Weekend Haul, April 17th 2011

This is the weekend haul in review.

I think Mom#1 has caught the prepping bug at least on some level - she was like you must get 50 cans of that salmon if it expires in 2016. I asked because it's pre nuclear? She said,"well that and that it's only going up in price and it tastes good." LoL. Needless to say she bought all the salmon and girl goods, I bought the rest. I think I scared her a bit yesterday morning when we were driving around and she said what will these people do when the depression hits. I told her they will die. She said WHAT and I said 65% of people are already dead Mom because they will not let go of their spoiled arrogant ways. She was actually scared silent for about 20 minutes.


On some random clearance aisle with a 2 year expiration - I found 5 lbs of white corn meal for $1. yes ONE DOLLAR for a 5lb bag. So I popped into the dollar store and picked up 5 more packets of ginseng.




$9.95 total






In just 2 days - the pickling salt is up 17 cents. It went from 1.19 a pkg to 1.36a pkg. Unbelievable - I don't know who the hell they think they are fooling, I may buy it but I see what they are doing. While there I also picked up 4 pkgs of jiffy pop 2 lb bags @ $1.49 a bag and a canister of lou ann's coconut oil - just in case.

$19.12 total





The salmon was $1.79. Girls Stuff $.99 after rebate. Flour was 1.50 a bag (hey it's cheap and I use that for everyday baking.) Gloves were $5 for 120 gloves after coupon. Green Beans and Sweet Corn were $.49. The ham was $1.99 after coupon (product of denmark).

$45.66 total







More of the same deal but at 2 other stores. Like I said the Mom's caught the bug and said ok one more store, one more store. Mom 1 even got herself some decaf for only 4.99 each and they also had a 2 buck rebate that we applied to the salmon.

$54.83 total


I know it all seems pricey but it isn't not for ham, salmon, coffee, girly goods, and chocolate...plus we're looking at almost 60lbs of valuable goods.




Sometimes I wish I could just let up and relax and not have to worry about it but I KNOW that prices are headed nowhere but up. I know that we are the 3rd generations since the depression and it is our turn because nothing has changed in the government so we are doomed to suffer. I know that being in school is not conducive to having money for good eats and if i want to get good grades I need nutrition and sustenance. I know the powers that be could give half a rats ass if we live or die so I'm looking out for us the best way I can.

Humanitarian Effort, well mine at least....

Humanitarian Effort...forget Obama's humanitarian aid. This is our last ditch attempt at helping our friends. Our friend JD is single and kind of dating, and he also works a LOT. We've been encouraging him to go buy his preps but truth be told he doesn't know where to start.


Like I said this is our last ditch effort to help our friends - we have made an offer to various friends that if you give us 20 bucks a week we will provide you basic preps and split some of our bulk purchases with you. JD being as smart as he is handed the husband 40 bucks immediately.

I purchased the above items for him for $22.50 or something like that.

5 lbs of flax seed
5 lbs of lite red kidney beans
5 lbs of kidney beans triple cleaned
5 pkgs fettucine (12 oz pkg)
3 cans of pineapple bits
5 small bottles of peter pan peanut butter
2 pkgs of organic raisins
2 bottle of vinegar

From our pre inventory bulk I will also add

5 cups of oatmeal (10 servings)
5 cups of sugar
2 lbs rice (blue ribbon)
3 cans green beans
3 cans sweet corn
1 can salmon
1 can spam
1 can ham
1 can tuna

That is approximately 38 or 39 lbs of food for 40 dollars. In an emergency situation this will also feed him for 2 weeks. I haven't spoken to him yet about what he keeps in terms of alternate cooking, water, spices, etc. I keep his "stash" tracked on my excel spreadsheets as well as the date and amount of his contribution. The base "charge" for this will be $1 a lb. And I chalk up the slight markup to labor and gas surcharges.

I gain absolutely nothing doing this, actually it's a little more work for me. But we are doing this because we see that he has the desire to prep, is pinching his pennies to buy food and weapons and he has limited time and money to expend. So of course we will help him because he is helping himself he just doesn't have the 2 or 3 hours to dedicate to shopping.

