AYWtGS: How to Get FREE to Low-Cost Five-Gallon Buckets for Food Storage

In this post, A Year Without the Grocery Store talks about How to Get FREE to Low-Cost Five-Gallon Buckets for Food Storage as well as types of lids.

When people talk about what you need to buy as a prepper, I once heard it boiled down to: “Beans, Bullets, Bandaids.” I believe it was James Wesley Rawles of The Survival Blog that coined the phrase. The “Beans” in the saying represent your food storage. And if you have food storage……you probably have or use five-gallon buckets (or sometimes six-gallon).

***There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in the cost of the running of this website.***

Five-gallon buckets have become expensive!

But those can be stinking expensive! Have you looked at prices for them? Amazon has 5-packs of buckets WITH lids for $53.99. This makes the buckets $10.80. If you’re wanting to purchase a single 5-gallon bucket from Amazon, the best price that you’ll find is $13.99.

Another place that I’ve had friends purchase five-gallon buckets from is Wal-Mart.com. On Wal-Mart.com, you can purchase a 10-pack of five-gallon buckets WITH lids for $120.99. This makes them $12.00 each.

I personally have purchase five-gallon buckets WITHOUT lids through Azure Standard. A 10-pack of buckets WITHOUT lids for $72.55. So the cost per bucket works out to be $7.26. But then you will need to purchase additional lids. A regular ‘clamp on’ lid costs $3.25 each. For specialized lids called Gamma Seal lids (I’ll cover these lids later), it’s an additional $8.02. So the cost per bucket for clamp-on lids is $10.51. Your cost per bucket for Gamma Seal lids is $15.28.

You Can Get Buckets Cheaper!

A friend of mine recently talked about Covid Scalping. One of the reasons that buckets (and canning jars, and canning lids, and so many other things) are so expensive is because the demand for them has gone up exponentially because of Covid. So this – in many ways – is an example of that Covid scalping that was mentioned.

But there is another alternative to paying exorbitant rates for buckets! You can get buckets for either FREE or very cheap. Today while I was at Wal-Mart, I swung by the bakery. When I was greeted by a bakery worker, I asked if they had any empty five-gallon frosting buckets. They had three. It took her a few minutes to find them and bring them out. Now before today, when I had gotten these buckets from Walmart, they were free. Today, however, when she brought them out, they had a $1 price tag printed for each of them.

What I have discovered to this point is that while you can still get buckets for free at some places, some places have begun charging a marginal amount. In our area, we can still get buckets free at Kroger and Schnucks. Walmart now charges $1, and Costco charges $2 locally.

The best way to figure out if a store charges and how much they charge is to call them. It’s also the best way to find out if they have any buckets to sell/give away so that you don’t drive there to find out that they don’t have any to give you.

Bucket Lids

I know that this sounds a little unusual when talking about getting buckets for free. But these things actually tie together. There are three main types of bucket lids that I’ve come across. Some of them are better for food storage than others. So if you get your buckets for free, you may still need to purchase lids depending on what you’re using your buckets for and what type of lid came with your free (or cheap) buckets.

Shallow snap-on lids

When I got my lids from Walmart today, this is the type of lid that came with the buckets. These lids have a lip that measures about 3/4″ deep. These lids are fine for long-term food storage. In other words, if you’re going to put food into mylar bags and use oxygen absorbers, this is a fine lid. If, however, you plan just to use the bucket for short-term food storage of large quantities of foods, don’t use this lid.

Deep snap-on lids

These are the type of lids that you can purchase from Azure St andard and they measure just about 1″ all the way around. First off, these lids will fit on the same buckets as the 1/2″ deep lids do. This means that if you get free or cheap buckets with the 1/2″ deep lids and you want to do short-term food storage of large quantities of foods like oats or wheat, you can use these lids to do so. You can get your buckets free and purchase your lids from somewhere like Azure.

Gamma Seal Lids

These lids cost the most of any of the lids, but there is a reason for it. These lids come in two pieces. The outer ring snaps down on your five-gallon bucket – or even your six-gallon bucket. The inside part of the lid screws into the part that snaps onto the bucket. Why these bucket lids are so amazing is that you can easily use them for short-term or long-term food storage. These will keep the air and critters out, but will allow you access to your short-term food storage very easily. That is part of the reason that these lids cost so much more.

If you purchase Gamma Seal lids from Amazon, these lids cost $68/6 or $11.33 each. Azure Standard, however, has these same gamma seal lids in a 12-pack for $79.45 or $6.62 each.

Cleaning Your Buckets

Before you can use the buckets that you get for free or cheap, you will need to make sure that you clean them. When I get buckets, I go through a two-step process to clean them out properly.

First off, you want to make sure that you clean out your buckets with warm soapy water. I like to use Dawn dish soap as it removed the frosting residue from the buckets very well.

After I’ve cleaned the buckets out with dish soap and water, I then clean it out with a solution of bleach and water. The dish soap will clean out the residue, but the bleach solution will take care of any bacteria. I use 1 T of bleach and enough water to cover the bottom of the bucket and then use a rag that you don’t mind getting bleach on and wipe down the entire inside of the bucket.

Once you have done that, dry the bucket out and it’s ready to use whether you are using it for long-term food storage or short-term food storage.

Why Would You Use Buckets for Short-Term Food Storage?

I’ve mentioned several times that you may want to use these same five-gallon buckets for short-term food storage, but why might you want to do it?

Purchasing foods in bulk makes sense not just for long-term food storage, but for short-term food storage as well. We purchase items like oats in 25 – 50-pound bags because it’s cheaper than buying the canisters of oatmeal. We can store these items short-term in buckets and save ourselves money because we are storing our food in five-gallon buckets…

AYWtGS: First 10 Significant Purchases

Previously, A Year Without the Grocery Store had posted about provident preparedness purchases that cost less than $20. In the article First 10 Significant Purchases a New Prepper Should Make they discuss their top ten items that cost more which should be high priority preparedness items. I don’t have much argument with their selections, as we already have nearly all the items on the list ourselves.

For the first item, the Berkey water filtration system, there are other versions of this product that can be purchased or partly built. The advantage of the Berkey steel design is durability and light weight, but the cost can be high. My wife used a similar filtration system, but with a ceramic body, when she was in the Peace Corps. It was heavy, but because it was a part of every day life it never moved from its place. If she had had to move it often, there could have been a danger of dropping and breaking it.

The second item specifies a single burner butane stove, but you can get a dual fuel single burner stove for about the same price which can use both propane and butane. I obtained one of the dual fuel single burner stoves, and it quickly became my favorite camping stove and my Coleman dual burner stove is often left behind, now.

Their last item is quality outdoor tools. Low quality tools are aggravating, and the expense of a broken tool can be high — not just in purchasing a replacement, but in lost time in maintenance. I’ve had fairly good luck in getting good quality saws, axes, and pickaxe, but most garden tools like rakes, hoes, etc. are hit and miss. The garden tool market seems designed to force replacement every couple of years.

Prepping is first and foremost about situational awareness. Once situational awareness is achieved, it is about learning and filling your mind with knowledge that will help you and others. After you’ve got a GOOD start on learning, then you need to start doing. You should do things to make your house more ready to handle an interruption of any kind – electricity, water, sewage, etc. You should be working on DOING things that will make you more self-sufficient. There will come a time; however, that you will need to invest in a significant purchase to move your preparedness efforts along.

Last week, we talked about items under $20 that will help you on your preparedness journey. Today, we’re going to talk about significant investments that you may want to consider. These are things that you will need to save for. While some of them cost less than $100, many of them cost more than that, and some cost significantly more than that.

I am NOT saying that if you skip all the other steps listed in the first paragraph that these things will save you – they probably won’t. But when you put these things into the perspective of having already done the hard work of being aware, learning, and doing, these things will probably help bring significant comfort to your home if there is ever an interruption in your life – and if you’ve been paying attention, there are interruptions happening all over our country right now or in the last couple of weeks from freak winter storms dumping ice on Texas to tornados in Georgia in February to record-setting cold weather temperatures in Denver, Kansas City, and other places.

I have a friend who lives in Waco who was completely unprepared for a protracted power outage. No extra food, no way to heat the house, no way to cook food. My heart aches when people find themselves in situations like this. I want to help each of you, but jumping in here isn’t the best place to do so.

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

Significant Purchase #1 – Berkey Water System

In my opinion, the single most important significant purchase you can make for your family’s preparedness is a Berkey Water System. You can live for about three weeks without food, but you can only live for three days without water. You need water to drink, to cook some foods, to clean your cooking pots and utensils, to clean your body, to clean your clothes and many other things. Clean water is a necessity for life. If you purchase nothing else from this list, please purchase a Berkey Water System.

Significant Purchase #2 – Single burner butane stove

My friend, who lives in Waco would have benefitted greatly from having a butane stove. These single burner butane stoves are easy to use, cook effeciently, and work effectively. These are used indoors in many eastern countries, but if you’re to use one, I would make sure that you have a carbon monoxide detector – just in case. A single burner butane stove will allow you to heat soup, make mac and cheese, mix up and heat a tuna helper. You can also use this to heat water for hot teas – which are incredibly helpful and warming if you are without power and heat. You can also boil water so that you can use a french press to make coffee.

