"They Gave Up Their Christmas"

I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and that we all remember, as the people in this story do, what Christmas is really all about.

 

 

Emergency Prep lessons from Hurricane Sandy

A couple of weeks ago, my mom forwarded me an email with a list of things that one man learned from Hurricane Sandy. It was clear that he was one affected by the hurricane and was without power for over a week. The forward was entitled: "Things that I learned from Hurricane Sandy, by Frantz Ostmann, 11-17-12."

As I read through the email, I made note of a few items that I thought were most helpful. So here's my little list:

1. "If you do not have water stored up you are in trouble. A couple of cases of bottled water is NOT water storage." Remember, you should have stored AT LEAST 1 gallon of water per person, per day for at least two weeks. If you want to store bottled water, a 24 pack of .5 liter bottle is a little over 3 gallons so you need 4 cases of water per person. Click HERE to read my post on water.

2. "Should have as much fuel as water. Propane, gas, kerosene, firewood, fire starter (kindling, pater, etc)." This is definitely got me thinking. One of my goals for the new year is to get an extra tank of propane for our grill so that we always have a full one. I need to learn more about storing gas because that just sounds scary to me. And I don't have a wood burning stove so I am not going to hoard firewood, but I do need to look into some information on fire safety and fire starters in case we lost power in the winter.

3. "Cash is king (all the money in your savings means nothing." In September, I wrote a post called Financial Emergency Fund which gives more information, but it's pretty basic. If everyone is power is out you can't get money out of the ATM or the bank. Cash will be crucial if you need something like gas, food or medicine.

4. "All the food storage in the world means nothing if your kids won't eat it." This is a really great point that I should talk about more. It is super important to have healthy foods with long shelf-lives (like rice and wheat) in your food storage, but you really need to store what you eat. If your kids REALLY like raviolis, buy 12 and stash them somewhere. Then if you end up home for a week without power, you can have happy kids for at least one meal out of the day.

5. "You can never have enough matches." This is a good point that we may not think about. I probably only have a pack or two.

6. "Small solar charging gadgets will keep you in touch. Most work pretty well it seems." This is another thing I have wanted for a while. They are priced from $20 to over $100. This is another thing that I need to do some research on, because if the power is out but the cell towers are still working, I want to be able to use my cell phone.

Hope these ideas give you something to think about. Maybe you can add one to your New Year's Resolutions. Just remember, don't give up because you feel overwhelmed. Just try to do one thing at a time.

3-month supply: Snacks

OK, so this one might sound a little bit silly at first but bear with me.

 

Several years ago, food storage was thought of as buckets of wheat and home-canned foods. While these are still necessary parts of food storage, in the last few years the ideas about food storage have changed.

 

One of the changes is that it is recommended that we store 3-months worth of food that our family eats on a daily basis. This often means items with a shorter shelf-life, but that's OK because we are going to rotate our food.

 

Having food storage is about being prepared for hard times. This might be a tight month financially or even just unexpected company. Having an extra bag of tortilla chips and a bottle of salsa in your storage could make those hard or unexpected times more enjoyable, right?

 

Another big part of storing food is shopping for deals. This is a big deal in the snack department...especially for a tight budget. I don't generally love buying snacks. They cost A LOT of food per ounce and they go SO fast. But, I have also realized that with kids in school needed snacks or even just being able to grab something quick, snacks can be handy.

 

So, first of all, you will want to make a little list of what snack items you use a lot. For our family it would look something like this:

 

Chips (mostly tortilla)

Butter crackers (like Ritz)

Saltines (good to have on hand for tummy aches)

Popcorn

Jerky or meat sticks

Peanuts

Raisins

Graham crackers

 

Once you have a list, you can decide how many of each thing you want to store. I would start with having one EXTRA of each. Once I open my extra, that item goes on my grocery list so that within a few days (theoretically) I again have an extra one.

 

Back to shopping... Around the holidays there are a lot of deals on snack items, so it might be a good time to stock up. Also, big warehouse stores have a serious amount of snacks that are usually priced better than regular grocery stores (although not always) so you may want to stock up that way.

 

Even though I think that it is good to "be prepared" and to have things on hand that you use, I do NOT recommend spending a lot of money stocking up on snacks if you basics like water, grains and meats are low. But, storing things like snack items which you know you kids (or spouse) will eat in the case of a minor set-back or emergency can be just as important as your long-term storage.

 

6 month rule?

So have you ever heard people say that if you haven't used something in 6 months or longer, you should get rid of it? I have. Many times. I think that maybe it is referring to clothing, but it might be a good rule of thumb.

I am a fairly organized person...but I have several "junk drawer" type areas in my house.

Today I went through several piles of STUFF and ended up throwing half of it out and filing the rest. I found some really great stuff that my kids had done at school that I want to keep, but I also had a bunch of random papers that I knew I didn't need.

Sometimes it takes me a week or more to realize that I don't need to save my kids' art (at least not EVERY piece) and so I think that TIME is an important factor in saving or chucking things.

That's what made me think of the 6 month thing.

BUT there are many things that the 6 month rule does not work on...at least not for me.

Favorite books, old journals and letters are things we may not look at every 6 months but it doesn't mean we should get rid of them. Also, I save a majority of my kids' clothing to hand down to the next kiddo. I try to keep it organized, but I personally would rather store a few boxes than buy new clothes every year.

