Closed down Chinese ports, congestion at ports around the world, labor shortages, the FED pumping money like nobodies business and news about all kinds of shortages will all contribute to prices going up for goods and services. If we don’t have a TEOTWAWKI moment like many prepare for, can your finances handle the slow creep of prices going up?
I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast, but you used to be able to go and spend $100 at the grocery store and come home with a nice pile of groceries. That is not the case anymore. What you see is prices are going up or packages are getting smaller. It’s one or the other. And this will continue to happen!
So, how long will it be before you need to start cutting corners and truly watching what you spend? Some of you are reading this and saying, “Todd, I’m already doing that!” I know this because I hear about it all the time from listeners and readers. But others are ok right now and can eat the increase in prices, but for how long?
The point of this is to start thinking ahead now. What do you need to start doing to be able to provide for your family and those in your care?
Here are some ideas.
Start Looking for Recipes that You Can Make from Scratch.
Food is important! Many people eat out or buy ready-made meals. But if this gets too expensive, you can make meals from scratch. Yes, it takes longer and requires more preparation, even when you are tired and don’t feel like it, but if it means eating, you want to do this.
This recently came up in the Prepper Website Exclusive Email Group. One member mentioned how they didn’t grow up with a mom who cooked and didn’t really know how to cook from scratch. The advice was to search for 3-5 inexpensive meals and get really good at them. Then, from there, you can always add to your repertoire of dishes. The internet is full of easy and affordable recipes to make. I shared this three ingredient quick bread recipe in the Sat. Prep two weeks ago (sign-up here).
Find Free or Inexpensive Recreation Activities
This is a no brainer. But the fact is, some people might sit around moping around because they can’t spend the money they used to on (fill-in-the-blank). Instead, replace those activities with free or inexpensive activities. Are you and your friends used to spending a night out on the town, going for drinks, out to eat, to the movies, etc…? Instead, have them over, make a homecooked meal (see the above paragraphs) and play a card game.
My family loves to play Phase 10. I will admit, I hate it when people are on their phones and try to play at the same time. I don’t want to remind someone that it’s their turn. So maybe, you have a phone-less evening. What a concept!
You can also enjoy nature, read a book, visit the library, have a movie party by connecting your laptop to your TV and watching something on YouTube (because you canceled all your streaming services to save money).
Stay Healthy
There is a guy I work with that lost around 80 pounds during the Covid Lockdowns. He used the time at home to workout and start eating healthy. It’s been about 7 months since I first saw the new version and he has kept it off.
The fact is that staying healthy keeps you from going to the doctor, getting on medicine or dealing with other factors which all cost money. A period of economic decline, along with the onslaught of all the other news, can be very stressful. You need to be healthy, physically, mentally and spiritually!
Stay Vigilant!
This part isn’t about savings or your finances necessarily. This part is about your safety!
As prices go up, there are going to be others who start to get desperate because they can’t have the things they are used to. More than likely crime will go up! On top of everything else, you should maintain good situational awareness of what is going on around you, not only when you go to the store, but what does your neighborhood or community look like?
I wrote about this in Failed Situational Awareness – Missing the Slow Slide of Your Community.
Start Now!
If you are not struggling financially right now, you are blessed! But you should really think about what would happen to your finances IF/WHEN prices keep going up and you start feeling the pinch in your pocketbook. What are you going to do? What will you change? How will you adjust?
For more money saving ideas, check out – 60 Ways to Save Money NOW (Without Too Much Effort) For Saving, Investing or Buying More Preps.
I would love to hear some of your thoughts in the comments.
Peace,
Todd
As Ecclesiastes 4: says
…11Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? 12And though one may be overpowered, two can resist. Moreover, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
First get away from the solo family-lone wolf attitude. As my Grandparents diaries told me in Weimar Germany family’s working together do better both in securing supplies (Quick Shopping each person with a list), security for each other in the parking lot AND Keeping an eye on each others homes. Thieves (tweekers today) quickly figure out when your away from home and steal everything/destroy things for whatever jollies they get from that.
