I would like to know this also. We have some food stored up but I don’t know for how long it will last especially if we have our adult kids families to help support also. I told them to stock up, but don’t know if they do, and my husband is getting annoyed with no room in the pantry or freezer to put new items in, lol. I’ll have to find another place in the house to store some things I guess. Don’t get me wrong, he agrees with the prepping and helps me pick things up especially things from the camping section of the store, but I think we could use more supplies, we just are running out of money fast and we have my in-law visiting (will be with us for a few months). I did find store brand 5 lb bag of rice for $2.63 so I picked up a few bags, about 2 weeks ago & last week when I went to pick up more they went up to $2.83.
I start to wonder if we need to prep not because everything goes down (tech wise or because food shortage) but maybe because people are running out of money to buy food/supplies with how much everything is costing now. Every time I go to the store the same items I always buy goes up more.
Well we have a generator we can plug one refrigerator in (we have 2 & deep freezer), so we would cook what we can from them first.
We are not off the grid, wish we could get a piece of land somewhere but it's too expensive. We have a grill and a fire pit, also have a fireplace and we live in the south were there are tons of trees for firewood.
One thing people don't always think of is having lots of salt on hand for when their freezers go down. I bought a ton of kosher salt after Passover because the grocery store marked it down to get rid of it.
Salt can be used to preserve meat for a very long time.
Here's some general information that will point you in the right direction on that if interested-
Get dry beans with that rice. IIRC beans & rice together make a complete Protien strand.
I have seen many people put the stuff they won't normally eat inside of bins under beds (if beds aren't being used for storage of other stuff already).
Also guest room closets work too.
That said, there does come a point where it just isn't practical to store more.
Just do the math, at least 1k calories per person (rationed) per day will keep everyone alive & not starving seems to be a good rule of thumb from the link I looked at.
The pandemic made it pretty clear that if trade/transport issues arise, then at least a couple moths of supplies will be useful.
Also, to avoid the great toilet paper catastrophe of 2018...invest in a cheap bidet 🤣. I laugh, but it was nice knowing my fam didn't need to worry about TP if we ran out after 6 months.
The culture I was raised in believed that we needed at least a 1 year supply of food. Though some religious leaders suggested 7 due to the Joseph in Egypt Bible story.
Preparation really just needs to be a good buffer. If you have hunting skills & live close enough to game, you could reasonably store less. If not, prepare more.
Also get at least a few months to a year worth of meds saved up. Diabetics should have at least 3-12 months extra taking up room when possible. If there is ever a financial issue, or transport issues, you won't be left with a problem. It has saved me a couple of times between jobs to have these types of things saved up between jobs until insurance kicked in with the new job & a couple times when I couldn't work for a stint.
As far as the bidet goes, it's a good idea and I've thought about it. Though if our electricity goes out we won't be able to flush our toilets or take showers or wash dishes (unless we use a bowl in the sink then through the water out outside). We have a grinder pump system unfortunately. It sucks! Expensive as shit when something goes wrong with it. Our whole neighborhood has them and don't think we can get a septic tank. Definitely can't because we can't afford it right now, even if neighborhood rules would allow us to, which I'm not sure about to be honest, something I'd have to look into. I would like to get an outlet installed on the power box of the grinder pump so when the power does go out we can hook it up to a generator for it to work to flush out the system. I think I read it can hold maybe 20 gallons, but there's no way to tell how full it is, so when the power goes out and that thing is full or almost full it will back up into the house. Was hoping the guy that we pay to do the maintenance once a year doesn't put the outlets in and haven't found someone yet.
Every time I run into the store my husband or I grab some extra normal over the counter meds and other necessities. Since the TP deal, every time we run into Sams Club we grab at some paper products to store, lol
Precaution if you don't know DO NOT RUN YOUR GENERATOR WITH POWER STILL SUPPLIED TO THE GRID/MAIN POWER LINES
Best choice if you have an electric dryer, is to simply pull your dryer out & plug your generator into the dryer socket with a long cord (ie you don't want fumes in your house). Usually those are 30 Amp sockets with a built in breaker/fuse in your panel. You can simply shut off the power in your main/outside breaker to the house until power resumes to the neighborhood.
If you can go this route & thave the ability/room in your main breaker box, add a shut off to the main power lines (ie from the street) right there so you don't need to go outside. My F-I-L set my last home up with me to easily shut off power to the street when running a generator in our last home that we remodeled before moving. This new one doest have room & I need to shut off power in the outside main box before hooking my generator up to my main box outside.