Speaking of clothes, I keep a lot of clothes that are not my *current* size. Being the the middle of my "child-baring years" my body changes from year to year. Some day I hope I can get back to where I want to be and will stay there, but until then I will store a variety of sizes for myself so that, again, I don't have to go shopping for new jeans every time I'm working on losing my baby fat.

Old craft and sewing projects can take up a lot of space. Right now, I have a guest room where these things are stored, but I keep thinking that I need to clean that stuff out. I honestly do not have the time or energy for them and I haven't for a while.

Well, now I'm just ranting.

The point is, whether you need a time table on how long to keep something or not, try to declutter something soon. Heck, you may find more room for your FOOD STORAGE!

Miracles

I have so much to be thankful for this year! My family has been so blessed, especially in the last few months. I'd like to share with you our recent little miracle.

For a while now, my husband has looked around for a new job. There were several reason for this including higher pay and more opportunity for advancement.

In September, he applied for a job with the State of Utah as an IT Technical Support Specialist. The problem was that the job was in Moab, UT. Moab is in southeast Utah, about 4 hours from where we live (Cedar City, in southwest Utah). I did NOT want to move, but thought he should apply and that maybe it would help him to get a raise at his job.

A week after sending in the application, we were on our way to Draper, UT (near Salt Lake) for his interview. He felt good about it and they seemed to like him, so on the way home we started to talk a little bit more seriously about what we would do if he got the job.

The interview was on a Friday afternoon. He was one of the last to be interviewed. We also found out later that about 100 people applied for this job. Monday morning at 10am, he got a call. He got the job! He came home soon after to tell me and I was shocked, but that wasn't the best part.

The lady that offered him the job asked him how he really felt about moving. He told her that he would move wherever they needed him (which was true for him). She then explained that they didn't have someone in that particular position in Cedar City and that she was wanting to open that position up here. She asked him if he'd like to work in Cedar if she could get approval to create the new position.

When he told me this, I bawled! Thinking of moving was making me literally feel sick and I didn't really know if I could have handled it. I feel that prayer is very powerful, but I honestly hadn't even really prayed for him to get the job or anything. I just tried to ignore it.

Well, I have prayed about it a lot since then. Even without literally expressing my wants and needs, I was being given exactly what I wanted, and so was my husband.  And he is very happy to be staying in Cedar too.

He's been on the job for two weeks now and he is overwhelmed! He has a large workload and hardly has time to eat lunch, let alone answer my calls or texts. At his previous work I could basically talk to him any time, but now I have to wait for him to call me when he's not busy. I know, I was spoiled before. But thinking of how busy he is and how tired he is when he gets home makes me even more thankful that we aren't in a strange town trying to unpack a thousand boxes.

This is one of the biggest miracles that has happened to us. We know we need to be in Cedar. My husband will get more opportunities to move up and is making a bit more money. We have good benefits. Even though it's hard work, it will definitely pay off and we will be able to meet our goals of being debt free and having a good emergency savings as well as planning for retirement.

We've had two other miracles this fall. One is a direct result of the new job. We finally got my husband a working vehicle! Out of the last 9 years of married, he has only had his own car for ONE! Now he has his car and I have mine and I have NO idea how I hauled 4 kids around along with shuttling him to and from work.

The other miracle is that we are expecting baby #5. We have known for a while that we had another one waiting to come and will be blessed with a new little crazy in the middle of May.

With the holiday season right in front of us, I cannot help but feel humbled for the blessings we have received. I don't want anyone to think I am bragging. I debated even writing this post, but I wanted to express my gratitude for a hard working husband, and for my Heavenly Father who knows who I am and what I need. Everything I have in my life is because of His love.

I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Water

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.

3-month supply: Condiments

Let's talk about CONDIMENTS!!!

 

I know, it sort of sounds silly, but bear with me. Most of us use condiments every day, making them as important to store as wheat and sugar. (OK, maybe not AS important...)

 

So, first of all, what is a condiment anyway?

 

A condiment is a food (usually a sauce) that you use to enhance or compliment a food or meal.

 

Next, you decide what condiments you use in your home. Here are some examples:

 

Ketchup

Mustard

Hot sauce

Mayonnaise

Salad Dressing

Steak sauce

BBQ sauce

Worcestshire sauce

Soy sauce

Chocolate syrup

Salsa

 

 

Once you've decided what you use, you can start tracking what you use, by writing the date you opened something and making a note of the day you used it up.

 

At this point, you will have a personalized amount for storage. OR, you can just grab one or two extra ketchup bottles the next time you are shopping or if they're on sale. I try to have one bottle of the above in my storage if I can. Many condiments have long enough shelf lives that they will not spoil if used regularly.

 

 

Here are some stock-up prices for condiments:

 

 

Ketchup: $.04/oz

BBQ sauce: $.05/oz

Mustard: $.05/oz

Chocolate syrup: $.07/oz

Mayo/Salad dressing: $.09/oz

Worcestershire: $.09/oz

Soy sauce: $.10/oz

Salsa: $.10/oz

Ranch dressing: $.10/oz

Steak sauce: $.21/oz