An ode to the five-gallon bucket

Well, not really, since I'm not a poet. These light, tough plastic buckets are very useful. Handymen get a cloth or leather toolholder for them, making the bucket the cheapest toolbox around. You can store practically anything in them, from non-perishable food to seeds, from lead weights for casting bullets to... water?
Why store water in five-gallon buckets? It's fast and easy to put water in and dump water out, making it much more likely that you'll rotate your water storage. They stack well (don't go more than two high with water, but light stuff can still go on top)and won't be too heavy for most people to move around. Five-gallon buckets are also cheaper than a dedicated water container.

Why wouldn't you store water in five-gallon buckets? Well, it can be a pain getting a drink. Regular five-gallon water containers have a spigot attached or the ability to screw one in quickly. Instead, one should use a cup or scoop with an attached handle. Of course, that spigot is a weak point, too. There is also an increased chance to have crud fall into your drinking water. Finally, the lids on these five-gallon buckets are a pain to remove by hand.

So, get a lid remover, have a water cup handy like great-grandpappy did, and keep more water stashed! If you need it, you'll really need it.

Water storage longevity

The knowledge base (what most people agree on) says to dump and replace water every six months. Being a curious type, I wanted to see if water could be stored for longer, and what the effects would be. With this in mind, I purchased some drinking water in one-gallon plastic jugs from the supermarket, the generic kind sold everywhere. As a control, I filled some glass jars with reverse osmosis water, these were washed pickle jars. The water was put in my garage in a cabinet, away from light (but not heat).
After one year, there was no noticeable problems with either.
At two years, the sealed water in plastic was tasting, well, like plastic. I wouldn't drink it unless I was very thirsty. The water stored in glass was fine.
At three years, the water in plastic jugs was horrible, with a burning aftertaste that made it undrinkable. The water in glass was flat, but not bad.
Conclusion: Rotate that water! HDPE water containers are cheap, light and tough, but eventually make the water bad. If you are making a long-term cache, glass would be a good choice. It's heavy, fragile and more expensive, but the water doesn't go bad (at least as quickly).

Storage Woes

I decided to save a few dollars and along with purchasing food grade five gallon buckets for storage, I also used some plastic tubs that originally held cat litter. These tubs are indeed tough and stack well, allowing for less wasted space than the cylindrical buckets, but after two years in the cat litter tubs, my rice is no good. It smells bad and tastes worse. The rice in the five gallon buckets is fine.
The silver lining to this dark cloud is that I know now, before I need to depend on my preps. I'll still use these tubs, but only for storing non-food items.

Hard Candy Christmas

Not the country western song, but prepping. After-Christmas sales feature large amounts of minty hard candy goodness, at half-off or better. The disadvantages of hard candy is that it is nothing but calories and the taste can get old quickly. The advantages include the almost indefinite storage and tolerance of temperature extremes. This makes it a great choice for a car trunk and bug-out bags. Some hard candy should also find its' way into your larder as a treat or way to liven up a monotonous diet.
A warning, though, do not seal anything up with that bag of starlite mints (or anything similar) unless you want that food to smell and taste the same. That bag may be sealed, but it still gets out, and minty raisins are low on my consumption list (an unfortunate personal example).

Merry Christmas

And God Bless Us, Every One!

FDIC's Thanksgiving nap over

As they shut down 6 banks at a cost of $2.4 billion dollars. This puts the FDIC 11 billion in the hole, by their own reckoning (which is likely to be optomistic). The march of the zombie banks continues after the holiday break.

How can you safeguard your capital?

The dollar is shrinking, and banks are not the safest place for your money anymore. What do you do?
Paying down debt works. Although it appears that paying the minimum and then using cheaper dollars later is a better strategy, that may not be so. Nations with high inflation passed laws to make many forms of debt matched to the inflation index, this keeps the financial community happy.
Gold and silver are nice, but not the first option. Your first option should be to buy stuff that you use and can store - classic Alpha Strategy. www.biorationalinstitute.com/zcontent/alpha_strategy.pdf

Paper towels and toilet paper go in the attic crawl space that so many homes here have. Canned food and such inside. Soap, body care stuff, stabilized fuel. Guns and ammunition have done well as investments, even leaving out their value as self-defence tools. Tools, parts, 'camping gear'... Then look to barter items, like coffee. Hey, I used coffee for barter many times in the military, it's amazing what a couple cans of Folger can get you. Chocolate, alcohol and tobacco work too. Having a small stash of cash hidden isn't a bad idea. Take a look around other prepper's blogs and you will see an incredible amount of information, lots of skull sweat expended so you don't have to.