Water Storage

Water is ESSENTIAL no matter what your level of preparedness.

It is recommended to have one gallon of water, per person, per day, for drinking and sanitation purposes.

Don't stress. Start small.

It is recommended to store a 2 weeks supply of water. That's 14 gallons per person.

I have two weeks worth in food-grade, 5 gallon jugs like the one below. This is our drinking supply. For my washing water, I refill soft drink and juice bottles with water. I also refill old laundry soap and hand soap containers. Making a habit of refilling these bottles will make it easy to increase your water supply without a lot of extra thought and expense.

With my water storage, I separate what is stored for home use and what I would need if we had to leave home. I have a pack of water bottles in the car. I also have a small, rolling suitcase filled with water bottles in my hall closet. It's heavy but I could fit it in the car or roll it behind me, depending on which mode of transportation I would be using in an emergency.

A light addition for your 72-hour kits could be a water purifier bottle. It may not be realistic to have 3 gallons of water in each person's kit if you have to leave your car and go somewhere on foot.


Important: Keep water containers away from heat sources and direct sunlight. Do not store plastic on cement.

Here's a great link to FEMA for more information: Water

Recent post from PreparedLDSFamily: How to Store Emergency Drinking Water

And LDS.org: Drinking Water Guidelines

This is step 1 on the PLAN 9 pamphlet put together by the Southwest Utah Public Health Department.

Financial Self-Reliance

This is the single most important part of becoming self-reliant. Don't you agree? The more comfortable we feel financially, the more prepared we are for the other aspects of our lives. Education, organization, food storage...all of these things are much easier when we working to be financially secure.

Remember, being financially secure doesn't mean you have loads of extra cash. The goal is to know where your money is going to better help you make wise decisions with your money, meeting your obligations and saving a little.

Note: I am no financial expert, that's for sure. But we can work on this together.

The first step to becoming financially self-reliant is using a BUDGET. A budget helps you to plan and track your income and expenses. If you are anything like me, you have started this processes several times and failed. Sometimes it's too hard to see that you don't have enough to cover everything so you just give up. It happens, I know, but it doesn't make sense. No matter how MUCH you have, it is necessary to TRACK your income expenses. The last few years I have been much better at tracking our expenses, and I can tell you, it makes a HUGE difference!

There are so many ways to do a budget:

-Online "checkbooks" like Mint.com
-Financial software like Quicken (which I use and love but you have to buy the program.)
-Spreadsheets on Excel (I use two: Long term and a year's worth of monthly budgets.)
-Or just a notebook or checkbook that you write everything in. Click HERE for Dave Ramsey's Quickie Budget.

You can see what your budget SHOULD be by going to THIS page on Dave Ramsey's site and entering your income. It is very interesting to see how much it says you should budget in the different categories listed.

Once you have a method of budgeting, you can decide what is realistic for you to budget for food storage and emergency preparedness. It will help you to distinguish between WANTS and NEEDS and to use some self-control when it comes to spending.

"All of us are responsible to provide for ourselves and our families in both temporal and spiritual ways. To provide providently, we must practice the principles of provident living: joyfully living within our means, being content with what we have, avoiding excessive debt, and diligently saving and preparing for rainy-day emergencies. When we live providently, we can provide for ourselves and our families and also follow the Savior’s example to serve and bless others" Robert D. Hales, Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually.

Next post: Water

Why should I have a 3-month supply of food?

What are some reasons to have food, water and other items stored in your home? It is an added expense and takes up room, right? Plus, you feel guilty for not having what you think you need. Maybe even this blog, which is supposed to help make this aspect of your life a little easier, is causing some extra stress right now. I hope not, but getting initally organized can be overwhelming.

That being said, let's talk about some benefits of storing.

1. We have been encouraged to do it. I am LDS and our church leaders have, for years, been telling us to become more prepared temporally. LDS.org states:

"Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage." (Click HERE for more info.)

2. To save money, in the long run. When you buy in bulk or by the case, you can usually get food and household items for less than buying them one at a time. The downside is that you have to fork out more money initially.

It can also save you gas money. If you have enough food stored that you won't have to go to the grocery store several times in one week, you will save on gas, plus whatever else you may have decided to grab while you were out.

3. Security. It definitely gives me some peace knowing that I have 30 rolls of toilet paper in the basement and two boxes of diapers. Sounds dumb, but I like to know that I have enough right now.

4. Unexpected circumstances...job loss, natural diaster, maybe even an added expense you weren't planning like new tires. We don't like to think about these things, but sometimes we need to suck it up and be realistic.

I'm sure you can think of some more reasons. In fact, I hope you do. I hope your counting your storage is going well. I'd love to hear from you about it!

If this is not up your alley, we'll have lots of other important things to discuss soon, so don't give up in being more independent...more self-reliant!

NEXT POST: Financial Self-reliance

Pure & Simple Faith

Don't let what food storage you don't have get you down! Besides being a beautiful story, this video might help you feel like you have more than you thought.

Where to start...

So you want to be more self-reliant? More prepared?

Well, this is where we're going to start. First we are going to see what we already have. Inventory!!!

Click HERE for a great worksheet I found on my favorite preparedness blog, Prepared LDS Family. You can download your own to use on Excel.

You can also click HERE for a food storage calculator. (It calculates for one year, I know, but it can still give you the general idea.)

At first is seems like a lot and you may not have much but it is always best to start with what you know. For example, if you have some grains but no sugars, then you can watch for the next sale on sugar. Makes sense, right?

DON'T GET DISCOURAGED! And start small. Even if you have 4 or 6 people in your family, enter in one person and see if it is realistic for you to start building up a small supply of food, water and other items.

Another thing, don't worry about storing items that you don't use. If you have never used wheat, don't worry about that. Maybe you want to learn about it and use it in the future, but for now think of storing what you use. For example, I do not like pancake mixes anymore. I would rather make pancakes from scratch. So I just ignore that. Simple. Also, I have never used corn meal. I should and I want to, but I haven't so I am not storing it right now. Simple.

Welcome to Simple Self-Reliance

If you've made your way to this brand-spanking-new blog, I hope you are excited to start feeling more prepared and self-reliant and less overwhelmed about your growing to-do lists!

As a mother of 4 kids 7 years of age and younger, I have A LOT going on. I have lots of hobbies, but I find that at this time in my life I would rather be focusing on the essentials. One of the essentials for me is becoming more self-reliant.

Being self-reliant means to me that my family and I can take care of ourselves. It means we rely on our own capabilities and resources. It means being independent.

I am not an expert by any means, but I want to share what I've learned through my experiences.

I hope to cover some of the following topics in future posts:

Food storage
Emergency Preparedness
Budgeting and debt
Meal planning
Raising self-reliant kids
Couponing and smart shopping
Home Canning and Freezing
Education
Home organization

My hope is that we can take some small, easy steps to make our homes and families more secure and prepared for whatever may come our way.