SHTF Shopping

[Spreadfire Arms]

after reading that short story on here, and watching "War of the Worlds," i thought it was a good time to look at exactly what food i had in my house in the event of a SHTF incident.

i know i have enough ammo and guns (im a C3 FFL ). but what i didn't have is a whole lotta food and supplies.

last time i bothered to stock up was a few months back during Hurricane Rita which was poised to hit Houston and possibly Austin or Dallas.

panic buying ensued, since we had all seen the footage of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. i happened to be at Glock Armorer School in Fort Worth. my friend called me from Austin and told me people were at Super WalMart buying everything. you couldn't buy gasoline, flashlights, batteries, or bottled water.

i went to the Super WalMart in Fort Worth, to find nobody there gave a ???? about stocking up.

i spent that time, about $200 on supplies. i bought chemlites, AA and D cell batteries, canned food, 4 cases of bottled water, a roller bag suitcase to put all my crap in, etc.

i drove back to Austin to find absolutely nothing had happened and i had all these supplies. no biggie, they were not perishable.

as usual, i got complacent like everyone else and used some of my supplies i had saved up. tonight i looked around. 1 case of water left. i still had all the batteries and canned food. i had eaten some of the granola bars and crackers.

i took an inventory. hmmm. i had about one week's food for one person (me). i don't have a family to feed, just a few pets.

tonight i went out and spent another $100 to augment my current supply of food and supplies. two more cases of water (should have bought way more, hell i can still do that tomorrow), about another week's worth of canned food, dried food like pasta, etc. this time i found myself looking at forms of packaging vs. expiration dates.

i found that i didn't want to buy anything with glass containers, since, as you know Murphy's law, when i bug out (if i choose to, or have to, vs. just staying put in my house) im bound to break glass containers. however i saw that many of the plastic containers' expiration dates were not as far out as that of the glass ones.

i bought some 32 oz. fruit juice containers that had been pasteurized, in plastic jugs. not bad, with an expiration date in mid 2007.

i bought other dry food like cup o' noodles, and canned food for the dog. i bought about $5 worth of tuna cans (50 cents each) which can serve as double duty for both me and my cats.

i loaded up on campbell's chicken noodle soup, and chef boyardee pastas. i got the ones with the pull-off tops in the event stupid me forgets to bring a can opener.

i came home and put the cans in a neat stack in a sturdy, plastic crate that i can just pick up and go if need be. it is sitting in my pantry. i got one of those cardboard thingies they stack the cans on at WalMart so i could double stack them neatly.

i decided to put all of my disaster food/supplies in one central location in my house in the event i need to get them and go immediately.

i just have to grab my bug out bag, gear, food/supplies, and ammo (which is already positioned to go).

im wondering if anyone else has done the same, after reading the short story?

 

[EZ CZ75]

Yeppers

My wife and I have done a similar thing. We have a moderately sized tupperware container with enough supplies to feed the four of us for at least three days. It also contains toiletries, which although not necessary for life, they sure will make the days away a little more tolerable. NEVER FORGET THE TOILET PAPER! Luckily we have a family ranch fairly close that is basically self sufficient except for fuel, but who has an oil well and refinery in their back yard nowadays

My wife is very good about rotating out our supplies, but come to think of it we should probably update the box.

Everybody is/was a boyscout/girlscout, right?

 

[chopinbloc]

i've been working on building up supplies for a while. i've basically two categories: stuff for holing up and stuff for bugging out. the stuff for bugging out is obviously part of the holing up supplies. like most folks, i don't plan on going anywhere unless i absolutely have to. i've found that supplies stick around longer if it's stuff that you don't want to use unless you have to. with that in mind, i store tap water - pretty nasty stuff in the phoenix area but it'll keep indefinitely with all the chlorine as long as it's in an airtight container. i bought ALOT of jerry cans - both water and fuel - over time from these folks http://offroadrecovery.com/category/blitzjerrycansandacc/

