Posts

Posted on

How Prepared is the Average Latter-day Saint Ward?

It has become cliché for people to suggest that their preparedness efforts consist of a gun and ammo, so that in the event of an emergency they can forcefully demand that their Mormon neighbors give up some of their food storage. But do Mormons store as much food as people think they do? Do we all have a year supply of wheat, beans, rice, and freeze dried snacks?

A few weeks ago, I was called by my Bishop (pastor) to be the new emergency preparedness coordinator for our ward (congregation). In order to better serve those in the ward and help them prepare, I thought it important to begin my efforts with a survey to gauge where our ward stood. I had a fairly good idea due to previous surveys conducted over the past couple of years in our community (see here and here), but wanted a bit more detail, and with the high turnover in our ward, needed updated information.

Continue reading “How Prepared is the Average Latter-day Saint Ward?”

Posted on

Building a 3 Month Supply using Case Lot Sales

Case lot image
Case lot image from http://tightwadmomsfrugalforum.blogspot.com

Inevitably, each year in the weeks preceding the LDS General Conference sessions in April and October grocery stores in Utah begin their Case Lot sales. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, a Case Lot sale is a sale that allows you to purchase food (and other) items at a discount from a regular grocery store. The only catch is that you need to buy them a case at a time.

 

This can really help build of your emergency food supply quickly. Given that there are generally 12 to 24 cans or jars in a case, this is the perfect opportunity to scratch that Food Storage To-Do off your New Year’s Resolution list. As we have touted many, many times before, there are many reasons to have at a minimum a three-month supply of food you eat on a regular basis be it financial, natural disaster or otherwise.

Lucky for you (and all of us for that matter), our friends at Prepared LDS Family have updated their Case Lot spreadsheet. As always, we are greatly appreciative of the work and effort that went into this.

In addition to the spreadsheet will help you find the best deals this Case Lot season, there is also a 3 Month Supply post. This excellent resource details out what a basic 3 month supply for one person should consist of, then lists prices for items to fill that list along with the case lot costs for both Macey’s and Smith’s.

Many of the Bulk Food Suppliers on our Resources page also offer case lot sales during this same time period.

Go over and take a look!

Posted on

Post Japan Earthquake Notes

One of the most important skills as a prepper is the ability to learn from our experiences and mistakes. Additionally, examples of others doing the same can help us learn the same lessons without having to go through the experience. To that end, I’m posting in an email that was forwarded to me, second-hand from the source.  The email is from a lady whose family is currently stationed in Japan, and relates their experiences with the earthquake.  What I like best in this is her own analysis on her preparedness level, and what she wishes she could do better.

Email edited for screen readability only (spacing), and redacting names.

Continue reading “Post Japan Earthquake Notes”

Posted on

Volcano Stove Group Buy #2

The following is from one of our readers who has organized another group buy on Volcano Stoves. See here for my review, or here for a similar group buy we did two years ago.

I’ve contacted the Volcano Grills company and they have agreed to a group buy on the Volcano Collapsible Propane regularly $149.95 with 20 orders we can each receive a 20% discount on this amazing product. The group price will be $120.15. The deadline for this buy is April 15th (See details below). This is a great product; see the review post to make sure it’s something you want. Some of the stove’s highlights: it uses three types of fuel – propane, charcoal or wood. It is built to work with a regular 12″ dutch oven and collapses to 5″ for easy storage. The stove is also very efficient, it only needs 12 briquettes to cook one meal.

Now a bit of the background story on me and the stove. I’ve been gathering the necessary preparations for my own family and my thoughts have turned to cooking stoves and fuel. After doing a bit of research on this website I found Connor’s review of the Volcano Stove. After reading that I’m now fully convinced of the design and efficiency of this product and must have it.

I made several calls to a few local retailers and found the product to be out of stock nearly everywhere. Following Connor’s example, I decided to call Volcano Grill company and they are very friendly and willing to offer a group buy discount. The people at Volcano Grill tell me the recent popularity of this item has caused shortages everywhere. Most places are backordered 6 weeks and the places like Costco may not receive delivery even as late as this fall. I’m excited to receive a discount and share this with as many as possible.

So thank you Volcano Grill and Connor for helping out. Here are the details on the group buy.

  • Product: Volcano Collapsible Propane Grill aka Volcano II
  • Discount Price: $120.15, 20% off regular price with minimum of 20 paid orders
  • Deadline: April 15th at 5pm
  • How to Order: Send me an email at [email protected] with: full name, email address, phone number, and quantity desired. Once we have at least 20 stoves committed for purchase, I will then give you instructions on how/where to call in and place the order directly with the company.
  • Order will be ready 2nd week in May
  • Delivery Option: Pickup/Delivery Option: 1) Pickup your own order from the Springville office (preferred) 2) $12 shipping for northern Utah delivery

Please spread the word to your community and groups. Ask any questions below in the comments section. Thanks.

