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My Oh-Oh It's Happening Survival List
What's happening? It's happening! And you need to be prepared!
What is it? Who knows! This isn't about any particular "it" because right now
it could be a cyclone.
it could be a flood.
it could be another baby to welcome into the family.
it could be job loss.
it could be a new job.
iIt could be chickenpox or the flu or tonsillitis.
it could be a recession.
it could be the power going down for a week.
i could be the water supply going down for a week (and this happened in Melbourne late last year).
it could be a drought.
it could be a transport strike.
it could just be a bout of the "I don't cares".
Whatever it is in your life, if it is happening you need to be prepared.
Before last year I wouldn't have put a pandemic and six month lockdown high on my list of things to prepare for, but boy was I wrong! They're up there now. But really lockdown wasn't hard for us because we are prepared.
The pantry is always stocked. We grow a reasonable garden. We cook from scratch, using ingredients; we don't rely on supermarkets to keep us fed, or clean, or our home clean.
Towards the end of last year a viewer over on our YouTube channel suggested that I'd be better talking about how to write a shopping list and sharing recipes instead of doing shows that were nothing but doom and gloom. I've thought a lot about that.
This is real life folks. We don't live in a fairy tale. If you want all sweetness and light and fairy dust, this isn't the place for you and I'm not the person you need to listen too.
I say it as I see it. Right now, we are being told that our economy is picking up, that things are great; but then a couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister was warning that the next twelve months are going to be hard still. Perhaps our politicians have been sprinkled with that fairy dust because no, things aren't that great. It seems to me that no one really knows what is happening, or when the world will get back on track.
You think nothing of getting together clothes and bedding and other necessities ahead of time when you're expecting a new baby.
It's no different preparing ahead for "it", disaster or otherwise.
How do you prepare? Simple - you do a little bit each day to build your home and family, build your pantry, build your emergency fund, pay down debt. You do a little bit each day to learn a new skill, to become more self-sufficient and less reliant on the shops and services around you.
I'm not saying you spend hours and hours and hours on these things each day, but as you're doing something, think about what you can do to make it easier or faster or safer for when IT happens in the future.
Think about what you'll need when IT happens whether it's a natural disaster, a pandemic, a man made crisis or whatever.
The first thing you need is shelter. You have a home now, a roof over your head, but if that roof is blown off, or the floors under that roof are under water, what shelter do you have? Find out where you would need to go under those circumstances. Do you have a tent that will give you shelter? Or a caravan or camper trailer? Of the three, the tent is the cheapest, and no, I'm not telling you to race out and buy a tent. But if you already have one, will it be enough to provide the shelter you need until IT is over?
Last summer was awful for Australia. The bush fires, well I was starting to think they'd never burn out. People were evacuated, often with very little notice (those wind changes don't call ahead to let you know they're happening). One family who was prepared really stood out to me. This young couple knew if they had to evacuate, they'd need to take things with them. They prepared ahead. They cleaned up the yard around their home. They made sure the windows were all easily closed. They packed go bags with clothes, toiletries and medications. They packed go bags for their pets and made sure the pet cages were at the back door ready to use. They prepared their camper trailer and hitched it to the 4WD in preparation for a speedy evacuation. All their important documents were gathered and in a file ready to grab. Turns out they did have to evacuate and they were able to leave their home in under 30 minutes. All they had to do was put the pets in the cages and into the car, take the food from the fridge in the house to the fridge in the camper, put the go bags in the car and then get the kids and go. They made sure the power was off to the house, all the windows were closed and blinds drawn, and then they locked the back door and left. They were prepared.
I hope that you never have to face an evacuation in a crisis like that, but you still need to be prepared.
So find out where you'd shelter in a natural disaster.
The second thing you need is water, and yes, I've put water before food. You can go without food for a while, but you can't go without water. On a tight water budget you need 5 litres per person per day. This is enough for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene. It is suggested that you have at least a three day water supply on hand. Now that doesn't mean you need to rush out and buy water. Chances are you'll have a bit of notice if the water is going to go off, so you will be able to fill the bath and any bottles or buckets you have. If you have rain barrels they can be filled if they're not already. There are lots of options for storing water from simply reusing clean milk bottles to buying very expensive under the house water bladders. Just think about it, and have a plan in place. Oh, and don't forget to include water for your pets!
Number three you'll be glad to know is food. We all need to eat. It really depends on the emergency, but this is when having a stocked pantry is a blessing. Last year during the six month lockdown, our pantry fed us. I topped up with one click'n'collect order a month for fruit and veggies and whatever dairy we needed. I didn't go to a butcher or greengrocer or supermarket for months because I plan ahead and keep the pantry stocked. And we ate like we normally do, again because the pantry was and is stocked with ingredients.
