Author: R. Ann Parris

Canning jars come in a wide variety of sizes, and two common lid sizes. It’s not a bad idea to go ahead and snag at least some of that variety, because it can give us a lot of versatility. Factoring in our uses, the composition of people we’re feeding, likely situations, and costs can help decide what spread of sizes is most efficient and effective. Lid sizes can make or break canning jar costs In some locations, the difference in price between regular and wide mouth canning jar lids isn’t significant, as little as $0.03-$0.05 USD per lid. Other times,…

I think most of us, regardless of our situation, periodically wish we had a little more elbow room. For some, though, available space is even tighter. That doesn’t mean prepping is impossible, even for super-tight residences such as apartments or trailers on small lots. Nor does it mean prepping should get shelved until bigger space is available. All kinds of things go wrong, every single day. A lot of progress can be made even with very limited space. Most of the suggestions here also apply to folks who are short on disposable income. Prep By Priority One of the first…

The humble cardboard box can save us time, money, and labor in all sorts of ways. Especially starting out or if budgets are tight, it’s hard to beat good ol’ generic cardboard boxes on a number of fronts. The multitude of uses – and our ability to then reuse cardboard after many other uses – and our ability to source them for free makes cardboard an absolute must-have for preppers. A Few Downsides Cardboard is vulnerable to water, and will melt into a mess if it stays humid or damp or gets soaked (however we’re actually going to make use…

Editors Note: Another guest contribution from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. A timely subject with so many of those who serve us daily having to forgo a paycheck this week because of the children we elect (repeatedly) to represent us. No-buy and pantry-only challenges can make great assessment tools for preppers. Go ahead and do one – any month, although there’s some added value to certain seasons. It’ll take a little prep work to avoid unnecessary expenses and allow accurate tracking, but the data gathered can be invaluable for identifying gaps in our supplies and challenges we’ll face. Apply Ratios When you…

Preppers can reap some big rewards by applying some of the habits of successful market gardeners and small farmers to our home gardens. See, they have an eye on profit, which means an eye on efficiency. Most preppers aren’t looking at cash income from the garden, and scale matters even in for-profit growing, so there are some common practices we should actively avoid, but there are plenty that can save us time and resources. That’s precious enough for now and will be even more so any time our spending power is limited. Establishing a Market Before planting, successful market growers…

Having a cache isn’t a bad idea for all sorts of reasons. Even if we don’t plan to bug out anywhere, we can easily be cut off from our homes and vehicles by everyday events: traffic accidents, evacuations due to spills and contamination’s, house fires, flooding dams and water mains, damaged bridges, vehicle malfunctions. Having a cache we don’t need a shovel to access – or a cache for the e-tools to get into our buried treasures – can be priceless. Even Reader’s Digest has covered ways to hide valuables, and there are a million and one prepper and survivalist…

In the prepper world, we hear “two is one, one is none”. We don’t want to get carried away with it when we’re packing a rucksack, but it provides positive redundancy for our preparations. If something happens to the primary – from a plan to a tangible item – we have a backup right there, already on hand. There’s a difference between an alternative and a backup, though. It’s subtle, but significant enough to hugely affect how well we navigate upsets. We see backups in all areas of preparedness and the self-reliant lifestyles many try to cultivate. If our pressure…

Big game and waterfowl gets plenty of attention when it comes to hunting, but there are a lot of reasons to go big on small game, especially for preppers. Right now, we have to check to see where our regulatory bodies draw the line between small game and fur-bearers, and which small birds are included in small game and which require licenses and tags under migratory or waterfowl regs. Assume I’m including them anytime I say “small game”, because they share a lot of the same benefits. Those benefits are huge, from why we should focus on those rodents and…

First off, I want to acknowledge that there is no one right gun – not for everyone and not for every task. Firearms diversified for a reason. I’ll touch on some specific types, calibers, and platforms here, but mostly just as examples. This isn’t a “buy this” article of 5/7/10/14 “must-have” guns for preppers. This focuses on general factors and options to consider. For people on a budget, working through a mindful selection process when buying a gun is even more important than others. It’s less likely they’ll be adding to either their arsenal or ammo stockpile as much or…

