Preparations Update

[UrbanHunter]

Have been trying to properly store (including repackaging) and inventory all our food storage and canning supplies.

I have 3 ice coolers set out so I can now clean-out, organize, and inventory the freezers...... I hope to start that this evening...

My first tests with stand-by solar have helped me lay out a plan to move-on to larger projects that can have a regular (daily) benefit to me.

Bow season starts tomorrow and I am torn between doing the right thing a doing what I want to do.....

 

[CalicoKatie]

I watch prices on Walmart.com because sometimes it's cheaper to order than to buy at the local store. A month or so ago, they had the Butterfield canned ham at $8.44 a case of 12 - 70 cents a can when it's $1 a can at the store. I ordered 3 cases and planned to order more two weeks later but they raised it back to the regular price. Last week I ordered a case of GV 12.5 oz. cans of chicken for $19.44 that's $1.62 a can but the cheapest I can get it at the store is in a 4 pack for $1.87 a can. Since my orders qualify for free shipping it's a win for me when I find these deals. I confess that I squeeze my pennies not just 'til they scream but 'til they beg for mercy.

I don't remember seeing anybody talk about preps for babies but if you're expecting a baby this winter you might want to stock up on cloth diapers and plastic diaper covers. Disposable diapers and formula are some of the first things that disappear off the shelves. If you grow your own vegetables, you can dry and powder them to make pureed baby food and make your own formula with evaporated milk. Just some things to think about.

 

[jazzy]

i got this from a friend. package delivery aobut to get bunged up.

here in Co ive been having trouble getting my mail delivered. its rural, no home delivery at all--its street boxes about 1 mile away. its been lagging lately but this week i didnt get somethings i ordered. they say they are short handed---theres a push to get everyone at usps vaxed and people are walking out. theres a mail carrier subcontractor that works with them, they are refusing to make their people get jabbed. usps doest like that and trying to force them so they didnt show up and mail isnt getting delivered every day. there go my amazon orders, huh?.

my walmart orders have been lagging lately too and multiple delays--they are delivered by fedex. sometimes an extra week in delays.all
i guess my hunch to order the grankids birthday presents early was smart----i better do christmas this week for them

****************


ORDER WHAT YOU NEED NOW. LOGISTICS IS ABOUT TO COME TO A SCREECHING HALT.

Mandatory vaccination/mandatory testing orders went out today for any company over 100 people.

I work at the UPS World Hub in Louisville, KY. Every package in the world comes through my hands at the scales. I'm telling you right now people at UPS will WALK OUT. We will NOT comply with these orders.

The Fed Ex Hub is in Indiana Same thing

There's multiple Amazon Warehouses and Transportation Hubs in Kentucky.

Logistics is about to come to a halt. Every package will be left on the conveyer belts. Every plane will be left on the runway.

It's about to get real. Get what you need NOW.

 

[CalicoKatie]

Thanks, Jazzy. I've been wondering how many people will stand up to this dictatorship. Every indication that I'm seeing is that there will be major issues this winter. Some of the videos I've watched are showing empty toy shelves so it's definitely a good idea to prepare for the holidays and gift giving now. They'll be emptying the warehouses as much as they can for the holiday season but it doesn't look like anything is coming in to replace it so once it's gone - it's probably going to be gone.

 

[jazzy]

its like there is some 'perfect storm' heading right for us---yeah im not feeling good aob ut this winter and am on the Get What I Need Done.


im wantin to get another large 300gal water tote-cube thing for rain water collection. they are running around $80 for food grade here. i have 2 set up so far t and some 55 gal rain barrels o save water for my litytle garden and it sure helped this year. im on the very edge of the drought map, but its projected to expand and get worse and warnings of another dust bowl coming.

i want to sdave every drop of rain i can if this is a 100 yr drought like is being warned catching rain water is a smart thing to get set up for..

 

[angie_nrs]

I went into town early in the week at the break of dawn so I could get in and get out without standing in lines and wrestling with traffic. I was home and put everything away before noon. Again, the car was packed. I just feel like if it's on the shelf and I might need it, I'm compelled to grab it. I hate this feeling b/c I really don't like to shop! I've been going to town more frequently than I normally do, but I don't want to be on the roads much (or very far from home) on the days close to Sept. 11th. I've got everything put in the correct rooms and shelves, but it really needs to be organized well this fall/winter. If I'm right about what may happen with the lockdowns, time should allow for some organization come winter. I'd rather be organizing my stuff than not have anything and wondering how I'm going to eat.

