Thinking of Prepping

Wow, things have turned pretty crazy, haven't they? With all the craziness going on, it's helped me see areas where we are pretty prepared and others that need more work. We have enough food to last awhile (wheat for bread, beans and rice, etc.) but not everything I would want and definitely not a lot of variety. The things we lack the most are meats (canned or frozen) and canned or frozen produce. We're also good on things like toilet paper and diapers for a short while, but not very long term. 

It's gotten Ben and I to talk more about how we want to prepare better moving forward. It's been a real wake up call to us and I'm grateful for that. 

The first thing I've done is made a list of everything I'd like to have in our long term storage and how much of each item. I love lists like this and we can begin slowly building this list up as the craziness dies down. 

The other thing we've decided to do is invest some of our emergency fund into food. We currently have $15,000 in the bank in case of emergency, enough for us to keep a minimum budget (i.e. no pizza or Netflix) for six months. This has been great to have as Ben's business has brought in less the last couple of years. We haven't had to tap into it, but it's been wonderful to have. 

However, with how bare the store shelves have been the last few weeks, I've realized that there are a lot of situations that could come up where the money wouldn't do us a lot of good. Any time there is an emergency that affects more than just us could lead to us not being able to get some of the things we need or want. 

So I sat down and figured out what a minimum budget would look like for us if we weren't shopping at all (no online Costco orders or grocery store visits). For six months, we would need about $13,000. We have decided to take that $2,000 and buy food and necessities (i.e. toilet paper) with it now, using it to stock up on a six month supply. Obviously, we'll do this after all this craziness is over. 

From there, we can slowly build up our food storage, but we'll both feel a lot better if we have enough supplies to survive without going to the store for six months. I love this plan, because we still have enough in the bank to cover our expenses (mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc.). It will simply allow us to be prepared for a wider range of emergencies and be in a position to help more people if another situation like this occurs. 

I'm so grateful for the prophets' counsel to prepare for hard times. Even if nothing catastrophic happens in our lifetime, we will be prepared for the downs of life. I'm also so grateful for the people who have helped and supported us through this time. We are truly blessed.