Significant Purchase #3 – Mr. Heater

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

As I write this, we’re just coming out of the coldest two weeks of the year for us here in Central Illinois which makes this another significant purchase for new preppers. The week that I write this article, two million Texan households are without power. A Buddy Heater, depending on which version you use, you can heat up to 450 ft/sq. As with the butane stove, while some of the Mr. Heater are rated for inside usage, I would keep a carbon monoxide detector going – just in case.

How many people could have been kept warm this week – even without power – if they had something like a Mr. Heater?

Significant Purchase #4 – Seed bank

One of the things that everyone needs to be able to do is to grow their own food. I’ve heard the objections. One person says, “I live in an apartment.” Another says, “I live on less than .25 acres of land.” Someone else says, “I don’t have time to garden.” And yet, someone else says, “I have a black thumb.” And those objections will work for today, but they won’t work long-term. Everyone needs to be able to grow food.

If you live in an apartment, garden on your balcony, on window sills, learn how to grow microgreens, rent land from a friend, buy an odd-shaped parcel of land for $1000 or less (yes, they were selling parcels of land in our city for as little as $500)

If you think you live on too little land, I’ve got wonderful news. Not only can you homestead on 1/4 acre. I know of someone who has homesteaded on .1 acres! So you do a lot no matter how small your yard is.

Our plan – if we hadn’t found a larger parcel of land that was right for us (which we did!) we were going to rent space from a friend who owned 7 acres. When we rented two different houses in our city in Central Illinois, we used FREE 5 gallon food grade buckets to garden in and we placed them on our driveway. We grew lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries in them. The last two years, we’ve expanded our 100 sq/ft garden by using decorative pots on our back deck. We’ve grown blueberries, onions, strawberries, chives, potatoes, and carrots in them as well. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

Have a black thumb? I did. My thumb was as black as they come, but each year, I learn a little more. Each year, we eat a little more food from our garden. Every year, we expand just a smidge. And each year I get just a bit better. The only way to change the color of a black thumb is to garden – every year – and you’ll find that you get better each year just by doing it.

In order to plant a good garden, having a seed bank is another important significant purchase for new preppers.

Significant Purchase #5 – All American Pressure Canner, canning jars, and Tattler Lids

When you grow all that food, you’re going to need a way to preserve it. While a water-bath canner is definitely cheaper, you can’t use it to can vegetables or low acid foods. For that, you’ll need a pressure canner – another significant purchase for new preppers – and in my opinion, the best one out there is an All-American pressure canner.

But in order do to your home canning, you’ll also need canning jars. At the moment the price on these is over twice what they were two years ago. You can buy these used from different people. The problem that I have found with that is that canning jars of questionable quality – or those that have been stored in the garage and have experienced immense temperature swings break VERY easily. If you decide to go the way of buying your jars used, at least make sure that you do so with your eyes wide open.

And why Tattler lids? Oh, I’m SO glad that you asked. Yes, they are more expensive than regular lids. The difference is that regular lids can only be used ONCE whereas Tattler lids, can be reused OVER and OVER. When you don’t know what next year looks like – and whether or not you’re even going to be able to purchase ANY lids next year, having Tattler lids is another way to provide your family with immense peace of mind!

Significant Purchase #6 –

Firearm, ammo, and cleaning kit

I had an interesting conversation recently with the guy who came out to our new farm to inspect our well. We are currently on “city water” (yes, that’s what they call it – even in the country). So in the course of the conversation, we found out that we wouldn’t be able to use any of our wells for the house. He then proceded to tell me that wells are like gold. If people understand that we have them, if things went bad, we would have to protect them. (Wink, wink, nudge nudge) He was telling us that we needed to have firearms (yes, more than one).

But a firearm is useless without ammo. We discovered a subscription ammo service called Ammo Squared. You decide what ammo you want each month, how much of your different kinds of ammo you want set aside each month, how often you want it shipped to you. I really appreciated the service.

Then after you have a firearm and ammo, you need a way to clean EACH of your firearms – whether it’s a handgun or a long gun.

Significant Purchase #7 –

Portable water filter, Canteen, and Water Bladder

If you ever need to leave home, carrying a Berkey water system with you is just NOT feasible. Having a portable way to filter quantities of water is a must. This is our personal portable filter of choice. We’ve purchased three different ones of this model.

But you need two other things to make your portable water filter worthwhile. You need a canteen. This is your short-term water resource. We’ve purchased this canteen three times. We keep two in our vehicle and we gave one to our son (for his bug-out-bag) when we took him to college.

The other thing we keep in our vehicle and in a couple of our bug-out bags is a water bladder. A water bladder holds twice the water of the canteen in less space.

Significant Purchase #8 –

Portable stove and cooking equipment

Just like having a portable way to filter water is important so is having a portable way to cook. We’ve purchased this particular stove three times – so we know it, love it, and have gifted it. This particular stove allows you to cook using twigs, leaves, pinecones, wood, paper, and so many other things. We love that we don’t have to carry fuel with us in our van in order to use this stove!

But the stove itself isn’t enough, so we found a compact, lightweight, durable cooking kit. This kit includes a nonstick pot and pot Cover, a nonstick pan, 2 bowls, a folding stainless steel spork, a soup spoon, a wooden spoon spatula, and a cleaning Sponge all contained in a nylon travel bag with a drawstring pouch.

Significant Purchase #9 – Solar oven

This item took us a long time to invest in. Is it an important part of our preparedness, but I want to talk you through some of the pros and cons to this particular oven. What I like about it is that I can cook in almost any temperature – even if I do have to wait for the sun. I don’t need any fuel. It’s dependable.

This oven does have a downside. It is heavy. I mean – my husband needs to move it – heavy. Yeah. Big downside, but in my opinion, it’s so important that it’s worth the investment even if I do need to get my very busy husband to move it for me.

It is important to note that this isn’t the only solar oven that we’ve ever purchased. About five years ago, we also purchased this solar oven. This solar oven works when it’s in the 60’s or warmer (despite what the information on Amazon says). It is much lighter than the Sun Oven All American – so that’s a big plus.

Significant Purchase #10 – Quality outdoor tools

World’s Best Shovel – We purchased this shovel two years ago, and it has been the single best outdoor tool investment that we’ve made. I love it. It cuts through the ground easily, doesn’t hurt your feet when you step on it, and easily lefts the dirt. I wouldn’t be without it.

Axe – If you ever need to split wood, you’ll need an axe to do that. This is the one that we own. It cuts wood well and is easily sharpened.

PickAxe – So the person that we bought the property that we’re getting ready to list to sell did something really stupid. This property used to have a gravel circle driveway. Instead of leaving it there or removing the gravel, he covered it up with dirt! When we wanted to plant some things in that area, we discovered exactly what happened. To remove just a few square feet of the gravel, we needed to use a pickaxe.

Saw – Whether you’re building or cutting down a tree, you will need a saw. Having the right tool to do the job, makes it so much easier. And if you’re living through difficult times, having a sharp and well build saw is something that you need to have in your arsenal.

Hand tiller – If you are wanting to grow a garden, and there is a chance that you will need to do it without using gasoline, a hand tiller – while taking much more effort – will get the job done.

Cross-cut saw – If you ever need to fell a tree, it goes so much faster if two people are working together. A crosscut saw will let you cut down a tree so much faster.

AYWtGS: 5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter

A Year without the Grocery Store writes 5 Vegetables to Grow Indoors During Winter. Mint is basically ground cover in our garden, so we don’t need any more in the house, but we do usually have some green onion growing on a window sill.

Especially in northern climates, the winter months can not only mean a dearth of as much outdoor activity as we’d like. Maybe I’m the only one that the cold keeps bottled up, but I’m guessing I’m not alone. This time of year with its cold temperatures and short times of sunlight also put a damper on gardening and provides little opportunity to grow food whether that’s fruits or vegetables.

***There are links in this post. The FCC wants me to tell you that some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in covering the cost of running this website.***

While that’s not AS MUCH of an issue at this moment, in hard times, it will be much more of an issue. We need to know how to grow food indoors in winter so that we can feed our family during much of the year.   While there are ways to grow food outside by using cold frames or greenhouses those take some time, money, and effort to set up. Growing food indoors is much easier at the outset and can provide you with some foods in as little time as a few days? Don’t believe me? Read on.

Sprouts

Also known as Microgreens. These are not only so simple to grow, but they are a nutritional powerhouse! Sprouts are estimated to contain more than 100 TIMES more beneficial enzymes that your body needs compared to raw vegetables. Some sprouts also protect against cancer.

Once seeds are sprouted, they also contain 10-100 times more of an enzyme inducer. Our bodies need enzymes on a daily basis and can become depleted if we are not replacing them. Sprouts are an amazing way to replace enzymes.

Sprouts are also rich in vitamin C. Many sprouts also contain a good deal of protein. If a disaster struck during the winter and it was too cold to grow a garden, you could subsist on sprouts – though it would be much less than tasty to eat them 100% of the time.

The biggest upside of sprouts is that you can have them in as little as 3 days.