Luckily I have room for a 50 amp breaker that can be turned on & shut off the city power when my generator in manually turned on. My F-I-L convinced me to do it this way instead of trying to tie into another plug since all of mine are 15 or 20 amps due to my kitchen & dryer running on natural gas. This will let you run your house normally (limiting how much power you use) without redoing stuff inside.
As a homeowner that is confident building (helped with many complete remodels) IF this pump was on it's own breaker, I would simply add/splice an outlet into the line (outlet amps should match the breaker amps to prevent fire), I would also use a GFCI to be safe (though that may trip if putting a generator into it). I assume from what you said that it is hardwired in & splicing in could work, but is the least effective way to gerryrig the project. Unless you have a very small generator, it really is just best to hook up to your electric dryer outlet if possible, or the main box outside from what I have seen.
I cannot stress enough that you do not want to feed power to the main lines. You will power all the neighbors before your generator potentially dies & worse it can send electricity into the lines that workers will be trying to fix & hit them
edit- If your main concern is the sewage pump, consider a large LiPo battery that can be charged via portable solar panels that will only power that sewage pump. It will only drain the battery when it kicks on, and solar panels will top it off during the 2-3 days of not being active. I picked up one for about $600 last year IIRC that will power a CPAP in my camper for 10 days with no heater going in the device, it will also charge pretty quickly. Though if your pump only runs once every couple days, it might work with a car battery or two, though it would still be best to get a cheaper deep cycle battery to at least power that pump. Even using it with an inverter to keep your water running could work with panels recharging those batteries over a couple days vs the LiFePo that would charge in half a day. Cheapest setup might be around $300 with battery & a couple panels.
Edit 2- Thinking about plugging into your dryer outlet or electric stove outlet (both 30 amp plug). Hypothetically speaking, maybe consider plugging into a 15 (preferably 20) amp outlet with your smaller generator line & shut off the breaker to the main power line (again don't send power back to the grid) & turn off breakers to all parts that don't need power. Hypothetically speaking, if you only ran the pump, or power to a single 15A set of lights/single small appliance, it would take care of that pump in theory since all the wires in the house would have access to power that you don't turn the breakers off. I mean that is worst case scenario hypothetically.
I would like to know this also. We have some food stored up but I don’t know for how long it will last especially if we have our adult kids families to help support also. I told them to stock up, but don’t know if they do, and my husband is getting annoyed with no room in the pantry or freezer to put new items in, lol. I’ll have to find another place in the house to store some things I guess. Don’t get me wrong, he agrees with the prepping and helps me pick things up especially things from the camping section of the store, but I think we could use more supplies, we just are running out of money fast and we have my in-law visiting (will be with us for a few months). I did find store brand 5 lb bag of rice for $2.63 so I picked up a few bags, about 2 weeks ago & last week when I went to pick up more they went up to $2.83.
I start to wonder if we need to prep not because everything goes down (tech wise or because food shortage) but maybe because people are running out of money to buy food/supplies with how much everything is costing now. Every time I go to the store the same items I always buy goes up more.
You have a plan to save that food in the freezer if the power goes down?
Maybe you're off grid and are good to go unless there's an EMP blast close to home.
But, if not, you may want to figure out what you'll do.
Well we have a generator we can plug one refrigerator in (we have 2 & deep freezer), so we would cook what we can from them first.
We are not off the grid, wish we could get a piece of land somewhere but it's too expensive. We have a grill and a fire pit, also have a fireplace and we live in the south were there are tons of trees for firewood.
One thing people don't always think of is having lots of salt on hand for when their freezers go down. I bought a ton of kosher salt after Passover because the grocery store marked it down to get rid of it.
Salt can be used to preserve meat for a very long time.
Here's some general information that will point you in the right direction on that if interested-
https://www.prepperfortress.com/how-the-early-pioneers-preserved-meat-pioneer-woman-meat-recipes/
Archived link - https://archive.ph/O5dUh
Get dry beans with that rice. IIRC beans & rice together make a complete Protien strand.
I have seen many people put the stuff they won't normally eat inside of bins under beds (if beds aren't being used for storage of other stuff already).
Also guest room closets work too.
That said, there does come a point where it just isn't practical to store more.
Having 2k calories per adult is awesome. 1500-1200 is good enough & north of 600 is certainly critical. https://www.livestrong.com/article/317540-how-many-calories-a-day-is-considered-starving/
Just do the math, at least 1k calories per person (rationed) per day will keep everyone alive & not starving seems to be a good rule of thumb from the link I looked at.
The pandemic made it pretty clear that if trade/transport issues arise, then at least a couple moths of supplies will be useful.
Also, to avoid the great toilet paper catastrophe of 2018...invest in a cheap bidet 🤣. I laugh, but it was nice knowing my fam didn't need to worry about TP if we ran out after 6 months.