Ingredients give you options folks!
Start growing at least some of what you eat. That old "I have brown thumbs" or "I don't have time/space to grow food" excuse is just that - an excuse. You can grow some of what you eat if you want to! You don't need to grow everything you eat, even I don't do that. But growing some gives you a source of fresh food if you can't get to a shop or market.
The other thing to consider is shelf life. All pantries should run on a first in, first used basis, which just means when you buy a box of Weet-bix, the new box goes behind the box on the shelf so the older one is used first. That's just common sense and we should all do that whether we have a one week pantry or a one year pantry. There's nothing sadder than having to throw out food (and so money) because you didn't use it before it went off.
Remember: first in, first used. Keep that pantry rotating!
Think about more shelf stable foods too. Why? Well generally there's a lot of money tied up in your freezer, and if the power were out for any length of time wouldn't you be devastated to lose it? Sure, insurance may cover some of it, but what a waste of money, time, effort and food. Think about doing more dehydrating, water bathing and pressure canning, and building up your shelf stable food supply.
Think about how long you can survive eating just from the food you have in the house today. A week? A fortnight? A month? Three months? Longer? Then think about how long you might possibly need to eat from the pantry in an emergency. Do they match? Do you need to work on building that pantry? Everyone will have a different answer, and that's fine. There is no one answer fits all when it comes to stocking a pantry. But if you find your answers don't match your expectation, and that in a crisis you might run out of food before you could shop again, think about how you can build your pantry so that you will have food security.
I'm not for one minute suggesting that you keep an "emergency pantry" full of dehydrated or tinned meals and freeze dried packets. Yuk! But think about the ingredients you store and how they can be used, and how long they'll last on the shelf or in the freezer or fridge. Check out my Forever Foods video for shelf-stable foods that last, well pretty much forever.
Remember that building your pantry will take time, unless you're really rich and can go and buy three months of everything right now. So make a list of what you need and when those items come on sale, stock up.
Number four would be a source of cooking, heating water and even heating the house. If the power were to go out, the stove and/or oven won't work. If the gas goes, again the cooktop and/or oven won't work. If you use either of those methods to heat water then you won't have hot water either. Power is out, no air con. Gas is out, no ducted heating. We have a couple of small single burner camp stoves that run on bottled gas, as well as our barbecue for cooking. This is our second home with a wood burning fire and that will be one of the must haves for our next home too. Not only does it heat the house in winter, and dry the clothes, but I can use the top to heat water or cook a pot of soup or beans if necessary. As an aside, firewood isn't cheap to buy, so we collect as much as we can each year, but it's still cheaper than running the ducted heating.
And lastly number five- money! Cash is king folks. I know that during the pandemic crisis we were all being encouraged to ignore cash and use cards but frankly, if the power is out, there' s no way to process the card. If you have some cash you'll still be able to trade. Germ phobias aside (because there are a lot more germ laden things we touch every day besides cash) when you live on a cash budget you don't overspend because you don't have it to spend. And you can still do some good haggling when you have cash, more so than when you pay even with an EFTPOS transaction.
Prepare for financial disaster by paying down debt, not incurring any new debt and building your emergency fund. Right now interest rates are low, so once you've built a three month emergency fund, throw everything you have at your debt - loans, mortgage, credit card, whatever it is. Get rid of that debt as quickly as you can. Then focus again on building your emergency fund up to at least twelve months of living expenses.
Personally one year of living expenses gives me the sense of security I need to face whatever comes. It may be different for you, but certainly nothing less than three months.
Yes, it takes time to build an emergency fund, and guess what else it takes to build an emergency fund? Sacrifice. I know that's a word some of you don't like, but you need to get over it. If you want to build your emergency fund quickly, you'll need to give up unnecessary spending. It's not forever - just until you reach your goal.
It's not just the boy scouts who need to be prepared, we all need to be prepared for the future. Build your pantry. Learn to grow at least some of the food you eat. Build cash saving. Pay down your debt. Learn to be self-sufficient. Learn to not rely on supermarkets, and Governments to keep supermarket shelves full. Learn not to rely on Governments to support you - earn the money you need and spend it wisely. Stop expecting "the Government" to fix whatever problem you have.
There is no excuse for not doing something to get ahead; to prepare for the future. If you're reading this then you have access to the Internet. That's a whole world of information at your fingertips. Use it. Learn what you need. Don't take my word for it, do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Make a plan and then put that plan into action so you create your very own oh-oh it's happening survival list.