Also having an allied family means you both have someone that will respond if trouble comes to visit. Even tweekers hate it when neighbors show up blowing whistles like they are Alarming the Whole Neighborhood. Whistles are better than yelling and far easier to explain to Police than gunfire, just saying.
tweeker
A methamphetamine user. Tweekers are known for their extreme paranoia, flagrant dishonesty, and lack of non-tweeker friends. A tweeker will steal your stuff and then help you look for it.
Buying in bulk helps both families, Rationing is better handled if both family combine their ration cards to secure food-tires-gasoline etc. Sharing automobile use and so on. Learn to eat Ethnic Foods. A Hand Grinder makes clean horse grade (not Deer Corn, nasty) dry whole corn into Corn Meal, processing whole corn with hardwood ashes (please not pine, nasty taste) and water making lye removed the shell and Nixtamalization occurs making more nutrition available as you make Masa for tortillas or Pozole soup, and dry beans are GREAT Meat Substitutes as well as Meat Extenders. White beans are great with Chicken and Pork, Black Beans to extend hamburger, pintos and kidneys have their own “earthy flavor” good for chilies and such.
LEARN how to make a Pot of Beans folks, FAR Cheaper than canned beans. Sweet beans is a common Japanese breakfast food. Seems only in America and Europe are their “Breakfast foods”. Most of the rest of the world eats last nights leftovers and such.
Nixtamalization is a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes aqueous potassium carbonate OR LYE ), washed, and then hulled. This process removes up to 97%–100% of aflatoxins from mycotoxin-contaminated corn.
Pozole, is a traditional soup or stew from Mexican cuisine. It is made from hominy with meat, and can be seasoned and garnished with shredded lettuce or cabbage, chile peppers, onion, garlic, radishes, avocado, salsa or limes.
Tractor Supply Producers Pride Whole corn 50 pounds has went up from last fall 8.50 to 11.79 today almost a 40% jump. I’ve eaten Horse Corn on Missionary Trips. Each pound of corn yields about 1,566 calories. So a bag of Producers Pride is 75,000 calories.
No wonder American Indians and all of South America do this process with their dry corn eh?
Also including the article on emergency gardening earlier you can PLANT Dry Corn and Dry Beans for more production. Try that with a frozen pizza 🙂
If you have wheat and cooking oil you can make Fameal, I’ve eaten it on Missionary Trips, not bad, can be tasty. Fameal can be eaten as a thin paste or thickened and made into dumplings or bread. The taste is sometimes described as “foody” and some consider it delicious. The cooked product can be added to soups and casseroles or made into cookies.
The gruel you see them ladling into starving kids bowls is generally Fameal. It is healthy and a talented cook can make a hearty Chili Beany Bread out of it that is quite tasty especially with some bacon grease as a “butter”. I’ve eaten Fameal Cookies with extra suger and other mix ins like coconut or such.
Nutritional components
The general measures of fameal are
50% (by volume) Cornmeal or Wheat Meal.
30% (by volume) Bean meal, of any kind, including soy. Lentils are sometimes used due to ease of grinding and fast cooking.
10% (by volume) Cooking Oil. Any cooking oil works.
10% (by volume) Sugar, honey, syrup, or similar sweetener.
Salt for taste.
Multi-vitamin powder, or multi-vitamins ground to a meal.
I’ll stop here. Ethnic cooking is often for poor people and soon we are ALL going to feel much Poorer.
Good Info. Michael. This could be a post all on itself!
Have you considered writing an article about some of this in the context of your missionary trips? It would give context to the meal/food prep I think.
Todd
Todd the main take away of missionary work for preppers is expect things to Change.
