Everyone knows about FEMA's suggestion for 3 days worth of food and water. I'm sure we all agree that is woefully inadequate, but nonetheless, that's what a lot of people do. What about your non-food items? Ever run out of dish detergent or laundry detergent? As a young bachelor, I learned that dishwasher detergent in the washing machine causes streaks in your jeans and laundry detergent in the dishwasher causes "Brady-esque" foam.
What about toothpaste? Sure, a lot of people buy the three pack, but they don't get another one until they are almost done with the last one. Then they find out that the coupon they have expired last week.
Maybe you saw the recent articles about the sudden disappearance of OB tampons that have resulted in a thriving market on EBay.
What about some sort of breakdown situation or personal TEOTWAWKI? If you lose your job, wouldn't some extra toiletries and cleaning supplies help ease your mind? Being clean also contributes to health and mental well being during a time of stress.
In our pantry, we have three shelves with toiletries. Everything from contact lens solution and toilet paper to dryer sheets and bath soap. We try to keep about a year's supply of everything, but will let it get down to 7 or 8 months to wait for a sale and/or coupon to make it the most financially beneficial to buy. We really don't like to get below 6 months worth.
We did not get to that point all at once. It took time. We did it like we did with long shelf life food. If we need one of something, we buy two or three. If we have a great sale, we buy more. If we start to look like we are nearing 7-8 months, we start looking hard for coupons and sales. Some things, we find on such great sales, that we buy a ton of it. A couple years ago, I found my deodorant at Wal-Mart in small size packaging that was on sale and came out to a price per ounce much lower than it had been in years. I still have about 2 years worth left, and the prices have kept going up. I'm smelling good today on 2009 dollars.
Toiletries and cleaning supplies are easy to track to determine how much you need. When you open a new bottle of shampoo, use a Sharpie to mark the date on the NEXT bottle. When you open that next bottle, you'll know how long the last one lasted.
Take a look at the things you use regularly that you don't normally think of stocking up on as prep supplies. Plenty of food and water won't do much good if you and your house are filthy.
More on Herbs
Jack Spirko has published the third part of his four part series on Herbal Actions on The Survival Podcast. I'm learning much about herbs that I never even thought about knowing. It's well worth the time to listen to it.
Surviving on Discovery
Tonight at 9 EST, The Discovery Channel premiers a new show, Masters of Survival featuring Bear Grylls, Les Stroud, Dave Canterbury, Cody Lundin, Myke Hawke and Ruth Englund. Near as I can tell, it is sort of a "best of" compilation show to get ready for the new season coming up. I'm a big fan of Dave and Cody, but have never actually seen the others' shows, so this will be a good opportunity to check them out.
Saw that show, it was a "best of", but pointed out some of the basics. MAU
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