Tag Archives: logistics

Mountain House math at CostCo

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“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Was up at CostCo and beheld this:

Five Day Meal Kit, eh? Hmmm. Lets run some numbers. First, lets grab the data off the back of the box:

So, this is supposed to be five days of food for …I’m guessing one person. Without evidence contrary to that, let’s run with it – five days for one person.

According to the box label, you’ve got a total of fifteen pouches in there. Makes sense, right? Three meals a day for five days is fifteen meals.

The next thing of interest is the caloric value of each meal. This is going to be a tad misleading. Lets take the first item listed on the box…Beef Lasagna. The box says 220 calories. Thats about 1/10th of your daily recommended calories (if you follow USDA guidelines of 2000/k per day). But keep reading…each container is two servings. So, each pouch of that Beef Lasagna is actually 440 calories, or about 1/5th of your daily calories. Slightly better.

So keeping an eye on those calories-per-serving and servings-per-container, you can see that if you add up the entire caloric value of this box you get…an average of 1488 calories per day. Thats about 75% of your daily 2000 calories. And thats 2000 calories for just sitting there doing nothing. Factor in chainsawing downed trees, hanging looters, hauling supplies, etc, etc, and you’ll see that 1488 calories is better than nothing but you better plan on adding a few notches to your belt.

Does that mean that a package like this has no value? Heck, no. I’l take 1488 calories of freezedrieds stored in a 5-gallon-bucket in the back of my truck over the 2500 calories of food that got destroyed/looted/washed away/burned in my house. Something is, usually, better than nothing.

Now, if you took this box, dumped out the pouches and sealed ’em up in a five gallon bucket with some pouches of tuna, packets of oatmeal, instant coffee packets, Gatorade pouches, and maybe a few small cans of Dinty Moore….well…you’re sitting pretty when the dinner bell rings in Heleneville.

The takeaway from this post isn’t that freeze-drieds arent the Perfect Solution. You should already know that. The takeaway here is that you need to read the labels and do the math. Don’t plop down $320 for four of these, stick ’em in a closet, and pat yourself on the back thinnking you, the wife, and kids are now ‘taken care of’.

Two thousand calories per day is a baseline. And there are a lot of people who think that number is of questionable value. Only you know what kinda caloric stockpile will work for you. Run the numbers. Being prepared is sometimes a pain in the butt, but do it anyway. We can all probably stand to miss a few meals and wind up being the better for it, but in a crisis there is very little that calms you down and gets your brain on an even keel more than a tasty hot meal at regular intervals.

So, yeah, pick up some of these at CostCo…at $6 per pouch its not a terrible value. But don’t think youre done once you throw that box in your cart.

Be vewy vewy quiet….

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I really don’t want to get too far in the weeds with this, but, as I see it, it could be reasonably argued that there is a utility in having an accurate suppressed carbine of some kind for low-signature shooting at ranges not much past 100 yards. And while a suppressed .22 in a quality bolt gun with a good suppressor on the end is a fine, fine instrument…sometimes you need a bit more bullet mass.

So, how would you do that, exactly? A suppressed bolt action rifle would be pretty much ideal…no noise of the action cycling, no special mods to the rifle to allow cycling with subsonic ammo, etc. (A single shot carbine would give the same benefit but follow up shots would be rather slow…on the other hand, this sort of arm is seldom called on for volume-of-fire applications.)

So…a suppressed bolt action out to about 100 yards. One hundred yards isnt a very challenging distance with a scoped carbine, so almost any caliber will do if it can be kept subsonic with relative ease. The first thing that springs to mind is a 9mm or .45 ACP gun. Pistol ammo is easy to load down to subsonic, and .45 AARP is natively subsonic. Problem is, when was the last time you saw a bolt action 9mm of any worth? (Sure, 9mm Destroyer carbines are out there…but those are novelty Spanish guns. Repros of the DeLisle are out there, but I wouldnt call them precision.) My first thought, and still on my radar, is a Ruger 77/357….a bolt-action .357 Mag that would let me use my 9mm suppressors. Loaded with 200 gr. bullets it should be just fine for the relatively short range while providing a good platform with potential for accuracy….bolt action, integral scope mounts, aftermarket trigger availability, etc. Problem is finding one.