Whether we’re buying disaster food kits or building our emergency pantry one bag and can of rice and beans at a time, chances are pretty good our food supply is heavy on “spoon meals”. Soups, boiled grains, stews, instant potatoes, mac-n-cheese, and even a lot of casseroles and scrambled eggs offer a lot of repetition in texture and eating utensils. That repetition will get wearying unless we’re already eating that way. Especially if we’re experiencing a personal or localized crisis rather than watching the whole world fall apart, some relief to spoon meals will be more than welcome. Happily, there…

BOB Weight can add up quickly and I’m the first to suggest that many prepper packs can go on a diet. However, there are some handy gadgets that can make our lives easier or be downright must-have’s, whether we’re mid-disaster, packing for fun, or heading out to hunt, fish, or cut timber. At the moment, I’m going to umbrella all the various bags preppers carry under Bug-Out Bags. So, when I say “BOB” also consider the GHB-Get Home Bag, GOOD-Get Out Of Dodge bag, day/patrol packs, kayak/canoe grab bag, belt bags, and whatever our non-pocket, semi-expanded EDC-Everyday Carry kit goes…

Editors Note: Another guest contribution from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! Whether we’re just starting out, expanding, or refocusing, whether we’re aiming for simple natural disaster preparedness or Big Thing self-reliance, the number of things to get and do can become overwhelming. Even general checklists and no-cost skills suggestions can be frustrating, especially when it comes to prioritizing. There’s also…

We’ve probably heard the phrase “bleeding to death from paper cuts”. It applies in all areas of our lives, in all sorts of ways. Politics, financial footing, personal health and fitness, madmen loosed on the public, even our relationships and jobs can provide ample evidence of disasters, individual or widespread, big or small, that we can backtrack to paper cuts. Especially in personal and small-group disasters, there’s usually a cascade of failures or mounting hiccups – each with a reaction – that wind up forcing a choice between bad options. They’re the first few stones of an avalanche, the flakes…

Curbside pickups can net preppers some handy materials. Sites like Freecycle and Craigslist and the local classifieds can be sources, but just driving around on our daily and weekly routines can be useful in scoring pickups as well. If we’re looking for a lot of something or something specific, we can also pick up a specific prepaid drop phone and staple some notices at stoplights and four-way stops – you’d sometimes be surprised what it will net, for nothing more than coming and hauling something away. Swing sets and trampolines are two that we won’t see sitting by the curb…

Editors Note: Another article from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! Curbside pickups can sometimes still benefit well-established, big-spread preppers, but they’re especially big boosts for beginners, people in the ‘burbs, and those still tightly budgeting or branching into new things. This time around, I’m looking at kiddie pools. They basically fall into two categories: stiff-sided baby…

Drink mixes can check a lot boxes for us in both prepper pantries and bug-out/evac situations. Electrolyte drinks, vitamin and protein boosters, and meal replacement mixes would get top billing as a prepper supply, but instant mixes span far and wide. We have nearly endless options when it comes to stocking drink mixes, right on local supermarket shelves. *I expect some “bah” with any article, especially the must-have’s and “frilly” subjects. If we go “bah” at every other concept in this article, please read and consider the sections on fiber and supportive care. Benefits of drink mixes to Preppers Caffeine…

The weather has finally broken for most of North America, which has advantages alone. Fewer bugs and less heat make any work we have to do a little easier and if it hasn’t yet, we’re right on the verge of plants dying down, cutting some of our workload and making getting around a bit easier. The season has more to offer, though, blessed as many of us find it. From the holidays around the corner to seasonal trends, autumn can give us nice boosts to our preparedness. We don’t have a lot of time left for Halloween (totally my bad)…

Editors Note: Another article from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! In some cases, modern information sharing and science leads us to throw away conventional wisdom’s – rightfully so. However, there are tidbits from history that still apply, particularly to preppers and modern homesteaders. I’ve looked at historic trail foods, rations, and preservation methods before, from both…

Looking back at past history, recent and far removed, can help prepare us in all parts of life. In some cases, early conventional wisdom stands the test of time. Others prevent us from repeating mistakes of the past. I’m looking at the wartime Victory Garden programs here, but not at food production. An awful lot of the advice applies across the board, both in daily life and as preppers, and definitely, should we find ourselves in times of hardship, personal or widespread. Succession Cropping for Victory Garden Success Succession Cropping wasn’t new for WWI and WWII, but it was –…

