Make this SURVIVAL BUCKET while there's still time! Save money |DIY| Prepping for SHTF 2023 

Smart 😊

Plastic wear is a great idea 👍🏻

That's a great idea

Cream of wheat ❤

Ramen, rice, pasta can also be made with cold water and just left out for enough hours to soften

@Purple0fairy0bunny Q If you run 🏃‍♂️ ♥️ out of pasta? All the stores are closed? Where's the pasta coming from...or can YOU make some more??? I HAVE A SOLUTION STORE SOME WHOLE WHEAT BERRIES...get yourself a wheat/grain grinder and a pasta maker too. Then you will have both bread 🍞 🙂 and pasta! Q ❤️

I've started making my own "MREs" with my freeze dryer and chamber vac, I've included all those plus snacks tooth brush matches etc.. etc

Add some honey. Could be used for sweetener or medical use.

🪣 Forgot the bucket,,,,or, maybe it’s just a pail.

Yes! Thank you so much! Now is definite the time to get started if you haven't already!

Great job, Jara! 🪣

Oh my! Yes I agree, they have great marketing and advertising and they certainly are too good to be true! Thank you for sharing your story, we appreciate you!

You’re right about that. I suspect they count on you not actually checking out the food that you spend so much for, until the disaster hits. And then whatever you’ve got, you’re sort of stuck with, but it’s too late to complain to them at that point. Good tip. Thank you.

Horrible! It's great that you checked it before you actually needed it. 👍🏾

it occurs to me to say that some of the companies produce really good Food that is really nutritious and easy to prepare. Outside of that, it might not be a bad idea to produce your own. Some things are easy to put aside, and easy to process so that they’re ready to eat or easy to prepare in a pinch, requiring very little cooking time.

Even big name companies have fallen off a cliff when it comes to variety and quality, some have even gone under over the decades or were just a flash in the pan.

Oh wow! That's a great breakdown, thank you for this! Very helpful!!! 😊😊😊

@@wickedprepared I tried one of the rice but it had no flavor. It was supposed to be Spanish Rice. There were 2 bits of dehydrated pepper and no flavor. It was just a one pound bag of white rice and they tossed in a few pieces of dehydrated pepper to call it Spanish Rice. So I do not count the one pound pouches of rice as flavored. The drink mixes are labeled as alternative and are chemical filled which are carcinogens. I am allergic to them so I could not count them. And it was a banana chip and dried soup mix that were leaking. The banana chips were broken bits and brown if I remember correctly. That bucket costs more these days but it still is not worth what they are charging for it. And when I looked at servings there is not enough food to last one person 30 days. I advise people not to purchase them.

Your experience sounds just like mine when opening some 'prepper' food my husband had purchased before I knew him. If you have to eat in an emergency at least make it taste good.

@@kyhilltophome3153 I worked hard and put together my own. I have to have my dehydrated vegetables. I need protein. I need flavor.

Well, it’s easy to modify some of those starches to be replaced with proteins. Rice for example, has some of the amino acids required for a complete protein, and a can of peas would have the rest of the amino acids required for a complete protein. So it would not be too difficult to make up some rice, however you wish to make it, and serve it with a few peas on the side. That would be a complete protein right there, as well as your bulky carbs to fill you up. if you were to have some dehydrated Veggie flakes on hand that you could rehydrate and then put in with the rice as it cooks, you’d actually have a lot more nutrition and a little more flavour in the rice dish. But I can only agree that these buckets are not made so that everyone can have them, and they are not necessarily the best value for the money or even the best quality. Thank you for bringing up this very important point.

