![]() |
What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
I'd say that my biggest mistake so far was that I spent way too long planning how I was going to prep but didn't actually get around to starting prepping for about six months after I woke up and realized that the S will HTF soon.
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Not buying enough.......I'm still short. :bear_angry:
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Telling people about them.
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Not shopping around enough to find better prices or superior-quality items.
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Maybe twenty years ago, I bought some apparent MRE entrees packaged as camping meals. I specifically remember "beef slice" and "beef stroganoff". They were decent for maybe five years or so, but after ten years they were definitely fugly. After fifteen years, I reluctantly threw them away. I also bought some large six-pound tins of army "noodles, buttered" which also suffered the same fate after ten years. Even when relatively fresh, they were pretty bland and who can eat six pound of wide pasta anyway?
I also bought a fair bit of regular and protein-enhanced macaroni on sale that ended up with a lot of hatched bugs in them that I noticed after ten years or so. Now I know to freeze starch products to kill the eggs, and also it is easy to blow away the dead bug shells like chaff if necessary, but at the time I was really disgusted and dumped a lot of ten-year-old food. I bought on sale a few cases of "Treet", a SPAM knock-off, and within a very short time (certainly less than three or four years) the cans started bulging and looking dangerous. So I threw those in the garbage too. The same for a potted meat called "Kelly". I have felt a need to prepare since the mid-1980's but some of my preps have bitten me in the ass. Or maybe, they have given me a cheap education. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
I wasn't aware of how many storable preps contain poison like MSG and Aspartame. A lot of my preps don't really class as food, though admittedly they would still keep someone from starvation.
My other mistake was letting too many know of the preps. BIG MISTAKE. I let everyone know I used them up when I ran short of cash. Now only I know of the stash. My kids know we have extra food, but not how much. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Knowing but denying and lying to my self...
But cool now..Stashing food like a M/F now... Side note: the preps are still on the shelf..(sp) + thinking out side of the box.. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Started prepping too late and spending too much money on the wrong stuff. Preps have to be something that gets used and rotated, and I learned that lesson the hard way.
Still too dependent on refrigeration for some of my preps, including 1000 pounds of beef. May have to leave the beef literally on the hoof. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
Like you have wondered about meat and storage.. with out refrigeration. And drying it or canning it is 1. too much hassle 2. takes too much time.. 3. fill in the blank....__________? Been looking into salt packing.. and other old time ways of making meat keep. They did it in the old days.....B/R/C! (Before refrigeration or canning) But which way is best:::>>???? |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
i stored a bunch of food seeds & tree seeds in a garage where a squirrel got access to them and ... they all disappeared.
more like a lesson though. store them inside or in a steel container. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Started too late and like most others here, let too many people know (mainly immediate family that tends to bring it up whenever we are in a group of family friends...:mad_m:)
But too late is better than not at all!!! I am expecting my wine making kit in the mail today!!!:23_30_104::23_30_104: I will post a thread when I open the goodies and post some pics of the process... |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
Not buying everything face to face, cash. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Letting a 38 acreage slip by (11 cropland, 11 wooded, 11 pond). Still looking.
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Underestimating the amount of space needed for said preps.
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
Wine making counts as brewing, and we'd love to see the process! (Sorry about the OT) |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Buying textured soy protein was my biggest mistake. It's better to can your own meat.