all the water is filled and most of the gas, so far. i've heard that the main danger to fuel is losing about 1 point of octane per month and that can be mitigated by completely filling an airtight container. between that and sta-bil, the fuel should last a good, long time but i still plan to rotate it from time to time. i have held onto cases of MREs and my feeling is that packaged food such as MREs and most canned foods may not taste very good after the expiration date but they won't be likely to make you sick. i've eaten both MREs and canned goods that were WAY past the expiration dates and they only taste slightly stale. as long as there was no contamination in them to begin with, you should be good, just keep an eye out for botulism. my next projet is to fill rubermaid air tight tubs with canned food and fill the spaces with macaroni, rice or beans. i figure this is a highly portable storage method that makes the most of the space. i have a couple of water filters handy as well as iodine tablets. we usually keep about a week's worth of food on hand as well. i have several CLS bags with just about anything you need to keep someone alive in the short term but i have neither the training nor the equipment to provide long term care. i'm working on aquiring large quantities of long shelf life, wide spectrum antibiotics. i think the only legal way to do this is through a vet or vet supply store. now if i could just figure out a way to keep a case of jack daniel's on hand without having it raided by myself or my lady.

 

[loose cannon]

the shtf'ers on here have me thinking about improving my readiness as well.
like alot here i have the iron and ammo situation pretty well in hand .but my food storage could stand some improvement,one of the things i like to keep on hand is beanee weinies,ive stocked and used them in the past and have eaten them 3 years after purchase(i date mark em when i get em).

i live in a rural area ,so buging out prob wont be nessesary. tho ill prepare to. as for water i have a 250' well,im thinking about investing in a small water tower and i have a generator capable of powering the pump.gasoline is a thing i need to work on some more. im considering a farm tank of about 500 gals and i know about stabil.right now would be the time to stock up on gas with the price aprox $2 per gal.

all in all i think ive got it pretty good .kinda reminds me of the song "thank god im a country boy"

 

[Daniel964]

I'm in the process of up grading the food supplies also. I'm buying 1and 2 pound bags of dried beans rice etc. and putting it in those 5gallon buckets.

Toss in a few desicants and I should be good to go. I do have a lot of canned goods that I bought in the past. I just ate a can of Dinty Moore beef stew that I bought in 1998. Still tasted good.

Sugar is something I try to keep 50 to 100 pounds of on hand. No nutritional value but lots of calories to it.

NEVER FORGET THE TOILET PAPER!

Got a one year supply of that for the 2 of us.

Don't forget soap and toothpaste etc.

Right now I have a 3-6 month supply of everything we need to survive in relative comfort. I'm trying to push that to one year plus.

 

[dmftoy1]

I try to get in a rotation with gasoline, and that type of stuff. Every six months my 'stabilized' gas gets fed into one of the teenagers hungry cars and refilled.

I found a good way to rotate MRE's this christmas. My nephew was up and he's big into survival kit mode so we built him a nice kit and then ate MRE's for 2 days. Those chemical MRE heaters work surprisingly well. I found that I like the beef and bean burritos the best but they don't include any hot sauce with them . . . .that just seems inhuman to me.

I was at Farm and Fleet shopping yesterday and picked up a couple of things to add to my "mobile" shtf supplies. A larcan transfer pump ($8) which will transfer oil, gas, diesel and has connections for even pumping air if needed. I also added Bar's Stop Leak to my supplies because just the other day I had to help a guy out who had a pinhole leak in his radiator and that's all it took to get him going. They make it now in dry "tablet" form which is much more conveinent for storage in the truck.

Have a good one,
Dave

 

[CalamityJane]

We were in New Orleans the week before Katrina hit, for a meeting. We had to evacuate on that Saturday, and truth be told, that was one of the things that caused us to decide to "beef up" our home/self defense by purchasing and learning to use guns. I also, during the weeks after, decided to make us some bug-out kits, and got a couple of rolling luggage things.