Posted on

Saving Money By Storing Food Article

Money by AMagill, on Flickr

Looking back on my list of things that I’ve “meant to blog” for a long time, I found a link I needed to share.  A friend of mine, and longtime follower of this blog, Erin McNew wrote an article for Yahoo’s Associated Content site about food storage.  I will of course take this chance to tease her for cheating on me, and posting to a different site, especially one that won’t allow for me to repost the content.  However I may tease though, It’s a great article written to explain to people how storing food is a sensible way to save money.  Something that most “preppers” understand, especially people usually interested in this blog.  However oftentimes people who wouldn’t normally figure themselves to be preppers, can still at least get back to some of the basics of previous generations.

Check out Erin’s article Saving Money by Storing Food for a nice introduction that could be very helpful in getting friends/neighbors/family to think a little more about adding to their food storage plans.

Posted on

Potassium Iodide (KI) and How to Protect Yourself From Radiation Poisoning

With the current potential nuclear crisis in Japan, I have been inundated with questions about Fallout Survival, Nuclear Preparedness, General Preparedness and Potassium Iodide among many other things.  I realized that while a lot of these things are covered on Utah Preppers, Potassium Iodide is kind of glossed over.  This post is my answer to all those questions and should be a definitive post on KI or Potassium Iodide.  Please note: at this time, due to the crisis in Japan, KI is Sold Out pretty much everywhere.

Potassium Iodide or KI is a salt of iodine and is what the body uses to make thyroid hormones.  If you are exposed to radioactive iodine through fallout , your thyroid will quickly absorb it into your thyroid and cause serious problems.  By super loading your thyroid with safe iodine via Potassium Iodide you can minimize your bodies absorption of radioactive iodine.  It should be noted that Potassium Iodide is NOT a cure for radiation sickness nor will it prevent other problems that will occur from fallout or radioactive exposure.

Continue reading “Potassium Iodide (KI) and How to Protect Yourself From Radiation Poisoning”

Posted on

Utah survival example in the news

There is an interesting example of Winter survival in the news today courtesy of KSL.

While these young men made an initial mistake that got them lost, they managed to remain calm and focused on survival. Creating a snow cave, starting a fire, etc. are all useful skills and as this example clearly shows can help to keep you alive.

Another aspect of preparedness is learning from our mistakes and other’s examples. In this case, if they had their avalanche beacon and some other gear, (perhaps some EDC items, or an emergency kit)  they would have been located much sooner or not been lost in the first place, and been more comfortable while waiting for rescue.

Read the article and absorb any information you can so you can use that information if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

Posted on

Homemade ice-claws

Image from KresimirPregernik

When I moved to college in Idaho as a teenager, I had a really quick introduction into a new world of snow and ice. While the snow I grew up with was wet and heavy, and usually melted away pretty quick in the moderate temperature. Idaho however introduced me to the bitter hard-freeze that left our campus with an amazing array of forms of ice that were completely new to me. I, as with many of my fellow students, became intimately familiar with this ice while performing the splits, or landing on my back when trying to hurry between classes.

In that time, I saw a few people that had some nifty attachments for their shoes allowing them to get traction on the ice.  Along the lines of higher end crampons used in ice-climbing, they strapped on over any shoes and allowed the user to dig into the ice a bit more.  Over on one of my favorite sites (Instructables) there are some instructions for creating a simple version of these yourself.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ice-claws/

Posted on

Notes from Peter Schiff Speaking in Utah

Last night, Peter Schiff spoke to an audience of about 250 people here in Utah.  The event was put on by the local Campaign For Liberty.  As always, he had some extremely interesting things to say and I was very glad I was able to go listen to him, it was a very informative night.

I took notes the entire time – he spoke for over 2 hours – and tried to get down the things I thought were important, educational and/or revelatory as quickly and as accurately as I could.  For this post, I’m going to basically paste in my notes and add some contextual commentary to some of them. Continue reading “Notes from Peter Schiff Speaking in Utah”

Posted on

The 5-gun challenge

FPS by Zweroboi, on Flickr

A theme that is seeing increased activity on many of our friends blogs is that of the 5-gun challenge. What does that mean? Well it’s a way of answering the common question of “What gun should I buy?”  Chances are you’re one of two types of readers at this point; either you are already familiar with firearms, and you will want to read this simply to debate the opinions. Or, you are to some degree unfamiliar with firearms and will hopefully find this post very informative.

If you’ve ever been in a conversation with a firearms enthusiast, you’ll know that each person has their own strong opinions, so it’s always nice to get everybody’s input and reasoning behind their decisions.  This being a multi-author blog, this post will allow several of our authors to explain their choices for 5 guns, and give their reasoning behind each.  Please check out each page to get the full list of recommendations.

Continue reading “The 5-gun challenge”

Pages: 1 2 3
Posted on

Book Review: What’s Wrong With My Plant?

The other day I picked up a new gardening book from the hardware store. Its cover wasn’t cluttered with photographs like so many other gardening and home improvement books; in fact, the only photo on the cover was of an obviously-distressed leaf. The rest of the cover was largely devoted to the full title of the book: What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?): A Visual Guide to Easy Diagnosis and Organic Remedies, by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth. This was actually the first thing that caught my eye. I don’t like when books try to glam themselves up in an attempt to conceal the vapid content inside. This book looked like it was ready to get down to business, and so I picked it up and started leafing through it. It didn’t take me long to decide to buy it. Continue reading “Book Review: What’s Wrong With My Plant?”