Lettuce

Lettuce is a fairly easy food to grow inside during the winter. The question isn’t could you grow it inside, though. Because the best types of lettuce to grow indoors are loose-leaf lettuce, there are some varieties that are better than others for growing indoors. Some of the best varieties to grow include black seeded Simpson, tom thumb, and mesclun mix, The question should be why should you grow it inside? If your indoor gardening resources are in short supply…

Why grow lettuce?

It grows quickly! Loose-leaf lettuce can be harvested as early as it has a sustainable amount of leaves. If you want to grow head lettuce, it will take 45-55 days, but loose-leaf varieties will grow in much less time.

Lettuce contains anti-inflammatory properties.

Lettuce protects your brain.

Lettuce contains 20% protein! This is a good thing if you need to grow food that will sustain your family.

Lettuce can actually help your body rid itself of toxins. This, in turn, helps your body to remain healthy.

It’s an antimicrobial agent.

It also has anti-anxiety properties

Radish

Radish is an easily grown veggie! Not only are they easy to grow, but they are also a fast veggie. These can be grown from planting the seed to decent size radish in about 3 weeks. This is a huge upside in case you need to grow food to sustain yourself. If you plant radishes weekly you will have a continuous harvest indoors throughout the winter.

On top of that, sometimes (especially in soups), you can cut up radishes and use them almost like potatoes in soup. Do they taste just like a potato? No, but they have been used by a lot of people to replace potatoes.

But why grow radishes?

Help protect red blood cells

They guard blood pressure

Keep you from getting sick from their high vitamin C content

Contains anthocyanins which protect your heart

Helps keep our blood vessels supple and prevents atherosclerosis

High on nutrients and fiber

Tomato

Does that one surprise you? Yea, it did me too, but they are possible to grow inside during the winter. What I did discover is that smaller varieties like cherry tomatoes do grow better inside. I also love the idea of growing tomato plants upside down! You’ll need a sunny window, but it’s very possible to grow these indoors.

A single tomato provides 40% of your daily vitamin C

Improve your vision

Help protect healthy digestion

Protects against cancer.

Oregano

This is a wonderful perennial herb to grow indoors if for no other reason than to flavor your meals. Oregano a grown easily in a pot – actually it’s best grown in a pot because it can take over spaces easily.

Oregano takes light, well-drained soil. It will need a good deal of sun, so make sure that you have a sunny window to keep it in. Oregano needs water, but not too much. Only water it when the soil feels dry to the touch.

Oregano has so many wonderful qualities. Throughout the years, oregano has been used medicinally to treat.

Respiratory Tract Disorders

Stomach ailments

Menstrual cramps

Urinary Tract Infections

Mint

Mint is just like oregano in that it will spread and easily take over space. It is better to have this in a contained area or in a pot. You can grow it indoors especially in winter because it only needs partial sun. You can put it in a part of the house that gets sun some of the time, but it doesn’t have to have constant sun.

Fortunately, it takes more to kill mint than it does to grow it! Even my black thumb (that I’m trying desperately to reform) couldn’t kill mint when I tried. It’s pretty amazing! So find needs partial sun. They like moist, but well-drained soil.

Mint has been used medicinally for a long time especially when it comes to upset stomachs.

It’s benefits and uses include

Stomach calming tea

It has one of the highest levels of antioxidants around

helps stomach spasms

helps gallbladder spasms (shouldn’t be used if there are gallstones)

IBS

Bloating

Constipation

Diarrhea

Keeps numbers of bad gut bacteria in check

What About You?

Have you successfully grown any foods indoors in the winter? What lessons have you learned? I’d love to hear. Leave a comment below and share your experiences with us so we can all learn.

Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, Overcome.

AYWtGS: Water Woes – How to Set Up a Portable Bathroom in an Emergency

A Year Without the Grocery Store talks about Water Woes – How to Set Up a Portable Bathroom in an Emergency. Being prepared and having a backup works for small events, like frozen pipes, as well as larger disasters.

Three years ago this week – Actually, on January 1st of 2018, I rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. After “using the facilities” I flushed the toilet and went to wash my hands, but when I turned the faucet to the ‘open’ position, some sputtering water came out followed by nothing but air.

Yes, on January 1st, we found out that our pipes had frozen. But. . . I was ready. Awhile before, I had purchased everything that I needed to set up a portable bathroom. Today, I want to walk you through the relatively easy process of making sure that you have what you need to set up a portable bathroom. I’ll also share some tips and tricks on how to make it function more efficiently (and be less stinky).

***There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in the cost of the running of this website.***

Main parts of a Portable Bathroom System

There are two main parts to a portable bathroom – a portable toilet and a handwashing station.

Portable Toilet

Getting ready to set up a portable toilet is fairly easy.

1.) Find a place to put your portable bathroom.

On both instances that we had to set up our portable toilet, we have always used our main floor half-bath. There is usually enough room to put a 5-6 gallon bucket where our legs would normally be with room around the outside to be able to step around it to get to the door. If you don’t have anything like this, you could use the main larger bathroom in the house, or even the master bath.

If, however, you are completely devoid of any of these options, you can work outside the box a bit. There is such a thing as a pop-up privacy tent. These are usually used for showers or portable toilets while camping. You could set one of these up in an out-of-the-way room, but be warned, it won’t smell the best despite some suggestions that I will make later to keep the stench down.

2.) Source your FREE 5-6 gallon bucket.

Did you know that most grocery stores that have in-house bakeries will give away their frosting buckets (some of which are 5-6 gallons) for free? So the next time that you’re in a grocery store that has a bakery, walk over and ask them if they have any empty frosting buckets that they are willing to give away. Or you could even call ahead and ask for the bakery so that you can find out BEFORE you go whether or not they have any frosting buckets available at that moment. Several bakeries have told me that they throw them out at the end of the day on the day that they empty them.

Once you get it home, you will have to clean it with warm soapy water – and maybe a smidge of bleach to get the residue out of it. Once it’s clean and dried, you’re ready to use it when the need arises.

If, however, you prefer not to get free buckets, you can get cheap ones from any hardware store. If you ONLY intend to use them for a portable toilet, you don’t need to bother with getting food-grade buckets. Home Depot and Lowe’s both carry non-food grade buckets in their stores at reasonable prices.

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

3.) Purchase your toilet seat and heavy-duty trashcan liners.

I purchased my snap-on toilet seat from Amazon, but I didn’t feel the need to purchase specialized “Doodie bags” or trash bags that are marketed to collect human waste. We just used regular heavy-duty trash bags from Costco.

4.) Purchase kitty litter or gather an alternative.

Kitty Litter? Yes, kitty litter! You need something that (1) will absorb liquid waste and (2) will help keep both the liquid and solid waste from smelling as bad as it otherwise would. Kitty litter does passably at both of these. It won’t keep it from stinking at all, but it will reduce the stench and will help absorb the liquid that you’ll be adding to the bag.

Don’t like the idea of using kitty litter? There are other alternatives that you might have laying around for free. Do you have a fireplace? Start collecting the ashes in it. They work fairly well at both absorbing the liquid as well as dealing with the smell. Pine chips, sawdust, and newspapers torn into small strips also work.

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

Handwashing Station

We’ve covered what you need to be prepared to set up the portable toilet, but what do you need for a handwashing station. You can go two different routes for this.

First off, you can use hand sanitizer. And while this works fine if you just need to disinfect your hands, it doesn’t work if you also need to clean solid matter which may have gotten onto your hands from your ‘trip to the loo.’

We prefer to use our five-gallon water jug with a spigot. This allows us to wash any dirt and debris from our hands after using the ‘facilities.’ But having both hand sanitizer and a five-gallon water jug with a spigot on hand can’t hurt.

Setting up a Portable Bathroom

So besides gathering the items that you need, there are few other points to help you set things up in a way that will serve you well.

In the “portable bathroom”

Whether this is an actual bathroom or a pop-up privy, it works similarly. When you realize that you need to set up a portable toilet, grab your bucket, trash bags, snap-on lid, and odor fighter.

We double-line our bucket with two Costco heavy-duty trash bags and snap the toilet seat/lid onto the bucket over the two trash bags.

We take one of our glass bowls and fill it with kitty litter or ash and keep it in the sink. If you are using a pop-up privy, then you’ll want something on which you can set your bowl – whether it’s just some newspaper on the ground to contain any stray particles or a stool to put it at a level easier to reach. Then we place a scoop of some sort – usually a measuring 1/2 cup into the bowl. Once the facilities have been utilized, everyone is supposed to put a scoop of our anti-stink medium into the portable toilet.

Outside the Bathroom (or Privy)

Because we keep our bowl of kitty litter or ash in our bathroom sink, and because there isn’t much room on our bathroom sink, we have always placed our water jug with a spigot at the kitchen sink. Our kitchen sink has always had ample counter space beside the sink on which to set our water jug. It also allows for the flow of the jug into the sink, so we don’t have to worry about wastewater.

Another added benefit from doing it that way is that we always keep a hand towel near the sink, so we have a towel on which to dry our hands.

The process is a simple one, but if you haven’t thought it through, the first time could be more problematic than if you’d taken steps beforehand to know what you need to purchase and where you need to place it.