So, I did a bit of research and decided that while I am still going to keep an eye open for the threaded 77/357, I was going to pick up a bolt gun in .300 Blackout. This would let me use my .30 suppressor and the exterior ballistics would be an improvement over a pistol bullet. As a bonus, the Ruger version uses AR15 mags for most applications. (Depending on how you load the cartridge, an average Pmag will work fine, but if youre going to seat bullets out a bit further you might want a dedicated purpose-built .300 Blackout AR mag.)

And thus we got this:

Its a Ruger American® Rifle Generation II Ranch in .300 Blackout. I then changed out the stock for a Magpul stock. I threw the Sig SRD762-QD suppressor on there and fired a few rounds just to see how quiet it is. Gotta say, it isn’t “Hollywood quiet” but it isn’t too far away from it. I need to throw a scope on and I’m thinking that since it’s for fairly short ranges, either a variable 1-6x or a fixed 6x would be the way to go. Why the Magpul stock? A couple reasons..first, and I’m not ashamed to say it, it looks cooler. I like the sling attachment options, the subdued color, MLOK points to attach accessories, adjustable cheekpiece and spacers, and the AK-style mag release.

The only drawback to all this, naturally, is that I now have to work the logistics of a new cartridge. I’m not happy about that, and thats one of the reasons I’m still holding out for the Ruger 77/357. But I must say that the .300 Blackout was certainly ear-safe and deceptively quiet at the outdoor range. I need to go with a friend and have them shoot it as I pace off some distances away from them to see at what distance it becomes virtually inaudible.

A good question might be why not use subsonic .308 ammo? Well, I gave that a lot of thought. There’s a lot of merit to using .308 from a logistics point of view, but my experience with large (comparatively) cases with light loads has been that you get erratic performance. Enough inconsistent performance to make a difference at 100 yards? Maybe. But there was also the concern of mixing up subsonic .308 with regular .308. I don’t mind mixing up subsonic 9mm with regular 9mm (or .45) because my pistols will digest either one just fine. But my PTR-91’s may have other ideas about subsonic ammo. I may revisit this and try some subsonic .308 but it seemed that if there were going to be tradeoffs that had to be made, then I might as well do the ones that get me something more in line with what I think my needs were.

So…theres the weekend.

 

Logistics

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Well, if you’re gonna have an Uzi (or two), you’re gonna need mags….right?

Fifty oughtta be a good start. And I’ve a few other accessories for the new acquisition that have started trickling in.

This was a 50-mag package from Atlantic Firearms. These are 25-rd mags and, thoguh used, they appear to be in pretty good shape. I need to thoroughly examine each one closely, but so far they all look good.

 

CR123, AA batts, and desert hermit logisitcs

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FriendOfTheBlog(tm), Joel, had himself a bump-in-the-night encounter a few weeks back that I mentioned here. I mentioned it because it underscores the utility of weapon-mounted lights and how, in some circumstances, they are just what the doctor ordered.

What I didn’t mention was that I gifted Joel one of these so that he could light something up without pointing a carbine at it, if he needed to. We all know the rules about not pointing a gun at anything you don’t want to destroy, so I figure that a high-capacity-intensity flashlight would be handy for when you’re not sure that whatever is out in the dark is something you want to be pointing a loaded gun at.

Anyway…

There was a comment in the post Joel made about how, given his hermit location, finding CR123 batteries for this light, in case its rechargeable batteries zonked out, would be a difficulty and he would be better serviced with the dirt-common alkaline AA-batts. I politely disagreed because, in my experience, every Home Depot, hardware store, gun store, and supermarket carries CR123 batts.  But..I’ve been wrong before, so I’m open to the possibility that perhaps my experience in the matter differs from what that experience would be if I lived in Joel’s neighborhood.

