Looking for a slim gun safe that’s tall enough to fit long guns and have a shelf on top. Depth limitation is roughly 18” but width can be 36”-48”. Not sure if something like this exists on the market but thought I’d ask this crowd.

The River 3 plus is $50 more. I know one is undersized to do much more than power some devices but that might be nice in an outage? Not sure I can get my internet to run on just one though. I currently have no power prep aside from lights/candles/batteries so addressing that has been on my wish list for when the budget allows. Budget would allow this but not really any more at the moment. At this price and with the general uncertainty about how import prices might rise it seems like a good move but maybe I'm better saving $200 towards a larger solution a little further down the road? Appreciate any thoughts on this.

When Helene hit us in WNC, I realized basically instantly that water was the huge hole in our emergency prep. We had plenty of food, lots of batteries, even a stash of TP, but the 20 gallons or so of stored water I had for three people was woefully insufficient. Even a single flush of a toilet takes so much more water than I anticipated, and I hadn't even filled our bathtub beforehand. (Stupid, I know, but Helene was presented to us as a flooding disaster rather than a wind disaster and we never anticipated a prolonged power outage where we live.)

After the storm, once things settled down again, I made it a priority to increase our water supply. Part of that was just storing more water. I now have about eighty gallons stored, including several cases of tetrapacked ten-year water for drinking, plus a set of aquablocks and some five-gallon cubes. I'm also doing deep-pantry rotation on distilled water and bottled water, so I have quite a bit of that on hand at any given time. The big thing we did though, was finally shell out for a Jackery 5000 plus with one extra battery and the transfer switch, which just got installed today. If we are careful, it'll run our pump and freezers for several days before needing to be hauled out and recharged with its solar panels.

At this point, I'm wondering if that's enough for now. I'm pretty confident that if there is another disaster like the one we just lived through, we would come through it far more gracefully, and we're more prepared for any littler things that life throws at us. But would it still make sense to go further, look into hand pumps or a large water filtration system? We don't have much water around here aboveground; after Helene my family went to the nearest lake and dipped jugs and buckets to bring home for the toilet. Are rain barrels a good investment, or is that overkill at this point?

There are generally publications for each state in the US that will tell you when is the best time to plant different vegetables. Not necessarily the exact variety of each to buy but in general such as "leeks" but not "King Richard" leek.

For a general search, you type Google and just replace the state name which which ever you desire

"vegetable gardening in", "state name", site:edu, filtetype:pdf

These publications come from the US Extension Service Offices and are always sponsored by state colleges, hence the EDU to make sure they are actually from the college and not from an individual which can contain viruses. The filetype is so it gets only those published as PDF files. That can be left off for a broader general search.

I have a close friend who works at a bagel store, and therefore I could have access to hundreds of bagels a week that would otherwise be thrown out at the end of each day.

Bagels are richer in protein than most breads due to bagels being made with higher protein flour to make them chewy. It could be an excellent foundation for a food stockpile.

Hey everyone, for those of you who have evacuated with small children, could you share what that experience was like and if there is anything you learned from it that you would do differently next time? I am a stay at home mom and I’ve been running through the scenario in my mind of what I would do if I was home by myself with my small children and we had to evacuate quickly.

So, my church is starting a disaster relief ministry. I have been tapped to lead it. The idea is to have a response trailer with chainsaws, blue tarps and such. Eventually the goal will be to network with other churches to have a network. I have a pretty extensive spreadsheet of what I want to be in there, but I KNOW I missed something.

Our starting point is a 8.5x20 cargo trailer. The idea is for 3 to 5 people to be self sufficient from this trailer with a couple of support vehicles.

What are the off the wall things I need to think about.

in my survival/prepper bag, I have a lifestraw, but I got to thinking, what if I want to cook with this water, or if I want to make coffee or tea? I have a small pot In my bag to boil water if need be, but I would much rather like a way to fill up my water containers. my question is, does anybody know of a hand pump that I can attach to the part of the lifestraw that you drink from.

