Saturday, January 30, 2010

Local Sales Ads - Sav-U-Mor Two Week Ad

For the local readers, Sav-U-Mor has some great deals for the next two weeks  (at least they are great in our area).  Ad runs February 1 - February 14.

Martha White Flour - .99/bag (limit 1)
Pillsbury Cake Mix - .69/box (limit 3)
Chicken Drums or Thighs .89/lb
Idaho Potatoes 1.99/10lb (Limit 3)

Bone-In Split Chicken Breast .79/lb (Feb 4, 5, 6 only)



Good week to purchase chicken to can.  I just used a jar of chicken breast last night.  I added BBQ sauce and sliced some french bread to make BBQ sandwiches.  We had salad on the side.  It was easy and yummy.  I saved the broth to make dumplings.  I would love to have dumplings tonight, but I don't have a recipe.  I normally use canned biscuits, but we are snowed in!  Does anyone have a yummy tried and true "fat" dumpling recipe?  Hot chicken and dumplings would be wonderful tonight!

That is a good price on the potatoes too.  We have jars of canned potatoes that we add to soup, but we could purchase these to shred into hash browns and freeze.  We tried drying them, but they turned gray and tasted terrible.  Anyone have any success at drying potatotes?  If so, how did you do it?

Of course, the cake mix would be great to make cake in a jar.  We baked some cake in jars about a month ago and tried them a few days ago.  They were still moist and tasted great.  I will save one of those jars for long term just to try them out and see how long they will last.  Looks like it's time to make some more!

I am trying to wean my family from white flour as whole wheat is healthier, but it is going to take a while.  I think I have enough flour in the meantime. 

I can't wait to see the Aldi ad, I am looking foward to when they put the blueberries and strawberries on sale.  I think I have a few more months to wait for that.  Happy preserving!

What areas in preparedness do you need help with?

Help me make this page work for you? What interests you? What areas do you need help with? What would you like to see discussed here at the Prepared Household? My weakness right now is water storage.

Over the years, I have attempted to store water, but there has always been problems. I purchased some 5 gallon cans and they leaked. Had to replace water damaged walls and floor. No room indoors, exposure to extreme temps outside, one thing after another. I still don't have a perfect water storage system, but I am working on it. How have you solved your water storage issues?

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Preparedness Challenge January 26, 2010

How was your last week for prepping efforts? Here's a preparedness challenge, tell us what you are doing to prepare. This will give each of us ideas on what we can do to prepare.

Preparedness Challenge January 26, 2010
* Garden work:
* Preserve something:
* Work on food storage:
* Other preparedness tasks:
* Try a new recipe or a new variation:
* Financial preparedness:
* Work on local food systems:
* Learn something new:
* Serve someone:


Here are mine:

Preparedness Challenge January 26, 2010
* Garden work: Planning my garden. Ordering and trading seeds for the coming season.
* Preserve something: Canned items we picked up at the LDS Home Storage Center. Also put some items in buckets.
* Work on food storage: Went to the LDS Home Storage Center and picked up bulk items (at a cheaper price than I can get them at the grocery) for myself and members of my church.
* Other preparedness tasks: Dried, froze and preserved apples, pineapples and oranges I found on sale last week.
* Try a new recipe or a new variation: Tried a new pineapple chicken recipe. Really didn't care too much for it. Does anyone have a good tried and true recipe for pineapple chicken?
* Financial preparedness: Paying tithing and fast offerings. Going to donate to Haiti (We don't have much to work with, so this will be a small amount, but every little bit helps.) Since we don't have much to work with, there isn't any savings, but we only purchase with cash and don't use credit cards. I do have a few I could use, but choose not to get myself in more debt.
* Work on local food systems: Planning a garden and getting seeds is my work on local food systems.
* Learn something new: Learning to use a dehydrator.
* Serve someone: Went to the LDS Home Storage Center and picked up items for church members. Although it was hard work, we helped the members can their items. We worked all last week doing this. We only canned 13 cans of milk, 3 cans of candy and a can of home dehydrated apples and helped others can over 300 cans of items.

How was last week for your prepping efforts? Leave a comment or blog it and leave a link so we can all see how things went for you!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

What are your emergency plans??

With the recent disaster in Haiti, our minds have turned to the question, "What if?" We should all reflect upon the "What ifs?"

