Advanced Topics in Preparedness

Here is where the rubber meets the road for me and G.W.!  We have decided to test our readiness to face adversity with a four-month experiment.  From December 1 until March 31 we are going to make an honest attempt to live solely from supplies we have on hand.

For virtually everything in life, practice makes perfect. When it comes to "prepping" I believe that practice is vital to success. You can have shelves and shelves full of cans and jars of food along with all the other things you think you'll need like toilet paper. But you won't have the assurance that you've thought of everything until you actually live from your stored supplies.

We decided on four months because that time period is easily translated into what we would need/use in one year. During our four month experiment, we plan to carefully log everything we use. Once we have that list of four month's worth of supplies, we can multiply by three and (theoretically) know what we'd need for one year.

Doing this dry run during the winter provides some extra challenges. Our garden will be buried under snow so we can't rely on it for food like we do in summer. The chickens don't lay as many eggs through the short daylight period of winter, so we can't expect a steady supply from them. This will force us to rely on food we have stored.

If we do buy something during the four months, it will either show us a hole in our supply plan or else something about our personalities that we couldn't or wouldn't make do or do without.  We do have a few exceptions to our "no purchases" rule. We'll be in the middle of some home renovation/remodeling projects through the winter. Things we need for those projects are allowable purchases.

Over these next four months (August through November) we will be getting ready for the four months without purchases. I'll be busy canning, freezing, and dehydrating produce.  And we'll be making our lists of things we need to buy for storage. 

In my next post, I'll explain to you how we are determining what and how much to have on hand to get us through four months without additional purchases.