But the crux of the matter, really, is this: is a device that runs on CR123 batts a liability over a similar device that runs on AA-batts? In terms of price? In terms of availability?

One of the points brought up in the comment was that AA batts were cheaper than CR123. This is quite true. But, as I pointed out, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. AA alkaline batteries are cheaper than CR123 lithium batteries. But when you compare AA lithium batteries to CR123 lithium batteries, there is a niggling difference in price. A quick perusal of Amazon showed Energizer lithium AA’s and lithium CR123’s being pretty close to each other in bulk price.

The scarcity issue may have some merit, but CR123 batteries are easily ordered in bulk from Amazon during a time of non-apocalypse, and because of their lithium construction they can be stored longer than alkaline batteries with less self-discharge. (And, I am told, lithium batteries tend to puke all over themselves much less than the alkaline batteries do.)

The advantage to the AA-batt is that if you run out of lithium AA’s for your device you can, usually, still use the dirt-common AA alkalines….assuming its not eight years after the apocalypse when they’ve all self-discharged or leaked into a pile of crud.

All of this underscores that for your battery needs you need to think about things like this. I standardized a long time ago on three battery sizes – AA, D, CR123. Almost every device I could possibly need….headlamps, flashlight, gun sight, weaponlight, radio, freezer alarm, etc…can be had running off one of those types of batteries. Some devices, like a high-intensity weapon light, have power requirements that can’t be met with anything except a CR123. While there are weaponlights out there that will run on other battery sizes, it seems like they usually don’t have the same level of brightness intensity unless they make up for their non-CR123 power requirement by using a much larger quantity of batteries. (In other words, instead of using two CR123, it may need six or eight AA’s.)

Then there’s the matter of rechargeable devices. More and more stuff is of the USB-charger variety. The flashlight I sent Joel, for example, has its rechargeable battery charged through USB. I rather like this feature because it means in a pinch I can charge it from anything that would charge a cellphone….a small solar panel, a battery pack, etc, etc. But, as we all know, rechargeable batteries have a limited amount of duty cycled before the battery starts to no longer hold as much of a charge. This is mitigated a bit by the fact that the package I sent Joel has a spare battery and should, I would think, last probably the rest of his life. But even if the batteries died an ignoble death, the light can still run off CR123’s…which brings us back around to a few paragraphs earlier.

The person who commented on there being a disadvantage, in Joels case, to the CR123 batteries has a valid point – resupply is definitely a concern. But, in my opinion, that potential risk or failure point is mitigated by the the CR123 being able to be long-terms stored meaning that a supply of them purchased now should take care of things. Also, for what I was looking for – a compact, handheld light with tremendous brightness – wasn’t as readily available in a non-CR123 version while still meeting the compact requirements.

Anyway, some food for though there.

 

Standardization

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So this popped up in comments from the last post, and there’s a lot to unpack, so it becomes a post all its own:

At what point is it a good idea to standardize?
Lets say you plan to use 308, 9mm, 12g and .22.
Other than some “trade goods”, why carry other calibers…
Having just to have costs – either financially or in storage space.

“Standardize” means different things to different people. Are you standardizing on a particular caliber? A particular firearm? Both? Theres some big differences there. Lets give a couple examples and the problems they incur.

Let’s say you standardize on caliber. Everyone in your family/group/clan/stick/team/cadre/cell//whatever decides that .223 is the way to go. That way everyone can use the same ammo. You’ve got an AR,, Bob has an AUG, Uncle Billy has a Mini-14, and Crazy Steve has a .223 AK. You guys can all eat from the same pot of .223 ammo. And then…Steve loses some magazines in an impromptu bugout, or Billy only had a few to begin with and needs more, or the feed lips on your mags are getting tired and you think its time to swap out for some new mags. Well, you’re all shooting .223, which you standardized on, but everyone has their own magazine logistics. Billy can’t give Steve any of his mags, and your mags wont work in Steves gun, and you see where I’m going with this?