We’re taught not to pressure or water bath using “old” ball jar lids. For the last five years it’s been difficult to get new jar lids, and we can’t depend on things like botulism detecting tabs to be available.

Other than raising a whole lot of children, how do we test canned goods or deal with a lack of new lids?

Edit to add: There isn’t a shortage now (yet) but I’m trying to think ahead to what consumables are problematic in longer term supply chain disruption.

I have lots of powdered whey protein, and canned soup, tuna and chicken.

What's your favorite long shelf life protein?

I got a Sterno type stove in case the power goes out (mostly just for small things like making tea or heating up canned beans/soup) but it's not enclosed, it's just a rack. If it's not enclosed will it work or will it lose all of the heat? It's not letting me attach a picture so I'll see if it lets me upload it in the comments.

Thanks

Edit: please see pic in the comments! ☺️

Edit 2: my lease doesn't allow anything gas or propane so unfortunately those aren't options.

Not going to debate the use of alcohol. In the event that you were to lucky enough to forage a 100 lbs of plums, grapes, apricots, etc., you might want to preserve some of those calories as alcohol. Maybe you aren’t interested in starting to home brew now, but want the capacity in your prepping arsenal. Here’s a list of things to add to the stockpile. This list is primarily for making fruit wines. Mead or honey wine is similar but unless you have hives, you probably aren’t going to use honey.** Beer from grain is a whole other process with the malting, roasting and boiling steps and gear. I don’t make beer, so someone else should make that list.

Bare minimum necessities Fermentation vessel with airlock. Glass carboys are traditional, but considering the wide range of things to ferment in challenging times, if I only had one fermenter, I’d want a plastic Big Mouth Bubbler. You could macerate fruit in that without having to completely juice it. Easier to clean than the skinny neck carboys, lighter. Just don’t scratch it inside, makes it hard to sanitize.

Yeast. Don’t even start on the bread yeast. Just no. You want make something that tastes decent. One pretty bulletproof yeast is Ec-1118. It tolerates a wider range of temperatures so you don’t need a cave to make wine. 1 gram per gallon. 500 grams sets you back $50. Don’t bother with the individual packets, just get the 500 gram bag, transfer to a mason jar and keep it in the freezer. The internet is full of advice to pitch (add yeast) at much higher rates. The internet is full of people trying to sell you yeast. 1 gram per gallon (.25 gr/liter) works every time for us.

Some food grade siphon hose. Get 50’. You’ll find other useful things to do with it.

Salvaged wine bottles

Corks and a corking machine. Spend money on metal parts. You could salvage beer bottles and buy crowns and a capper, but crowns won’t last as long in aging. Beer caps aren’t meant to last for years. Beer bottles are meant as single use bottles. The swing top beer bottles are the only ones I’d keep.

Some way to label the bottles. A sharpie would work.

A way to record the steps you took so you can repeat it (or not) in the future.

Jack Keller’s book on home wine making. Before Jack died he kept an amazing collection of recipes for all manner of fruit n the Internet. This book is a compilation of much of that work. Last time I searched the Google machine, it seemed like the recipes were impossible to find. The book is worth the expense IMHO.

Minimal upgrades that would dramatically improve your quality A second fermenter to transfer wine into near the end of fermentation. This is called “racking,” the process of separating the wine from the layer of dead yeast cells that naturally accumulate at the bottom of the fermenter.

A hydrometer and graduated cylinder to measure the amount of fermentable sugar in your starting must. As yeast converts sugar to alcohol, the reading drops. If it gets stuck, you might need to add more yeast. Measuring is the way to track progress.

A wine thief to pull samples with minimal contamination.

A small amount of potassium metabisulfite (KMBS) to knock back the wild yeast before fermentation most home brewers just buy Camden tablets, but KMBS is going to be super stable in storage and use just what you need. You do need to be careful with it, the gas it produces is dangerous to breathe. Yes sometimes people make good beverages with wild yeast. Sometimes they make dreck. You’ve worked hard to forage your ingredients, give them a better than average chance to develop into a drinkable product.