He will pickup his preps here weekly or whenever he'd like and bringing them home until he has a 6 month stash. After that I will apply his contribution to long term preps such as wheat berries, bulk beans, sugar, honey, etc. In approximately 2 weeks I will also make him a miniature first aid kit to keep in his house and that will be charged accordingly out of his preps.

We had extended this offer to our friends back in February and they chuckled. Last month Mr. Man extended it to everyone but JD - nothing personal it just didn't occur to him, still those other friends said oh haha no thank you. Meanwhile they are buying new golf clubs, getting tattoos, taking little mini vacations, smoking weed, drinking their butts off and just blowing their money like their last name is Trump - I told Mr. Man - this is the absolute last time we will offer this to our friends because we do not benefit from this and all that chuckling and pshawing is really triggering violence inside of me - LOL.

I also advised him that after this - they are all to be advised that I have a 3 yard rule from our Front Door. Especially when SHTF it would be in their best interests to stay 20 feet from me at all times, because the door is closed.

Disgusting...

Today I was talking in the preppers chat about America being the "new poor." Someone said well we don't have it as bad as say a poor farmer in Pakistan. I had to point out the fact that at least that guy still owns his ancestral land. Very rarely do middle class people in America own the land of their great grandfathers. It is also really pathetic that people have been going without for over a decade and now it is just "how things are" and 'at least we aren't on the street begging or stealing food." But we are.

Also that is the misconception between the impoverished and the poor. Poor people in other 3rd world countries have cars, a home and some measures of comfort and they are able to buy food but not of the highest quality. They do not take vacations and we (the majority of americans) do not take vacations. When they go to the store it is a always a matter of the cans and cannots...and it used to be that when a person got paid they could take their wife to eat, buy a few things for the kids and set a little into the bank - no more.

Mind you I am not discussing my personal affairs but the affairs of the world I live in.

Where the horrible thing is this consistent and now drastic decline in our lifestyle but combine that with skyrocketing gas and food prices - it is a 3rd world situation. Quit living the lie - the government and everyone will tell you everything is fine because you "made it" you paid your bills "you have enough until next pay day...that is BULLSHIT. That means all that money you earned with hard work is no longer enough and if you were not frugal and wise the last 10 years then how you live will change substantially. I was really just trying to explain this from the point of view from someone who has been around the world more than twenty times, it is not a pretty picture to see people who think going without is NORMAL.

I have been to the 3rd world and lived there and believe me when I tell you that people acclimate to being poor so quickly and so easily they start to tell themselves that they aren't poor because they have some of the status things that people use to measure quality of life. They even start to acclimatize themselves to GENERATIONAL poverty. They start to believe that they are no longer poor because they aren't "as poor" as others. Well, that's an easy comparison when you are looking at squatters, homeless and the destitute. Poor is not the little kid you see on TV waiting for your .29 cents a day donation. Poor is now people you see everyday, at the store, at the gas pump, in your parent teacher association, maybe even the little kid next door who breathes a sigh of relief when you offer some cookies you just made. Poor is America's dirty little secret like tent cities, people living in forests and national parks instead of going to homeless shelters so they aren't documented, robbed or raped.

Anyhow, the discussion got thick but it didn't get angry. And then someone came in the chatroom who didn't know shit about shit. First of all we were talking about the general state of affairs and not our personal state of affairs and this shmarmy guy says oh well you can get money if you are creative about it just sell some herbs and shovel some manure out of horse stalls yada yada yada. Really Asshole? Coz there is just a ton of horse stables in my suburban golf community and for others right in the middle of CHICAGO. Typical. So I stopped to explain that we were discussing poor vs poverty vs impoverished and the general state of things.

And this jackwagon said this "Personally, call me what you will, but I am somewhat looking forward to it getting a whole lot worse, prices on things like land and houses come down, people panic sell things, and eventually will wake up the populous "

REALLY? I said I would not look forward to that. Look --- I am a hardass, and I have certain lines drawn in the dirt about what will and will not happen in my house when SHTF - however i do NOT wish for things to get worse because children will suffer because their parents made irresponsible and poor decisions and have no preps - and a lot of the elderly will suffer if they do not have preparations and medications. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU LOOK FORWARD TO THAT?? Because you're such a good damn prepper that you will gleefully laugh while people go without? Arrogant Prick. I've seen a lot of so called preppers say this kind of thing - and it disgusts me down to my soul. Oh you think that you just have your shit lined up, stocked up, and fortified like fort knox and you can just watch the whole world burn down while you dicker and trade for a few things. SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK SICK.

