Frugal Emergency Preparedness (L-O-N-G)

Don’t think you can afford to be prepared in an emergency? Here are some items useful for sheltering in place or for bugging out on an extended stay—or just going camping!

Some of these items are already around the house, others you might have to get—it doesn’t matter how. Purchasing, borrowing, finding, trading, or dumpster-diving, take your pick, because nobody will know the difference. Here are some ideas:

For general use:
batteries, AA, C and D
folding chairs/collapsible table
rope/string
paper towels
hammer
utility knife/duct tape/scissors
staple gun
shower curtain liners/small tarps
first aid kit
buckets w/lids
canopy/tent stakes
old Boy Scout manual or field manual
battery-powered radio or other news-gathering device

For cooking/kitchen use:
camp stove
Coleman fuel/propane bottles
can opener/kitchen knife/serving spoon
pots/pans/broiler pan top/grill type rack
dishes/cutlery for eating
cups for drinking
scrubber sponge
soaps for hands/dishes
dish drainer
BBQ tools/potholders
cutting board/large bowl
zippy bags (all sizes)
tea bags/sugar
spices
cooking oil/spray
dish towels/paper towels
garbage bags
gallon jugs of water
aluminum foil (HD)

For personal/laundry use:
ditty bag w/hygiene items
TP
clothes pins
towels for bathing
first aid kit
table cloth
clothing
spare shoes/socks
sleeping gear
extra sheets/pillows/blankets
bug spray
tent

For lighting use:
flashlights/candles
lanterns/spare mantles
mirrors (for reflecting light)
hurricane lamps/lamp oil

For fire:
concrete stepping stones/old car tire rim (for ground fires)
fire poker
wire cutters for small branches
axe/shovel/hand saw
charcoal/kindling/starter fluid
matches/lighters/grill lighter

For pets:
crate carriers
adequate wet/dry food and supplements
dishes for food/water
blankets/sheets for sleep/privacy while in crates
comb/brush for comfort
copy of papers for an emergency vet visit
litter/boxes/shovel

Some of my own makeshift items:
1. Two laundry baskets inverted on top of each other, laced together, make an animal crate.

2. A foil turkey roaster pan, a little charcoal, and an oven rack over top make a dandy sidewalk BBQer.

3. Two colored shower curtain liners, pinned together at the top and draped over a low curtain rod, then staked down at the bottom make for a “quickie” tent. One shower curtain liner pinned to a normal clothesline and staked at the bottom make an excellent shelter or shade canopy.

4. Mirrors placed behind lit candles or other light sources double the available light. Use whatever mirrors you have, or place the light source close to immoveable mirrors, such as large wall-mounted, standing, or closet-door-mounted ones. Home Depot carries boxes of mirror tiles (12” X 12” size) for about $10, and these can become a permanent part of your stash in case of evacuation.

5. During an extended power outage, I boiled water for dishes in a large stew pot, turning my refrigerator’s vegetable crisper drawers into “sinks” for washing and rinsing dishes.

6. After three days without electricity, my chest freezer became my refrigerator—keeping things cold instead of frozen.

Some tips:

• Food in the garden that survived your particular emergency is still fresh food as long as it stays on the plant until absolutely needed for meals. This is food you never have to refrigerate unless there are leftovers.

• Get a fire going in the morning, and keep it going all day. Hot water or hot food needs are going to come up throughout the day, and fires take time to start and get hot. Use ground litter to feed it if necessary—leaves, twigs, branches, chunks of bark, mulch, whatever. Sending the kids out after kindling, and having them help break it up into small pieces, will help keep them busy and entertained.

• If you can or preserve food at home, this is an ideal situation for you to use some of your stocks. They need no refrigeration unless you have leftovers.

UPDATE: Meat can be canned just like produce, ad should be made part of your non-perishable food supply. Here's info from Mother Earth News about how to do it. This method can be used as emergency supplies only, or every day as a way of lowering the electricity bill.

• If you own a Food Saver, these sealed bags are wonderful substitutes for zippy bags, and some are even boilable—great for pre-made meals.

• Food can also be heated by putting it into a canning jar with tight lid, then immersing the whole thing in boiling water for a few minutes.

• I’ve read Amish stories about refrigerating leftover foods in canning jars immersed and stored in buckets of cold water, but I haven’t tried this myself to see if it works. I suppose items saved in plastic food storage containers or Food Saver bags would work just as well.

• In the list, I recommend an old Boy Scout manual. I say “old” because the ones published in the 80’s and beyond rely heavily on pre-manufactured gear and foods, and these items are expensive if bought new. An older boy Scout book, Field manual, or even an Army Field Survival Guide will be sufficient for information pertaining to fire-building, shelter-building, foraging, poisonous plant and animal identification, signs and signals, rope tying, direction finding, open fire cooking, etc.

• Dehydrated items like pasta, rice, beans, oatmeal, teabags, and drink mix powder can be had cheaply from any dollar store, poured into zippy bags, and included in your emergency stash. Spices and sugars can also be kept in zippy bags in the stash.

• Water can be stored in clean milk jugs, and gotten from the tap when times and water are good. Parmalat® and canned milk also work well in emergency stashes—they need no refrigeration until opened.

• Basically, if you can camp, you can pretty much survive an emergency where you lose power and possibly the use of your home for a short time.

Frugalites can build a collection of supplies one item at a time, starting now. Whether things are bought, salvaged, traded for, or dumpster-dived, it makes no difference. Just having the items at hand are what's necessary, and nobody's going to inspect the supplies for quality and newness.

Making a list of needed supplies, and acquiring them throughout the year will soon amass into quite a stockpile of emergency supplies that were previously thought of as unaffordable. By next hurricane season, they will come in quite handy.

If solo collection is not fruitful enough, band together with relatives, neighbors, and/or friends and divide the load--make a list and decide who is responsible for providing what to the supply pile. Then, decide where the supply stash is to be kept (hopefully at a pre-determined place of shelter, perhaps at one of the band's homes).

Now that the supply stash idea is complete, let’s look at the setting aside of money. Small amounts, stashed throughout the year, add up to some "bug out" money for gas, hotels, food, etc. Even the paltry figure of $5/month adds up to $60 in a year--not quite hotel money, granted, but serious gas money for evacuating, at the very least.

Here's a way to amass canned food: when items go on sale at say 3/$5 or some other multiple, put the third one (or whatever number extra) into the supply stash.

Kitchen utensils, pots & pans, oven mitts, and barbeque hibachis can do double duty in the disaster kit. Same for folding tables, folding chairs (director chairs work especially well), and dish drainers (yes, you will be doing dishes by hand during the emergency period). I find those small round tables with the screw-on legs to be most space-efficient.

Need I go on? Use what you have, and can get easily throughout the year, and assemble it well before disaster strikes. You can do quite well for yourself using a little information and a lot of imagination. How do I know all this? I just described most of the contents of my own "bug out" chest to you.