Bug Out Bag on a Budget

Survival preparation can be an expensive endeavour, especially if your budget is already tight from bills and other every day expenses. It simply might not be possible to afford many of the expensive items needed. But you should not let this discourage you from creating your own bug out bag; there are alternatives that can save you money while building an effective bag for your survival. Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag: Your 72-Hour Disaster Survival Kit

Bags

To buy a hiking bag at a camping supply store can range between 60 to a few hundred dollars, for many this is where their plan of building a bug out bag ends. While these bags are excellent their price is simply out of reach if you're on a tight budget. Fortunately there are alternatives that can save you a lot of money while still getting a top quality bag. Remember you don't need something fancy, you want rugged and reliable. Check with military surplus stores, depending on where you live there should be at least one or two within a decent distance from where you live. If you don't mind the bag being a little used you can pick up a rucksack or another suitable bag for as little as 20 bucks (This is exactly what I paid for mine at a military surplus store where I used to live, including tax)

Supplies

Items such as a magnesium fire starter, water proof matches, emergency rain ponchos, and glow sticks can be found at stores such as Wall-Mart for very cheap. While I'm not a fan of the store they offer most of these items for fewer than 10 dollars. Rain ponchos and emergency blankets for example can cost as little as 1.20 (Depending on where you live), they also take no room in your bag so you can store lots of them. For matches you can buy packages' of 4 for around 2 dollars, and magnesium fire starters for as little as 5.

Food

Buying rations can be expensive; sticking with canned food is a cheaper alternative. Canned soup for example can be as a little as under a dollar a can. Check with stores that sell food in bulk as this may save additional money when purchasing larger cans. Remember to watch the salt content; you want to avoid food with high amounts of salt as this can dehydrated you.

Spare Clothes

One should always have a couple changes of warm clothing (Depending on season and your location). To save money on spare clothing there are a couple options. One is to check with stores that sell discount clothing such as Winner's or an equivalent, I've seen winter jackets for example as low as 20 dollars (Canadian). Another option if your budget is really tight is to check second hand stores such as Goodwill which sell used clothing. Remember to always check over anything you buy that's used to ensure it's not to worn out and damaged. Generally these types of stores will allow you to purchase a large amount of clothing for very cheap. I was able to find a whole garbage bag full of useful clothing such as military surplus, jackets, toques, gloves, and even a sleeping bag that is rated to minus 40 Celsius for about 25 dollars, all of it was in like new condition, and the sleeping bag still had the original store tag on it.

Other Places To Look

The key for anyone looking to do anything on a budget is to think outside the box and look in areas that most would overlook. Other places to look for supplies for your bug out bag while keeping the cost down are the following

-Garage Sales

-Flea Markets

-Liquidation Stores

-Dollar Stores

-Craig's List (Be careful with online shopping, there are many scam artists out there)

-Going out of business sales

-Classifieds

These are just a few ideas to get you started. To find more useful post apocalypse survival information and tips check out my website The Razors Edge a post apocalypse survival guide.

A little about me

I am a former Canadian Forces soldier who has served the military honourably for 7 years. My website http://www.therazors-edge.com is a collection of that military experience mixed with my fascination for the apocalypse and end of the world related topics. I wanted to create a practical real life guide that can help you survive if our civilization collapses.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Outdoor Cooking

I am really loving the look of this Camp Chef Explorer 3 Burner Stove. I want one!! It has a huge cooking surface and you can grill, griddle, boil, or fry. Would be great for using while camping. Would be great in a survival situation.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Food Storage Recipe - Chicken Soup & Dumplings

This is such a quick and easy meal. My daughter gave me this recipe. She is in college and has very little money so she has come up with some great recipes. I am really proud of her thriftyness. I do think she got this from a cookbook of some kind though. Not sure. It is good and low cost though so I am sharing it on here.

