All to often I hear and or read folks that say they can’t afford to prepare because they can’t do a years worth of food or buy the latest weapon or install solar panels.  I totally understand that making a home totally solar power starts about $45,000.00 and goes up. A years worth of freeze dried food start’s around a couple thousand dollars for just the basic package and goes up. Both guns and ammo have jumped in price since 2008 if you could find it to buy. Silver and gold have jumped in price as has fuel and food. You are probably saying to yourself why try? You will fail or you will been seen as a kook or worse. You can’t grow a garden because you rent or live in an apartment or condo. So why try?….
You are letting perfection get in the way of good. Trust me prepping never springs fully formed like Aphrodite. It is a series of small steps. There will always be trade offs, for example time vs. money. When you got the time you don’t have the money and when you got the money you no longer have the time. You have got to be flexible and build in a series of steps.
Set an easy goal, such as I will have 500 servings of a complete meal. 50 pounds of beans and rice is good! Heck that’s 1 meal a day for 5 people for 3 months. No it’s not perfect! but it will keep you alive. I’m guessing you will want more than beans and rice. Breads are great, simple ingredients flour, sugar, salt, yeast and water or milk. Takes some practice to perfect but it’s expandable. Add some cinnamon you got rolls, baking powder you got quick breads a little brown sugar or molasses you got coffee cake. As you can see each upgrade of products builds the next step up.
The garden: Spices are cheap and you can grow your own herbs cheap from seeds and in a sunny spot.I get seeds from the Dollar stores 6-10 packages for a dollar. Do they all sprout heck no! Ironically most of these cheap packets are non-GMO or hybridized seeds. My chives have reseeded themselves 3 years running and even my green leaf lettuce wintered over and is growing again in my square foot garden. Even after a good turning over and running a cultivator in the soil. I’m also growing mini-citrus trees and have my sunny windows full of “Salad Buckets”,bok choy and diakons that are doing great. It’s not “perfect” but it’s “good” enough.
Security: I’m a big believer that guns have a place in the preppers home. The cops are never around when you need them now it will get worse in the future. I’m not blaming the cops, no more than I’d blame the farmer about food. No one can value my life as much as I do so I must protect it. I believe I have value as a person and I don’t think I should give that away. If you are absolutely sure you can take a life, to shoot to kill. I think the best home defense weapon to start with is a 12 gauge shot gun. 00 buck or at least #2 shot. Now this is a tradeoff. Shotguns are cheap on a the off brands. I like a pump action, some like semi-autos. But it’s a great home defense weapon. I also carry pepper spray, and few other items. I really don’t want to kill anyone, I want them to go away. But I’ll not hesitate to kill if they won’t go away.
Solar energy: Well this is easy to start and is so expandable. If you have a vehicle you can buy a little solar power battery maintainer. Heck add a little 200-300 watt inverter you got ac power. While you won’t be able to run your home on it you can recharge radios, phones and laptops perhaps a small 12 volt car cooler/fridge.
great for folks that need insulin.

Okay let’s look at the total cost between “perfection” and good enough to start.

1. Solar energy: Let’s say instead of whole home that cost’s $45,000.00 we are around $1000.00
2. Food: Instead of $2000.00 for freeze-dried we guesstimate around $300.00. Figuring a 50# of rice and beans at average cost of $50.00. 2  Flour at $15.00 per 50 bag, Sugar  50# bag at $30.00, Yeast $5.00 per 2# bag. Salt 50 # for $6.00. Wow about $121.00 add few dollar in seeds. So about $130.00 for each 500 meals. So for that extra you could allocate money for a canner? or oils? or a freezer.
3. Guns: I won’t get into beyond the 12 gauge as a home defense weapon. But let’s say we go cheap on 1 weapon and ammo. Designate $300.00 for security.

This list needs a lot of additions, but it a good start for around $500.00 or less. It’s not perfect if you wait for perfect you may miss good enough.

I’ve been working hard to get back to eating basic or real foods. I got rid of oleo margarine and gone to butter. One advantage of margarine is that is all chemical so even most bugs won’t eat it. I’m not sure it can really rot or decompose!

Butter can rot and it can decompose. But it is also very easy to preserve. The process takes a bit of time, but it’s easy to do and it will save you a ton of money.

