Kellene Bishop of Preparedness Pro has issued a challenge. I learn a lot from the Preparedness Pro website. It is because of her recommendation that I bought the solar oven, which I love. It has worked just fine through the winter months . . so long as we have sunshine and we almost always have plenty of sunshine.
There are a lot of things we do as far as being prepared that I don’t talk about on the blog but Kellene talks about way more than I do so I highly recommend her site for anyone with any concern about our future . . and I’m not going into all the reasons why folks, or myself, prepare . . but I do.
I have no idea what the chances are that any of our prepping efforts might some day save our lives, or even make living conditions more bearable. Life as we know it may continue as we know it but it’s a hobby for me and it never hurts to be prepared, so long as I’m using all the things I store and I do, I enjoy the prepping.
Through the years and my research, I have learned enough and been able to do enough that I feel somewhat confident in every area of my prepping, except one area — water storage. I never could get Vince to get on board with installing a rain collection system. We get so very little rain here and installing a system that would be adequate to catch every drop of rain that falls would be expensive and would probably provide enough water for us to survive but would never provide enough water for us to keep a garden and fruit trees watered. When I thought about having a sufficient water supply to do the following, I knew we would come up short.
- keep the garden/fruit trees growing
- wash the produce the garden/fruit trees produce
- keep the chickens watered
- provide water for cooking, drinking, cleaning (pots/pans/ourselves)
I’ve never been a fan of generators, even though we have several, and for those who love them and who feel secure because you have one . . great! I don’t want to have to deal with finding fuel for one if there’s a long time power outage and because of the expense of installing and running a whole house generator, and the few times it is needed, I’ll never have one of those. To me, being self-sufficient, which I know we will never be totally 100% self-sufficient, does not mean relying on getting gas from the local gas station when they’re also without power, in order to run my generator. Did you see the lines of folks trying to get gas after Hurricane Sandy? I want to know that if I need it, I have it right here and I’m not counting on anyone for anything if ever such a scenario happens that my preparedness skills are called into action.
I was never satisfied with our water supply. Now that we have the second well, which will be run totally by a solar pump, and we will have a 3,000 gallon tank full of water at all times, I’m happy with our water situation.
Back to Kellene’s challenge . . she’s issued a challenge and you can read about it on the link above. I will deviate just a bit from her specified “rules”. We have some things (insurance, electric bill for sure) that come out of our account monthly. I’m not going to try to change those things or pre-pay them. Our pig will be ready to be picked up during this time and I thought about pre-paying the majority of the butchering cost but that was something that was planned way before the challenge and is not a routine expense so when the pig is ready, I’ll go pick it up and pay for it and not worry about it.
What I am going to do is try to mostly live off what we have here for that month. It will be, for me, more of a challenge to see if I can live off my supplies for a month . . not so much to live off $250 cash. I will make a point not to order yarn (oh . . I forgot . . I was already doing that!) That is really about the only thing I spend money on anyway! During that time, if the Second Quarter Challenge is posted at The Loopy Ewe, I will order for that. You get extra points for that so I’m sure Kellene would understand and besides . . that order probably will not cause me to go over $250 in spending for the month anyway.
I just thought I’d pass along the challenge information to any who are not Preparedness Pro fans. Even if you don’t want to participate, you may want to follow along and watch those of us who do participate.
I love a good challenge and am looking forward to it.
pdudgeon says
it’s definitely an interesting challenge, I’ll give her that.
Living in the city in an apartment with no yard, and with temp controlled storage for food being confined to the square footage of the apt itself, we’re limited on just how prepared we can be. I agree that it would be great if we owned free and clear 5 acres of land, had well water, and we grew all our own food and meat. in that case it would be possible to be self-sufficient, but that’s not the case for a majority of people today.
Nonetheless, i definitely applaud all your efforts in meeting the challenge, Judy.
Judy L. says
I understand that not everyone can, and not everyone who can, wants to do it but it was important to us, after having lived through hurricanes, ice storms and snow storms, and seeing how quickly stores can run out of food, and how long it can take for power to be restored, to be prepared. That’s why we made the decision to move to Texas, even though it was a hard decision, and that’s why we struggled to find the right piece of property. We knew what we wanted and we knew what it would take to live the lifestyle we wanted to live. There’s nothing wrong with living in town, or in a apartment, if that’s what’s right for you. The important thing, in my opinion, is that we all know what’s right for us and work toward living that “right” lifestyle.
Norma says
Interesting challenge. Good luck and I applaud your life style. Watch out for that “yarn fairy” during the challenge.
Jackie says
I”m looking forward to reading about your experiences. We live in the city too but I’ve often felt there are things we can do to be more prepared. While we also don’t have the ability/capacity to store water (and do not WANT to store gas) we could certainly do better than what we’ve done so far. It will be interesting to read of your experiences!
Helen Koenig1 says
Definitely am planning on it. I guess – NO MORE hot caramel mochas (ok – so, I’m addicted! May make them at home though) Hmmm – in terms of weekly $$$ that is a little more than $60 a week anyway – which really isn’t bad! I DO need to stock up on powdered egg though (I can’t have chickens drat it anyway!) and a few other things so may do that ahead of time!
Helen Koenig1 says
BTW – are we hopefully posting a weekly $$$ spending tally towards the $250 max and what we spent on (general terms like meds,, bills, that kind of thing) on here? Seems like it would be a lot of fun that way! And might keep me – uhhh, us honest!
Judy D in WA says
I do something like this challenge every once in a while. I don’t prepay the basic bills or anything like that but I give myself a spending budget that includes gas and groceries. Or I do a only eat from what is in the kitchen or pantry-that included the kitchen freezer and not the 2 big freezers……It really opens up the eyes and makes me see that I can use what I have. Bonus is the fridge and freezer gets cleared out.
Now my mind is working on how prepared am I really?!?
Freda Henderson says
We aren’t preppers here, I really can’t grasp the concept, but we have survived all natural disaster without much sufferage on our or our pets part. Glad everyone has the right to do what they want in this country.