So, maybe you standardize on a gun (‘platform’). We’re all gonna rock the AR. For the most part, we’re all gonna be able to swap parts and accessories if we need. Your AR is 7.62×39, mine is .223, Steve’s is .300 Black, and Billy has gone way off the res and adheres to the 6.8 SPC. But we can all swap small parts, optics, lights, accessories, and we all share the same manual of arms. But…I’ve got plenty of .223, Billy is having trouble finding ammo, Steve can’t give any ammo to you, and .300 Black isn’t found at the local trading post. Again, see where Im going with this?

For me, I’m thinking long term. As far as guns go, my thought process is “If I can’t buy more tomorrow, will I be able to spend the rest of my life with what I have?” And spending the rest of my life with what I have is a lot easier when its common to what my buddies and the locals carry.

For me, the end of the world looks like an AR in .223 and a 9mm Glock. Two platforms so widely supported that you can literally build them from parts you purchase online and a receiver you make yourself.

Other than some “trade goods”, why carry other calibers…

Because not every problem has a solution that can be optimally met with the survivalist’s classic calibers. Do you have livestock? Do you have bears? When you’re woken up at 2am to the sound of your goats/chickens/cattle getting mangled by a bear you’re probably gonna want something with a bit more horsepower than a .223 or .308…and out comes the Marlin in .45-70…or the Mauser in .35 Whelen…or the Browning in .338.

And you may have a gun/ammo preference for hunting that you’re comfortable with. For example, I have rifles in .308 to hunt with but I have sentimental attachment to a 7mm Mauser I had built up years ago and prefer hunting with that. Logistically it makes no sense, but since I have three dozen AR’s, a thousand magazines, and piles of .223 ammo, I don’t feel that having a little boutique gun/caliber is creating a risk for me.

Having extra guns/ammo in ‘non standardized’ calibers does cost, financially and in terms of space. I agree wholeheartedly. But I have the financial and spatial margin to have a few things just because I like them or think theyre cool. I wouldn’t run out the door to WW3 with my Marlin .357, but I enjoy it enough that I don’t mind making room for it in my gun safe. If youre living on a tight budget then, yes, be as practical as you can…get your AR or AK, your 870 or 500, and the ammo you need. But once youve done all that, if theres a toy or two you want where is the harm? Just know that it isn’t part of your preparations and is just a ‘want’.

As for trading purposes…we’re seeing that now. There are plenty of people who went heavy on primers, for example, who are making crazy money selling them off and using the proceeds to plug whatever holes are left in their checklists. If you have the space and money, by all means, have something for trading purposes so that one day you can get the extra ammo or extra mags you thought you didnt need.

But the standardization thing goes beyond guns, as you know. Batteries are a great example. CR123, coin batts, AAA,AA,C,D batteries are needed for all sortsa useful gizmos. Who wants to keep that many different types of batteries around? And its virtually a promise that whatever battery you need will be the one size that youre out of. For me, its AA and D batts. Thats it. Anything that runs on AAA, C, or CR123 is either available in another battery format or is available as a USB rechargeable.

Same for fuels. You have a diesel truck, propane stove, kerosene heater, gas generator, and white gas lanterns.Thats just asking for troubles.

If you can afford the money/space, then logistics may not be an issue for you. You can have a steel building full of cases of different calibers, different size batteries, different types of fuels, and therefore don’t have to worry about each piece of gear requiring a different item to make it work. More power to you. But I want the smallest, most efficient, logistical footprint possible and for me that means standardizing on things.

“Having just to have” does, in fact, cost. But if you’re able to absorb those costs then there’s not really a problem. When I was but a wee baby survivalist in my early 20’s, I had no margin in my life at all. I had an AR, an 870, a 10/22, and a.45. That was it. Money was very tight and rather than pick up a gun I wanted for fun, I kept that basic survivalists battery. Nowadays, money is less of an issue. And I’ve had over 35 years to acquire the basics. So, if I want, I can (and do) buy a gun that absolutely does not fit anywhere into my preparedness plans….and it’s fun. I’ve got the basics covered so thoroughly that if I want a .22 caliber copy of the MP40 to play with at the range, I can do that and not feel that I’ve neglected my other responsibilities.