That’s true. There are also ways to do this before you’re ready to invest in a vacuum sealer or oxygen absorbers; i’ll mention it here over the course of two replies, in case you were anybody else wants to put together an emergency supply bucket while on a strict budget: Use Luke warm water and dish detergent solution to clean some soda pop bottles that are PET1 or PETE1, along With the caps; rinse it with a bleach solution which you can find easily online. leave them upside down in the drain tray to air dry. You can store dried food in these. Fill the mostly up, and then tap the bottom and sides to eliminate as much of the air as possible. You can make a couple of desiccant packs with some silica gel which you can get cheaply if you get silica gel kitty litter, picking out the blue pieces because they have cobalt in them, If you would like to eliminate more moisture from the bottle, to get more time out of it you may put a desiccant pack in the bottle first. When you’re putting the cover on, squeeze the bottle tightly enough to dent it in; Cap tightly, and if there’s still a dent in the bottle when the cap is on, that’s OK. That’s just a clear indication that you’ve got the bottle vacuum sealed. and you’re protected against moisture and insect activity. As for how long these things last, nobody’s sure. So far the experimentation has it at least at eight years. Next year we’ll know if it goes to nine. Lol. if you choose to put pulses in your bucket, think about Water availability in your area, during a power outage or emergency. You can pre-soak and pre-cook Foods which you can dehydrate, or completely cook and season and can. Canned food has only to be heated up over any heat source that’ll take it to boiling campground dehydrated food can be cooked inside of 10 minutes from boiling. That uses a whole lot less water and fuel in a pinch. The other nice thing about pulses, is that if you have them there for any serious amount of time and they start to hurt them, you have only to add baking soda to the soak water to soften them up. There’s otherwise no amount of time that you can soak them to soften them, and they will not soften during cooking. But adding a teaspoon or 5 mL of baking soda to a pound/2 cups of pulses when they soak overnight, makes a huge difference. So in the event that you’re packing pulses, do remember to put in baking soda such that you have at least a teaspoon full for every pound of pulses. It’s a good idea to toss in some extra seasoning and spices to keep the food interesting and delicious, add extra nutrition, while adding no extra calories. The other thing that’s good to know about pulses, is that some of them take a lot less time to cook than others. And some of them require a lot less water soak. Lentils take a lot less time than other types. And that might be important if water and fuel are at a premium. With a little planning, you can actually get a lot more nutrition out of your pulses. It takes about three days to get most pulses to sprout. So you soak them with your baking soda the first night, and change your water at least once a day, and if it’s really warm where you live and you don’t have refrigeration Emergency, change the water twice a day and keep it in a shady location. once your sprouts are visible, you have 300% of the nutrition in those lentils or beans or whatever, then you would have in the entire adult plant. Just none of the bulk. And then you can go right ahead and make whatever you were going to make of it, getting more nutrition that’s less likely to leave you with cravings. Foods that are not so expensive, so it’s easier to build up your supply more quickly, such as pulses, are useful for a lot of different recipes. it’s a good idea to download some recipes and give them a shot to find out what your family likes. It could make your food storage much faster and less expensive to put together. For the recipes that your family likes, perhaps consider putting copies of those recipes in the food bucket, so you’ve got something to refer to. And consider shelflife. So if you’re planning to put flour in the bucket, whole wheat flour goes off inside of 6 to 9 months, because of the oils in the bran layer. But if you pack unbleached or bleached white flour, you may get a year out of it, stored properly. If you pack wheat berries or oat groats or the like, And you store it in a cool dark place, with an oxygen absorber in it, dry, you can get 35 years out of that storage. you need to know that if you buy prepackaged foods that are dry and made ready to go, that there are ingredients that you may need to have on hand in order to make them properly, like oil, like eggs, and that sort of thing. If you check in the bakery supply section, you can often find powdered eggs called “meringue“. They may be a little sweeter, but it’s worth picking up a package to experiment with. Perhaps it’ll solve a problem and make your emergency cooking a little more fun. The other thing about serving size, is that a designation that doesn’t mean that is the amount that you would normally have in a serving on your plate and feel satisfied with. Very often, a serving size is much smaller than you would normally eat if you were sitting at home to the table. This is important to know. Because if there’s an emergency and you have to evacuate your family, the effort of evacuation or fleeing could actually use an awful lot more energy than a person would normally use. It’s important to have enough calories as well as enough nutrition in there. It’s important to state that you can only live for three days without water in most cases, and before that, your judgement and cognitive ability really slip if you’re dehydrated. so allow for 2 L/1Gal per person per day of potable water. That doesn’t allow for washing, and not much for soaking and cooking. if I were going to save myself 20 bucks on buckets and lids, I think I’d reinvest it back as a proper water container in which a person can save water for long periods of time. Water Storage Jerry cans or blocks can be stored in the freezer if they’re not full to the top and have room for expansion. This keeps the power bills down for the freezer, and if the cover stays closed in a power outage, it’ll keep the food frozen in the freezer for much, much longer. For the water storage that you’re going to leave out in the house for emergencies, consider dropping a silver coin that’s actually silver, in the water. It will keep the water from going off for much much longer, as it did for our ancestors who were seafarers. It’s really important to know that water that’s been sitting up for a while does not taste good. Because it’s not aerated. So have an extra bucket to pour some water into, and let it splash from a little bit of a height, to aerate. For the water back-and-forth between two buckets a couple of times, and it will improve the taste drastically. Second half to follow

