Prepping on a cup o' joe - week 4 PRODUCE

This weeks cup is Produce. Fruits and veggies. You should plan on at least 2 cups per person per day. The USRDA (for what it's worth) is 2.5 cups of veggies and 1.5 cups of fruit.
There are a number of ways you can achieve produce preps, be sure to include a wide variety as eating dried apples and rasins will get old quickly.

If you have a backyard garden or even a few potted veggies on a balcony you're ahead of most people. I posted last week about garden seeds here Seeds of survival. Though I stick with those recommendations, even cheap hybrid seeds are better than nothing. However I strongly recommend that you read that post and educate yourself before storing cheap seeds.

My first recommendation for new preppers is canned goods. They're simple to store, fairly inexpensive on a per can basis, and easy to inventory. One can provides 3-4 half cup servings so you should plan on one can of fruit and two cans of veggies per person per day. They are pest proof and will last a very long time as long as they are properly stored. If you are concerned about moisture, consider waxing cans before storing them. A can of cheap veggies runs 40-50 cents around here.

In addition you can store dried fruits and veggies which store longer, weigh less, and take up less space. Real fruit leathers, applesauce and raisins are good choices. If you decide to go with some fruit leathers don't buy the 'candy' ones that are made by the snack companies like Betty Crocker - these are mostly sugar and have little nutritional value. Instead check the health food section of your grocery store. My family enjoys Fruit A Boo brand leathers.

You can also store canned soups as part of your produce.

For this weeks 'cup' you should purchase some combination of the following (make sure you get some fruits AND some veggies)

• 5 packages of quality, non-hybrid garden seeds
• 10-20 cans of veggies
• 5-10 cans of fruit
• 5-10 REAL fruit leathers
  
• 1 or 2 jars of applesauce
• a couple pounds of rasins or other dried fruit
• 10 cans of soup

Now you have a reasonable variety of food stored. You will need muchmore but next week we will look at medications & first aid.

Prepping on a cup o' joe - week 3 Protein

So we're going to spend one more week on foods just to get started then we're going to skip to another area. Let me say again that you need a well balanced diet to survive but since you can't buy everything at once this seems like the next logical choice.
This category would include things like meats, peanut butter, eggs, nuts, legumes, and hearty soups. A one month supply for one person might include:
10-15 # of meat &/or legumes
1 jar of peanut butter
3 dozen eggs
1 pound of nuts

Some easy, obvious choices for this week 'cup' are a combination of the following:

• 1-2 jars of peanut butter
• 1/2 lb nuts or seeds
  
• a dozen eggs - or for longer shelf life try frozen egg substitute or dried egg powder
• 6-10 cans of tuna fish, spam, vienna sausages, etc
• 6-10# of dried beans

In review you should now have enough water, grains, and protein items to last ONE person 15-30 days or a family of 4 about a week.

Prepping on a cup o' joe - week 2 RICE/PASTA

This was a real toss up choice for me. After water supplies are established you need to move on to food stores. The problem here is that you need to establish a good balance and you can't buy everything at once. The whole concept to 'prepping on a cup o' joe' is to take a small amount of money and make the most impact.
Ultimately I decided on rice and pasta because just about everyone eats some sort of rice or pasta. Produce and nuts can be gleaned in the wild if needed but you're not going to find macaroni growing on a bush. Nutrition-wise I probably should have gone with dried beans but opted not to for two reasons:
1. The price per pound is much higher (rice and pasta run about 50-75 cents per pound - beans are running $1-1.50/lb)
2. Beans by themselves are not particularly versatile.
The reasons I did chose rice and pasta were - they're quick and easy to prepare, fills you up, and (as I said before) costs about half what beans do so you're getting more bang for your buck.
For a years supply you should estimate 60 pounds of pasta and 40 pounds of rice. Brown rice does not store as long as white but it's better for you. If you don't use it at all now consider buying a pound or two and experimenting with it. Otherwise you should stick with the white rice even though it's not as nutrient dense as brown. Don't be afraid of whole rice if you're used to 'quick' or 'minute' rice. The only difference is patience and a little practice. Bulk rice takes alot longer to cook and requires more water, it also won't store as long once it's been cooked. We've only been using it for less than a year and I've been able to perfect my method in the microwave but still haven't mastered stove-top cooking yet.

So here's this weeks 'cup' (remember I'm aiming for about $15-20/week; you may have slightly more or less depending on the habit you're taming)

• 5 -10 pounds of bulk pasta - if you buy it in one pound packages it's going to cost you $1/lb unless you hit a really good sale. If you buy it in 3-5 lb packages you'll save 25-40%. Right now our local Hannaford's has 5# bags of macaroni, spaghetti, and tri-color rotini for $2.99 each.
  
• 10-20# of bulk rice - again, smaller packages will cost more. If memory serves me correctly this is also running 50-75 cents per pound but check your local stores to be sure. Don't forget to check the international foods section as they generally have very large bags of rice at pretty reasonable prices.

So there's your weekly cup. I'm considering a daily cup if anyone's interested. Seems many people do their shopping day by day, particularly those who have no children at home. Feel free to let me know what you think of the series.

Prepping on a cup o' joe - week 1 WATER

How much do you pay for your daily... whatever? Whether it's latte, coffee, soda, a newspaper; it costs money. My personal weakness is soda which costs at least $1 per day. I've heard that coffees can cost up to $5 per day. Now multiply that out over a week. For me that's at least $10 just for myself (not counting DH's habit). A quick calculation tells me that we spend about $20-30/ week on just our drinking habits. If you spend $5/day on yours then that's $25-30/week. If you could cut your consumption in half that would give you $10-$15/week to put towards preps.
In this series I hope to show you how you can build your preps weekly by spending a small amount to make a big dent in your preps.
Since water is one of your major preps and can be completed fairly quickly and inexpensively we will start there. It's next to impossible to store a years worth of water but 2 weeks is an attainable goal (that's 14 gallons per person). For those who are mathematically challenged; a case of bottled water is equal to 3 gallons.
This week spend your saved money on one or more of the following:

• gallons of bleach - for generic they run about $1.50 around here but we'll figure $2 - that will get you at least 5 gallons. Bleach can be used to treat water for storage and is inexpensive. I've been told it has a rather short shelf life though I've not tested that.
• 5 gallon water container - can be purchased at walmart for just over $10, fill it yourself at home. A gallon per day per person/ quart per day per pet.
• Empty foodsafe 55 gallon barrel - can be purchased from your local soda bottling plant VERY cheap. I'm told they're under $5 each when purchased direct but check your yellow pages for your local plant.
• prepackaged water - gallons are running about $1, cases of 16 oz bottles are about $3 on sale around here.

If you start using this plan I'd love to hear how you're progressing. Consider lettimg me know the number of people you're prepping for and what your weekly 'cup' (i.e. prepping budget) is.