Some malic acid powder. Makes things more tart. Tastier. Low acid wines taste “flabby”. Cheap box wine effect. Could also use “acid blend” but malic is what we use. Dropping the pH with malic makes KMBS more effective. Find a KMBS calculator on the web and use it. Record your data and after a while you’ll have a chart.

Tannin powder to add that leathery mouth feel.

A pH meter and standards or pH strips. More data is better.

Various spices if you want to make a spiced wine (cinnamon, star anise, coriander, anise are all interesting.

Sanitizing solution. Most home brewers use a product called Star San, which is perfectly fine. We would use more KMBS. It’s an all purpose sanitizer that we want around the farm anyway in a SHTF situation.

Yeast starter nutrient. GoFerm is used to bloom the yeast before adding to the must. If you’ve made bread, it’s similar to proofing yeast before adding the flour. Used at the rate of 1.25 grams to 1 gram of yeast.

Yeast nutrient. We like Fermaid O. EC-1118 isn’t a high demand yeast, but some of your country wine recipes would benefit by a little extra nutrition in the must. Essential for rhubarb and dandelion wines. Get an equal amount to however much yeast you are storing. Doesn’t need to be frozen, benefits by refrigeration.

Five gallon pails. Never enough pails on hand.

if I had infinite space and money, or got into home brewing as a hobby More vessels for aging. They take up a lot of room. I guess you could justify them for water storage now, then repurpose later.

A boatload of sugar. Rhubarb wine is delicious after about a year, but you need a lot of sugar to make it. You might want to increase the alcohol percentage of some of your other fruit wines, or back sweeten them after fermentation. You couldn’t store enough sugar.

Filters, clarifying agents, etc. let’s be real, if SHTF, nobody’s complaining about cloudy wine.

Glycerol. Used to recover, freeze and save yeast at the end of fermentation. Definitely not a beginner method. Maybe a liter, it isn’t going to go bad. If you need it, you’ll have it.

Barrels for aging and oak flavor. You can’t just buy these and put them away, you need to take care of them so they stay water-tight. They sell oak in other formats like spirals and cubes to add the flavor without the cost of the barrel.

A hydro press, a recirculating pump to pressurize the press, apple grinder and generators to run it. You can make a lot of wine without any of these things. But if you have them, you can make a lot more wine and preserve a lot more fruit.

Home brewing is a fun hobby if you have the interest and might end up being a useful skill down the road.

** if you are determined to make mead, study up on the TOSNA strategy of yeast nutrient additions. I make clean tasting mead only because I follow the protocol.

*** DO NOT USE your lacto-fermentation equipment for wine making. Once a piece of equipment has had contact with lactobacilli, consider out of play for alcohol, or you risk making a lot of very fine vinegar instead of wine. Especially anything made of wood, like a spoon or masher. If I want vinegar, I make it not just in another room but another building to avoid cross-contamination. But I have made some excellent vinegar from my wine.

What do you use to vacuum seal your meats/ veggies for the freezer?

Hey all, I’ve been getting a good start on basic supplies but one of my main weak areas is backup power. We live in a rental house and last summer had our power go out due to a wind storm and was out for several days, and we lost everything in our fridge/freezer. I’d like to get a small chest freezer but I am hesitant to pull the trigger without some sort of backup power, but I don’t want to/can’t spend several hundred dollars on a backup generator, especially in a rental house. Are there any backup power banks or solar banks that would be able to power a small (7cu ft) chest freezer?

Your life, your environment, your needs. What are you pulling the trigger on?

Hi fellow preppers,,

I live in bad part of town, and my neighbors are mostly shady characters (i can't afford to move, if i could i would)

What kind of door barricade from Amazon would slow down somebody trying to kick down the door long enough for the cops to arrive ? Or at least to get ready to welcome them properly.

There was some sort of fight in the hallway last night it was scary not knowing what was going on and if i was next.

Thanks.

Just wanted to say thank you to this sub for being one of the most realistic & calm headed subs. I know its had it moments of SHTF & TEOTWAWKI talk, but even then, the ppl here are able to bring things back down to reality.

