What Did You Prep This Week

Bought another 15 lbs of sugar, to replace the sugar we've been rotating. Gotta love those specials, $2 for 2Kg of sugar.

Sitting at 25 litres of water now, we have quite a way to go but I am feeling better already knowing we are getting water put away...

Took advantage of some great sales on spaghetti sauce, soup, flour, tea... also rope, dust masks, twine, lg pks of sewing essentials for two kits so we had one for the b.o.b. as well.

I went to some garage sales yesterday - I LOVE garages sales for prepping items. I found two - two year old bikes. The lady selling them apologised that they had some rust on them because they had to Leave them out of the garage for the winter because there was no more room. She sold them to me for $10 each. I didn't even barter 🙂 I got a blood pressure monitor for $1.00 that works great, some board games and 2 teapots (ok those aren't necessities for prepping but they were really pretty and I NEEDED them!)

We cut some more firewood a byproduct of cutting down a few trees, built a fence, hung a gate and harvested the last of the pumpkins.

So true about garage sales, we are headed back to a thrift store tomorrow to get some very cheap rain gear! There also might be a decent tent... we are watching the thrift stores closely now, especially for camping gear.

Happy Turkey day tomorrow everyone! 😀

Tried out the new flexible solar panel and battery pack - charged up in a few hours in the sun and then later used it to charge the smartphone successfully.
Looked up plans for building a solar oven, and purchased a Blast match Fire starter.
Discussed with significant other that the emergency prep is also to cover financial dry spells, being housebound due to weather and a doom and gloom scenario where we have to live off what we have for a month or more. Sig. other is a procrastinator but has years of deep woods camping/canoeing experience and can build a mean fire so good to have around 😉

this week I am looking for this http://www.knifezone.ca/misc/lifehammer.htm
and looking at solar oven plans to experiment with one during the winter.

Billyrubin
I am looking forward to hearing of your experimentation with the solar oven, that has been a hot topic around here as well and we hope to make one in the very near future...Will you be posting your results?

I will have to go do a search of what has been talked about here before regarding solar cooking.
Thanks for the heads up.

Have slowed down my prepping lately, too much socializing, I guess. 😀

But even so I have continued picking up a few things here and there.

Most exciting was some $2 books I got at Coles sidewalk sale today:
~Good Housekeeping's Best One-Dish Meals
~The Camping Cookbook
~A Brief History of: 1917 Russia's Year of Revolution

The Esq. Warehouse Store has ReaLemon Juice 945ml for 1.99 (if you buy 2 or more) That's good, it can be over $3 at other places.

At Wal-Mart I got a couple more things for the 1st aid kit: pkg of non-stick sterile pads 2.57/10, antiseptic towelettes 1.44/12. Got a couple more bags of peaches & cream corn to dehydrate, corn starch, pinto beans and soup mix.

The other day I bought more powdered Vitamin C at The Vitamin Shoppe downtown. It's pricey but it lasts a long time. (Prepping means I buy it before I run out.) And Shoppers' Drug Mart had t.p. 12 double rolls for 3.99

Saved a couple more one gallon plastic containers from the recycle bin at work.

That's not bad for not really trying. 😆

That's not bad for not really trying. 😆

I agree! It's become a lifestyle instead of a hobby!

At 36+ litres of water now ... I have been concentrating on different areas of pantry/supply depending on the sales- this week has been focused on dried goods: Dried peas, popcorn kernels, barley, cornmeal, rice, oatmeal, flour... and a jumbo bag of lentils and oatmeal as a gift from vanislemom!

No luck finding water purifying tabs recently! We seem to be locally sold out so I might be going online for these ( but have 2 more stores to try first ) Researching alternatives to water purifying, camp stoves/solar ovens and have one I want to try, hope to have my significant help me this weekend to see about its functionality. ( Desire a Volcano camp stove but will see if we can come up with something equitable) Working on prep binder, figuring out food/supply storage issues in the new apartment.