Chicken Soup & Dumplings

3 cans of Progresso white meat chicken noodle soup

1 can chicken broth ,14.5 ounce

1 beaten egg

1 can of Grands biscuits

IN a 4 quart dutch oven, combine the soups and broth.

Seperate the biscuits and cut them in half. Dip those into the beaten egg, coating all sides. Drop them into the boiling soup and cook uncovered for about 10 minutes. Cover it and cook another 10 minutes or until the biscuits are light and fluffy. Carefully move the biscuits or remove them and ladel the soup into your bowls and top with dumplings. Yummy lunch on a cold winters day with a sandwich.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Food Storage Recipe - Easy Beef Stroganoff Soup

This is so easy to make and a great frugal recipe to fill the family up. You will be making this often.

Easy Beef Stroganoff Soup

2 cups of water

1 and 3 fourths of uncooked medium egg noodles

1 pound of ground beef (I have even used my freezed dried ground beef in this.)

half a clove of garlic

1 jar of beef gravy

1 jar (those little 2.5 ounce ones) of sliced mushrooms

half a cup of sour cream

Bring the 2 cups of water to a rolling boil and add the noodles. Cook them until they are tender and DO NOT DRAIN.

In another pan cook up the ground beef with the garlic. Drain good.

Add the cooked ground beef, gravy,mushrooms, and sour cream to the noodles. Cook until heated through. Serve. That is a quick meal.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Food Storage Recipe - Bean And Bacon Soup

This is so good. I am such a soup person. I can have soup everyday. This is a favorite in our house.

Bean and Bacon Soup

8 slices of bacon, cut into pieces

1 cup chopped celery

half cup chopped carrots

a fourth of a cup of chopped green onion

2 cans of navy beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups of chicken broth

1 cup water

Cook the bacon in a large saucepan until crisp. Remove and drain on a paper towel. Keep about 2 tablespoon of the bacon drippings in that saucepan. Add the celery, carrots, and onions. Cook until they are tender. Stirring frequently. Stir in the remaining items and let simmer until heated through. Add the bacon to the soup right before you serve it. Cornbread is good with this.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Did Not Go As Planned (Reorganizing)

Well, we wanted to reorganize the stockpile room. So Saturday night we got everything out of the room. Piling it all in the living room, kitchen, and hallway. Then hubby starts griping that it is not all stored like he had wanted it to be. Which, I said was why we had it all out , so that we could get it organized like we wanted it. But, I ended up taking it all back into the stockpile room. LOL

BUT, We have got plans for most of it. I am going to buy some more totes and label them for :Pasta, Rice, Beans, Flour, ETC. We also realized that we don't have a lot of canned meat items. I go through it so fast. So now I need to double up on stuff like that. Our stockpile gets used , but added to all of the time. So all of the dates were good. That was a good thing. We do need a lot more medical items and things like that. We also are going to try and get some extra money so that we can invest in a good water filtration system. We get Culligan delivered right now, but we want to get out of that. Sometimes they don't come when we need it and I end up having to buy bottled water from grocery. I hate doing that. Getting too expensive. But we have to have good water - our city water is awful here. Can't even drink it. Smells so bad and EPA has been here so many times. So, much safer to have water brought in. But we need some kind of water filter that gets EVERYTHING out.

All in all our stockpile is pretty good. Not sure how it would score, but for us it is all right. Just add to it like I have been, double up on canned meats, and get a good water filtration system and it will be all set.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Reorganizing The Stockpile

We are getting ready to reorganize our stockpile room. Hubby just got home and after being gone for a week the Little Man always is on him for a couple of hours. LOL Hopefully will be able to get it redone and sorted out by tomorrow night. Be a great way to clean it all up and get it sorted and hopefully find out what we still need. I am thinking about more medical supplies and items like that. We need more tools and stuff, also.

If I get it done I will post photos and ideas.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Make Your Own Soda - Off The Grid!