A practical benefit that we experienced

So before the incident when our pipes froze, my husband (the wonderful man that he is) only tolerated my prepping. He acknowledged that at some nebulous day in the future we might have need of an item here or there, but he saw no practical purpose in keeping all this stuff around that we weren’t using on a regular basis. And at that point, I would have said, “Don’t let me catch you getting him started on my food stash.”

But during Christmas vacation – while his dad was staying with us no less – our pipes froze, he realized that having items on hand was more than helpful. By investing about $40, I had SAVED us hundreds of dollars. It took four days for a professional company to figure out how to defrost our pipes so that we could have water. We would have had to pay for 2 hotel rooms for 3 nights plus all the meals that we would have had to eat out. It would have easily cost us $700-$1000.

But once he saw how a little money spent beforehand saved us a ton of money on a ‘regular day’ not some nebulous day after society collapses, his tone completely changed. He went from reluctantly ‘allowing’ me to prep to being completely on board with my prepping.

Not only that, but he has become a driver in our prepping. If I need something built, he’s right there to do it. He makes suggestions on what we should do next. He helps as we look for ways to make ourselves more self-sufficient right where we are. We are much more of a team than we were before our pipes froze…

AYWtGS: Survival Applications and Everyday Uses for Activated Charcoal

This article at A Year Without the Grocery Store talks about the Survival Applications and Everyday Uses for Activated Charcoal

Old Wives’ Tales?

There are so many old wives’ tales about health. Your grandmother’s chicken soup for a cold. Feed the flu, starve a fever. Drink chamomile tea to help you sleep. Upset stomach? Try peppermint tea.

But several of those things have more than a shred of truth to them. Did you know that chicken broth is one of the best items to soothe your digestive tract and give your immune system – which many people believe is centered in your gut – a boost. Chamomile tea has been proven to help aid in sleep. And while “Feed a cold and starve a fever came into being in the 1500s, there’s very little truth to it. But Peppermint tea has been shown to help digestive issues. In a former article, I discussed eight OTC’s that could save your life. Activated Charcoal is one of those.

Another Well-Known Remedy

But there’s another natural remedy that many people tout as almost a cureall – Activated Charcoal.

Activated charcoal was first used by the Egyptians for medicinal purposes as early as 1500BC. But it was also used by the Phonecians by 400 for its antiseptic properties. By 50 AD was used by Hippocrates and the Greeks. But it was lost for a long time during the dark ages. It re-emerged in the 1700s as a medicinal treatment for many things.

But today, not only does activated charcoal have a ton of every-day applications. It also has many survival applications. So let’s jump in!

***There are links in this post. The FCC wants me to tell you that some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in covering the cost of running this website.***

Pertinent Info and Cautions

If you are on medicines, Activated Charcoal will nullify any medicines that you’ve taken in the last 4-6 hours. So if you do decide to use it and you’re on medicines, make sure that you don’t take it with the medicines or even near the time when you took the medicines.

Activated charcoal is NOT the same thing as the charcoal that you find at the grocery store and that you use in your grill. Not only will they not work the same, but charcoal briquettes have chemicals in them which are harmful. Please do not mistake the one for the other.

What is it?

Activated charcoal is created when organic materials like wood, bamboo, coconut husks, or coal are burned at temperatures of 600-900 degrees celsius to create a charcoal powder. Between that and charring it with chloride salts and exposing it to steam, a vast network of pores is created. It’s this network of pores that gives activated charcoal it’s properties.

So much additional surface area is created during the activation process that 50 grams of activated charcoal (which is about the weight of 20 U.S. pennies) has 17.5 times more surface area than a full-size football field, according to a 2016 study in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Forms of Activated Charcoal

I personally purchase activated charcoal in two forms. I purchase it in a powder and in a pill form. Each has its uses.

Powder form

As you read below, you’ll find that activated charcoal can be used to make poultices for various medical applications. In order to use activated charcoal in this manner, having a powder form on hand is more than helpful. This is the one that I personally choose. It’s USDA Certified organic and food grade.

Pill Form

But at the same time, you may not want to try to drink activated charcoal mixed with water in a powder form because it will temporarily discolor your teeth and mouth. If you have somewhere to go quickly, but you want to take some activated charcoal, having it if pill form is much more convenient.

So if you’re looking for a convenient pill form of activated charcoal that is highly rated, I’d recommend this one.

Survival Applications

Before we jump right into this. I need to remind you all that I am NOT a doctor. I’ve researched these treatments, but I don’t understand 100% of everything I’m writing about. Please make sure that you do your own research before you commit to any course of action. I’m also not suggesting that anyone should use activated charcoal instead of heading to see a doctor. Survival applications are just that – these are for a time where you can’t get to a doctor either because there are none around that you can find or you’re in a SHTF situation where you can’t leave your house.

1.) Poisoning and Overdose

Activated charcoal has been used to treat poisonings or overdoses since the 1700s. It’s one of the oldest documented medicinal uses of Activated Charcoal. Even here in the United States, activated charcoal is used in hospitals to treat poisoning and accidental overdoses. As far as survival goes, having a way to treat an overdose or accidental poisoning is more than important.

There are certain types of poisonous substances that activated charcoal cannot counteract. Anything caustic – something that burns on contact, poisonous gasses, lye, petroleum products, metals such as lithium and iron.

2.) Bites/stings

Making a paste of activated charcoal will help draw out the toxins. I had a friend whose fairly young child (around 3) had gotten a bite, but because it was on the inside of his thigh, she didn’t find it right away. When she did, it was a weekend, and she didn’t feel it warranted a trip to the ER, so she made a thick paste of activated charcoal and wrapped his leg in saran wrap to keep the moisture in. It drew out the toxins and left a bit of a crater in his leg – until it filled in, but he healed just fine!

If you’re not living through a survival situation, if you have a snake bite or something else serious, please do seek medical help, though.

3.) Skin abscesses

Activated charcoal poultices don’t only work on stings and bites, but they also work on other skin problems like abscesses and cysts.

You make a poultice by starting with the dry activated charcoal powder, drip enough water into it to make a wet paste. Apply the paste to the skin and cover it with something like saran wrap to keep the paste wet. Change it every 12 hours.

4.) Water filtration

Because activated charcoal has so much surface area and so many pores, it makes a great water filter. Many companies that make water filters used activated charcoal in the filters – Including Brita. Just go to Amazon and search activated charcoal water filters. You’ll find a ton of them. Brita uses charcoal filters in their pitchers.

5.) Can improve kidney function in people with kidney disease

Activated charcoal is able to remove excess phosphorus, urea, and other toxins from the blood. Some patients in end-stage renal disease use it to lessen the time that they have to be hooked up to a dialysis machine. Since it removes excess urea from your blood, it may also improve/prevent gout.

6.) Digestive issues

These would vary from vomiting to diarrhea to bloating to stomach cramps to gas/flatulence. Because activated charcoal is able to adsorb (yes, that is the correct word) various contaminants in your digestive system, it is a great way to help quell and calm digestive upset throughout your digestive tract. When my children have an upset stomach or start throwing up, I will mix 1 capsule (about 1/4 tsp of activated charcoal with some water. For my littlest one, I will add a packet of stevia. Then I have them drink the concoction through a straw. If you don’t use a straw, they’ll have to brush their teeth as you’ll leave your teeth stained by the activated charcoal.

7.) Lymes disease

Lymes patients often suffer from die off reactions also called herxheimer reactions. It’s where dying bad bacteria give off toxins as they die. In research for this article, I went to article, after article, after article which talked about how people with Lyme’s disease benefit from using activated charcoal.

8.) Mold toxicity

We’ve had several families that used to attend our church that suffered from mold toxicity reactions. We had mold removed from the church, but apparently, the toxins are persistent even if the mold is removed. One of these families said that whenever they left the church building, they would experience reactions to being exposed to these mold toxins. One family would take activated charcoal every time they left the building. They said that it helped immensely.

But don’t take my word on their word. There are studies that have been done that discuss the benefits of taking activated charcoal for mold toxicity.

9.) Deodorant

Activated Charcoal doesn’t just adsorb toxins, it is able to adsorb unpleasant smells. Besides being able to be used in a refrigerator to remove persistent stenches, it can also do the same with your underarms. Want to give it a try? Here’s a DIY recipe for activated charcoal deodorant.

10.) Plant Poisons

I’m not talking about poisonous plants that you ingest. I’m talking about plants like poison ivy, poison oak, stinging nettle. This is another instance that you can create a poultice using activated charcoal and cover the affected area with it. Wrap it in something that will keep the moisture in (plastic wrap works well) and change it every 6-12 hours…(continues)

AYWtGS: How My Christianity Affects My Prepping In Positive Ways

This morning’s article comes from A Year Without the Grocery Store – How My Christianity Affects My Prepping In Positive Ways.

I believe in preparedness. I know. It’s shocking coming from a preparedness author who runs a preparedness blog. But I think that sometimes Christians fall into onto of two categories. One group believes that being prepared is lacking faith. The other group understands that preparedness flows out of their Christianity. I fall into the latter category. And today, I want to talk about how my preparedness flows out of my Christianity.

I will be using Bible verses to prove my point. If you will be offended, please just close this post now. I really don’t want to offend anyone.

***There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. All of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission that aids in the cost of the running of this website.***

But first a funny.