Second half. And possibly keep a few packets of some flavouring on hand to get the children to drink enough to stay hydrated. Perhaps pack a A few nice herbal tea bags or something to make it a little more enjoyable. And consider a little emergency fuel so that you can actually warm up or cook the food that you have, possibly in a second bucket. Also consider a way to purify water in a pinch. A terra-cotta pot that has a rim that would easily sit inside of one of your food storage buckets, and a cork to fit inside the bottom of that terra-cotta flower pot is a great way to do that. Italian terra-cotta flower pots are all food grade, and preparation is easy. When you get the pot, you just wash it with a brand new scrubby (because A used scrubby may have traces of detergent or oil in it, which could either contaminate or block the pores of the flower pot). Let the flower pot dry in the sunshine until it is completely dry. It’s ready to store. When you’re ready to use it, simply soak it in water for an hour or two, set it on top of the empty bucket you want to use as a Reservoir, and fill it with the water that you want to filter. Depending on the contamination that you expect to find in the environmental water in your area, you can choose how to pre-filter it or to pre-treated with a few drops of chlorine bleach or whatever else you’d like to use. You may need to boil it afterwards, again depending on the contaminant. The nice thing about these pots is that they’re inexpensive. My most expensive one is about $12, But the least expensive one is actually a Chinese pot that I have when I couldn’t get an Italian one. It ran me 4$. The only ones to avoid are Pakistani, just because there’s lead in the clay supply used to make their flower pots. The pots themselves are good quality, but not so good for drinking water filtration. Pots from any place but Italy should be sanded to remove a sealant that a many manufacturers apply to the pots. everybody knows to use their safety masks and ventilation when standing especially pottery. Once the pot has been sanded inside and out to remove any sealant, then scrubbed with a new scrubby under running water, the same as described earlier, and the procedure is the same. don’t forget to fit it with a cork to seal any draining holes in the bottom. You’ll find that these pots do a pretty good job, and the really sweet thing about them is that when they get clogged up to the point that they’re not filtering at a decent rate anymore, you have only to take the pot and a new scrubby and clean the pot under running water the same as before, dry in the air the same as before, and then it’s ready to store or soak to be used. personally I’d like to store I am in a bucket with a seal, Because in the event that a mouse gets in the house, and it leaves calling cards in the pot, then contaminants of a biological nature could end up in the filtration pot, at a time when water filtration is most needed. The other thing I worry about is that people tend to put down poison to kill rodents, and so if a rodent that has been exposed to poison happens to get in my filter pot, then there’s a chance that any poison excretes in its urine, which I may not be able to see, can be absorbed into the pot, poisoning my family when the pot is used. So that’s why it might not be a bad idea to store it in a sealed bucket. And, food grade buckets in my area run about $10 in tax, with lids that have no seals on them. I run a local food security program, that encourages people to put aside a little extra food for emergencies. So the local bakeries save the buckets that they use in their deli and bakery for me. We have different applications for the different types and sizes of buckets. Some of the buckets or Square or rectangular, and some of them, like icing buckets, have excellent quality seals on them. Some stores charge up to three dollars for a bucket with lid and seal, but more of them are glad to pass them to us. Big stores like Walmart, are often glad to simply give the buckets away, But sometimes they