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Thursday, February 15, 2018

Survival Equipment Breaking Your Bank Account? It Doesn’t Have To!


Poor Man Survival

Self Reliance tools for independent minded people…


ISSN 2161-5543

A Digest of Urban Survival Resources

 


Survival Equipment Breaking Your Bank Account?  It Doesn’t Have To!

    

  There isn’t a week that goes by when some new “gotta have gadget” is offered to me through the mail or in one of the many magazines I subscribe to.  Throughout the years I’ve impulsively purchased many of those items which wound up collecting dust in my supply room or in one of my emergency survival bags, go bags or at my bug-out mini-farm.

 

At my age I finally reached the conclusion that I pretty much have all that I can easily store and perhaps use in what is left of my life.  [Although, I have subscribed to the philosophy that one can hand down freeze dried food stocks in a will to ones’ heirs]. 

 

 Keep in mind that my friends and I have been doing this since 1999, long before the word ‘Prepper’ became fashionable.  In some respects I actually started in the late 70s thanks to my friend John Shuttleworth, the founder of Mother Earth News who encouraged a “do-it-yourself” homesteading lifestyle which was already more prevalent where I lived [near Amish country and later in Arizona] and thanks to a Depression-era mother who was skilled at every sort of home style money-saving art that ever existed.

 

I further picked up many useful survival skills while serving in the military [which enhanced those taught in the Boy Scouts].

 

Two areas which have always taken up a lot of our focus include food and water along with power.  We keep a variety of backup power systems, both solar and gasoline power supply handy and have recently used an electrician to install an outside adapter to our system to allow a direct connect for a generator to run our well.  We’re still working on a rooftop solar system to incorporate into our add-on expansion plans for the cabin.  However, since we do everything on a cash basis, we move somewhat slowly as some other emergency often arises that grabs our reserve cash.

 

It took awhile, but we’ve stockpiled both our primary residence and our cabin and its barn with tools, food, backup systems, water barrels and other supplies.  For example, we rely mostly on FoodforPatriots and Wise Foods for dehydrated foods which we pack into totes with tightly sealed lids for emergency food storage as they have a long shelf life and do not weigh as much as canned goods but we do store case lots of those too including canned vegetables and meats and fruits [the hard part for is to remember to rotate that stock].

We also have keep emergency, CB radios, crank-style radios and two-way radios on hand and plenty of batteries at both locations.  Coffee filters are something else I try to keep plenty of as they can filter more than just coffee.

 




 Duplicates Used as Prizes or Sold

 

My wife and I often buy and sell storage units as a part time business. We also purchase collections and estates from seniors who have passed on or who are downsizing and often acquire duplicates of items.  As an example, we recently acquired a lot of fishing gear which my wife happens to know a lot about due to growing up with a Dad who was an avid trout fisherman and repair man of poles and reels.

 

That allowed us to sell off several emergency-type pieces of gear we had accumulated at auction and make a tidy profit while building up our own supply of good quality gear for pleasure and/or emergency purposes as we live within a few miles of several lakes and only 50 miles of several of the Great Lakes.

 

Some of the smaller “pocket” fishing items I had purchased became bonuses used for items we sold on eBay or through my Bonanza store.

 

Some of the items I see sold through popular magazines such as Popular Mechanics such Lansky’s ‘PREP’ pack, an emergency kit for cars, which sell for an eye-popping $180 blow me away.  Perhaps they are worth the price, however, I’ve found I can usually assemble similar kits for half that price.  The same applies to other ‘prepper’ kits including first-aid kits.  I keep several available and the most expensive [and the most complete] cost less than $50] using items I hand-picked from the sale shelf at local drug stores, the Dollar Tree, and even area thrift stores.

 

 Another example of what I feel is an overpriced item for the budget minded ‘prepper’ is the Gerber Downrange Tomahawk.  It features itself as a hammer, prybar and axe and sells for a whopping $328!

 

I find locking boxes with handles which I use for ammo and/or storage boxes at thrift stores along with other useful items.

 

With some diligence and imagination one can stretch a dollar much further during these inflation challenging times.

 

Find additional useful information here:


 

 

Bruce, the Contrarian curmudgeon!

 

How to Survive the War on the Middle Class

14 of the best reports I’ve assembled on protecting your freedom…Here is the download link. http://1drv.ms/1d9kfiU

 
Sticking With a Frugal Lifestyle
These tips can help you live frugally month after month.

 



Related posts:


  1. Things You Can Do To Be More Self-Sufficient
  2. Small Scale Self-Sufficiency
  3. Top 10 Tips For Urban Homesteading
  4. Get your free credit score
  5. Cost cutting tips and tricks
  6. Sources of extra cash

7.       Knowing When and How to Stockpile Groceries
Stocking up could save your grocery budget!

8.       John Braddock’s, A Spy’s Guide to Thinking

How to think spy gadgets are fun, real world stuff…not James Bond


 

 

A Final Note…

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.

 


Special Offer for our Readers

 72-hour Emergency Meal kit that's being offered contains 16 total servings of such delicious meals as Blue Ribbon Creamy Chicken Rice, the always-loved Granny's Homestyle Potato Soup and the stick-to-your-ribs breakfast favorite Maple Grove Oatmeal.

This kit normally sells for $27, plus shipping and handling and is rated 4½ out of five stars by customers.

While supplies last, these kits are available for only $21.95 and that includes Priority Shipping [we were force to increase prices due to another round of USPS price hikes]. Go here for this deal:
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A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production

 

3 comments:

Jan said...

Love your stuff-always useful!

Sandy said...

Mighty good stuff!

DAR said...

Meant to tell you that I like your new masthead. Well done my friend. Also, I agree with your thoughts as I too am a sucker for every new gadget that comes along.