1. What if a disaster should strike?
2. What would I do?
3. What would my children do?
4. How will I locate my children at school?
5. Does my child's school have an emergency plan?
6. What will I do with my elderly father?
7. What about my daughter in college, the next town over?
8. What about my pets?

I think you get the idea. We need a plan. We need to know what we are going to do when the disaster occurs, or our chances of survival diminish. If we play the scenario out in our heads, practice with our families and plan for every contingency, survival is greater. We need to play games with our children, show them ways to survive, so that it's not a knee-jerk reaction, but a knowledge and skill that they already have. One we already have. Again, we just need to prepare.

So, devise a plan. Whether you are a family of one or a family of twenty, counsel together and make a plan.

1. Discuss the type of hazards that could affect your family. Know your home's vulnerability to disasters.

2. Locate a safe room or the safest areas in your home for any shelter in place. In certain circumstances the safest areas may not be your home but within your community.

3. Determine escape routes from your home and places to meet. Keep it close in case you your only means of transportation is walking. Practice disaster scenarios to give your family practice.

4. Have an out-of-state friend or family member as a family contact, so all your family members have a single point of contact. While some local communications may be haphazard, distant communications may not be.

5. Make a plan now for what to do with your pets if you need to evacuate. Keep extra food and water on hand for them too.

6. Post emergency telephone numbers by your phones and make sure your children know how and when to call 911. Practice it together on family night.

7. Check your insurance coverage - know what's covered. Flood damage is not usually covered by homeowners insurance.

8. Stock non-perishable emergency supplies and a 72 hour kit. Where possible, put 72 hour kits in your vehicles.

9. Use a NOAA weather radio. Remember to replace its battery every 6 months, as you do with your smoke detectors.

10. Take First Aid, CPR and disaster preparedness classes.

11. Know your child's school's disaster and emergency plans. Ask questions. Find out how the school will communicate with you during a crisis. If they have adequate food, water and other basic supplies for at least 72 hours? If they are prepared to shelter in place if need be? Is there a plan in place to take the students elsewhere if there is a need to get away? If so, where do they plan to take them? If there is an emergency, and the school is on "lock down" or shelter in place, will you be permitted to come to the school to pick up your child?

12. Have enough food, water and medication for each family member on hand to last for a while. I know everyone says 72 hours, but how long did it take for help to arrive with Katrina? What about Haiti? 72 hours is a good start, but you need to build on it.

13. Don't forget about the elderly or disabled. If you have family members with special needs, be sure to account for them in your preparations.

14. Keep your gas tank filled at all times.

These are just a few of the things you need to do to start an emergency plan. Check out FEMA's website: http://www.fema.gov/plan/index.shtm for more ideas on planning for emergencies.

If you have an emergency plan, share your plan with us. One of the best ways to develop a good emergency plan is to listen to and by lessons learned from other disasters. So share your plans and...be safe and be prepared.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Follow up on dehydrating...or the misadventures of the new dehydrating queen

Well, I have been dehydrating and freezing pineapples, oranges and apples all week. Of course, my teenagers (and husband) seem to be packing it out the door faster than I can store it. I could use a "real" dehydrator, this one I bought at Wal-mart just can't keep up. Where can I get a good deal on a great dehydrator? Anyone?

Someone from my facebook page suggested I check out www.dehydrate2store.com. It is great, you really should check it out. Dehydrating is fun and easy and if I had a larger dehydrator, I would really be rockin!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Food Storage Frugal - Stock Up Items For This Week

Just received my Aldi sales ad and noticed the fruit sale. I have heard from other sources in the news and from www.hotcouponworld.com that now is the time to stock up on a few things while the prices are still relatively low:

Apples. There is some concern that apple growers set the bar low on prices because the initial outlook for crop yields were going to be higher than anticipated, so new crop apples flew out the door at prices unseen of in ages. But then late fall weather caused some crop loses. (Heard that phrase anywhere lately?) So we are going to see apple prices creep back up to ensure there's product until the next harvest. If you can get apples under .70/lb then it's a good time to think about freezing, drying or canning apples.

Fortunately, Aldi has their apples (Gala, Granny Smith, Red and Golden Delicious for .99 per 3lb bag. That's .33 per lb.