Not sure that addresses the initial questions, but thats where it took my mind.

Standardization is important. You need to really think it through. When it’s Day 37 in the post apocalyptic world the last thing you want to have to worry about is where to find a replacement oddball-size battery or hard-to-find magazine.”Most common denominator” is the way to think on these matters.

No doubt the comments to this post are gonna be full of “I went with this caliber…I went with these guns..” and everyone will list off their ideal mix. Thats fine, although unnecessary. More interesting comments would be from people who didnt go the ‘usual’ route and why.

Need to inventory

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I need to do some inventory this month. I’ve been a bit lax about adding things to the preponomicom and I simply cannot afford to be caught unprepared (or overprepared) given how it seems like everything in the country is in some sort of race to Third world lifestyle.

By the way, how can you be overprepared, you ask? Simple….you inadvertently acquire more of something than you could realistically need and that commitment of resources prevents you from being prepared elsewhere.

I’m reasonably confident that the future of me needing to use my preps does not look like Red Dawn, Jericho, Last of Us, or Walking Dead. I am more inclined to believe it looks more like …what it is now – inflation, scarcity, violent crime, homelessness, reckless government, and that sort of thing.

I know I keep saying it, but it’s true: Your likelihood of being in an emergency that requires remediation using $50 bills is magnitudes of order greater than being in an emergency that requires remediation using .50 BMG.

Not saying it won’t or can’t happen the other way, just saying that my experience says the odds favor the personal EOTWAWKI occurring more than it does the civilization-wide one.

A personal EOTWAWKI is something that directly impacts you a lot more than it impacts society as a whole. Job loss. Health crisis. Divorce. A close death. Bankruptcy. House fire. These are all things that bring your life to a screeching halt but barely make a blip on the radar of anyone outside your immediate circle. Those are the things that will happen far more often than UN troops going door-to-door giving forced Covid vaccinations.

So..I need to print out the preponomicon, grab a clipboard, and hit the shelves. Its a not unpleasant way to spend the afternoon when it’s 95 degrees outside. Hanging out in a cool basement working on that warm fuzzy feeling from knowing you can take care of your needs for the next year or so……not a bad way to spend a few hours.

 

The multi-cartridge approach

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Tam, over at View From The Porch, had a post about how the .327 Federal pistol will shoot several cartridges – .32 S&W, .32 Long, .32 Mag, .327 Federal, and .32 ACP. She  opined that for those of us scavenging for cartidges after the apocalypse, this multi-caliber functionality might have an appeal.

That got me thinking about where we’ve been and where we’re going in terms of the ‘one-gun, multi-cartridge’ pistol. (Note there’s a difference between multi-cartridge and multi-caliber.)

The most common would be the .357 Magnum – it can fire .38 Special and .357 Magnum (and .38 Colt if you somehow stumble into a hardware store that hasn’t been open since 1927). Ditto .44 Magnum, but I’ll bet there are plenty of .44 Mag shooters who have never even seen a .44 Special. The .45 ACP revolvers shot .45 ACP and .45 AutoRim. Smith and Wesson’s seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time .460 Smith and Wesson will shoot .45 Colt, .454 Casull, and .460 S&W. The guys at Ruger have a Redhawk that’ll shoot .45 ACP or .45 Colt.  The old Ruger single actions in .32-20/.32 Mag, .38-40/10mm, .45 Colt/ACP, 9mm/357 still turn up but you better make sure not to lose that extra cylinder. (And, really, how hard would it be for Ruger to come out with a convertible double action revolver, hm????) The Survivor/Medusa would shoot pretty much anything in the .38/9mm range but it was kind of a sucky gun to begin with. These are all examples (and, yes, I know there are others) of a multi-cartridge gun….but they are all of the same caliber. Once you get into multi-caliber guns things get more interesting.