I've noticed that the preppers who say this kind of thing are really kind of OFF in their heads. I don't want to be right, I do NOT want to have to ever use the preps we have whether it's first aid, food or firearms...I do not want people to suffer who have never suffered in their life because it WILL make them insane. I do not want to see the monstrous nature of humans under great duress and hunger because it is NOTHING to look forward to you MORONIC PRICK.

As a nation we must WHAT? & April wk2 preps

Obama said,"...as a nation we must Share the Sacrifice..." THE HELL YOU SAY? Like as a nation we already haven't given enough shit for these wars and "humanitarian aid" and the replacement of jets and war machines. Meanwhile the schools, police, firemen, and sheriffs are being cut 30-50%.

Are you kidding me? You can slap that bullshit on a cupcake and feed it to some other moron coz I'm not choking it down.

Since I don't have any children I have never had any kind of deduction. I don't get any kind of income breaks and I always paid the most possible taxes out there. If it weren't for the deduction of the property taxes I pay and the remainder of the interest on a small school loan I wouldn't have ANY deductions. Meanwhile GE doesn't even pay taxes but gets far more breaks than a regular person.

This makes me really irate. As you can see from the photo above we bought the hype too. That was the day we voted for the bastard. Hope-nosis is a MF*&TJY!! It is what it is - but now we are awake and there is no going back. They are really about to twist it in and give it to us. Beware. If you don't have anything to protect your interests it might be wise to do something.

This is my Walgreens Haul from Sunday. The salmon was .99 cents, the cornbread was .29 cents, the royal jello stuff was 5 for $1 and the feminine products were free. It ended up being a little under 29 bucks. Nothing expires until about 2014.








I've been on a salt kick and a sugar kick. I picked these up for about 3.57. so 1.19 ea. They used to be around .89 cents for this 4 lb box. If you pickle and can buy your stuff now. I am buying this in anticipation of the garden I have started - it's been stop and go various times but I just keep trying.









I picked up this foldable bbq thing at the thrift store - it says $3.99 but because of this coupon thing I had it ended up being $2.79. We will still be making a couple rocket stoves but i figured this would just be good to have.











I had accidentally purchased 2 of some things and I returned them to Wally World - well I decided to look around the store since I had a 90 buck gift card resulting from the return (it would take 5 days to credit my debit card- bastids lol)...I found this water bottle that filters 99,9% of the cooties in water for only 11 bucks. Online it has a rating of 3.5% but i'm sure they paid 3x what I did. I decided that I didn't want to buy the bottle unless I could find the filters. Weird but i found 6 filters in the TOY DEPARTMENT marked down to 2.50 from like 9.50. So that is enough to filter 700 gallons including the one in the bottle.

Since I had quite a bit on the gift card I decided to check if they had anymore wheat berries (they didn't) and noticed that the sugar had gone up from 11.78 to 13.48. Are you EFFIN kidding me? In a matter of 6 days (i bought sugar Tue 4/4 and then went again on Mon 4/11), then my friend told me yesterday it went up ANOTHER 2 bucks. If you haven't purchased your sugar do it now. I didn't think we consumed that much sugar until I started really taking stock of my baking and now the making of preserves. Also you might consider it a trade item - especially if you are holding packs of kool aid in your preps.




2 surprises:

1) From my best chef friend who just came back from France to New Mexico - she sent me some marzipan and vanilla beans - YAY thank you.

2) A subscription to organic gardening from Mr. Man aka Afroprepper. Because I am always scrambling to look for stuff online and what not and I've gone to Bookman's used books many times with no luck finding books. thank you!




I popped by a couple of my usual stores to check out their sales and found 10 lbs of rice, 4 pkgs of whole cinnamon sticks (15 sticks per bag), organic salad greens and 1lb bags of whole flax seed. All of that was about $17.85.