This saves money and is healthier than buying soda at the store. You control the soda with this machine and it pays for itself quickly!! The best part is that this uses NO BATTERIES OR ELECTRICITY!!!! The best-tasting soda starts with great-tasting water! Make fresh seltzer and soda with SodaStream’s compact soda maker and concentrated sodamix. 27 flavors – regular, diet, caffeine-free and cocktail mixers. No more lugging, storing or recycling!
The ultimate RV accessory! No more lugging, storing and recycling store-bought cans and bottles. Make fresh seltzer and soda with SodaStream’s compact soda maker and concentrated sodamix. 27 flavors – regular, diet, caffeine-free and cocktail mixers.


Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Making Your Own Toothpaste Is Simple

Making Your Own Toothpaste Is Simple

Want to share this. I have gotten a lot of "heat" over my post about using homemade toothpaste. But, of course, dentist are going to want you to use things that make your teeth bad so that you have to go to the dentist. LOL. If, everyone has good teeth , dentist make no money. But, of course, with the way the world is , you can never really tell what is true. Everything might be false. who knows anymore. Heck , maybe eating dirt will turn out to be the best. LOL



The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Fluoride - Are There Hidden Health Risks? Some Facts to Help You Decide

We're all exposed to fluoride these days whether we know it or not. Given that fluoride is actually prescribed by dentists for teeth and by doctors for bones, you'd think that fluoride is entirely safe, but would you be correct?

Here are some facts you might like to consider in answering that question:

ESSENTIAL FLUORIDE FACTS: * The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists fluoride as a hazardous material and classifies it as toxic waste. It is a cumulative poison, meaning it builds up in the body over time.

* In the presence of aluminum, fluoride crosses the blood-brain barrier. It is a neurotoxic chemical that interrupts brain nerve cell function. Documented downstream effects include Alzheimer's, atherosclerosis, infertility, birth defects, diabetes, cancer, and lowered IQ.

* In the United States, over 75% of the water supply contains fluoride. "The level of fluoride the government allows the public is based on scientifically fraudulent information and altered reports. People can be harmed simply by drinking water." ( Dr. Robert Carton, Ph.D, former Environmental Protection Agency Scientist (20 years), Food & Water Journal, Summer 1998)

* "... the use of drinking water containing as little as 1.2 - 3.0 parts per million of fluoride will cause such developmental disturbances in bones as osteosclerosis, spondylosis and osteopetrosis, as well as goiter" Journal American Dental Association, October 1944, Editorial

* Fluoride is a carcinogen. For example, In fluoridated communities, the bone cancer rate is six times higher among young males.

* Scientific evidence suggests fluoride damages the hippocampus, the part of the brain required for memory and learning new behavior. This means people can still behave in repetitive, learned ways, but have difficulty processing new information.

* Fluoride is added to some medications to increase the length of time it takes the body to break it down so its effects will last longer.The most popular antidepressant, Prozac, contains 94% fluoride. Paxil, Seroxat and Aropax are also fluorinated drugs.

* The Nazis used fluoride in concentration camps to keep inmates passive because when under the effects of fluoride, the prisoners showed decreased resistance to authority.

* Fluoride is used in deadly nerve gas, a substance developed by I.G. Farben, a Nazi-are conglomerate in cooperation with Alcoa Aluminum.

* Alcoa's post- World War II propaganda was key to US cities fluoridating water.

* The purported benefit of fluoride for protecting teeth is largely unsubstantiated scientifically: As far back as1980, the Chief Dental Officer, British Ministry of Health and Social Security stated: ... no laboratory test has ever shown that 1 part per million fluoride in the drinking water reduces tooth decay."

* Build-up of fluoride results in dental fluorisis. According to Dr. Geoffrey Smith, Dental Surgeon, this is "an irreversible pathological condition... the first readily detectable clinical symptom of previous chronic fluoride poisoning. To suggest we should ignore such a sign is as irrational as saying that the blue-black line which appears on the gums due to chronic lead poisoning is of no significance because it doesn't cause any pain or discomfort."