Soy is a poison, not fit for human consumption. Google it. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
I as gonna e-mail them and ask them that. They were my first purchase 5 or 6 years ago. Now I am bagging and containering on my own. Regards, Haystackneedle |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
Thanks for the link!!! Obviously there is still a lot I need to learn about GIM...Just when I thought it couldn't get better. Did you try the Valentines Day Massacre Ale? This will be my first shot at wine but I will post an update on the group forum. Off topic...:signs14: |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Quote:
http://www.aspartame.ca/msg%20names.htm http://www.blessedquietness.com/jour...eworld/msg.htm If MSG is present it's probably a small quantity. I try to avoid toxins like that in any quantity when I can. If you were really sensitive to MSG you could use it as barter material. I think anyone buying bulk rice should snag 25 pounds of brown organic rice (I like Basmati). It doesn't keep as long and takes longer to cook but it's much more nutritious than white and will last 5 years or so. Save the white rice for later. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
QWAK,Mistakes are both GOOD and BAD -- because we LEARN from THEM! :thinkey: :yes:
Most likely 50% or more of all the things I have done "PREPING" since 73 when I started, ended up being BURNED,ROTED or other wise rendered USLESS and a lot of TIME and EFFORT GONE! :yes: :36_1_25: :10_1_19: :censored: You WILL make mistakes -- lots and lots of mistakes -- that is LIFE :yes: and how we LEARN BEST! :thinkey: :36_1_25: :s10: :yes: I am inclined to believe it is just part of the PROCESS and is both UNAVOIDABLE and also NESSARY.:yes: It also sets up ones MIND :thinkey:to both ACCEPT new IDEAS and CONCEPTS and to SHARE with OTHERS ones OWN personal experiences to HELP OTHERS AVOID making the same mistakes! :yes: :36_3_13: :shine: I believe that ULTIMITLY all the preping I have done all thease years is so I can GIVE it ALL away and SHARE it with OTHERS at the time when they NEED it MOST and will both apreciate and understand so that THEY can continue to SHARE and pass on the KNOWING to OTHERS! :yes: :36_3_13: :shine: It is in the SHARING that the TRANSITION HAPPENS :thinkey: both sides of the EQUASION are changed and HARMONIC BALANCE restored!:23_30_104: :36_3_13: :shine: ALL you HAVE you will one day LOSE :yes: one way or another along the way it will be GONE :thinkey: when you can give things away and INJOY the GIVING because the APRECIATION is SO OBVIOUS and GENUIN --- because the NEED is real -- then the MIRACLE HAPPENS and TRANSITION to stable harmonics is established. :yes: :36_3_13: :shine: To LOVE yet -- LET GO:shine: is one of the hardist lessons to learn! :thinkey: :yes: This is TRUE on ALL LEVELS but when much time and effort are involved then the VALUE is INHANCED and not DEMINISHED! :shine: The LOSE is not a LOSE and the the percieved "CURSE" becomes a "BLESSING" -- a GIFT to BOTH in the PROCESS! :36_3_13: :shine: the DUCK :15_1_70v: |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Not having bought the cottage in the eighties. Everything else pales by comparison.
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Not putting "use up by" dates on my pails. I put the date they were packed, but have to open them to see the use by dates.
Making bread with use by 09 flour today, LOL. No worries, its the same stuff that's been making excellent bread the past month or so. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Not rotating storage foods often enough. I've wasted a lot of grocery-store bought storage food. I've even wasted a lot of home-canned foods. I told myself for years I'd get better about rotation, but I haven't and probably won't, so now I lean more heavily toward true long-term storage foods, such as cans of FD and buckets of rice and beans.
The other mistake I made was a big one. I stored MREs in the basement without sealing them into metal storage containers of some sort. I can't eat MREs myself, but I'd been given about 6 cases of them, and I figured my husband could eat them, so I stuck them on a shelf downstairs and forgot about them. Long story short, some rats poked their heads into the basement, found a feast, invited their friends, and since we didn't go into the basement all that often (we figured they'd been there two to three weeks when we discovered them...apparently because they ran out of MREs and ventured upstairs), we ended up with a huge rat problem that took forever (and a few torn out walls) to fix. Now I store all my storage food except the plastic buckets in metal cabinets, and I watch the buckets to make sure nothing has moved in to gnaw on them (rats can gnaw through those food-storage buckets in a night or two). Also, I lost some canned food to the rat problem, as male rats tend to dribble pee wherever they go, and rat urine will eventually corrode metal. If you don't have a way to protect your storage food from vermin (pastic storage tubs will NOT do it), you may find a nasty surprise when the SHTF and sanitation services start breaking down! I had three cats and four dogs, one of them the rodent-hunting kind, at the time, and the rats still almost took over. |
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
Freeze dried hookers...... just not the same. :signs1:
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
I don't know anything about most of you, but I bet I can identify the biggest mistake the vast majority of you have made. If you took off out your front door right now, how many miles could you run? How many push ups can you do? Chins/pull ups? No, push ups won't be important if :fan:, but you can bet your sweet rear end it will be survival of the fittest. All the rice, beans, bullets, ammo, etc won't be much good if your fat/frail body gives out on you...
|
Re: What's the biggest mistake you've made in your preps?
I still haven't gotten my big buckets with oxygen absorbers. I have plenty of food, cooking oil, salt/spices, beans&rice, some other clever devices...but the storage is only so-so.
The only people that know about my preps are GiM and my partner. |
| All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:44 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2010, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright = None use it and Link to GIM