Another item to stock up item is orange juice. With the crazy weather in Florida lately (reports of snow and freezing), orange and orange juice prices are likely to skyrocket while concentrate available to bottlers depletes.

Aldi has navel oranges for $1.29 per 4lb bag, pineapples .99 each, pears .99 for 28oz pkg, and grapefruits .25. At prices like these and knowing the possibility of rising prices, I plan on stocking up. Maybe I could peel the oranges and grapefruits and section them. Throw them in freezer bags and freeze. I wonder how these fruits would taste after freezing. Pears could be pear butter. Pineapples and apples could be dried.

Do you have any ideas about how I could preserve these stock up items?

Also, chicken continues to be the meat of choice for deal hunters. It is versatile, lean and right now, cheap at .79/lb at Sav-u-mor this weekend.

Dairy is going up. Milk is now up from $1.99 to $2.29 at Aldi. Eggs are $1.19. So those prices are on the way up again. Walgreens have their large eggs for .99, limit three dozen. That's the place to get your eggs this week.

Thanks to hotcouponworld for the info and our local stores for the sales. I hope you can find good deals near you.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Don't be fooled...food shortages for 2010

Kellene Bishop, the Preparedness Pro, has a great blog and I read her faithfully. Today's post is on the food shortages that are being predicted for this year.  I will post it below, but please subscribe to her site and follow her, she has a lot of good messages for today.  Her post is below.