It was also the Wacky Wednesday sale - so i picked up 3lbs of Braeburn Apples for .96 cents, 8 cucumbers for .99 cents, Mexican Grey squash was 2lbs for .98 cents, and 14 packet of ramen for $2. I really haven't stocked any ramen so I figure a dozen wouldn't hurt. That was 25 lbs of produce and 14 ramen and 4 hibiscus drink mixes for $11.17.







I didn't waste any time as soon as I got home I prepped the apples - the doggies are so happy to eat the cuttings off of them.

Whenever I buy apples at that super price I always have the produce manager cut one open so I can taste it and make sure they are big enough so that cooking them down isn't a waste of my efforts, these cut crisp and firm and tasted as a braeburn should - tart with a sweet afternote.






I also discovered the last of my cinnamon was gone so I reached into the preps part of the pantry and found some cinnamon I had scored a couple months ago. I had stopped by this little shop next to Safeway for page protectors --- when I went inside I noticed a bunch of spices on clearance for .62. I popped the tops to see if they were foil sealed and they were. So I grabbed 8 of them. Mind you these are double the size of what you buy in the store - so they were very much a steal.






While I prep the apples I melt the butter and sugar together and even burn the bottom a bit for that caramel flavor.











Then I throw half the apples on top and mix then throw the other half on, sprinkle the cinnamon and wait until it leaches the liquid out and shrinks the apples a bit. I take it to a quick hard boil but do NOT overcook them even if this is only 10 minutes in a boiling water canner








I didn't really find any instructions in my ball book so I took it to half an inch from the top and followed the directions for apple preserves. Since these are just a favorite of Mr. Man I did not want them to be gelatinized or made with pectin since they will be eaten warmed or on top of oatmeal or wheat cereals.

14lbs makes 12 pints - but the family ate about a pint of it. if you want the recipe it's below - if not just eyeball it - it will be fine.

The most work was chopping apples.


cinnamon apple recipe

13lbs braeburn apples - cleaned and chopped
1 stick butter
4 c sugar
1 c water
1/4 c lemon juice
3T cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin spice

bring to a hard boil - put in hot bottles and process as apple preserves per blue ball book.


We also decided to try the compost from a guy about 2 streets and 3 blocks over - he only charged us $3 bucks a bag for compost - they are about 40 lbs a bag. I think Mom 1 is coming around as she offered to pay for 10-15 bags of compost and the potting soil to mix with it for our beds. I guess watching the news is paying off for her, whatever the case I am grateful.






Please try to garden.
Please try to stock up on anything you eat.
Please move carefully in this troubled world where people are feeling the strain of inflation.

Weird Weather...at least for Arizona

So about a week ago it was 97 degrees. Today it was in the 50's and will supposedly drop to 34. What the heck is that? It's not even really supposed to get to the normal temps of 100 until the end of May. That is very unusual for AZ because normally we are making Easter brunch in shorts and tank top. This weather has been really conducive to me getting in some last minute seeds.

Mr. Man went to pick up 2 bags of compost about 10 minutes from here. We decided to try this guy out since we saw a big sign in front of his ranch looking property that said "We Sell Compost". Well it turns out that he only charges 3 bucks a bag and by my eyeballing technique it looks pretty close to 3 cubic feet. I woke up this morning and decided I was going to move the plants. I totally did not expect those seeds to germinate the way they did and then they grew crowded. So it is pretty now or never with the dang things. That's not based on anything scientific - I just know if they get any stronger I might manhandle them and break the roots. It pretty much took me 5+ hours - to mix the organic soil and compost, and then separate and re-pot all the little seedlings and while I was doing that I just did a single filter on the rain water to get the big stuff that came from the drain. Some of them look a bit tired. Some of them look surprisingly strong. Let's hope the combination of the compost and the overcast sky will let me have something to plant. Basically, now is the time to learn, since our food doesn't depend on it.

I even separated some of the seedlings into cups so I could give them to a couple friends to plant in their gardens. What will it hurt to encourage others to increase their gardens? I also peeked at the other seedlings the spinach decided to show up, the greenbeans are doing well, and the sweet peas are peeking through the soil. And I have one pot I completely forgot what it is. The amount of tomato and chard seedlings I have is ridiculous. I just hope they make it.

It's kind of good being OCD - at least this kind of OCD because it's productive.