We live in a city, but in the worst-case scenario would make every attempt to get to my folks' farm, a couple of hours away. It occurred to me that if for some reason we couldn't proceed by vehicle, and had to try to go on foot, the rolling luggage might not work very well. Plus I wanted us to have both hands free, so I bought a couple of backpacks--not bookbags, but full-sized backpacks--at Academy. They are packed with some food, some water, water purifier/filters, and every other thing I could think of for a situation like that. We each keep these in our cars; in case we are separated when something happens, our plan is to each proceed to the farm. I don't mean separated in the same city we live in, but I work in another city pretty far away. They are pretty heavy, but we both put them on when I finished with them, and they would be carryable. I also put a small hatchet in each bag. I got pretty obsessed with preparing for every scenario, which you can't do, not in a backpack anyway, and it took me about 3 days to finish with them.

We didn't have guns at that time; now I need to add some ammo to each. But not much, otherwise they WILL be too heavy.

Hope we never have to use them.

 

[wizard of oz]

I used to go out with an Ethiopean girl who really taught me about stocking up. She survived the terrible famines resulting from a civil war and drought in what is one of africa's most fertile countries (ie no-one was prepared). Every payday she bought a few extra tins of food and some gold jewelry without fail. She must have had at least a year's food under her bed and in her cupboards.
The strange thing is that after you have bought the initial store, it doesn't cost any more - since the rate of consumption doesn't change.
By the way, toilet paper isn't needed in SHTF - just do what they do in the third world and use soap and water.

 

[toolmaker]

I have always agreed with stocking up on essentials. One thing I seldom see mentioned in supplies lists on this board, and one which can make life for our female co-survivors much less traumatic, are personal hygiene products (pads, etc). I would rate these right up with toilet paper, toothpaste and soap in importance. Check with all the post-pubescent women in your circle or family to find out their preference and stock up. Forget "modesty" and take care of those who will be taking care of you.

 

[Preacherman]

Sorry, folks, but this is OT for GGD. I'll move it to S&T, but even there, it may not fit.

 

[72Rover]

Stocking up

Fortunately, most dry foods like rice and beans are downright cheap, but it all has to be repackaged. I prefer one gallon juice jugs that will hold *a lot* of beans. I'm still going through the Y2K provisions, and no, they haven't gone bad yet. My wife still gives me grief about the Spam and the Tang...

The only worry with reliance on dried staples are bugs or weevils, which can be eliminated with a little thought. Drop a pellet of dry ice in the bottom of each container as you fill it. Keep the cap loose 'til the pellet has evaporated, then tighten. The stuff should be good for *decades* if need be...but I try to rotate through the foodstuffs to keep 'em relatively fresh.

Where most SHTF stocking up falls short is the water supply. All water 'goes flat' in long term storage, so some way to flavor it is essential. One way to 'multi-task' is to fill those 5 liter bladders from wine-in-a-box with water and freeze 'em in unused or extra space in the freezer. Several of these will keep the freezer safe for a day or three after the power goes off, then can be used for drinking/cooking.

 

[riverdog]

Most of the stockpilers on this board know all about buying guns and ammo, and they take the same approach to buying food and water. If you don't roll your own ammo, you buy it by the case and don't worry about running out. However, for a SHTF type scenario, while stockpiling bottled water may work for a while, you need to be able to process (filter/purify) water that you find. Tap water that may no longer be safe, rain, streams, groundwater, et al, need to be processed to make safe. A good filter such as those from MSR is a good place to start

 

[hso]

It's admirable that many of you are reevaluating your supplies and realize that you can't survive on guns and ammo.

What most of us really need to do instead of focusing on things is reevaluate our knowledge of our area, our personal skills and our physical condition.

Physical condition is something that may take a while to improve (and we all should improve), but we need to be realistic about what it "is" and not what we wish it would be and plan accordingly. Research Preacherman's posts about adapting to his now bad back for bug-out. If you're not physically fit enough to hump 3 days worth of supplies (including 12+ pounds of water)then you might look to folding rolling carts that you might put that pack on. What about the condition of your feet? Are you going to break in a new (or barely used) pair of boots while trying to get out of Dodge or would it be smarter to wear what you know is comfortable.

