Vinegar

Vinegar, or dilute acetic acid, is another chemical used for thousands of years. Roman legionaries used vinegar to kill bacteria in questionable water, adding a bit of honey to make the drink easier to swallow. The sharp odor and sour taste make it unpleasant for many, I like the stuff.
Vinegar can be used for pickling, cleaning and as a germicide. It cuts grease well without needing a water rinse afterwards. Vinegar can be substituted for lemon juice in cooking (although it doesn't provide any vitamin C) and will lower a diabetic's sugar levels when ingested along with meals. It makes a decent salad dressing alone and even better with herbs and oil. Unlike bleach, vinegar doesn't degrade with time and temperature.
A case of vinegar goes well with my preps. Why not add some to yours?

Do you have enough salt?

Salt has been sought after since before civilization began. The word salary is derived from Roman salarium, or salt pay. It's not just a flavor enhancer, it's a needed mineral that can also preserve food, making it a possible barter item. Since salt is a mineral, it won't go bad (just keep it dry). Every prepper should include salt in their stash, the amount varying with their location and reasons why they prep. Table salt is handy stuff, and having what you generally use is a good thing, but it gets rather expensive to keep twenty pounds or more of table salt, and those containers take up lots of room. Keep table salt for the table.
For pickling and preserving, water softener salt is pure, compact and much cheaper. Be sure to get just salt, with no additives (some water softener salt comes with additives to remove iron). These coarse crystals will work just fine, and can be ground down to table salt fineness with nothing more than two rocks. A big sack of this salt can be had for less than ten dollars.
Using a salt lick to attract game is an ancient trick, but is no less effective today. If your prepping plans include harvesting local animals, it's much more efficient to get them to come to you instead of searching them out. Salt can be purchased in blocks ranging from ounces to fifty pounds. This can be broken up and ground for other uses, but the cost is the same between block and coarse water softener salt, so get the kind you plan on using.

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!