* Ingestion of fluoride results in increased bone density but decreased bone strength, making bones more brittle and more likely to break. "The highest fluoride content in bone ash was observed in women with severe osteoporosis"

Alhava E.M., et al., The Effect of Drinking Water Fluoridation on the Fluoride Content, Strength and Mineral Density of Human Bone, Acta Orthop. Scand., 51, 1980

* High fluoride exposure can produce nausea & ruptures of the stomach lining.

* Fluoride can damage the thyroid gland, lead to hyperparathyroidism - uncontrolled secretion of parathyroid hormones.

* Countries that have banned fluoride include China, India, Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Hungary & The Netherlands.

* Fluoride is a common ingredient in roach and rat poisons.

* "Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems." Journal of the American Medical Association, Sept 18, 1943, Editorial.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1. Stop it from getting in to your body. Eliminate all sources you can, such as: Foods with added fluorine.Go here to find out what foods and how much: poisonfluoride

Dental treatments to protect teeth, including placed under dental sealants Most toothpastes, Bottled juice, bottled water, sodas, green and black tea, non-organic wine and grape juices.

(They are treated with cryolite, which contains fluoride and often prepared with fluoridated water).

Teflon pans, Fluorodated salt, Prescription medications (estimates are that 30-50% of these drugs now contain fluoride) Anesthetics such as Isoflurane, Sevoflurane, and Enflurane, Insectisides for crops, Pesticides for the home.

2. Eliminate fluoride from your drinking water. To do this, remember that fluoride does NOT evaporate from water, so there is no point in letting water sit out. Boiling, freezing and basic filters don't remove it. Actually removing it requires a reverse osmosis filter. If you're out and need to buy some safe bottled water, make sure it is natural spring water, because that does not contain fluoride. You can also distill your drinking water if you live in a fluoridated community.

3. Get well over 200 mg. of Vitamin C per day. John Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D reports that " If you take over 200 mg of vitamin C per day that is all you really need for removing fluoride. In three to six months you should have about 99% of it out which is good enough."

4. Supplement with iodine, calcium, magnesium and boron. These minerals increase the rate of elimination.

5. Keep your liver clean and your bile flowing so your body has a clear pathway to eliminate it.

6. For further information, visit The Fluoride Action Network and its Fluoride Health Effects Database.

Pamela Levin is an R.N., a Teaching & Supervising Transactional Analyst and award winning author and nutritional journalist with 500 + hours post-graduate training in clinical nutrition, herbology and applied kinesiology. In private practice 42 years, she shares health improvement tips for body, mind, spirit, emotions and relationships in her complimentary bi-weekly newsletter, available at BetterHealthBytes.com. You're invited to register there and to request a topic you'd like covered.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Homemade Toothpaste

This is the best homemade toothpaste recipe that I have found. Easy to make and healthy for the whole family. There is no flouride and no glycerin. Plus it taste good.

Homemade Toothpaste

4 TSP Baking Soda

2 and a half TSP Coconut Oil

7 drops of spearmint, peppermint oil, or cinnamon oil. Just whichever you think that your family will like the best. I used spearmint oil in mine.

All that you do is add this to a blender, I use my magic bullet, and mix it together real good . Put into a jar or something that has a lid. USE! It is awesome. Cheap and very easy to make. Plus it is healthy. The number one thing about it, is that my Little Man loves it.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Trying to Get Some Work Done

I am trying so hard to get any writing done. It is hard to get on my son's computer and have a few things to write on here and have photos and video to go with the posts. I wish that had kept my computer now. I have so much work that needs done and it is almost impossible to get it done now. I love this blog so much and coulld write on it everyday easily if I had a way to. I wll keep trying. We have been doing some prepping things that I want to share. SOON.

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!

Happy New Year

The Prepper's Pocket Guide: 101 Easy Things You Can Do to Ready Your Home for a Disaster

Ultimate Family Preparedness Pak

120 Serving Breakfast Only @ $198 (120 Servings breakfast assortment. No entrees) - Order Now!