Ghetto Garden Update - wk 2 April

Well...I guess my thumb isn't as black as I thought.

However, I do want to thank:

Praxxus55712 & Artnuwa11 from youtube: for kicking me off with the heirloom seeds, advice and encouragement. Keep doing what you guys do - you make such a big difference to gardeners both new and experienced!

Mushroom and Poison Ivie: for seeing me through the first set of seedlings I planted, drowned, and lodged. LOL. Thank you ladies - you are inexhaustible wealth of information and encouragement




Cherry Tomatoes - they came in full force just the other day I have no idea - I originally had 1 or 2 seedlings breakthrough the soil and then the other day i counted above 15. I may have gone a little overboard and put too many seeds in there.



The jubilee tomato (fat and yellow) had come up with 3 sprouts about 5 days ago and last night there were 4x that original amount.



The cucumber are doing ok - about 9 plants.



I was happy with the 4 or so seedlings that originally sprouted last Sunday and within the last few days there are about 15 and some slow ones coming through as well






Of all the seeds I planted I think the butternut squash was the most cooperative and even made it through a few days of 98F' but...





But I was most surprised to see them increasing in size and pushing out more leaves. Also there's some weird little rogue seed growing in there - I think it's Spinach - I'm just going to let it grow.



We definitely had some fatalities in those 2 super hot days. We had 8 pretty goodlooking yellow bean plants but we lost 5. Well maybe lost 5.



The leaves fried off but it looks like there are more leaves pushing through so I'm watering them as usual and giving them a chance to grow - it would never hurt to have more beans right?



I had written off the Chard as dead - but in an act of faith I kept watering the little guys and now I have 12 seedlings.



I threw these blue lake in there on Monday afternoon before Lit class and you can't really see it - but 2 of them have already turned and the white sprout is breaking the soil.



Same time that I threw in the Blue lake green beans (Monday) I threw these dwarf sugar peas into 2 pots. I picked them up at a little shop next to the thrift store and they said American Heirloom Seeds. I figured what the heck - it's 3 for $1. And three seeds are sprouting towards the sky already. Oh boy.



The sweet pepper was also fried by those very hot days and I still watered them just in case and now they are back - just 2 seedlings but hey you never know!



The greenpepper decided to join the party too. Who knows - maybe I will get sudden growth too.
---

We are having a FREAK cool spell in the desert right now. Normally this time of year is in the 90s if not 100s. After checking the 30 day weather report and some coaxing from the APN ladies I decided it wouldn't hurt to throw in some more seeds and try to catch the growing season. I know people will say OH you plant them to shallow - well my thinking is this - I am forcing the roots to grow outward so they are a stronger plant that can make it in "shorter" soil. So far it's working - as soon as they grow an inch, I add more dirt and so forth. So far it's working.

But now we have a problem, I honestly did not think they would grow like this - so we are going to have to add raised beds to our bucket planting. Who knows. Just another adventure i guess.

Stay tuned and cross your gardening gloves for me.

Last 2 Hauls - Prepping After the Walmart CEO tries to spook us.

Hello Everyone!

These are my last hauls from Monday and today. As most everyone knows the Walmart CEO came out over the weekend to advise that there will be substantial price raises at Walmart and all retailers and to expect severe inflation by this summer. Now mind you they've already been adding 1-2 bucks here and there the last 3 weeks. So I know those Waltons are going to put the hurt on us. Even if it may not cost them more they will still charge us more to make the cross board inflation even MORE profitable for themselves.

I read quite a few blogs, forums and watched some youtube vids of people giving accounts of how prices have gone up and walmart shelves emptied quickly over the weekend and I really had to stop myself from getting in that weekend fray and get something for our preps. I decided to take it as a challenge and see what would be left on Monday and how could i fill the gaps.

The APN chat was discussing salt. We have a lot of salt already - well what I consider a lot - we had about 5 containers of iodized, 2 containers of pickling salt, 20 containers of italian sea salt and some other gourmet good but useless salts. Well someone said, "traditionally salt has always been one of those trade items in a depression" Supposedly you are supposed to have a few grams per person per day. I always kept a little extra because I expected to salt meat and such - and more recently I added the pickling salt to go with my canning.