What is it? Who knows! This isn't about any particular "it" because right now
it could be a cyclone.
it could be a flood.
it could be another baby to welcome into the family.
it could be job loss.
it could be a new job.
iIt could be chickenpox or the flu or tonsillitis.
it could be a recession.
it could be the power going down for a week.
i could be the water supply going down for a week (and this happened in Melbourne late last year).
it could be a drought.
it could be a transport strike.
it could just be a bout of the "I don't cares".
Whatever it is in your life, if it is happening you need to be prepared.
Before last year I wouldn't have put a pandemic and six month lockdown high on my list of things to prepare for, but boy was I wrong! They're up there now. But really lockdown wasn't hard for us because we are prepared.
The pantry is always stocked. We grow a reasonable garden. We cook from scratch, using ingredients; we don't rely on supermarkets to keep us fed, or clean, or our home clean.
Towards the end of last year a viewer over on our YouTube channel suggested that I'd be better talking about how to write a shopping list and sharing recipes instead of doing shows that were nothing but doom and gloom. I've thought a lot about that.
This is real life folks. We don't live in a fairy tale. If you want all sweetness and light and fairy dust, this isn't the place for you and I'm not the person you need to listen too.
I say it as I see it. Right now, we are being told that our economy is picking up, that things are great; but then a couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister was warning that the next twelve months are going to be hard still. Perhaps our politicians have been sprinkled with that fairy dust because no, things aren't that great. It seems to me that no one really knows what is happening, or when the world will get back on track.
You think nothing of getting together clothes and bedding and other necessities ahead of time when you're expecting a new baby.
It's no different preparing ahead for "it", disaster or otherwise.
How do you prepare? Simple - you do a little bit each day to build your home and family, build your pantry, build your emergency fund, pay down debt. You do a little bit each day to learn a new skill, to become more self-sufficient and less reliant on the shops and services around you.
I'm not saying you spend hours and hours and hours on these things each day, but as you're doing something, think about what you can do to make it easier or faster or safer for when IT happens in the future.
Think about what you'll need when IT happens whether it's a natural disaster, a pandemic, a man made crisis or whatever.
The first thing you need is shelter. You have a home now, a roof over your head, but if that roof is blown off, or the floors under that roof are under water, what shelter do you have? Find out where you would need to go under those circumstances. Do you have a tent that will give you shelter? Or a caravan or camper trailer? Of the three, the tent is the cheapest, and no, I'm not telling you to race out and buy a tent. But if you already have one, will it be enough to provide the shelter you need until IT is over?
Last summer was awful for Australia. The bush fires, well I was starting to think they'd never burn out. People were evacuated, often with very little notice (those wind changes don't call ahead to let you know they're happening). One family who was prepared really stood out to me. This young couple knew if they had to evacuate, they'd need to take things with them. They prepared ahead. They cleaned up the yard around their home. They made sure the windows were all easily closed. They packed go bags with clothes, toiletries and medications. They packed go bags for their pets and made sure the pet cages were at the back door ready to use. They prepared their camper trailer and hitched it to the 4WD in preparation for a speedy evacuation. All their important documents were gathered and in a file ready to grab. Turns out they did have to evacuate and they were able to leave their home in under 30 minutes. All they had to do was put the pets in the cages and into the car, take the food from the fridge in the house to the fridge in the camper, put the go bags in the car and then get the kids and go. They made sure the power was off to the house, all the windows were closed and blinds drawn, and then they locked the back door and left. They were prepared.
I hope that you never have to face an evacuation in a crisis like that, but you still need to be prepared.
So find out where you'd shelter in a natural disaster.
The second thing you need is water, and yes, I've put water before food. You can go without food for a while, but you can't go without water. On a tight water budget you need 5 litres per person per day. This is enough for drinking, cooking and personal hygiene. It is suggested that you have at least a three day water supply on hand. Now that doesn't mean you need to rush out and buy water. Chances are you'll have a bit of notice if the water is going to go off, so you will be able to fill the bath and any bottles or buckets you have. If you have rain barrels they can be filled if they're not already. There are lots of options for storing water from simply reusing clean milk bottles to buying very expensive under the house water bladders. Just think about it, and have a plan in place. Oh, and don't forget to include water for your pets!
Number three you'll be glad to know is food. We all need to eat. It really depends on the emergency, but this is when having a stocked pantry is a blessing. Last year during the six month lockdown, our pantry fed us. I topped up with one click'n'collect order a month for fruit and veggies and whatever dairy we needed. I didn't go to a butcher or greengrocer or supermarket for months because I plan ahead and keep the pantry stocked. And we ate like we normally do, again because the pantry was and is stocked with ingredients.