like to get a call early in the day so that when the baker comes in or the cake decorator, they know to save the bucket and lid, and about what time To expect you. Some of the kitchens and cake decorating areas are so tiny that government regulations do not permit them to have an extra bucket in the kitchen. So it needs to be picked up within a certain amount of time, and you need to know that. For the occasions when the bakery staff actually has A little extra time, sometimes they wash the buckets for us, which is super nice, considering that the buckets could be fairly large, and the average domestic sink is not really quite big enough to handle them. all the same, often enough, we have to wash them ourselves. But as far as I’m concerned, that’s a better quality food storage bucket that is food safe, then the one I spend more than $10 on. The reason that buckets are important if you have your dried food stored in soda pop bottles, is that moist can chew through soda pop bottles easily, and it only takes one to get in the house and decimate your food supply. But it takes them longer to chew through a bucket. They can chew through buckets, but you’ve got a much better chance of catching them before there’s much damage. So remember to check your buckets once in a while, and store them such that they’re up off the floor at least four or 5 inches. Because gases Do permeate the floor, especially at the basement level, and plastic absorbs odors. It’s an easy matter of putting a couple of boards across a couple of bricks or even cutting the end off an old pallet and putting on the floor before putting your buckets down, to keep them good. As always, Store in the darkest, coolest place above freezing in the house that you can.❤️ That’s kinda nice to know. Don’t forget to take a note of the approximate shelflife of the ingredients of your bucket, and put the best before date on the outside of your bucket. The best before date doesn’t actually did note a time with most things go off or spoil or become dangerous, but they often start to degrade and taste less good after that date; it’s pretty much the last day that the company will guarantee that it’s product is fresh and at its best. That being said, if you make a note of the best before dates and put it in your calendar, when those dates are getting close, that’s a good time to go out and buy replacement goods to go in another bucket, and use the ones that are about to expire, so that no food is wasted, and your emergency supplies are always fresh for when you need them The reflect or glowing stickers are a stroke of sheer genius. In your bug out bag that everybody in the family gets, hung near the exit, remember to put a copy of your IDs, two or three different contact numbers in different places so that you can get in touch with the rest of the family if you get separated, picture books of all the photos of the immediate family for the kids, in case they get separated, and any meds or supplements that anyone in the family needs, and perhaps a few first aid supplies. in You may also need copies of any documents to prove any assets and properties that you have, so that you can establish ownership of them later on when you try to settle back down after the disaster. and if there’s a chance you’re gonna end up eating a lot of prepackaged foods, consider putting some psyllium fibre and some apple cider mix in your packages. Because those sorts of foods really do tend to impact a persons digestive tract, and the fibre will make a huge difference. For protein, you could put in a few tins of meats or some jerky, but you can also look at what foods contain amino acids that may be mixed together to provide complete proteins. Everybody knows about rice and legumes for example. And you can buy dehydrated vegetable flakes. They are very lightweight, and easily talk into a soft drink bottle to go in your bucket and will last for years that way. They’ll add a lot of nutrition, and might also be as useful as a few bouillion cubes. Thank you. Thanks for your awesome video.