Optimistic Outlook

Now, I am Presbyterian, and in general, we do have an optimistic view of future things sometimes known as Post-millennialism.

Do things look bleak here in America right now – Oh my goodness – YES! However, did you know that there are almost 8 billion people on the planet? Two billion of those claim the name of Christ. And, did you realize that the Christian population in South America, Africa, and Asia rival that of North America and Europe? And the number of Christians is growing in South America, Africa, and Asia, while the Christian population of North America and Europa is shrinking. Just because when we look around and see what looks like everything around us crumbling down HERE, doesn’t mean that it is everywhere.

I believe that the Lord is still working and growing his kingdom. Part of my preparedness should be to witness to those around me. I want people to love God and worship Him out of a heart full of praise. Why? Because in doing so, their joy will be full. And because their joy is full – mine will be more so.

How my Christianity affects my preparedness?

1.) I believe that we’re given the example in scripture to be prepare

Where do I believe the Bible gives us the command to prepare? This example comes from Christ himself in Matthew 25:1-10.

Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish.

Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them,

but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.

But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.

“And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’

Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps.

And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’

But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut.

Five wise virgins prepared. Five foolish ones didn’t. The first five entered the kingdom. The second five didn’t. And, yes, I get that the picture of the kingdom really is discussing being ready for meeting our King. But there’s also a secondary meaning. Be prepared.

2.) Because of my Christianity, I believe that my preparedness will be effective.

Will it be perfect? No, but I believe that it will be effective. Like the oil for the widow of Zarephath in I Kings 17:7-15, I believe that my efforts will be multiplied.

But that doesn’t mean that I sit on my laurels. I can go “A Year Without the Grocery Store.” I also have worked on preparing our house. Right now, we’re working on preparing our house for winter. We’re stocked on wood and propane for the cold season as well. I’ve also worked on getting our vehicle in order to take care of us if something happens while we’re on the road or out and about.

We’ve also worked a lot as we’ve learned about “Homesteading in the Burbs” on .24 acres. We’ve planted apple trees, peach trees, grapevines, black raspberry vines. We’re working on water barrel towers. We’ve got a clothesline put up.

So I haven’t been lax, but because I’ve worked at this, I do believe that that Lord will bless it. Psalm 37:25 says, “I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread.”

3.) Because of my Christianity, I prepare because I have the responsibility of some taking care of others.

Acts 2:44-45 says, “Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common,and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.” This isn’t a verse that supports socialism. These people sold what they had of their own accord and helped people of their own accord.

And if things go poorly, I had a responsibility to help take care of others. I don’t just prepare for myself. My husband and I are hoping to purchase acreage so that we can help others if things go poorly. The hope is that we’ll have enough acreage to help people – starting with people in our family and then moving to people in our church. Then we’ll see who else we would help. I can’t speak to more than family and church yet.

4.) Because of my Christianity, if things fall apart, I believe that if I survive, I have the responsibility to rebuild.

Those who survive should embrace the responsibility of rebuilding – even if it is incredibly hard. And it’s something that we really need to start talking about now. On what principles do we want to rebuild society? What will be the basis for governmental structure and law?

There’s a lot to talk about and think about. Do you have a preparedness group? Discuss this with them. Get their thoughts and input.

I would highly recommend this book – sometimes you’ll see it broken down into a three-book series. It’s called God and Government by Gary Demar. It’s a great read to understand how our government could be. The American Vision website describes this book by saying, “Relying on clear historical and biblical research, author Gary DeMar demonstrated how America had been great and how she could be great again.”

So What About You?

Are you a Christian who is preparing? What drives your preparedness efforts? Where do you root them? I’d love to hear. Share with us in the comments below so that we can all be better prepared.

Together let’s Love, Live, Practice, and Overcome!

AYWtGS: How to Ensure That You Have Seeds for Next Year!

Kim Deel at A Year Without the Grocery Store gives some ideas for having seeds for next year’s garden in The 2020 US Seed Shortage – How to Ensure That You Have Seeds for Next Year!

Whether we’ve been gardening for years or learning how to Guerilla Garden more recently, we’re at a point in the US where many feel the need to grow at least some of their own food. For most of us, just the word “shortage” can bring up some powerful emotions, perhaps a bit of fear? anxiety? Or worse, panic? Do you feel like giving up on gardening because you believe there is nothing you can grow without seeds? Let’s dig deeper and investigate what the seed shortage of 2020 really means. Let’s explore what we can do about it because this is about getting-food-on-the-table! I hope you are ready for a FUN challenge!

***There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. Many of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission which aids in the cost of running of this website.***

There are some lies being perpetuated. But we’re going to speak the truth.

LIE: There are no seeds available.

TRUTH: Seed companies have not been able to keep up with the overwhelming demand for seeds this year.

The seed shortage is real, and it is a simple case of supply and demand. Seed companies, like all other businesses, base their expected future sales on averages of sales from past years to help determine how much inventory they anticipate will be needed for the upcoming season. Since seed companies prepare more than a year ahead, there is no way anyone could have predicted that COVID-19 was going to hit and skyrocket the demand for seeds.   It is important to remember: This is only a TEMPORARY setback!

New Demands

Now that the demand for seeds is higher, companies and individuals will begin to save more seeds to meet consumer demand. The bad news is, it might take a year or so to “get back to normal” and adjust to the increased demand. There **will** be seeds available, it just might be a bit tricky to find a specific variety for a little while.

Getting Creative

So, we have a big question—What are we going to do about it? Well, we are going to get creative and find seeds! This is going to be a challenge. But I hope you will choose to make it fun, like going on a treasure hunt! I need you to shift gears a bit, I want you to focus on our mission, which is to save seeds for our future. In the past, we’ve been all about growing the biggest, get-food-on-the-table harvest, but today we will take a step back, and focus on seed saving to prepare for our future, because the tortoise wins in the end, right?

Seed Shortage Challenge#1

Learn how to save seeds. Any time spent on learning how to save seeds will give back more seeds than you can possibly plant in your lifetime. My favorite, hands-down winner of a reference guide is “Seed to Seed” by Suzanne Ashworth. My copy was published in 2002 and it has paid for itself many times over. This book will teach you how to properly gather and prepare seeds for storage. This is an absolute must for your prepping library.

Seed Shortage tip #1

Choose your sacrificial fruit wisely. For example, tomatoes– choose the most beautifully-perfect tomato from your entire plant, even if a worm has chewed on part of it, it’s still a great choice for saving seeds for next year. You don’t want to save the seeds from a sickly tomato because we don’t need sickly tomato plants in our future gardens.   Seed saving is a savings account and as we invest those beautifully-perfect seeds, you and your family can enjoy many beautifully-perfect tomatoes in the coming years.

(Your future self will thank you!)

Seed Shortage Tip #2

Let your sacrificial fruits stay on the vine until they are over-ripe, past the point that you want to eat it, but not rotten. Doing so will yield large seeds that are hardy and will give you the best success at growing plants next season.

Saving Problematic Seeds

Start in your own backyard. Look around and see what you can “pay forward” to your future garden. Do you have any herbs that have flowered and “gone to seed”, if so, snip those flowery seeds off, stuff into a paper bag, and let dry? Remember to label them because once they are drying on your dining room table, they all look the same! (Trust me on this: been there, done that.) Transplant something. Even if you don’t want to, please transplant! Divide some of your overgrown herbs and place them into pots to bring in the house over the winter. Share with a friend or pay-it-forward — put out a curb alert on social media and share your bounty with a total stranger! Got Flowers? Marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers, or hundreds of other varieties? Even if these always re-seed for you, pick off a few dried flowers anyway and save them to share with someone.

Back to the garden – cucumbers, and tomatoes – these seeds need to be fermented before storing. Simply put the seeds in a bowl of water to break down the slick coating for a few days until a white film forms at the surface, then rinse well and place on a paper towel until dry and you are ready to store. I like to store my seeds in snack-size plastic baggies, as paper envelopes can absorb moisture and ruin the seeds.

My Melon Story

Last spring I purchased Kajari melon seeds. I was super excited, as this was my first time growing them. I only planted 5 seeds, but they grew quickly and soon began to sprout softball-size melons—they are so good! Below you will find a picture of the seeds that I was able to harvest from ONE single melon. Beyond that one melon, one Kajari plant has over a dozen melons on one single plant!    One tiny seed has the potential for thousands of Kajari melon plants!   How cool is that? Now you understand why I say there isn’t a shortage of seeds, there is a shortage of SAVED SEEDS. We must band together to collect, save, and share the seeds!! If every gardener would save their seeds and share with others, we could go from the Seed Shortage to the Seed Abundance in a very short period of time!

What About You?

Have you ever saved seeds before? Do you know about any good seed exchanges? Are there any other creative ways of which you are aware that people can obtain seeds? Share with us in the comments below so that we can all be better prepared!

Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome.

AYWtGS: Homeschooling Is Preparedness

From A Year Without the Grocery Store blog comes Homeschooling Is Preparedness.

Wow, what a year and a summer it’s been! Are you apprehensive about sending your children back to school wearing masks? Have you considered homeschooling, but you’re – if you’re very honest – kinda scared? Is there even an apprehension that you may even screw something up so badly that your child’s education will be skewed for life?