No luck finding water purifying tabs recently! We seem to be locally sold out so I might be going online for these ( but have 2 more stores to try first ) Researching alternatives to water purifying, camp stoves/solar ovens and have one I want to try, hope to have my significant help me this weekend to see about its functionality. ( Desire a Volcano camp stove but will see if we can come up with something equitable) Working on prep binder, figuring out food/supply storage issues in the new apartment.

I bought a Volcano II camping stove back in June, I can't recommend it enough. It's easy set up and its ability to use multi fuel types make it a great investment.

I bought it as a way to provide heat and a means to cook during an extended Winter power outage. It wasn't cheap, but will be well worth the investment in an emergency.

A little Video on the Volcano II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zShbxr0lys

I bought a Volcano II camping stove back in June, I can't recommend it enough. It's easy set up and its ability to use multi fuel types make it a great investment.

I bought it as a way to provide heat and a means to cook during an extended Winter power outage. It wasn't cheap, but will be well worth the investment in an emergency.

A little Video on the Volcano II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zShbxr0lys

It was definitely the flexibility in fuel and ease of use that attracted me to it. I love hearing a first hand review! This will get bumped up on our list of upcoming purchases. 🙂

Yesterdays purchases: Several LCD flashlights/batteries, knife sharpener, more rope and nylon cord, fishing line, candles, lg box sea salt, BBQ lighter, heavy duty box cutter.

Found a few good deals on my days off. Keeping my eye out for peanut butter as I hear Kraft has announced a 40% price increase within 2 weeks. Zellers has their Truly brand 2.99 a kilo and Skippy 750ml for $3. No (peanut butter) deals at Shoppers'.

Tea-lights are a good deal at Zellers: 100 for 3.58, I picked up another couple packs. I've been thinking about the question recently posed: How to heat your home in a shtf situation. Because I live in a condo my options are limited. I was thinking of several tin can luminaries. I have 3 large recycled tins filled with ice in my freezer as I type and plan to use hammer and nail to create a design in them. But I couldn't resist a $4 bargain at Wal-Mart, it's a garden accessory that holds 3 tea-lights with a mirror at the back. It's meant to be hung up but I thought I'd just put it on a metal pie plate and then add another couple tea-lights. It's cute.

London Drugs has Sunlight dish soap (mango papaya only) on for 2 for 2.22, they also have packs of 4 disposable hand warmers by Coghlan's for $1, and also Cup-a-Soup by Knorr/Lipton: box of 4 pouches for .99 (great for your BOB)

I came across a website of this fellow in Sydney, Australia who is also an apartment prepper. He has an interesting video about the $2 solar garden light stakes. He took one apart, turns out the rechargeable battery is a AAA. According to him you can remove that battery and use it in some other item, then recharge it. For $2 !! (I picked up several at Zellers for $1.39 ea. a couple of months ago, I just never thought of taking them apart and using them for anything other than as a light.)

http://urbangreensurvival.blogspot.com/2011/09/balcony-garden-makeover.html

Plus, I'm dehydrating some more corn.

Well, supper smells like it's done. ...and the smoke alarm didn't even go off. 😆

We bought sani-wipes, various large bandages, gauze, two tarps, multi-pack lighters, paper coffee filters, 5 pk toothbrushes, a plastic re-usable coffee filter at the dollar store for our b.o.b this week. (Coffee filters for filtering water- does not purify the water though, we have bleach and are getting water tabs for that) The b.o.b is about 95% complete, finally! Another 12 litres of water to our cache and peanut butter, flour, rice and oil for the pantry storage. Lean times for us on the job market right now so prep is not as fast as we would like but steadily plugging along.

Vanislemom, love the blog link that you posted... especially his gardening technique for window "garden" wall and the balcony!

I found a site for a home-made rocket stove,( well I found several) but this one really grabbed me. A good size stove if you don't need it to be highly portable and made for $20, great video demo! ( He includes a solar oven at the end as well)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=797446823830833401&hl=en