Since everyone went bonkers over the weekend buying sugar and flour and canned stuff - I decided I would pick up salt and chocolate type products.



Iodized salt was .39 cents for a standard canister of 1lb 10oz.
I picked up a case.



Baby corn was about .79 cents the vitamins and antibacterial wipes were about .95 cents. I also found something new - Campbells double noodle chicken soup - just add water. Each package has 2.5 servings. Those were a little over $1.



I found the stuff above at the 99cent only store. 3 pkgs black orange pekoe tea - 100 bags, we've tried the stuff and it is actually very good hot or cold. It used to be it had 120 teabags but those days are done. The nestle tollhouse mini toppers were .95 cents for some reason and I picked up another 5 of those to add to the preps. Lastly the Spanish wine vinegar was only 99 cents a liter and it IS made in Spain.




Lastly I picked up this wild alaskan salmon (exp 07/2016), at a buck a pop it's a bit spendy in my opinion. But I all it pre nuclear - which means it was canned prior to the Japanese radiation fallout after the earthquake and tsunami. The dove milk chocolate bars were 3 for 99 cents so i picked up a dozen. I know what you are saying, "Candy bars?" I often will purchase good quality plain chocolate bars because you can chop them up and put them into desserts. If you look at the collective weight of the chocolate bars versus a bag of morsels you get more bang out of your buck buying bars on sale.


Of course every chance I get I purchase a few bags of spinach so long as it is below $1 and I dehydrate it and add it to our stores since it is high nutrition and low weight. We could eat Spinach on just about anything so it's a no brainer for us. If you have a dehydrator I would definitely suggest drying bags of this stuff in between heavy dehydrating just to vary it up a bit.



Today is the crazy Wednesday Sale at a locally owned grocer - they normally put 4-6 items at a super low price to try and entice you to come in. They occasionally put limits but if you walk out and walk back in they don't care haha.

organic spinach 12 oz - $1
white onions - 3 lbs for $1
jalapenos 2lbs for $1
Green Bellpepper 5 pcs for $1
Zuchinni 2lbs for $1
Avocado's 5 for $1



Since we have a lot of folks in the house they've been eating up the corn - lol some of this is to replenish stock and the rest is for storage. It costs 20 cents more today but 60 cents a can is far better than the regular $1 a can. Just a month ago i was getting these for like .44 cents. Ridiculous. The oil was $1.50 each. The Betty Crocker things - which I rarely buy were .75 cents but for 8 portions that's ok. I also purchased 5 more canisters of salt for .39 cents each and finally the 3lb containers of bouillon (1 chicken and 1 chicken and tomato). yeah yeah I know it has additives - well that's not as crucial as flavor in a SHTF situation - well these bad boys are normally 7.99 each. Today with the sale price and a coupon I was able to purchase them at 2.99 each. Overall it was a good morning at Food City!



Finally, I stopped at the Walmart before I had to run home. First of all it was only around 830am. Secondly I wanted to see if they were still cleaned out , they were NOT. Finally, I was feeling lucky after my last haul and my earlier purchase and wanted to see if I was really in luck. Well first of all this lady cut me off on the street in front of walmart - THEN she cut me off IN the walmart parking lot. I already knew this lady was going to do some panic shopping. So I found the first available spot - got out, hit the alarm and did a half jog into the store. I found 100lbs of sugar, 25 lbs of hard white wheat, 25 lbs of hard red wheat both organic. So there I was tickled with myself and I pushed 150lbs of preps down the aisle and just as I reached the end here came the lady who cut me off twice. Bwawahahahahah- I grinned and said "see you later."

That was awesome

So overall we're talking about 219lbs of food over 2 days and we spent about $150.09 bucks. Today's haul was about .48 cents a lb and Mondays was about .85 cents a lb. Not bad and not as bad as i expected.

I just feel an incredible pressure to continue on because inflation is definitely here and it's only going to balloon even further. I know lot of my friends will make it and not miss any meals or even their little treats. Unfortunately I also know this...there is much potential for people to grow hungry and people who do not understand hunger through experience or exposure are in for a RUDE awakening. As it is in many European countries eating less if you eat at all will be the norm and even the poorest most destitute American still has "standards of living". This type of arrogance is exactly the type of bullshit that will kill you.