Master locks - 3 pack for the generators
Shoes for hubs (on sale)
Underwear 2 packs for hubs (on sale)
disposable aluminum pans (on sale)
shampoo and conditioner (on sale)
dry soup mix - 9 packages (for roasts and dips)
swerve (keto sugar) - 3 bags
yeast packets - 4
baking soda - 2
beer - hubs should be good thru the winter nowdrink buddy
dish detergent
club pack of TP
2 gallon zip lock bags - 4 boxes (they come in handy during hunting/fishing season)
small engine oil - 6 (on clearance)
wood pellets for the smoker 12# bag
keystone chicken - 2 more big cans
bacon - 8 pounds
various sale items for Christmas gifts
2 more shelving units
large dehumidifier (as a backup)
hand pump with 6' hose (looks like it could come in handy)

I stocked up on regular fresh veges, lunch meats, and cheeses. Everytime I go to the store, it feels like it could be my last so I make sure I get lots while I'm there without getting too much fresh stuff so it doesn't go bad before we eat it.

 

[jazzy]

I went into town early in the week at the break of dawn so I could get in and get out without standing in lines and wrestling with traffic. I was home and put everything away before noon. Again, the car was packed. I just feel like if it's on the shelf and I might need it, I'm compelled to grab it. I hate this feeling b/c I really don't like to shop! I've been going to town more frequently than I normally do, but I don't want to be on the roads much (or very far from home) on the days close to Sept. 11th. I've got everything put in the correct rooms and shelves, but it really needs to be organized well this fall/winter. If I'm right about what may happen with the lockdowns, time should allow for some organization come winter. I'd rather be organizing my stuff than not have anything and wondering how I'm going to eat.

Master locks - 3 pack for the generators
Shoes for hubs (on sale)
Underwear 2 packs for hubs (on sale)
disposable aluminum pans (on sale)
shampoo and conditioner (on sale)
dry soup mix - 9 packages (for roasts and dips)
swerve (keto sugar) - 3 bags
yeast packets - 4
baking soda - 2
beer - hubs should be good thru the winter nowdrink buddy
dish detergent
club pack of TP
2 gallon zip lock bags - 4 boxes (they come in handy during hunting/fishing season)
small engine oil - 6 (on clearance)
wood pellets for the smoker 12# bag
keystone chicken - 2 more big cans
bacon - 8 pounds
various sale items for Christmas gifts
2 more shelving units
large dehumidifier (as a backup)
hand pump with 6' hose (looks like it could come in handy)

I stocked up on regular fresh veges, lunch meats, and cheeses. Everytime I go to the store, it feels like it could be my last so I make sure I get lots while I'm there without getting too much fresh stuff so it doesn't go bad before we eat it.

you are an awesome shopper
im agreeing with you, if its there and its something i use, get it now.
next week im going to town to do the monthly grocery and errand run. the list is growing.

i would not be surprised if JoeBama tries another lock down blaming the unvaxed

 

[MoBookworm1957]

Replaced some of the canned goods I had used earlier.
Making another trip to store for my dad.
Will be picking up few more items.

 

[goshengirl]

Great list, @angie_nrs. I hate that feeling, too, and tend to do the same.

@jazzy, thanks for the delivery logistics info. I hadn't heard that, but it makes total sense. I'll be keeping that in mind.

Just placed an order for components for a whole house water filtration system. The place we're building at the farm is going to be all rainwater catchment - we're declaring our independence from the county water nazis (don't ask ), and looking to be as self-sufficient as possible. The cistern is being installed this coming week.

 

[UrbanHunter]

I did end up pulling the trigger on some more solar panels, the wife is not pleased but when I told her that I now have all the equipment I need to keep her medical machines running for weeks without fuel she smiled.

 

[goshengirl]

Hey, @UrbanHunter, did you buy those solar panels locally? Or order them online? If you got them online, I'd love a link or web address to check out. We'll be fully grid-tied electric to start at our new place, but looking to build up to all-solar.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Hey, @UrbanHunter, did you buy those solar panels locally? Or order them online? If you got them online, I'd love a link or web address to check out. We'll be fully grid-tied electric to start at our new place, but looking to build up to all-solar.

Because I am going "Small Scale" I ordered 2 ways... I ordered a starter kit directly from Renogy - Solar Panel Kits for Sale | Shop Complete Solar Kits | Renogy because their prices indicated 12% off, they supplied most of the cables you would need, and they had free shipping...

They have the small (100 watt) panels for right at $1 per watt which didn't seem too bad. And because I want something that I can store and deploy or partly deploy, having something that I can store in a closet and easily carry by myself was important to me....

The second part was just additional panels and I found the same 12V 100 watt panels on Amazon for less than at Renogy (same panel) and free prime shipping.... But I have noticed that the supplies and prices at the Amazon site are constantly changing(going up) and I would encourage you to shop around you can save a buck here or there..

Over the years I have been planning for this so I had lots of cable, connectors, splitters, tools, fuse blocks, inverters, and a few batteries which I had been charging to be able to use....

In addition to the "kit" charge controller I purchased an EPever MPPT 40 Amp charge controller, so I have everything I would need to build 2 complete systems (less panels) or a set of back-up components if something were to get damaged....