http://www.preparednesspro.com/blog/conspiracy-programming/


I’ve probably said this before, but one of my favorite bumper stickers of all time says “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after me.”
I find that there is a dangerous and debilitating stigma in our international society.  If a proposed theory has anything to do with the fact that a person or group of persons has actually conspired, plotted, and planned to bring about the demise of another person, then the proposal is discounted as audacious and mentally deficient. “Conspiracy!” they cry—as if calling something a conspiracy eliminates the validity of any proposed belief of supposition.  Can I just ask a perfectly blunt question?  Why is that?  Why, when we have such an abundance of proven conspiracies is it considered a social and mental faux pas to propose that something is a conspiracy to do harm to others? I firmly believe that in doing so we are discounting the reality of danger. We are exposing ourselves as vulnerable as a fresh animal wound at night in the land of South Africa.  We are playing into the designs of bloodthirsty predators as their willing prey. To be naïve of the scope and determination of conspiracies, we make ourselves far too vulnerable and dependent, thus negating the maximum effects of our preparedness efforts.  Let me share with you why such a negative stigma against the reality of conspiracy is so illogical.
Al Qaida is an admitted conspiracy group.  I doubt that most of us would dispute that. But can I just say that the reason why we don’t dispute it is because it’s socially and politically acceptable for us to view them as crafty conspirators? Whether you look into their conspiratorial designs on the surface or in depth, they make no secret of the fact that they have truly conspired to do irreparable harm to all Christian nations.  Fortunately for us, the mainstream media feels that painting them as the bad guy is beneficial for their own designs of conspiracy and as such we are able to easily see them as “the bad guys.” As such, we are better able to swallow that they regularly engage in “conspiracy.”  But what if the conspirators are those who we otherwise rely on or trust?
usda foods 300x291 Conspiracy Programming
USDA--can we trust what they say? photo c/o www.fns.usda.gov
Now, let’s talk about the USDA.  No upstanding American would portray them as conspirators, right? Oh, how I hope that we’re not really that naïve.  The USDA told us for months and months that we could expect a bumper crop this year. (Bumper crop, as in at least a 20% excess of what we need.) The USDA continued to post such information on their official website even well after the abysmal destruction of crops such as corn and soy beans commenced.  If you look hard for it, you will also find a report which concurs (finally) with the fact that as early as November of last year, the USDA granted special emergency fund approvals to various Midwestern and Eastern states due to “widespread crop damage.”  Just so you know, “widespread crop damage” is defined by the USDA as at LEAST 30 percent damage to a particular group of crops. 30 percent damage to our corn, soybean, and even wheat crops.  This, when we already have exported ALL of our wheat reserves from our nation.  In spite of this, the “bumper crop prediction” still stands front and center on the USDA website.
So the question is, WHY would the USDA and the mainstream media not be forthright in bringing this information to its proper light? Let’s continue to explore this.
Are you aware of all of the food items which rely on corn, soy and wheat?  If you ever eat out or if you ever purchase something prepackaged, then you have most likely ingested ALL of the above.  Every cake mix, loaf of bread, syrup, peanut butter, pasta mix, etc. is affected by these ingredients in some way or another. As such, we can expect the kind of financial increase in such goods as we shortly experienced in wheat and rice in 2007. The problem is also that since wheat, corn and soybeans are affected, we can also expect the price of rice to go up, as demand for it as a substitution will rise as well. We are currently looking at rising fuel prices, a diminishing dollar, tanking residential and commercial markets and oh, by the way, your food bill is about to double or quadruple.  Yup. We’re not hearing that.  Why?
wall street 300x225 Conspiracy Programming
Impact on Wall Street--HUGE photo c/o www.diversityjobs.com
Well, to put it plainly, it’s because the Wall Street markets can’t handle a hit like that right now and if there is a run on the grocery stores of only a 20% increase, then such a run and panic would trigger a domino effect that would impact Wall Street. Regardless of what end Wall Street is at on such a panic, they would crash.  Our administration can’t take the heat of such a crash right now.  The USDA is a government run entity. Our wheat, rice, corn, and soy commodities are some of the main backbones of the Market right now.
Let’s put the 20% run on the grocery stores in perspective for a moment. When a coupon comes out for a particular product, that product is cleared off of the shelves within the first day by eager couponers, in spite of the store attempting to anticipate higher demand for the product. Just so you know, couponing accounts for only 14% of all sales in a grocery store.  Whereas if you perpetuated the idea that there would  be an astronomical increase in wheat, soy, or corn based products, that could also trigger a demand…not a coupon euphoria either. A bona fide panic demand.  Even at only 14%, it would clear off of the shelves, and the panic would lead to a domino effect of most other products carried by the grocers as well.  The domino effect of a panic on food would be just as fast to disrupt and destroy your way of life as a police car simply pulled over to the side of the highway—complete stand still.
The bottom line is that the prevalent antagonistic programming that so successfully skewers anyone who has the audacity to claim “conspiracy” is effective. Many normal persons have hung their head in shame and embarrassment simply for asking a simple question. But keep in mind that it’s counter-intuitive to believe that conspiracies aren’t rampant and real in our everyday world.  Where there is virtue, there is selfishness. Where there is charity, there is thievery.  We simply can’t believe in people who have beautiful motivations and not believe that there are also people who are motivated strictly by greed and control.  Yes, I agree that conspiracy theories can be taken to the extreme. I’m just not sure we are fully aware of what that “extreme” is. After all, the private banking industry taking over our nation’s entire currency flow was pretty extreme if you ask me. Yet nearly a hundred years later, many still are in the dark about it, ashamed of being labeled as a crazy conspiracy theorist.
smart move 300x237 Conspiracy Programming
A smart move is to start paying attention to what goes on around you photo c/o www.usfirst.org
The point of me writing my article is to attempt to have more people shed the stigma of questioning what is going on around us so that they can see the real state of things–so they can be properly prepared.  The use of the word “conspiracy” has been, by design, altered to portray a stigma of the mentally deranged, paranoid, or irresponsible.  When in fact, the reality of those who would conspire to harm or destroy is truly abundant.  I think that questioning and researching and verifying the research is one of the smartest things one can do to properly protect their family.  I think newly discovering such conspirators is alarming, whereas understanding their presence and motives and planning on how I’m going to counter such plans gives me a great deal of peace.
As a parting, but somewhat disjointed comment, I just wanted to express the following. Forgive my somewhat ornery rant. What I don’t understand is this: why is it ok for the mainstream media to pummel us with a litany of meaningless murder, rape and robbery statistics, 95% incorrect weather predictions, the “five year anniversary of the floods in St. George”, Islamic New Year celebrations, and the latest string of lies and insincerity from political officials and yet they can’t share with us the kind of critical information that would actually HELP us to wake up and better prepare?  I don’t really like being manipulated.  And I loathe selfish panic control.  Et tu?
Copyright 2010 Preparedness Pro & Kellene Bishop.  All rights reserved.  You are welcome to repost this information so long as it is credited to www.PreparednessPro.com & Kellene Bishop.