A multi-caliber revolver is quite a trick to pull off since a ready barrel change would be required and thats a feature found on very few revolvers. (Looking at you, Dan Wesson.)  But, when you get to automatics, its a different story. Ruger had a P89 that was a ‘convertible’ that let you swap between 9mm (.35 caliber) and .30 Luger (.30 caliber) with just a barrel change. HK had a switch barrel auto back in the day (HK4) that let you shoot .22, .25, .32, and .380.

The larger Glocks lend themselves to this sort of thing and I have seen setups where people will have a Glock that can toggle between .40, 10mm, and .357 SIG. When it comes to autos, the real bottle neck is the breechface…the cartridges often need to share a similar rim diameter.

The undeniable king of claiber conversions is the Thompson Contender which is a single-shot but has no equal in terms of versatility and potential caliber changes.

Its an interesting things to ponder….what pistol would give you the highest odds of finding ammunition for it in a crisis? There are people who are quick to point out that if a fella had a 10mm, .38 Super, .40 Smith, or .41 Magnum he could probably have found ammo during the last ‘ammo drought’ when 9mm, .45 ACP, and .357 couldn’t be had for love nor money.

There is a little merit to that. Problem is, if the caliber is obscure enough that people leave in on the shelf during a crisis then it is probably obscure enough that most stores won’t have any of it in the first place. Sure, your local Cabela’s will probably carry .38 Super but the local KwikeeMart probably won’t…so you’re back to square one.

What would be the most common calibers to find for your pistol in a world gone mad(der)? For the autos, I’d think a man with a 9mm would have an easier time of it than a .45 ACP devotee or .40 S&W fan. In revolvers, I’d say the man with a .357 would do pretty well for himself.These are, of course, centerfire cartridges. Probably the most ubiquitous ammo will be .22 LR and having a couple pistols and rifles chambered in that cartridge would be a paramount idea. And, yeah, .22 Mag or .17 Whatever is a zippy little mofo but you’ll find a hundred or more rounds of .22 for every round of any other rimfire you come across.

Of course, some folks figure any cartridge will work if you stockpile enough ammo for it. Well, yeah, that’ll work….if you’re never away from your supply, if your supply remains safe and secure, if you’re supply can last you for your anticipated lifetime, if if if…..

This, in a roundabout way, gets us back to one of those classic survivalist discussions about ‘cartridges for the end of the world’ or some similar hot-stove-league topic. I settled that argument, for me, years and years ago. I’m confident that, given the chamberings of my pistols and rifles, I’ll not have the worst time trying to find ammo down the road.

I was about to say that someday someone will come out with a modular pistol frame that will enable a broad spectrum of caliber and cartridge swaps. And then it occurred to me that we are probably 90% of the way there with SIG’s 320 model that uses the fire control group (FCG) as the legally-defined firearm, letting you buy all the barrel/frame/slide/mag combinations you want without the hassle of federal paperwork.

Hmm. I should investigate that a bit. I’m sure the aftermarket will be jumping onto that platform and getting us all sorts of barrels and whatnot. Hmmm.

 

Wanna see something cool?

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You guys remember that a few weeks back I bought a like-new Aladdin kero lamp for $25? Well,check this baby out…it is literally new-in-box from about 40+ years ago:

How cool is that? Absolutely brand new and left over from the Reagan years.

And, heres the sad thing: from a pragmatic, practical, and logistical standpoint this is a silly purchase. It’ll run eight hours on one quart of fuel. Thats four nights on a gallon, which means I have about 400 days worth of kero for this thing. Thats 20 5-gallon cans. Those take up a lot of space. And this thing generates heat, which isnt always welcome. And a degree of indoor pollutants. And a fire risk. And some delicate spare parts (mantle, chimney). Whereas a good 12v. LED light will, as I’ve proven, run 21 nights (at least) on one charge, poses no fire risk, generates several times the light, no heat, can be recharged from multiple sources (generator, car, solar, bike generator, etc.) and doesn’t require delicate spare parts. From a practical standpoint, this item makes absolutely no sense in my preparedness TOE. Except…I like them. I like their charm, warmth, good looks, and general homey-ness. But, make no mistake, the primary emergency lighting ain’t these. But…on a cold winter night, when youre sitting by the window watching the wind howl and blow the snow around, its a good deal more comforting than the harsh LED lamps.