The Bug-Out Bag is pretty much a ubiquitous prepper topic. As with GHB-Get Home Bags, 72-our kits, and INCH-I’m Never Coming Home bags, there’s usually some mention of water. For good cause. Dehydration can take effect very quickly, and lead to stumbles, inattention, and poor decision-making. This is why it is critical to pack-friendly water options, especially when we’re planning for interruptions in services and other hardships. On the Road Don’t ignore a BOB or GHB and field water resupply just because “I never leave home”. Almost all of us travel. Frequently or infrequently, we depart on trips that take…

On a budget or waste-minded, now and especially in hard times – whether they’re personal or widespread – making the most out of our time and labors, and the foods we’ve grown or purchased, is important. There are some additional tips for increasing ease and variety in the article about food preservation from a prepper-specific perspective and there are some inexpensive tools that can make food preservation faster and a fair bit easier on the hands (and on the back, and feet, and knife sharpener…). Here I’m hitting some food preservation tips that increase the frugality, efficiency, and ease of…

There are lots of positives to growing food in small containers, especially when we can source them for free or very little money and upcycle into production space. They’re versatile and mobile. We can cart them to new locations inside a season, maximizing light or giving them some shade. We can cart them to new homes. We can cart them indoors. Being small, we can also pretty quickly and efficiently cover them using our salvaged and saved shower curtains, window screens, and clear trash bags. Size lends the ability to go vertical with many, increasing our growing space inside a…

Editors Note: Another article from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. Admit it, when you saw the title you thought this was about one of the Internets search engines. Alas, and thankfully, it is about something so much more important. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! Search and Rescue codes largely entered mainstream American awareness in the U.S. courtesy of massive hurricane disaster areas. We…

The faithful chicken is a common choice for preppers and homesteaders. Once the bird bug bites, talk regularly turns to breeding and natural rearing, the dual frustrations that can be a broody bird, and the back-and-forth debate about whether we’ve “bred out broodiness”. The genetics we choose – and allow – is important. Our husbandry practices, common wants from birds, and changing society has affected poultry’s traits, some of which would have immediately gotten birds a glass-jar coop even in pretty recent decades. One of those now-inherited traits is clutch abandonment by the fake-broody bird. There’s also an age factor…

There are lots of ways to produce food, herbs, and medicines, whether we have small properties with just a patio or deck, or large acreage. Our growing options increase all over again with some simple things like freebie pickup shipping pallets, bottles, old furniture, totes, and bricks. The ability to make use of vertical space can not only increase our productivity per square foot, but in some cases also make gardening easier on the back and knees. Pro’s & Con’s With a few notable exceptions, most vertical growing options share drawbacks and benefits. You have to build something, and…

Editors Note: Another article on chickens from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share then enter into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! Chickens are some of the most popular livestock worldwide, modern backyard enthusiasts to sustenance-level farms from China to the Balkans. There’s good reason. They’re economical, versatile on the table, and multi-function laborers. Most chickens have pretty short “working” lives, though, which means we need to replace…

It doesn’t take long to start hearing about shipping containers once you’re in the preparedness world. They commonly get brought up as buried bunkers and cellars, although there are some factors to consider on that front. Shipping containers also feature in the tiny house movement, as well as portable and resilient homes and recycling-minded markets. They have structural uses beyond homes, though, and some aspects that can make them especially attractive to preppers. The most common sizes are 8’ and 9.5’ tall standard and high cubes, and 20’ and 40’ lengths, although seacans come in one-third and half heights and…

Editors Note: Another article from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. With the dog days of Summer upon us it is time to think of how to bring home the best possible harvest and store it for the coming long winters nap, or TEOTWAWKI. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and be entered into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! ‘Tis the season of garden harvests in North America (and garden planning south of…

Some holiday weekend, head out to the ‘burbs” or stroll through some campgrounds or a public park. Your nose will pick up a couple very distinctive smells: Wood smoke and charcoal grills. Charcoal and wood fire scents carry far and linger long, presenting a pretty significant cue that people are nearby. They also regularly offer really lovely wisps and plumes visible above rooftops, retaining walls, hedges, and woods depending on fuel source, weather, and skill. Even relatively small grills can pump enough to home in on once scents have us in the neighborhood. We may very well want to avoid…

 Editors Note: Another article from R. Ann Parris to The Prepper Journal. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and be entered into the Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies! As I make this list, I’m weighing several things. One is the wildly different climates in Sydney, Savannah, Saskatoon, Santa Fe, Scarborough, and Seattle. General health, needs, yields (and yield types), and multi-functionality weigh heavily. Ease/difficulty in storage processing is also a factor, as is difficulty…