***There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. Many of these are the items that I have bought for my own family. If you click on a link, your price will remain the same. If you make a purchase, we may make a small commission which aids in the cost of running of this website.***

Homeschooling as Preparedness

Have you ever considered that schooling your kids CAN BE a part of preparedness? Last year, I wrote about the fact that there may come a time when you may HAVE TO homeschool your kids. I’m sure that almost no one believed me! I have to kind of chuckle sitting here now. I was……well…..kinda right.

But the truth of the matter is we are “sitting” here now and many people have had to do a version of homeschooling earlier this year, and now, some people are considering homeschooling.

But why should you listen to me? Well, I’ve been homeschooling for more than 14 years, and I’ve graduated two children. I’ve got three more children still in school. I’m not perfect, but I’ve been at this a LONG time and tried all different kinds of curricula from boxed to DIY to combining multiple curricula together. I’ve also been writing and homeschooling as a part of preparedness and discussing cheap schooling supplies for a long time.

I have a revelation. Homeschooling is actually VERY simple though not always easy. But anyone can do it!

The hardest part of homeschooling can be just being with your kids, but even then, you CAN do that! And, it honestly does get easier over time. I’m to the point that I hand my kids their assignment sheets (which I create an entire semester in an evening) once a week, and then give me their assignments at the end of the week. I do have to grade their work, but I’m fairly hands-off other than that.

Homeschooling Options

So in writing this article, I was trying to figure out the way that I could most simplify this for you.

I want you to ask yourself these questions, and choose the one that fits you best.

1.) Do you need someone else to plan the curriculum AND do the teaching?

2.) Want to do the actual teaching yourself, but you need someone to plan it for you?

3.) Do you want to create something for your kids yourself so you can play to their interests?

4.) Or does this fit you? You want your kids to learn, but you don’t want them to feel like their actually doing school.

Which number fits you? #1?

If #1 fits you best, you have a lot of options. I mostly know if Christian curricula, so that’s going to be mostly my focus. If you want someone to do the actual teaching, you have several awesome options.

ABeka

ABeka has a video curriculum for grades 1-12. They have an option where they will even grade it for you and keep your transcripts. This is a Christian based curriculum with Bible stories in grade school and Bible as one of the subjects in high school. It is rigorous – so do be aware. We used the online class portal with one of our children three years ago. As the parent, we tracked their video watching and had to check to see which videos this child watched (or skipped as was the case sometimes) and which assignments they still needed to submit.

Pluses – It’s all done for you. It’s very comprehensive. The videos are first class – and every class is on video. It’s like your child is a member of the classroom, so in many ways, they will feel like they are at school. It’s immersive in that way.

Minuses – if you can call this a minus – it’s very rigorous. I had a child (in 8th grade) who was struggling terribly with grammar. I took him back to do some remedial grammar, but because Abeka is rigorous, I took him all the way back to A Beka’s second-grade grammar and spelling. It really started at the beginning. Another minus is the cost. Because it’s almost like your child is attending a classroom with a teacher and fellow students, it is more expensive. Costs range between $110 and $140/month for 10 months or one single payment of $959 for grades 1-6 or $1219 for grades 7-12.

Monarch

Monarch homeschooling is through Alpha Omega press. It’s a completely online homeschooling option that allows you to use it for up to three kids and you get access to up to 50 courses. Each student takes five different core courses including Bible, History and Geography, Language Arts, Math, and Science. The student reads (or watches) all the lessons online and does the work that goes along with it. They also take tests and quizzes online. The grading is done automatically. This is really a great “Hands-Off” option if you work from home, but want to homeschool.

We’ve used the DVD curriculum version of this about four years ago. So we’re fairly familiar with it.

Pluses – You can do up to 3 children for $70/month or just one child for $40/month. It’s so very hands-off for people who need someone else to teach their children or for a mom or dad who works from home but doesn’t want to send their child to school.

Minuses – If you’re child is really at different grade levels in different subjects, it’s hard to figure out which grade to put them in. It’s not all a video, but there are some videos. Many of the lessons, however, are mostly read. If you have a child who does better as an audio or visual learner, this may not be the curriculum for you.

Which number fits you? #2?

Do you really want to teach your children yourself, but you need someone to tell you what to do? There are several options, but I want to give you a word of encouragement. You are the teacher. When you read through the curriculum, if you see something you don’t want to do, you don’t have to do everything that the curriculum tells you to. You can choose what you want your children to do and what is too much for them. No matter what curriculum you use, you can still tailor it to them!

ABeka Book Curriculum

This is different from the video school curriculum. It’s still rigorous – you use the same books for your classes, but you teach them and direct their education. You will grade their work and help them as they work through their classes. We used this curriculum for K4 and K5, and honestly loved it!

My Father’s World

Ever heard of the Charlotte Mason approach to schooling? My Father’s World is a Bible-based curriculum that employs the Charlotte Mason approach. History is studied in chronological order. Great books are read. Notebooking and narration are employed techniques of learning. We’ve never used My Father’s World, but I have to admit, it intrigues me…(continues)

AYWtGS: Flattening the Curve Vs. Staying Ahead of the Curve

A Year Without the Grocery Store has an article about planning ahead for the next waves of the virus and associated second and third order effects in Flattening the Curve Vs. Staying Ahead of the Curve.

All of us have heard a lot about flattening the curve. And according to many experts, we have successfully flattened the curve – to a greater or lesser degree depending on where in the country you live. But we have a new problem now. People are thinking about re-emerging from their respective lockdowns – whether self-imposed or government imposed. And all that many people want is for life to return to normal. Okay, I’ll level with you. *I* want life to return to normal, but that isn’t my focus right now. My focus is on getting ahead of the curve.

&amp;lt;img class=”alignleft wp-image-17894 size-medium” src=”https://i2.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979.jpeg?resize=300%2C240&amp;amp;#038;ssl=1″ alt=”” width=”300″ height=”240″ srcset=”https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=300%2C240&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=1024%2C819&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=768%2C614&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=1536%2C1229&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=2048%2C1638&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=650%2C520&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 650w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_81393979-scaled.jpeg?resize=600%2C480&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” data-recalc-dims=”1″ /&amp;gt;

Getting Ahead of the Curve?

So what I do mean by ‘getting ahead of the curve?’ It’s a fairly common phrase – “getting ahead of the curve.” In our circumstances, I mean that we need to be able to look toward the future and see what actions we need to take NOW to take care of our families down the road.

Don’t be deceived – this is only the first wave of the virus. If the pattern of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 holds true, there will be at least 3 waves of this virus. So if we are seeing an end to the first wave of the Covid-19, we need to start about thinking about preparing for the second and third waves. We also need to start trying to figure out what will the financial and practical fallout be for our country, region, state, county, city, and family.

Practical Fallout

One way that we’re already experiencing practical fallout is in the breakdown of our supply chain. When I was at church yesterday – and yes, for the first time in seven weeks, we actually went to church I spent some time talking with a friend who lives in rural Illinois. She was telling us that they have friends who work in pig farming. They started probably two months ago, killing off any baby pigs that they didn’t think were going to be among the best of the litter. Since then, they’ve taken measures to abort any baby pigs at all. They know that they aren’t going to have the money to feed those pigs until the meat production plants reopen.

We’re already hearing about how Tyson has been shutting down plants because workers have tested positive for the coronavirus. We’ve seen shortages of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, garden seeds, soups, pasta, masks, gloves, and so many other things.

So what can we do? &amp;lt;img class=”alignright wp-image-17895 size-medium” src=”https://i2.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873.jpeg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;#038;ssl=1″ alt=”Flattening the Curve vs. Staying Ahead of the Curve” width=”300″ height=”200″ srcset=”https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=1024%2C681&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=768%2C511&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=1536%2C1022&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=2048%2C1363&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=650%2C433&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 650w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/AdobeStock_83435873-scaled.jpeg?resize=600%2C399&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” data-recalc-dims=”1″ /&amp;gt;

Start now and watch the news. What item or items (whether in your area or in the entire country) is likely going to become scarce in the near future?

1.) Right now, if you have room in your freezer or you can pressure can, picking up extra meat is very important. Bacon was already out of stock at Costco when I went out (with gloves and mask) last week. They didn’t even have beef in the form that I usually pick it up. Pork and chicken are the two types of meat that are in the greatest danger of seeing shortages. The sooner you can get out and stock up, the better off you are.

2.) Restock any foodstuffs that you can to bring your food numbers back to where they need to be. If you’ve been using my book and workbook system to get your long-term food storage to where it needs to be and your short-term food storage to 3 months, then you know what areas you’ve been taking from during these last two months. Make sure that you fill them back up. We’ve used significant amounts of oatmeal and tomato sauce. When I was out at the post office today, we stopped at a store to refill our personal stores.

3.) Restock any non-foodstuff items. Have you worked your way through almost an entire pack of gloves? See if you can replenish them. Do you have to wear a mask when you’re out in public? Are you running low? Can you make your own, purchase single-use face masks, or another reusable alternative? How are you on shampoo, soap, laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent?

