Prudent Prepping: Winter Cleanup

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping.

In last week's post, I started the cleanup and restocking of my emergency stores. As it happens, another calendar alert popped up this past weekend, telling me it's time to swap out my water jugs.

The jugs I have are mentioned in last year's post, and I have been looking in every Walmart I pass to see if there are any more with seasonal markdowns. Amazon has the same jugs, and with Christmas right around the corner, that Prime membership might get a workout or two or maybe even three.

Cleaning My Jugs
I keep it really simple: Dump, rinse and refill. Since all of my gear is indoors, nothing gets too hot. Adding bleach isn't required, but I add about 1 oz of non-scented liquid chlorine bleach per jug anyway. Since I started adding water to my stores, none of the jugs have smelled bad or tasted funny between cleanings.

My calendar is set to remind me to change out my stored water again in 6 months. Smart phones are good, but my alert is written down too.

New Food
Also mentioned last week was my plan to standardize stored food. As Lokidude said yesterday, an idea is sometimes better than a plan. I'm really flexible on my plans, since my benefits just renewed and went up (less than I expected, but they still went up). The added expenses will slow down how quickly I'll be replacing some of the pricier items, which means all the buckets will be changed more slowly than I'd like.

Here's what is going in:

• Hot Chocolate mix from Land o' Lakes. This is a direct swap out from 3 pails (2 boxes in each pail), with one going into my GHB. I like the assorted flavors. 
• Canned Chicken. This is a 6 pack of canned chicken breast from Sam's Club, replacing another type of canned chicken also from Sam's. 2 cans are going into 3 pails also. 

Looking at other things due to reach the Sell By date is my peanut butter. Even with so many people having food allergies, I like the idea of something like this in my gear, but I may switch to Almond Butter if  the price is right.

The Takeaway

• Have a plan. but be prepared to change it often if necessary. 
• Plot out a schedule for checking and rotating food and gear. 
• Backup your calendar. 
• Pick items that will be acceptable to as wide a range of people as possible. You don't know who might be getting one of these pails in an emergency!

The Recap

• 7 boxes (6 packets each) of Land o' Lakes Hot Chocolate: $25.98 from Amazon Prime 
• 6, 13oz. cans of chicken: $10.38 from Sam's Club.

If you plan on buying anything through Amazon this holiday season, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running! 

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.