With everything happening in the world, it's nice to get a break online with some genuine prepper discussion not surrounded by "holy $h!+ we're all gonna die" I struggle to pick up my phone sometimes because of all the crazy happening... I just want realistic, well thought out planning information without the radioactive fluff of fear mongering.

So thank you & carry on being clear minded preppers! 🙌

The tarp that came with my Shelterlogic has completely fallen apart. I've been messing with the idea of removing the ripped tarp and putting a ribbed sheet metal roof on it and using it for firewood storage.

Has anyone done anything like this?

My intrest in prepping started with ’Little House in the Big Woods’, and its beautiful descriptions of the various foods the Ingalls family had prepared in the attic for the wintertime in pioneer times. I’m currently reading ’Spuds, Spam and Eating for Victory’ by Katherine Knight, which is about the food rationing in Britain during the Second World War. Even as an adult, most of my book choices revolve around acquiring and preserving good food… though I’d say my current choice is particularly informed by the political climate 💀

Is anyone else reading prep-related works, either to learn, or to find comfort?

If the U.S. collapsed and you needed to stockpile food on a budget, how many days/weeks/months’ worth would you aim to have?

My husband and I have always wanted a small humble farm that could sustain us and become a multigenerational homestead. I’ve always been the paranoid type, so I’m very much so into prepping.

With that in mind, we’ve been talking about this idea a bit more and we’re considering buying a plot of land & saving up to build on it.

Obviously we’re in the saving stage, but if you had an unlimited budget, what are the main “reasonable” (so no bears trained with assault rifles) things you’d consider when building your multi-generational homestead?

At this stage a blue roof seems like a must lol.

We’d plan to get a few acres, start up a new garden (shout out sqft gardening), and then start with some basic livestock (chickens, ducks, maybe if we’re lucky a cow).

Many of us remember the devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa a decade ago. Despite its scale, the virus remained largely contained within three countries, with only a handful of cases reaching the U.S. and Europe. Unfortunately, the latest outbreak(s) raise concerns that this time could be far worse.

The first confirmed outbreak follows a familiar pattern—it emerged in an isolated village in rural DRC. Such locations, with limited travel and few potential victims, tend to make containment relatively straightforward. Contact tracing is manageable, and while healthcare services are scarce, the disease often burns through a village before it can spread further.

What’s alarming, however, is the recent case of an Ebola-positive nurse in Kampala, Uganda—1,400 miles from the initial outbreak. It seems unlikely that she traveled that distance from the original site. A more plausible scenario is that she contracted the virus from a separate, unidentified outbreak. Kampala, home to four million people, sits at the edge of the densely populated Great Lakes region, making it a high-risk location for further spread.

Several factors could accelerate this crisis:

1. Conflict in the region – The M23 rebel group recently mobilized and seized Goma, a city that has previously experienced an Ebola outbreak. Civil wars create prime conditions for disease transmission, and while Goma is 400 miles from Kampala, trade and travel between the two cities are far more frequent than with the rural outbreak site.
2. Limited international response – During the West African outbreak, the U.S. and Europe played a crucial role in containment efforts. USAID and the 101st Airborne provided critical logistical support, particularly in Liberia, which was accessible by air and sea. Central Africa presents far greater logistical challenges, and given current global priorities, the willingness of Western nations to intervene at the same scale is uncertain.
3. Seasonal disease confusion – This time of year (December–July) is peak season for other hemorrhagic fevers in Central Africa, complicating Ebola detection. Just as Americans struggle to differentiate between the flu, COVID-19, and other respiratory illnesses in winter, healthcare workers in the region may have difficulty distinguishing Ebola from similar diseases—delaying diagnosis and containment efforts.

Taken together, these factors create a dangerous situation with the potential for a far more widespread outbreak than we saw a decade ago.

Do I need to do anything in my house before I leave. I’ve shut windows, put items up higher, I’m just not able to think clearly.

If you could only buy one, maybe two....which, and any recommendations on make/model:

Compass

Emergency radio

Personal water filter

I have some other things I still wanna obtain, but these are the three biggest voids currently. However, any input is welcome.

