Neo-Survivalist

Inflationary times can very easily lead to food shortages across the country.  It’s a fairly simple formula that we’ve seen play out throughout history.

The way I see it is this…

Too much debt leads to…

Printing money to fund government which leads to…

High inflation which leads to…

Rising consumer prices which leads to…

Price controls which lead to…

Producers shutting down or slowing production due to price controls and losing money which leads to…

Food shortages

Price controls never work.  Government cannot artificially set prices on any good without causing disruptions.  The market must always set the prices.  By government capping consumer prices, they can force producers to sell a product under the cost of producing the product.  When this happens, the producer simply stops producing.  Why produce and lose more money?  The result is empty shelves in your grocery store.

I could see this situation playing out over the next couple years if and when inflation rears its ugly head here in America.  What are you doing to prepare for it?  Do you have food supplies?  I have been stocking up on some Value Buckets from The Ready Store to get a quick and easy several month supply of food with a 20-30 year shelf life.  Insurance against food shortages.

What’s your strategy?

Food Preparation

As I discussed in my post about building a core food supply, I have purchased some Value Buckets from the Ready Store.  I recently added another staple to my supply: a bucket of white rice.

This is a great addition and probably could have been the first bucket of food that I purchased since rice is an excellent core storage item.  I believe the bucket is about 40 pounds worth of rice.  I read often that many survivalists think wheat is the best core item for a food supply but I have zero experience with wheat.  Maybe at some point, I’ll learn how to prepare and utilize a wheat supply.  For now, I can easily manage with rice.

How much rice do you have in long-term storage?  What is your target amount of rice?

Food Preparation

When getting into the “survival” game, I became immediately concerned with the fact that I had no supply of long term food storage outside of a few cans of soup in my pantry.  It immediately became a focus for me in my plan to prepare for an uncertain future.

I was also amazed to read about the typical supply chain situation that our retailers embrace for profitability and cash flow purposes.  Any disruption to this fragile system and we would likely see stores run out of food in a matter of hours.  A scary situation indeed for the vast majority of Americans.

Building My Supply

So, with that said, I needed to build a core supply and at least of some level of insurance should a food shortage or emergency occur.  Furthermore, I have zero experience canning foods nor do I really want to learn about it (I have a busy life and schedule).

My solution was to buy some Value Buckets from the Ready Store.  This is an online website selling survival and preparedness items.  The Value Buckets are a way to buy a significant quantity of an item, have it sealed professionally and have them shipped to my door (if you’re over $100 in a single order – which is easy to do – you get free shipping).  The Value Buckets have a 25-30 year shelf life if you keep them in a climate controlled area.  You can easily build a core food supply with a few Value Buckets of some staple items.

You can buy Value Buckets for the great, core items like rice, wheat, sugar, milk, oats, beans, etc.  So far, I’ve purchased three: black beans, oatmeal, and white rice.  Those buckets combined with some other items I’ve also picked up recently has created a nice little core food supply.  Is it complete?  No.  But, it is a great starting point.

The Value Buckets might not be the cheapest way to store food, but like I said, I don’t have experience sealing up food in buckets, and I can buy a quality product that is professionally sealed up and then just put it up in my closet.  I have the peace of mind knowing the product was put together correctly.  Done.

Food Preparation

For those of us who live in the city or in the suburbs, it might be a challenge finding space to store large quantities of goods or supplies.  For those of us who live in places like Florida, the situation is worse since we don’t have basements here.

I’ve worked hard to clear out my garage and get organized in that space, but the problem is with Florida heat and humidity, the garage is simply an unsuitable place for much of what I’m looking to store.  With a house that is for the most part full, locating climate controlled space for storage in my house is tough.

My strategy has been to maximize my closet space.  What I’ve noticed in homes like mine (suburb community / built in 2005) is that the closets often have fairly high ceiling with one single shelf around the closet about halfway between the floor and ceiling (normal height for shelf / hanging clothes).  I noticed that there was plenty of room to add another shelf halfway between the shelf and the ceiling.  Each shelf has at least two to three  feet of space above it (I don’t have exact measurements).  The result is a completely separate shelf above everything else in several of my closets.

Getting items to and from the top shelf requires a step stool for me (I’m 6 ft. tall), but since this is long term storage / items you don’t need on a daily basis, moving a stop stool in when you need to is not a big deal.

I’ve started accumulating some buckets of dried food with 20-25 years of shelf life and putting them on these upper shelves.  This food storage location is working out great.  If you’re using standard wire shelving, be sure to anchor it well as these buckets of food are fairly heavy and you don’t want your shelf crashing down on you.

Food Preparation, Your Home