The culture I was raised in believed that we needed at least a 1 year supply of food. Though some religious leaders suggested 7 due to the Joseph in Egypt Bible story.
Preparation really just needs to be a good buffer. If you have hunting skills & live close enough to game, you could reasonably store less. If not, prepare more.
Also get at least a few months to a year worth of meds saved up. Diabetics should have at least 3-12 months extra taking up room when possible. If there is ever a financial issue, or transport issues, you won't be left with a problem. It has saved me a couple of times between jobs to have these types of things saved up between jobs until insurance kicked in with the new job & a couple times when I couldn't work for a stint.
Thanks for the advice and link, appreciate it.
As far as the bidet goes, it's a good idea and I've thought about it. Though if our electricity goes out we won't be able to flush our toilets or take showers or wash dishes (unless we use a bowl in the sink then through the water out outside). We have a grinder pump system unfortunately. It sucks! Expensive as shit when something goes wrong with it. Our whole neighborhood has them and don't think we can get a septic tank. Definitely can't because we can't afford it right now, even if neighborhood rules would allow us to, which I'm not sure about to be honest, something I'd have to look into. I would like to get an outlet installed on the power box of the grinder pump so when the power does go out we can hook it up to a generator for it to work to flush out the system. I think I read it can hold maybe 20 gallons, but there's no way to tell how full it is, so when the power goes out and that thing is full or almost full it will back up into the house. Was hoping the guy that we pay to do the maintenance once a year doesn't put the outlets in and haven't found someone yet.
Every time I run into the store my husband or I grab some extra normal over the counter meds and other necessities. Since the TP deal, every time we run into Sams Club we grab at some paper products to store, lol
Precaution if you don't know DO NOT RUN YOUR GENERATOR WITH POWER STILL SUPPLIED TO THE GRID/MAIN POWER LINES
Best choice if you have an electric dryer, is to simply pull your dryer out & plug your generator into the dryer socket with a long cord (ie you don't want fumes in your house). Usually those are 30 Amp sockets with a built in breaker/fuse in your panel. You can simply shut off the power in your main/outside breaker to the house until power resumes to the neighborhood.
If you can go this route & thave the ability/room in your main breaker box, add a shut off to the main power lines (ie from the street) right there so you don't need to go outside. My F-I-L set my last home up with me to easily shut off power to the street when running a generator in our last home that we remodeled before moving. This new one doest have room & I need to shut off power in the outside main box before hooking my generator up to my main box outside.
Luckily I have room for a 50 amp breaker that can be turned on & shut off the city power when my generator in manually turned on. My F-I-L convinced me to do it this way instead of trying to tie into another plug since all of mine are 15 or 20 amps due to my kitchen & dryer running on natural gas. This will let you run your house normally (limiting how much power you use) without redoing stuff inside.
As a homeowner that is confident building (helped with many complete remodels) IF this pump was on it's own breaker, I would simply add/splice an outlet into the line (outlet amps should match the breaker amps to prevent fire), I would also use a GFCI to be safe (though that may trip if putting a generator into it). I assume from what you said that it is hardwired in & splicing in could work, but is the least effective way to gerryrig the project. Unless you have a very small generator, it really is just best to hook up to your electric dryer outlet if possible, or the main box outside from what I have seen.
I cannot stress enough that you do not want to feed power to the main lines. You will power all the neighbors before your generator potentially dies & worse it can send electricity into the lines that workers will be trying to fix & hit them
edit- If your main concern is the sewage pump, consider a large LiPo battery that can be charged via portable solar panels that will only power that sewage pump. It will only drain the battery when it kicks on, and solar panels will top it off during the 2-3 days of not being active. I picked up one for about $600 last year IIRC that will power a CPAP in my camper for 10 days with no heater going in the device, it will also charge pretty quickly. Though if your pump only runs once every couple days, it might work with a car battery or two, though it would still be best to get a cheaper deep cycle battery to at least power that pump. Even using it with an inverter to keep your water running could work with panels recharging those batteries over a couple days vs the LiFePo that would charge in half a day. Cheapest setup might be around $300 with battery & a couple panels.
Edit 2- Thinking about plugging into your dryer outlet or electric stove outlet (both 30 amp plug). Hypothetically speaking, maybe consider plugging into a 15 (preferably 20) amp outlet with your smaller generator line & shut off the breaker to the main power line (again don't send power back to the grid) & turn off breakers to all parts that don't need power. Hypothetically speaking, if you only ran the pump, or power to a single 15A set of lights/single small appliance, it would take care of that pump in theory since all the wires in the house would have access to power that you don't turn the breakers off. I mean that is worst case scenario hypothetically.