I’m currently in a flood zone that is under prepare to leave direction. I am trying to remain calm and stay in my home as I haven’t got anywhere to go with my cat. However I have my go bag, my cat carrier and my cat emergency kit ready at the door. I have power banks for electronics, torches and I’m feeling so much more in control than the last time my area flooded.

This community is helpful for getting into the practice of getting prepared and I’m pleased that I took the motivation to do so.

Thank you

Has anybody tried freeze dried tomatoes? I have freeze dried tomato powder but I've heard you can get diced. Nothing is as good as fresh but I'm wondering if it's worth it. Does anyone know of a good brand they like? Lehman's had sliced freeze dried avocado but I'll pass at over $100 a can. Some people are starting to ask me about freeze dried food after the tariff announcements that have never done much prepping before. Especially one uncle who is addicted to pico de gallo.

No matter where you live, it might be time to start prepping for digital apocalypses.

By this I mean your country throwing up digital walls and blockading information. New anti piracy laws, authoritarian governments, media company lobbying. There are a lot of scenarios where your access to the web is disrupted but the rest of life goes on fairly normally.

Imagine what happens if your country makes it's own version of "Great Firewall of China". What if suddenly you can't download stuff freely?

It's a part of prepping that I feel is often overlooked. Consider buying a few dozen terrabytes of storage drives. Fill them with books, music, films, traditional survival documents, games, hell even porn if you like. Whatever your day to day media consumption is and anything that would hurt you not being archived or available. Plus some survival and technical pdfs. Save it. Store it.

There's loads of ways to do this but a couple of external hard drives and a cheap $100 dollar laptop that you don't put online (not even once) to access it on could be invaluable to you one day if the freedoms of the internet are taken from you.

Sure there's tons of backdoor options to get around these things but that still relies on you being allowed any internet access and being more tech savvy than your government.

Not to mention you can apocalypse proof your archive by setting it up with a solar charger. Meaning you can access survival manuals even without grid power.

Just something to think about I guess.

How do you manage the project of prepping?

What tools do you use for lists?

Do you set periodic goals or do a review?

I'd like to start a discussion of how you manage this... I use notes on my phone to keep track of things, I put next steps in my to-do list app, and use calendar reminders for rotating supplies. But it doesn't feel sufficiently organized or strategic. I'm curious to learn specific processes and systems that work for you?

Israel made gas mask that had a normalized/standard filter thread. Meaning that it’s comparable with both NATO and Gost filters. The gas mask are still functional and work just as good a modern gas mask. And they have a drinking apparatus and a voice diaphragm. By the way the gas mask I’m talking about are the M15 and the 4A1.

Edit: after doing some more research the 4A1 gas mask is a one-size-fits-all gas mask so you don’t have to worry about me measuring your face.

How do you prioritize power preps? I'm not new to the hobby, but I know power has been one thing lacking, and my wife agrees it's time to evaluate this prep to add it to our supplies. I have batteries, and a small solar panel to run small electronics, but that's about it. I'm torn between investing in some sort of whole house backup, and a small solar power station.

Thing to note for my specific situation:

We have solar, just no batteries. If the power goes down (normal outage) we also lose power. The power company doesn't want that power flowing back into a downed line, endangering the techs. I get it, but that means I have no prepping advantage to having this solar. I guess if S really HTF, I could take apart the wiring and MacGyver the solar panels to charge things, but that's not realistic.

I think my wife has more of a gas generator in mind. I'm not completely against that, but 1. OpSec is shot. 2. I don't want to have to refill gas every day few hours, especially in inclement weather 3. Noise 4. Keeping stable gas on hand is hard and runs out quick. This is where I'm looking at a solar inverter. No noise and renewable. Solar or not, these options will only power a few things. Maybe a fridge or two, and a couple lights.

How you you prioritize smaller units over a whole house system. Solar inverters can be stacked to the point of backing up a whole house, but the price gets up there real quick. I would much rather DIY a home battery if I'm going to spend that much, but you can't take it with you, at all or nearly as easily as something small.

Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom.