen, I have a way to safely, quickly, and securely carry enough food to feed my family for quite some time.  I have the items in place, though I need to add to the quantity of food within my containers.  With an hour's notice we could be self sufficient, and geared for the long haul.   I have accomplished this little plan for very little money.  I will go into further detail as the days go on. 

    At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself in the mirror, "Am I ready for a minor power failure?"  What about a loss of water in your house.  What if your house were suddenly unlivable?  What are your plans?  Keep following friends, I'll help you get prepared without breaking the bank. 

Be safe.  Be prepared.  Be ready.

Wes

3 day plan

3 million people without power.  Earthquakes by the dozen.  Tsunami, hurricane, oppressive heat, freezing cold, political unrest, solar flares, and Mayan doomsday prophecy.  Take your pick for the appropriate reason to begin your plans for your family's comfort, and possibly their survival.  As you read this blog you may find yourself giggling or laughing at some of the ideas and thought presented here.  Understand that my ultimate goal is for you and your family to have enough food, shelter, water, and communication gear to survive three months, completely, "Off the grid". 


Off the grid is becoming more and more popular as people are learning that the government is not going to be there for you after an emergency.  Yes they may pull up, or they may not.  What if the disaster isn't just your neighborhood.  What if the disaster is nationwide?  Who's going to come take care of you and your family now?


The answer is simple.  No one is going to come and help.  You are on your own.  Let's play a quick game of what if, shall we? 


Let's pretend that today, as you sit reading this blog, something incredibly simple changes your life.  All of the power goes out in your home.  You pick up your cell phone to call the power company, and it's not connecting either.  You go to your computer and try to get on the Internet, then realize that requires power.  You walk outside, and try to hop in your car, and it won't crank.  It's going to be in the 30's tonight.  You remember the weatherman say that on the news. 


You try not to panic, as you walk back inside.  Hopefully your entire family is at home.  Chances are they are scattered until almost bedtime.  You can't call them, you can't go get them, and they can't contact you.  You look down your road and notice no one has power, and most are now milling around outside like you are. 


Let's assume your family is all at home. Otherwise you would be probably be too panic stricken to function.


You go back inside and open the fridge.  Where is your flashlight?  Do you have fresh batteries?  Sure you have 10 different scented candles, but do you have a regular old standby candle?  You notice that you are out of milk, and you start to calculate how much money you are losing from what you see in your fridge. 


You start grabbing the hot dogs and chicken out of the freezer.  You go and crank up your gas grill and supper is a feast.  Over your orange supreme scented candle light dinner, you eat together, and talk.  No other sound fills your home.  You think, "Hey this is kind of cool!"


However, you also know the temp is falling outside.  You just cooked the rest of the food in the freezer, and in the morning, your food in the fridge will either be eaten or spoiled.


During the day, you decide to walk and talk to people around you to find out if anyone knows anything.  If you live in town this may be possible, but if you live out in the country, you might really be isolated. 


During the end of the second day, you really start to worry.  You ate all of your canned soup today, you finished off the bread and lunch meat. You know you have some stuff in the cabinets that you can cook over a grill, but you are running out of choices. 


Day three starts, and everyone is grumpy.  Another cold night under covers wearing sweat suits.  The water stopped working late yesterday.  You don't know why right off hand, but now you start to get concerned.  You tell the family they now have to start using the bathroom outside.   As you lay down on the third night you are more worried than you tell anyone.  You are hungry because you pretended to not be that hungry at dinner.  You vow that tomorrow you have to go find food and water. 


Where will you go? 


This is just a 3 day ordeal.  What about after a week?  two?  a month?  Friends you need to think about the well being of your family today, not when the inevitable happens.  Yes I said Inevitable.  This is not a question of IF it's a question of when. 


In my next post I'll tell you what you need in your 3 day plan.