Personal skills include reading a map and using a compass, possibly using a come along, setting ropes, reading and fording streams, driving on non- and un- paved roads, etc. These are skills we don't use every day, but could be essential in a bug out. We saw in the story that just having a 4WD pickup wasn't enough. Not knowing how to use it and not understanding it's limitations was fatal.

Local knowledge is the easiest thing to improve. Get a detailed road map of the area you'll operate in and get a topo map to go with it and study both. Drive the routes you plan on taking in the event of an evacuation. Identify all the alternate routes and all the choke points (like the bridge). Run a drill in other words. Make it something fun like a junk shop/flea marketing day trip.

Just some thoughts to offer while folks are discussing the things they 'need'.

 

[itgoesboom]

My wife and I have done pretty well in this regard. We have a large walk in pantry in the kitchen where we store all of the survival gear, camping gear, and all of the important things for the baby.

In the pantry we have one built in set of shelves, and another 2 sets that we put in.

On one set of shelves, on the middle of 2nd of 4 shelves, I have 2 medium clear containers containing survival gear such as camp stove, extra gas, water purification (Filters, tablets and iodine), needed tools, flashlights, radios, matches, first aid gear, etc.

On the bottom of it I keep two larger containers with canned foods; soups, stews, pork n beans, chilli, canned fruits and veggies and anything else food wise that I have felt might be necessary.

On the 2nd to the top I keep the rice and beans. Right now there is 75# of rice, and 50# of beans. I am hitting costco today, and will grab another #50 of rice as well, since we use it up fairly quickly, and I don't want to be under #100 anymore.

The top shelf is kinda the misc shelf at this point. It has some baby supplies, some pasta vaccum sealed, and a large bag of ready made pancake mix.

Under the built in shelf I keep the water. About 25+ gallons in various 5 & 7 gallon containers. I also have another 20+ 2 liter bottles I am going to fill up, and 5 or 6 1-gallon gatorade containers I am going to fill up. I keep my ammo boxes next to this as well. They are sealed so no worries of the water spills or anything.

On the built in shelving we keep our camping supplies, tents, sleeping bags, grounds cloths etc.

On the other set of shelves we keep baby supplies. Diapers and wipes mainly, but also some first aid stuff too.

Everything is in one central location: Food, water, baby supplies, survival gear, camping gear and ammo.

Our plans are for bugging in, but if we had to bug out, my wife would load the baby and the animals into the van, while I loaded the gear, and we could have it all loaded within 15-20 minutes, including my firearms and hunting gear (kept in another clear container).

All told, we have enough food for roughly 6 months for the 2 of us and our baby. We have enough water for a couple weeks, plus water purification for a significant amount of time. We keep atleast a few weeks of diapers and wipes on hand (I want to keep it above a months worth after hearing the stories of parents who bugged out in N.O. and didn't have diapers for their kids.)

I.G.B.

 

[WyoJack]

Wife and I sat down with the 2 daughters and figured out a menu for a week we could all eat and agree on. Basic concept was one full meal a day with snacks to fill in the gaps. AFTER figuring out the menu, then we went shopping for food.
It's pretty basic. Pasta, pizza (home made, not Red Baron), beans, rice with canned meat to spice up the basic dish. The canned meats get rotated along with the canned tomato sauce and pasta. The rest will keep for a loooong time.

150 lbs of rice, 500 lbs of wheat, and 300 lbs. of beans will keep us for a year if the menu holds true. We've done a couple of dry runs and it should work, consumption wise. The meats consist of Spam, canned chicken, canned ham, and canned salmon.

It would get old but you wouldn't starve.


