[The Saint]

I'm a big fan of the newspaper column written by Heloise.

She and her mother, who was the original writer of the column, have helped many people over the years with little tips and tricks for doing chores around the house.

Boys Life magazine, a magazine printed for Boy Scouts had this type of column in it as well.

It would give suggestions on how to make a camping gadget or a smarter way to carry your camping gear.

So in that same spirit I would like to start a thread on Tips and Tricks for the Survivalist Prepper, little things , advice or ideas that will help us in our quest to be self sufficient.

And they will all be in one big thread.

If you know of a tool or device or gadget that has multiple uses or you have an idea for a way to make things easier on this ever demanding life style please give it a post.

The rule of KISS (keep it stupid simple) applies here : keep in mind that there will be newbie preppers reading these so lets not get too involved or complicated.

Have fun.

 

[The Saint]

Run out of swifter mop pads?

In a pinch you can use a couple of heavy duty shop rags or paper towels sprayed liberally with Windex.

They fit into the pad holder’s just fine.

The dry shop towels work great for cleaning up beer spilt on the deck by your drunken sheeple brother in law who brags incessantly about his new BMW and his 6 figure sheeple office job....

not that I really care...

 

[The Saint]

On the move and need to collect water?

Do both at the same time,

tie a "sham-wow towel" to each leg and walk through a field early in the morning, the sham-wows will pick up the dew off of the grass and hold it, every so often stop and wring them out into your container for later use.

Remember to sanitize all water in the field before drinking it.

 

[dontbuypotteryfromme]

detergent and water is the best product to get capsicum spray out of your eyes. Also works for any Oil based product like teatree oil for example.


A solar still will waste more water in the labor to build than you will ever get out of it.

 

[The Saint]

detergent and water is the best product to get capsicum spray out of your eyes. Also works for any Oil based product like teatree oil for example.


A solar still will waste more water in the labor to build than you will ever get out of it.

Good one on the capsicum, I have also heard this one with baby shampoo. :thumb:

 

[cilarnen]

Alcohol wipes. As a soldier I know how important it is to stay clean and those little alcohol swabs you get at the end of a meal from a restaurant will do just that. Plus in a pinch they actually will catch fire since they have alcohol in them!

 

[The Saint]

To keep glass vials of meds safe from breaking in your BOB or Trauma kit, we carry insulin for our daughter and injectable Lidocaine for stitching someone up,

use used medicine bottles and drop one of those foam ear plugs in the bottom and on top of the vile close the bottle up and you are good to go.

The plastic is easy to label and the brown tint keeps the light out (a bit) and the foam protects it from bouncing around.

 

[The Saint]

Make your own custom wooden match holder, pick a 1/2" diameter piece of thin PVC pipe and two end caps.

I have one that we use to carry those 12" fireplace matches in my pack.

Just remember to glue the striker on the bottom of one of the caps.

They are water tight and you can paint them if you want.

 

[The Saint]

You can disinfect your water by using solar energy in lieu of boiling.

fill clear drinking bottles or 2 liter bottles with water you have pre filtered.

remove the labels from the bottles and put them in the direct sunlight on the roof of your vehicle or picnic table for at least one full sunny day. The suns UV rays will kill the nasty bugs that may be present in the water.

This procedure replaces boiling and will not filter out metals or other chemicals.

 

[Cryptkeeper]

rule # 1 in prepping DO NOT TELL ANYONE that your prepping, if something does happen on a LARGE scale and ppl need food they will come knocking on your door and they might just bring friends. for your family's safty OPSEC is very important in this matter.

when stocking up on foods dont just stock up on anything cheap. if you was to stock up on $1000 worth of spam and no1 in your family likes spam and no1 will eat it you just wasted $1000 that could have went to food your family will love to eat. rule # 2 in prepping stock up on food that you eat ,and eat what you stock up on.that will help keep your food stocks rotated.dont set it and forget it,use your supplies but when you see stuff on sale restock your supplies :thumb:

get a dehydrator, a vaccum packer that has an attackment to vaccum pack glass canning jars. when ppl start gardening most of the excess food that is grown can be dehydrated and stored in vaccum canning jars.(side note those vaccum bags dont store longterm they do loose their vaccum) you dont have to cann your veggies anymore . you can even dehydrate left over ham and turkey from the holiday season and vaccum cann it , and use the ham the next time you cook a pot of beans :thumb:

where you store your food supplies is extremely important to how long they will last. canned foods ,dehydrated,and freeze dried foods will not last but a few months in 90 degree temp, but if they are kept in 60 degree temps they will last over 30 yrs. so for long term storage the temp. of the room where they are kept in is very important but not freezeing.sidenote: canned foods will last many many years past the date stamped on it (pending on how its stored) oldest cannd food opened and found safe to eat was from lewis and clark over 100yrs old (it didnt look good to eat but it was safe to eat)


the best way to figure out what to stock up on (food wise) is to ask every family member to make a list of 14 of their favorite dinner meals. now write out all the ingredients to make each meal,next add up each of the ingredients. lets say you and your wife are only one in your family so out of all 28 meals (14 from his list 14 from hers)your going to need 2lb of flour. now once you know all the ingredients you will need to make those meals you now know what you need for 2 meals a day for 7 days. now the question is how long do you want to stock up for :1 month (x4) ? 3 months (13)? 6 months (26) or 1 years (52) worth of food? all you got to do is multiply that many weeks to each of the ingredients that will tell you what you need to store inorder to make 2 meals a day for however long you wish to stockup for....example :you need 2lb of flour and your wanting 1 years worth of supplies so 2lb x 52(weeks/1yr) = 104lb of flour is what you need (side note i would make it 110lb just in case of spillage and such.)

