One step at a time.

So where to begin, the logical place food.  First this is my financial situation, my mother gets $1,000 a month in social security, I for being her in-home care giver receives $800 a month, a far cry from what I use to make, so by the time I take out house payment and my car payment (only have a year left ) and utilities, diapers and care product for mom, property taxes &*^%$ and food, I have about $100 left. I am telling you this so you can see if  I can do it, you can! When I go to the market I buy a couple extra caned food items, mostly tuna, chicken, corned beef and food stretchers, pastas, rice (the big bags) beans, crushed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce oat meal, cream of wheat. I purchased on sale. You don't have to go nuts.  A good storing item that is cheap and most people and kids will eat are raman noodles and cups of noodles, I can get a 6 pack for $1.99 on sale. So that is a start, remember to only get food you like and will eat and for you ladies with kids, you can pick out a teat or two, say raisins, caned peaches, applesauce, cake mixes, powdered fruit drinks coco, not exactly treats they would think of  but a treat if things are hard. Water buy a gallon or 2 each time you go to the store. Food will add up quickly so don't be like me, (food in boxes, for the time being, I hope) try to have a shelving unit, yard sales a good place to find those reasonably, so if you have a spare room, corner of your garage you are ahead of the game. You want to stack your food in a way that you can rotate it for use, here is a good shelving product I'd love to have, shelfreliance-food-rotation-systems for large cans. Another good thing about having extra food on hand are for those days your under the weather and don't want to go to the store and you just can't stomic that can a asparagus soup on the shelf. Now I didn't give you a detailed list of foods, because common sense will take over, like powdered mike, non asparagus soups. Now if you have pets don't forget them always keep a few weeks supple for them, one of the reasons I buy the Big bags of rice and beans is that when cooked with a can of meat, vegtabels, that could be shared with the pets...that might just be me. So it doesn't have to be daunting to start don't stress over it (wish I could fallow that advise)  do not let this food storage calculator overwhelm you family-survival-planning food-storage-calculator , it is a guideline. now if you have the money to buy the freeze dried meals all the more power to you, there are plenty of good choices out there here are a couple that I would like to try a few entries from, like the beef stroganoff mountainhouse foodinsurance I have included an LDS site that will help also and has links well-being/home-storage
     One thing you need to think about are medicines, now as you know I care for my Mother, and she takes a ton of meds, so what I have done is take a couple pills a month from each prescription (of what I consider life saving) and put that aside, mom is on blood thinners so one thing I have done is stock up on aspirin, in a pinch they would work, also think about every day readies, of course you know to get a first aid kit, but what about pain relievers, allergy, cold tabs, peroxide, and femana products now before you start throwing up your hands an screaming "What does she think I am made of money!" three words the dollar store. Well I think I have given you a place to start and some links to help. Also get some books: don't buy them go to the Library and look some up and place them on hold. That way you are not throwing your money at a book that might not tell you anything more then a web site might, I do this with all books that I am interested in, if I like it, then I go to amazon or half.com a get a used copy. Next time ladies we'll dig a little deeper...But think about this, how do you feel about Chickens?

We begin, well I begin, we join a work in progress.

So how did I come to the conclusion that I should get myself prepared for the worst while hoping for the best, it wasn't an epiphany it was a culmanition of things. First I lost what I thought was my dream job, I was so sure it was going to be the end all be all job, that I decided to sell my home and build an addition onto my mom's house, (she had suffered a 3rd stroke) well it didn't quite turn out that way. A little history is in order; I had spent 16 years as the lead custodian for my church, I was in charge of 19 buildings.  The church decided that they were going to faze out paid custodians and move into membership involvement in the cleaning of our buildings. Seeing the writing on the wall I started shopping myself around found the above mentioned dream job (My time in Hell) at a time share resort, things were great at first I was turning the house keeping department around, when they hired a new resort manager. Now we have all met a person that we know is the spawn of a satin, well this was one of those people, within a week I was in this Cruella De Vil's office several times a day (I was salary so I was already working 12hr days) I was being grilled all  the time being berated for anything she could think of...this went on for a month until I had a brake down of sorts, my doctor told me get out or I would end up in the hospital. Having worked for my church for so long I was not prepared, no, not capable of realizing that some people were incapable of any honer, integrity.  Most of the people there were backstabbers, liars. I was naive and could not accept there was not loyalty. Well I left. I found out the reason the she devil was hounding me was she wanted me gone so her boyfriend could have my position (I wonder what her husband thought.  Here Is the you reap what you sew, a little sugar for the sting. A few months after I quit, most of the people there were either fired or went to jail for embezzlement, WOOT.
     So out of work I was talked into helping a theather friend start a restaurant, you know what they say, don't work for a friend, after 2 years I had had enough, I left and left my recipes behind. After having the same job for 16 years here I was having and leaving 2 jobs in 3 years, all the time working on my addition and caring more and more for my mom who's health continued to deteriorate until I ended up being her in home care giver. So there I was all my savings put into the house that is still not completely finished (trim, work grouting on my fire place) as you can imagine money became very tight. Bless the church's heart they fould out about my situation and helped us with food. That was the start of deciding to be as self sufficient as possible, I had worked all my life and did not like being a charity case. Being LDS we believe in having food storage, and I had a little which we went though quickly, there were a hole lot of self doubt and miss steps along the way. One rainy day I turned on Fox in the afternoon (don't you just hate daytime TV) anyway STAY WITH ME Glenn Beck came on What ever you heard about him,  99% is a lie. I had seen him a couple of times when he was on CNN never gave him much of a thought. However, that day Beck was talking about being prepared, and being a help to others, the 9-12 project! So I became one of those people who watch afternoon TV well one program anyway and that was the big catalyst in my attempt to help myself and hopeful other ladies or a anyone be prepared, for a natural disaster, financial collapse, JOB Loss, terrorist attack. This blog is all about not only helping yourself  survive but to be a help to others also. Next post I will show you how I got started and where I'm heading and where you can be heading also.