&amp;lt;img class=”alignleft wp-image-17896 size-medium” src=”https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;#038;ssl=1″ alt=”Flattening the Curve vs. Staying Ahead of the Curve” width=”300″ height=”200″ srcset=”https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=650%2C433&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 650w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/markus-spiske-5gGcn2PRrtc-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C400&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” data-recalc-dims=”1″ /&amp;gt;Financial Fallout

How stable do you believe your job is? How about your spouse’s job? I known and met people who have lost parts of their income because of Covid-19. I know people who have lost their entire income because of the virus as well.

Even if you think that things are on sure footing, it is a good time now to create an alternate budget. We have the regular budget that we operate on a month to month basis, but then we have an alternative budget. First off, If you’ve never used YNAB – You Need A Budget – then I would highly recommend that you check it out. It is a yearly subscription fee, but it has saved us so much money during the four years that we’ve used it.

So we’ve back to this alternate budget. It’s a bare-bones budget with every convenience that we feel like we could live without cut out of it. We aren’t living on that budget, but we’re looking at a time when that might be necessary to live on less. This enables us to ask, “How much less can we live on?” And allows us to have concrete numbers as to what we HAVE to bring home…(continues)

YWtGS: Quarantine Week 1 Menu and Food Storage Recipe

A Year Without the Grocery Store has a post up about their first week of quarantine and how to plan meals from storage food – Quarantine Week 1 Menu & Food Storage Recipe . Also check out Rural Revolution’s recipe for Beef and Mushroom Pie, resulting from a cleaning out the fridge moment.

So many of our lives have been turned upside down. Whether you are now homeschooling your kids – since many schools have been closed. Are you eating at home on a regular basis now when normally you would have gone out to eat one or two times during the week? Are you used to precooked or prepackaged meals? Each of these things can be so hard to navigate in their own, so what is one thing that we can do to make one of these things easier? Make a Menu!

So it’s hard to think about what to feed families during a crisis. And even for those of us who have a food storage menu set up, some of those meals might not sound appetizing at the moment. How do you go about making up a menu for while you’re in quarantine?

Principles for Making a Quarantine Menu

1) Start with what you already have

Are you like me? Do you buy food for a specific meal and at least once a week you don’t eat it? More than that, oftentimes, you don’t reschedule those meals for the next week? Yeah, me too! So when looking through my freezer, I found a lot of food that is easily incorporated into this week’s menu.

I have a fairly deep pantry that I’ve been developing over the course of several years. I built it using a food storage menu. When I started making this week’s menu though, I didn’t major on my food storage menu. I started with what I already have in my freezer.

(2) Eat “normal” foods as much as possible.

This is a really scary time for us as adults. California has already been given a “shelter in place” order. It’s been rumored that Illinois will be under the same order starting tomorrow. This can raise our anxiety level – and we’re adults! Imagine what it is like for your kids!

If you feed your kids normal foods, this will actually help them emotionally deal with this situation. The greater a level of “normal” you can give to your children, the better off they will be during this crisis.

Don’t think that introducing crazy, strange foods at a time like this will do anything good for their (or your) digestive system. Don’t think that your kids will all of a sudden eat canned asparagus if you never fed it to them before. The same goes for

(3) If you’re struggling, make a schedule.

I’m not talking about a menu. I’m talking about a dinner schedule from which to make your menu. A schedule might look like this.

Monday – Mexican Dish

Tuesday – Italian meal

Wednesday – Oriental Dish

Thursday – American/Casserole

Friday – Soup

Saturday – Pizza (either frozen or homemade)

Sunday – Left Overs

OR maybe you’re “schedule” will look like this

Monday – Beef

Tuesday – Chicken

Wednesday – Pork

Thursday – Vegetarian

Friday – Beef

Saturday – Chicken

Sunday – Pork

Then when you go to make a menu, you don’t have to stress too much because the hardest part is already set up for you!

My breakfast and lunch meals are almost always identical from week to week. This is how our breakfasts and lunches go in general. I plan on keeping it the same as MUCH as possible even in quarantine. I do know how to make bread, bagels, granola, biscuits, pizza, and cinnamon rolls, so I can keep that up even if I have to make it from scratch.

Monday Breakfast – Oatmeal / Lunch – Grilled cheese

Tuesday Breakfast – Bagels / Lunch – Beefaroni or soup

Wednesday Breakfast – Homemade granola / Lunch – Sandwiches

Thursday Breakfast – Eggs and bacon / Lunch – Mac and Cheese

Friday Breakfast – Homemade Granola / Lunch – Pizza

Saturday Breakfast – Biscuits and Gravy / Lunch – Get Your Own

Sunday Breakfast – Cinnamon Rolls / Lunch – Meatballs

4.) Don’t hesitate to learn new things!

Making bread really isn’t hard!

And if you can make bread, you can make cinnamon rolls, pizza crust, and bagels. Making noodles is actually really easy too. These things are just time-consuming, but when you’re forced to be at home, it’s a great way to spend your time.

Making homemade granola is even easier to make, and then you have several days worth of breakfasts ready at once. One batch of our granola lasts us 2 weeks eating it twice each week.

My Menu for Quarantine Week 1

So here is an actual picture of my menu for this next week. It goes on my fridge today and will stay up. One of the reasons why I post it is so that I don’t get “What’s for breakfast, Mom?” ALL-THE-STINKING-TIME! I have one child who will finish dinner and go, “Hey, Mom! What’s for breakfast?”

The second reason that I post a menu is that my oldest daughter is responsible for breakfast every day. My middle daughter is responsible for lunches every day, and I’m responsible for dinner every day. This way, they don’t have to ask me what they should be making. They know because it’s listed.

So here’s my menu. Some of this will be from scratch. This week, I’ll make the cinnamon rolls from scratch, but we still have “canned” biscuits” to make things easier on my daughter. We still also have frozen pizzas, so we’ll do those instead of making those from scratch. In future weeks, these will eventually be made from scratch.

Food Storage Recipe – Homemade Granola

We double this recipe and it makes at least 4 breakfasts for a family of 7.

Ingredients

6 C Oats

1 C Nuts (we prefer pecans)

1 C Chocolate Chips

1 C Coconut (can be omitted)

1/2 C Cocoa powder

1 C Coconut oil

1 C Honey

1 T Vanilla

Directions:

Grease a 9×13 two-inch deep casserole dish. Mix the oats, nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, and cocoa powder together. In a saucepan melt the coconut oil and honey together. Once they are melted together, remove from heat and add vanilla. Pour the mixture over the oat mixture in the 9×13 dish, and stir thoroughly. Bake for 1 hour at 250.

Do you need help setting up a food storage menu? I have written a FREE 7-page Fast and Easy Food Storage Solution Guide to help you through the process.

What About You?

How are you setting up your menu for this time during quarantine? Do you feel like you’ve got a good handle on it? If you’re doing well, do you have any tips and tricks to share with the rest of our readers? I’d love to hear. Leave a comment below in the comments section so that we can all be better prepared.

Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome!

There are links in this post. Some of the links may be affiliate links. Some of the links may not be. My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. These are the items that I have bought for my own family. You can feel free to use my affiliate links, of which I will get a small amount in compensation, or you can choose to search out your products on your own.

Please note that any affiliate links above are for A Year Without the Grocery Store and not for the Lower Valley Assembly.

AYWtGS: Covid-19 Quarantine Day 1

A Year Without the Grocery Store related their first day of quarantine – Covid-19 Quarantine Day 1 – in which a perhaps surprising number of issues pop up.

I had planned on making one more trip to Costco before going into quarantine. Did we NEED anything? Probably not, but there were a few items that I really wanted to get a few more of – mostly dairy type items. I do have other alternatives, but they take preparing, and I’m by nature lazy. I wanted another package or two of shredded cheese, some more heavy whipping cream and maybe some more eggs.

I messaged my mom to ask her if she wanted me to pick up anything for her. She asked me not to leave the house. I was willing to head out, but I understood her hesitancy. So because I wanted to honor my mother, I stayed home. It was the right decision.

Bad News from Texas&amp;lt;img class=”alignright size-medium wp-image-17746″ src=”https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;#038;ssl=1″ alt=”” width=”300″ height=”200″ srcset=”https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=650%2C433&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 650w, https://i1.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/benjamin-bousquet-PDVvoXRAmCY-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C400&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” data-recalc-dims=”1″&amp;gt;

I got a phone call from my father-in-law. We had asked him to join us up here in Illinois because he really wasn’t ready for this. But in his phone call, he let me know that one of his friends was presumptive positive for Covid-19. While he hasn’t been in contact with this friend, he had other friends who have spent time with his presumptive positive friend with whom he has spent time. So he won’t be coming up, but he needs items to get him through this next bit – where hopefully he doesn’t come down with the virus.

In case he does get sick, we’re sending him “just add water” dry soup mixes to help feed him past these next two weeks (which he only has 1 can of soup per day). We’re also sending him Xlear to help keep his nasal passages clear and zinc lozenges. I found a great article on the benefits and problems with zinc, so make sure you read it before you run out and start taking zinc.

The plan is for him to shelter in place for 2 weeks. If he doesn’t come down with it during the next 2 weeks, then he’ll drive up here. We’re also sending him PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) so that if he does come up here he will be protected during his trip.