Your NOT going to have unlimited “entertainment” with 100+ channels of cable, you need to ADAPT and Overcome with other entertainment. YES, entertainment is Important even in a SHTF situation. All work and no play makes Michael a nasty old man trust me on this. Music, singing, cards, board games, kids games as they need some level of comfort in “normalish” games all important.
Your “NEED” for going out to dinner with “Expected” prompt service and wide selection of foods is going to Change. It WILL Become “What’s for Dinner” instead of “What do we want for dinner”. Deal with it with gratefulness. If Paul the Apostle can give thanks for poverty AND being in a Roman Jail maybe We can do so also? Having a safe way to carry over dinners leftovers for breakfast is a GOOD THING. Food Poisoning is a mostly preventable problem.
Cooking with out the microwave and electric-gas stove is a learned skill BEST LEARNED NOW, while you can replace errors in food preps with a quick Pizza and a laugh. Your Propane Grills will run out of propane faster than you think. Build and LEARN how to use Rocket stoves, for best quick cooking, boiling water and so on. Learn how to use Strawbox “slow cookers” for longer cooking meals.
Haybox
A haybox, straw box, fireless cooker, insulation cooker, wonder oven, self-cooking apparatus, Norwegian cooker or retained-heat cooker is a cooker that utilizes the heat of the food being cooked to complete the cooking process. Food items to be cooked are heated to boiling point, and then insulated. Over a period of time, the food items cook by the heat captured in the insulated container. Generally, it takes three times the normal cooking time to cook food in a haybox.
Learn to eat lower on the food chain. Shipped in Lamb Chops from Australia are likely NOT to be on the menu. Bananas unless your in Florida is likely to be missing. Eating ethnically for real (As what we call Chinese Food is RICH Americans Chinese Food) means Less Meat, more beans, wheat, rice and corn prepared in creative ways to stave off appetite fatigue.
Nutrition is IMPORTANT. Protein, Calories, Fats, vitamins especially C, and B are often scarce in “Survival Foods” bought for prepping. Some “survival foods” (Cough, Wise, Cough) hide the lack of everything in how MANY Portions you have. Not nice to find out you need 18 portions for one persons meal… Rickets and Scurvy are NASTY Diseases easily prevented.
A little meat/fish as a side dish or chopped up and extended with beans in various forms (like tofu, bean curd, bean puree and so on) will be important for vitamins as well as proteins.
A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an essential micronutrient which an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either at all or not in sufficient quantities, and therefore must be obtained through the diet.
Rest and Security. In my experience in missionary work the protection from our Lord is best improved with stout doors, window bars and locks. Our quarters were well protected from those eager enough to attempt to “Rob Rich Americans”. Many loved our help and were friendly but it only takes a couple with machetes to ruin your missionary trip. You NEED both Rest and Security.
Lacking A/C and heating is an issue. PLAN NOW how to resolve that GIVEN Security needs. Sleeping in a hammock is a skill 🙂 that is nice when any tiny breeze is a blessing. That nice soft mattress can be an oven on broil with out A/C. Before A/C folks used to sleep in the basements or on a porch.
Bad sleep or no sleep is a long term problem. Make work arounds while you have options.
WATER you can die from bad water or no water in a few days. Have MANY ways to secure it and methods to purify it. LEARN to look around your “Wild Water Source” for Problems like a dead animal in there. Double purification issues there. Chemical contamination like an oil slick from a vehicle upstream is a REAL Problem as no easy way to remove it and severe gut issues-sickness and death can occur. Removing the source and a LOT of time as in weeks for a creek before such can be carefully tested by purification and tiny testing’s of that “Purified water”.
Please BE Aware that in areas of freezing weather your Micropore Water filters WILL be destroyed if frozen while wet. Those micro cracks will be HUGE compared to the Filters intended pores for filtering. REPLACE now if in doubt.
Also know that the filter folks TEST the number of gallons with CLEAN City Water. PRE-Filter your water even with a tee shirt to protect those micropores from dirt and gunk.