now storeing all this food some ppl will put it all in 5gal buckets. like a 5gal bucket of flour,5 gal bucket of rice 5 gal bucket of sugar...ect thats all fine and dandy if you have a large amount of ppl like 6 or more in your group. but if its 2 adults and like 2 small children doing that you will have to open 5-7 buckets inorder to make 1 or 2 meals which would increase the chance of, some of your food spoiling before you finish it.what i would do if you have a small family/group of 4 adults or less is to put a little bit of everything in each bucket example: 2lb of flour 6lb of rice,5lb sugar, 1lb salt...ect this way you only have to break the seal on 1 bucket every so often instead of breaking the seals of 7 bucket.

 

[ShaynaGirl]

Three rules for matches:

1. You cannot have enough matches.

2. You will run low on matches.

3. A raw strand of spaghetti holds a flame and helps conserve your matches when trying to light underneath a burner or deep inside a candle/lamp holder.

 

[The Saint]

Three rules for matches:

1. You cannot have enough matches.

2. You will run low on matches.

3. A raw strand of spaghetti holds a flame and helps conserve your matches when trying to light underneath a burner or deep inside a candle/lamp holder.

Oh great one on the pasta I will have to give that a try. :thumb:

 

[Karnus]

Before you add a fire steel, magnesium firestarter, fire piston or any other fire making gizmo to your gear... Pack a couple of lighters in there! Seriously folks. why over complicate a problem that was solved a long time ago? Besides they are a lot cheaper.

 

[The Saint]

when stocking up on foods dont just stock up on anything cheap. if you was to stock up on $1000 worth of spam and no1 in your family likes spam and no1 will eat it you just wasted $1000 that could have went to food your family will love to eat. stock up on food that you eat ,and eat what you stock up on, that will help keep your food stocks rotated.


get a dehydrator, a vaccum packer that has an attackment to vaccum pack glass canning jars. when ppl start gardening most of the excess food that is grown can be dehydrated and stored in vaccum canning jars. you dont have to cann your veggies anymore . you can even dehydrate left over ham and turkey from the holiday season and vaccum cann it , and use the ham the next time you cook a pot of beans :thumb:

where you store your food supplies is extremely important to how long they will last. canned foods ,dehydrated,and freeze dried foods will not last but a few months in 90 degree temp, but if they are kept in 60 degree temps they will last over 30 yrs. so for long term storage the temp. of the room where they are kept in is very important but not freezeing.sidenote: canned foods will last many many years past the date stamped on it (pending on how its stored) oldest cannd food opened and found safe to eat was from lewis and clark over 100yrs old (it didnt look good to eat but it was safe to eat)

rule # 1 in prepping DO NOT TELL ANYONE that your prepping, if something does happen on a LARGE scale and ppl need food they will come knocking on your door and they might just bring friends. for your family's safty OPSEC is very important in this matter.

Great advice!

 

[Cryptkeeper]

cooking oil and/or olive oil can be used like lamp oil, i would think any oil from fat would work

 

[AquaHull]

Oil from Whale blubber led them to be on the Endangered Species List

 

[fattyacid]

Before you add a fire steel, magnesium firestarter, fire piston or any other fire making gizmo to your gear... Pack a couple of lighters in there! Seriously folks. why over complicate a problem that was solved a long time ago? Besides they are a lot cheaper.

I bought a knife that had a flint thing to strike across the knife's back edge. Given something that burns easily, I'd like that compared to lighters, if for nothing more than the fun factor.

 

[The Saint]

cooking oil and/or olive oil can be used like lamp oil, i would think any oil from fat would work

‪Olive Oil Lamps‬‏ - YouTube

great video.

I have some used jelly mason jars that are wide mouth and short I wonder if they will work.

 

[The Saint]

If you have an old box of crayons from when the kids were little you can re-melt them and turn them into full size crayons or wax for candles.

remove the paper, separate the colors and use disposable metal foil cupcake tins to melt them in.

set your oven on med heat and check often.

using a cupcake pan in addition to the foil makes it easier.

mix colors to create new ones or a multi colored crayon.

the wax blobs that end up can be poured into a crayon mold or just stored as a blob of colored wax for future projects.

 

[babzug]

This is good if you have a lot of smaller volume dried foods to store (ie, if you don't want to have to open and use 35lbs of flax seeds, or spices, etc) You can pick up small sized mylar bags, seal normally, and store in a square Rubbermaid type of bin (or similar to keep out pests). Square boxes are a more efficient use of storage space than round buckets.