Your skills can be certainly seen by you in the task you create. The arena expectations for even more excited writers such as you that are not afraid to say how they believe. All the time follow your heart.

Granny Mae my twins and my husband loved the planting in the boot idea! Thank You!

years ago i started buying gold,guns and land,my friends and relatives all said what do you want that stuff for.i stock pile food for long term storage,as well as ammunition.my wife and i built a log home in the middle of a forest that is full of dear and moose.i have solar panels to run the water pump and a 14k propane generator in case of power loss.we can food from our victory garden which is just like my late dads.for heat i use oil and a wood stove that you can cook on.

Rich..my money has been so limited this year that I almost panicked because I havent bought any garden plants this year …2 weeks ago I started my seedlings indoors and they are looking very good and I will be planting them outside very soon with my girls..they have loved watching the day to day progress this week. Ive also started a spring mix in an old wash bucket..I make my own sprouts to add to my salad. I have no idea what your habbits are but missing one trip a month to mcdonalds could fund this venture. if you just buy 1 canaster of oatmeal or 1 bag of beans or 5 for a $1 vegetable seeds each time you shop it adds up.. I could have bought sooo many seeds with what Ive wasted on lotto tickets . without knowing what you spend and what you select at the grocery store each month its hard to give you specifics.Ive simplified my menu to potatoes, frozen fruits and veges, whole wheat pastas, eggs, freshproduce that is in season, dried beans. old timey popcorn,nuts, teas, 0ld fashion oatmeal, meats,plain yogart, honey, pancakes, real syrup, real butter, my worst habbit WAS we ate out up to 3 times a day every day and then you dont know what your eating! my older kids balked at first but now its their chalenge! they love to help me dehydrate stuff.. and thanks to granny mae I put my extra beans,flours,oatmeal… in the feezer for 2 weeks before I store them. they are so proud of our bean supply!especially my 17 and 11 year old. we always have something that smells wonderful in the crockpot.

I love you granny mae! for the last year I have been downsizing EVERYTHING! simplify..simplify..simplify..I am soo thankful for your posts, they have encouraged and instructed me and kept me sane:) the more you have the more you have to spend to house it! the simpler you eat the healthier you are!I live in the city and commute 40 minutes a day to my job..if gas goes over 4.00 per gallon I will only open my shop 3 days per week and I will devote more time to my garden and do bootmaking and repairs at my shop behind my house(Im really looking forward to this)I barter alot!Ive glued more tennis shoes and boots and sandels together this year for free than Ive done in my whole carreer.. normaly I would have charged 5 bucks each to do this but now Ive accumulated fresh eggs, pomegranites, beautiful shelled pecans, braces for my children etc….my income is very sub level but my pantry is filled very well and I am overwhelmingly blessed…anyone who is on a fixed income can find ways to do what Ive done! this very sweet 81 year old lady comes into my shop once a week and she brings me a homeade oatmeal cake and I make her husband knife sheaths out of scraps or sharpen all of their friends knives…if they need something we always figure something out…

Oh yes, one more important thing is to also stock vitamins and any meds you feel you will nead, such as alergy and sinus tabs, cold medicine and cough syrup etc. Alcohol, peroxide, ace bandages and band aides and so on. I also do something that floors some people but I don’t care it saves me a lot of money. I wash out my plastic bags that don’t have holes in them and let them dry and reuse them and I also do the same with aluminum foil that is not badly used and I reuse it. My granny and mom taught me to do that years ago and in recent times I have started doing it again. Save money , get stingy with yourself, it works !

as the mom of 7 children I am always trying to stretch my dollars as far as possible. I live in Ft Worth. Sunday When my husband and I went into a hispanic grocery store on the north side to pay our water bill I was overwhelmed at how much lower the prices were than walmart, sprouts, brookshires, kroger etc…the chips that are 4.99 at brookshires were 1.69 here!!!!There were about 20 items that I use frequently just like this… Am I the only person who didnt know this? it was called Carnival. they also make fresh corn and flour tortillias every hour for 1$ a pack and they were hot. They also had more meat selections and cuts than Ive seen anywhere…

Rich,
One more thing, when getting a pressure cooker canner it must be a 21 qt capacity. That is the entire cooker holds 21 quarts of liquid, but it will only hold 7 quart jars. Make sure it has a rack that fits in the bottom so the jars are up off the bottom. A neet trick is , if you don’t have a rack use regular jar lids and place them large opening down on the bottom of the cooker then set your jars on top of the lids so the jars are up off the bottom and in that way they won’t break from the intense heat. You can also do this in a water bath canner if you have to. I have even used a folded up heavy bath towel when it was necessary !