​@@daphneraven6745thank you for the great information!

@@donnaleveron5711 : you’re very welcome. The only other thing I have to say about this, is to make sure that you make Of the recipes and test them in advance. When you really need them is not the time when you wanna find out if the kids will eat them. once in a while, I get an opportunity to go camping. And that’s when I’ll take a good sampling of my supplies, and see if I can really get by on them well for a week. Of course I don’t do that one I’m just starting off and only have a weeks worth; that’s something I do maybe at the end of working at putting together a supply gently over the course of the year. That’s a much better way of finding out if everything works well, or if you need to tweak your set up, while we can still get things at the store. I hope you really enjoy setting up your emergency stash. :-)

​@@daphneraven6745definition of Pulses

We bought some can meats and dehydrated fruits and veggies to round out the nutrition in the emergency packs. However going forward we decided to make our own as we learned how to in these videos. 🙏

I still make sweet rice in occasion. Warm milk over rice with cinnamon. No raisins ever.

Next time you make pasta try this: bring water to boil, add dry pasta and stir, bring back to boil then once it is at a boil, put lid on it, turn off heat and set timer for 9 minutes. I regularly do this for all pasta types/shapes and always get al dente results. In the event that you are camping or cooking over a fire, carry along a large styrofoam cooler with a blanket inside. Put your boiling hot food in its original pot with lid on inside, making sure to put "insulating blanket" material under, around and over the lidded pot. Put the styrofoam lid on top of this arrangement and it will keep food hot for hours. I mean, steaming hot. It really retains the heat well so esp good if you have folks eating the meal at different times throughout the day or just want to keep hot water on hand for several hours. It is a lightweight set up and doesn't require sunlight or duct tape to work.

Did the math on a bucket. 1300 calories a day, which would feed my granddaughter when she was 10....

Thank you for this insight.

totally agree! very informative 🧐

I bought one of the American Red Cross boxes because the box was damaged and $10. Otherwise, I coupon myself and stores to death.

@susan9491. I did that for last Christmas. But I didn't supply a bucket lol, I just loaded a box with food preps, misc. gear, and Iodine tablets. Kids were pleased. I don't buy the commercial buckets because they aren't healthy, but I do buy the #10 cans of things that might get hard to come by: milk, eggs, butter, cheese, some biscuit/bread mixes. I also have some fruit cans. I like being able to pick what I know we'd eat.

@@carlabythelake8162 I fully agree! We don’t use much in the way of prepared foods, I cook from scratch and prefer to stock mostly ingredients and home made mixes. I’m going to splurge on food grade buckets with gamma lids, because many of our family members are convinced that nothing bad will ever happen, so my plan is to make it as fool proof as I can for them!

My brother does stuff like that. I love them!

@@susans9491 Why gamma lids??

@@elizmal533 I was just thinking of the long haul, we’ve got family members that NEVER buy ANYTHING ahead, they see no reason to keep a working pantry, let alone a long term food storage.

That's awesome!! Thank you so much, I really appreciated that!

Wow, thank you! I really appreciate that!!

@@wickedprepared many RU-vid channels say prepare prepare.. which I have been doing.. haphazardly.. this practical approach makes so much sense! I also was thinking- I could make these 25 yr buckets for way less! Have the food saver, dehydrator- Mylar, oxygen absorbers.. but all this takes time!! And some days, there just isn’t the time!!

I hear you on that!!! 🤣 But even if you only have a little bit of time, and make a tiny bit of progress .. it's still progress, right? 😊😊😊

so glad you know to do this. DM is something that needs to be controlled. i've been an RN, almost 3 decades, and there are those out there that actually can control it with just nutrition and of course there are others that can't one in particular I knew had a virus attack the pancreas at age 40 so they immediately became Diabetic. Sounds like your way of ahead of everybody, including the medical institutions. Good for you 🎉 👏

@@wasnevernurseratched439 I have had to understand nutrition for about 30 years now. My late husband has HepC and ended up on dialysis also. I did his dialysis at home. It was a juggling act to balance his liver and kidneys and then on top of that diabetes and heart disease. So I took as many courses as I could on understanding nutrition. I'm glad I did because now that I deal with health issues myself I can try to keep it under control with proper notion

@@WorldOfWonder66Can you share what you put in your bucket? My mother has DM & I want to make a nutritious bucket for her. You sound like you have a excellent understanding of nutrition and have refined your process over time. Can you help me. Thank you in advance.