I've looked at HomeDepot and they had a lot of Grape stuff and their panels are down around $0.90 per watt, they also had an interesting mix of charge controllers and stuff. If you know exactly what you want you might be able to save some bread that way...

Most likely TMI, sorry that's just the nature of the beast.

 

[goshengirl]

@UrbanHunter, thanks! Definitely not TMI - I have a lot to learn and appreciate knowing what real people are doing. I’ll be checking into this!

 

[hiwall]

Strictly my opinion:
Small solar setups are easy to buy, easy to set up, come with everything you need, and are just easy.
But in my opinion for SHTF usage, are about worthless.
Sure they are great to charge your cell phone and your tablet and if that is why you buy them then fine (but if it is end times what good is a cell phone?).
If you want solar because you fear or expect the grid to go down, ask yourself what electric items you want to run. If you decide you want to charge your phone and your Kindle then fine get 50 watts of solar and you are set.
But if you want some refrigeration then you need a lot more plus the big expensive batteries too. Even a small compact refrigerator would likely realistically require 300+ watts of solar and at least a couple big batteries along with the required solar controller and larger inverter. So maybe $600 to $800. More yet if you want your current full-size fridge to run.
Or what if you want to run the electric components of your gas furnace? Again at least that $600 to $800.
Want to run your well pump when the grid goes down? That could be many times the above investment.
What I am really saying is first decide what you want the solar for. For if the power is down for half a day and you want to watch TV or charge your cell phone.
Or if the electric power is off for a month or more and your want to be able to run certain electric items to maintain your standard of living.

 

[WVDragonlady]

someone should start a solar topic somewhere

 

[Bacpacker]

One of the first things to do is decide what you want to keep running. Make a list. Then buy you a KillAWatt meter, Amazon carries several models, and use to to measure usage for 3 to 7 days for each item. Divide that number by how many days you ran it, then total those up and you've got a good idea of how much power you need to feed. Maybe you take some things off line, or only use sometimes, maybe up scale your solar and batteries up or down.
But you need some hard numbers to start with.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Strictly my opinion:
Small solar setups are easy to buy, easy to set up, come with everything you need, and are just easy.
But in my opinion for SHTF usage, are about worthless.
Sure they are great to charge your cell phone and your tablet and if that is why you buy them then fine (but if it is end times what good is a cell phone?).
If you want solar because you fear or expect the grid to go down, ask yourself what electric items you want to run. If you decide you want to charge your phone and your Kindle then fine get 50 watts of solar and you are set.
But if you want some refrigeration then you need a lot more plus the big expensive batteries too. Even a small compact refrigerator would likely realistically require 300+ watts of solar and at least a couple big batteries along with the required solar controller and larger inverter. So maybe $600 to $800. More yet if you want your current full-size fridge to run.
Or what if you want to run the electric components of your gas furnace? Again at least that $600 to $800.
Want to run your well pump when the grid goes down? That could be many times the above investment.
What I am really saying is first decide what you want the solar for. For if the power is down for half a day and you want to watch TV or charge your cell phone.
Or if the electric power is off for a month or more and your want to be able to run certain electric items to maintain your standard of living.

You are right about identifying what you want to run... I have identified 3 freezers, and some medical equipment which can all combined run at under 3000 watts. I have been told that you can rotate the freezers to minimize the total wattage at any give time so that reduces the amount that I would need...
As for maintain a standard of living - who cares in a SHTF event? I have found that in emergencies you want to focus on what you need to stay alive.... Water, Food, shelter...

The stuff I have read indicates that to maintain a 12V 100 ah you would need about 100 watts solar. My system is being designed along this approach but I only want part of the system going most of the time, I want to be able to quickly (less than an hour) double my capacity, but still keep a very low profile. Most of my charge controllers are rated for up to 1000 watts of solar panels with 24 volts on the battery side....

I do have a 5KW generator and can transfer load for a while but if things got rough I would like to maintain the minimum for a long time and save my fuel....

Then again I also know folks who have 5KW on their roof as part of a grid tied system, but when the grid goes down so does their solar.

I definitely believe that doing something, anything is more useful than finding reasons why you can't anything....

 

[hiwall]

My first experience with solar was in my RV. I didn't like the propane refrigerator. It was slow to get down to operating temp and used a fair amount of propane.
So I pulled that fridge and replaced it with a small 120 volt fridge/freezer.
I added 350 watts of solar to the roof and 2 12v 100 ah batteries, a mppt controller and a 12v to 120 volt inverter.
The new fridge worked much better (in my opinion) and we always had the 120 v outlets live in the RV. Everything worked great but of course it was only used in fair weather and usually a week or less at a time.

Now we also have 3000 watts of solar on the house that always runs our regular fridge and a small chest freezer with a fair sized battery bank.
I would have liked to have solar that would also run our 220 volt well pump but the cost would have been way too much. So we have a large generator and stored fuel.