Oh…price? $89 plus shipping. Couldn’t resist.

Article -In Remote Alaska, Meal Planning Is Everything

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That first summer in the Arctic, Adam, who had already spent several summer seasons in Bettles, arrived a few weeks before me and told me that I had to go to the grocery store in Fairbanks and buy as much food as possible. What he really meant was, buy as much food as you can push in a grocery cart back to your hotel, repackage it into boxes, then get it all into a taxi to the small Alaska Bush plane office, and pay for it as freight on the flight.

What Adam hadn’t shared — but what quickly would become second nature to me — is that in the tiny town, we would develop our own rituals around eating. Yes, things like fresh strawberries would be hard to come by, but together we’d craft innovative solutions to tasks more easily accomplished in less remote places. We’d communally grow vegetables with our neighbors. We’d order food from thousands of miles away, weeks ahead of time. And we would hardly ever be eating alone.

An interesting read on what you have to deal with when the nearest Trader Joe’s, HEB, or Safeway is hundreds (or thousands) of miles away.

Have you actually done menu planning for The End Of The World? I mean, I know you’ve got all sorts of stored food, but have you actually thought about what a particular meal, say breakfast, would look like? I have. For me, breakfast looks like the following:

  • Oatmeal, Cream of What, Cornmeal porridge
  • Scrambled eggs
  • Hash browns
  • Corned beef hash
  • Pork chops
  • Orange drink
  • Biscuits
  • Strawberries, blueberries, bananas
  • Instant milk

Thats actually a better breakfast than what I eat now. See, it isn’t enough to just throw back an assortment of storage food. You have to give some thought to what sort of menus youre going to be looking at. How many different breakfasts can you do? Lunches? Sinners? Snacks?

For some ideas, I have always recommended this website and it’s very impressive list of ‘storage food recipes’: http://safelygatheredin2.blogspot.com/2008/11/alphabetical-recipe-list.html

But the important thing to take away from the article listed above is that you have to plan out what your meals will be if you have any hope of efficiently and economically getting your food storage squared away. Go plan a weeks worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How many ingredients ‘cross over’ to other meals? Figure it out, get the most variety and utility from the least amount of items. Its a good exercise.

Rotating and reminiscing

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One of the cool things about being a survivalist (or, at least, a moderately prepared survivalist) is that your stockpiles become snapshots of the economy in different periods of time. For example, today I rotated out some canned tomatoes. Tomatoes,  because of their high acidity, need to be rotated fairly frequently….a couple years is about all I’m willing to trust in a metal can (even lined ones). In glass jars is a different story, but for cans….a couple years, tops.

So, I headed up to WinCo, cornered the grocery manager, and asked him to order me up a few cases of my preferred tomatoes. As I was swapping them out with the previously stored ones, I could not help but notice:

As you can see from the image, these were purchased at CostCo in 2020. $5.99 for eight cans. Thats $6 divided by eight. That comes out to seventy-five cents per can. Todays cost at WinCo? 66% more per can. Must be that Putinflation that Dopey Joe keeps deflecting to.

Get used to it.

And, while I was at Winco, I checked for remaindered meat. WinCo doesn’t discount as much as Albertson’s used to, but they will discount by 30% when meats are approaching their ‘use by’ date. Me, I’m a big fan of animal protein, so I cleaned ’em out on small breakfast-type steaks. These’ll get vacuum sealed and put away in the deep freeze for use in the coming economic disaster….which means I’ll probably be eating them next month.