Ingredients give you options folks!
Start growing at least some of what you eat. That old "I have brown thumbs" or "I don't have time/space to grow food" excuse is just that - an excuse. You can grow some of what you eat if you want to! You don't need to grow everything you eat, even I don't do that. But growing some gives you a source of fresh food if you can't get to a shop or market.
The other thing to consider is shelf life. All pantries should run on a first in, first used basis, which just means when you buy a box of Weet-bix, the new box goes behind the box on the shelf so the older one is used first. That's just common sense and we should all do that whether we have a one week pantry or a one year pantry. There's nothing sadder than having to throw out food (and so money) because you didn't use it before it went off.
Remember: first in, first used. Keep that pantry rotating!
Think about more shelf stable foods too. Why? Well generally there's a lot of money tied up in your freezer, and if the power were out for any length of time wouldn't you be devastated to lose it? Sure, insurance may cover some of it, but what a waste of money, time, effort and food. Think about doing more dehydrating, water bathing and pressure canning, and building up your shelf stable food supply.
Think about how long you can survive eating just from the food you have in the house today. A week? A fortnight? A month? Three months? Longer? Then think about how long you might possibly need to eat from the pantry in an emergency. Do they match? Do you need to work on building that pantry? Everyone will have a different answer, and that's fine. There is no one answer fits all when it comes to stocking a pantry. But if you find your answers don't match your expectation, and that in a crisis you might run out of food before you could shop again, think about how you can build your pantry so that you will have food security.
I'm not for one minute suggesting that you keep an "emergency pantry" full of dehydrated or tinned meals and freeze dried packets. Yuk! But think about the ingredients you store and how they can be used, and how long they'll last on the shelf or in the freezer or fridge. Check out my Forever Foods video for shelf-stable foods that last, well pretty much forever.
Remember that building your pantry will take time, unless you're really rich and can go and buy three months of everything right now. So make a list of what you need and when those items come on sale, stock up.
Number four would be a source of cooking, heating water and even heating the house. If the power were to go out, the stove and/or oven won't work. If the gas goes, again the cooktop and/or oven won't work. If you use either of those methods to heat water then you won't have hot water either. Power is out, no air con. Gas is out, no ducted heating. We have a couple of small single burner camp stoves that run on bottled gas, as well as our barbecue for cooking. This is our second home with a wood burning fire and that will be one of the must haves for our next home too. Not only does it heat the house in winter, and dry the clothes, but I can use the top to heat water or cook a pot of soup or beans if necessary. As an aside, firewood isn't cheap to buy, so we collect as much as we can each year, but it's still cheaper than running the ducted heating.
And lastly number five- money! Cash is king folks. I know that during the pandemic crisis we were all being encouraged to ignore cash and use cards but frankly, if the power is out, there' s no way to process the card. If you have some cash you'll still be able to trade. Germ phobias aside (because there are a lot more germ laden things we touch every day besides cash) when you live on a cash budget you don't overspend because you don't have it to spend. And you can still do some good haggling when you have cash, more so than when you pay even with an EFTPOS transaction.
Prepare for financial disaster by paying down debt, not incurring any new debt and building your emergency fund. Right now interest rates are low, so once you've built a three month emergency fund, throw everything you have at your debt - loans, mortgage, credit card, whatever it is. Get rid of that debt as quickly as you can. Then focus again on building your emergency fund up to at least twelve months of living expenses.
Personally one year of living expenses gives me the sense of security I need to face whatever comes. It may be different for you, but certainly nothing less than three months.
Yes, it takes time to build an emergency fund, and guess what else it takes to build an emergency fund? Sacrifice. I know that's a word some of you don't like, but you need to get over it. If you want to build your emergency fund quickly, you'll need to give up unnecessary spending. It's not forever - just until you reach your goal.
It's not just the boy scouts who need to be prepared, we all need to be prepared for the future. Build your pantry. Learn to grow at least some of the food you eat. Build cash saving. Pay down your debt. Learn to be self-sufficient. Learn to not rely on supermarkets, and Governments to keep supermarket shelves full. Learn not to rely on Governments to support you - earn the money you need and spend it wisely. Stop expecting "the Government" to fix whatever problem you have.
There is no excuse for not doing something to get ahead; to prepare for the future. If you're reading this then you have access to the Internet. That's a whole world of information at your fingertips. Use it. Learn what you need. Don't take my word for it, do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Make a plan and then put that plan into action so you create your very own oh-oh it's happening survival list.
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