 

[Morgan101]

We have been looking at our food stores recently. We went through the deep larder (long term stuff) and culled what was expired. I took one for the team and ate some breakfast cereal that was seven years old. It was fine, and I had no ill affects. We are stocking up more with better information, and a better knowledge of what will last and what won't.

I share everybody's expectation of impending doom, or at least tough times coming in the near future. We are increasing our supply of canned goods.

 

[kd4ulw]

@UrbanHunter make sure you have enough battery capacity to power the items you want during the times the sun isn’t charging the system (overnight).

 

[joel]

Got a new cooler, I was told do not use ice, use frozen water bottles, they stay cold longer & you can drink the water, when you run out of other drinks, unlike ice.

 

[Caribou]

I've seen people that want to save the price of the batteries and they want to sell the power to the utility company. When the grid goes down they loose their power like everyone else.

I believe that the system should be set up so that you can run from the solar/batteries OR off the grid.

 

[Amish Heart]

Absolutely! We have panels that charge batteries. Lost the power at night last week, and husband just hooked his medical equipment up to the charged Milltertech battery we keep in the bedroom. I'm not interested in giving back to the electrical company

 

[goshengirl]

I'm not interested in giving back to the electrical company

Amen!!!

 

[viking]

Absolutely! We have panels that charge batteries. Lost the power at night last week, and husband just hooked his medical equipment up to the charged Milltertech battery we keep in the bedroom. I'm not interested in giving back to the electrical company

When we designed our solar system we weren't interested in selling excess power to the electrical company either, I knew a school teacher that had a solar system that had no battery storage and my feeling was, what a waste, if the power goes down, so does his system. When our grid power goes down, 14 milliseconds later with just a slight blink of the lights, the solar backup system come on line, if it's during the sunlight hours, most of the load for the inverter is done by the solar array and the MPPT solar controller still charges the batteries. I designed the solar standby system to run two refrigerators and a small and large chest freezer, as it worked out it's able to do much more. We strive to be smart when the grid goes down, we don't open the refrigerators or freezers if we don't have to and being chest type freezers they don't loose all that much of their cold if you know where the things you want our of them and get them out quickly, also I have unplugged fridges so they don't cycle at the same time.

 

[Peanut]

I’ve always considered my short term food storage as separate from my pantry. They overlap in some areas and other areas both are weak. About 6 weeks ago I started filling in the weak gaps w/cases, things like canned meats, sauces, broth, spaghetti noodles, rice, dried beans and peas.

Yesterday I got another 60lbs of rice/beans/peas and ordered spices in whole nuts/raw form, like peppercorns and cinnamon bark which I’ll vacuum seal in jars. I also withdrew a big chunk of cash from the bank. Better in my hand than a closed bank or if I don’t have fuel to drive there. Also, if I have to buy money orders and stamps I can still pay all my monthly bills for many months, “options” being the operative word. Cash on hand gives options during lockdowns.

 

[UrbanHunter]

Today I completed my food storage inventory and checked it relative to my targets.... I am 10 pounds light on cooking oil. But 10 pounds out of an 1800 pound target isn't all that bad (plus I didn't count the wife's pantry).
I was shocked to discover that I don't have as much venison left as I thought... come to find out the Venison was sitting on 70 pounds of nuts, frozen fruit, and pork and that made the 30 pounds of Venison I have left look much taller...

I am busy gathering energy use data from all the appliances that I consider "essential", so far the worst of the group has been my garden irrigation pump.... My wife's O2 machine draws a constant 500 watts, almost double that at startup... but that is still well within the operating range of my smaller inverters.... I have been able to run her CPAP machine for 5 days off a 750 watt inverter and 1 deep cycle battery (no recharge), over all I am feeling better about thing all the time.

I'm starting to shop around for batteries to make a fresh pack to use with the solar equipment I have been gathering...

 

[WVDragonlady]

Added more to the supplies this morning.
Added more canned veggies, fruits and meats
Added a bottle of sunflower oil. ( I've never used it before I always used corn and olive oils).
Added 4 bottles of shampoo. I was down to my last one

Added 5 pairs of leggings. I sleep in them so now I have extra pj's lol

 

[bamadeb48]

Going to Sams tomorrow,chicken, chuck roast, canned cream of mushroom,chicken soup. Mixed vegetables, trying to move my son out, he came home last year, I won’t use as much energy and cook as much, he works every now and then, I told him he has to go , I am nearly 68 and I need him to help me more than I help him, and the smoking is getting to me, enough!time to leave! He’s 45.

 

[Jay]

Picked up a battery pack for my flip phone I can keep in my pack in case the power goes out, or if I'm out in the woods for extended time. also a charger to keep in the truck that charges off the lighter receptical.