@@betsychavez2914 Well I can share with you what I do for myself. I have 2 different totes that I use. One is for a week and the other is for 2 weeks. Honestly doing the weekly can be easier. For my breakfast my stomach never feels up to eating but it's important I get something in me to start my day off right. I use the Walmart brand of the diabetic protein shakes. I prefer the chocolate ones and I add a teaspoon and a half of instant coffee to it. I looked forward to this every morning. It kind of helps stop in a chocolate craving and it has also helped would not having hot coffee with cream and sugar. I just put the instant coffee right into the bottle that's a shake comes in and shake it and it's good to go. I do keep my instant coffee on the cupboard, not in the totes. I go through a quart of milk everyday to get my protein and sugar level. I buy the boxed milk from the Dollar tree. Throughout the day I will use the protein bottle that I had my original shaking and add another teaspoon of coffee to it if I want to. It keeps down dishes that way 🙂 I add fruit cups to my tote and have one everyday, most of the time it's at dinner for desert. I buy the fruit cups because that way I'm not tempted to eat a whole can of fruit. I also make sure that there is a week's worth of canned vegetables. It's okay to eat a whole can in a day. Often times I will split it between lunch and dinner. Or even have some for a snack. I always have extra cans for snacking on too. I have learned how to change my snacks to more healthy foods. They can even be eating right out of the can for something different. I keep a variety of canned meats in my totes and always have extra. I make sure there is enough for lunch and dinner or any snacks in between with the meat also. Tuna, chicken, beef, pepperoni, bacon bits ect... I have one starch for every day. Most of the time it's a packaged meals like a Rice-A-Roni, pasta Roni, idahoan mashed potatoes.. things like that. I typically will make it for dinner and have it for lunch the next day. I also keep top ramen, peanut butter and low sugar jams in my totes. Along with what ever bread and crackers I am want to go with things for the week. The ideas and recipes can be endless. The more you have fun with it, the more ideas you can come up. Best of luck to you and your mom. God bless

After an emergency spent down my account, we went 6 months without shopping. I can tell you that we weren't hungry but I missed fresh anything. I found myself nibbling rosemary directly from my plant.

@@RayF6126 Wow...that's an experience very few of us have ever tried. I've had to really cut back on my grocery budget (for 1) in the last couple of months, and I've found that fresh, cheap vegs are probably the most important items I find necessary to include in my small hauls...even more so than animal proteins. I'm also finding that I'm able to replace beans for meats without much complaint. Having been used to being a carnivore my whole life, I've found it really eye opening. A lot to think about and experiment with for budget, comfort and sustainability.

@@oscarfelix1952 I had EBT for 6 months two years ago and I used it to buy oats, rice, beans, instant potatoes, flour, chicken and beef livers, gizzard, sausage, cabbage, squash, and carrots. I had about a year of back stock for two people by making everything myself, gardening, and foraging. We ate for $50 a month before having to eat exclusively out of my pantry.

Hey there, I'm hoping you'll see this. I'm working on compiling some testimonials for my website ... would it be OK with you if I use your comment? It would appear just like it does here on RU-vid, I just wanted to see if that'd be OK with you.

That is awesome! Thanks for watching!

You're welcome! 😊

That sounds like a great plan! Definitely 😊 Thank you so much for watching, we appreciate you!

Look at the amount of sugar in Gatorade. Unless you are doing extreme exercise and sweating, stick to water.

@@maryl234 There are zero sugar versions of Gatorade as well

@@vanessal7145 HAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Do your research.

@@maryl234 🤡🤡🤡

Absolutely! You're spot-on and it sounds like you're doing things right!! 😊😊 Thank you for watching and commenting!

Glad you enjoyed it!

I've heard of people with Freeze Dryers actually getting rid of their freezers LOL I don't think I'd be that extreme , But it is nice to be able to not only make your own meals, but buy in bulk and freeze dry things like steaks, chicken, eggs etc... I also chamber vac my freeze dried stuff with O2 and Moisture Absorbers as an extra precaution. At this point, my food will outlast me.

same here don't need pouches for eight people UNLESS they are 100% completely resealable or would have to buy them and repackage which can be a pain!

@@wasnevernurseratched439 Exactly! If I'm gonna repackage the packaged food, I might as well use my own recipe. (And then I know I'm gonna love it!)

Thanks for watching!

I know exactly what you mean! That's great to hear! Thank you for watching 😊

Growing up we received government dry milk, gawd awful tasting stuff. Ordered case of Thrive when it was on sale, now that's some great tasting milk. I just make sure to refrigerate overnight. Nice & cold in the morning.

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching Dannie!! I hear you completely!! Jar meals are definitely my go-to! 😊😊😊

"Definitely for diabetics"? They would kill diabetics.

* Not for diabetics

Growing up we often had rice cooked for breakfast. Eat it like oatmeal or cream of wheat.

Thank you! 😊