First butter has long been “rendered” and still is in India where it’s called ghee. Basically butter is heated to the melting point and all of the solids (Milk fats) are skimmed off which results in “clarified butter” that you dip your lobster in. This “ghee” is very stable and does not rot even in high temps. In fact it was used by pioneers of the USA in the early 1800′s. But you must keep it in the coolest darkest place available like any oil. I’m sure your home has many better places to store it than a Conestoga Wagon crossing the plains in early summer.

So on to bottled butter. You will need butter, canning jars lids and bands. A canning “Kit” that contains a funnel, lid lifter, Jar lifter and a few other doodads will be a great help also you will use them again canning.

1. Clean the jars: A run through the dish washer is fine. I use a roasting pan for sanitizing the jars in an oven at 250 degrees F. Place a glass marble in each jar. Turn off heat but leave in oven till butter is ready

2. Place canning lids and all utensils in a large pot and Boil to sanitize.

3. Melt butter and bring to a slow boil over very low heat. For 5 pounds of butter have 6 pint jars ready.

4. I  use a ladle to fill my jars. You will want to leave some space. I fill mine up to the neck of the jar. About an inch of spacing. Or if you are using a canning funnel a bit (1/8 in.) below the funnel’s bottom edge.

5. Place lid from the other boiled/sanitized pot on jar and screw on band.

6. Walk away and check your email and you will start to hear the jars pop indicating a seal.

7. About every 5  minutes give the jar a shake. This is where the marble comes in. The marble will work to to break up the fats and distribute them evenly. Same concept as shaking a can of spray paint.

8. Now you have bottled Butter! Store in a cool dark spot and it should be good for at least 3 years. Though archeologists have found “Bog Butter” in Ireland and Scotland that was edible from 500-1000  years ago.

Please stop by Preparedness Pro and give a thank you to Kellene. She’s the one who taught me, and gave me the confidence to try it out.

Author: Jamie

Jamie is a US Army veteran and an expert on the subject of self reliance & preparation on a shoestring budget. To learn more from Jamie’s vast experience, you can visit her blog titled My Adventures in Self Reliance.

I’ve spent some time trying to identify my local area’s strengths and weaknesses and how susceptible they are to disasters both Man-made and Mama nature. Each person must evaluate on how close resources and how easily they can be transported, and compare that to of the most likely disaster they may face. Idaho doesn’t have a lot of worries about hurricanes, but no one instate refines petroleum. We have a lot of Hydro-power and very little electricity is generated by oil, nuclear or coal. That is not be the case in most states. Most of our rivers are not navigable to an ocean. Where as the Mississippi and several other rivers off of it are good to the Gulf or Great Lakes.  Some folks have rail heads, pipelines and canals that make the transport of goods fairly cheap.

I’m a former enlisted person in the US Army but also an arm-chair historian. What I’ve always noticed is everything comes down to basic logistics. It’s not sexy, cool or exciting as jet planes or tanks or aircraft carriers,  but I’d like you to ask some your suppliers what city or state they get their goods?  Is it via trucking, rail, sea or rivers . Do they even know? or do they depend on UPS, Fedex and the postal service for everything?

As you drive to work count all the overpasses and underpasses, Railroad crossings, canals, rivers and locks and bridges. Now I bet you could figure out how to disrupt at least 3 points in your drive and leave a city helpless for moving goods in and out. Terrorists maybe fanatics but they ain’t stupid. Most of the 9-11 hijackers were upper middle class Arabs with degrees in engineering, architecture and economics from western universities.

Do you know where the Fall out Shelters are in your city?  Have you asked? They are probably still there.  Disused and falling apart and the stock of food if they have it is K-rats or C-rats but they are there.  Look for the radioactive sign and ask to check it out. This can be so instructive on so many level from history. To see if  TPTB’s actually restock it and what they are spending money on…..

Have fun kids and get prepared cause it will get nasty. Being realistic in your prep and to be flexible is your best option.

Author: Jamie

Jamie is a US Army veteran and an expert on the subject of self reliance & preparation on a shoestring budget. To learn more from Jamie’s vast experience, you can visit her blog titled My Adventures in Self Reliance.