Jack

 

[Spreadfire Arms]

thanks to everyone for contributing.

i didnt even think of packing soap and toiletries. ill be sure to fill a plastic tub with toilet paper, a new toothbrush (.99 cents but subequently invaluable later), toothpaste, contact lens stuff, soap, a stick of deodorant, camping mirror, etc.

also i'd need some cooking & eating utensils, even if it is just plastic forks/spoons/knives for eating and one large metal spoon and fork. maybe some of those little salt & pepper packets you get for free at fast food joints.

i also have to get camping supplies, which is basically a sleeping bag and a propane stove. and of course i'd need a few small bottles of propane.

i should also go to radio shack and buy a small AM/FM pocket radio that takes AA batteries, since that is what i stocked up with.

another thing i'd need is a camper shell or something similar. putting all your bugout supplies in the truck bed is fine until you bottleneck and people next to you help themselves to your supplies. supposedly this happened during the evacuation of Houston. as people were sitting in gridlock, others were coming up and stealing their stuff. at least with a camper shell it is out of sight, although by no means theft-proof. but hey they can't steal what they can't see.

there are alot of variables to SHTF. bugging out seems like much more of a production that staying put and holing up.

of course, holing up is very limited. in the event of a dirty bomb, pandemic, natural disaster, etc, you simply won't have that choice.

someone once told me his buddy stocked up on a bunch of cheap pistols. the $99 miltary surplus guns, etc. get a few of those and a few boxes of ammo for each. his belief was that you could trade these for things you needed. say a pistol and 100 rounds of ammo for water or some other supply.

the only thing i didn't like was bartering a gun and ammo to someone who could shoot you after giving you supplies. that didn't seem like a good idea to me. but if you are giving it to someone you trust, like arming an unarmed family member, then it's a different scenario.

 

[wolf_from_wv]

What do you do about the pets if you have to leave?


Pour "flat" water in between two containers (don't spill any) to reoxygenate it...

 

[chopinbloc]

I found that I like the beef and bean burritos the best

dude, there is something seriously wrong with you. beef? well, in the sense that it came off a cow. bean? sure, probably, though it would be nice if the beans were COOKED. burrito? hardly.

MREs will keep you alive and some of the new ones are actually pretty good but after a few days they get old, a few weeks and you start to lose your appetite, a few months and your really want to KILL. hmmmmm. they also make you poop less. good to have on hand especially if you do have to bug out but canned and dry goods are way better.

 

[Daniel964]

What do you do about the pets if you have to leave?

Godzilla the dog goes with us. We have a one year supply of dry dog food for him that is rotated.

I do have a 4X8 foot covered trailer that will hold everything if we had to leave. It might take 2-3 hours to load everthing but I hope I know when its time to leave and beat the main rush. We are also on the southwest edge of town and we would need to head south so not many people on our route.

 

[dmftoy1]

dude, there is something seriously wrong with you. beef? well, in the sense that it came off a cow. bean? sure, probably, though it would be nice if the beans were COOKED. burrito? hardly.

MREs will keep you alive and some of the new ones are actually pretty good but after a few days they get old, a few weeks and you start to lose your appetite, a few months and your really want to KILL. hmmmmm. they also make you poop less. good to have on hand especially if you do have to bug out but canned and dry goods are way better.

Oh I agree completely, but they were nowhere near as bad as I thought they'd be! My view is the MRE's is that they are in the BOB that I have to carry on my back and if I'm hungry they'd be fine. We have a larder for if we "bug in".

I was surprised that they weren't like the K rations (or was it C rations?) that my dad used to bring home from the base when I was growing up. (used them for box lunches in school. ) They came in a cardboard box with a can opener and had stuff like a brownie in a can which I always thought was pretty cool.

Have a good one,
Dave

 

[Preacherman]

I found that I like the beef and bean burritos the best

Well, this has the obvious side benefit of ensuring an adequate supply of gas...

 

[Mnemesyne]

on the food side..don't forget raw honey...honey can literally last thousands of years if stored properly and still be a viable food source (if I'm remembering properly, I believe the honey found was around 3300 years old and was in an ancient Egyptian tomb)

Honey has many uses, from medicinal to nutritional....and it's relatively easy to store/pack...


Oh, another good item to keep in your kits...cornstarch...works as a natural blood clotting agent...


Mneme