If he does come up here, he will be quarantined for an additional two weeks, so make sure that he doesn’t get sick from his trip up and it gives us an additional two weeks to make sure that he doesn’t have a latent infection from his being exposed in Texas.

&amp;lt;img class=”alignleft size-medium wp-image-17747″ src=”https://i2.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;#038;ssl=1″ alt=”” width=”300″ height=”200″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1024&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1365&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=650%2C433&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 650w, https://i0.wp.com/ayearwithoutthegrocerystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hermes-rivera-qbf59TU077Q-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=600%2C400&amp;amp;amp;ssl=1 600w” sizes=”(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px” data-recalc-dims=”1″&amp;gt;Conflict

I am not putting this out there to throw my husband “under the bus.” I’m putting this out there so that all of you can understand that the conflicts that you’re experiencing right now are (very unfortunately) a part of this situation… (continues)

AYWtGS: Handling Quarantine with Kids

Karen at A Year Without the Grocery Store has an article up – Got Kids? How Do You Handle a Coronavirus Quarantine With Them? – with some suggestions on handling quarantine without going crazy.

We all love our children. But despite that love, want to see parents cringe quickly? Tell them that they are going to be stuck inside with their children for three months or more. More than that, they cannot leave their home.

That thought in itself is incredibly overwhelming! Add to it, getting ready to cut yourselves off from the world, it’s enough to devastate any parent. How do you handle being cooped up with your kids for months on end? Don’t stress, there are answers that don’t include 24/7 TV.

Let me start by saying, I’m a mom to five kids ages 8-17. I don’t take the notion of being stuck inside my home for months with my kids lightly. While younger kids will have an easier time staying home, older kids are going to feel the isolation much more.

So how do we handle a quarantine with kids?

When I was pregnant with my second set of twins, I was in the hospital every week for a non-stress test. I had a friend who was pregnant at the same time. She was hospitalized with placenta previa. She wasn’t just hospitalized for a week or two. No, she was hospitalized for more than TWELVE weeks. And during that time, she was mostly confined to half of a small room.

How in the world did she keep herself sane being remanded to that small room for so long? Some of her tips and tricks will work for us as we talk about how we’re going to help our kids (and ourselves) through what could be a long quarantine.

(1) Start Your Day Off Healthy

Make sure that you are starting your day off with a multi-vitamin, vitamin C, and a probiotic. I would also suggest that you spend time in God’s word and prayer at the beginning of your day. We love to sing together as a family, and this would be a good time to do that as well.

(2) Make sure your kids are learning.

Whether you homeschool or not, make sure that your kids are still learning. Even if you send your kids to school, make sure that they are bringing their school books home with them as you get closer to keeping them home from school in a quarantine. Or you could put together a school kit so that you will always have items to help your children learn if they can’t go to school.

For me, it’s really simple. I have three children still in school. And since we homeschool, they will all continue doing their school just like normal. That will go a HUGE way toward helping things still feel normal.

What about older kids who have graduated and are working while still living at home? Make sure that you have conversations with them now about when you are going to tell them that they can’t continue working for a while. Have them talk to their employers NOW to manage expectations.

These older children should still be learning! As I was going through totes today taking stock of everything for our quarantine, I found suture needles and other implements for doing stitches and practice skin. Find a YouTube video on practice suturing and have them learn how to do sutures. Or have you or your kids ever made bread or noodles from scratch? Why not use some of that time to learn how to do a new skill?

(3) Make sure that you and your kids are moving daily.

If you have little kids, it’s obvious why they should do physical activity every day. But what about older kids who aren’t bouncing off the walls? Why should they (and you) exercise daily?

Studies have shown that mice were divided into three groups and all infected with the flu. One group was sedentary. One group jogged on a wheel for 20-30 minutes (modest activity for mice), and another group of mice was kept on a wheel for 2 1/2 – 3 hours. Fifty percent of the sedentary group died. SEVENTY percent of the mice who ran for 2 1/2-3 hours died! Only 12 percent of the mice who were kept on the wheel for 20-30 minutes died.

Even if you aren’t going to expose yourself to the virus, keeping your body moving a modest amount can help your body better handle whatever is thrown at it.

Now, not everyone has a treadmill or a stationary bike, I get that. But do you have Amazon Prime? You can learn (or practice) yoga with your kids using this free video. Don’t like yoga? Here’s an exercise video called “Marching Low Impact.” Or buy a digital copy of “Sweating to the Oldies” and sweat (and laugh and laugh) with your kids.

(4) Play at least one game a day with your kids.

This is a great time to spend time playing some of those games that you don’t play regularly either because you haven’t taken the time to learn them or because they take a little more time to play.

Do you have two decks of cards? All you need is a Hoyle Card book, and you’ll have hours of fun at your hands.

Another thing that might fall into this category is putting together puzzles.

(5) Take a skill that you have to the next level.

Do you have a skill that you enjoy – like knitting? Take it to the next level. Maybe you could learn how to do cables or knit in multiple colors. I’ve learned a bit about spinning, but don’t take a lot of time to actually practice it. This would be the perfect time to take that skill to the next level.

(6) Schedule time for kids to talk with their friends using Facetime or Skype.

Only one of our kids has a cell phone. And her cell phone is one for which we purchase minutes. That means that calls aren’t a regular part of our kids lives. Even if your kids have cell phones, talking with friends makes so much more of an impact when they can see them.

What if your kids could ‘virtually’ get together with their friends regularly during a quarantine? They would be able share stories of what’s going on, what they are learning, and the time would pass so much faster.

(7) Enjoy movies and TV shows in moderation.

There are few things that make me feel more claustrophobic than sitting in front of a screen watching mindless TV too long. I will often feel the need to get up and do something when I’ve got an Amazon or Netflix show going too much. But that being said, sometimes, we just need to let our minds go to a more fun place and a movie or a TV show can do that for us.

(8) Most Importantly set a routine for your days.

I say this last because I wanted to give you a lot of options for filling a routine. Why do you need a routine?

When I was pregnant with my second set of twins, I was in the hospital on a weekly basis for non-stress tests. I had a friend who was pregnant at the same time, but she was admitted to the hospital because of placenta previa and was at high risk for hemorrhaging.

The thing is that she wasn’t just in the hospital for one or two weeks, she was in the hospital for TWELVE weeks! She wasn’t just confined to the limits of the hospital. She was almost exclusively confined to her small hospital room, which she had to share with another person from time to time.

How did she keep from going crazy while she was confined to such a small space?!?

The most important thing that she did (by her own admission) was to set a routine for her day. She would start it with time in God’s word and prayer. Then she would spend around two hours scrapbooking. After that, she would watch TV for about two hours. Then she would work on a crocheting something for an hour or two. Her kids and her husband would come and visit her for a couple of hours later in the day. She would spend some time reading after that. Then she would spend some time coloring in a coloring book.

Her routine kept her from going completely stir crazy. So I want you to take 10-15 minutes and using activities from above or others that you come up with on your own to set a schedule for yourself and your children so that you have a routine for when you all are quarantined.

Will the routine change once you get into your quarantine? Absolutely! Some things will work. Some things won’t work as you envisioned them, but you’ll be giving yourself a framework for your family. Change it around, turn it on its head if need be. But make sure that you actually have a routine so that everyone doesn’t go completely crazy!

What About You?

What other ideas do you have on how to keep your kids from going crazy during a quarantine? How long do you anticipate that your family will need to be in quarantine? Are you concerned about missing any really big events because of the quarantine? I’d love to hear! Share with us in the comments so that we can all be better prepared.

Together lets Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome!

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AYWTGS: 10 Kits to Put Together Today

Karen at A Year Without the Grocery Store has had to bug out three times, twice for riots and once for a tornado. She has enough to say about preparedness that she’s written a book and started a website. In the article, 10 Kits to Put Together Today to Be Ready for Tomorrow she talks about a variety of kits to have prepared so that you aren’t spending precious time rummaging around trying to find a light or cook stove.

1.) Where is the closest flashlight to you at this moment?

2.) Do you have an air filtration mask and could you put your hand on it in two minutes or less?

3.) What items do you have to keep your house cool and where do you keep them?

4.) If you had to remove stitches yourself, do you have the tools to do it?

5.) What’s your secondary method of communication? Is it charged and ready?

So how did you do on the quiz? Obviously, there’s no right or wrong answer. The bigger question is – could you answer each question.

Each of these things above is integral to preparedness. Sometimes, we have these things – which is HUGE! If you just have these things – high five!

More often than not though, if we have these things, we don’t know where they are. So how do we organize things so that we KNOW that we KNOW where things are?

We develop kits!

Each kit is self-contained and is kept in tote. For larger items, I keep them in large totes from Costco. For smaller kits, I keep them in smaller totes which fit in the large Costco totes. So what kinds of kits should we be putting together? I’m going to be giving you a list of 11 kits. I’m going to give you an overview here, but I’ll be doing a post on each of these so I can dive deeper.

Now there is one very well known kit that I am not including in this and it’s called a Bug out Bag or Grab and Go Bag or many other things. A Bug Out Bag is for leaving the area, and we’ll cover that at some time. These kits are all about what you are ready for at home. So we’ll jump right in with kit #1.

Click here to read the entire article at A Year Without the Grocery Store.