Rich,

I can understand where you are coming from because I too am on a limited income, however I may be able to give you some hints on what to do. I will tell you what I have done and how I started. I have done a lot of home canning and dehydrating at home. The main thing I had to purchase was first a vacuum sealer, which is not anything fancy. I got the cheapest one I could find and started out with it and moved to a more expensive one this year and I will tell you that my cheap one does just as good a job as the more expensive on. Now as for canning at home, you will need a bigger outlay. Look on line or in second hand stores or even put an add in the paper or a local shoper paper for a pressure cooker canner. Not just a pressure cooker, but it must be a pressure cooker canner. You can, can up fruits and tomatoes in what is called a waterbath canner. This is simply a very large pot with a lid, large enough to hold about 7 quart jars upright with enough room for about 2 inches of water to cover the top of the jars. This will serve as a waterbath canner or you can buy a waterbath canner at Wal-Mart but I don’t know how expensive they are any more. Again you can look at yard sales and secondhand stores or on line or in the shoper papers. Look for a Ball Blue Book of preserving. It will give you a lot of information on canning and lots of recipes. Also check with you local home extention office for instructions on canning. It really isn’t hard at all it is just a matter of following directions all the time. Next if you can’t afford a dehydrator you can use your oven on your stove or even build your own. There are books at the library that can tell you how to do that. My grandson is 16 and he built one for his dad so don’t be afraid to try. My problem with the oven has been that I can’t get my oven temp. low enough. Ideal is 120 degrees.
Now what I have done is this. I search out for the least expensive products I can find. I look everywhaere for them not just in my local stores and I find that it is helpful if you can go looking often not just once a week. When I see rice on special I try to buy a couple extra bags. We don’t eat a lot of rice normaly but it is easy to store and if we get hungry we will surley eat it with vigor! I check out the dollar stores a lot and have gotten use to some of the off brand names in products such as graham crackers or soda crackers and so on. I have started shopping at stores like Save-A-Lot for soups and jams and jellies and peanut butter, real butter and so on. Also shop at the everything for a dollar stores if you have one near you. Ours is called The Dollar Tree. Nothing over a dollar and they carry food stuffs, such as canned meats and beans and so on. I don’t stock pile dried beans in the dry form as I have found them to get too old to cook up soft after a while so what I do is buy several bags and sort them and soak them over night, in the morning I drain them and cover them with water and start to cook them for maybe an hour and then I put them in jars to about 3/4 full and cover them with fresh water and a teaspoon of salt put on a hot lid and ring , tighten them firmly but not real tight and I cann them in my pressure cooker. That way they keep for years. Also when buying flour and rice to store put it in the freezer when you frist get it home , for about a week, that way you will not be bothered by weevils. If you don’t have a big freezer use your refridgerator freezer. The next step is to vacuum seal them in bags and store them in some big buckets with snap on lids. We have found these buckets at bakeries and restraunts and also we have purchased them at Home Depot and Lowe’s. Get as many of them as you can, you will use every one of them. Next is to look around till you can find wheat grinder ! I finally broke down and sent for mine from Emergency Essentials. They have a web site so they are easy to find. I paid about 50 or 60 dollars I think for mine. Once you have one you can then start calling the farm stores or feed stores near you for prices on 50 lb bags of wheat and corn. These you divide up into your big buckets and vacuum seal them. It isn’t hard but you might want to look up on the internet to see how others have done this. In the mean time plant a garden from seed. You can use big containers , or plant beans and carrots and tomatoes and lettuce and cabbage around the house where most people plant flowers. I have done this and also dug up my back yard and seeded it to garden vegetables. I was renting at the time so when we moved I just threw out some grass seed and raked it over and watered it and called it good. It grew back into grass real nice ! Above all things, think out of the box and always do some little thing each week to add to your food storage. A bag of beans here a bag of rice there, some tuna in cans and so on. Never use your storage till you have too and then replace it as soon as possible. It is a matter of doing a little at a time continuously. Don’t forget to add things like toilet paper and tooth paste, deodorant and any toiletries that are necessary. Just start. You can add the big things as you go along and as you find them at a good price. It is kind of fun to start looking for these things and see where you find them. Please do buy a vacuum sealer though and some bags as they will be very helpful in putting away dried foods and keeping the bugs out of them. Bugs can’t live in a vacuum . Just start. Store bought dried soups are good for storring and so are canned soups. Look for dried products that you like and also canned foods you like. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on these big storage foods that are all done up for you and cost thousands of dollars. They are nice if you can afford them and there are some of these things I buy individually, such as powdered cheese and broth powder but you don’t have to go that way. Buy what you eat and store what you eat, eat what you store. Rotate, rotate, rotate ! I have canned for years now and do up a lot of meats and chicken, butter, veggies and sloppy joes and chili and meat balls for spaghetti and so on. It is fun and my husband and I do it together. He has to help me with some things as I am in a mobility chair. Makes things difficult but not impossible ! You can do this so just get started! God bless ! If I can be of any more help just e-mail me at heyyou63plus2@ gmail.com .